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Friday Playlist

Fri, 04 Sep 2026 08:00:00 -0400

Fewer songs this week, but I make up for that by including two songs that are a combined 13 minutes long.

“Insignificant Other” - Queens Of The Stone Age

QOTSA does the Atlanta Rhythm Section? And Josh Homme sounding more like Chris Cornell than he ever has. I definitely dig!

“Sweet Devotion” - Queen of Jeans

This song isn’t nearly as good, but I almost felt obligated to slot it in as track #2 this week. I’m tempted to play a Queen song next…

“A Different Kind” - Rakim

The God MC is back!

“turning down flowers” - Slow Fiction

I love the push-and-pull in this track. The music feels like it wants to gallop ahead, while Julia Vassallo’s vocals hold everything in place. At least for the first two-thirds. Once she drops her restraint the song elevates to another, lovely level.

“Tick Tick Bang” - Prince

Timeless, the latest package to be released from Prince’s vault came out two weeks ago. It is rather uneven, as you would imagine, since it covers almost his entire career. Two songs are from right around 1980 while a live track was recorded just a few days before his death. There’s nothing too special on it, but I do enjoy this track. It was originally recorded in 1981 but not released. A completely re-recorded version appeared on the Graffiti Bridge album in 1990. This is the original from ’81. A perfect example of the Funky Filthy New Wave sound he probably invented.

“Cocoon” - Sweeping Promises

The last time I played a song by this Lawrence, KS based band, it was immediately after a song from Prince’s vault. Makes sense to do it again.

“Officially” - Way Dynamic

A nice, end-of-summer song, especially with the lyric about the season changing. This weekend is not the official end of summer, but we all know once Labor Day is behind us it is fall time.

“End Of Summer” Tame Impala

Sadly, it has arrived. Time is undefeated.

[youtu.be/yLvpZwN9O...](https://youtu.be/yLvpZwN9Oko?si=XOetXyFmqptXy333)

“Red Hill Mining Town” - U2

Not a lot of songs about Labor Day for some reason. This one, from the amazing side two of The Joshua Tree, is about a 1984 mining strike in the UK. And, of course, the UK’s Labo(u)r Day is different than ours. But the line is in there and I was scrambling for a video, which made it good enough for me. A strange video. Not sure why anyone other than Bono showed up given how it was shot.

Have a safe holiday weekend!

Reader's Notebook, 9/3/26

Thu, 03 Sep 2026 10:39:04 -0400

After completing nine books in July I totally slacked off and read just seven in August. Embarrassing. Adding insult to injury, my last two books of the month were both strange and unsatisfying.

The Unveiling - Quan Barry
This was included in the 2026 Tournament of Books, which is generally a harbinger of a good read.

The book focuses on Striker, a site scout for TV shows and movies. Her latest job finds her on an Antarctic trip with a bunch of regular folks, or I should say “regular” folks. They can all afford a trip to the bottom of the world so I’m not sure they are truly normies.

While on their first kayak excursion of the trip something bizarre and terrible happens. Barry never makes it clear what occurred - rogue wave, submarine surfacing, nuclear war? - but the group’s main guide is killed and their entire party scattered about. Striker brings the group back together and leads them to land to attempt to make sense of their situation.

Things keep getting stranger from there. Time literally does not move: the sun remains fixed in one spot in the sky, their phones and watches are all stuck at 12:14 PM. There are more strange deaths. The group stumbles into a century-old shelter which is filled with more horrors. Out of nowhere, a sail boat cruises by. When Striker and two of her compatriots explore it, it is both abandoned and all its radio equipment destroyed. As the story progresses we learn more about Striker’s past and an affliction of sorts that plagues her.

Eventually the book gets flat out weird. I wasn’t sure what to make of the final quarter. Was this sci-fi? Fantasy? A psychological thriller? A case study of mental illness? I couldn’t tell you.

Striker is a compelling figure, for the most part, and there was a lot of cool stuff in the story. It was all just too bizarre for me, though.

My Name Was Gerry Sass - Tiffany Hanssen
This, on the other hand, was just kind of boring. The bones were solid but I don’t know that the author did enough with them.

Gerry Sass is a low level hitman for the mob who lives in an isolated part of Iowa when he’s not murdering people in Chicago or Las Vegas. One day two other hitmen take him out. Strangely enough, they put the bullets into his body underneath a deer blind on Sass’ property. A deer blind the local priest just happens to be hiding in. Said priest is left to drag Sass’ body out of the woods and begin informing people of his death.

From there the priest’s life slowly unravels through a series of misunderstandings, bad decisions and terrible luck. We also follow Sass’ college-aged daughter as she first evades the hitmen who come to her home, and then tracks them, hoping to earn a sort of revenge. Along the way she witnesses them murdering her estranged mother as well.

In parallel we learn about Gerry’s life via flashbacks his soul in purgatory experiences. Not sure I’ve read a book that partially takes place in purgatory since I tried to read the Inferno decades ago.

Anyway, all the parts come together near the end that was clear from about the book’s midway point.

There was the opportunity for a good story in here. Sadly, Hanssen missed taking advantage of it.

August Media

Tue, 01 Sep 2026 15:44:51 -0400

Movies, Shows, Etc.

Margo’s Got Money Troubles
This got a more lengthy breakdown here.

A-

Hard Knocks
I don’t think I’ve ever watched a Hard Knocks season in real time. Mostly because I’m not sure we’ve ever had HBO in the summer before this year. As always, I’m aware everything we are shown is heavily edited, in terms of both what we see and how we see it. It was still interesting to get this peak inside the Seahawks’ culture.

B+

Interstellar
After 12 years the memes finally make sense! I would say it’s hard to believe it took me so long to see this, but given how many great movies I’ve missed over the years it’s not really a surprise. Absolutely brilliant for long stretches, a few moments kept it from being perfect. Still, once you get past the first 30 minutes of set-up it flew by.

Rooster
Bill Lawrence doesn’t have many misses on his resumé. This fits into the same general category as all of his recent shows. Wonderful ensemble cast. Above average writing. Funny. Heartfelt. Optimistic. Terrific soundtrack. However, isn’t nearly as good as his other two shows I enjoyed this year, Shrinking and Scrubs. That’s not to say it was bad. Not at all. Lots of great laughs and some fun details in the story. But there were also some big misses in the comedy, and all those misses felt like they belonged in a completely different show but somehow got shoehorned into this script. Still a good watch, and bonus points for keeping each episode tight and close to 30 minutes.

B+

Ted Lasso, season four
Great start! The next three episodes? Well, clearly not back to season one level, but that’s an unrealistic expectation. We’ll see where the next six weeks take us.

Incomplete

Arrested Development, season 2
I’ve re-watched season one multiple times, but think I had only been through season 2 twice before this re-watch. A fine start, meanders a bit in the middle but finishes strong.

B+

Changes: The Story of Sugar
A quick history of Sugar from their 1990s origins to their current reunion.

How Civilization Made History Impossible to Put Down
I was addicted to Civilization II back in the summer of 1996. I even bought a couple of the books that help you play it better. Once iOS rolled around I tried it on the phone, which was dumb, and the iPad, which didn’t match the original. Several times I’ve thought about loading the latest version onto either L’s gaming computer or her XBox but figure it’s probably best I not fall into that trap again. Anyway, a look inside how the game first came to be and its evolution over time.

You Are Looking Live
The first sports theme music I can recall? Has to be the classic CBS The NFL Today theme. I discovered football not too long after the show first transitioned to a live program. I figured that’s how it had always been and didn’t realize I was seeing something fairly new and ground-breaking. This popped into my feed after watching another old NFL Today clip that will be relevant to you in the next week or so.

Courtney Barnett: Live on KCRW
Real good performance.

A thread on Bluesky led me to these playlists of alt and indie rock bands that appeared on three of the late shows of the 1990s. A fine way to waste an evening away by picking out some of your favorites. Also, drummers beat the hell out of their instruments back then!
90s Indie Rock on David Letterman
90s Indie Rock on Conan O'Brien
90s Indie Rock on The Jon Stewart Show

Raising Our Junk Cottage From the Mud
A truly fascinating third chapter in Beau Miles’ efforts to reclaim an abandoned house in the Australian bush.

Josh Johnson: Elon’s Epic Ego Explained
C really likes JJ and had told me about him. I like his message, but his delivery is just a little flat for me.

The origin of every European country's name
Fun with country names.

Podcasts

60 Songs That Explain the ’90s: The 2000s
Guess who’s back after the summer hiatus? Rob returns with a terrific episode about Spoon.

Weekend Notes

Mon, 31 Aug 2026 08:00:02 -0400

HS Football

Week two of the season started better for CHS, but ended with another loss. Up 13-7 on Loyola Academy at the half, the defense fell apart in the second half and the Irish lost 33-19. It could have been worse. Loyola had a long touchdown pass called back on their first offensive play of the game because of a penalty. And one of CHS’ scores came after Loyola fumbled a punt inside their own 5 yard line and the Irish turned it into a one-play scoring drive. It’s the first time in a decade CHS has started 0-2.

It gets no easier, as CHS travels to play Cincinnati power St. Xavier this week. Ohio high school football rankings are impossible to figure out but St X is right around #10 in the two composite rankings I came across.

Practicing For The Future

L worked Saturday afternoon, then had plans in the evening (more on that in the next section) so S and I went out to dinner on our own. We wanted to go to one of our favorite spots, but as it was last minute, we could only get in at either 5:00 or 8:00. We never mind eating early so went at 5:00. We even sat in the bar area, which allowed us to observe there are some interesting folks at restaurant bars at that time.

L’s Weekend

L had a throw-back weekend sports-wise. All CHS seniors have to do a St. Andre Project, which often involves raising money for a cause. L has been collecting books for nearly a year to donate to a children’s charity later this fall. One of her St P’s friends decided to organize a kickball game to raise money for her cause. Seems like she chose more wisely than L!

Anyway, that girl’s event was Saturday. Not many people showed up but L and several of her St P’s friends used it as a warm up for what came on Sunday…

…which was a senior kickball tournament hosted by our old rivals St. S. Originally four schools were supposed to be represented but two dropped out, which left L and her Panther pals to take on the hosts. We did not realize parents were invited so did not go, but were pleased to hear that L kicked three home runs, including a grand slam, to help St P’s romp to an easy win.

Sounds like it was a lot of fun. A St S mom organized the whole thing and had food and drinks for the girls, printed up t-shirts for everyone, and then had Chick-Fil-A gift cards for the winners. They also brought the old St S gym teacher who used to be a CYO official out to umpire the game.[^1]

It wouldn’t be a CYO event without there being some dumb parental behavior. The ground rule at St S is if you kick the ball to left field and it goes into the grass, which borders the football field, that it becomes a ground-rule double. We would use that to our advantage on defense, putting slow girls in left so balls that might be homers turned into doubles when the balls got past them.

Anyway, L’s grand slam went into the grass. Everyone froze for a second but the umpire told her to come on home. Some of the St S parents started bitching about his ruling. I loved him back in the day because he would stop games and make it clear why he ruled the way he did. L said that he turned to the complaining parents and told them, “If this was a real game, you would be right. This isn’t a real game.” Also L kicked it into the grass on the fly and deserved the home run.

Sounds like the girls from both teams, who all go to either CHS or BCHS together, had a great time, which was the most important thing. And none of the high school athletes got hurt!

Tonight is L’s final shift at the ice cream shop before she hangs it up for the fall. Thursday morning is the first basketball practice of the preseason. Beginning next week they will go twice a week at 6:00 AM.

US Open

The Open began yesterday. I missed the daytime action but hoped to watch Venus Williams’ return in the late match. Little did I know that her match would not begin until after midnight thanks to Novak Djokovic’s shocking loss in his first match. When I turned that one on, he was on the verge of losing the opening set to unknown (to me) Argentine Mariano Navone. Djokovic was clearly struggling physically. Soon he was vomiting between points into the towel bins. He somehow won the second and third sets but then fell completely apart, losing the final two 6-2 and 6-1. I had to bail after the fourth set. Had I know the fifth would pass so quickly I would have kept watching.

So The Joker is out. Jannik Sinner is not playing. Carlos Alcaraz is in his first tournament in four months. What we are left with is perhaps the rarest event in sports this century: a wide open men’s grand slam tennis event!

Blog Update

These Monday posts have become less newsy as our lives slow down, and I’ve been thinking about the future of the site. What will I do once L is done with school and there are no more high school sports to talk about, senior events to cover, and so on? Obviously I can still write plenty about college and pro sports, music, and other stuff. But the kid content is one of the biggest poles holding this tent up.

Also nudging my thought process along are some random changes in Wordpress I have not been able to identify that have changed how I publish to the site. For years I could write in a specifically formatted text file, click a button, and the words would be sent to the site as a live post. That quit working a few weeks ago. There has also been a change to the Wordpress blog editor that makes it a much more tedious process to get things to look how I want them to look after I’ve copied/pasted my words into it.

Put those two things together and I’ve started exploring other ways to share my words with the world. I believe I have found one that is pretty easy to use and will cost less than Wordpress hosting. Now the catch is can I import my 23 years of history into it? I believe I can, but further testing is required.

My current hosting package is good through next June, so I’m not in a rush to get this figured out. Meaning you won’t notice anything different until next summer. I’ll keep you updated, because I know you care.

[^1]: He is still a high school ref and we’ve had him a few times. His sister is a retired teacher at CHS who still volunteers at games when needed. It is always funny to see them interact when he is officiating and she is keeping the book or running the clock.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 08:06:49 -0400

For obvious reasons making an adjustment to our format this week.

[youtu.be/6xSEStRIs...](https://youtu.be/6xSEStRIs88?si=0foQfWMxaAln2KMR)

“Jolene” - The White Stripes covering Dolly Parton
I once read a fine summation of the greatness of the White Stripes’ take on Dolly’s classic. Paraphrasing, Dolly’s original was filled with the fear of a theoretical infidelity that had yet to take place, the narrator begging to keep it from happening. Jack White, however, sang it as though the affair had already been consummated, and his narrator was both filled with heartache that it happened and desperate to get her man back.

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“august” - Taylor Swift
Good grief, August has slipped away?

“Bobby” - Phoebe Bridgers
Her new album came out two weeks ago, to overwhelmingly terrific reviews. I gave it one listen and, like most of her albums, prefer individual bites to the entire meal. The highlight is this gorgeous, shimmery piece.

“Paperchains” - Westside Cowboy
WC’s debut full length finally came out last week, after over a year of EPs and advance tracks. It was worth the wait, excellent beyond the several fine tracks I had already heard. Including this one which comes across as a British take on the Kings of Leon’s sound. Much better than KoL, too, I should add.

“Fur Elise” - Blondshell
No, this is not Sabrina Teitelbaum’s take on the Beethoven classic. Rather, it is her taking her music to a wonderful new level of emotion and maturity. I especially like the bit at the end, when everything gets cranked up at least 30%.

“The Way It Goes” - World News
Like Westside Cowboy, World News has been sharing music for over a year - they cracked last year’s D’s Notebook Favorite Songs list - but will only, finally release their debut album in mid-October. Also like Westside Cowboy, no two of World News’ songs sound alike. At least of the ones we’ve heard so far.

“Message From The Venus Flower” - Death Valley Girls
This song sounds super fun at first listen. But it grew out of the lead singer both losing her home in California wild fires and her dog later dying. Yeesh.

“Get Me Down” - Nia Archives featuring Jorja Smith
A cool meeting point of a drum and bass revivalist and a modern R&B queen.

“Kind” - Joy Oladokun
“Fuck around and you’ll discover, there’s bloodstains on my teeth.” Don’t judge a book by its cover, folks.

“Tonight” - Social Distortion
I shared the two advance singles off Social D’s latest album, but then didn’t listen to it when it was fully released. I heard this track this week on The Bridge and was mad at myself for not having heard it sooner. Another track that is about the best you could possibly expect from a band with the miles on them Social D has.

“Desperately Wanting” - Better Than Ezra
I also heard this on The Bridge this week, a track I bet I hadn’t heard in 20 years. I forgot how great it was. “At the Stars” is my favorite BTE track, but this isn’t far behind.

[youtu.be/EEzuUCusT...](https://youtu.be/EEzuUCusT70?si=608Txuc01cqNGlPC)

“The Hardest Thing” - Julia Jacklin
I wanted to double up on videos this week because JJ’s latest is something to look at. As my fear of heights has become more acute as I’ve aged, there is zero chance I would ever film something like this if I was a recording artist, no matter how cool the director promised it was going to look.

Dolly

Wed, 26 Aug 2026 08:33:40 -0400

It’s been a little over 10 years since I admitted that I finally understood people who cried when a famous person died. Two years later the death of a much lesser known singer completely floored me. Since then? No celeb death has had more than a momentary effect on me.

As I began getting the texts from all directions Tuesday about Dolly Parton’s passing, though, something definitely moved within me.

I wasn’t a fan of Dolly’s music - I can name exactly five of her songs, and two of those because other artists covered them - but I knew of her immense talent and influence in the country music world. Watching the videos that quickly got passed around Tuesday, especially of earlier in her career, I gained new appreciation for her vocal and performing skills. But I wasn’t going to dive into her catalog the way I’ve done with other superstars who have passed.

No, what got to me was the pure Dolly-ness of Dolly. She was a truly wonderful human being who didn’t hold anyone’s difference against them. She was an advocate for so many good things in life, giving her time and money to help people less fortunate than her. Her library and literacy program has delivered books to over 120 million children around the world since she first funded it.¹ She helped support hospitals and miracle vaccines in the wake of a global pandemic. She somehow managed to speak for people at the edges of society without pissing anyone off. Or at least as far as the public knew; there were never boycotts of her music when she came out in support of this or that marginalized group. In an era when so many people want to amplify our differences to keep us angry and push us apart, Dolly wanted to bring people together to celebrate our shared humanity.

Most of all she seemed to just enjoy life, always amazed at how far she had come from where she began. She reveled in younger artists wanting to perform with her, or cover her songs. It never seemed like ego, but rather true joy in collaboration and finding connection with people who, at first glance, had little in common with her.

In the archives of this site, I know I’ve written at least once about Dolly. In that piece I did not get into how, if you were a boy in the late Seventies/early Eighties, she was the punchline of so many pre-pubescent jokes. We learned, in time, that she had plenty of substance to go with all that style. Even better, she knew exactly what the jokes were and played into/laughed along with many of them. Although, to be fair, things got pretty raw on the playground at Jackson and Norfleet Elementary schools, so I’m not sure she would have appreciated all the jokes.

I’m thankful that while I may not have learned to love all of her music, I did discover that she was a genuine angel living amongst us, a true American treasure. Our country and the entire world are a little bit worse now that she is gone.

One of many wonderful pieces that were shared yesterday was this segment from Dolly’s 1979 appearance on The Tonight Show. It is pure magic. I love how she is both relaxed and a little nervous, clacking her fingernails and jiggling her leg while bantering with Johnny Carson. Her natural charm pours off the screen. She knows she belongs on that stage, and her affection and gratitude for Johnny are sincere. And the song she busts? Amazing.

youtu.be/Z7TL0E-U4…

It is also quite the time capsule to a very different time. Modern talk show appearances are almost always tied to promoting something, every topic has been broached before the show to guarantee interesting interactions, and the overall feel is much tighter. Johnny had more time and longer segments than hosts today have, making this feel like a true conversation that flows naturally. You see his genius for making people feel comfortable and willing to open up in front of the studio audience and millions of viewers at home.

Our fuckwit of a governor cut Indiana’s matching funding to the program earlier this year. Apparently the same thing has happened in several other states. Probably because some rich, stay-at-home, non-vaccinating parent in the suburbs was offended that there was a book about a family with two dads or some other bullshit. Sorry, Dolly would never say something like that and I should follow her lead. Mike Braun is still a fuckwit, though. ↩︎

Reader's Notebook, 8/25/26

Tue, 25 Aug 2026 14:22:01 -0400

Icarus 17 - Charles Cumming
The latest entry in Cumming’s usually enjoyable BOX 88 series. In this one, his master spy Lachlan Kite has been asked by his former co-worker and one-time lover Martha to help find her son, Max, who has disappeared in Athens, Greece.

Max is on the run with his girlfriend, who is fleeing multiple sets of hunters who they think to want to punish her for possessing a tape of Saudi hit men killing a dissident. Max actually seems like a natural at being on the run and handling tricky situations. Turns out Martha never told him who his real father is; it is actually Lachlan, not the man who raised him! Scandalous intrigue!

I’ve really liked Cumming’s earlier books. This one seemed clumsy and far less polished than the previous ones. I wonder if he was under a contractual gun and cranked out a half-assed story to keep his publisher happy. I suppose it sets up a possible extension of the series focused on Max and allows Lachlan to retire?

The Silver Bone - Andrey Kurkov
The Imagined Life - Andrew Porter
I group these two novels, which have nothing in common, together because I had them both listed under the heading Summer on my To Read list.

The Silver Bone has nothing to do with summer. In fact, it takes place entirely in the early spring of 1919 in Ukraine, as various forces are vying for control of the country in the aftermath of both World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution. I must have mis-sorted it when I added it to the list.

In the opening pages, Samson Kolechko, a young engineer, has an ear sliced off in an attack that also kills his father. He salvages the ear and soon learns that it is still functional even though removed from his head, something he uses to great benefit in his new, temporary job with the local police. Having a “remote” ear does wonders for investigating crimes!

Kurkov’s story, which was translated from Russian, was silly and weird and fun. Apparently it kicked off a whole series centered on Kolechko investigating cases in Kyiv, using his magic ear as a unique tool. I’m not sure I’ll read any more of them, but I liked this one.

The Imagined Life, on the other hand, is directly connected to summer.

Steven Mills is a 50-something academic based in Berkley whose life is falling apart. He and his wife have separated, keeping him from his young son. His writing career is going nowhere. In a bid to find some meaning and direction in his life again, he decides to chase some of the ghosts of his childhood. Specifically tracking down former co-workers of his father, who, after failing to get tenure in 1984, abandoned Mills and his mother and never contacted them again. Along the way he confronts the memory of an important childhood friendship that also ended suddenly. Eventually he learns an unsettling truth about what happened to his dad. The book is split between Mills’ travels up the west coast interviewing people who knew his dad and flashbacks to his childhood, those generally taking place during the summer.

Those of us who were children of divorce in the Eighties can find a lot to connect with in Porter’s story. All the secrets our parents kept from us as their marriages were failing. The shame that a lot of us felt, or our families felt, because of the stigma divorce carried at the time. How sometimes as young children we didn’t see clear signs that our parents’ relationship was destined to end. How as we got older, it was harder for our parents to hide things from us, but often our defense mechanisms were to pretend everything was ok.

Every divorce is different, so the Mills family splitting did not line up directly with my parents’ divorce. I was lucky that my parents breaking up was not super traumatic for me. Although I guess it was traumatic when they split for the first time two years earlier and I had to change schools in March. After that, divorce was easy for me. Chalk that up to both my parents taking care to let me know I was loved and in no way responsible for their divorce, and for being kind of oblivious and figuring everything would work out fine. However, this book really resonated with me because even if all the specifics didn’t line up, it brought back a lot of memories of that part of my life.

Oh, as a bonus, a recurring theme in the parts centered on Mills’ childhood is his discovery of Fleetwood Mac, notably his connection with and love for Stevie Nicks. That gave me an opening to discuss the book with L, who also loves Fleetwood Mac. From there she started asking questions about when my parents divorced. It’s not a topic I’ve covered much with my girls. Not because I’ve been hiding it or anything, just because it happened so long ago and they never knew my dad well so it never came up. Anyway, it was a bit of a bonding moment with her. And gave me an excuse to listen to Rumours this morning while putting this post together.

Weekend Notes

Mon, 24 Aug 2026 10:29:13 -0400

Another fairly boring weekend for most of our family, so today’s entry will focus on sports.

Senior Pics

OK, one big family event over the weekend. L had her senior picture session on Sunday. C came home for a couple hours to help her with her makeup. I was allowed to help carry things to the car but otherwise was kept out of the way.

All seemed to go well, although apparently one of the groundskeepers at the location they were using tried to balk at them being on the grounds after they had closed for the day.[^1] Fortunately our photographer talked him out of that and they were able to proceed normally. Another thing marked off both the senior checklist and the list of things S and I will never have to endure again.

HS Football

Friday was opening night for high school football in Indiana.

CHS began the year ranked #2 in 5A. However, the #1 team and defending state champs, New Pal, are in the Irish’s sectional, tempering expectations for this year. While CHS nearly, and probably should have, beat NP last year, I think their talent level is down this year.

They traveled to the west side to take on Ben Davis, who they beat each of the last two opening nights.

The Irish fell in an early 14-0 hole and I started looking at the schedule, wondering if this might be CHS’ first losing season in 23 years. The gap grew to 21-7 before the Irish defense decided to wake up. Midway through the fourth quarter CHS tied it at 27-all. BD scored but missed their second PAT of the night, opening the door for the Irish to steal the win. CHS got into BD territory before fumbling the ball away with about a minute to play. 33-27 final.

I’m still not sure I see four wins on the schedule despite the better second half performance. Of course, that’s hard to determine since five of CHS’ eight games are against out-of-state teams. I know at least two of those schools are really good. A couple others CHS has played in recent years and they’ve been close games. I guess we’ll find out over the next two months.

College Sports

Each time something happens in college sports I think, “OK, this is as low/dumb as it can get.” Then a week later I am shocked when something lower/dumber happens.

This whole nonsense about players suing to get the new NCAA policy of five years to play five seasons applying retroactively is the dumbest. Seriously, LSU just signed a kid who was in two different NFL camps over the summer, practicing with Cleveland as recently as last week.

Eligibility has turned into who can find the right judge to get an injunction, and then wondering how long that injunction will stand.

What the fuck are we doing here?

This applies to KU because it seems like if the current framework remains in place - no guarantee! - Tre White will likely return to play for the Jayhawks this coming season. And Melvin Council has a court date to get a sixth year.

I like both of these guys. I think Tre, especially, could help this year’s squad. But this is dumb on a lot of levels.

Melvin already got an extra year and now he wants another because he couldn’t stick with an NBA team over the summer?

And while I think Tre would be a good addition, what does him showing up and sliding into a starting spot say to the players who spent the summer in Lawrence, bonding, learning Bill Self’s system, getting better together? I’m sure Tre and Melvin, if they return, aren’t going to defer to freshmen. I would be pissed if I was one of the guys who busted my ass all summer and then these two old guys just showed up in September.

I suppose the argument Self might give in response is that his recent teams have struggled because there haven’t been those program guys who knew his system that hung around, and Tre and Mel could provide much-needed leadership for a pretty young squad.

I kind of get that.

It’s not like either of them are three or four year Jayhawks, though. They were both on campus for one rather strange year.

I still think the negatives outweigh the positives. Give the freshmen and sophomores who were on campus the chance to play. Tyran Stokes will be in the NBA next year, but most of the other young guys are not ready to make that jump and are prime candidates to return. If you bring in two more old heads, you pretty much guarantee that the young guys who don’t get to play because of their presence are out the door next spring, keeping the Jayhawks on that treadmill of mediocrity they’ve been on the last three years.

But my basketball head coaching record consists of some mediocre grade and middle school CYO ball, so what do I know?

Fever

It’s been a while since I’ve written about the Indiana Fever. That’s because I stopped watching them for a few weeks. Their games weren’t fun because of Caitlin Clark’s constant tantrums and all the unnecessary discord that went along with them.

In late July something shifted and the team started playing better. I watched parts of a few games and it seemed like Clark had found a way to settle down and not complain about every single freaking call. Then the team got locked in and started absolutely humming. They won 10 of 12 games before their three games in four days stretch this past weekend, when they dropped two straight before pounding Chicago last night.

There’s, of course, a whole new level of stupid discussion around the team I’m not going to get into. Primarily because most of the people losing their minds over it are not serious in their concern for the health of the WNBA or women’s sports in general, but rather looking to manufacture a political controversy to scare people into thinking something that is not a true threat to women’s sports is actually a problem.

What I do want to talk about, though, is how delightful it is to watch Kelsey Mitchell play. I’m ashamed that I had no idea who she was when Clark joined the Fever three seasons ago. We quickly learned that she was a stone-cold killer on the offensive end. At first there seemed to be some tension in how to harness the best of both Mitchell’s and Clark’s games, as there was significant overlap. That has been figured out, and Mitchell is now on one of the league’s great hot streaks. She’s scored 20 or more points in 23 straight games, a league record. One night last week she scored 29 points in 24 minutes, literally on fire as she had to sit out the fourth quarter because she was overheating.

What I love most about Mitchell, though, is how she’s very much the anti-Clark. She rarely complains. She rarely tries to sell minimal contact as some egregious foul. She calmly tears the defense apart with a combination of 3-point bombs and twisting layups in traffic, where her arms seem to extend far past what they should be capable of in order to get the ball past the defense. She plays most of the game with a stoic expression, only occasionally letting a sheepish grin slip out when she’s hit consecutive 3’s or curls in a ridiculous shot in the paint. She helps players from both teams up off the floor. She seems happier for her teammates when they play well than when she’s dropping 30 points on someone. Opponents seem to almost universally respect her. There aren’t normally post-game handshakes in the WNBA. I’ve seen opponents come over multiple times and give her respectful hugs after the final buzzer.

Oh, and she’s currently working on her Ph.D. Well rounded!

Add all that up and she is the perfect backcourt for Clark. Ice to CC’s fire. Steady to CC’s wild. Calm to CC’s, well, not-so-calm.

And I bet most of these people who suddenly care about the health of the WNBA and protecting its players have no idea that Mitchell is about to earn her fifth, first team All-WNBA honors.

If L was ten years younger and wanted to buy a Fever jersey, I would almost insist that she get a Kelsey Mitchell one.

Royals

Hey, the Royals have won eight straight!

Does it mean anything?

Of course not, bad Royals teams always play well this time of year, when nothing matters and the teams actually in the playoff hunt are taking a breath before the final stretch run.

Certainly not enough to get me to pony up for the final month of games. I’m sure ESPN would just rope me into some extras I have no interest in anyway. Also, with another dishonest lockout coming, I don’t want to give MLB a single dollar to think I’m interested. Because my opinion matters.

Pacers

Full NBA schedules came out last week. Tyrese Haliburton’s triumphant return to the court comes…on the road in New Orleans, in a game that will not be nationally broadcast. Insane.

In better news, the team announced their partner for televising their games this year. It is a service called DAZN. A name so stupid there is actually an entry on the service’s FAQ page instructing how to pronounce it. Apparently you say it like “Da Zone.” Oh that’s never not going to be annoying this year.

That said, after not seeing the Pacers last year because of my switch to YouTube TV and Hali’s absence making me not want to buy the package that carried them, I’m back in for the 2026-27 season. I’m sure this brand new service will work without any issues and I won’t be ranting about it in this space.

[^1]: And we paid for access, it’s not like they just showed up and started taking pictures.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 21 Aug 2026 09:08:41 -0400

Going back-and-forth to Bloomington twice this week cut into my new music time. As I begin this, I anticipate it being a little lighter than usual, but we’ll see where the music takes us.

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0NCsqo5Grrh3oz2UJ4D8Kx?si=b0d98e03eb6b4a0f)

“Marianne” - Fontaines D.C.
New music from Fontaines D.C.? Hell yeah! It continues on the subtler and more melodic path their last album took them down.

“Things Take Time” - Gang of Youths
New music from Gang of Youths? Oh hell yeah! A definite change in direction, although they have never been afraid to surprise us by zigging. Not as impactful as the lead single off their last album, which landed at #3 on that year’s final list. No dates yet but I’m assuming this means a new album is not too far away.

“baby” - Gabriel Jacoby
It looks like I played another Jacoby song last fall and compared his voice to Prince, DeAngelo, and Sly Stallone. (All RIP). This song came out at the same time and somehow I just heard it. Those comparisons remain apt.

“Can’t Get Over Losing You” - The Avalanches featuring Portraits of Tracy
The Avalanches rarely miss. Of course, they also take exceptionally long breaks between releasing new music, which helps with their batting average. The cover of their new album has a humanized iPod and floppy disk with their arms around each other.

“Haven’t Lived It Yet” - The Drin
I read one critic describe this Cincinnati band as being a modern version of The Beta Band. I hear that, although I also hear a lot of Brian Jonestown Massacre. So let’s call them a super druggy Beta Band?

“Dry The Rain” - The Beta Band
Hell, it’s a light musical week, might as well get nutty. Also, go buy a copy of TBB’s The Three E.P.’s.

“Anemone” - The Brian Jonestown Massacre
One of Anthony Bourdain’s favorite songs. Obviously from his heroin years.

“Martini Me Fatso” - Matt Berninger
Getting back to Cincy, Berninger always sounds way more fun when he’s working on his own or on a side project than he does in The National.

Peter Bjorn and John
PB&J’s legendary Writer’s Block came out 20 years ago last week. Chris Deville had a predictably great retrospective of it at Stereogum. There’s an obvious song that I could have played to honor it. While that is one of the most perfect pop songs of the 2000s, I’ve always loved the epic majesty of this track just as much.

“Complete Control” - The Clash
Raise a toast to St. Joe Strummer, who would have turned 74 today.

[youtu.be/Ae829mFAG...](https://youtu.be/Ae829mFAGGE?si=otyH2T6VyoBazUU2)

“Gimme Me All Your Lovin’” - ZZ Top
Frank Beard died this week. He was the subject of one of the all-time great music trivia questions: who was the only member of ZZ Top who didn’t have a beard. I honestly thought Frank Beard was a stage name but that was actually his given name, which makes that note even better!

“Legs” and “Sleeping Bag” were their biggest hits, each reaching #8, but this was always my favorite ZZ song. And it kicked off their run of great videos. At least if you were a 12-13 year old boy.

Weekend Notes

Tue, 18 Aug 2026 08:02:10 -0400

Yesterday was moving day for C, thus the flip of the blog schedule and your Weekend Notes dropping on a Tuesday.

The Flood of ’26

Well, things certainly got interesting here over the weekend on the weather tip.

Our week of torrential downpours culminated with the White River flooding through Carmel and northern Indianapolis Saturday morning. All the water that had overwhelmed the White to our northeast was headed our way. There was a chance of morning rain, but when I went to bed Friday it seemed like it might miss us or be brief.

Yet I was jolted out of bed around 7:15 by house-shaking thunder. That was the first of two heavy storms that came through before noon. Which, again, was just as the White River was already reaching near record levels.

As we watched the news we saw footage of roads not too far from us completely submerged by flood waters. A neighborhood two miles to the south was under an evacuation order. Flood gates we didn’t know existed were being shut to try to protect the Broad Ripple area. Right at the Carmel-Indianapolis line, a road we took to school for seven years was completely washed away. I’m not saying it was under water, as happened a couple times when we lived to the north. I’m saying the road surface and supporting structure beneath was just gone. It will take months, perhaps a year, to repair it.

[youtu.be/VVKae5bFS...](https://youtu.be/VVKae5bFSCg?si=UVsRtMC_FOQyIG82)

About a mile from our old house the same thing happened to another road on Sunday. In this case a bridge was completely destroyed as the river overwhelmed a smaller stream. This is especially concerning because it is shifting the path of the river and dumping much of it into a massive, industrial gravel mining pit. I have yet to see an update today but Monday evening engineers were saying there was a 75% chance that the entire river would divert into the pit until it was full. If that happens, a system that carries most of Carmel’s raw sewage could be destroyed. Ironically this is helping people downstream - at least until raw sewage starts leaking - by diverting much of the river’s extra capacity.

[youtu.be/D8nQJVy7K...](https://youtu.be/D8nQJVy7KOg?si=Up1DPf-YwR-CNopw)

On the news this morning they said it could take up to two years to rebuild this bridge.

We were extremely fortunate. Our house is elevated on our property, and uphill from the nearest bend in the White River. We just had a stream through our front yard, 50 feet from our front door, where the water always collects. Our power went off briefly during the first severe storm last Tuesday, then again Wednesday while repairs were being done near us. All our trees survived. The block directly across from us lost multiple trees, and crews have been working at different houses for several days in a row. Saturday our water pressure got low for about an hour. We don’t know if that was related to flooding or some other issue.

S and I took a walk Saturday afternoon. Just one mile from our house, in an area that is prone to flooding, we came across two homes that had their garage doors open and at least four feet of water inside. These were built similar to beach homes, with no living area at ground level, but their garages and storage rooms have to be total losses.

We’ve lived through a few small floods in our time here, but never anything like this.

Fortunately it seems like the pattern has finally shifted. We’ve had a couple spotty showers the last two days but those daily storms that lined up and trained over the same area for hours over consecutive days have shifted away. For the most part, the next week looks dry and sunny, which hopefully means the people who have been most affected get a chance to dry out and attempt to repair.

Move In Day

Yesterday C and I packed up two cars with all her stuff and moved her back to Bloomington. She is living with a friend she made last year, S, and then S’s older sister A and her friend L. A and L lived in the same apartment last year so it was already partially furnished and appointed when we got there.

The apartment is about 10 minutes from campus, on the southeast side of B-town. It isn’t super bougie the way some are these days, but it is nice enough.[^1] There is a pool, sand volleyball court, clubhouse with a gym, and lots of outdoor common areas. Best of all, lots of free parking so she should always be able to park safely whenever she comes back in the evening. The bedrooms are actually the biggest part of the apartment, which is kind of nice. There’s a grocery store and a few fast food places in walking distance. There’s a stop for the campus shuttle right across from her building.

The move itself was pretty easy. I think the hardest part was loading up here, as I did most of it on my own and it was humid and nasty.[^2] When we arrived, S’s parents were still around and her dad helped us shuttle items inside, which made unloading go a lot easier. I helped C get unpacked and arranged for a couple hours so she had some sense of order before taking her to dinner then heading back to Indy.

As I learned two years ago with M, the sophomore year drop-off isn’t nearly as emotional as freshman year. That was certainly true yesterday and it wasn’t even a proper drop-off. C will drive back home later today because she has an appointment tomorrow to get the second of two crowns put in. Then Thursday S and I will go back down with her to help her do a little more work and so S can see her place.

C will come home again over the weekend to help with L’s makeup and hair for her senior pictures Sunday.

So I guess Sunday evening will be our proper goodbye with her.

So things are finally getting back to normal here. Or normal of one year, I guess. It will certainly be quieter here today, not that C makes much noise. Her car did need an unexpected, rather pricey repair last week. L’s new (old) car goes into the shop Thursday to check an issue that we hope is covered by the warranty. It never ends, even when they start moving out.

[^1]: C has multiple friends paying over twice what her monthly rent is. And I wouldn’t say her rent is cheap.
[^2]: No other comment needed about the level of assistance I received.

Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 128

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 08:06:16 -0400

Chart Week: August 4, 1984
Song: “The Warrior” - Scandal featuring Patty Smyth
Chart Position: #33, sixth week on the chart. Peaked at #7 for two weeks in September.

Who were the biggest songwriters of the Eighties? I’m not talking about Prince, Lionel Richie, etc, multi-platinum artists who wrote their own music. No, I’m talking about the songwriters for hire who cranked out hit after hit for other acts.

Unless you subscribed to American Songwriter back in the day, I doubt most of you could rattle off anyone who got their names in parenthesis next to record titles when they didn’t actually sing the song.

If this was your area of expertise, however, the name Holly Knight would pop into your head pretty quickly. To folks who knew, she was as sure a bet to write a hit as anyone in the Eighties.

Here are a few of the songs she wrote or co-wrote in the 1980s:

“Love Is A Battlefield” and “Invincible” by Pat Benatar
“Rag Doll,” Aerosmith
“Obsession,” Animotion
“Better Be Good To Me,” and “One Of The Living,” Tina Turner
“Stick To Your Guns,” Bon Jovi
“Pleasure and Pain,” Divinyls
“Never,” Heart

She was also in the band Device, which had the fine, minor hit “Hanging On A Heart Attack” in 1986.[^1]

Go check out the Songs Credited section of her Wikipedia page. She wrote a shitload of music!

Knight’s song from that era that has probably survived the best is Scandal’s only Top 40 hit, “The Warrior.”[^2]

(“Only Top 40 hit?!?!” I can hear some of you asking. Don’t worry, we’ll get there.)

“The Warrior” is the finest example of the traits that were present in most of Knight’s songs. Middle-of-the-road enough for pop stations, enough swagger for rock stations. Guitar, but not too much guitar, so listeners of all generations could enjoy it together. Uplifting music and soaring vocals. The entire piece is structured to elicit an emotional reaction from the listener, but never gets too pinned down by its lyrics to be about anything specific. More simply stated, perfect, mindless pop music.

Oh, those lyrics. Yeesh. It’s a good thing Knight could write a hell of a hook because her words don’t often stand up to scrutiny.

“The Warrior” was filled with bizarre lines that seem to point in one direction for the song’s meaning.

Well, isn't love primitive?
A wild gift that you wanna give
Break out of captivity
And follow me stereo jungle child…

Who’s the hunter, who’s the game?

I don't wanna tame your animal style
You won't be caged in the call of the wild

I always assumed the song was about sex, likely of the wild, animalistic style.[^3] But Knight said that in “The Warrior” she made a conscious decision to shift what she was writing about. She wanted to “write about fighting for something, instead of just being against something.”

Uhhhh, OK.

Noble pursuit. But what is her narrator fighting for in “The Warrior”? The whole “shootin’ at the walls of heartache” thing implies fighting, for sure.[^4] But she’s more fighting against heartache, right? Is her Warrior running around, keeping people from breaking up, like some relationship superhero? That might be kind of cool, and qualify as fighting for something, even if it isn’t exactly fighting for peace or keeping kids safe or protecting the environment.

The line that really bothers me, though, comes at the end of the chorus:

Well, I am the warrior
And heart to heart you'll win
If you survive

If you survive?!?! That seems like a pretty big risk! Was Knight saying it is worth fighting to keep a relationship alive, but the process might kill you? Color me pro-breakup if those are the only two choices. To put it mathematically:

Heartache and loneliness > Being dead

No doubt I’m giving Knight’s words too much literal attention. She was hardly the first or last songwriter to pen lyrics that make no sense when you read them without the context of the music and vocals. I think it’s pretty clear Knight wrote with a general idea in her head of what she wanted to say, but the melody was more important than the words she attached to it.

Which brings us to where “The Warrior” really shines: Patty Smyth and Scandal’s performance.

This track cooks from the beginning. Those bold, immediate guitar lines. Smyth’s repeated “Ohhhhhhhs.” Right away you know you’re in for something special. While the band never elevates much from that opening, neither do they lose their initial momentum. Smyth’s voice may not have been quite as powerful as Benatar’s,[^5] but she gives her all to “The Warrior.” It’s the kind of performance that makes you smile because you know she sang her ass off to get there. It is her voice that elevates the track, turning it into something memorable and classic.

The music and vocals combine to deliver the message that I think Knight was going for. To remain positive in the face of negativity. To believe in yourself. To seize the day. To never stop fighting. Etc, etc, etc. Banal, greeting cards/motivational poster type sentiments. While the words may be corny, the music carrying them will make you a believer.

Back to me saying Scandal (featuring Patty Smyth!) was a One Hit Wonder. Some of you may argue against this. I certainly did for years.

Our mistake is thinking that the band’s 1982, New Wave classic “Goodbye To You” cracked the Top 40.

It did not! While it reached #5 on the Mainstream Rock chart, it stalled out at #65 on the Hot 100. Which seems crazy to those of us who were listening to the radio in the Eighties, because it sure seemed like “Goodbye To You” was a hit.

I think what actually happened was DJs (and MTV) knew it was a good song that never got its due and began playing it again after “The Warrior” hit. So many children of the Eighties remember it from its 1982 run, then that second life tricked us into believing it was more successful than it actually was. It also seemed like “Goodbye To You” appeared on a lot of Eighties compilation CDs I bought a decade later, which added to its legend. Great song, but not a radio hit.

“Hands Tied,” the follow up to “The Warrior,” stalled at #41, denying the band their best shot at a second chart hit. Smyth was in the process of leaving the band just as “The Warrior” was breaking, and they never had another shot after 1984.

Jokes about Knight’s lyrics aside, “The Warrior” is a definite classic of its era. Heart to heart, she won. 8/10

[youtu.be/47y5bo8wt...](https://youtu.be/47y5bo8wtqM?si=2ympEEBK4yb367j0)

[^1]: Peaked at #35.
[^2]: Her co-writer was Nick Gilder, most famous for his 1978 #1 hit “Hot Child In The City.” I’ve nearly written about his record a couple times, mostly because from when I first heard it when I was seven until much, much later in life, I was convinced a woman sang it.
[^3]: Whatever the fuck that means.
[^4]: BTW those are some of the funnest bad lyrics ever. I defy you to sing them and not match Smyth’s finger pistols she shoots in the video.
[^5]: No shame there; Benatar trained as an opera singer before turning to rock.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 14 Aug 2026 08:15:31 -0400

Songs about rain, three local/regional tracks, and despite Pumpkin Spice items beginning to show up in the grocery store this week, we keep the summer songs rolling.

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5VWF8PMGYRSlYo3x8fw6OU?si=33a7d67615744890)

“Rain” - The Beatles
What a week! We’ve been lucky that the truly Biblical rains have been well to the east of us: one area got 17” of rain in about 48 hours! Our sump pump has been working pretty much non-stop, I’ve pumped off the pool cover more times than I can count, and it is raining again as I type this, with more rain expected through the weekend. Jeez.

“Transgender Dysphoria Blues” - Against Me!
Seemed like the right moment to play this again.

“Kick In The Shins” - Radio Free Alice
Watching the news is a daily kick in the shins, amirite?

“Blue Sky Day” - Died Pretty
Following up the new Aussie track with a classic from 1986.

“After” - Just Penelope
Despite a couple indie labels (which I believe are now combined into one) being headquartered down in Bloomington, we don’t seem to get a lot of music from actual Bloomington bands. That’s doubly odd since IU is host to one of the best music schools in the country. These kids are all grads of the Jacobs School of Music, and recorded their debut album in a cabin just outside of town. Doesn’t get more southern Indiana than that.

“All The Rage” - Wishy
Another pretty solid track from Indy’s best indie act.

“Come Again” - Jim James
James is from Louisville, so I guess we have an I-65 corridor thing going here.

“Dead End Street” - Zoh Amba
No idea how to describe this track. And as it has received very little music press coverage, I’m not getting much help. A raucous, electrical take on Appalachian folk? Lo-fo garage with a country twang? Psychedelic Smoky Mountain rock? Mad Lib your own favorite.

“Pin Up Boys” - Westside Cowboy
One of the most exciting new bands of 2025 is about to release album #2. Their first album was filled with a variety of sounds, but this lead single sounds much more American than anything they’ve released before.

“Melodramatic” - Trashcan Sinatras
TS have had a nice little comeback this year, releasing their first album in over a decade that features several nice songs, including this one. Which made it even more tragic that their guitar player since 1986, John Douglas, passed away suddenly last week after a short illness. RIP.

“Rain In The Summertime” - The Alarm
Only a few more weeks to play summer songs, this was an obvious choice for this week.

[youtu.be/ftTOEJfzd...](https://youtu.be/ftTOEJfzdq0?si=MDQAn0ODcFUnhG9D)

“Alex Chilton” - The Replacements
This song has been in my head ever since watching episode two of the new Ted Lasso season. On a show filled with references to some of Jason Sudeikis’ favorite things, I’m assuming he (or another writer) was a big Replacements and/or Big Star fan, thus the Richmond FC women’s team’s assistant coach being named Alice Chilton. Or maybe it’s just a coincidence.

Reader's Notebook, 8/12/26

Wed, 12 Aug 2026 09:03:24 -0400

I’m spending my morning in a dentist’s waiting room while C gets the first of two crowns. What a way to wrap up her summer!

With time to kill I figured I’d go ahead and do my next RN entry based on a single book. Fortunately it gave me a lot to think about and then share with you.

Wearing The Lion - John Wiswell
This has been on my To Read list for several months. The summer of The Odyssey seemed like a good time to tackle it, a re-imagining of the ancient Greek tale of Heracles.[^1] When I say re-imagining I don’t mean Wiswell just took the old texts and translated them into modern language. No, he completely revamped the story, taking a fresh look at its meaning and changing how we consider one of history’s great heroes.

The book begins with a bang. In the first sentence, Hera, the queen of the Greek Olympians, refers to King of the Gods Zeus as her “dipshit husband.” She never stops calling him that for the entire book. I laughed every time. Hera is pissed that Zeus has run off yet again and conceived yet another child with yet another mortal woman. As this child, Heracles, grows, he comes to represent everything she resents about Zeus. She reaches a breaking point after Heracles has started his own family. She imposes a state of madness on Heracles with the hope that he will kill himself during the fit. However, her gambit backfires when he, instead, kills his three sons.

In an effort to learn which god caused his fit, Heracles goes on a quest, which eventually leads him to a king who tells him if he completes 10 great labors, the truth will be revealed.

In the classic stories, Heracles goes on quite the killing and stealing spree. It’s a lot so you can review the details here.

As the Greeks told it, Heracles was this massively powerful and resourceful half-human/half-god for whom these tasks were not terribly difficult. It was more about going on adventures and doing cool things as he proved his worth. He often acts in a state of blind rage. He’s like a 1990s action hero, murdering with little remorse as he attempts to learn who forced him to kill his own offspring.

Wiswell completely flips this.

His Heracles is a thoughtful, sensitive man.[^2] He mourns his children, and genuinely wants to know what god sent him on this path. But he also does not see the need for other creatures to die needlessly in the process. Rather than kill the lion, he tames it, using his great strength to wear it down until it basically becomes his pet cat. He doesn’t kill the hydra, but rather chops off and cauterizes eight heads to keep them from regenerating, leaving a rather sassy snake in its place. And so on. Each step along the path Wiswell takes him on, Heracles shows his humanity and builds a new family to replace the one he destroyed. He is willing to use violence to get closer to the answer he needs, but only kills when absolutely necessary. By the end he is surrounded by a team of magical beings who are loyal to him for sparing their lives and provide as much emotional counsel to him as physical support.

Wiswell does stray from the classic story. A few of Heracles’ labors are glossed over, combined with others, or even skipped. Obviously his Heracles’ core nature is very different than the mythical one we learned about in sixth grade. This probably drives some people nuts.[^3] As with the manufactured and performative outcry about Christopher Nolan’s adjustments to The Odyssey, these are misguided. Ancient Greek tales are myths; they did not really happen. They began as oral tales, passed down, built and re-built, over generations. We know that the story of Heracles changed over the years in ancient times. Some of the stories don’t line up with each other at all. Ancient heroes were molded and massaged to fit each re-telling’s needs. That makes the liberties Wiswell took completely appropriate. Not terribly different from modern comics, where our heroes can live many radically different lives if they remain in print for decades.

It was funny to skim user reviews on Goodreads after finishing the book. Wearing The Lion was rather polarizing. Some folks did not like how Wiswell updated the language to make it hyper-modern. One user was upset that he made his gods curse so often, which made me laugh. Fictional ancient gods dropping f-bombs pushed this person over the edge. Others did not like how he much he adjusted the core parts of the story. Then others were excited about how he did more than slap a new coat of literary paint on an ancient tale.

I was definitely with this second camp. I really enjoyed the book. It made me laugh throughout. As I am not Greek nor a Defender of Western Culture, I wasn’t bothered by the big changes Wiswell made to the story. In fact, I liked his Heracles a lot more than the cold blooded killer of the stories I read when I was 12. His hero was much more relatable to us mere mortals as he lived with his grief and remorse and self-loathing while opening his heart to new, unexpected friends. The story touched me as much as it made me laugh.

A huge component of Wiswell’s (re-)telling is that grief and the many different ways it can affect us. We search for answers. We accept or distribute blame. We repress it or let it burn with an intensity that ruins the rest of our lives. It closes doors in established relationships while opening other doors to new ones. Grief is one complex motherfucker.

Heracles has this immense grief for killing his children, and wants to understand who caused it and why it was necessary. Had he done something to anger the gods that caused it? Was he flawed because of his half-human, half-deity parenting? He just wants answers.

Hera, too, was overwhelmed by grief. In her case because she let the complexities of her marriage anger her to the point where she caused a mortal to kill his own children. She spends the book trying to understand how she could have been so weak, how she can take responsibility for her actions, and what she can do to make her life better so that she never makes such a horrific mistake again.

To the ancient Greeks, the stories we call myths today were foundational to their culture. They helped create common social norms and a shared history for a newly united society that grew from separate, independent city states.

To us, they are interesting insights into how the ancient Greeks lived. It was upon these stories that, for centuries, we developed our own literature, theater, and culture. To act like they were anything more than the Greeks’ version of movies, TV shows, or plays is giving them too much credit.

[^1]: Or Hercules, if you prefer your gods to be Roman.
[^2]: Woke alert!
[^3]: One of them is the CEO of the company that made my car.

Weekend Notes

Mon, 10 Aug 2026 08:20:42 -0400

Our boring weekends got a little more boring over the one just completed. No college visits. Thick humidity rolling in contributed to that quite a bit. I bet I can still crank out 1000+ words about the last three days.

We had friends over during the day Saturday for a pool gathering. These are two families we spent a lot of time with in our grade/middle school days, but have seen less-and-less in recent years. One family’s daughter and C were the best of friends at St P’s but drifted apart when they went to different high schools. They reconnected last year at IU and that was our opening to have her parents, who we love, over. The other family we’ve remained closer with until the past 18 months or so, when the adults both got new jobs that have them traveling quite often. Their son, who was also in C’s St P’s class, is a D1 athlete (non-revenue) so it was interesting to talk to him about what he’s seen and experienced on his mid-major campus between NIL in their basketball program and how the transfer portal and various court decisions have affected his own roster.

Anyway, it was great to get us all together again. We used to have an annual weekend at our lake house and spent who knows how many hours together on the soccer fields.

Friday I took M to Costco to load up on some items for her to take back to Cincinnati with her, while also getting her worn tires replaced. She packed up her car and returned for her senior year Sunday afternoon. It was nice to have her home for three weeks.

This is “work week” leading up to greek recruitment next week. She is a Rho Gamma, which I’m not going to try to explain because I’ll probably botch what they actually do, but it basically means she helps run recruitment week for all the houses rather than focus on her own. When the rest of UC starts classes in two weeks, she’ll return to the company she co-oped for in the spring, taking one online course while working through December. Four (maybe five) classes in the spring and she’s done.

Today is the final day of L’s summer break. Which means she and her classmates will go to campus this evening and teepee the hill leading to campus for tomorrow’s first arrival. A new part of the CHS senior traditions this year is a Senior Sunrise tomorrow morning.[^1] They’re making these poor kids show up at 6:30 to watch the sun come up together before they throw toilet paper at all the students and families arriving for the first day of classes. Five of her friends are spending the night here tonight so they can roll into campus together Tuesday.

C is in her final week home; we will move her into her Bloomington apartment a week from today. Last night she went to say goodbye to one of her high school friends who is heading back to Auburn this week. Then she met another friend to see the new Spiderman movie.

As L was working yesterday, S and I realized around 4:00 that we were all alone. Sunday is normally a clean out the fridge night for us. We realized we could not only go out to eat, but we could go anywhere we wanted without kid restrictions. So naturally we picked a normal spot the girls all would have been fine joining us at. We aren’t good at making quick, unexpected decisions! When we arrived at the restaurant they seated us at what seemed like a special table, a half-circle booth that looked out over much of the rest of the room. We felt like this was some kind of reward to preview what empty nesting will be like in a year. We can go out to eat, wherever we want, whenever we want!

Of course our food came quickly and we were out in like 45 minutes, so didn’t exactly make a night of it. However that gave us plenty of time to go home and…

Ted Lasso

…watch the first episode of season four of Ted Lasso!

Unlike last weekend, when we knocked out all of Margo’s Got Money Troubles over two nights, this was just one episode. So it only gets a special section because of the content of the program.

That episode was a love letter to Kansas City, so of course I loved it! “Daniel Manning Elementary School.” I mean, come on!!! There really should be a school named that somewhere in eastern Kansas. Taking the Brits to Gates Barbecue!!! Walking around the Plaza!!! A Frogpond song!!!! All kinds of other little Easter eggs for people who live/have lived in KC.

S was especially disturbed when Ted picked up a box of his old stuff at his mother’s house and I immediately identified a KU basketball book that was under another item based on seeing part of its back cover for about two seconds. I told her that exact book is in my office closet, it really isn’t that weird. She was not convinced.

And two non-KU specific moments that really put the episode over the top for me. First, Ted and his ex-wife being called to their son’s school to review some disturbing “poetry” that was found in Henry’s notebook. When the principal began reciting it, I started cackling and again got a weird look from S. When I completed the lines, she got even more concerned.

Henry Lasso writing down the lyrics to Public Enemy’s “Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos”[^2] probably connected with a pretty significant slice of the show’s audience, at least of dudes over, say 45, maybe 50, who listened to late-Eighties hip hop.[^3] Then another PE song later in the show!

Great stuff.

This episode was just setting up Ted’s return to London, so who knows what it said about what is to come. I glanced at two reviews of the first four episodes: one writer thought they were great, another was much more reserved in his reaction. Even if the rest of season four is mixed, I got sucked in by Jason Sudeikis’ lovely homage it his (and my) hometown.

Although, I must register my perpetual complaint about TV shows and movies based in the Midwest for some reason making their characters sound southern. Lazy. Sudeikis should know better and be ashamed.

Now we have a week ahead of making sure we have everything organized that we need to get C moved. That’s going to be kind of a weird process, but more on that next week.

Nearly 1200 words later I guess our weekend wasn’t actually that boring.

[^1]: Senior Sunrise used to be in the spring. Not sure if it has been moved or they are doing one on each side to bookend their last year at CHS.
[^2]: One of the great moments of my life was introducing an older, Black veteran to the lyrics to this song.
[^3]: And a certain female Topeka native who currently lives in St. Louis.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 07 Aug 2026 07:43:39 -0400

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“All The Beauty” - Pete Yorn
I like it better when Yorn makes B+ versions of his best songs than when he goes off on odd tangents. This is one of those good ones.

“MMA” Hannah Cole
When I read that Cole was based in Nashville, I was expecting something that was softer and gentler, closer to indie folk. I was NOT expecting a chugging, mid-90s-esque rocker like this. I’m happy to be surprised.

“My Own Beauty” - Pouty
Dude, speaking of the mid-90s. I’m not sure if the lead singer of this band sounds like someone specific, or sounds like a generic style half a dozen singers from that era had.

“Appetite” - Lifeguard
I honestly can’t believe this band is from Chicago. They sound super Australian to me.

“Nobody” - Computerwife
This reminds me of…

“Cool” - Deerhunter
…this 2011 cover of a 1979 post-punk classic.

“Sorry Mister” - Disgusting Sisters
I wish I head heard this a week earlier. It would be a nice pairing with Getdown Services’ “Cha Cha Slide.”

“All Alone Again” - Jack White
It’s taken some time, but I finally have a favorite track off the latest JW album.

“Sun Has Set” - beabadoobee
Not quite to the end of summer, but the sun is setting noticeably earlier and kids are cycling back to school. It goes too fast.

“Someone Somewhere (In Summertime)” - Simple Minds
On the one hand, I’m thankful that some AI company’s commercial gave this track a second life. On the other, I hate that I think of that commercial each time I hear this now.

[youtu.be/V-czWJxkd...](https://youtu.be/V-czWJxkdZY?si=HGHzFVm8GfLJiIAG)

“Let’s Get High” - Benjamin Diamond
A little different video this week. I’ve been doing some music catalog cleanup[^1] and noticed this song was greyed out on Apple Music. Somewhere, somehow, their license for it had expired. I pulled out the hard drive holding my old iTunes catalog, found the file, and imported it. Alas, I cannot share that with the rest of the world online. So I figured I’d include the video, even if it just shows the album cover.

Anyway, this lovely track is from back in 2005. The file I have was recorded off good, ol’ woxy.com. Because of how the app I used to record their stream worked, I even got about a minute of DJ chatter before it started a new file for the next track. I miss WOXY, although I’m glad The Bridge in Kansas City fills a similar role.

Also, for those of you who have followed my internet music postings for years, this appeared on transmission #11 of the Carmel Liberation Radio podcast.

[^1]: More about that next week, maybe.

More European Vacation Notes

Wed, 05 Aug 2026 12:47:51 -0400

I’ve been sitting on several leftover notes from our European vacation. At this point I doubt I’m going to remember anything interesting or important so seems like time to finally purge them from the notebook.

Good grief, Europe is expensive! I know this isn’t a news flash or anything. It didn’t help that we were staying in bougie places, in touristy areas, where prices are automatically jacked up. But the baseline certainly is higher than home as well. This was reinforced when our credit card statement came earlier this week. Our first breakfast was how much??? Lunch with three drinks and five waters cost what??? Conversion rates are a motherfucker. Rick Steves’ methods are looking wiser.

It struck me that we rarely saw homeless people in London. When we did they were almost always congregated around tube and train stations. Perhaps because we were staying near Buckingham Palace, that area is swept often and they know not to hang out there? I have a feeling the Brits show more respect for homeless than we Americans do and that is some of the explanation as well.

Now Dublin, on the other hand, was totally different. There was a pronounced homeless presence. Maybe Dublin is a magnet while in London they are shuffled to parts of the city outside the center?

We weren’t sure if they were homeless or not, but as we stood near the Ha’Penny Bridge, we saw one rough dude pass a handful of pills to another rough looking dude who passed some crumpled notes back. Our girls first witnessed drug deal![^1] The two that observed it were very excited. “Did you see that?!?!?” They smartly waited until we were well away from the area before bringing it up.

The number of people riding bikes was kind of crazy. Good for them! And a sign how different car culture is in the US and Europe. But, man, it was freaking us out how close some of the big buses come to the bike lanes and neither the bus drivers nor bikers seemed worried about it. I would NOT be able to ride a bike with any confidence I wouldn’t get squashed.

One morning in London when I was walking to a drug store I saw a ton of people running with large rucksacks. At first I thought they were carrying weight to increase their effort. Then I realized, as I kept seeing them, a lot of these folks were running to work and had their business clothes in their packs. Or so I theorized. I sure hope they had showers in their offices!

Speaking of that, only a few times did we run into people who were stinky. M said passing folks with obvious BO was far more common in France. The French are famous for their willingness to tolerate infidelity, with lunchtime assignations fairly common.[^2] Shouldn’t they be the best smelling people in Europe if they are going to get busy during the day?

One of the funniest things we saw came during one of our walks through St. James’ Park. It was late afternoon and lots of folks were out enjoying the warm sunshine, many eating late lunches/early dinners. Along the paths there were occasional horse droppings, from the mounted police I assume? First we found it weird these weren’t promptly swept up. The King’s residence is right across the street!

But what made us laugh was a couple, who seemed rather into each other, sitting there, sharing a cup of ice cream, with a giant pile of horse crap right in front of them. When we got a few feet past them we all turned and looked at each other, all of us saying some form of “What the fuck?”

S used to joke that if I wanted to break up with her when we were dating, I should take her on one of those Cinderella carriage rides around the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City. That was one of her least favorite things in the world and the message would be clear if I signed us up for one. So I asked, “Would that be another way to break up with you, getting some ice cream and forcing you to eat it next to horse shit?” The girls howled! S confirmed that would have been a fine way to tell her to get lost.

On our flight from London to Dublin was a group of girls that were 12-14-ish, all dressed in Team England gear. When we got to Dublin we learned that the city was hosting some big dance competition. Like not cheerleading or drill team, but an organized, team dance thing. I freaking swear that we saw the Team England girls at least twice a day each day we were in Ireland. They weren’t staying in our hotel, but clearly somewhere near us. And the arena hosting the competition was just a few blocks away. Adding insult to injury, all these girls checked their bags at the gate, so we know they had their clothes and toiletries. They just had to wear their team gear each day, I guess.

On our Dublin tour, the guide pointed out a building under construction that the U2 guys were financing. It is to be a culture and arts center. It will, no doubt, be large and striking when completed. There was a huge crane poised next to it, waiting to hoist girders and whatnot as the building grew taller. Our guide said “That crane is there so they can put Bono’s ego inside.” That got chuckles from exactly 15% of our tour group.

There was a couple in that group - a father and his daughter - who were from Denmark. What was crazy was if you asked me where they were from, Denmark would absolutely been the first country I guessed. They were tall, thin, striking looking, but there was something about their limbs that screamed Denmark to me. Now, I do have Danish blood: my paternal grandmother’s family came from there. But I don’t have any experience hanging out with Danes. So I was both impressed and a little weirded out with myself.

Speaking of music, the one thing I’m upset I did not get to do was listen to the radio in either city. Hotels don’t come with clock radios anymore. I needed to listen to current British/Irish bands like World News and Cardinals on their native stations. Or, better yet, find an old school station in London spinning The Clash, Radiohead, etc.

Another story that made a couple of our girls laugh. Thursday evening C, L, and I walked to a store to grab some replacement toiletries. When we returned to our hotel, a gentleman got on the elevator with us. He was acting a little strange, like he wanted to say something but couldn’t. He may have come from the bar so I figured he had just had a few. He got off the elevator two floors below us. As he walked off he muttered, “Have a nice evening.” As I began to return his farewell he said, while completely off the elevator, “Rock Chalk!” I was wearing my sexy-legged, 1912 Jayhawk polo shirt. I shouted “YES!” back to him as the doors closed. The girls’ eyes got big and when we returned to our room they told S and M that “Dad is going to talk about this for like two hours.” Sure enough I texted a couple KU buddies about the encounter as soon as I had a signal again.

Finally, Heathrow airport was rather interesting. The upper area, where you wait to check in and drop bags, was huge and wide open. While it was full of people, its size made it feel like there weren’t nearly as many people in the space as there actually were. There were like a million middle school/high school aged kids from Italy and Spain coming through on school trips. They never overwhelmed the space because of the high ceilings and lack of interior walls.

Then, once you got through security and go downstairs, though? It’s a whole other world. It was like being in an old-school mall the week before Christmas. Shops and restaurants everywhere, super crowded, with gates sprinkled through almost like an afterthought. Not sure why people would buy much after they had already passed through security but what do I know? Our girls did buy $19 worth of Pringles, which was two small cans. These would have cost about $5 at the Target around the corner from our house. Again, Europe is expensive!

[^1]: Not entirely true, as M is pretty sure the dude who lives across the street from her is a dealer. But she’s never seen him actually pass drugs to a buyer like we saw in Dublin.
[^2]: Or so legend has it.

Reader's Notebook, 8/4/26

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 08:06:08 -0400

Well, July was quite the reading month. I knocked out nine books. NINE BOOKS!!! Three were rather slight things I loaded onto the Kindle for our trip that I won’t bother to include here. This entry includes five of those July books and then the first book of August.

Headstone, Purgatory, Green Hell - Ken Bruen Three more gritty, grimy crime novels from Bruen before our time in Ireland. Even though we did not visit Galway, where all his books take place, I was still on the alert for some of his most notable characters to cross our path while in Dublin.

Table For Two - Amor Towles A month ago I read Towles’ Rules Of Civility, which I enjoyed a lot. This is a collection of several short stories and one novella, the novella following one of the main characters from Rules Of Civility after she passed out of that book’s focus.

I also enjoyed these quite a bit. None of them break any new ground, but rather reinforce how easily Towles can whip up these thoroughly charming and interesting characters that the reader quickly cares about. I wish more authors would follow Towles lead in polishing and publishing ideas that may not be meaty enough for an entire novel. I realize in 2026 there is very little market for that kind of work so few publishing houses will be interested in getting behind such works for anyone other than the most successful novelists. One can always hope, though.

The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook - Matt Dinniman Book three in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, this one set in a level filled with countless subterranean train lines. Too many, if you ask me. I couldn’t keep track of all the lines and stations and the significance of each. But this got pretty good at the end, so I’ll stick around to see what the next level holds.

Big Fan - Michael Schur and Joe Posnanski These two old friends explore what it means to be a fan, not just of sports but of anything, really. There are plenty of serious moments - they speak with a PhD to try to come up with an academic theory of what being a fan provides humans - but most of it is exactly the light-hearted, often silly stuff you would expect from this duo. Their chapter about attempting to get a hug from Mookie Betts is pure, joyful genius. More importantly, it got me back into Joe’s podcast, which Schur often appears on. I listened to it years ago, and I’m not exactly sure why I stopped. Did it go behind a paywall for a while? Was I mad at baseball, their primary topic? Well, I’m still mad at baseball but I re-added it to my always packed queue of things to listen to.

Weekend Notes

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 08:50:18 -0400

Another weekend that, honestly, not much exciting happened in our lives.

Most of the weekend was dreary, from Friday evening until late Sunday afternoon. We got a decent downpour overnight into Saturday morning, enough that the pool cover pump was completely submerged when I tossed it out Saturday morning.

Later in the day we got absolutely pounded, with flash flood warnings dotting all of central Indiana. Our tornado sirens went off around 5:30 when radar indicated rotation near downtown Indy. We never got any true severe storms here, just torrential rain that lasted nearly an hour. I had to run out and grab dinner in the midst of this, and got soaked in the 10 second run from the car into the pizza place. Despite the pool cover being completely drained when this storm began, our pump was again completely submerged about 15 minutes into it, then took several hours to finally get all the water off again. I had to get the sprinklers out the week we returned from vacation, but three storms over the past week have ensured I won’t have to do that again for a while.

I also set a new low in the Old Man part of my life. Sunday morning around 2:30 I got up to use the bathroom. When I got back into bed I attempted to roll onto my left side to get comfortable. However, for some reason my hips did not want to rotate with my upper body. This tension caused my back to seize up. Yes, I somehow managed to wreck my back by turning over in bed. Honestly I might be 75 and just not remember the first 20 years of my life.

I had spasms off and on all day Sunday, so was largely useless. Thankfully it drizzled all morning so there was no need for me to do anything other than listen to American Top 40 and read. I also napped.

Thankfully my back loosened up just enough so that I could make burgers when we hosted my in-laws for dinner.

M went to Cincinnati for about 30 hours, returning after the storms passed Saturday. She got to see most of her roommates for the first time in months and confirmed her room survived her being gone.

Like I said, a pretty boring weekend.

College Visit #3

Friday L and I went down to Bloomington to tour IU. When we were on campus last fall for homecoming she complained that the campus was too big. Which is a fair complaint: IU’s campus is massive. While she went in genuinely interested in learning more about IU, it still felt like it had a lot of ground to make up on UC.

I don’t think there was anything special about the informational presentation or our tour guide. But L came away really liking IU. To the point where she was stressing a little about her decision a little.

As we ate lunch we talked through the things she did and did not like about each school. A big factor was she realized she actually loves IU’s campus. How could you not; IU might be the ideal big state school campus. Its size is still a concern, but seeing that the three buildings she would most likely take classes in - the political science, foreign language, and public policy centers - are all pretty close to each other made her realize you don’t have to cross the entire campus every day. We also drove over to the apartment complex where C will live this year and she was impressed by how nice it is.

L’s ultimate goal is law school. Both of her godparents are attorneys who went to IU and they suggested that IU would give her a better shot at getting into higher tier law schools than UC would. I think she’s going to get great grades no matter where she goes, so I’m not convinced her undergrad school will make a huge difference in where she lands for law school. She’s talked about going away for that part of her life, anyway. If she was dead-set on IU for law school, it would absolutely make more sense to stay there for undergrad.

She’s really impressed with UC’s co-op program, though, something IU does not have. She has no interest in the greek system, so M’s experience in a house will have no impact.

It may well come down to what kind of scholarship money the schools throw at her. IU offered M twice as much as UC, but she loved UC and chose it. L has slightly better grades and test scores than M did, so hopefully each school will offer her a little more than her big sister got.

Luckily she has a sister at each school who can answer some of her questions. And she can visit both once the school year begins. We’re going to try to go to a UC football game in September so she can compare that to the two IU games she’s been to.[1]

We were scheduled to drive to Madison, Wisconsin this afternoon and take a campus tour tomorrow. However, early last week L decided she wasn’t as interested in being a Badger as she was a month ago. I encouraged her to pick some schools to visit her sisters hadn’t been to and was excited that Wisconsin was on her list. It’s kind of a bummer she changed her mind, but it’s her choice, and I’m not mad about not spending 10+ hours in the car the next couple days. And we did visit Colorado State so she added one new campus.

Unless something changed, I think I am done with college visits as a parent. At least until/if L wants help looking at law schools in a few years.

A Good Show

As I noted in my July Media post, Friday evening S and I watched a big chunk of a new series. Then we wrapped it up Saturday evening. I liked it enough that it deserves a bigger blurb than it would receive when I drop my August Media post in a month.

We watched Margo’s Got Money Troubles on AppleTV+. I thought it was terrific. Not quite at the level of Shrinking or the early seasons of either Ted Lasso or The Bear, but aside from those, as enjoyable a TV-watching experience as I’ve had recently.

I loved all the characters. Susie the cosplaying roommate was especially excellent. But Nick Offerman, to me, stole the show. There was definitely some Ron Swanson is his portrayal of Jinx. However, his former pro wrestler and recovering addict had a lot more depth than his classic Parks & Recreation character. I’ve seen enough interviews with Offerman to know this probably more closely reflects who he is than Swanson did.

I enjoyed how the show dealt with some pretty tough issues. Infidelity, inappropriate relationships, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, abortion, single motherhood, drug addiction, being honest to your partner, the choices young parents in difficult financial situations are forced to make, gender double standards, and so on. Perhaps this wasn’t the deepest exploration of each of these topics, but it treated each of them with respect for the characters going through them.

I thought the show was very funny, and often quite touching.

Elephant in the room number one: you get to see Elle Fanning’s boobs a lot. Like way more than you expect going in even being warned you will see them often. What is surprising is how often they are displayed in the act of breastfeeding, or sometimes unsuccessfully attempting to breastfeed. This had to have set a record for most screen time for lactating breasts. I don’t mention that because it was uncomfortable to watch or anything. I just wondered how Fanning was presented with this.

“So, Margo is topless A LOT throughout the series.”

“No problem.”

“Most of the time you’ll have a screaming baby trying to latch on, and we’ll rig up something so you can squirt milk.”

“Excuse me?”

Elephant in the room number two: Michelle Pfeiffer and Nicole Kidman both look amazing. Like so good you have to mention it. Pfeiffer is 68. Kidman is 59. Even in 2026, when age can be altered in so many ways, they both look better than seems reasonable. Of course, when you are gorgeous to begin with that helps a lot.

Margo’s Got Money Troubles isn’t a perfect show. It is, though, filled with heart and mostly really well written. The characters are well defined. There is a fantastic and amazing cameo in the final episode that will please a lot of folks with similar past TV loves to my own.

In short, it might have been the perfect show to get us through a weekend when there was not much on TV.

Baseball

I guess the Dodgers broke baseball again by trading for Tarik Skubal? It doesn’t seem like they traded all that much for him, so I don’t understand why any other contending team didn’t trade slightly more to keep him away from the Dodgers, if not help their own cause.

If the Dodgers re-sign him for $500 million this offseason, now THAT will be a sign they’ve broken baseball. But trading three decent but not elite prospects for (hopefully) four months of Skubal is far from a move that only the Dodgers could make.

And I still hold way less animus for the Dodgers and their wild spending than I ever held for the Yankees back when the “broke” baseball 25-ish years ago.

M isn’t sure this is a good idea. “I think we’re going to suck.” ↩

July Media

Sat, 01 Aug 2026 20:28:44 -0400

This is not as heavy as I thought it would be a few weeks ago. I didn’t watch nearly as many movies on our flights to/from Europe as I expected to. I had tickets to see The Odyssey last week, but a family snafu nixed that. Finally, I was lazy last week. I had a couple other movies lined up to watch but got sidetracked several evenings and never got around to them. We did watch five episodes of a series Friday night, but I’ll hold that for my August entry.

Travel Movies

Britain And The Blitz Each of our London tours touched on areas that were affected by The Blitz, so I added this for the flight home. The most interesting part was how it showed that there was a lot of resentment for Churchill and the government in the parts of London that were most devastated. And even after 40 years of colorized film, my brain is never sure what to think about the practice. I don’t know if it helped or hurt the story this footage told that it had been updated to “pretend” color.

A-

Dead Man’s Wire Before we left I found a list of good movies on Netflix and this, which I had never heard of, was on it. Strange I had never heard of it because it details the 1977 episode in Indianapolis when Tony Kiritsis took a mortgage banker hostage and held him for multiple days, ending the saga with a live press conference. The entire time Kiritsis had a sawed-off shotgun held to the banker’s head, with a dead man wire running from the banker’s neck to the trigger then back to Kiritsis’ body. If any law enforcement officers tried to take him out, he would take the banker out with him. Fascinating story.

I didn’t understand why this movie got such positive reviews. I found it strange. Strange performances, strange choices by director Gus Van Sant, strange accents by several of the actors (I’ve said this many times, the Midwest twang is very different from a southern accent. But you would think this movie took place in Birmingham not Indy, based on a couple actors.). Worse, when I read up on the actual event when we got home, I found one of the most interesting characters - a cool, Black radio DJ who played jazz - was actually a white news broadcaster who was most assuredly nowhere near as cool as his altered movie persona.

B-

Gone Girl This was also on that list, and worthy of a re-watch. One of the genuinely great mind fucks of recent(-ish) movie history. Weird how Rosamund Pike didn’t become a huge star after this, although she’s never stopped working.

Also I’ll note that while we rarely had the TV on in Europe, the first thing I saw when I turned our TV in London on was On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. That was cool. Monday morning I turned on the TV and the first show I flipped by was a re-run of Cheers from the Rebecca years, which seemed super random. Watching Wimbledon and World Cup coverage in England was also very interesting.

Movies, Shows, Etc.

Air Force Elite: Thunderbirds I was in-between shows before we traveled and not wanting to start something new or devote myself to an entire movie, so selected this. The visuals are spectacular and it was interesting to learn how the Thunderbirds train and operate. But the manufactured drama of their training - one pilot allegedly can’t master a part of his routine, a flaw which caused a deadly crash a few years earlier, but he suddenly nails it on their qualifying flight then they perform it better than anyone before them - was predictable for this kind of program.

B+

Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial vs. That’s The Weight Of The World) This follows the standard music documentary format: group struggles, becomes famous, begins to have issues, breaks apart, comes back together later in life for a new, successful phase. So nothing ground-breaking here. But the music is magnificent, which is really all that matters. As we were watching, and the band got into some more of its “interesting” phases, S looked at me and said, “The Seventies were an interesting time.” Well put.

A-

The Martian Not sure why I waited 11 years to finally watch this. I read the book right when the movie came out, so while I remember I really liked it, I can’t make great comparisons. The movie seemed a little cheesier and more Hollywood than the book, which tracks. I don’t recall thinking this when I read the book, but while watching the movie I wondered if it wasn’t just an updated, futuristic take on Apollo 13. Regardless, it was fun and entertaining.

B+

Something I Did Not Watch (Much)

With this being a shorter entry, I can throw this tidbit in I should have included in a sports entry.

While I watched the first week of the Tour de France, after that I mostly ignored it. Several reasons for that. Of course, spending a week in Europe where we were on our feet and away from TVs all day meant I could not watch. The World Cup was often on during the day, too.

Bigger, though, was that this year Tadej Pogacar was more dominant than ever, taking control of the race early, even when he didn’t have the lead. It was obvious by the middle of the first week that Jonas Vingegaard had no answer for Pogacar’s breakaways in the mountains. By the time we returned home, Pogacar already had a seemingly insurmountable lead. Without having the habit of a couple weeks of watching in place, I never turned it back on. When Vingegaard crashed out of the Tour later that week, that confirmed I had made a good choice to mostly skip the race this year.

Pogacar has established himself as one of the greatest riders in the history of the race. But he’s also rendered it not very interesting to watch. Maybe next year he’ll regress to the pack a bit, or get a virus right in June that saps some of his strength and makes it a compelling way to spend my July mornings again.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0400

For the second-straight week I am putting this together and scheduling it on Thursday evening, as I will be out of the house early Friday. Two throw back songs from the mid–90s mixed in with the new stuff, a tribute to a lost troubadour, and a summer classic to round it all out. Happy weekend to all!

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4i8F7Hyr7ohAIOBDkiQXLD?si=6b2905efecb646b5)

“Dark Summer” - Ceremony
Tom Breihan says that Ceremony are a “California underground institution.” He’s the expert, so I’ll take his word for it. I like the post-punk space this track inhabits. Based on it, you might assume the band was from London, or even Melbourne.

“Spinning” - Soft Science
High quality Dream Pop from Sacramento, of all places.

“It’s A Mod Mod World” - Sharp Pins (Apple Music only)
This band is from Chicago, and this is a new song. Forgive yourself for thinking they were from 1967 London.

“Cha Cha Slide” - Getdown Services
I have a feeling most of you will either think this song is awesome, or crap. No in-betweens.

“Glimpse Of You” - 16 Underground
As I read up on this band, several writers asserted they were part of a burgeoning trip hop revival. That would be interesting!

“6 Underground” - Sneaker Pimps
Did 16 Underground get their name from this song? Maybe. Good enough excuse to play it, a terrific track that is 30 years old this year. Yowsa.

“24 Hr Open” - Picture Parlour
Several songs from Jack White’s new album have been in my highest rotation the past couple weeks. Overall, it is a fine album, if not quite as fine as 2024’s No Name. This track, to me, owes a lot to Jack’s classic sound. Or, perhaps better, is a mid-point between Jack’s music and Grace Potter’s, maybe? Regardless, this is nearly a year old and I feel dumb for just getting to it.

“I Feel Hope Coming” - Alabama Shakes
And another new track that sounds similar to something else I’ve been listening to. In this case, Alabama Shakes taking their sound closer to Leon Bridges’ than it has ever been before. Interesting to hear two very different vocalists perform over quite similar backing music.

“When The Night Comes” - Nicole Atkins
I was sure I had shared some Nicole Atkins music at some point, but a quick search of the archives shows no evidence I ever have. Shame. This is a lovely song. Of course, I’m a sucker for a song with lyrics about Kansas.

“Photograph” - The Verve Pipe
While we were in Europe, Stereogum’s Alternative Numbers Ones entry (subscription required) covered The Verve Pipe’s “The Freshman,” which was #1 for three weeks in May of 1996. I never liked that song. I did like, however, this track, which was a much more modest hit from earlier that year. I was glad that Tom gave it a 7, which feels about right.

“The Feast Of St. John” - Glen Hansard
Glen Hansard died this week, killed in a motorcycle accident just outside his native Dublin. I’m not going to pretend I was a huge fan of his work. That was because I didn’t know it well. I certainly knew of him; he was wildly prolific over his career and many other more famous stars championed his work. I saw he and his band open for Pearl Jam two years ago and was blown away. I was expecting a thoughtful, folky artist and instead they had every song cranked to 11. It was an awesome set. I explored his music a bit after seeing him, and several songs sounded familiar, certainly “Falling Slowly,” his duet with Markéta Irglová, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2008. So I had crossed paths with his work more than I knew. While he was 56, his only child will turn four in two months, which makes his passing even worse.

This was the song that stuck out most from his show in Indy. That night he said it was about “the fuckers who try to drag you down.” RIP.

[youtu.be/coDVcuVoI...](https://youtu.be/coDVcuVoINU?si=lm-YN4HhhkDoHjSR)

“Summer Nights” - Van Halen
A few local schools started classes this week, which is ridiculous. Many more start sometime next week. CHS is a straggler this year, and L has until the 11th to enjoy a few more summer nights.

Spending Like Drunken Sailors

Wed, 29 Jul 2026 11:29:34 -0400

S and I have been cautiously counting down the various financial milestones we are about to check off as parents.

Earlier this month we had a mini celebration when we paid CHS tuition for the final time. This is also the last year we will be paying tuition for three kids. As a family that chose to send our kids to private school from K–12, we expect no sympathy for that part of our annual outlay. We are lucky we could do it.

That does not mean we are done with the large expenditures for three kids.

Monday we became a five-car family. We could have made other decisions in the past that kicked this can down the road at least another year. However, we didn’t think that far ahead when we let M take a car back to Cincinnati for her sophomore year. Which meant C gets to take a car to Bloomington this year. Which meant L needed a car for her senior year.

It seems quaint that once upon a time households with multiple kids had a single car they all shared. Or didn’t even have a car for their kids and they had to work around their parents’ schedules to even have a chance to drive themselves.

Anyway, L now drives a Kia Sportage and we have five cars filling the garage and driveway until M and C go back to school. Not sure who is happier, L or our insurance agent.[1]

Two of our girls got their mom’s teeth, and we have had a rash of out-of-pocket dental expenses this summer.[2] L has senior pics coming up, and we’re beginning to plan her spring break. She also had a minor, elective medical procedure this week to (hopefully) stop the chronic nosebleeds she’s had for years. M’s car needs new tires.

And we went to Europe.

Our only break is that M will again be working a co-op this fall, thus drawing a regular paycheck while taking just one online class. She’s both setting herself up to graduate with some savings and eliminating one full tuition bill this fall.

S keeps saying we are exsanguinating money, which seems a little dramatic. I keep it to myself (and the readers of my blog) that she’s the one who wanted three kids, to send them to private school, and to take a big trip this summer. If you know her, please do not share these comments, as it may mean the end of this site. And my life, obviously.

This is all extreme first world stuff. S and I both began preparing for long term expenses like tuition and retirement before we met. While it is rewarding to see 30-ish years of planning and saving show rewards, it is also a little overwhelming to be in the midst of it. Especially when so many one-time, or once-per-year, expenses land within a few weeks of each other.

Pretty sure I’ve made this joke in some form each time our girls have gotten their drivers license and we’ve purchased a car. ↩
S gets a lot of cavities. I don’t. Not to jinx myself or anything. ↩

Weekend Notes

Mon, 27 Jul 2026 08:58:55 -0400

It was nice to have a laid back weekend after several weeks of travel and other nonsense. Although a few of us spent time in the car.

Unfortunately, I am still sick. Today will be day 14. I guess this is my punishment for going so long without being ill in any way. Last week I tried one batch of antibiotics we had lying around the house. When they didn’t work, our house doc called in a more potent round that I started Sunday. Fingers crossed I can finally shake this thing and get back to a normal workout schedule. Read on and you’ll learn about the other loose end from our European vacation.

Campus Visit #2

L and I went down to Cincinnati Friday morning for her UC campus visit. As we were walking to check in we heard someone call her name. We looked up and one of her best friends from grade and middle school was walking up with her dad.[1] A nice surprise! We arranged to be in the same group for the tour. Her dad was my roommate when we chaperoned the eighth grade Washington DC trip four years ago, so we laughed recalling all the boys we yelled at that week.

L liked campus a lot. She had some follow-up questions for her big sister who goes there (and used to do campus visits). I’ve felt like UC has been her favorite for some time. This trip reinforced all that. We’ll see if IU can make up any of the gap when we go to Bloomington this week. And we have one more big visit scheduled in two weeks…

Birthday Girl

M turned 22 on Saturday. She celebrated by getting the hell out of town Friday and spending the weekend with several of her sorority sisters/roommates on a lake down in Columbus, IN.

Her big gift was her suitcase finally being delivered after being “lost” for 10 days. The last time I updated you on its status, it was still sitting at the Dublin airport and we had received an email asking where we wanted it delivered. I replied that we were home and it needed to come to Indianapolis, but got no response. A follow up also did not get a response.

S got on the phone Thursday to try to find someone who had an update. While she was on hold M came downstairs and I asked her to check its location again.

“It’s in Toronto!”

That was strange. We assumed Aer Lingus would throw it on one of their direct flights to Indy. Alas, we had no idea how to track the bag other than with her AirTag, so we hoped for the best.

Saturday morning M called us and said the bag was at the Indy airport. A couple hours later she got a call confirming our address and saying it would be delivered within the day. Sure enough, about 1:30, the doorbell rang and a rather grumpy guy had her bag.

I opened it up and everything seemed as it was when we packed it up in London 10 days earlier.

The bag had an Air Canada label on it. I’m not even going to try to figure out how a bag that was left behind by British Airways and ended up with Aer Lingus got shipped home via Air Canada.

A needless stress but at least the saga is over.

Sports Notes

LeBron to Philly?!?!?! The news broke while L and I were eating lunch Friday. I don’t think there was a clear “best” destination for LeBron, but I figured Philly would get beat out by Cleveland or Golden State. I’m very surprised he picked the Sixers. And I’m not sure how that team is going to work. Mostly because I can’t see Jaylen Brown being willing to defer to Tyrese Maxey, Joel Embiid, AND LeBron. I guess this is a true first world problem, getting those four plus VJ Edgecombe to work together effectively. If they can figure it out, the Sixers have huge upside. And the Eastern Conference just got even tougher. It will genuinely be a blood bath this season to earn the right to play Oklahoma City or San Antonio in the Finals.

As noted before, I’m not following the Royals or baseball very closely this summer. But I knew that Salvador Perez caught and then passed George Brett for the all time franchise home run record over the weekend. I’m glad Salvy has gone on a little hot streak lately. Early in the season it seemed like he had aged five or six years in one winter and you wondered if he could be a productive player again. Brett will forever be the greatest Royal. This was a fine milestone as Salvy continues to solidify himself as the second greatest Royal of all time.

All Ireland

On one of our tours in Dublin, our guide told us the story of the upcoming All-Ireland senior football final between Mayo and Kerry. This was important, he said, because 75 years ago, a curse had been placed upon the Mayo team.

When they won their last All-Ireland final, legend had it that the boisterous celebration party passed a funeral procession without showing due deference to the deceased. Someone in the funeral party claimed that Mayo would never win another title until every member of that 1951 team died. In the years since then, Mayo made 11 finals, and lost each one. Four years ago the last member of that team passed.

Our tour guide told us that Mayo had just won to reach the final, to be played on July 26. If they triumphed in Dublin, he said, you could believe that curses are real.

Well, Mayo won Sunday. Every clip I found of the final moments was incredible, even the national announcers succumbing to the moment. But the clip in the Bluesky post below? Amazing. These are the local radio announcers in Mayo, who are genuinely losing their minds. I think you get the point even if you can barely understand them.

[embed]https://bsky.app/profile/gavreilly.com/post/3mrkwbkrei22z[/embed]

Gavan Reilly (@gavreilly.com)

She goes to a rival high school, although they had just hung out together with a group of St. P’s girls a few weeks back. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0400

I have a mega-glut of music after the past month’s travels. That means you will likely get extra-stuffed playlists for at least a few weeks as I work on clearing out that backlog.

We’ll kick off this week with three new songs by bands that have been around since (at least) the early Nineties. Then some new songs from more current artists.

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/20I8Mmd3wVIvfzOAp6CAEW?si=e7fd43d19998466f)

“Keep Looping” - Sugar
The latest release from Sugar 2.0. Still in the B/B+ range, but I’m just thankful they are recording and performing again.

“Several Got Away” - Dinosaur Jr.
Last year was Dinosaur Jr.’s 40th anniversary as a recording act. Which really seems wild, even if J Mascis has always looked like a wizened, ancient guitar god.

“Coalfield Wars” - Son Volt
One of several SV fan club singles that were just released to the general public. I can’t find much background for it, so not sure when it was originally recorded.

“Your Love Is Electric” - Leon Bridges
LB has a new album in the future. Last week he released four tracks as a preview EP. Not a bad song among them. One of L’s current favorite artists, so she’s excited.

“Lost Boys” - Phoebe Bridgers
New Bridges, new Bridgers, back-to-back. L had some friends over not too long ago and they were all amazed, in a good way, when I confirmed that I enjoyed Phoebe’s music. All kinds of Cool Dad cred.

“Abundance Of Power” - Season 2
A bit of an Aussie supergroup, pulling members from two different bands. Not sure what decade this track is most indebted to. Definitely some early Eighties in it. Then maybe some early 2000s vibes?

“point blank” - Kelela
Stereogum calls Kelela a “great avant-pop adventurer.” When you listen to her music, which defies being crammed into any easy genre/sub-genre, that seems like the best possible way to describe her.

“New Beginnings” - Yard Act
A natural progression of British music from the 1990s through the 2000s to today.

“Imanin” - Tamikrest
The latest terrific band from Mali to catch my attention. Or finally grab my attention, I should say, as Tamikrest has been making music for 20 years. I’ve never been sure what to call bands like them and Tinariwen. I just saw the term “Desert Blues” and like it a lot.

“Black Paint” - Ty Segall
Segall constantly puts out new music, and it never sounds like his previous release. This track takes a heavier route, and completely rocks.

“Fossils” - THAO
Thao Nguyen split her terrific Thao & The Get Down Stay Down five years ago. This is her first proper release under her new, solo persona. It isn’t too far removed from what she did with her old band, a funky mashup of various influences.

“Summer Girl” - HAIM
A perfect song for the back half of summer, when the heat and humidity begin to wear you down.

[youtu.be/_0PUXt4-q...](https://youtu.be/_0PUXt4-q80?si=3Pdvzdr80HFzS_n4)

“Save It For Later” - The English Beat
Multiple times in recent weeks I’ve had live versions of this pop up in my Instagram feed, with those weird, AI descriptions that don’t really apply to the video. Then The Bridge played it earlier this week. I need no more encouragement to share, once again, one of the greatest pop songs ever recorded.

World Cup Notes

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 14:19:39 -0400

Some words to wrap up the World Cup, which was unexpectedly delightful for most of the past month.

Sunday’s final was a true snoozer. Poor Spain. The country that was never quite good enough has now won two of the last four World Cups. In each case, though, their opponent abandoned their typical attacks to slow the game down and try to beat the crap out of the Spaniards, hoping to either win 1–0 or get the game to PKs and steal it there.

It nearly worked for Argentina, who showed zero interest in trying to score until the closing minutes of extra time. They were content to just not let Spain score, and beat the Spaniards up in the middle of the field, hoping they would be too worn out to get the winner of their own. A very cynical way to play the game, as the Euros would say. But given the difference in talent and form, it is a totally understandable way to try to get a result.

Argentina was lucky Spain could not finish, or this could have, easily, been a 3–0 or 4–0 game.

Alas, Spain could not find the back of the goal and we went to extra time, when anything could happen. Hell, it nearly did. After Spain finally scored Argentina had a fantastic chance to score off a cross when the stout Spanish backline got lazy for a moment. Fortunately Argentina could not put the cross on goal and Spain escaped.

Spain was an amazing team without being flashy. Their attack never turned into a consistent threat, but the back half of their lineup was so locked in that didn’t matter. They only gave up one goal in eight games, and did so without beating the crap out of their opponents. They just suffocated every hint of an attack.

Three of Spain’s best players are under 25. Hell, two of them aren’t even 20 yet. Nico Williams and Lamine Yamal were both far from 100% in this tournament. Throw in the most cohesive national program in world football, and the future looks very bright for the Spaniards.

Of course we thought the same thing about France eight years ago. Sure, France lost the last final on PKs and crashed out it to the semis this year, but dominance is never guaranteed.

In four years Spain will be the co-hosts with Portugal and Morocco. France should still be very strong. England as well. Argentina will surely drop off even if Messi decides to play at 43. Might Morocco ride their co-host status to another deep run? Will Germany or Brazil finally get their shit together again? I’m not one for betting, especially four years out, but Spain defending seems like the smartest money at the moment.

If our East End food tour guide Max was available, he would confirm that I told him I thought the Argentinians would run out of steam. Between their age, the heat, and always playing from behind, I figured it would catch up with them at some point. Shame for Max that it wasn’t until the final they fell apart and still had the legs to beat England. Messi was so good early in the tournament, but it was too much to ask him to sustain that for five weeks. Losing in the final at 39 years old is not a blemish on his legacy in any way, especially when this team wasn’t nearly as good as the champions of 2022 and he drug them all the way to the final.

For all the fears that a hundred things would ruin this tournament - the weather, our president, FIFA, war in the Middle East, Mexican cartel violence, inflation - the games themselves were mostly brilliant. Along with everything around them. There were no violent clashes between opposing fans. American communities adopted teams they hosted. Foreign visitors were amazed by what America has to offer.

Sometimes sports conquer all the bullshit that tries to get in the way.

Naturally FIFA wants to try to fuck it up by expanding, again. The jump to 48 teams worked. Mostly. There were a handful of teams that had no business being in the tournament. But the expansion also gave us Cape Verde and allowed more teams outside the traditional hotbeds of Europe and South America entry. The World Cup is a grueling tournament that comes quickly after the lengthy European domestic season ends. Adding more games seems like a recipe for the tournament becoming more like the NFL or NBA, where you hope the biggest stars can survive the grind.

But FIFA has never turned down an opportunity to make more money.[1]

Americans learned that replay can ruin soccer just as it has ruined American sports. A soccer podcaster noted how before VAR came into existence, often the talk after big games was more of mistakes the referees had made than the result, and VAR had fixed much of that. However, that comes at the expense of longer games with more breaks where everyone is standing around wondering what is happening. You are almost afraid to celebrate a goal now, fearing a delayed offsides flag or VAR call that could overturn it.

I’m not sure what the answer is. Maybe more officials to cover the entire field better, and avoid situations like in the Egypt-Argentina game when a goal was overturned because of a foul 80 yards away? But that may lead to more fouls and less action.

I continue to insist all replay reviews should be made at real speed, no slow motion. I’m not the only one saying this. Maybe someday a league will listen.

The hydration breaks were dumb, but aren’t going away. There were clear moments in many games where momentum shifted because the teams got three minutes to huddle with coaches and adjust strategy.

There were lots of complaints about interminable, and very American, pregame activities and the halftime show Sunday. I just didn’t watch any of that. Or, rather, I had Telemundo on and muted and waited for the game to begin to turn the volume up.

When the World Cup came to the US in 1994, there were many features about how soccer was “the simple game,” with a few long established rules governing play and how the game was conducted. FIFA routinely threw these out this year. Soccer purists were aghast.

The dumbest justification for not making changes to anything is saying “That’s how it’s always been.” Perhaps it is time to rethink how international soccer games are played. But at least make it a conversation, or acknowledge experimenting, rather than just instituting changes without comment, as FIFA has done.

It is clear that FIFA believes the path to opening new revenue streams is by Americanizing the game even more. Which is fine. Just admit that this is all being done for money, not because you care about the health of the players or want to entertain the fans more during halftime.

Now comes the handwringing in the US about whether the World Cup will leave any lasting impacts. I doubt it will. The MLS did nothing to advertise itself during the tournament, so I doubt there will be a rush of new viewers when the league starts up again. Maybe a few more people will watch the Premier League, La Liga, etc this fall. I don’t think those new viewers will move the needle a bit, though.

America likes spectacle and large events. We can jump into the World Cup without any context and understand the games mean a lot to people in other countries and go along for the ride. We can fall in love with Norway or Algeria or maybe the country our grandparents came from for a couple weeks. That short-term attention doesn’t translate into Americans suddenly following the transfer market closely to see if Arsenal can reload for another run, if PSG can maintain all their players, or if Real Madrid can finally find the missing piece to make their team of superstars click.

Most of us in the US are going to enjoy the rest of summer and start counting down the days until football begins. American football.

I read an article this morning about the staggering number of elements of Sunday’s final had a sponsor logo slapped onto it so FIFA could cash another stack of checks. ↩

Summer Vacation 2026

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 11:37:07 -0400

Four years after our first family vacation to Europe, we again jetted across the pond last week, splitting it between London and Dublin. It was a pretty good trip, although there were two significant bummers and a couple other smaller disappointments that kept this from surpassing either Italy or Hawaii as our #1 ranked family vacation.

London

Our first stop was London. Last Saturday we flew from Indy to Chicago, then Chicago to Heathrow overnight. As I learned four years ago, I cannot sleep for extended periods on planes. That proved true again. I was in-and-out for roughly three hours of the eight hour flight, but never full-on slept. When we landed at 7:30 AM, I was pretty fried. As was the rest of the family. We headed to our hotel hoping that our request for an early check-in would be granted.

As tired as we all were, we were also buzzing a little. M had spent the previous two days with a sorority sister who lives north of London. While we drove into the city, she was on a train approaching central London. We made it to our hotel, the Rubens at the Palace, directly across from Buckingham Palace, and got checked in, then she arrived a few minutes later. A big round of hugs when we all saw her for the first time in two months.

We started the day paying for a very, very expensive breakfast in the hotel restaurant[1] We strolled around St. James’s Park. We snoozed a bit in the hotel’s tiny lobby.[2] Took another walk and then finally got into our rooms around 1:30. We had time for quick naps and freshening up before we headed out for our first scheduled event of the trip.

That was a Jack The Ripper tour through London’s East End. It was interesting if a little odd. It was more telling about the history of Jack The Ripper while strolling through the general area he operated than being a true sight-seeing tour. Oh well, it was a nice way to ease into the trip as we were all struggling to focus. After striking out a couple times - apparently a lot of London restaurants close early on Sundays - we popped into a little pizza place for our dinner. Then it was back to the hotel where we all collapsed.

Sunday was a big lesson for us: either find a way to fly over during the day, or pay for an extra night in your room so you can go straight to bed after arriving on a red eye. We’re too old for getting off the plane and being immediately busy. Hell our girls couldn’t handle it, either, so maybe age has nothing to do with it.

Monday we had a St. Paul’s Cathedral/Changing of the Guards/Buckingham Palace tour scheduled. Only we woke up with two people a little under the weather. The entire family got on the bus but two of us bailed and grabbed an Uber back to the hotel when we got to St. Paul’s. Of the three of us who remained, two thought St. Paul’s was more impressive than St. Peter’s in Rome. I leaned St. Peter’s but still really liked St. Paul’s. But it’s hard to discount the Vatican Museums when comparing them.

We enjoyed this part of the tour.

The rest? Eh.

We assumed the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace meant we would actually see the guards being changed. Nope. Our guide just crowded us into the area where hundreds of others were lined up and we watched the new guard troop march through the area and then into the Palace grounds. But we didn’t get to see the actual exchange.

Our two missing family members rallied and re-joined us before we entered the Palace grounds for that tour. We all were a bit letdown by this as well. First off, it was very warm and the Palace was packed with people, so the rooms were rather stifling. Second, with all those people it was hard to find a spot to stand and take things in while listening to the audio tour so it was coherent. I was often too busy making sure I wasn’t running into someone or blocking their view to connect the narration with what I was looking at.[3] Finally, I’m a bit of a Royal hater, and the fact that this is an active royal site bugged me.

So this whole tour was kind of a letdown. The only saving grace was that we paid for this tour with a credit that came with our Costco Travel package, so we weren’t actually out any money for something we didn’t fully enjoy.

Funny side note from the morning. As we got off the bus at St. Paul’s a gentleman with a pronounced Chicago accent asked if we were from the States too. We ended up chatting much of the morning. He and his wife are South Siders, but knew the Indy area well. Later an older fellow came over and said, “Did I hear you say you live in Carmel?” I corrected him that I lived near Carmel and he informed me he had lived on the west side of city 20 years earlier. Small world.

After a brief rest we went to the Covent Garden area to explore its shops. L especially was on the lookout for clothes for her senior pictures, and she walked out with several new items. Two different employees at our hotel recommended a pub called Punch and Judy’s if we wanted to grab a drink. As it was late afternoon we turned it into an early dinner. Two of us got our first fish and chips of the week. Again, they were slightly disappointing. They did something different with the batter and were much blander than what we are used to. We made a loop through Trafalgar Square on the walk home. After another brief rest we walked to Victoria Station and got some good gelato that we ate outside.

This is a perfect stopping point to mention the weather. Since we scheduled this trip we were wondering how we would pack for London and Dublin in the summer. Would we need to worry about rain? Would the heat waves of recent years be in place again?

Well, we timed it damn near perfectly. We didn’t get a drop of rain in either city. We missed the more intense heat they had a week or two earlier. It was in the mid–80s in London each day and perfectly pleasant in the mornings and evenings. In fact, I’m disappointed we didn’t take better advantage of the evenings. The city seemed to be hopping in these hours, but we were often too tired to explore the city then. Dublin was high 70s, low 80s. Brilliant summer weather.

Our favorite tour on our Italy trip was the Eating Europe food tour of Trastevere. We scheduled an EE tour of London’s East End for Tuesday. Once again, it was likely the highlight of our trip.[4]

We had a fantastic guide, a young man called Max, that I hit it off with, discussing music and the World Cup during our walks. I think he also preferred our daughters to the cranky older ladies and two big nerds who also made up our group. There was one woman closer in age to M than to the other ladies who not so subtly joined our family pod after she realized that we were the cool ones.[5]

Anyway, the tour was as much about the history of immigration to London as the food itself. We began with amazing breakfast sandwiches at a shop run by Italians in Spitalfields Market. Before our second stop we stood outside an old soup kitchen that had been established for Jewish immigrants in the 1800s and heard the story of how the East End had always been the landing point for immigrants. Then we ate Chinese custard pastries. Next was traditional fish and chips, much better than what we had the day before. Stop four was a selection of three different curries at an Indian restaurant. These were all terrific! Meal five was a spectacular, fresh bagel with a large hunk of boiled brisket on it. Finally, we capped it off with a very modern take on a traditional English crumble.

It was about three hours of fantastic food, super interesting history, and some good company.

Back to the hotel for rest then another walk, this time to the Big Ben/Westminster Abbey area. We tried to find a couple bars on our list to stop for a drink, but as it was early evening and the France-Spain game was about to begin, they were all packed. So we headed towards our hotel and popped into The Phoenix, a cool looking spot we had noticed Sunday. It turned out to be really nice. Elevated bar food, good drinks, and a proper local who served as both waitress and bartender. She even had really fucked up teeth and a nearly impenetrable accent! And she called us all “lovelies” each time she spoke to us.

We were all still pretty full from the food tour so kept it more to snacks and appetizers. But it was nice to sit inside, in a cozy room, with the World Cup game on where we could see it but not have to focus on it.

Wednesday was our final day in London-town. After checking out of our hotel and storing our bags, we headed to the Tower of London. We had a lunch reservation so had to be careful with time. Because of that, we did the tour at 1.5x speed, and I think it suffered because of that. Also, and I don’t share this to be mean, there was a very large woman near us when we explored the White Tower section. We were behind her a couple times going up the stairs. We knew at the end you exited via a long, spiral staircase that went down several levels without a break. We honestly feared if we didn’t make it there before her, she might have an episode and block it so we couldn’t get out. Thus we blew through some of the exhibits to make sure we were ahead of her. We did enjoy the signs warning that the ravens could bite. In its Welsh origin, my last name translates to raven.

The Crown Jewels again triggered my anti-royalty defenses.

Lunch was at Din Tai Fung, a Taiwanese chain that M went to when she visited a friend in California last summer. It was excellent! Since it is a chain, it doesn’t necessarily represent something unique about London’s melting pot, but it fit the general vibe of the city that I enjoyed most.

London was pretty amazing, even with some letdowns in how our tours went. I knew that it was a massive, multicultural, salad bowl of a city. To experience it gives an entirely different perspective. You think of London being as English as it gets, with all the royal and governmental trappings scattered through the city. But, in fact, it is more a monument to the legacy of the British Empire, with tangible elements of every part of the world the Empire touched. It is a constantly fascinating combination of the native and the imported coming together to create something unavailable anywhere else in the world.

We’ve reached the point where I begin to share the true negatives of the week. Monday night/Tuesday morning, I kept waking up with a scratchy throat. This happens occasionally; something irritates it while I’m sleeping but the next morning after I drink some water it is gone. Not this time. By Wednesday I had a full-blown cold, my first one in at least two years. L was also coming down with it.

On our ride to the airport, our driver told us that traffic might be bad, so he was taking a different route than he would normally take. Since the England-Argentina game was that evening, he said a lot of people in the city would be leaving work early. We did have to fight some gridlock in Victoria and Chelsea, but arrived at Heathrow with plenty of time to relax. In fact, we had to wait an hour before we could even drop our bags.

Our flight sat at the gate an extra 15 minutes. The pilot announced that we were holding to get a few extra bags loaded. He mentioned that “for some reason” they were having a hard time getting everything into the cargo hold. I may have imagined it, but I thought I heard a chuckle in there. Ahhh, the lads were calling in sick so they could watch the game! Glad we dropped our bags early!

(Narrator: They didn’t drop them early enough.)

Dublin

A quick flight across the Irish Sea and we arrived in Dublin just as the World Cup semifinal was beginning. The Dublin airport seemed largely empty, as if even all the Irish were home watching the game. Rooting for Argentina no doubt.

We waited for our bags. And waited. And waited. We saw a few people from our flight grab theirs, but dozens of other people were standing around with us. We checked other carousels but didn’t see our luggage on any of them. Finally, after nearly 45 minutes, a guy walked over and said all the bags that had been on our plane were off.

Apparently the lads back in London didn’t bother to load any checked bags for our flight, only those that were dropped at the gate made it on.

Motherfuckers.

Now we waited in line to submit our claims for delayed baggage. A very nice and overwhelmed Aer Lingus agent helped us get ours in. He insisted that our bags would arrive in Dublin the next day - for some reason on two different flights - and then be delivered to our hotel.

So we emerged tired and hungry and a little pissed to meet our transfer driver, Tony. He had been texting me while we waited and ensured me he would hang out as long as we needed. Tony was a local, likely in his mid–60s, with a gorgeous Irish accent and tons of stories. We spent about 30 minutes with him and loved every second. Just a delightful way to be driven into town.

Our hotel was the rather bougie Anantara The Marker, not too far from Temple Bar and Trinity College. As we were checking in a roar went up from the hotel bar and restaurant: Argentina had just tied the game. Given that our bags were still in London, I was suddenly a huge Argentina fan. I was more pleased when we got to our rooms and saw they had taken the lead. I really enjoyed watching first the Irish network’s breakdown of how the English blew it, and then switching over to the BBC to see former English players rip their coach. Almost saved the night for me!

We ordered some room service, which was surprisingly good, and tried to figure out how to navigate the next day with limited clothes and toiletries. Fortunately our rooms had robes and M had some extra clothes in her bag, so we could all shower and Febreeze our stuff and allow them to air out overnight.

Thursday we had a walking tour of central Dublin. Temple Bar, Dublin Castle, a couple churches, Trinity College. However, Ireland currently holds the EU presidency, so some of the sites were shut down for government activities and we didn’t get to go into them. Another bummer. But our guide was good and we got a decent chunk of Irish history crammed into his two-plus hour spiel. I was the only member of our group that could identify why the Dublin band The Hype was important,[6] so he took a liking to me and we had a few side conversations. The girls love how I always end up talking music or sports or history with our tour guides.

When the tour ended we strolled over to Darkey Kelly’s, a pub my man Sean M had suggested to us. I had some fine Guinness stew to prep for touring the Guinness Storehouse later in the afternoon. The Storehouse was indeed cool. If, again, very crowded. And my cold was kind of kicking my ass so I was not full of energy. But I did drink my complimentary Guinness, and I think it was tastier than they are at home. My taste buds weren’t 100% and I think I had a slight fever, so tough to be sure.[7]

While we had been out, I checked the AirTags on our bags and they showed as being at the Dublin airport. However, they had still not been delivered when we returned to the hotel. Thus began a very dumb process of S calling about 100 different numbers to figure out when they would be delivered. With no success. While she did this, I walked around the block to a pharmacy to find some cold medicine. I got some knock-off, lower strength NyQuil/DayQuil tabs that only slightly muted my symptoms.

For dinner we decided to stick in the hotel, as we all felt a little grungy. Our hotel seemed to be a popular happy hour spot. We sat down to eat around 7:00, right around when the happy hour-ers were beginning to depart. We joked that it was because we all smelled, or at least our clothes did, that everyone left. We got creative after dinner, handwashing clothes in the sink they taking turns with towels and hairdryers to get as much water out as possible so they could air dry overnight.

Friday we took a bus trip to Howth, a coastal community about 45 minutes north of Dublin. It seems like 90% of people who go to Dublin take this day trip. We did a limited version of the cliff walk, had a fine lunch at The Oar House,[8] and walked through some shops before heading back to Dublin. Our driver/guide was outstanding. Thick Irish accent, told hilarious stories, and somehow drove down narrow roads while still using both hands to talk. Just as we sat down to lunch I got a text message from a strange number that said “Luggage delivered.” I checked the AirTags and, sure enough, they were at the hotel. Huzzah! Showers and clean clothes for everyone!

When we got back to the room there were three bags. One problem: we had checked four bags. M reconnected her phone and her AirTag showed as still at the airport. We eventually got a British Airways rep on the phone who helped us get her AirTag info loaded into our missing luggage claim. He assured us that he would let the Dublin people know that we were checking out tomorrow and that we needed the bag tonight. Seemed optimistic to me, but what do I know?

After four of us put on clean clothes, we walked over to the Grafton Street area, which is full of bougie shops. We also walked through Trinity College, which for some reason our tour the day before had skipped. Finally, we had dinner at the rooftop bar of our hotel. It was fascinating to look around Dublin and see so many shiny new buildings next to much older and less grand ones.

That was what surprised me most about Dublin: how it is very much a city of contrasts. Newer, ultra-modern buildings built in either the current or last tech bubble standing next to gritty, graffitied buildings that look like they were built before World War II. One block will feel more like Belfast, or at least a stereotype of Belfast. The next like you’re in the Bay Area, just with an old church in the middle of the glass and steel.

The contrast between London and Dublin is stark. London certainly has its own grittier areas. But there is so much grand history at every turn. It’s not quite Rome, but everywhere is a building or name you’ve heard of your entire life. Dublin? It is a far less familiar city. There are certainly names that are familiar, but often because they were brought to the States and become well known here. There’s plenty of history in Dublin, you just have to dig a little more to get to it. And, sadly, we didn’t have enough time to do so.

Also, while I’m firmly on the Irish’s side in their great conflict with the Brits, you can’t help but feel that perpetual chip on their shoulders. So much of the visible and told-to-tourists history is about the many ways they have been wronged over the centuries. People were feckin thrilled about England losing Wednesday night. Sometimes you want to tell them to get over it, move on, and stop being caricatures. They have a beautiful country and much to be proud of. I know that’s far easier said than done; my country wasn’t oppressed by its big brother for 700 years.

Our guide on Thursday made a fine point about modern Ireland. He said that neither the far left nor far right has ever made inroads in the country. Why? Because since independence, most of Ireland prizes stability over anything else. The memories of famine and colonialism are still so ingrained that anything that puts the country on a path that will veer too far to one extreme or the other generally gets crushed pretty quickly. Ireland is far from perfect, and often gets in its own way. But it has managed to avoid the dramatic shifts to political extremes that has become more and more common in the western world over the last decade.

Saturday morning we woke early for our 9:30 flight. When we arrived at the airport we stopped at the Aer Lingus desk to inquire about M’s bag. The ladies S talked to weren’t super helpful at first. She wore them down and called down to the baggage department and found someone who claimed they would find M’s bag and put it on a direct AL flight to Indy. This was nice in theory, but since they seemed to have issues finding it in the first place we weren’t super confident.

If you’ve never flown out of Dublin, the absolute key to the experience is you can pre-clear for US customs and immigration there. It took us, maybe, five minutes to get through. When we flew home from Italy four years ago, it was over hour to get through all this in Chicago. Absolute genius move.

The flight home was the easiest of my now four trans-Atlantic flights. I was seated in the row just before the restrooms, so had about four extra inches of legroom and could tilt my chair back at least a couple notches without bugging anyone behind me. I didn’t need to sleep, so a 20 minute nap was plenty. I knocked out some of the movies I had loaded but failed to watch on our first flight.

In Chicago, we sat on the taxiway for 45 minutes waiting for some storms to pass before our flight home could depart. When we landed in Indy I was tired, still sick, hungry, and short of patience. A couple sitting two rows behind us barged through the aisle without saying excuse me, and I snapped at them. However, since I was on day five of a nasty cold, it did not come out nearly as intimidating as I had hoped. At least I got a couple appreciative nods from others, and a “Some people just don’t have any manners,” comment from one lady.

Random Notes

They don’t make showers in Europe for tall people. In neither hotel could I stand at my full height under the shower head. It was very nice to take my first shower at home Sunday morning.

The whole lack of ice thing bugged me. No ice machines in the hotels. Having to ask for ice with drinks and then getting two or three cubes that melt as soon as you pour your drink into it. It’s 2026: this shouldn’t be hard.

Thank goodness both our hotels had air conditioning. Also it seems like most people in England and Ireland have discovered deodorant. M said it still seemed optional in France.

We loved taking the underground in London. While most of our activities were in a fairly small area, it did make it nice to be able to walk one way and tube the other. Tapping to pay makes it so easy. We only had one snafu, when M walked onto the wrong train ahead of us as the doors were closing. It took us about 20 minutes to get back together, between getting a good enough cell signal on both ends to reconnect and finding out where we should meet. Fortunately, she was the kid who had been traveling for two months and didn’t freak out about it.

M had quite the sports run while she was in Europe. Was in Paris during the French Open and when PSG won the Champions League. Watched a France World Cup game at a bar in France. Was in Monaco the week after the Formula 1 race, when much of the course infrastructure was still in place. Left France the weekend the Tour de France started. Was in Brussels the night of the US-Belgium game. Was in London during Wimbledon, the World Cup, and the week of the British Open. Not that she attended any of these events, she was just close to them.

It was very cool to be in London in the days leading up to the Argentina game.[9] Jerseys everywhere. Flags and advertisements on buildings. Stacks of kegs outside bars. We saw kids kicking the ball around in the park and I couldn’t help but think what was going through their minds, imagining themselves as Harry Kane or Jude Bellingham. Of course all the adults we talked to assumed they would lose, either to Argentina or France. I’m not sure even the most fatalistic England fan was prepared for how it fell apart this time.

Two straight World Cups during which we’ve visited Europe. The next World Cup is in Portugal, Spain, and Morocco. That wouldn’t be a terrible trip!

I told my buddy John N that it really blew my mind to be in London on the day of the Wimbledon men’s final and only then realize that match starts at 4:00 PM local time. I started watching Wimbledon in 1980, and the whole concept of “breakfast at Wimbledon” was so ingrained in my head that for some reason I ignored the time difference and figured the matches were somehow being played at breakfast-time in England, too. Or, at worst, lunch time. Funny how the brain works. I guess it’s Tea Time at Wimbledon for the Brits.

We were surprised how many parks and lawns were brown in both cities. They just don’t have irrigation systems everywhere like we do to keep public spaces green in the midst of heat waves and droughts.

We laughed when we saw Aer Lingus names their planes. We saw one Saturday named Ronan. We had Irish-English friends with kids in M’s and C’s classes at CHS, and they had a Ronan. We wondered if there were planes named for the rest of their family, too. Sean was a given. Clare? Maybe. But Dearbhla might be pushing it.

For the most part everyone we encountered was friendly and helpful. I know that’s not always easy to do in the high tourism season.

We did have to get a little creative with planning this trip to include M. We booked everything for four people, then added individual plane tickets for her for our final three flights. We ended up sitting together each time. We included requests for rollaway beds in each hotel. In London, they didn’t question that at all. In Dublin, though, the lady checking us in gave me an odd look and said, “You only have four people, right?” I confirmed and stammered something about having a weird sleep issue. I immediately thought of Jan Levinson making Michael Scott sleep on the bench at the end of their bed. Otherwise no issues incorporating M into our itinerary.

Wrapping Up

This was a good trip. I’ll give it a B+. My biggest self-critique is I wish we had either done a full week in London, or a full week in Ireland, getting out to see more than just Dublin. We had such a long list of things we could have done in London, based on both our interests and what many of you had suggested that we barely tapped into. There are a couple big things I wanted to do in Dublin we didn’t get to, and I would have loved to make a day trip to the west coast. If we go back to either country, I think it will more than likely be either a single country trip, or for a longer period to squeeze more in.

But when you rarely make these trips, you need to pack as much in as possible, so we probably would have regretted not doing two countries if we had done just the one.

Getting sick didn’t help. I felt absolutely terrible Sunday, I think as much from the previous week catching up with me as the cold itself. I’m glad my body held out until we got home to need a day off.

The baggage thing was obviously fucked up. We’re hoping M’s bag makes it here on either Monday’s or Wednesday’s direct flight. I exchanged emails with someone at the Dublin airport Sunday requesting this after they confirmed locating her bag. This is one of those moments that will turn me into a person who never checks a bag again unless I absolutely have to. Or at least not when the country you are flying out of is playing a World Cup semifinal.

Those bummers were certainly flukes. And things could have been a lot worse. We kept telling the girls, as we put clothes on from the day before, at least we were in a nice hotel where we could shower, eat good meals, and sleep in clean beds.

They did affect the overall quality of the trip, though. As much as we enjoyed it, it never attained that magical quality our trips to Italy and Hawaii had. But that’s a pretty high bar. London especially has so much to offer that perhaps we will return one day and give it another shot.

Seriously, we’ve had nights out with multiple couples and multiple rounds of drinks that were cheaper than this breakfast. And the food was not that good! ↩
This was probably a funny sight, four of us crammed into an antique sofa, a fifth sitting on the floor, taking turns nodding off to catch five minutes of sleep. ↩
We were so spoiled going to Italy in November. ↩
Seriously, if you go to Europe, book an Eating Europe tour. They are the best. ↩
Relatively speaking, of course. ↩
The Hype was an early name for U2. ↩
Since I mostly drink NA beers now, this was my only real beer of the week. I had several Guinness Zeros, though, and they aren’t bad, either. ↩
I enjoyed the seafood chowder. ↩
Our flight to London took off just as the Norway game went to extra time. There were some people a few rows in front of us who threw hands in the air celebrating both when England took the lead and the game went final. The pilot confirmed the score a few moments later, to muted applause. I was expecting a bigger outburst. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 07:54:57 -0400

Our travels, holidays, etc have me off my new music game. I’ve been adding tons of music to my library for review, but have struggled to get through it. Fortunately we have something on our calendar that gave me the excuse to include several songs that would not normally make the list. Hopefully I’ll get back in the swing of things in a couple weeks.

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“Summertime” - The Sundays
This was meant to be the video for the week before, well you’ll see why shortly. Genuinely one of the best songs ever written about summer. I found this article from about 18 months ago about the disappearance of this great band.

“Black Sage” - Mystery Jets
An absolutely triumphant piece of heavy pop.

“Election Day” - Lily Seabird
Named for the day on which Seabird wrote it, this track is about the ramifications of making important personal decisions, not picking a candidate to support.

“Here Comes” - knitting
This has more of that currently popular retro mid–90s sound than their first song I shared with you a while back.

“Moving After You” - Hurry featuring Gerard Love
This one is loaded with early Nineties, jangle pop vibes, reminiscent of the Gin Blossoms, Toad the Wet Sprocket, and maybe a touch of The Posies? But I missed the clearest influence: Teenage Fanclub. I missed it because I’m not super familiar with TF’s work. Apparently Hurry lead Matt Scottoline has been heavily influenced by TF his entire career. He wrote this song with TF lead singer Gerard Love in mind and turned it into a duet when Love agreed to sing with him.

“Who’s Gonna Love You Now” - The Tubs
Not The TUBES, but The TUBS. If Bob Mould was from London and he was influenced by The Jam, his music might have sounded like this.

“Emotionally Unavailable” - The London Suede
Suede (London Suede here) just released an expanded edition of last year’s excellent Antidepressants album. This is the single that came with it, another terrific track from the third? fourth? act of their career.

“Bhindi Bhagee” - Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros
I already used the super obvious Joe Strummer to announce our upcoming trip. This celebration of the melting pot modern London has become seems like a fine song to share before our departure.

“Give Ireland Back To The Irish” - Wings
I have a lot of problems with this song. Despite them, it seems like a good week to include it.

[youtu.be/lcOxhH8N3...](https://youtu.be/lcOxhH8N3Bo?si=v27RfsBesHHWjbdZ)

“Total Eclipse of the Heart” - Bonnie Tyler
Tyler died this week at the age of 75. There are many who would label her a One Hit Wonder based on this monster hit. WRONG! Some folks might remember “Holding Out For A Hero,” which appeared on the Footloose soundtrack and went to #34 in 1984. Real music heads know her first American hit was 1978’s “It’s A Heartache,” which peaked at #3 for two weeks. That’s three Top 40 hits, suckers.

But this bombastic single, obviously, dwarfed the other two. And the totally bizarre video had to have been a factor in its success.

Trivia: Jim Steinman wrote “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” He also wrote Air Supply’s “Making Love Out Of Nothing At All,” which got stuck at #2 for three of the four weeks “Total Eclipse” topped the charts.

Reader's Notebook, 7/8/26

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 12:34:29 -0400

Two books that came with recommendation from Brother-In-Books Dave V. Although I would have read one even if he had not suggested it.

The Heart’s Invisible Furies - John Boyne This one was a surprise. A thoroughly delightful novel about a rather unique Irishman, Cyril Avery.

Born in the 1940s to an unwed mother who was banished from her home village by its priest for becoming pregnant, Cyril was immediately given up for adoption after birth and landed with an eccentric couple. His adoptive father was a mover-and-shaker in Dublin business and politics. His adoptive mother an author who wrote constantly but refused to accept praise for her books, and, in fact, did all she could to torpedo their commercial success. They constantly reminded Cyril that he was adopted and “not a real Avery.”

Cyril is an interesting, somewhat odd kid. When he is seven he becomes obsessed with another boy. In time he realizes that this isn’t a harmless boy crush, but rather genuine attraction: turns out Cyril is gay. Which is problematic in hyper Catholic Ireland. For almost all of the rest of his life.

The novel indeed follows Cyril through most of his life, highlighting his struggles as a gay man in a society and in ages where that is not something you proclaim publicly. We see his difficulties establishing relationships and becoming comfortable with who he is. All while interwoven with a fantastic cast of supporting characters.

At times this was one of the funniest books I’ve read in ages. At others it was completely infuriating and heartbreaking. Cyril loses people close to him through a variety of circumstances, sometimes hilarious, sometimes cruel, sometimes tragic. He makes really dumb mistakes. The book also examines the role of religion and tradition in Ireland, and the fear of/hate for gay people (and eventually AIDS) in multiple countries.

Throughout his life he keeps running into people who have been in it from its start. That boy he was obsessed with at seven becomes his best friend. Then they fall apart because of Cyril’s deception. Then they come back together in a most unexpected and sad way. That boy’s sister becomes Cyril’s wife. His biological mother keeps showing up, without either of them realizing who the other is.

In the end it is about the triumph of discovering who you are and living as that person authentically.

This is a wonderful novel, one I give my highest recommendation.

London Falling - Patrick Radden Keefe Next came the latest PRK joint, perfectly timed before my trip to London. He explores the mysterious 2019 death of Zac Brettler, a young man who was leading a double life in an effort to ingratiate himself into a London world much different than the one he grew up in.

As always with PRK books, it is exceptionally reported and well written.

That said, I never felt like the subject was worthy of an entire book. There are plenty of interesting elements to the story. I learned things about London’s underground and expat/immigrant worlds I would never have known otherwise.

But nothing about it felt as compelling as Keefe’s books about the Troubles in Northern Ireland, or the Sackler opioid empire. This story began as a lengthy The New Yorker piece. I think it should have remained there.

USMNT Postscript

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 12:02:39 -0400

Belgium 4, USA 1

That kind of sucked.

And was also totally expected, given our nation’s history in the World Cup.

It was certainly one of the biggest examples of Ball Don’t Lie, karmic paybacks I can recall in sports.[1] Don’t need to say much more about that aspect of the game.

I’m also not going to spend much time on the horrific performance by the Americans’ back line, which we knew was an issue coming into the tournament and was responsible for the team’s weakest moments over the past month. I texted the guy who coached L’s soccer teams with me for several years and we agreed that the four sassy girls that anchored our defense eight years ago were more organized and communicated better than the US did last night.

Nope, rather the thing that struck me most as the Belgians methodically ripped apart the US was how much our opening game against Paraguay set unrealistic expectations for the rest of the tournament, making an understandable loss to Belgium feel like a surprise.[2]

After the US housed Paraguay 3–1 on June 12, we thought this team was destined for greatness. Quarterfinals at least, maybe even semifinals. Paraguay only gave up one goal in the run of play over their next four games, which made it seem like the US had done something historic in that opening round.

That was a legit offensive outburst, no diminishing it.

However what we missed was that Paraguay revamped both their formation and strategy after the US game to cover what had been exposed; we did not play against the same team that took out Germany and battled France deep into the game.

That Paraguay game also gave future opponents ideas on how to slow the US down. Australia did a little bit; the US was fully in control of that game but were much more contained. Türkiye definitely slowed the US attack, primarily by being physical.

Belgium flat beat us last night. They controlled possession, forced mistakes by the US defense, and lured our offense into attacking their defense where they wanted to be attacked rather than in their weak spots. Only another gorgeous Malik Tillman free kick gave the US any hope.

An embarrassing 4–1 loss feels like an unjust end. This US team was better than I expected them to be before the tournament began. They gave us a fun month. Yet once again we lost to a European power, even one that is past its prime, and it seems like our correct place in the soccer world. US fans had hoped playing at home would give the team a boost to get over this perpetual obstacle.

This wasn’t the right combination of talent to get over that hump, though. We have a few world class players, but no true game changers. We’ve been on this treadmill since the 1994 World Cup, thinking a nation our size can crank out high level players if we just put enough planning, money, and attention into the project.

Once again we will kick the can four years down the road and hope the next class of young players that cycles in can be difference makers. However, we may be destined to always remain in this same place: good enough to win a weak group and then maybe one knockout game (in the expanded tournament), but doomed to always come up short when we face a top 10–15 team.

Thirty years ago I really cared about where US soccer was headed. I monitored the young players in the system, tracked where our senior team players were signing in Europe, watched random games in weird summer tournaments. I remember talking all kinds of shit on haters on America Online soccer message boards after the US beat a pretty good Nigeria squad in the 1995 US Cup. Or staying up late that same summer to follow the score via Headline News as the US upset Argentina 3–0.

I don’t have near that level of interest in the national team anymore. I hope they do well, and support them. But these 30+ years of the same thing have dulled my enthusiasm and I’m more waiting for the inevitable fall than hoping for the occasional success. Does that make me the soccer equivalent of a Browns fan? That’s too much. Vikings fan?

In a weird way, many of the intentions of the early 1990s US soccer establishment have been met. The MLS gets decent crowds and is firmly established in the world hierarchy as a second-tier league. Soccer of all kinds is on TV all the time now. Go walk around anywhere where pre-teen kids are and you’ll see countless ones wearing soccer jerseys. Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Mbappe, and stars from all the biggest English teams are represented. Haaland jerseys will be the next wave.

In 1994 ABC and ESPN were trying to explain the rules of the game to us, and why we should care about Roberto Baggio and Hristo Stoichkov were. Your average American was probably surprised that Pelé wasn’t still on Brazil’s squad. Now Messi is doing ads for Home Depot, and David Beckham has temporarily taken Peyton Manning’s place as the Former Athlete Who Appears In Too Many Commercials.[3] Go into any clothing retailer and there is some kind of USA Soccer or World Cup gear available.

And let’s not forget the women’s national team’s success and popularity in their World Cup years.

Soccer has indeed exploded in the US. Our men’s national team just hasn’t kept up with that wave. Maybe Spain/Portugal/Morocco 2030 will be the year they break through…

Losing Christian Pulisic because he kicked a defender’s leg instead of the ball seems like a heaping helping of karma. ↩
Adding insult to injury, Belgium did not start three of their best, if aging, players. Was their coach so confident he was looking to rest/rehab them for Spain? ↩
Peyton has still found a way to represent yet another new company, giving him approximately 75% market share. Someone throw some cold water on his agent. ↩

Holiday Weekend Notes

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 08:26:16 -0400

In some ways this was our most boring Fourth of July weekend ever. In other ways it was super packed with events.

Independence Day

We didn’t do a whole hell of a lot for the Fourth. S had a four-day weekend and she mostly used it to prep for our upcoming vacation.

As we were between trips we decided not to host a big family gathering. A couple locals came over to swim for a bit Saturday, but I didn’t cook, we didn’t have a house full of people, and I did my best to avoid the heat.

We took the girls shopping in a couple waves so they have everything they need for our trip.

Thursday we went to get ice cream while L was working for the first time. We timed it well and were in and out before the evening rush hit. I had a very tasty peach milkshake.

We watched some TV and sports (see below). I swam some laps. That was pretty much it. As my Timehop reminded me, we’ve hosted many, many large gatherings on July 4 over the years.[1] It was nice to take a break.

Traveler

M wrapped up her time in Nantes last week. She and her roommates spent the weekend in Amsterdam. They moved on to Brussels this morning to start their final class of the summer, then she will head to London on Thursday to hang with a sorority sister who lives there.

World Cup

OK, the World Cup went off the rails over the holiday.

The US beat Bosnia and Herzegovina Wednesday, but Falorin Balogun got an absolute BS red card after video review. Yellow card? Sure. But red? Absolute bollocks. I was disappointed that referee wasn’t whisked off the field by ICE agents and deported at the next hydration break. I was frustrated that his home in Brazil wasn’t leveled by missiles before the evening was over. If we’re going to have an authoritarian government that acts on the capricious whims of our toddler in chief, use that shit when we are legitimately wronged!

And then news broke Sunday that FIFA had suspended Balogun’s suspension for tonight’s game against Belgium. Which, let’s be honest, is complete crap. But I’ll take it. And I am pleased our wanna be dictator finally threw his significant weight into something that matters and he actually didn’t fuck it up in the process. Good for you, shithead![^2][^2]

This whole affair shows how stupid replay in sports is. The red card was only issued because of a slow motion replay that made Balogun’s foul look worse and more intentional than it was in real time. I’ve been saying this for years, replay should only be viewed in actual speed. If you have to slow it down to half speed, or slower, we might as well just have robots do all officiating, because you are judging a play in a way that the refs can’t possibly assess it as it happens.

And then for FIFA to decide, without real justification, to just throw out Balogun’s ban and put him on some stupid probation for a year, is exactly what I would expect from the most corrupt organization in sports. And from the most corrupt president we’ve ever had.

Again, I’m thrilled Balogun will play tonight. He’s the US’s most potent goal scorer. We need him if we have any hopes of getting past a creaky but talented Belgium squad. But it feels super dirty and I would be going off if the same thing happened in reverse.

I told M she might not want to advertise that she is American when she rolls into Brussels.

Speaking of dirty, the Paraguay-France game Saturday was one of the dirtiest I’ve ever seen. Paraguay knew they couldn’t hang with the French. So they battered them all day. Fair play, that tactic is as old as sports itself. But for the referee to stand there and let them cheap shot the French constantly without issuing a single yellow card was a travesty. Hell, he didn’t even call the rather clear red card that gave the French their only goal. The VAR crew sent him to the monitor and only then did he award the penalty.

Teams with more talent don’t deserve special treatment. But when their opponents clearly have no intent other than to punch and elbow and kick and trip and shove for 90+ minutes,[2] the referee has to step in and issue cards to keep the game under control.

Erling Haaland and Norway over Brazil??? Haaland is amazing, and absolutely rose to the occasion Sunday with two magnificent goals. Being a Manchester City player, I have a natural dislike for him. But that dude is incredible, and incredibly fun to watch.

We spent Friday evening watching a show (more about that below). Apparently we missed the (momentarily) game of the tournament, Cape Verde taking Argentina to extra time before falling 3–2. I certainly was a critic of expanding the tournament. But adding teams allowed countries like Cape Verde to have a chance, and then take advantage of it. They were moments from getting the defending champs to penalty kicks.

BUT WAIT, we got another Game Of The Tournament late Sunday. England-Mexico had everything. EVERYTHING. What an amazing sporting event. Mexico absolutely dominated the game, but had two bad minutes that put them in a 2–0 hole they could never fully dig out of. They had England a man down - thanks to another slow motion replay - for 40 minutes but could only add a penalty. A tying - and eventually winning - goal seemed inevitable. The Mexicans just didn’t have enough ideas other than crossing over-and-over while England defended brilliantly. That near own goal just before the final whistle was an insane final exclamation point on an insane game.[3] One of the best sporting events, of any kind, I’ve watched in recent memory.

The English team and fans singing “Wonderwall” to each other after the game was quite a moment.

And today we get Portugal-Spain. Then USA-Belgium. What a tournament!

NBA

A busy couple weeks in the NBA.

Giannis finally gets traded, to Miami for a kind of crap package.

Kawhi moves from LA to Toronto, in a shocking move. If he can somehow stay healthy, the Raptors are suddenly contenders again.

Then the biggest surprise, Jaylen Brown traded from Boston to Philadelphia. I kept waiting for another Boston trade to come so it would make sense, but as of this morning, they have no made another move(s). I get that Brown has been outspoken over the past few months, and apparently had his feelings hurt when he was dangled as part of the C’s attempts to get Giannis. And Boston needed to do something to fix their salary cap issues. But I never, ever expected him to be moved to Philadelphia. For Paul George and a bunch of picks. The trade doesn’t make the Celtics better, and improves one of their biggest traditional rivals. How on earth does Brad Stevens make this trade? There has to be something else coming and he’s just taking his time getting it done.

It didn’t make nearly the waves of those moves, but I really liked the Pacers signing Kelly Oubre. 1) He’s a Jayhawk. 2) He is experienced, tough, can shoot and attack the rim, and play a little D. I think he’s the perfect complimentary player for this roster, especially with fellow Jayhawk Johnny Furphy out rehabbing his knee until the spring.

Suddenly the Eastern Conference is incredibly interesting for next year. The Knicks lost Mitchell Robinson to Boston, but bring everyone else back. If Jayson Tatum is healthy, the Celtics could be a 50-win team again like they were with Brown last year. Brown makes the Sixers contenders. We’ve discussed the Raptors. The Pacers are coming back. Cleveland has moves to make but should be good again. The Pistons had the best record in the league last year, and have had a disappointing off season so far. Orlando will be good. Atlanta solid.

And LeBron James is waiting to pick the spot he will play next year. If he picks an Eastern Conference team, he could be the difference maker.

The Bear, season 5

We knocked out the final season of The Bear over the weekend, seven episodes Friday and the finale on Saturday.

I loved it.

Was it A+++ TV? No. There were a number of flaws in this season. There are a number of aspects I’m still working to determine how I felt about them.

But as a satisfying TV experience? Outstanding.

Seasons three and four were unfocused and meandering, sometimes maddening. For each episode that was brilliant, like Marcus going to Copenhagen, there were others that just spun their wheels while Carmen found a new way to sabotage his restaurant and relationships.

This season did not make up for all the flaws of the last two seasons. What it did accomplish, though, was allowing these characters we’ve come to love to demonstrate their growth, their strength, and the tight bonds they had formed through past traumas. I can be a sucker for a happy ending when it is earned. This one was certainly deserved.

We’ve been conditioned through the previous four seasons to see the next disaster on the horizon and prepare for the ensuing meltdown. Time and again in season five those disasters presented themselves, and The Bear’s crew kept their composure and got through them. Nothing, not a Biblical storm, not exploding pipes, not a limited inventory, not a couple that lingered too long at their table, not even Donna showing up with Sugar’s daughter in the midst of evening rush could prevent the kitchen crew from getting through the day successfully. There aren’t many good things in the world right now. This success felt good and warranted and just. I was smiling most of the finale, and often throughout all eight episodes.

I also laughed more this season than any other Bear season. It’s been a running joke that this keeps getting nominated for best comedy when it was obviously much more of a drama. Until this year. Genuinely funny moments in every episode.

No needle drops??? An interesting choice, as the show’s soundtrack was as much of its DNA as the Berzattos screaming at each other. But all that alt and indie rock also served to crank up the anxiety. The instrumental, electronic soundtrack to this season was another indicator that things would be very different than in the past.

Speaking of symbolism, so many shots of characters being back-lit by extremely bright lights. You don’t have to be a literature major to find significance there.

The Bear burst onto the scene as we were emerging from Covid, taking some time to get traction but eventually becoming the final, “you have to binge this!” show of that moment. It turned Jeremy Allen White, Ayo Edebiri, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach into stars. When it was good, it was extraordinary: Forks is one of the best episodes of TV of this century. But too often it was too cute or too precious, or its writers were clearly struggling with where to go.

Season five was not flawless, and it didn’t match the energy and freshness of season one. It did, though, wrap up the show on a positive and rewarding note.

Or sometimes on the 5th because of weather. ↩
They basically gave Kylian Mbappe the bumper car treatment, taking turns “running into him” and hitting him with elbows - during restarts! - and the ref just let it all go. ↩
I told some friends that ball trickling just wide was proof that God is Protestant. That joke might get me into trouble in Ireland next week. ↩

Independence Day Playlist

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 11:25:32 -0400

This post hits harder this year, the 250th anniversary of the British Colonies in North America declaring independence from the Kingdom and establishing the United States of America as a free country. As always with these moments, between the cookouts and fireworks and cheesy commemorative t-shirts, it is important to reconcile where we are as a nation with where we should be. This year, in particular, we fall far short of the mythical and unrealistic expectations we Americans have for our country. It’s not worth getting into; we all know the singular cause that has made the era we live in so fraught, contentious, and, frankly, un-American.

So I offer my annual Independence Day playlist with a little more angst than normal. Although, to be fair, that angst and disappointment with our country’s path is one of the reasons this playlist came to be.

It looks like this year the Jason Anderson track is only available on Apple Music. Another reason for folks to ditch Spotify. Also one new song this year. Can you find it?!?!

Happy Fourth!

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June Media

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 08:11:43 -0400

A rather spare month. One of these entries was for just one episode. That will happen when you travel a couple weekends and spend more evenings outside on the back porch than inside on the couch.

Movies, Shows, Etc.

Your Friends & Neighbors, season two The finale was a doozy, setting up all kinds of nonsense for season three. I would not call this show prestige TV, but it is immensely entertaining. It follows the lead of the classic, Eighties prime time soaps like Dynasty and Dallas by often being completely ridiculous. So many moments make you think everyone in the show is terrible and lives in a world that is far removed from where us normal folks reside. However, it is much better acted and written than those shows, and has so much humor that it generally balances out its soapiness.

A-

Widow’s Bay I did not plan on watching this at first, as I heard it leaned towards horror. However, I also heard it was more spooky than scary, and that it was showrun by a veteran of Parks and Recreation, so gave it a shot. An odd show because it indeed mixes humor and mystery and some strange, supernatural force that is never fully revealed. I enjoyed most of it, but thought it fell down a little in the finale. I will admit I watched half of the finale on the plane back from Colorado and then finished it that evening, which could have affected how it impacted me. You can never go wrong with Matthew Rhys and Stephen Root. One TV critic I follow loved this, but I couldn’t quite get there.

B+

Marty, Life Is Short I watched this on the way to Denver. A wonderful piece about a wonderful man. A lot of us could use adopting his outlook on life and resilience in the face of family tragedy.

World Cup It’s generally been on but I haven’t been all-in every day. Still constant summer sports on TV is always a good thing.

A-

Big Waves, Wild Foraging and the Fight to Preserve Hawaiian Culture | DIRT Hawaiʻi A wonderful new DIRT episode about the most wonderful place on earth.

The Property Was Completely Out of Control Beau Miles’ newest project looks even more daunting now that he’s actually dived into it.

Colorado Trip Notes

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 11:28:15 -0400

We had a wonderful, long weekend in Colorado, checking a number of boxes along the way. Somehow, despite sleeping poorly Saturday night, I was unable to sleep well last night. Forgive me if this is disjointed, and it may not be as inclusive as my trip summaries were in the past.

The primary cause for traveling was the wedding of the daughter of some of our closest friends here. Our friends also happen to be L’s godparents, so I guess this was her god-sister that was getting hitched.

We added a day to the trip and scheduled a tour at Colorado State to begin L’s official campus visits.

And with family in Denver, we spent 24 hours with them.

So in reverse order…

S, C, L, and I flew out to Denver Thursday afternoon.[1] The girls were delighted when they saw a prairie dog scampering across the road as we left the airport. We arrived at S’s sister’s house just in time for an evening barbecue, enjoying the lovely, cool evening. While the parents watched the US soccer match and caught up, the kids were enjoying our hosts’ new hot tub. That is until we heard hail pattering against the house. It was small hail, but still the kids were in no hurry to flee the hot tub until some parental encouragement got them moving.

I had been up early that morning, eastern time, so couldn’t stick it out for the entire soccer game. Shame the US lost. The defensive woes were known, and it is concerning how they were exposed by Türkiye. But the Americans were also resting a lot of players in advance of the knock-out phase, so I’m not super concerned about the result.

Friday we packed up two cars and headed north to Fort Collins to visit CSU. We walked the CU campus two years ago, but this was to be a proper campus tour. We have other friends in Indy whose daughter just graduated from CSU and is staying there to get a master’s before moving on to law school. She and L have a lot of similar traits and interests, so the parents suggested we add a tour when they heard we were coming to CO.

Their daughter met us for lunch at the funky Illegal Pete’s, a regional chain that does burritos, tacos, etc. It was a great way to start our time in Fort Collins. We were a little pressed for time so didn’t get to explore downtown as much as we had hoped. It reminded me a lot of Boulder, just a little more rustic and with a lower percentage of burnt out hippies. There are still plenty of that demographic, but Fort Collins seems to be less a magnet for them than Boulder.

Our tour was good as well. I did not realize how big CSU is; it has over 34,000 students. It’s a nice campus, although surprisingly flat. There are gorgeous views to the foothills in the near distance. L enjoyed the tour and getting to know more about the school. Perhaps the thing that impressed her the most was the lack of humidity. Seriously! We even had to walk through a rain for a few minutes and her hair remained in place. I guarantee when we visit UC and IU in July her hair will be puffed up well before the end of our outdoor walks.[2]

Our niece and nephew, rising juniors and freshmen, also enjoyed the tour. S’s sister told us that private high schools in Colorado often discourage their students from staying in-state for college, painting all the local options as less accomplished than pretty much any out-of-state institution. So her kids went in thinking CSU was trash. They were pleasantly surprised that it was a normal place. So we opened a couple minds in addition to kicking off L’s college selection process.

The bottom line, I think, is that CSU is a long way from Indy. The only reason L even considered it is that she has an aunt an hour from campus. I told her to use this trip as a way to figure out what she wants to learn on trips to schools that are higher on her list. And then to go ahead and apply to CSU and see what kind of scholarship money they throw at her. So odds are low but there is a greater than zero chance she could be a Ram in a year.

After the tour we bought L a sweatshirt and then split with our Denver peeps, heading to Golden for the wedding. Traffic between Denver and Fort Collins was kind of crazy both ways. And the only bummer of the day was there was just enough haze and clouds that the foothills were slightly obscured and the true Rockies behind them nearly invisible.

Our girls picked In ’n’ Out Burger for dinner, which I was not mad about. Although I did have to eat it while driving, which was awkward. It was our first In ’n’ Out since visiting to San Diego in 2019.

We rolled into the Golden Hotel early evening, just as a welcome reception for the wedding guests was beginning. We got to see several good friends who have moved away from Indy. While we were seated with these folks Saturday, it was easier to catch up in a bar Friday.

Saturday morning we explored downtown Golden, which is a cool little area that has held on to its frontier vibes. Lots of quirky little shops and restaurants. We had a very good breakfast as a family, did some shopping, then hooked up with friends for lunch. I’m honestly not sure how big Golden is as we remained in a 10 square block area all weekend. I assume there’s more to it than what we explored. This was enough to keep us busy on a wedding day.

And then the wedding itself. We love the bride. We’ve known her for her entire life. She was a big buddy to L at CHS soccer camp several times. She stayed with us on spring break a few years back when we shared a house with her parents.

So I say this with love: she can be a lot. And I mean that in the best way possible. She’s kind of an influencer. Literally, she’s been making legit money off Instagram since she was in college. She and her sister have built an app for nurses. She’s Out There on social media. Again, she is a delightful, grounded woman. But we knew the wedding would be A Lot, too.

Indeed it was.

Here’s the order of events of the day:

A private wedding ceremony for a small group of guests. We did not make this list. Apparently it was a traditional ceremony just pared down to about 30 minutes. Immediately after, those intimate guests moved from a small chapel to a larger one, and the doors were flung open for the riff-raff. This public ceremony featured a couple readings and a quick repetition of their vows. Maybe a 15 minute ceremony. I approved.

Then outside for snacks and mingling while the wedding party knocked out pictures. A jazz trio entertained us.

Once pictures were completed, the horn player led the entire group, 150 or so people, on a five-block, New Orleans-style stroll to the reception hall. I’m not sure this was strictly legal, as we walked in the streets until we hit the main drag through town. We got a few honks, I think in frustration, when we blocked a major intersection trying to cross. It was a lot of fun and memorable, though!

Then the reception, which was terrific. I’ve heard some good wedding speeches in my life. Each of the four speeches we heard Saturday were amongst the best I’ve ever heard. The food was great. The company even better. As the night wrapped up our group of four families was making plans for our next group trip, our first since 2021.

The night ended on a small bad note. Another wedding party that was staying in our hotel came back about 11:30 PM and made a rather large ruckus just below our window. Apparently they were doing karaoke in the room directly below us, too. Somehow S and C slept through it all while L and I tossed and turned.

No issues getting home. The Denver airport seems to get busier every time we visit. Squeezing onto the terminal train feels more like getting onto a Tokyo subway (I assume) than an American airport tram. We still made it through security in less than five minutes,[3] and were able to force our way into the first train leaving the main terminal.

Euro Traveler

M just wrapped up nine days in Italy. A week ago she and her friends flew to Pisa. They stayed there long enough to take pictures with the tower then hopped a train to Florence for a few days. From there it was to Rome for four days. Then south to Amalfi for the weekend.

In the first two cities she repeated a lot of things we did as a family four years ago. A highlight was a return to Da Enzo, the quant little restaurant in Trastevere where we began our food tour. While we just got appetizers and part of the history of the neighborhood in 2022 with our early seating, she and her roommates stood in the line everyone has to stand in for first dinner seating, and had an entire meal. She said it was divine.

Amalfi was new to her, and she loved it. She’s been the coordinator for all of her group’s weekend visits over the past five weeks. As she told us a few weeks back, she’s been “…spending a shitload of money” on bookings. She spent so much that whatever service she’s been using gave her a 500 Euro credit. She used that to help secure a private boat trip off the Amalfi coast Saturday. We haven’t gotten a full download from her yet, but we’ve seen a few pics and it looked spectacular.

Yesterday we learned that the flights from Denver to Indianapolis and Naples to Nantes are about the same time and distance. We were texting with her, airport to airport, from Denver to Naples, then she let us know she had landed just as we were beginning our drive home.

This is her final week in Nantes. She will spend next weekend in Amsterdam, then move along to Brussels for a one-week class there. We are less than two weeks from meeting her in London.

More on M below… ↩
The humidity finally arrived in Indy while we were away. It went from pleasant to oppressive in two days. ↩
Via the TSA Pre line. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0400

Hopefully this playlist comes together ok. I imagine I’ll schedule this to post on the normal Friday morning time slot. By then we will have left town about 18 hours earlier for a weekend in Colorado. I started putting this together Monday afternoon. Let’s see how it turned out!

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2ineOwehm78VuIxVQ0ZIYu?si=293522ce1d3d44da)

“Artificial Sunlight” - Les Big Byrd
Nothing artificial about the light we’ve been having lately. Genuinely one of the greatest Junes I can recall, weather-wise. Which makes me nervous for what July has in store for us.

“Lovesick” - Wishy
These Indianapolis kids join the wave of bands who have adopted the retro Nineties sound. They do it pretty well, too.

“See Out Loud” - Interpol
Last week I shared an Interpol song I said sounded like nothing they had done before. This, on the other hand, sounds exactly like what you expect an Interpol song to sound like.

“If You Should Turn Away” - Weird Nightmare
Holy Summerteeth! This owes a lot like the title track off Wilco’s classic album.[1] I mean those “ahhh, ahhhhs” are lifted straight from it!

“Self Sabotage” - Eddy Current Suppression Ring
Apple Music Only
This band was once a big part of the underground rock scene in Melbourne. However, they had only released one album since 2009. That changed a few weeks when they dropped a surprise album. This is exactly what you expect when you hear the term “Australian Underground Rock.”

“Cycle” - Pye Corner Audio & Andy Bell
I’m not sure where to slot this track in, genre-wise. Certainly some synth and electro pop. But perhaps it’s more of a straight-forward dance pop track with dark overtones?

“Running” - COOL HEAT
This is a classic, impossible to Google song-band combination, so I can’t tell you a thing about them. Some good, early Eighties synth pop DNA here. And it goes with the next song, and that was enough to include this on a short week.

“The Runners 2” - Lightning Bolt
This is a throw back to the late 90s, early 00s big beat, electronic wave that featured bands like The Prodigy.

“Nice Weather For Ducks” - Lemon Jelly
I like remembering songs I had totally forgotten, randomly. I did not hear this anywhere, or even read a reference to it. But it popped into my head one day while doing nothing related to ducks or water or thinking about fun, early 2000s tracks. Anyway, it looks like it will rain a lot here while we are gone, so perhaps we will come home to ducks swimming in the retention area in our front yard.

[youtu.be/VAgGNWX8S...](https://youtu.be/VAgGNWX8SXY?si=eESyfa1DPRS-h3hs)

“Summertime Girls” - Y&T
They don’t make videos like this anymore.

Yes, I know the album is titled Summerteeth and the song “Summer Teeth.” Settle down. ↩

Quick NBA Draft Thoughts

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 13:38:02 -0400

The NBA Draft was once an annual opportunity for a lengthy, rambling post where I pretended to be Bill Simmons or some other national writer. Or at least that’s how my first ever blog post here went.

2026 seemed like a year to jump back into that routine, as a Kansas Jayhawk was poised to be selected at the top of the draft.

Alas, this was no ordinary college player, or at least he did not have an ordinary season. Thus I was not as invested in Darryn Peterson’s draft status as I have been past Jayhawks.

Also a neighbor invited me over to have a drink and sit by the fire pit for a bit, so I watched the first three picks of the draft and then scampered across the street.

While I did not watch the actual draft closely, between the podcasts of Simmons, Zach Lowe, and a few others, I’ve been monitoring the drama around the top four picks closely. Peterson’s situation might have been the most fun part of the process.

Predictably the vibes were all over the place for DP over the past week. A couple analysts insisted he was back in the running to be the #1 pick, as his medicals had all come back clean, his individual workouts had been great, he seemed healthy, and the teams he met with were impressed with his demeanor. Then others suggested he might fall to fourth or even lower as teams still had questions about all of that.

I’m old enough to know this is all posturing and pure speculation. The angle I trusted most was the argument that a lot of GMs at the top of the draft were terrified of missing out on DP if he is indeed healthy, motivated, and focused. AJ Dybantsa will be a very good NBA player, possibly a great one. Cam Boozer will be a solid one for 15 years. Caleb Wilson might be a supernova who takes a year or two to find his place, burns brightly for a couple years, then fades out. But Peterson is the only player of those four who has perennial first team All NBA potential. If you take Boozer ahead of him, you’re going to be kicking yourself as he puts up 14 and 6 every night while DP is averaging close to 30.

Given all that, the draft went exactly as I expected. Or at least the top four picks. Dybansta fits into what the Wizards are doing and has less risk than DP. The Jazz already have a loaded front court and need a versatile wing to go with Keyonte George. Plus Danny Ainge doesn’t give a crap about any baggage DP has; he sees a massive talent that had a weird five months and deserves the chance to prove himself again.

I liked that Peterson wore a subdued, traditional suit. He was all about business and demonstrating that no matter what happened at KU, he is serious about the next step. He’s not the warmest, most outgoing kid in the world, but I thought it was a good sign he seemed genuinely interested in greeting all the folks that interviewed him after the pick was announced. He shook everyone’s hands. I spent five months over-analyzing this kid’s body language and demeanor, I couldn’t help myself.

We will likely never know the whole story of what caused his issues this past season.[1] Because of how weird that season was, I don’t think any KU fans are going to have anything close to the emotional investment in DP’s NBA success we would have had if he was a “normal” one-and-done player. And, let’s be honest, even with those guys the attachment is not all that great. If they do well, like Joel Embiid did for about four years, we love them. If they start off slow and only have isolated moments of excellence, like Andrew Wiggins, we aren’t nearly as excited about their NBA careers as we are when players stay on campus for three or four years. When players spend eight months on campus, they never become true parts of the community. Especially now with the private, athletic dorms and most athletes taking online courses much of the year.

Peterson’s case is unique because if he does blow up, us Jayhawks fans will probably spend as much time lamenting what we didn’t get from his brief time in Lawrence than celebrate what he’s doing in Salt Lake City.

Sports are dumb, and being a fan is a terrible choice for how to spend your free time.

No one seems to buy the creatine story. ↩

Weekend Notes

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 08:07:57 -0400

Plenty happened over the weekend that requires at least a quick blurb or two.

HS Basketball

This was an evaluation weekend, when college coaches can come in and watch teams play, so CHS participated in one of the big, local events. Two games Friday, two Saturday.

The team went 3–1. They won two overtimes games, one in doubt OT. They crushed one team. And got hammered pretty good in the fourth game.[1] Other than that easy win, they were all against solid competition. Three of the games were against 3A programs that have all been good in recent years. The final game against a pretty good 4A program that we may play in a tournament over the holidays. Good competition.

You can still see our girls struggling to figure out their new post player and how to run the offense. They’ll get there. We still don’t have a consistent shooter. We are really going to miss having a pure point guard that you can’t take the ball away from. I’ve told L that is her path to more minutes, getting stronger with the ball.

She played ok. Had some nice moments in the overtime win Friday. Didn’t do much in the game we got pounded in. I was not able to go to the games Saturday and, naturally, she hit consecutive 3’s in the game we won in double OT. I yelled at her when she got home, saying now I can’t go to games again if she wants to keeping hitting 3’s.

This is the last week of summer ball and then we can start working more on some individual stuff.

Celebrations

Saturday was my birthday. How did I celebrate? By prepping for and hosting a surprise 50th party for a friend of ours. His wife had reached out to us a while back about having the party here. His birthday isn’t until July 1, so she targeted this coming weekend. But we will be at a wedding in Colorado, so she suggested last Saturday, not knowing that was my birthday. I didn’t care and she felt bad when she figured it out…about three weeks later. 😂 Again, I literally did not care so it worked out. And it was good cover to get him here, as he thought they were just coming over to have dinner with S and I for my birthday.

We had 40ish people over, which was a little awkward because we only knew a few of them. And a lot of them are pastors and elders in the church where he is a pastor. So we had to watch our language and keep the alcohol hidden until later in the evening. He was surprised, though, and the party turned out to be pretty nice. The weather was perfect allowing us to spread out on the pool deck. His wife ordered catering from Qdoba making the food easy. We just spent the day getting stuff set up, the house clean, etc. And then about an hour Sunday cleaning up. We did have a lot more fun when most of the church folks filtered out and I busted out the good cooler and we shared a couple beers to celebrate our birthdays.

Sunday evening we had S’s dad and stepmom over for a Father’s Day dinner. We were able to sit outside until the rain moved in. Thankfully, once again, the heavy storms were about an hour south of us and we just had hours of steady showers. There were tornadoes in the exact location where they were last Wednesday. That area might be cursed!

Traveller Update

M FaceTimed me early Saturday, my time, to wish me a happy birthday. I was literally five minutes out of bed and she had her roommates say happy birthday as well. I’m sure they appreciated by bed head and swollen eyes.

They were in Florence at the time, taking a break from the heat in their rental. Which, thankfully, had air conditioning.

They are in the midst of a week off from classes. The first three days were in Florence (after flying into Pisa). They are now in Rome until this Thursday. Then they will spend the weekend in Amalfi. Should be an amazing time, if they don’t melt.

A week ago, when I was in Chicago, they were in Nice and Monaco, which M said was her favorite weekend destination of her trip so far. I bet Italy surpasses it.

Other Sports

I missed the USMNT’s win Friday against Australia while watching basketball. That night I was watching another game and looking forward to seeing highlights at halftime. Fox, the network that crams USMNT content into every nook and cranny available, did not do any real highlights of the game at all. I was floored. They showed each of the US goals in slow motion replays while going to commercials. But not proper breakdown of the game, with high level replays that gave you an idea of the ebb and flow of the contest. If Fox can’t overshare US highlights, what are we doing?

The Fever lost twice to Atlanta since I last wrote about them. Both times the Fever turned close games into losses by failing to play defense for a quarter (or more). Saturday they gave up a 13–0 run in the third period and never recovered.

Even when I wasn’t playing golf - which I haven’t in three years now - watching the US Open was part of my Father’s Day weekend routine. We were so busy this week I wasn’t able to ever lock in. I did see Dustin Johnson have a wonderfully US Open experience Thursday, going bunker-bunker-bunker-over the green-two putt. That’s why the fans love this tournament!

Apparently Wyndham Clark played great for three days then nearly fell apart yesterday but held on to win his second Open. A lot of people I follow seem annoyed by him. Since I don’t follow golf closely at the moment I don’t really have an opinion. I think his first name is kind of dumb; I guess that’s an opinion. But my name probably sounds dumb to some people, and he didn’t choose it, so I can’t really hold that against him.

This one is on me. We were standing around watching the game before us. When I saw these girls walk in, I commented to another dad that they didn’t seem to have much height. Naturally that meant they were scrappy as hell and played together. I am undefeated in getting L’s teams beat when I suggest the other team isn’t physically impressive before the game. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 07:29:44 -0400

So much new music this week from old friends, some of whom we have not heard from in years. In fact, there are so many songs that fall under that description that I can only play a few of them this week so there is room for other tracks.

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3q673P7M3RhOLN2B3UMjB7?si=ac91f89d98ae4f8a)

“Get Away From Me (I Think I’ll Love You Soon)” - Julia Jacklin
A week ago Jacklin announced she had signed with 4AD records, a big jump up for her. This week she dropped the first single off her upcoming album. I love it already.

“Stone” - Prince
The Prince Vault is opening up again. His estate is releasing an album in August that features tracks recorded between 1977 and 2016. This one is from 1995. Not classic Prince by any measure; he didn’t even write this one. But the effortlessness to it is a reminder of his immense talent.

“Shooting Shadows” - Sweeping Promises
Apparently these kids now call Lawrence, KS as home, so I automatically like them. I also like their combination of classic punk and Riot Grrrl era grunge influences.

“Better Man” - Slow Pulp
NOT a Pearl Jam cover. Although they are from Chicago, Eddie Vedder’s hometown.

“This Mirror Weighs A Ton” - Interpol
New Interpol music that sounds nothing like old Interpol music. Hey, you know what else weighs a ton?

“Miuzi Weighs A Ton” - Public Enemy

I’m a Public Enemy but I don’t rob banks.
I don’t shoot bullets and I don’t shoot blanks.
My style is supreme, number one is my rank.
And I got more power than the New York Yanks.

“Nobody’s Coming To Save You” - Gurriers
Seems appropriate both in tone and title for this moment in time.

“Don’t Even Have To Say His Name” - The Waterboys
More directly about the era we are living in, the best song of this type that’s come out this year.

“Spin” - Johnny Marr
Marr has spent the last 25 years putting out solo music that is solid but never great. Always B-/B, never a straight A. Nothing like his classic work…

“There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” - The Smiths
…such as this track. This week was the 40th anniversary of the release of The Smiths’ masterpiece, The Queen Is Dead. I will always insist that Marr’s guitars were as important to The Smith’s brilliance as Morrissey’s lyrics and singing.

“My Backwards Walk” - Manchester Orchestra covering Frightened Rabbit
I don’t know how I missed it, but long time MO drummer Tim Very passed away earlier this year. A terrible loss. The band released a live album, recorded over a series of stripped-down shows in London in 2023, last month. While that was well before Very’s death, you can’t help but sense the band dealing with their loss in the songs. And it makes this cover of their old pal Scott Hutchison’s song even more powerful.

[youtu.be/bJfTmOzaM...](https://youtu.be/bJfTmOzaML0?si=Gaj8Oqkwbn9eX44Q)

“Bethany” - Craig Finn
Just a couple days after seeing him lead The Hold Steady, Finn announced two mini solo tours later this year. A couple shows in Chicago and Wisconsin, but I doubt I’ll drive up for any of them. He also released this video of my #6 song of 2025, a live performance with his new backing band recorded earlier this year in London.

Weather And Sports Notes

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 11:35:58 -0400

We are very lucky this morning. Last night’s storms all passed just to the south of us. There were radar-indicated tornadoes about 30 minutes south of downtown Indianapolis.[1] A large tornado blew through the area where we used to own a lake house. C and I kept getting texts to shelter in place from IU as three different tornadoes passed Bloomington.

This after the local news spent the entire day stressing that massive storms would likely go through the Indy area. L’s summer league games were all cancelled. We’re not sure if this was because so many kids drive themselves to games and the worst was supposed to hit right when games were going on, or because roughly 1000 people would be in a glorified warehouse when high winds ripped through the region. I’m pretty sure they couldn’t have crowded all of us into the restrooms if the sirens began sounding.

Luckily in our part of town there were only some minor gusts, not the 90 MPH winds that people in Iowa and Illinois experienced. We had some downpours, but more steady rains. Our loudest storms of the night came after the main line had already passed. Basically, good, old fashioned, summer thunderstorms.

Meanwhile we are watching coverage on the morning news of whole lines of trees ripped apart in a state forest north of Bloomington.

On to some sports takes.

World Cup

Week one of the World Cup is complete. It has been mostly fantastic! Which is a bit of a surprise. Between expanding the field to 48 teams, to the standard FIFA corruption getting cranked up a few more notches, to the main host nation not exactly being a beacon for freedom and inclusiveness at the moment, the tournament began with bad vibes.

As tends to happen in sports, though, the excellence of the games has wiped that away for the moment. At least when the games are being played.

Lots of goals. Some epic individual performances: Harry Kane. Kylian Mbappe. Erling Haaland. Lionel Messi!!! Several teams that are only present because of the field expansion holding their own against some of the best teams in the world. Most days you can flip on a game and be highly entertained for a couple hours.

Oh, and the US won in convincing fashion in their first game, which was a bit of a surprise. Also a surprise was Australia winning their first game fairly easily over Türkiye. That sets up a fascinating game tomorrow night in Seattle. A US win would mean they clinch a second round spot before their final game of the group phase for the first time in program history. Crazy!

The tournament has not been without controversy. Coming in there was worry about holding a soccer tournament that is geared more for European TV times than our own during North American summer. FIFA’s response: inserting hydration breaks in the midst of each half. Which makes sense from a safety standpoint. When it is actually hot. But many of the games so far have been played under fairly moderate temps. But FIFA decided to insert these breaks into every game, no matter the temperature. And, most curiously, even if the games are being played in domed, temperature controlled stadiums.

I guess I get that FIFA wants every game to be played under the same conditions. But so far this seems dumb.

Made dumber by the predictable insertion of ads by Fox in these breaks. And FIFA and Fox not coordinating so often play has already been restarted when the ad breaks end.

European fans have taken to derisive whistling and booing when the hydration breaks begin, which I love. But as we get deeper into the tournament and temperatures rise, the breaks might not seem as silly.

If you haven’t seen Zlatan Ibrahimovic putting Alexi Lalas in a body bag a couple days ago, I suggest checking it out. Thierry Henry’s facial reaction is tremendous.

bsky.app/profile/c…

Finally, I did not lock in picks before the tournament began. I’m not sure you should overreact to one week of games, but the Spanish look suspect while the French and English look awesome, and Argentina might have enough juice for a title defense if Messi can stay upright?

The key to the tournament is that France and Spain are on the same side of the bracket, assuming they both win their groups. I feel like France might be a little stronger at the moment, but Spain has owned them the past couple years. Regardless, England would not meet either of them until and unless they reach the final.[2] I have a hard time believing that this is finally the year England gets it done. My daughter is spending time in France this summer. She watched PSG win the Champions League, and the French win their opener vs Senegal in restaurants. So I’m going to go way out on a limb and picking the French.

The wildest World Cup trivia bit, which pops up every four years, is that only eight countries have ever won the event: Italy, Germany, France, Spain, England, Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. Hell, even most of the second place teams come from that group of eight. You would think that over time those odds would spread out. I don’t think this is the year Croatia or Belgium or Portugal or Holland cracks the code and enters the most exclusive club in sports.

NBA Finals

Dammit, those MFing New York Knicks did it. And I’m not happy about it.

Which on many levels is odd.

Sure, there’s the whole New York sports thing, which I almost always root against. There’s the whole East Coast Sports Bias thing, which is very real, at least in the sense that a NYC team will always get 1000 times more attention than if the same exact team played in almost any other market.[3] There’s the Villanova thing. There’s all the baggage from the last two years, when the Pacers and Knicks played physical, emotional playoff series.

I’m just bitter enough of a sports fan where all that outweighs the many reasons to admire this Knicks team.[4]

When you look at them, these Knicks really resemble the Pacers teams that beat them the last two years. They both have a near-superstar that anchors the team. But neither Tyrese Haliburton nor Jalen Brunson are super-duper stars like LeBron or Kobe or MJ, players with physical gifts that place them on a pedestal above all their rivals. But beyond those primary players, each team was carefully built over several years, though smart drafting and inspired trading to a point where the sum of their parts far exceeded their individual values.

Both teams played their asses off at all times, on both ends of the court.

Both teams treated double-digit deficits as mere annoyances that would be erased through greater focus and effort, not excuses to clear the bench and save the starters for the next game.

Brunson is one of the most remarkable players in the NBA. He should not he as effective as he is, nor have the impact that he does. The shots he hits are completely amazing, and he seems to get better as the game goes on when he should be wearing out. He (and Karl-Anthony Towns) seem like two of the most genuinely good dudes in the NBA. At least off the court. Rival players seem to love them. They give terrific interviews and seem like their heads are screwed on correctly. Hell, Brunson (and Josh Hart) sang the praises of Kansas and how hard it was for them to pick Villanova over KU after visiting Lawrence as high schoolers.

All that said, fuck them guys. Especially Brunson. Fuck his “Oh no, I’ve been fouled and my leg might be broken!” act, followed by looking completely normal and drilling a big shot two seconds later. Fuck his pushing off and elbows to the chest. Fuck his cheap shots when he buzzes defenders off-the-ball in the back court, trying to trip them from behind then sprawling on the ground like he was the one who got fouled. Fuck his dad, who should have been ejected from at least two games in the Finals for his horseshit act.

Fuck all of that.

The Spurs got the Finals at least one year early. Wemby needs to get stronger, develop more stamina, and come up with a go-to shot he can rely on when everything else breaks down. Dylan Harper is everything KU fans wanted Darryn Peterson to be, and is about to become a superstar. De’Aaron Fox was nicked up enough that it affected his game. The entire team showed their youth in coming out blazing hot to begin each game, only to be operating on fumes in the last 12 minutes. Coach Mitch Johnson was not ready for the big lights of the Finals. They need more experience, probably a more significant defensive player on the bench who can spell Wemby, and to figure out what to do with Fox’s contract going forward if Harper is going to be the better player.

They are going to be a force, as long as Wemby can stay healthy.

Shame they weren’t ready this year.

I know most of the sports world is celebrating the Knicks title, at least from a narrative standpoint. Even I can admit the scenes from New York Saturday night were remarkable. I just can’t get on board. Hopefully the revitalized Pacers, or healthier Celtics, or maturing Pistons or Magic can keep the Knicks from even making it out of the East next year and turn this into a one-year thing that bitter folks like me can label a fluke.

Also the healthy Pacers would have beaten the Knicks. Fight me.

Fever

It’s been a strange couple of weeks for the Indiana Fever. They finally seem to have figured out who they are, and have won five of their last six games. Their defense is still, often, atrocious. But their offense is so damn good that once it locks in, the deficiencies on the other end sometimes don’t matter.

What’s been strangest is Caitlin Clark’s season. I think it’s safe to say that something is up with her.

She’s averaging a career high 20.4 points per game. She’s grabbing over five rebounds a night. Her 8.5 assists per contest leads the league. She’s only missed one game. Seems pretty good, right?

If only you could sum up her game with just her stats.

Watching her play is a different story. She doesn’t play with any joy. She is endlessly complaining about calls and non-calls. She’s constantly getting into tussles with opponents. Even when she hits a couple shots, she seems more interested in yelling at who was guarding her or saying something defiant to the ref than celebrating the moment. And don’t get me started on her awful defense, which is the primary reason the Fever as a whole are bad on that end as her teammates are repeatedly trying to recover for her lapses.

There have been the multiple blowups with her coaches. And while not her fault (hopefully), the Fever revoking the credential for a local writer who has been covering the team since well before the Caitlin era because of something factual he wrote about her just adds to the oddness.

She’s always had an edge to her. In college she woofed at opposing fans and lobbied for calls. She’s taken all that to another level, though. Combine that with the lack of fun in her game and it all comes across an angry and bitter rather than just an intense competitor.

I understand why she is frustrated. The referees let defenses pummel her for two years, to the point where she missed over half of last season. She’s had more protection this year, but still gets beat up nightly. That can’t be fun.

Worse, she tried to play the Tom Brady/Derek Jeter/Cal Ripken Jr. card of never saying anything controversial so she could be beloved by everyone. That did not work in the WNBA, perhaps the most politically outspoken of all professional sports leagues. Everyone, it seemed, wanted her to speak up for their cause. And when she didn’t they assumed she opposed them. Which meant she pissed everyone off without actually doing anything.

On top of that comes the natural bitterness and envy that arises when a new player comes into the league and is immediately more popular than women who have been playing for years. Who immediately gets more commercial deals than the rest of the league combined. As her rising tide has helped pull all the other boats up with her, I think this has lessened somewhat. But there is no doubt there are some veterans who still aren’t ready to accept her as one of them because of the relative ease she had coming in, being anointed as the league savior from day one.

In summary, she has a lot of shit on her shoulders.

Frankly, I do not enjoy watching her right now. For every behind-the-back pass in traffic that turns into a layup for a teammate, there is the throwing of her arms and yelling at the nearest ref for a call she did not get as the other nine players run the opposite way. There are the dirty looks and scowls. The general bad attitude.

I don’t know what the solution is, but I hope she finds a way to relax, ground herself a bit, let the stress slide off her back, and learn to enjoy playing basketball again.

For the third time in ten days. ↩
I believe this is true. I just tried to confirm and, frankly, the bracket is such a mess I gave up trying to game out scenarios. ↩
This morning ESPN’s app and webpage are offering to show me the Knicks championship parade live. I don’t recall that being the case when the Chiefs or Royals won championships. ↩
Perhaps more about this later. ↩

Reader's Notebook, 6/17/26

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 13:16:20 -0400

Something very odd happened last week: I did not read a single day. Or at least I did not read a book during the week; there were plenty of NBA Finals articles, Bluesky posts, and the other random bits of text I digested each day. But I did not (virtually) crack a book the entire week.

It wasn’t for a lack of inventory. I just got a fresh stack of Ken Bruen books from Thrift Books. Two Kindle holds from the library came in. I guess I just needed a break after my usual, unrelenting, book-per-week pace. Actually, checking my list for 2026 so far, I’m a couple notches ahead of that pace. And those Ken Bruen books will get me back on track once I get to them.

Summaries of the last two books I read.

Heartland - Keith O’Brien This is a look at Larry Bird’s life before he got to the NBA, with a focus on his college years. This is important because it was one of the most remarkable runs in college hoops history, and was a foundational element of both college basketball and the NBA exploding in popularity in the 1980s.

Famously Bird first went to IU - and lived in the same dorm C lived in last year - but felt horribly out-of-place, was mocked and rejected by his older teammates, and did not connect with Bobby Knight. Bird lasted about a month in Bloomington before dropping out and heading back home to French Lick.

This became one of the biggest What If’s in college hoops history. The 1975 Hoosiers lost just one game, in the Elite 8 to Kentucky by two points in a game they played without starter Scott May, who had broken his arm a couple weeks earlier. The next season IU went undefeated and won the national title. And Larry Bird should have been on these teams. Consecutive undefeated seasons? Bird and Magic Johnson never play against each other in 1979? The Celtics don’t get a chance to draft him? And so on.

Bird eventually landed in Terre Haute at Indiana State and had three incredible seasons. However, in his first two the Sycamores could only land NIT bids thanks to the much more restrictive NCAA tournament size than today.[1] His senior year, though, they went undefeated until that night Magic and the Spartans ran them off the court in Salt Lake City and won the national title.

O’Brien traces, as best he can, Bird’s life through this era. Bird refused to speak to O’Brien, and has never said much publicly about these years, so it was tough. More interesting was the accounting of those three ISU seasons. It was a much simpler time in so many ways, but especially in how fans followed college basketball. People in western Indiana could occasionally watch their heroes on regional TV, but the nation as a whole didn’t see Bird play live until deep into his senior year. O’Brien gets into how ISU and Magic Johnson’s Michigan State team transformed the way NBC broadcast college hoops, which led to CBS out-bidding them for the tournament a couple years later and then pushing the NCAA to expand the field to 48 and then 64 teams.

O’Brien has written other sports books, so I thought it a little strange that I found some of his descriptions of the actual sports of the story to be lacking. Still a very interesting story that lines up with when I was discovering and falling in love with basketball.

The Rules of Civility - Amor Towles Years ago I read Towles’ A Gentleman in Moscow, a thoroughly delightful and enjoyable novel. For some reason I’ve never tackled any of his other works. Brother in Books Sir Dave suggested Towles’ latest short story collection, which I have on hold. But said it would be useful to read this first, as one of the characters carries over to the newest publication.

I’m glad I did.

While not quite as charming as A Gentleman in Moscow, The Rules of Civility is still a delight.

There are a lot of common aspects to the books. Where Gentleman took place in post-Revolution Moscow, Civility takes place in New York just as the US is shaking off the Depression and preparing for World War II. And rather than focusing on a Russian aristocrat under internal exile, this book puts Katey Kontent, a young woman who spends her evenings running around town with her roommate and the rich man their age they have befriended, frequenting jazz clubs and parties hosted by the most wealthy people in Manhattan. A car accident splits their friendship and soon Kontent in on her own, at least socially, while she carves out a career in the publishing industry. She is smart, sharp, and can handle her own business, chafing under the limitations the era placed on women.

This was published before A Gentleman in Moscow. You can feel Towles feeling out the territory he would master in his next book, focusing on a remarkable individual living in a remarkable time. The Rules Of Civility is quite good, but was clearly an exercise for Towles to establish himself and his voice before locking it all in for his second novel.

Soon to be even less restrictive. Sigh. ↩

A Weekend In Chicago

Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:23:05 -0400

What a great weekend! At least as far as my trip to Chicago was concerned. It was really a top notch trip, as Judge Smails would call it.

I don’t know if this will be as detailed as some of my old trip summaries were, but here’s a general accounting of my 48-ish hours away.

Travel

Driving up to Chicago is a breeze. Even Friday morning, when I was passing through multiple areas where tornadoes had been Thursday evening. I saw some trees down, a few road signs destroyed, but that was it. I could have made it all the way to our weekend rental without charging, but decided to stop in Munster, IN so I had enough juice to get through the weekend. I also topped the battery off while we were killing some time before our rental was available. And I stopped to charge for about 15 minutes on the way home mostly so I could pee. I’m currently using some referral credits to pay for charging, so it was all free, but I’m guessing this all would have cost about $45–50. Compared to two tanks of gas in this economy??? A bargain.

I picked up my brothers-in-music Sir Dave and E$ at O’Hare and after that time-wasting charge, we got to our rental right at check-in time at 1:00.

The drive back was a little less easy, only because I was routed through the Chicago Skyway, which involves going through three, old school toll booths, which turn a 20 mile stretch into a 45 minute slog as you wait through three lines. Friday on the way up I was routed west, where all the tolls are drive through gates that you don’t slow down for. Time to modernize, Skyway folks.

Rental

We were staying at 900 S. Clark Street, on the 16th floor of a building. We had very nice views to the west and south. Our rental was rather spare in accommodations but gave us a nice place to post up and sleep.

[caption id=“attachment_17364” align=“alignnone” width=“139”] Screenshot[/caption]

Food

We had two terrific meals, both for lunch.

Right after we arrived we walked a couple blocks to the Eleven City Diner which was wonderful. It is an old school, big city diner. Sir Dave and I both ordered massive, corned beef and pastrami sandwiches. Ten years ago I would have put it away with no troubles. At nearly 55 I was still able to finish it, but I’m not going to say it sat well in my stomach the rest of the day. The order of fries and chocolate shake probably didn’t help.

That evening we had bar food while watching the US World Cup game.

Saturday for lunch we went to Half Sour where I had the best breakfast burrito I’ve ever had. I can’t quite describe what set it apart - perhaps it was the proper steak inside - but they did something different and tasty with the tortilla as well. Sadly it is not listed on their online menu so I don’t know if their secret is listed there.

That evening we had access to a VIP buffet at the concert, which was a little disappointing but gave us enough energy to get through the night.

Activities

After lunch Friday we strolled over to Grant Park and meandered a bit. Our plan for the afternoon was to take a boat architecture tour on the Chicago River. We decided it would do us all well to extend our walk up to the pickup area so we weren’t completely miserable on the boat. It was bordering on toasty by this point, so we rewarded ourselves with a round of beers before the tour began.

If you’ve never done one of these boat rides, drop everything, get to Chicago as quickly as you can, and take the first tour you can book. Preferably with Charlie as your guide. This man was completely spectacular. He spit knowledge about the city, its buildings, and their shared history nearly non-stop. He threw shade at other cities, notably New York (which has never had a Pope) and St. Louis (which is where all the trash the Chicago River removes from Chi-town belongs). He celebrated his hometown. He was absolutely amazing. We all agreed later that he might have been too good. He shared so much information that we had a hard time recalling it later. Don’t let that scare you off. The highest recommendation.

Our plan for Friday evening was to watch the US World Cup game, hopefully at a classy sports bar. E$ had also found a cool looking Irish place called Fadó on West Grand Ave. We arrived well over an hour before the game, but there were no open tables anywhere in the building. Shame because the place had a lot of character and was filled with soccer aficionados.

We had passed a couple other places on our way to Fadó so circled back to Mother Hubbard’s, which had a totally different kind of character. A traditional Chicago dive bar with a ton of TVs. We found a table and settled in for several hours. The game was, obviously, fantastic. The crowd here was a little different than it was at Fadó, but still fun to watch a big US win in a crowded bar.

We celebrated the win and the balmy evening by walking 30 minutes back to our place. Love big, walkable cities!

Saturday was concert day, so emotions were high early. We began the day by grabbing coffee and breakfast sandwiches at the Starbucks in the Target a block away. What a country!

After getting our caffeine fix we headed back to Grant Park with the hopes of spending the morning in a museum. The Shedd aquarium was rather pricey, and I had already been there. The Field Museum had a more reasonable admission and ended up being a fine way to pass a couple hours. Proper museums that you can get lost in are one of the great joys in life. I took a lot of pictures of dinosaurs for my nephews back in Indy.

Back to our rental for some downtime and preparations for the evening.

Our pre-concert plans included grabbing a drink with another old KC friend who now lives in Chicagoland. We met him at Weeds Tavern, the self-proclaimed best dive bar in Chicago. It was a nice little spot to have a few drinks and catch up. There was a decent sized group of guys there who had been out playing golf, most of whom were wearing IU gear. There was a dude playing pool wearing a KU shirt. I felt like I was in the right place!

THS Live

Finally it was time for the show! We had about a 20 minute walk from Weeds to the venue. Our pre-game drinks meant we were showing up around 6:00. The opening bands were scheduled to begin playing around 4:00. No big deal. But when we arrived the final opener was playing. We later learned that because storms were forecast for later in the evening, the entire lineup had been moved forward an hour. So we got to hear four Built To Spill songs and then The Hold Steady took the stage just after 7:00. At least we got there in time!

The show was predictably outstanding. I had not seen THS in person before, but I’ve seen plenty of videos of their performance so know they were terrific live. They lived up to that reputation. They opened with “Stuck Between Stations,” “Chips Ahoy!” was second. Two of my five favorite songs to start! As this show was for the 20th anniversary of their Boys And Girls In America album, they played every song from it. We got “Stevie Nix,” “Your Little Hoodrat Friend,” and “Sequestered In Memphis,” likely my next three fav THS songs. Every bit of it was great. For a bunch of guys in their mid-to-late 50s, they can still bring it. Probably helps that they only play 20 or so dates a year these days, so they can recharge in the months between shows.

The show was at The Salt Shed, a new-ish venue built around an old Morton Salt facility. It is a very cool site, with lots of bougie accoutrements rock ’n’ roll lovers in their 50s can appreciate. When THS first came out we were still in the upper balcony area. We watched a song from up there then worked our way into the main floor section. The sound was much better down low. I felt like asking them to play “Stations” again so I could get the full effect. The night was gorgeous, the music was glorious, and the company was great. A fine night all around.

We knew ahead of time that the Salt Shed has a strict 10 PM stop time for shows, so we were counting on being done early. But with the weather adjustment, we were done before 9:00. Which felt a little weird.

We humped it back to Weeds, which was now packed. We watched a bit of the NBA Finals game but felt old and out of place, or at least I did, so Ubered back home and watched the Knicks complete their comeback there. That result was the only bummer of the weekend.

Well, it was also a bummer that it was raining Sunday morning so we couldn’t wander our area and find a quick breakfast before I took the guys back to O’Hare for their flight back to KC.

It had been nine or ten years since my last trip to Chicago, and that one was in the winter so my time outside was limited. As mentioned already, there is a real joy to large cities that have lots to see, eat, and do, and can be navigated on foot. My calves are still sore from all the walking. I’m not sure I could ever live in a place like Chicago, as I like my space and I think the traffic would drive me insane. It is a fantastic city to spend a few days in, though, especially when the weather is nearly perfect.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0400

By the time most of you get to this post, I will be somewhere on I–65 between Indianapolis and Chicago. This playlist (mostly) celebrates the reason for my journey.

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4KhaO7MwJpBblfBsD6qa0Y?si=3269d080c46e4c86)

“Your Little Hoodrat Friend” - The Hold Steady
Tomorrow two of my brothers-in-music and I will be watching THS in Chicago. Can’t wait. “She’s been calling me again…”

“Drowning Machine” - Liquid Mike
Maybe not directly THS influenced, but I think you can say they occupy a similar general space in the modern rock world.

“Get To Choose” - Dirt Buyer
This song was released back in November but I’m just hearing it now, for some reason. Not Grade A by any measure, but generally upbeat and rocky, so fits this week’s broad theme.

“Round Of Applause At The End Of The World” - Wild Pink
I’ve been a Wild Pink fan for a while now. I love the direction John Ross is taking his band. You know who else sang about Kennedy Assassinations? The Hold Steady, that’s who.

“I Didn’t Mean To Change My Mind” - Prism Shores
Equal parts jangle and power pop.

“Sulk” - Radiohead
Nothing to do with this weekend, this song just fucking rocks. “You bite through the big wall, the big wall bites back…”

“Hold Steady” - Sludgeworth
Not a terrible song, but obviously included because of the title alone.

“Days Move Slow” - Bully
Tomorrow’s show has three opening bands. Not sure how many of them we’ll get to see, but I’m hoping to catch at least a little of Bully’s set.

“Carry The Zero” - Built To Spill
I wouldn’t mind catching BTS, either.

“That Summer Feeling” - Jonathan Richman
One of the b-i-m’s I will be hanging with this weekend is a big JR fan. Seems appropriate to play this today.

[youtu.be/3Cem1ME-O...](https://youtu.be/3Cem1ME-OvQ?si=MrCv4MiQ_6CcTBrG)

“Stuck Between Stations” - The Hold Steady
Their greatest song, arguably the greatest American rock song of the 21st Century. “He likes the warm feeling but he’s tired of all the dehydration…”

Thursday Sports Notes

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 12:58:55 -0400

I had a couple quick-ish sports thoughts to share today. And then last night’s game four of the NBA Finals required over 1000 words…

NBA Finals

HOLY SHIT!!!!! ☠️☠️☠️

The Spurs did everything they were supposed to do to even the series before heading home for game five. They weathered a big Knicks comeback in game three to grab their first win of the series. Last night in game four, they were crushing the Knicks. New York looked lifeless and completely beaten. Madison Square Garden was a morgue as the Spurs extended their lead to 29 just before halftime. It was turning into one of the most dramatic shifts of momentum in postseason history.

San Antonio was up 27 at halftime. This game was ovah, in every possible way. The brash young Spurs were going home with the series tied and having snatched the souls of the Knicks in the process.

The Knicks chopped 12 points off the lead in the third quarter which, honestly, was totally expected. I still felt good about the Spurs chances.

Then San Antonio spent the entire fourth quarter crapping all over themselves. They somehow lost the lead with around a minute to play. I knew the Knicks, especially at home, were capable of making this a game. But this??? Hell no. No way. Like 15 steps beyond unbelievable.

Stephon Castle hit two free throws to put the Spurs up one with 30 seconds left. Jalen Brunson missed a shot that produced a long rebound that was tipped out for De’Aron Fox to grab as he raced up court. All he had to do was keep dribbling and kill clock before he got fouled, and he’d have a chance to extend the lead from the line and leave the Knicks only a couple of seconds to tie it.

However, his trajectory was taking him towards the basket. Fox is very fast. I get why he decided to attempt a layup. But he should have seen OG Anunoby a half step behind him and understood the best move was to either pull the ball out to the corner to burn some clock before the Knicks fouled him, or keep dribbling through the lane and then either hit a cutter behind Anunoby or keep the ball as long as he could to burn those precious seconds off.

But no. Fox decided, while playing on a bad ankle, to challenge Anunoby, one of the best one-on-one defenders in the league. A man who has blocked Victor Wembanyama multiple times this series.

It went about as you would expect: Anunoby swallowed up Fox’s shot.

But the Knicks still needed at least one point.

After an inbounds pass, Brunson took what I thought was a terrible shot, pulling up from 40 feet with over three seconds left. The Spurs had doubled him with Wembanyama, but Wemby was a step back and got bumped by a teammate so couldn’t get real pressure on the shot.

What happened next was beyond what you would expect from a movie ending. Brunson did not hit the shot, which is what happens in the movie since he is Knicks Hero Boy #1. But he did catch a lot of the front of the rim. And with Wemby 40 feet from the basket there were no Spurs to control the rebound. Anunoby came racing in from the sideline and got enough of a hand on the carom to tip it home.[1]

Un-BLEEPING-believable. Knicks up one with 1.7 left.

The Spurs are young and brash and anchored by a three of the most irrationally confident young players I’ve ever seen. But they had no chance on the final play. The inbounds pass was tipped, Castle grabbed the loose ball and couldn’t get a shot up or draw a foul before the final buzzer.

To paraphrase Jack Buck, I couldn’t believe what I just saw.

That might be the most insane comeback I have ever watched. KU coming back from 15 in the national championship game? Nah, KU erased all that lead in about 10 minutes and the final 10 minutes were just a normal, tight game. The Colts comeback against the Chiefs in the playoffs? Well, I famously didn’t watch that. While there are some common elements there - Andy Reid’s horrific coaching was akin to the Spurs coaches making some awful choices - an NFL Wild Card round game does not have the same gravity as an NBA Finals game. Neither the Colts nor the Chiefs were going to make the Super Bowl, anyway. And this seems beyond even the Falcons choking away a 28–3 lead in the Super Bowl. There was a flukey quality to that Atlanta lead where last night San Antonio was demonstrably the far better team in the first 24 minutes.

Nope, this is the absolute pinnacle for unfathomable comebacks, for most epic of chokejobs, as an example that coaches will use forever when telling their teams the game isn’t over because the score is lopsided at halftime.

The Spurs just handed the Knicks the NBA title with a freaking game for the ages that we’re going to have to listen to Knicks fans brag about forever.

A lot of us have given Chet Holmgren a ton of shit about how he basically disappeared in the western conference finals. Does the entire Spurs team deserve that treatment after game four? Fair question.

There is a belief in sports that you should not deviate from how you built a big lead. Even if you cool off - no way could the Spurs keep shoot 60% for the entire game - you keep running your stuff. Even with a regression to the norm, you continue with what worked and figure if you lead by 30, even a cold second half gets you the win.

But, man, the Spurs played like the team trailing by double figures in the second half. Soooooo many super early, super rushed 3’s. So much dribbling into triple teams and losing the ball, or throwing wild passes out of double teams to no one. Wemby looking gassed in the last five minutes and missing not only bad 3’s, but two massive free throws.

Here’s a thought: if you are head coach Mitch Johnson, maybe suggest the team slow it down a little. Make a few passes before launching a 3. If you get an offensive rebound off a 3 you don’t have to immediately chuck another 3. I would be a terrible owner because I would have fired Johnson before he got out of MSG last night.

These Spurs are different, so I expect them to win game five and then the Knicks will close them out at home in MSG. But I’m kind of hoping they do come out shellshocked Saturday and New York walks off the court as champs. Not because I’m mad at the Spurs or have switched allegiances, but because I will be at a concert Saturday night and won’t be able to watch. Hell, I might not watch game six if the Spurs extend the series because I don’t want to witness the Knicks finally getting the banner they’ve been chasing nearly my entire life.

That Gambling Life And The Death Of College Sports

A judge in Texas ruled that Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby will be eligible to play this coming season. This after he had been declared ineligible for violating NCAA gambling rules. Sorsby admitted to betting on IU more than 40 times during his two years in Bloomington, amongst many other bets on college football. The NCAA has concrete rules about this, and losing his privilege to play seemed like a clear and appropriate response. For once I’m on the NCAA’s side.

The overturning of the Sorsby ban is just the latest sign that the organization has zero power anymore. Worse, it is a clear indication that college sports are irrevocably broken. On a broader scale, his case is yet another example of how if you find the right attorneys and judge, you no longer have to face consequences for your actions in this country. Just say the rules are unfair and are denying you an opportunity to make money, and some judge who thinks any restrictions on free will (at least for white men) are illegal will rule in your favor.

Sorsby says he has a gambling addiction and has sought treatment. Fair and good on him if true. But he still broke rules that he was aware of, and that student athletes are informed of when they arrive on campus. He does not have a right to play college sports. His career should be over.

By allowing Sorsby to play, this judge sent a message to every college athlete that they are free to gamble as much as they want, as often as they want, even on games in which they participate. Don’t worry if the NCAA says you are putting your eligibility in question; we’ll provide an injunction that keeps you on the court/field if you get caught.

Call me old fashioned but this seems bad. Really, really bad.

One more indicator of doom: this shows how runaway big money is changing college sports. If this was a no-name player at a MAC school, the story would be much different. But this was the #1 player in the transfer portal, going to a school that was in the CFP last year, at a program that is bankrolled by a ridiculous group of oil billionaires who are spending like drunken idiots to turn Tech into a power. Ironically, all while Tech is at the forefront of the movement to “save” college sports through reining in how much NIL players can collect. I had no real dog in the fight but I was openly rooting for Texas in the women’s college world series vs Tech just because the Red Raiders as a whole embody all that is wrong with college sports. And I never root for Texas. I feel dirty.

I may have to reluctantly agree with all the head-in-the-sanders at the old NCAA who insisted for years that college athletes should not be paid. Ever since NIL was introduced it has made college sports progressively worse, often in completely unintended ways. Broadly, it is good that players are getting paid. But nothing else about the experience is broadly good for the industry.

There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle at this point. Maybe limits will be placed on transfers, so you can keep at least some players from year-to-year. Maybe there will be some restrictions placed on NIL so that it isn’t naked pay-for-play and there’s some a baseline all schools can operate from. But there won’t be any comprehensive plan that addresses all issues.

And, as the Sorsby case has shown, if you don’t like the rules, you just ask the billionaires funding your program to find a sympathetic judge and you can be given clearance to ignore anything that might keep your best player out of games.

USWNT vs Brazil

Somehow the third most shocking thing of the week was the insane US-Brazil women’s soccer game Tuesday night. I only turned it on because there was severe weather here and after the tornadoes passed I saw this game as an option to watch.

I turned the game on midway through the second half, just before the US took a 1–0 lead. That was when the fun started.

Moments later two of the Brazil coaches were ejected by the referee. The head coach threw a tantrum and took several minutes to leave the field, dismissively and disrespectfully taking his jacket off and throwing it over the shoulder of a female referee’s assistant as he finally exited. The Brazilians were already bitching about every call, but these red cards sent them to another level. Every call, or non-call, was protested with gusto. Hands were waved. Fingers were shook. Voices were raised. They were taking hard fouls on the US players and getting away with them. Until another red card came, this time for a Brazilian who had been warned previously. There was a flop by the US player the embellish, but the Brazilian clearly had it coming.

More histrionics and refusing to leave and general jack-assery.

A few minutes later a Brazilian player intentionally elbowed an American in the face. WHILE SHE HAD THE BALL, so there was no missing it. Another red card. More utter nonsense from the Brazilians.

C was watching with me and cackling in disbelief at what was happening.

Brazilian legend Marta came on as a late substitute and got away with just a yellow after a brutal foul. Given how things were going she was lucky not to get a red.

Finally the game ended with a 1–0 US win, three days after losing to the Brazilians 2–1. The US should have won 3–0 or 4–0, but were both unlucky and the Brazilian goalie played out of her mind.

Oh, I said the game was over? Well, the final whistle had blown but the Brazilians were not done. And the Spanish referee had had enough. Two Brazilian players approached her shouting. When they were pushed back they both sarcastically applauded the ref with both arms up in the air. Two more red cards! More arguing and yelling. Two more Brazilian coaches were shown red cards.

(BTW, I love that refs can still hand out red cards after the game is over. Need to bring that to US sports. Bitch when the game is over? You’re starting the next game with a foul, penalty, etc.)

In all there were eight red cards, EIGHT. Along with plenty of yellow cards.

Props to the one Brazilian player who was trying her best to get her teammates off the damn field before more damage was done, and then with some clear embarrassment on her face, did the obligatory shaking of the referee’s and assistants’ hands.

This game was hilarious to watch, but also terrible. The Brazilians collectively lost their minds and were playing dangerous soccer. Actually they weren’t even playing soccer. They were just complaining about everything then occasionally tee-ing off on American players. The US was lucky not to pick up a major injury. With five minutes left in the game I told C if this had been a summer league basketball game, the ref would have blown the whistle, said they were done with this nonsense, and sent everyone home.

These two games were previews for next year’s World Cup in Brazil. If every game is like this, it might set TV viewing records!

I blame my Spurs friend. Monday he tried to tell me that he kind of likes OG. Which I get. Really good player, competes his ass off. IU guy. But I told him I hate all Knicks players. He understood that but said if you grade on a scale, OG is the least offensive of the Knicks primary players. He was asking for this. ↩

Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 127

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 14:35:13 -0400

Chart Week: June 1, 1985 Song: “Voices Carry” - Til Tuesday Chart Position: #28, 8th week on the chart. Peaked at #8 the week of July 13.

I am positively giddy as I prepare to write this entry. This song/band/countdown combination checks so many boxes that get me fired up to share music trivia with my readers. Such as:

A band commonly considered to be a One-Hit Wonder that, in fact, had more than one charting single.
A band whose very first single was, by far, the biggest hit of their career.
A single so excellent it has dwarfed all else its composer has done, despite she being one of the greatest songwriters of her generation.
A song that became a hit largely on the strength of its memorable video.
A video that featured distinctive, Only In The Eighties hair.
And a super interesting anecdote about the track shared on this week’s countdown.

Whew, a lot to work with! Let’s break it down. Prepare for numerous footnotes.

’Til Tuesday was not a One-Hit Wonder. Barely. “What About Love” made it to #26 in 1986. Sadly the gorgeous “Coming Up Close” did not reach the Top 40. That’s it, two singles that cracked the pop chart.
Obviously, “Voices Carry” was their biggest song. ’Til Tuesday didn’t hang around as long as Crowded House - they broke up in 1990[1] - so the comparison isn’t exact. But TT’s singles trajectory was similar to CH’s, at least in the US. I would tell you Crowded House had about 100 great songs, but only two ever hit the Top 40 here. This was ’Til Tuesday’s “Don’t Dream It’s Over.”
Aimee Mann is a talented, prolific, and influential songwriter. She’s been putting out great music almost non-stop since the mid-Eighties. She has scored films, recorded with other artists,[2] written and produced for others, acted in both movies and TV shows, and had her own solid solo career over that span.[3] However, she’s not had a pop hit since 1986. She is the classic example of an artist who has a rich, deep catalog of work that insiders revere, but for one reason or another has never been able to find consistent commercial success.[4]
The tense, cinematic video for “Voice Carry” stood out from other pieces MTV was playing in the spring and summer of ’85. For starters, it was one of the rare videos that had dialogue in its midst to assist in building a story. It also had memorable visuals that established the conflict in the relationship. This wasn’t a generic couple drifting apart; it was a bohemian musician with striking looks dating a materialistic Yuppie. He wants her to jettison her dreams of being in a band so he can control her. Beyond his clothes and hair, this dude genuinely seems like a jerk. And maybe a rapist??? [5] The dramatic ending, when Mann rises from her seat in Carnegie Hall and begins singing, was a perfect match for the climax of the song. This is a tight, flawless piece of video art. The video alone is a 10/10.
Aimee Mann’s hair? Come on. It might not have been Flock of Seagulls level, but it was flamboyant and memorable. That rat-tail braid! I guarantee we were talking about it in my Little League dugout. I bet moms and grandmothers all over the country complained about how that “pretty girl on the music channel butchered her hair, and what was she thinking?”
And finally a story I learned while listening to this countdown.[6] Because Mann had been in a relationship with bandmate Michael Hausman, most people assumed “Voices Carry” was about their split.[7] Mann admitted she drew from elements in her life, but most of the track was modeled on a girlfriend’s romantic troubles.

Mann wrote about her pal’s breakup from the perspective of the ex-boyfriend. This was a problem. Many people who heard early demos assumed she was singing as Aimee Mann and about something she had experienced personally, not in the third person as a man. More directly, they thought Mann was singing about being in love with another woman. In 1985. Time to clutch some pearls!

Epic Records was not comfortable with this at all, assuming listeners in Middle America would never buy a record that could be interpreted as referencing a lesbian couple. Or, more likely, worried about an outcry from people who would never purchase it in the first place. Sigh. Mann adjusted her words so that the narrator’s voice was more obviously female.[8]

Did that lyrical change make a difference in the single becoming a hit? Maybe the video doesn’t work as well if the images didn’t line up exactly with the words, not that that stopped many totally nonsensical videos from creating hits in that era. I bet most people wouldn’t have noticed that disconnect. More likely you make a different video, which almost certainly doesn’t have the same impact.

I might be naive, but I’m not sure that Mann’s original lyrics would have driven people away from it. Hell, a lot of idiot, horned-up teenage boys might have bought more copies if they thought it was about an all-female relationship.[9]

Regardless, somewhere there is an aged record exec who still claims credit for giving ’Til Tuesday their only hit by forcing Mann to reframe it.

Now to the song itself. It mirrors the video in its economy. It quickly gets to its point, has a brief instrumental bridge, and builds to a satisfying end. Mann’s ominous, chugging bass notes set the mood instantly. Eerie synthesizers reinforce that this isn’t a song about a healthy relationship. In the opening verse Mann sings that her boyfriend’s response when she confesses her love is that she keep her voice down. That doesn’t seem good! I really like how all those elements are present from the beginning and the band gradually amps up the drama without drifting from the initial composition and tone. Each chorus is the perfect release from the tension that builds in the previous verse.

Mann’s lyrics are achingly sharp and concise, a masterclass of pop writing. She only really pushes her voice twice: first in the bridge, when she says that her partner just wants her to keep her in line, second in the closing section, where she stands and belts the outro at Carnegie Hall in the video. That’s when the song gets truly twisted. I was only 13, going on 14, when it came out, but I was old enough to be worried about what she had gone through to write a song like this. The sequence when she shouts “He said, shut up! He said, shut up! Oh God can’t you keep it down!” is glorious. You hear all the anguish this relationship has caused her and her confidence growing as she realizes sharing it with the world gives her the power in the relationship.

On her first radio hit, Aimee Mann wrote a classic that left a shadow she’s never escaped. From reading about her life, I think she’s fine with that. She’s built a comfortable and fruitful career, that while not loaded with Top 40 hits, has kept her busy for over 40 years.[10] You can pick up almost any album from her discography and find several songs to fall in love with.[11] Thank goodness she ditched that Yuppie and didn’t keep her voice down. 10/10

youtu.be/EymfJK-bE…

The original lineup played together in May 2025 for the first time in 35 years. ↩
She sang on Rush’s “Time Stand Still.” Last week she appeared on stage with the band at their LA show that kicked off their new tour. ↩
I included her song “Dear John” on my very first music podcast back in the spring of 2005. ↩
Super interesting to me is this review of her work that compares her directly to Neil Finn, among others. ↩
😬 ↩
My recording came from SiriusXM’s Big 80’s On Eight show, a rare surprise in my digital folders of countdowns. ↩
They must have gotten past their baggage; Hausman is her manager these days. ↩
Al Jourgensen of the band Ministry claims the song is about his affair with Mann. She admitted the song “No More Crying” is indeed about him, but said “Voices Carry” definitively is not. ↩
Teenage boys are weird and kind of gross. ↩
She’s been married to singer-songwriter Michael Penn for nearly 30 years. Imagine the music in that house! ↩
I’ve been listening to random songs from her catalog while writing this and, Good Lord, so many of them are terrific! ↩

Weekend Notes

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 07:40:54 -0400

It was a proper summer weekend. The weather was warm and got warmer and muggier as the weekend progressed. That turned into torrential downpours Sunday afternoon. We lazed in the pool when the weather allowed. Sunday S and I went to the graduation party for the daughter of one of her partners. As it poured we reminisced about M’s party getting broken up by similar storms, and said a little prayer that we get through L’s party next year without a deluge.

Summer Hoops

L began her final summer of high school basketball last week. CHS played two games Wednesday night then three in a shootout on Friday. They went 3–2 in those games, all against 4A teams. We looked pretty good in a couple, overmatched physically in a couple more. No complaints when the team had not had an official practice before playing Wednesday.

We have a new girl who is transferring in and is well over six feet tall. She has the potential of being a game-changer inside but has some rawness to her game she needs to work out.

L did ok. She scored seven in one of the losses, six in one of the wins, then only one point combined in the other three games. She started a couple games, but the coach is playing all kinds of weird lineups to see how girls work together so there’s no reading into when she is/is not on the court right now.

In one game L got knocked in the face and came out with a bloody nose. I was running the clock and got the ref’s attention so she could stop the game. On the way home L told me the ref came over to check on her. She popped out two fake teeth and told L, “This happened to me once when I got hit in the face in a game. Ref didn’t call anything then, either.” We both thought that was pretty funny.

The rules in Friday’s shootout were strange. To keep everything moving not only was there a running clock, but there also no free throws. If you got fouled on a shot, your team got one point and the ball. Unless you made the basket, then you got two points and the other team inbounded like after any made bucket. However, as we learned in our final game of the day, if it is closer than 10 points in the final minute, suddenly the clock stops and you do shoot free throws. Naturally this happened to our player who would totally get rattled by this, and she missed her free throw. We still won.

This week will be lighter with just two games but a full week of workouts around them.

House Projects

Thanks to our cool, wet May a number of projects around the house kept getting pushed back. We had planned them in a specific order: replace the pool liner, have a couple gutters and downspouts replaced, and then a crew comes in to drop new mulch. Naturally after all the delays everything happened in exactly the opposite order. Oh well, it all worked out. Our new pool liner looks great. The gutters held up under Sunday’s heavy rains. The mulch still looks terrific. It’s nice to have everything done and we can just enjoy the outside now.

By the way, it is an interesting process to pump out nearly 30,000 gallons of water when your neighborhood does not have storm sewers. Our guys connected a couple hundred feet of heavy duty hose to direct the water from our back yard to the front. This is when having a gigantic yard really pays off. It took at least 10 hours to empty the pool. The crew started it around 5:30 Monday afternoon and it was still going when I went to bed at 11:30 that night. At some point the water got below the pump and it cut off. I started it again at 6:00 AM Tuesday. When the crew showed up at 9:00 they dropped two more small pumps to get it all out. The birds really enjoyed all that water, as it drove worms to the surface. All our robins looked extra fat and happy.

NBA Finals

Well this was unexpected. I figured the series would be moving to game three in New York tonight tied or the Spurs up 2–0. But the freaking Knicks seem to be a team of destiny and just might have broken the Spurs’ will with two come-from-behind wins in San Antonio last week. I really fear the most likely outcome now is a Knicks sweep. Which, ugh…

Traveller Update

M was in Lisbon over the weekend, where she was supposed to spend the entire spring semester before the country changed its visa rules. We talked to her Saturday morning and she was, again, having a great time. Great food, amazing architecture, wonderful people. Looking forward to seeing all her pics and hearing more stories once she has a chance to catch her breath.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 06:57:04 -0400

Looking at the calendar, we’ve reached Silly Season for my Friday music posts. This week L and I have to be out of the house at 7:00 AM for an all-day basketball tournament. In the next month or so I will be leaving the house early on a Friday for a weekend in Chicago, spending a long weekend in Colorado for a wedding, and another week I will be in Ireland on music day. Oh, and July 4 hits on a weekend this year. Never fear; for the most part I’ll still be able to post something on Fridays over that stretch. A few of the playlists might be lighter than usual as I complete them earlier in the week and schedule them to drop on Friday.

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“Cross My Heart” - Lime Garden
Some fun, sunny, summer pop.

“Freaking Out” - Michigander
One lyric required me to slot this in as song #2.

“Heart Has To Work So Hard” - Blondshell
She’s not really breaking any new ground here, but I continue to be a fan of most of what Sabrina Teitelbaum releases.

“Look For Your Mind” - The Lemon Twigs
Paul McCartney’s new album is certainly a throwback to the early Beatles sound. This sounds straight off an early Fab Four disk. Wait, this isn’t McCartney or the Beatles? Uncanny audio resemblance.

“What We Got” - Mike D
The surviving Beastie Boys have long said they will not make music again. That was limited to proper Beasties music, apparently, as Mike D has dropped a couple solo singles. This is the most Beasties of the two. I’m not complaining.

“Real Here Now” - Nick Hakim
I don’t know a thing about Hakim but must admit I was surprised that it is him actually singing here, not just a track he produced with a guest vocalist. Yes, I thought it was a lady singing. Mesmerizing.

“Simple Creed” - Live
This week’s Alternative Number Ones column covered Live’s ridiculous 1997 track “Lakini’s Juice.” That might be the moment the Alt Rock Revolution of the Nineties died. As usual with a band’s final chart topper, Tom Breihan laid out the rest of Live’s career and I had totally forgotten this track from 2001, which I actually liked quite a bit. Like so much of what I was listening to at that time, as alt rock radio was dying away, I discovered it on the MusicMatch cable TV music channels, then found a copy on Napster and burned it onto CD-R’s that I listened to at work. Holy time machine! I still think this track is solid, although several of Ed K’s lyrics make me laugh out loud. He should never have tried to act tough.

“Junebug” - Kevin Morby
Morby’s new album, Little Wide Open, is amazing. It is a gentle, comforting celebration of life in the Midwest. It is a perfect Sunday morning listen.

“Head On” - Ducks Ltd. featuring illuminati hotties covering the Jesus And Mary Chain
A delightful cover to wrap up this week.

[youtu.be/1KnK3z6DK...](https://youtu.be/1KnK3z6DKaI?si=In1OlUHCrZMHe1Av)

“Summer Breeze” - Seals & Crofts
I promised you last week you wouldn’t have to wait long for S&C’s version of this. You know I appreciate the random bits of trivia shared in the middle of this performance. Also I really wanted to hear what the host was about to say when this cuts off. I bet it was interesting!

Wednesday Links

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 14:35:07 -0400

Brian Phillips lists some of the many ways tech makes our lives harder, more infuriating, etc.

4. Please, please stop asking me to verify my humanity by clicking on tiny motorcycles.

OMG YES!!!!

The 40 Most Rage-Inducing Problems in Tech

And John Gruber wrote about a very specific example of how tech can trigger us.

If you visit a website you should … see the website. See its content. Be able to read the article whose page you are attempting to visit. Showing a “subscribe to our newsletter” or “accept our fucking cookies” dickover to someone trying to read an article on the web makes no more sense than sending out an email newsletter that only contains a link to read the newsletter on a webpage. A webpage should show the webpage. An email should show the email. I should not have to explain this.

What Is a Dickover?

Want to review the last 17 NCAA tournaments and how they should have been seeded? This is guaranteed to piss you off by reminding you of at least one year your team got screwed by the NCAA’s often nonsensical seeding process. In a side conversation among KU fans I was reminded that after the 2016 screw-job, which somehow gave KU the #1 overall seed BUT ALSO put arguably the second-best team in the tournament as their #2 AND shipped them away from where everyone had assumed KU would go for months (Chicago), that the NCAA began allowing the #1 overall seed to pick its region. Fuck those guys.

Revisionist History: Re-Seeding Every NCAA Tournament Since 2011 Using WAB

It must be exhausting to be Caitlin Clark, for many reasons. We are just a few weeks into the WNBA season and she’s already at the center of multiple manufactured “controversies.” Hell, like three more have popped up since this piece was written last week.

The great Seerat Sohi tackles the situation and shows how Caitlin seemingly can’t win no matter what she does or says.

I have some issues with Clark’s behavior on the court, but I don’t think every time she chases a referee and complains about a call or talks shit to someone after dropping a 30-footer in the face should be an opportunity for a capital D Discussion.

Clark can be a sinner or a saint.
She can be a turnover-spouting disaster or a logo-hurling hero. She can be a victim, a trash-talker, a crybaby, or an unfairly maligned savior.

What the algorithm cannot afford is for her to be normal.

The Caitlin Clark Machine Is Turning on Caitlin

I will always celebrate people dunking on Elon Musk.

As I looked out onto the Spring Mountains, ancient and magnificent, I thought about how true wisdom is knowing when innovation is unnecessary. Some things, like subways, are fundamental for a reason. We figured them out in 1863, and there’s simply no reason to start from scratch. But I suppose there are two types of people in this world: those who gaze at the mountains and see their beauty, and the ones who think, “I could drill a hole through that.”

I rode Elon Musk’s Vegas Loop, the worst transit system on Earth

I fell into a YouTube rabbit hole the other night about the use of drones in the war in Ukraine. Here are two of the better vids.

The Ukrainian Stunt Pilot Hunting Russian Drones

On the Front Lines With Ukraine’s Killer Drone Pilot

Finally, an awesome use of math to reconstruct how many shots Wilt Chamberlain blocked.

May Media

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 08:40:15 -0400

Movies, Shows, Etc.

Your Friends & Neighbors, season two One episode left. There was a rather large cliffhanger at the end of episode nine that I was expecting to drop in #10,[1] so we’ll see what Friday’s finale has in store.

Incomplete

There’s Something About Mary A month or so ago I came across this on cable and watched for about 10 minutes. A couple weeks later it turned up on Netflix just when its Rewatchables episode dropped, which was the perfect excuse to watch it, front-to-back, in unedited form. It doesn’t hit as hard as it did when it was first released, simply because its humor was so new and unique to that time. But it is still funny as hell. And 1998 Cameron Diaz? Forgetaboutit. Nearly every supporting actor was great, but Matt Dillon was on another level.

National Lampoon’s Animal House Another Rewatchables entry. As you might expect, there are several scenes that do NOT hold up. There are still plenty of laughs but the cringe factor in those problematic parts is so high that it highlights how the movie is the classic Dumb Comedy that is more a series of sketches than a coherent whole. And, I guess, this set that standard that so many movies over the next decade followed. This may be controversial but John Belushi’s Bluto doesn’t hold up super well, either. Now, Tim Matheson as Otter was brilliant. That part was written for Chevy Chase, which is pretty obvious, but even in Chevy’s prime, I think Matheson played the role better. There is an open sincerity to Matheson’s acting that would not be present in Chevy’s take. Of course, ironic that those two would star in Fletch together, mostly because they looked similar. And young Karen Allen? Classic Girl Nextdoor beauty.

B+

The Bear: Gary This surprise, one-off episode of The Bear summed up so much of what is great and maddening about the series. There were so many terrific moments, notably Mikey and Richie’s easy rapport with people from all walks of life. However, when Mikey has his meltdown, while reminiscent of the glorious mess that was “Fishes,” it missed for me. It was a compelling performance, but I kept wondering how this fit into the broader story. I guess it showed that Mikey was struggling well before his suicide (which was three years later according to folks who connected dots better than me). But we know the Berzatto family and how they’re all damaged emotionally. After seeing this, a dozen questions about Mikey or Richie or anyone else in the show weren’t suddenly answered.

Perhaps I was looking too hard for bigger, broader meanings. Perhaps it was just a fun exercise for Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Jon Bernthal to write a stand-alone episode and show off while filling in backstory for their characters. I liked it, but did not love it.

But that ending!?!?! I’ve read season five begins the morning after season four ended. Was the final 30 seconds part of that? If so, holy shit!

One Battle After Another I didn’t know nearly enough about this movie going in. Yes, I knew it won the Oscar for Best Picture, along with several other awards. I knew it focused on Leonardo DiCaprio trying to find a missing daughter. From there, though, I figured it was a standard “Give me back my child!” movie that was just very well written and acted.

Thus I was completely surprised and thrilled when, about an hour into the flick, the tone changed and it became as much a comedy as a drama. At least that’s the way I took it. And the last 30–45 minutes is where you see why it won Best Picture, as it becomes a master class of movie making. The three-car chase scene was amazingly shot.

Another thing I did not know: the actress who played Willa grew up right here in Indy. In fact, she graduated from high school right across the street just a couple weeks before we moved into our current home.

When this came out I read a lot of online discourse about it, some folks saying it was one of the best movies they had ever seen, others not getting the hype at all. I fall in the middle somewhere. Excellent movie, entertaining, great performances, wonderful to watch for the pure visuals. Did it deserve Best Picture? Since I’ve not seen any of the other contenders yet I can’t really answer that, but it wasn’t quite good enough, for me, to reach classic status.

A-

Tucci In Italy, season two More gorgeous food/travel television.

I Bought The Worst House I Could Afford Beau Miles’ mid-life crisis looks like it will be amazing content for the next couple years!

So, we found this ruin We hadn’t watched this for several months and did some catching up. They finally started making some progress! Their most recent update was of work done a year ago so maybe they are getting close to being done now???

I was not expecting this exact scenario, but I did think something bad would happen to the character that was (redacted) in episode nine. ↩

Weekend Notes

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0400

A weekend with some big sporting events to discuss.

Hibachi

I did some Good Dad stuff to start the weekend. L’s favorite restaurant is a hibachi place near us. Since I got a Blackstone grill last year I’ve made a far-less-elaborate home version a couple times. She had bragged about my skills to her friends and requested that I cook up a meal for her crew.

Not everyone was able to make it but I did cook for a total of 10 people Friday night. It turned out pretty good, or at least all the girls complimented me. It was A LOT of food and I didn’t quite have the timing down right. Plus my propane tank went empty in the middle and I had to do a quick swap in the midst of finishing the steak.

CL Final

Saturday was the UEFA Champions League final in Budapest. I can’t call myself a true Arsenal fan - my goal last fall was to watch more of their games without much success - but rather a follower. I literally follow a few Arsenal fan accounts, follow their scores, follow their news, without the full investment that comes with being a proper fan. It was cool they won their first Premier League title in 20 years this season, but I watched the tiniest fraction of those games.

I was definitely pulling for them to prevail Saturday. And things looked pretty good when they took the lead over favored Paris Saint-Germain just six minutes into the game.

It was a strange contest from that point. PSG dominated possession, holding the ball over 70% of the time, but the Arsenal defense was so stout that the high-flying French team could not create chances.

An Arsenal penalty (deserved) allowed PSG to tie the game midway through the second half, but the remainder of regular time, and extra time, was the same. PSG passing the ball around with no idea what to do while Arsenal created the occasional counter attack. In fact, PSG seemed to pretty much give up in extra time, hoping to get to penalty kicks. Arsenal had one last corner kick opportunity in the closing seconds but could not break the tie.

PKs. The worst way to determine a champion.

Two Arsenal players got too cute and missed, PSG had just one of theirs saved. The trophy went back to Paris and Arsenal were denied their first-ever Champions League title.

If I’m only the most casual of Arsenal fans, why am I sharing all this? Well…

Travels

…because M was in Paris for the weekend. And watched the game at a restaurant in the city, surrounded by PSG fans. She sent us a video of people celebrating when PSG tied the game. She said the place went bonkers when PSG won, everyone throwing drinks about. Her group escaped dryly but a table next to them was thoroughly drenched in the deluge.

Later she FaceTimed us from under the Eiffel Tower which was lit up in PSG colors for the night. The large Saturday evening crowds were heavier than normal and you could see/hear fireworks being shot in celebration. She timed her trip well!

Sounds like the rest of her weekend was successful and she made it back to Nantes safely last night.

The heat in France has finally broken. Her AirBNB does not have air conditioning so she and her roommates roasted all last week. She said only a few of their classrooms have AC, too, and after making the Americans sweat for a day, they moved them into the cooled rooms the remainder of the week. Privilege much? She said the tram they take to and from school was rather stinky at the end of the day, too. We reminded her that she could be home working like most of her friends.

Next weekend she’s off to Lisbon.

Western Conf Finals

What an ending to the WCF! Despite knowing that San Antonio was absolutely capable of pulling off the win, it was still stunning when it happened late Saturday. Perhaps most stunning because they controlled almost the entire game in Oklahoma City. SGA was amazing through about 44 minutes, yet he looked completely spent and unable to do anything in the closing minutes. How often have you seen a 27-year-old, 2-time MVP look wrecked in a situation like that? The Thunder were throwing bad passes and shooting airballs, while the Spurs were getting steals and seemingly every rebound while making huge shot after huge shot. Basically the Thunder played like the inexperienced team and the Spurs played like the defending champs.

I don’t think OKC should feel too bad about the result. They barely had Jalen Williams in the series and lost Ajay Mitchell during it. Chet Holmgren was terrible, like so bad you question everything about his game. Credit for that goes to the Spurs for getting so deeply in his head he couldn’t catch a pass Saturday night. Meanwhile the Spurs injured players got more healthy as the series went on.

Fully healthy, I bet OKC wins game seven. But you never know, Victor Wembanyama is a force like we’ve never seen in the NBA in our lifetimes and may just be good enough to have overcome anything the Thunder threw at him.

And now I can watch the NBA Finals because it won’t be two teams I dislike.

KU Baseball

The dream run continues for KU baseball. They swept through their regional over the weekend, beating Northeastern and then Arkansas twice to advance. I watched parts of Sunday night’s game. Not the best parts, as I missed KU scoring 11 unanswered runs to erase an early Arkansas lead. Each time I turned it on the Razorbacks would score so I kept switching to other things. I follow the final inning on the ESPN app rather than watching it so I didn’t jinx them.

I don’t really understand how college baseball works but I think if Georgia Tech wins tonight, KU will travel to Atlanta for the Super Regional. If Oklahoma wins the Sooners will go to Lawrence. But I honestly have not paid a ton of attention to college baseball in my life so I could be totally wrong.

Also Super Regionals is a dumb name.

Anyway, Rock Chalk, bitches.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 29 May 2026 07:39:51 -0400

Unlike last week, I had almost too much music to pick from today. Let’s see how well I do editing.

(One track, marked with ***, is not available in Spotify and I’m too lazy to adjust. Another vote for Apple Music…)

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5bAXlJdaqd9CNcs2z4mtot?si=502f487273e6430a)

“Summer Begins” - The Proctors
Let’s go!

“The Weak” - Iceage
This is what The Strokes wanted to sound like but never did. The Strokes were never cool enough to have a deranged flute solo, either.

“Price Of It All” - Jorja Smith
I can’t find where any of the music sites I follow wrote about this, so I’m really not sure where I came across it. I sure am glad that I did, though.

“Call It In” - Editors
The first new music from Editors in four years. Worth the wait.

“No Lock, No Prayer” - Snarls
These Ohio kids came out of nowhere to earn my second favorite song of 2020 ranking. They were all barely 20 then. You’re hearing some maturity on this track. It also sounds very turn-of-the-millennium-y.

“Trapeze Baby” - The Laughing Chimes***
I finally get to play their music in a season that matches their sound!

“Mulberry” - Body Type
Purple Rain reference. Joyous guitar pop. Australian band. What’s not to like?

“Believe In You” - Jacuzzi Fire
I think it is mostly the drums, but this sounds exactly like dozens of bands I heard opening for bigger groups in places like The Bottleneck and The Hurricane in the mid–90s.

“Prophecy At 1420 Mhz” - Boards of Canada
According to Wikipedia the title of this “…is a reference to the frequency of the 21-centimeter line, commonly associated with the search for extraterrestrial life and the Wow! signal.” OK then. I was thinking kilohertz, not megahertz, so assumed it was about Bible prophecy AM stations. Cool ass song, though.

[youtu.be/BsVGbV_j2...](https://youtu.be/BsVGbV_j2aY?si=y6omyk1VHjoOK1s7)

“Summer Breeze” - The Isley Brothers
Don’t worry, Seals & Crofts will get some love before the summer is over.

Reader's Notebook

Wed, 27 May 2026 08:23:20 -0400

Polostan - Neal Stephenson I’ve not read a Stephenson novel since 2010. The blurbs for this one got me interested enough to pick one up again.

This book, which kicks off a new series, takes place primarily in the 1920s and 1930s, flipping between the Soviet Union and US. At the heart of it is Dawn/Aurora, a young woman born in St. Petersburg, primarily raised in Montana, but who eventually flees back to the USSR after her father is killed in an attack on World War I veterans by a fascist wing of the US Army.

Dawn/Aurora is a remarkable woman. She is fluent in both Russian and English. Thanks to her youth in Montana, she can ride horses and is a fine polo player. Thanks to her parents’ radical politics, she learns how to do fun stuff like purchase weapons illegally and transport them across state lines. She is hunted by US agents, stumbles into scientific experiments in the east and west that are clearly leading to the development of nuclear weapons, held captive and tortured by both Americans and Russians, and manages to land on her feet in both countries. Despite her communist leanings, by the end of the book she is plotting a way to escape the USSR, setting up a very long game of a scheme with a British journalist.

I couldn’t begin to guess where book two will take her. I’ll definitely read it when it comes out, though.

Apple: The First 50 Years - David Pogue I’ve read tons of books about Apple, including a couple written by Pogue. Given the occasion this was written for, I felt obligated to tackle it, even if much of it would be repeated stories I’ve consumed before (although perhaps forgotten).

The book really shines in reliving the first 20 years of Apple, when it kind of accidentally stumbled into greatness then spent the better part of a decade trying to fuck everything up. Knowing where the company landed, it is fascinating to see how it worked through its growing pains.

The section of the Steve Jobs 2.0 era is also good, as that was one of the most explosive periods of growth in any company’s history. Again, even knowing where the company is today, it is almost unbelievable how good Apple was in the 2000s, from the arrival of the iMac, the explosion of the iPod, and the world-changing effects of the iPhone.

Naturally, the post-Steve Jobs section was the least interesting. Part of that is because the company isn’t as compelling anymore. It’s just a behemoth that cranks out products that get a little better each year without doing anything surprising or spectacular. It is also because we are living in that era, and it is much harder to write with distance from it. Thus that section felt like a recitation of specs and release dates without the added context the earlier eras got.

Unfortunately my library did not get the hardback version of the book at its initial release, so I went with the Kindle version. I’ve heard the hardback is a spectacular visual experience thanks to all the photos of products over the years. The grainy, greyscale, e-ink Kindle pics just can’t compare. I may have to check out the proper book at some point just to look at the photos.

The Cormorant Hunt - Michael Idov I read the first book in this series a year ago. That I didn’t remember much about it, nor could I connect this to it, says a lot about each book.

A rogue CIA agent, who is fleeing from at least three different agencies trying to find him. An ambitious deputy director in Langley who is the only person who believes in him. A mysterious criminal organization with funding from Russia that is killing people across Europe who might oppose them. A podcaster decrying the collapse of western culture at the expense of propping up people who aren’t white males. I’m not sure the story was super coherent. But, as I say often, at least it was a quick read.

I guess there are more to come in this series but I’m thinking this will be my last time reading one.

Weekend Notes

Tue, 26 May 2026 10:09:33 -0400

The first weekend of summer has passed. Based on the forecast for the next week or so, it looks like Monday Mother Nature finally decided to get her act together and push the cool, rainy weather away. I swam my first laps of the year Monday and we sat outside much of the day, enjoying the sun. L might have enjoyed it a little too much. It’s a good thing summer basketball does not start for a week as she’s sporting a sunburn that would not feel got to set screens with.

A bonus of the good weather is that we might finally get some contractors we’ve been waiting on for weeks to show up and do their work. Our landscapers are supposed to be here later today to begin the annual spring cleanup/mulching service, only two weeks late because of rain. We are also weeks late getting some gutters replaced. If the weather holds that work should be done Friday. We were supposed to get our pool liner replaced a month ago, but that project requires very specific weather conditions over 48 consecutive hours, which we did not get at any point over that span. We had the crew go ahead and open the pool last Monday so it would be usable over the holiday weekend. With the other contractors here this week, now the pool guys get pushed to at least next week. Of course this week looks PERFECT for pool work. Hopefully next week will be as perfect and we can the liner swapped out.

This year we had our family Memorial Day weekend gathering on Sunday, coinciding with the Indy 500. Thanks to the early sell out, we were able to watch it live for the third-straight year.[1] It was a small group for us, only 16 people. While it was not bright and sunny, it was still warm enough for the three nephews to swim most of the day. I grilled, the rest of the family provided the rest of the meal. We sat and ate and visited and watched the race. Not a bad afternoon.

The weather held off just long enough for the kids to wear themselves out and the race to finish. About 15 minutes after the checkered flag dropped in Speedway, decent showers moved into our part of town. No thunder or lightning, but a good soaking that lasted an hour or so.

Indy 500

Good grief what a great race! Or at least the last ten laps. Two cautions, a red flag, and two super tense restarts resulted in the closest finish in 110 Indy 500s. Those of us gathered around our TV were all screaming and yelling involuntarily as Felix Rosenqvist shot past David Malukas at the last possible moment to win by 0.02 seconds. Truly an amazing finish. Malukas’ lengthy, emotional reaction to coming up literally inches short was uncomfortable to watch. It is cruel that three hours of work can be judged by that small of a margin.

I’ve written many times over the years about the quirky Indianapolis tradition for folks who don’t go to the race and (normally) can’t watch it on live TV: listening to it on the radio. If you drive around neighborhoods or go to a local pool or lake, you will hear the broadcast coming from all directions as people turn the volume up to listen while doing yard work, floating in the water, etc.

Below is the final lap as called on radio. You get a feel for what makes this broadcast so entertaining, as the announcers stationed around the track pass the call seamlessly to each other as the cars make their way around the oval.

youtu.be/fR7Db5KRa…

It is a production marvel that is always much better than the TV broadcast. Which is wild because most of the radio guys are locals who do one race a year while the TV crews, regardless of network, cover races all year.

Earlier last week I caught a replay of last year’s race while working out. Watching that reminded me of how many ways Fox messed up taking over the race last year. I was not as closely tuned in this year since we had guests. I remain annoyed a Brit is the main announcer. C even asked me “Why is he doing this race?” I was extra annoyed because on top of his accent, I just do not like his announcing style. I was most annoyed because he calls the people who live in the great state of Indiana “Hoo-zee-ers.”

What in the actual fuck, dude?

When I expressed disgust both C and L reminded me that I am not a Hoosier. Which, I replied, “Thank God for that.” I was still super annoyed on their behalves.

I’m sure Fox really Foxed up the rest of the race but that was the only thing that really jumped out at me. At least they showed the winning car crossing the finish line, unlike last year.

NBA Playoffs

What a contrast the conference finals have been. The Knicks completed their sweep of the completely overmatched Cavaliers last night. The Cavs did not belong on the same court as the Knicks, and everyone on that bench should be embarrassed by their performance over the past week.

The Knicks are a problem? They’ve lost two games, by one point each, in the playoffs. Both of those in their opening series with Atlanta and under semi-flukey circumstances. They could easily be 12–0. Even with the Eastern Conference falling apart for them, this was unexpected. If I knew any Knicks fans I would remind them the only reason they are in the Finals is because the Pacers weren’t around to beat them again this year.

In contrast, the Western Conference finals produced one of the best games I’ve ever seen, game one’s double overtime masterpiece, then wild swings in the next three games. Oklahoma City and San Antonio are two heavyweights taking turns throwing body blows at each other. This series is on a whole other level from the Eastern Conference finals. Even in Saturday’s easy Spurs win, you couldn’t stop watching because they were playing at such a high level and you also kept expecting OKC to make a big run and get back into the game. Wemby, Stephon Castle, and Dylan Harper are the best young trio of players since the 2010s Thunder?

The downside is the series is taking a tremendous toll on the players. Both teams are dealing with significant injuries to at least two players. It is a nightly drama whether De’Aaron Fox, Dylan Harper, Jalen Williams, and Ajay Mitchell will play, and if they do, how effective they will be.

The Knicks will get a full week off and then face a depleted foe in the Finals. We don’t need the Knicks winning a title. Part of their charm is that they are the franchise in the biggest city in the league and have been finding ways to piss away all their advantages for over half a century. The Knicks stumbling gives the rest of the league hope. If they are suddenly competent and good, that could upset the balance of the entire league.

And, to be honest, over the past year I’ve built up some solid hate for OKC. If it ends up being them against the Knicks, I may just take the Finals off as I’m not sure I can bring myself to root for either team.

Royals

I received an unexpected and delightful text from old friend of the blog Newman a few weeks back. He was in the state for his oldest’s graduation from IU and checked in. This was right when the Royals were on a bit of a hot streak and we celebrated their seeming turn-of-the-corner in our thread.

Obviously we jinxed them: since then they are 3–11.

Just reinforcing my decision not to pony up for the MLB TV package and give Crooked Rob Manfred and the owners more money.

World Traveller Update

M’s first week in France went well. She got an A in her first class of the session. She and her roommates are getting along and having a great time. There’s another big group of UC students joining them this week.

It was also a three-day weekend in France,[2] so she and her roommates hopped a flight to Barcelona and spent the weekend there. She FaceTimed us from the beach twice Sunday so she could catch us all. They were having a fantastic weekend.

She arrived back in Nantes safely Monday night and is ready for week two, which includes a social marketing class and a weekend trip to Paris. Not a bad way to spend a summer.

The last two years because of sell outs, two years ago because of a lengthy weather delay that pushed it into the window when it would normally air on taped delay in Indy. ↩
I assume for different reasons than ours. ↩

Emergency Monday Video

Mon, 25 May 2026 08:28:02 -0400

It is a Monday holiday, which normally would mean no posts. But with the horrible news Friday that hip hop legend Rob Base had passed at the age of 59, it seemed rude not to share the video of his biggest hit.

“It Takes Two” came out of nowhere in the fall of 1988 and became a timeless classic. I did some rough calculating last night and figured that the song has been played at 87% of wedding receptions since then. EVERYONE loves this song and it is guaranteed to get people moving.

My “It Takes Two” story is that after the video debuted on Yo! MTV Raps, it was difficult to find the record. My group of young, hip hop heads had a regular rotation of music stores we shopped at. We had tried them all but could not find it. At this point in the song’s life cycle, I believe it because there just weren’t that many copies that had been produced, let alone shipped to the greater Kansas City area.

However, someone in our extended circle at Raytown High School had found it at a more “urban” record store. I distinctly remember sitting in the back of math class and a friend writing down the directions on a piece of paper, directions that had come to him at least second hand, but which he had tested out the previous evening with success. Later I found my closest brother in music, John N, to share the exciting news. We checked each other’s schedules and made plans to trek to this musical oasis after school. Which we did successfully.[1]

I like to think that when we go to that record store we laughed as other white kids from the suburbs who knew what was up were also milling about, looking for the Rob Base cassette.

A similar process would play out 25 years later, when the microbrew craze hit, and hipster dads lived in text threads that tracked when rare brews landed at local stores. I remember going to Trader Joe’s and seeing several dads that looked a lot like me hoping TJ’s limited shipment of Zombie Dust had not sold out yet.[2]

This song also contains one of the most mis-heard/misunderstood lines of all time:

Don’t smoke buddha, can’t stand sess, yes

I know I was one of many who, for at least a while, thought he was saying he couldn’t stand “sex,” which confused me. Who couldn’t stand sex??? Turned out buddha and sess were nicknames for marijuana. Not close to the same things! Good for him for taking a stand, although I wonder if he was like Dr. Dre in “Express Yourself” and sharing a view that was good for getting your song played but not necessarily accurate to how he lived.

This video is thoroughly delightful. It is one of the final, great, lo-tech videos of the early hip hop age. They had to have made it for a thousand bucks, right? Biz Markie makes a cameo!

“Joy and Pain” was also an incredible party song, but “It Takes Two” is an absolute all-timer, and I hope Base lived well off of it. If you go to a wedding this summer, make sure the DJ spins it. RIP to Rob and to DJ EZ Rock, who passed in 2014.

[youtu.be/phOW-CZJW...](https://youtu.be/phOW-CZJWT0?si=26LrNZCKPL1lgCwa)

This is how I remember it. I can’t guarantee it is completely accurate. ↩
Now you can buy cases of Zombie Dust at Costco. What a world. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 22 May 2026 07:36:30 -0400

As you can guess by the lack of activity on this website, it was a busy week for me. In strange ways, which we may or may not get to next week. Because of that, my working playlist for today was half-formed, at best. Good thing it is Memorial Day weekend, though. That unlocks multiple fun tracks for us.

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2cr7kkygbqwDEN78Z4s9cG?si=8103dce8ce38414d)

“Constructive Summer” - The Hold Steady
Raise a toast to Saint Joe Strummer, I’m seeing THS live in three weeks! I’m also going to build something this summer. Not sure what, but something.

“Other Side” - Rosali
Songs about reuniting with your dead homies shouldn’t sound this fun.

“In The Stars” - The Rolling Stones
Not nearly as good as “Angry,” their out-of-nowhere rocker from 2023. This is a pleasing enough track, but very little about it feels like the Stones. Not even like a Stones knock-off band. It’s too clean and shiny for that.

“Where Have All The Good Men Gone?” - Debbii Dawson
DD sounding like Lauren Mayberry of Chvrches here.

“Boat Garage” - hey, nothing
Memorial Day weekend might be the only time I miss having a boat, more for the ritual of taking the first group of friends of the season out for a ride while we listened to the Indy 500 on the radio. I don’t think this song is about that. It is a banger, though.

“Long Weekend” - Cut Worms
I’ve been sitting on this track for nearly a month waiting for this weekend. You don’t have to try too hard to hear some Marshall Crenshaw in it.

“Snack City” - Le Sécurité
Lots of early New Wave in this one, and it seems like the perfect setup track for one of our Memorial Day weekend traditions…

“My Friend Dario” - Vitalic
The Indy 500 sold out early enough that us locals will get to watch it live on TV for the second-straight year. Dario Franchitti did some TV commentary during practice last week.

[youtu.be/Kr0tTbTbm...](https://youtu.be/Kr0tTbTbmVA?si=aiga1QXjJZQ594j9)

“Summertime” - DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince
DRUMS PLEASE!!!!

Happy beginning of summer to everyone!

Weekend Notes

Mon, 18 May 2026 07:56:48 -0400

Another relatively unexciting weekend for us, with one notable exception. Saturday was rainy and lazy, the kind of day when you look out the windows and think it is in the 50s and are surprised to step outside and find it is actually near 70. Sunday was much better, approaching hot in the afternoon with big, warm gusts of wind. We power washed the pool cover for the second time - it is always a two-step process to get the winter crap off and prevent a build up of spring pollen - and did some other outdoor work before having the in-laws over for dinner.

Oh, Sunday was also the day we suddenly had two 20-something kids in the family. Or I should say ladies, more properly. It was C’s chance to age out of teen-dom. She got a special Starbucks order in the morning, she picked the dinner choice for the evening. Otherwise she had a fairly chill birthday.

M’s Summer Adventure Begins

The big family event of the weekend was M getting on a plane Friday afternoon and heading to France for two months. Her flights were uneventful and we got a text just after 4:00 AM Saturday telling us she had made it to Paris. It worked out really well that one of her current roommates, sorority sisters, and best friends just happens to be one of her roommates in France. And lives 10 minutes from us here in Indy. So they flew from here to Detroit and Detroit to Paris together.

After working through immigration they grabbed an Uber to head to the main train station. She sent us videos of driving around the Arc de Triomphe and near the Eiffel Tower. Once at the train station they chilled for a couple hours before the nearly three-hour trip to Nantes, their home for the next seven weeks.

Sunday afternoon (our time) M FaceTimed us and gave us a video tour of the Air BNB where they are staying. She loves it and the area they are in. One of her other best friends lived in it last summer, so it came highly recommended. Her only complaint was after crashing Saturday evening and sleeping well into Sunday, they discovered the grocery store nearest to them is only open for three hours on Sunday mornings. They were going to get up early and buy food this morning before their classes began.

She has two other roommates. I believe one is also from UC but the other is from somewhere else outside the US. Those girls had not yet arrived when we talked to her Sunday.

They are studying at the Audencia Business School. All classes are in English, which is fortunate since M speaks no French! We’ll see if she picks any up over the next two months.

They already have their first weekend trip planned, heading to Barcelona this coming weekend. They also get a three-day weekend as Monday is a bank holiday in France, so they’ll get plenty of time to explore.

I know several of you have sent your kids overseas to study and travel. I’m guessing you all had the same weird feeling I had when M left. You are proud of them and trust that they are adults with a support system and will be fine. But they are also across an ocean and if anything happens and she needs us, it will not be easy to get to her. It’s like sending her to college again, but in some ways not nearly as stressful while in other ways much more stressful.

We are excited to follow her journey and looking forward to seeing her again in London in two months.

This is L’s finals week, although she has just two tests. She took over M’s car while she is gone, C claimed her old car. We have a couple months before we need to add a fifth car to the family collection. Sigh.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 15 May 2026 08:03:00 -0400

Perhaps a bit of an edge to this week’s playlist thanks to the general theme of a few songs.

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3Bk62PyZlhdVd8BRiPVDDH?si=154a3e9b9e0c494c)

“American Dream” - Alabama Shakes
Brittany is letting people know!

“Heatin Park” - DMA’S
As if these Aussies haven’t already pushed the Manchester sound enough through their first four albums, now the lead single for LP5 is about a park in Manchester. I salute them for being completely committed to the bit!

“Yip Yip Yow” - Caroline Rose
This track rips! And yips!

“Should’ve Known Better” - The Beaches
More perfect, timeless pop from these ladies.

“The Standard Model” - MORN
(Beavis and Butthead bang heads) “YES! YES! YES!” Some IDLES via Wales vibes here.

“Big Stick” - MUNA
Well this is something completely different for MUNA. I like it.

“Hercules” - Tracey Nelson
If you’re catching MJ Lenderman feels on this one, that might be because Lenderman produced and played on this album for his pal Nelson. I don’t love any of the songs I’ve listened to, but felt compelled to share it since Nelson drew the artwork for the album cover himself. And it references something I love very much from his hometown in Kansas.

“Statue Down” - Alex Cameron
I read a preview of Cameron’s upcoming album this week that referred to him as an “Australian smart ass,” which I found both fitting and hilarious. Depending on your point of view, here he’s either making fun of people who want to tear down statues of people they disagree with, or noting how so many of the people we’ve put up statues for were actually awful. Since he’s a smart ass, I think there are elements of each point of view, but it leans more towards the later.

“Spring summer” - Smerz
Ahh the middle season in the Midwest. We’ve bounced between nice days in the 70s to others where it is only around 60° with winds that make it feel 10° cooler.

[youtu.be/Xi_F4RAMW...](https://youtu.be/Xi_F4RAMW3A?si=R99F24OyLtARerIk)

“1–2–3–4” - Feist
This week’s 60 Songs That Explain The ‘90s: The 2000s covered this classic. I had forgotten how Feist went from being a kind of odd, underground artist to this monster hit that also became one of the iconic iPod ads of that era nearly overnight. And how it sort of fucked her up and made her never want to have a song this big again.

As a bonus, Rob Harvilla played part of her appearance on Sesame Street, so let’s take a look at that, too.

[youtu.be/fZ9WiuJPn...](https://youtu.be/fZ9WiuJPnNA?si=37mnHab2avSMADT9)

The penguins are awesome. And I love how Feist has said people stop her in the airport and talk more about her appearance on Sesame Street than anything else she’s done. In an odd way that might be exactly what she needed.

Wednesday Links

Wed, 13 May 2026 12:29:08 -0400

After a long dry spell, I finally have some good stories from around the Internet to share.

This is an amazing piece of journalism that, so as to not provide spoilers, I will not attempt to describe. I think this passage at its close is the best summation:

Some stories take on a life of their own because they show how things really are. Others spread because they tell us what we already believe. And sometimes a story that’s too good to be true is just that.

The Incredible Story of the Cartel Olympics

A radio station in Cincinnati has changed its callsign to WKRP! Interestingly enough, it is owned by the same group that now owns WOXY, the callsign once owned by the streaming station of 20 years ago that fueled my love of indie rock. And now WOXY is rebroadcasting the WKRP feed. Radio is so weird these days.

That feed just happens to focus on music of the 70s and 80s, right in the pocket of what the fictional WKRP played.

WKRP

The band Los Campesinos! shared how much (or little) money they make from streaming services and album sales a year or so ago. They are back with a full detailing of the financials of touring. They are not a typical band in many ways, but I think their story reflects the reality of the music business these days for all but the biggest acts. It’s a wonder we still get new music or tours from anyone who doesn’t have a deep back catalog.

Los Campesinos! Break Down What It Actually Costs To Tour North America

Stephen Colbert is just about done at CBS. He did an exit interview with The Hollywood Reporter. Hopefully this link works, as it is to an Apple News article and those can be finicky.

“What kind of conversations have you had with Seth Meyers and the Jimmys on the subject? When I got canceled, the only other people I spoke to for days were those guys. I came up to my office [after making the announcement on-air] and flipped open my phone and we did a quick exchange. My favorite was Kimmel, who just said, “That’s a hell of an Emmy campaign.” I said, “Busted.”

The Stephen Colbert Exit Interview: “I Did Not Expect It to End This Way”

Staying in that same general subject area, I’m not a fan of Jimmy Fallon but even I think this take down of him is a little harsh. Barely.

The real, unsettling mechanism of Fallon’s banal horror is its insistence on a radical non-engagement with reality: a position that, in our current political climate, is itself an aggressively political act. Fallon doesn’t do politics, or if he does, he wants to “keep his head down” because “we hit both sides equally.” Tellingly, Donald Trump has called for the firing of almost all of the other late night hosts—Colbert, Kimmel, even Seth Meyers—but excluded Fallon from his hit-list, because Trump recognizes that there’s nothing about Fallon’s empty banality that could be anything close to a threat.

The Banal Horror of Jimmy Fallon

Finally, this was published before Steve Kerr signed a new, two-year contract to continue coaching the Golden State Warriors, so a few of the exchanges are not as relevant. That doesn’t prevent our most interesting and thoughtful NBA coach from sharing a lot of good insights on basketball, life, and current affairs.

How do you compare Jordan, your teammate, to LeBron James, who entered the league the year you retired? LeBron’s brilliance doesn’t lie in the same skill set that Michael’s did. It lies in more of a holistic game where he dominates with his pace and his athleticism and his passing. I’ve always felt scoring is secondary for LeBron, but he’s the greatest scorer in the history of the N.B.A.!

Has Steve Kerr Had Enough?

Weekend Notes

Mon, 11 May 2026 09:53:57 -0400

Not much went on this weekend in our house, so we’ll focus on a few basketball stories.

NBA Draft Lottery

So much for the Hoops Gods rewarding the Pacers for the heartbreaking loss of Tyrese Haliburton at the worst possible moment in the NBA Finals a year ago.

After a season of tanking, which only came about because basically the entire Pacers roster was legitimately injured for long stretches of the season,[1] the Pacers lost their first round draft pick to the LA Clippers thanks to the trade the teams made that brought Ivica Zubac to Indy in February.

It seemed like a reasonable risk to take at the time. Get a top 10-ish center who is a good match for Haliburton’s game with 50% odds at a top four pick this season.

Sunday the Pacers could only land in seven lottery spots. If they hit 1–4, they kept the pick. Five-through-seven, though, and the pick went to the Clippers.

When Dallas came up at nine, that meant the Bulls jumped to the top four. Then Brooklyn came up at six, moving Memphis into the top four. There were just three slots left for the Pacers, two safe, one not.

When the Clippers logo came up at five I cheered at first, not realizing the NBA had already accounted for the trade. That was the Pacers pick. Dammit.

Bill Simmons had the Pacers as #1 in his Draft Lottery Karma ratings going in, meaning that the Pacers deserved the top pick more than any other team. So much for karma. And the Hoops Gods are dead to me.

I don’t think the Pacers would have handled this season any differently had they known they would lose that pick. Again, almost the entire roster was legit injured at various points in the season. Only two players appeared in more than 70 games. They certainly were “extra cautious” with the rehabs of several players. Pascal Siakam could have played more in the last month of the season, for sure. But that just means this team wins 10–12 more games, still not enough to make the playoffs.

Losing that pick, though, changes the math of the Zubac trade dramatically. Now the Pacers gave up the #5 pick in the deepest draft in decades, another first round pick, a second round pick, Bennedict Mathurin, and Isaiah Jackson for one player. Yes, they needed a center, and Zubac is that. Yes, there weren’t any quality free agent big men hitting the market this summer, and if there were odds were they would not sign with the Pacers. Yes, Mathurin was going to get traded anyway and Jackson was always injured.

But holy shit, Zubac better hit now. If he’s not healthy, or we get to next spring and he can’t match up with Jalen Duren, Karl-Anthony Towns, Joel Embiid, or whatever Eastern Conference centers the Pacers face, that alone will determine the Pacers’ grade for the trade. If he can get the team back to the NBA Finals, it doesn’t matter who the Clippers pick, he did his job here.

Kevin Pritchard and Chad Buchanan just threw away the chance to extend the Pacers’ window and turned it into a one, two, maybe three if you squint hard enough, season opportunity. And that assumes Haliburton comes back 100% healthy and the team can somehow manage to change its injury luck.

There were questions of how a top four pick would fit into the current Indiana roster. How would AJ Dybantsa or Carlos Boozer slot into a front court that already had Zubac and Siakam? Darryn Peterson would join a backcourt that featured Haliburton, Andrew Nembhard, and Aaron Nesmith. How would those minutes get divvied up? More than any team, Caleb Wilson might have made the most sense for the Pacers as his game needs more refinement and you could bring him in slowly, in a reserve role, and hope he developed into a starter right as Siakam ages out of his prime years.

I had even started thinking of who the Pacers might trade to make room for Dybantsa, Booker, or Peterson.

So much for all that.

Seeing the Clippers logo come up Sunday was like a kick in the stomach. In reality, though, a top four pick would have been a pleasant bonus. The Pacers will begin next season returning four starters from game seven of the 2025 NBA Finals, and an upgrade in the one spot that features a new player. They are in a great spot for the immediate future. Even if they added one of those top four players, there are no guarantees that guy would extend the Pacers championship window.

It just sucks after months of assuming there would be some balance for losing Haliburton, that counter will not come in the form of a top pick in a generational draft.

The DP Saga Continues

Friday it was reported that Darryn Peterson claimed he began having his cramping issues last fall after taking a large dose of creatine, and it was just recently discovered that he has naturally high levels of creatine, which led to his body shutting down.

I have no idea how much of this is true. I’m not a sports medicine expert and haven’t seen his lab work.

It seemed like weird timing to figure this out, though. The story I read didn’t make it clear if he was taking the supplement on his own, or on the advice of KU’s training staff. And if they were doing all these tests during the season to figure out what the hell was going on, why had the cause just been determined?

To me, this just raises more questions than it answers. Since Peterson won’t be a Pacer, I’m done with the story. Hopefully he gets everything figured out and can move forward in Utah or Memphis or Chicago and have a successful career.

Jeez, maybe the Hoops Gods do exist, but are telling me I should focus on some other sport where there’s no controversy, stomach punches, or heartbreak. Soccer is drama free, right?

Fever

A bit of a dud by the Fever in their season opener, losing to Dallas in a really fun game. The Fever decided they didn’t need to play defense in the first half and dug a hole they could never fully pull themselves out of. Dallas has to be the most improved team in the league. Last July L and I watched the Fever beat them by approximately 1000 points. Saturday they controlled the game for most of the last three quarters. Paige Bueckers is legit.

The Fever might have as good of a top three as any team in the league, with Caitlin Clark, Kelsey Mitchell, and Aliyah Boston all scoring over 20 points Saturday. Second-year player Makayla Timpson has made huge leaps and looked fantastic at times Saturday. Raven Johnson might have been the steal of the draft, already causing havoc on defense and making terrific reads on offense.

The ABC crew said Saturday’s game was the first season opener in league history where both teams scored over 100 points. That seems impossible to be true.

The Fever just need to lock down better on D - I’m looking especially at you Caitlin - and they’ll be fine.

Unlike the Washington Wizards, owners of the #1 pick, who traded for two superstars then benched them for the remainder of the season to hold onto their draft odds. Or the Utah Jazz, picking second, who played their asses off for three quarters most nights, then sat top best players for the entire fourth quarter to steal losses from wins. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 08 May 2026 07:01:55 -0400

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2qXzUcQOdaiVAhbIYD5vSw?si=d2d865fe274e4e89)

“Chance Encounters” - The Menzingers
These guys almost always hit. I heard this for the first time about four minutes after I posted last week’s playlist.

“Like A Chump” - Mute Swan
This presents as a mid-point between shoegaze and early Madchester music.

“I Want To Remember Everything” - knitting
This also might have a hint of shoegaze to it, but also sounds very much like turn-of-the-millennium, MusicChoice-type rock. When there was still a hint of brooding grunge but music was also opening up to where indie rock would take land.

“Blue” - Yaya Bey
It’s taken me way too long to share this wonderful track, and for that I apologize. I love that Stereogum has started describing artists like Bey as “alt-R&B.”

“No Driver” - Widowspeak
Hot damn, this makes two fantastic tracks from Widowspeak this year!

“Heaven’s Night” - Holy Motors
One of those bands so new it is tough to find info about them. They fit right next to Widowspeak in current bands that owe a certain debt to Mazzy Star.

“Criminal Kissing” - IAN SWEET
A fun song about making bad decisions.

“Defeat” - Flock of Dimes
Not sure why or how I missed this song last year. Jenn Wasner can do no wrong.

[youtu.be/nBcbDS5AG...](https://youtu.be/nBcbDS5AGnk?si=rGmZKAPoGtkcUfEG)

“Head Rolls Off” - Frightened Rabbit
Make tiny changes. RIP, Scott.

Reader's Notebook, 5/6/26

Wed, 06 May 2026 15:21:02 -0400

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter - Stephen Graham Jones
My second Tournament of Books read of the year, I enjoyed this one more than the first. It falls into a genre I don’t usually have much interest in. However, its presentation was so unique that I really enjoyed it.

The novel is built around a diary found when a Montana building is being torn down in 2012. It was written by a Lutheran pastor in 1912, and in it he documents the “confession” of a Native American man, Good Stab. Good Stab had encountered a very odd individual over 40 years earlier. That very odd individual turned out to be a vampire. Despite being over 80 years old, Good Stab looks quite young. Of course, he, too, became a vampire after that encounter.

In his confession, he relates how his life changed after becoming a vampire: he could no longer stay in his village with his family, how he was transformed by the creatures he drank blood from, how he preyed upon the White men who were destroying the buffalo of the plains that the Natives relied upon, how he was eventually forced to prey on his own people.

That is all weird enough. The story is bookended by modern moments, in which the diary is presented to the pastor’s great-great granddaughter for documenting. The closing section adds an extra layer of weirdness when she has a pair of extremely odd encounters of her own that end in a bizarre yet pleasing set of acts.

The crossing of the mystical worlds of both the old and new worlds makes for a fascinating tale told extremely well. Even to a non-vampire story person like me.

Even the Good Girls Will Cry - Melissa Auf der Maur
Sometimes it is fun to read a random book you wouldn’t have normally picked up. I learned about this one when Auf der Maur, who was the bassist in Hole for five years and the Smashing Pumpkins for one before going solo, appeared on Yasi Salek’s Bandsplain podcast to discuss Hole’s “Boys On The Radio.” Auf der Maur was really interesting to listen to so I figured her book would be worth reading, if only for her takes on 90s indie and alt rock.

It turned out to be more of a proper memoir, detailing her unique childhood in Montreal and her introduction to the art world before getting to her unexpected path to become a musician and the roller coaster ride from nobody in an unknown Montreal band to Courtney Love’s sidekick. I had forgotten she was in a serious relationship with Dave Grohl for several years. I read his book four years ago, which shows how much these rock memoirs stick with me.

Not the best music memoir I’ve ever read, but it seemed like one of the most honest and was worth the time.

April Media

Mon, 04 May 2026 18:57:57 -0400

Movies, Shows, Etc.

Shrinking, season three Well God damn, they absolutely nailed the landing here. This season was very good, but I was a little annoyed throughout as it didn’t seem to be moving forward much. Or at least Jimmy wasn’t. And as the main character, it seemed like he should be doing more than treading water, even if that meant sinking. I was worried they were falling into the dreaded Season Three Problem of falling in love with the show’s cuteness and cozying up to that rather than taking chances. I don’t think they ever really took chances, but, woof, that final episode, notably the last five minutes. All set up by when they finally let Jimmy sink in the previous couple episodes. Can’t wait to see what season four holds. All the major players are back but Bill Lawrence has hinted at a very different direction.

Scrubs, season ten Only two episodes this month, wrapping up the show’s wonderful return. In terms of pure fan service, I’m not sure there’s been a better revival of a beloved show than this. Started off great, slowly worked to integrate the newer characters, and by the close of the season was locked in. Bringing back all the OG regulars except for Dr. Kelso was good work by Bill Lawrence.[1] As I’ve said last month, this show made me laugh more than any other “new” comedy I’ve watched in ages. ABC just announced Scrubs will return next year, a rare win for good in these horrible times.

Sicario I watched this again after listening to The Rewatchables episode about it. Terrific film. Does a lot and still checks in right at two hours, which is the greatest. I gave it an A- five years ago. I’m bumping it up.

Crime 101 A movie based on a Don Winslow novella? With some great actors? Hell yes, sign me up. It was probably 10–15 minutes too long (like most movies) and tried a little too hard in the closing scenes. But pretty entertaining overall.

B+

Untold: Jail Blazers I was SOOOOO excited when I heard about this documentary that covered the late ‘90s, early ‘00s Portland Trail Blazers. A team that was moments away from the NBA Finals in 2000 before blowing it and never getting back. But also a team more known for its bad behavior, on and off the court, thus the nickname “Jail Blazers.” While there were some good moments, I felt this gave way too much attention to general manager Bob Whitsitt, and focused on too few players. You never got a feel for the entire team, just three major players and one who was briefly on the roster. There’s a truly lamentable “fan” who complains about everything. There was far too much Colin Cowherd. It was a subject rich with opportunities for a legendary doc. This fell way short.

B-

The Pitt, season 2 Not many notes here. An utterly compelling and compulsive 15 hours of television will almost no wasted moments. A wonderful closing scene to wrap what was a tumultuous season. And then the mid-credits scene kicked in, a delightful departure from the general tone of the show. Season three can’t get here soon enough.

A+

Podcasts

60 Songs That Explain the ’90s: The 2000s I’ve been spotty with the new, 2000s version of this pod. But the recent episodes covering both The White Stripes and TV On The Radio were outstanding. And then the Radiohead one might have been Rob Harvilla’s finest hour. Specifically the first 30 minutes, when he recounts playing Radiohead tracks for Bay Area fourth graders in the early 2000s and having them share their thoughts via artwork. As he admits, he should probably be in prison based on some of their creations. I hope those kids got good therapy! I listened to this on my way back from Bloomington one day and cackled the entire time.

Lawrence has said “logistics” prevented Ken Jenkins from reprising Dr. Kelso this year, but wants to bring him back in season 11. ↩

Weekend Notes

Mon, 04 May 2026 11:04:38 -0400

Finally a weekend with a few more activities.

Crowded House

Saturday morning S and I drove down to Bloomington to move C home for the summer. She had brought some stuff when she came home for L’s prom, and was confident we could get everything into S’s Telluride. Man, it was close. We had pretty much every inch of space crammed full but we got everything in.

It was in the high 40s/low 50s when we got to her dorm making it a near-perfect day to move. We lucked out both ways this year, missing heat indexes over 100° by a day when we moved her in.

We stopped at her favorite bagel place to grab a late breakfast on our way out of town. Even with that, it was a four-hour round trip, which I was not mad about. I bet we saved an hour by getting there early when we could still park right at the front of the building and not have to wait on the elevator.

This week is actually IU’s finals week, but she only has one exam, coming up on Thursday, that she will go back for. All her friends were moving out so she decided to come home over the weekend, too.

Now our bonus room is again overrun with college crap. We moved a bunch of pool stuff out of the basement to give her space (more on that later), but she needs to get things organized upstairs before we can begin moving items to the basement.

BTW, if anyone in the Indy area needs to hire an almost 20-year-old, she desperately needs a job…

M also came home on Saturday. Friday was the last day at her spring co-op and most of her roommates were clearing out. She may go back to Cincy for a night or two as some girls who were overseas this semester will be rolling through. Then she leaves for her summer program in France on May 15.

L has two more weeks of classes followed by finals, wrapping up her junior year on May 22.

For two weeks we are, again, a house of five.

Unpleasant Surprise

We are having our pool liner replaced this year, as it has been beaten up through seven summers of use, sun exposure, and the occasional chemical imbalance. We were hoping to get the process completed last week but the weather did not cooperate and it could be a couple more weeks before the crew can get here. At least we aren’t paying to heat it, I guess.

With the girls home we decided to go ahead and drag out all the pool furniture so they can at least hang out on sunny days.

We have a large Rubbermaid chest in the pool house in which we store all kinds of loose gear over the winter. Deflated inflatable toys, pool noodles, life jackets, etc. Every fall we pack it full of stuff confident it is secure to keep critters out.

Well, this winter some critters got in.

Sunday I opened the lid and was hit by a wave of terrible odor and saw movement inside. I quickly slammed the lid. Motherfucking mice. Disgusting.

We drug the chest out into the yard, opened the lid from behind, and tipped it over, spilling all the gear into the grass. It was a process but eventually we got the family of mice out. One of them jumped on S as it fled, causing some screaming. They had been in there a while, so everything inside was a total loss. It took several rounds of spraying the inside with a hose and household cleaners to get it cleaned out.

Turns out it was probably my bad that changed our luck this winter. Our corn hole bags have real corn kernels in them. We always store them in ziplock bags to prevent exactly what happened. Apparently I just threw them into the chest in an open bag. There was chewed up corn mixed in with everything we pulled from the chest. Those bags were at least seven years old, but I guess mice will eat anything.

Fuckers.

We were glad this happened on a random, chilly day and not Memorial Day with the extended family here. And that we have a big yard we could drag the chest into to clean it.

NBA

Some solid game sevens over the weekend, although only one went down to the final minutes.

Good for Philly and Joel Embiid finally not shitting themselves in a game seven, coming back from 3–1 down to eliminate Boston. Of course, Jojo seemed to get injured at least two more times Saturday night so who knows how healthy he’s going to be against the Knicks. Dude had an appendectomy less than three weeks ago and after shaking the rust off, played mostly terrific ball in the final three games.

It’s been funny how the Eastern Conference has ebbed and flowed all season. The Knicks were the preseason favorites, but scuffled often enough to put that into doubt.

Detroit was the clear best team over the course of the season, but I’m not sure anyone really trusted them, and they were down 24 in the second half of game six, down three games to two, before a monumental comeback that saved their season. Last Thursday, it seemed like Orlando would not only beat Detroit, but might be the Eastern Conference favorites.

Boston was supposed to have a gap year like the Pacers, but overachieved all year then got Jason Tatum back for the last month of the season. A lot of people were picking the Celtics to come out of the East two weeks ago, and now they are sitting home watching.

It sure seems like the Knicks are the favorites again, although I’m not sure you can be confident in any pick on the East side of the bracket this year.

Not that it matters. Oklahoma City is the obvious overall favorite, with San Antonio the clear #2 pick. I can’t see the Knicks, Pistons, or whoever beating either of those teams if everyone is healthy. But the Pacers weren’t supposed to be in the Finals last year, so there’s plenty of time for more wackiness (and injuries).

The best part of my NBA weekend, though, was watching the NBA TV replay of game seven of the 1981 Eastern Conference finals between Boston and Philadelphia. I started watching midway through the third quarter and was thoroughly engrossed until the end. A terrific game full of swings and intrigue. The Sixers had a couple nice leads that they blew. The Celtics went on a couple huge runs that had the Boston Garden crowd in a frenzy. Philly missed one of two free throws when they had a chance to tie with under ten seconds left. That was fitting as the Sixers had led in the series 3–1 before falling apart.

I watched a quarter-and-a-half of the game. I saw zero 3-point shot attempts, which was incredible. Guys would stand with their feet on the 3-point line and the defenders would sag away, daring them to shoot. And the guys wouldn’t shoot! Can you imagine that happening today?

Also wild was the old free throw rules. If you were fouled taking a shot and the other team was in the bonus, you got three shots to make two. Wild. I also read that if you fouled in the backcourt, it was an automatic shooting foul. Super wild. Both rules were struck after the following season in the name of speeding up the game.

Plenty of other elements of the game were different. In addition to almost no true outside shooting, there was a huge effort to get to the rim and use the glass. Every post player was Tim Duncan, spinning and throwing it high off the backboard hoping to bank it in.

Only the very best guards had an off hand when dribbling. It was weird seeing Dr. J, one of the greatest players of the era, try NOT to dribble with his left hand if possible.

This game was played on May 3, 1981. It was the last game of the conference finals. We had an NBA champion well before Memorial Day. On the same date, 45 years later, we were just finishing the opening round of the playoffs.

The other fun thing about watching was digging into the Wikipedia page about that playoff season. That was also the year the #5 seed Kansas City Kings went on a miracle run to the Western Conference finals. They won game three of their first series - the playoffs opened with best-of-three series! - in Portland, a finish I remember watching at the Foot Locker in Bannister Mall. Next they upset the #1 seed Phoenix Suns in seven games. The Kings seemed to have a path to the NBA Finals, facing six seed Houston next. They had no answer for Moses Malone, though, and fell in five games.

That was the only time in my life I remember there being any Kings excitement in Kansas City. Which I loved, because I was a huge Kings fan. They went back to sucking the next year, and soon were actively looking for a new city to call home, moving to Sacramento after the 1984 season.

Screw you, Joe Axelson.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 01 May 2026 07:47:34 -0400

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4QWhz7iaOteJt4JvXALj1V?si=fd9ef1fe6bee4b5d)

“First Of May” - Jonathan Coulton
USE CAUTION WHEN LISTENING TO THIS AT WORK.
Unfortunate that we are sliding into a cooler-than-normal spring as we flip the calendar to May. I did some searching for songs about May last night and this popped up. I had never heard it before, but I am familiar with some of Coulton’s other work. This made me laugh out loud. Especially the third verse.

“Planting Tomatoes” - Lucy Dacus
It’s been a while since we’ve heard new solo music from Dacus. At first glance this is more upbeat than what we are used to. Then I read it is about realizing you are older than someone you’ve lost and it hits you the way so many of her best songs do.

“Where I Belong” - Weird Nightmare
I’m not sure true power pop exists anymore. This is a nice indie rock approach to power pop. I dig the effects on the solo.

“Grazer” - Ain’t
Still not sick of the Nineties-influenced new stuff.

“Tractor Beam” - Snail Mail
OK, if you are over 40 you will immediately think of another song when this one begins.

“Peaches” - The Presidents of the United States of America
I’m not the only one who hears it, right?

“Out Come The Freaks” - Soft Cell & Nona Hendryx
Before Dave Ball passed away last year, he and Marc Almond had written and mostly recorded a new album. It does not have a release date yet, but Almond has offered us this advance single, a cover of a 1981 Was (Not Was) track.

“Sick Of Love” - Lykke Li
True story: when Li first burst onto the scene, it was in my podcasting days. I assumed you pronounced her name “Lie-ke Lie.” I don’t speak Swedish but it seemed like a reasonable guess. There were no radio stations in my area that played her music, so no DJs to correct me. With her latest album, however, I am listening KC’s The Bridge a lot, and they are playing her songs. Their DJs call her “Lick-ee Lee.” I broke the tie by finding this video that claims to have the correct pronunciation. The Bridge’s crew was closer to correct than I was.

“Sick Minute” - Pope
Pope is on fire lately! Taking down Trump on social media and releasing a couple cool new songs. Wait, this isn’t THAT pope? My bad.

“NO KINGS HERE!” - Gang of Four
Somewhat ironic the man singing this is called Jon King. That would be one Ted Leo on guitar and Belly’s Gail Greenwood on bass.

[youtu.be/k6mdRv0Zd...](https://youtu.be/k6mdRv0ZdR8?si=z8QvYCXdwE3-L_OR)

“They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)” - Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth
I came across a Bluesky thread last night where someone asked for people to quickly post their 10 favorite songs. I haven’t updated my list in 13 years, it turns out. I did go back and read my post from the last time I published that list and this song jumped out as a good one to share in video form today.

Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 126

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 11:22:12 -0400

Chart Week: April 22, 1978 Song: “More Than A Woman” - Tavares Chart Position: #34, 17th week on the chart. Peaked at #32 the week of May 6.

When I was a young music fan, any statement Casey Kasem made on American Top 40 was accepted as an absolute fact. What Walter Cronkite was to adults, Casey was to me. Today when I listen to an old show, I often hear the publicist-crafted bullshit for what it was.

In this countdown, Casey related the tale of how an act of extreme generosity by the biggest band in the world gave Tavares a ride on the Saturday Night Fever hit express.

While on vacation in the Bahamas in 1976, Barry, Maurice, and Robin Gibb, aka The Bee Gees, attended a show by fellow brother act Tavares. They were big fans of Tavares, who at that point had five pop Top 40 hits to their credit, including 1975’s #10 “It Only Takes A Minute.” The Gibbs were so impressed by the performance that they went backstage afterwards and offered a song they had just written to the Tavares brothers. Tavares happily accepted and soon cut “More Than A Woman.” The Bee Gees also recorded the song, and each landed on the SNF soundtrack and was featured in the movie.

The Tavares’ take was released as a single in late 1977, just before SNF became an unstoppable phenomenon. In Casey’s words, it bombed. It barely snuck into the Hot 100 and barely moved for four months. However, as the movie took off and the Bee Gees began dominating the pop chart, “More Than A Woman” finally gained some traction.

Which was problematic, because RSO Records planned to release the Bee Gees’ interpretation as their next single. The label had taken out ads in trade publications promoting it, and pressed copies to send to radio stations. Surely this would be the band’s fourth-straight #1 hit, right?

Well, as Casey related, both the Bee Gees and RSO reconsidered their strategy. Not wanting to compete with their own song, they cancelled the release in the US and UK. Casey even claimed the Gibbs didn’t want to “be greedy” after topping the chart with three consecutive songs and being responsible for a total of six records in the Top 40. They wanted to give Tavares the best shot at their own hit.

Lovely story! I bet six-year-old, bright-eyed, new to AT40 me ate it up, accepting it as a wonderful gesture and bored my mom when I shared it with her during a car ride.

In 2026 though? I don’t buy it. It seems like spin to me. I bet the Gibbs were a little pissed they weren’t going to get a crack at that fourth-straight #1. And perhaps annoyed that RSO put the Tavares version out first.

OK, maybe I’m wrong. The Gibbs have always seemed like pretty decent chaps. They had a genuine affection for Tavares. Perhaps they really were tickled that a song they wrote had launched Tavares back onto the pop chart. I should stop being so cynical and accept that sometimes the rich and famous do nice things for others, even at the expense of their own success.

It is fascinating how two songs written by the same person and recorded at roughly the same time can sound so different despite all the common elements.[1]

The first thing I notice when I listen to the Tavares version is how heavy it is. Not heavy as in rock or hardcore disco, but rather in that there is no empty space it in, no room for the song to breathe. Every nook and cranny is filled with instrumentation behind the brothers. There are horn blasts, a xylophone, even a hint of chicken-scratch guitar. This was supposed to be a thoughtful ballad. All that maximalist noise defeats the lyrical intent.

Worst of all is that freaking flute. It whips through the song like a demented bird, assaulting your ears with its high pitched notes.

Their rendition, as you would expect, sounds very much like an updated take on classic soul. That update, of course, has a solid disco base. However, it is not the disco you think of first, with a dense bottom beat and infectious groove. Rather, it is the slow dance version of disco, that had roots in schmaltzy, cocktail-hour music. When I hear it I think of a dance at a country club of that era, where the intended audience was all old, rich white folks and the band didn’t want to get too modern, lest it offend all the blue hairs. There were no calls for racial equality or the liberation of queer people in this song. Just an excuse to the old fogies to sway a little before dessert.

Fortunately the Tavares brothers saved the song with their vocals. As noted, this sounds like a pure soul song from any time in the previous decade or so. The brothers really shine when they harmonize. The backing vocals in the verses and chorus are the strongest parts of the track. I like the little improvised lines at the end, which again recall classic soul.[2] If the music had been dialed back just a touch, this song would absolutely soar thanks to the vocals. Instead, we get musicians and singers competing for space, and a lesser song as result.

While the Bee Gees’ version was never issued as a single, it, inarguably, has always been better known. It eventually became a radio hit despite not having a 7” release. It is generally considered one of the group’s most well-known songs. That is mostly because it got sucked into the vortex that was Everything Gibb at the time. I bet most people who were alive in 1977 would say the Bee Gees’ recording of “More Than A Woman” was the actual hit.[3]

When I was a kid listening to my parents’ copy of Saturday Night Fever, I’m almost positive I preferred the Tavares version. Today, after listening to both several times, the Bee Gees’ strikes me as the more successful track. Barry Gibb knew to dial things back just enough to make a bigger impression. Where everything in the Tavares record feels pushed to the limit, there’s a casual feel to the Bee Gees’ effort. It is maybe a quarter beat slower. Features a soothing, reserved electric piano rather than that annoying flute. The Tavares song sounds thoroughly professional, an established act really going for it. It almost has theater vibes, where the producer was intent on letting every audience member feel every note. In contrast, the Bee Gees come off more relaxed, knowing there is enough power in the song that they don’t need to push everything to 11 to have an impact.

I’m still not sure I trust Casey’s explanation of how the Bee Gees stepped aside so Tavares could earn a hit with “More Than A Woman.” It’s a shame that Tavares’ single stalled in the 30s, and they didn’t have the chart run that Yvonne Elliman was having with a Gibb SNF song at the same time. In the spring of 1978 I would have given this an 8/10. In the spring of 2026, I have to knock it down a notch. 7/10

youtu.be/GQcCRo2b-…

Each checks in at exactly 3:16 on the album versions. Intentional or coincidental? I need a ruling from Casey. ↩
Notably the “YOU ARE!” lines. ↩
Unless they are chart geeks, of course. ↩

Jayhawk Talk: The Big Commit and A Spring of Swings

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 09:58:20 -0400

Warning: long, meandering college hoops recruiting talk ahead. Just skip if that’s not your thing.

I haven’t looked back to track this exactly, but it feels like there have been a lot of springs in the last 10 years or so where KU basketball seemed hopeless, the up-coming season a disaster waiting to happen, and that’s all been salvaged by a spate of spring recruiting.

Sometimes, as in the case of Andrew Wiggins committing in May 2013, it was more about how the previous season ended than what the actual prospects for the next season were. Wiggins deciding to be a Jayhawk finally busting the malaise that had gripped me since that awful, overtime loss to Michigan in the Sweet 16, a game that KU won 15 times and then pissed away 15 times.

Other years it has been genuine yeoman’s work by Bill Self to bring in a host of players to replace those who had graduated, declared for the draft, or transferred out.

This year is the most extreme example of that second category.

Two players remain from last year’s roster. TWO. Which is dumb because KU did not have 13 seniors or NBA prospects. Nope, it is 2026 and EVERYONE goes into the portal, searching for a better deal or greener pastures. Don’t get me started. Nothing makes me feel more old man-ish than the state of college sports. I don’t want to get into it now, in hopes that I keep my blood pressure in a good place. I’ll just repeat what I’ve said to friends several times recently: if I didn’t have over 45 years of intense college sports fandom in my blood,[1] I would be looking for ways to get out of it. Hell, if someone can’t get some rules in place in the next couple years, I may turn my back on college games anyway. I listen to enough NBA podcasts; that transition would be seamless.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, only Kohl Rosario and Paul Mbiya were left from last season’s KU squad. Neither of them were guys who played a ton. Now, KU did have a very good high school recruiting class lined up, including four top 150 players and a fifth top 20–30-ish player from the next class who is expected to reclassify. Even if they all show up, this was not a complete roster. There was spring work to do.

For some reason, hopefully a good one, KU was very slow to sign players in the portal. While Flory Bidunga was getting $5 million plus from Louisville, Bryson Tiller was making the ultimate dick move and taking his talents to Columbia, MO, Elmarko Jackson was going to Georgetown, Jamari McDowell was going to Wake Forest, Samis Calderon was going to Butler, and even local redshirt Corbin Allen was fleeing, no one was coming in. And all the big names in the portal were signing elsewhere.

How was this possible??? Blue blood Kansas, with one of the greatest coaches in the history of the sport, the top dog in Adidas’ collection of schools, was getting shut out while fellow Adidas schools Louisville and Indiana apparently had twice the NIL budgets and were grabbing the best players to hit the portal.[2]

I kept hoping that meant KU was biding its time, waiting for better values and better fits rather than going after the splashiest names. Still, it was disappointing KU basically had no chance of keeping either Bidunga or Tiller. Flory was a pure money play, with KU not interested in paying him what he was asking.[3] The writing was on the wall with Tiller, who got benched late in the season when his game fell apart and seemed destined to leave.

A lot of the rumored players KU was going after weren’t ones that got my blood pumping. Surely there were better guys who hadn’t formally entered the portal but had quietly been exploring their options, and KU was just waiting for those players to make it official before scheduling visits.

Things finally started moving two weeks ago. Keanu Dawes, a big forward who tore KU up when Utah visited Lawrence last year, committed. Not the defensive player Flory is, not close. But an effective rebounder and a more rounded offensive player. I’m not saying that’s an even trade, but he at least brings something to the table. Dawes also plays with an edge, something KU has lacked.

Next was Leroy Blyden Jr. from Toledo, one of the best mid-major freshmen in the country last year. A little undersized and you wonder about the jump in competition. However, he’s the classic bet you make on a guy to level up that KU has been unwilling to take with young guys.

Finally, gigantic Christian Reeves of Charleston to join Mbiya at the 5 spot. He’s a gamble, but the Jayhawks needed another true big and there weren’t many making it to the open market.

So at least there were bodies on the roster, even if Dawes was the only one of the three additions I was totally confident in.

There was a massive elephant in the room, though. That was #1 high school recruit Tyran Stokes, who had been dragging his process for months. He visited KU about a year ago, and had been their top priority since. A Louisville native, the Cards and Kentucky were going to be tough to beat, and if KU couldn’t get a commitment from him last summer, it was expected they would finish second or third.

But Stokes drug things out all year. He switched high schools. He dropped Louisville and added Oregon. He visited KU in January. And again this spring. He matched those with visits to Kentucky. Word was he did not like Kentucky head coach Mark Pope and was angling for one of his advisors to be added to the UK staff. Word was that while he preferred KU and Self, he did not want to wear Adidas and already had a Nike deal. This week rumors floated that he had been negotiating with BOTH Nike and Adidas to sign agreements with each company, which seems insane. Again, I might be done with college sports.

Finally, last night, it all came to an end. He went on ESPN and pulled out a copy of NBA 2K with a picture of him in a red KU jersey and said “Rock Chalk” over and over.

He better be worth it.

He’s not the player Darryn Peterson was at the same age. But if Stokes plays 36 minutes a game, he might have a bigger impact. Stokes is a massive talent, but far from as polished as either DP or AJ Dybantsa. He’s a little volatile, to the point where some folks thought the real winner in the Stokes sweepstakes would be the team that finished second. I’m hoping that’s just because of immaturity and high school being easy for him. And I’ll take a player who has the mood swings of Josh Jackson if he has similar ability.[4]

At this point KU didn’t have the luxury of passing. They had a nice roster, but nice in the Big 12 means you’re struggling to go 9–9. They needed at least one high-level talent to build around. Stokes is that player. Fingers crossed.

The Jayhawks are still missing one or two players that would round out the roster. There are plenty of rumors about who might fill those holes. Sadly it seems like KU doesn’t have a lot of money left to spend, so it is a mystery whether those final pieces will be deeply flawed players who come cheap or guys willing to take less than their market value for the chance to play at KU, for Self, and with Stokes.

I’m not going to sweat the details yet. There’s a whole summer to do that.

For today I’m going to be excited that KU got another elite recruit and there is hope for the coming season.

I had watched some college sports before, but I fell fully in love thanks to Darnell Valentine and the Jayhawks in the winter of 1981. ↩
There are some serious questions about whether spending $350 million plus on a new football stadium is affecting basketball NIL at KU. ↩
From everything I’ve heard/read. Which is a shame because Flo is one of my favorites of the post-’22 title era. The KU-Louisville exhibition game in Lawrence this fall should be interesting. ↩
On-court volatility only, please. ↩

Weekend Notes

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 08:15:50 -0400

It has been weird getting to Monday mornings lately and, more often than not, struggling to find things to write about. No kid sports. The sports I write about most are out-of-season. I’m waiting for a couple players to make their final decisions on where they play next year before diving into the KU basketball situation. I doubt you want to hear about our dinner with friends Saturday, or how S and I watched five episodes of The Pitt over the weekend.

Hey, the Royals swept the Angels, coming from six runs down and dodging bad weather to get the final win yesterday! As I’ve documented, though, I’m out on baseball at the moment.

I watched plenty of NBA playoff action during the day both Saturday and Sunday. I would not say I am locked in enough, though, to break those down. Sure would be cool if the Pacers hadn’t gone through a gap year and were still playing.

Oh, I guess a couple kind of important things happened this weekend.

Friday afternoon we had a series of showers move through, our first big rain in weeks, so much needed. It looked like there was one more round to push through then things would start clearing out for the evening. The 4:00 weather even said that last line would just be more showers.

Then, suddenly, right before 5:00 my phone started screaming at me that there was a Destructive Severe Thunderstorm warning for Marion County, with 80 MPH winds heading our way.

WTF???

I turned on the TV and saw that line of showers had suddenly blown up into something dangerous. My phone started screaming again, this time indicating a Tornado Warning for Marion County. I ran upstairs to get L, texted S to stay at work, and headed to the basement.

We were super lucky. The worst of the storm stayed about a mile south of our house. The tornado was just radar indicated, never spotted. But there were plenty of locations between the airport and downtown that had gusts over 70 MPH. We just had one crash of thunder and a couple quick gusts before a final downpour at our house.

By the time the storm hit S’s office, it had eased up quite a bit. There was like a 30 minute stretch where it exploded into a monster, then quickly calmed down. Crazy.

Not as crazy as what happened in Bloomington Saturday night/Sunday morning. I woke Sunday to a series of texts from IU that kids needed to shelter in place because of gun shots fired just off campus. My phone is muted to all but family messages at night, so I missed them when they came in. Which is probably for the best.

C was out of her dorm, but fortunately just in another dorm, well away from the ruckus. She Ubered home safely.

Sounds like there was a massive crowd of over 3000 people on the main drag downtown. There was some shoving that turned into multiple people pulling and firing guns. There were injuries but no deaths, thank goodness. And no one involved, last I heard, was an IU student even though they were all between 18 and 22. Weird.

I have a lot of other parents of college students amongst my most loyal readers and I’m sure most of you have gotten similar messages. There was a shooting near campus C’s first weekend in B-town. Same with M her first weekend at UC. I try not to think about it too much as there’s nothing I can do about it. Honestly, every time you leave the house you have a chance of driving/walking into something that has nothing to do with you that involves a gun. Hell, we’ve had shots fired outside our house and a murder with a gun less than a mile away. I just hope that the odds remain in my girls’ favor and they are never close enough to where the shooting is taking place that they are directly affected.

I guess I did have some things to write about from the weekend.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 08:19:45 -0400

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0eWS0WFktT04UpqmcPCG7v?si=1442bca6432c4848)

“Radio” - Junior Varsity
Back in my music podcast days, I liked to begin each transmission with a song that referenced either radio or political struggle, to represent my fight against corporate radio. This song would obviously be a track one if I was still podcasting.

“The World Is Fucked And I Love You” - Spencer Thomas
Sometimes songs come along and sum up the moment perfectly.

“Same Kids” - Girl Scout
This was the first single off GS’ album last fall, yet somehow I missed it. At least on my playlists.

“Partners In Crime” - Social Distortion
Still not peak level Social D, but now two singles from their upcoming album that are pretty good.

“Knock ‘Em Out” - Jon Spencer
No Blues Explosion with Spencer here, but doesn’t sound a whole lot different.

“Love Like Glue” - TVAM
Oh this is nice. Hints of Eighties Goth, Industrial, and I can even hear some hip hop and freestyle in the percussion.

“Sidestep” - World News
WN made my Favorite Songs of 2025 list with “Everything Is Coming Up Roses.” This could not sound more different. Am I getting mid–80s David + David vibes?

“Doing Donuts” - Matti Jasu
Lyrically this is about being on a treadmill, both personally and as a society. Musically, it is much lighter and makes you think of summer nights, doing donuts with your friends in an abandoned parking lot.

“April Skies” - The Jesus And Mary Chain
Last playlist of April and almost forgot to include this.

“We Just Disagree” - Dave Mason
Mason passed away this week at age 79. He began his career in the band Traffic, with Steve Winwood, was a member of Fleetwood Mac in the 1990s, but if you’re my age you mostly likely know him for this, his biggest solo hit. It is a gorgeous slice of AM Radio Gold.

[youtu.be/0Ssi-9wS1...](https://youtu.be/0Ssi-9wS1so?si=Gk6_WEStlXgyj12O)

Angine de Poitrine KEXP performance

Well, this week’s video is something very different. One of my brothers in music sent this performance to me last week. I guess it’s been tearing up the Internet for a while, but I had not heard of it. He wanted my thoughts, saying he had tried to get into it but just couldn’t.

I started the performance and lasted about 30 seconds before I bailed. No, nope, naw, this was not for me.

However, I did not close that tab. Later in the day I thought I should give it another shot. I paid more attention to what was going on musically and was soon entranced by how the guitar player built the songs with loops. And if you stuck with it, 3–4 minutes in, these weirdoes really started cooking once they had built all the layers of each song.

I’ve been watching their performances throughout the week. I wouldn’t say I am totally on board; I love melody and words to you can sing along with which this band totally lacks. They are so bizarre, though, that they are mesmerizing to watch. You can not ignore the skill it takes to perform live this way, in insane costumes to boot! And, again, if you have the patience to get through each song’s construction, once they come together, they are super groovy.

Your mileage may vary.

Staying Put (Maybe)

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 12:34:57 -0400

The Royals are getting a new ballpark.

I wasn’t sure what punctuation to use after that sentence. An exclamation point, suggesting excitement? A question mark, noting that despite the length of yesterday’s press conference there weren’t a lot of hard details, and given how long this saga has already stretched it is probably premature to suggest this is the actual finish line? A period is probably best, taking emotion out of the statement.

Reading some summaries this morning, it seems like A LOT of particulars still need to be hammered out.

I’ve lived away from Kansas City too long to have intimate details of the area where the new stadium is planned, but a lot of folks had questions about exactly what buildings would and would not be razed to make room for the project. I found it fascinating that the artist renderings show Our Lady of Sorrows church still in its current location, feet from the main entrance of the stadium. My guess is the team knew they could not erase a church without a prior agreement to relocate it, so left it and there will be negotiations to move the church. Which is always a difficult process for many reasons, so there might actually be a functioning church next to the stadium.[1]

Without many hard numbers, it is tough to critique the plan. Which is probably how the Royals want it. This morning I read some rough estimates that the annual debt burden the city would have to take on could be as high as double the estimated tax revenues.

I’m not a Kansas City resident or tax payer anymore, so my primary goal is that the Royals remain in the Kansas City area regardless of the cost. If you are a KCMO resident, I guess you have to ask yourself is making up for that difference, which will probably grow, a reasonable cost for keeping an MLB team? An endless frustration of modern life in the big city is how our local governments struggle to keep public schools functioning, maintain roads that aren’t littered with potholes, and support the citizens who are suffering from hard times but can always find billions of dollars in the cushions when a professional sports franchise needs a new stadium.

It would help if the team won games and filled the stadium most nights instead of losing nine of ten as the current team is doing. I doubt a team that plays .320 baseball is going to generate the ticket, concessions, and other associated revenue the Royals are hoping for.

The renderings look cool. Crown Center is a good location. Hallmark getting involved is fascinating on multiple levels. If Kansas City doesn’t pay to build the stadium, some other city will. So I guess the city (and state) might as well pony up and keep the Royals in KC.

What an appropriate name for this franchise, too! Or at least for the team’s offense. I used to mockingly call that parish Our Lady of Perpetual Disappointment, which might fit their future neighbors better. ↩

When The Digital World Makes It Difficult To Remember

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 09:41:10 -0400

Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of Prince’s death. His passing is a celebrity death I can remember exactly where I was when I got the news. More significantly, it was the first celebrity death that genuinely floored me. Sometimes it still does. Prince seemed mysterious and eternal. He wasn’t supposed to fall into the trap of using opioids to manage pain that lead to an accidental death like far too many in this country.

I went back and read some of what I wrote at the time. The post that jumped out at me was this one, where I shared a series of other great posts about Prince’s life and influence. I found it interesting because, just ten years later, over half the links are dead.

Websites have failed, been gobbled up in mergers, or moved to different locations. In most cases a little searching will find each piece in its new home.[1]

That temporal nature of web links highlights why Prince, and any artist who makes physical art, is so important. Their work lasts forever. You can delete your collection of MP3s, your hard drive can fail, a streaming service can go out of business, but the actual music lives on, recorded, published, and/or stored on some kind of physical media. If someone waved a magic wand and made digital music files obsolete, we could still, with some work and investment, rebuild the libraries of our favorite songs.

Web content? Not so much. Sure, projects like the Internet Archive work to document everything that gets published onto the web. But that is an imperfect solution. We’ve lost so much of the best of the web.

Maybe that helps explain why we can remember lyrics and melodies to obscure songs that are 50 years old we listened to on repeat on vinyl, but we can’t remember the article we read about the transfer portal 20 minutes ago?

Anyway, I recommend reading through the links that are still alive on my original post. Anil Dash, author of one of those dead links - which still lives on his site under a slightly different URL - put together a collection of his many Prince-related posts in his own 10th anniversary remembrance.

I hope Prince is still resting in peace, content knowing what a lasting impact he made on so many of our lives.

Purple Links

In one case an author, whose work I once devoured, is currently in prison for domestic abuse. Let’s not get into it. ↩

Reader's Notebook, 4/21/26

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 08:24:56 -0400

Tomlinson’s Wake - Randy Wayne White
Another book from Steve Donoghue’s Best of ’25 lists. And another one that didn’t quite work for me. Apparently the main characters in this book have appeared in previous books by White, so perhaps not having a history with them affected my enjoyment. The opening pages felt a little Carl Hiaasen-ish, and while there were quirks throughout, it shifted away from the non-stop bonkers-fest that so many Hiaasen books are. And that’s where I think the book lost me. It was as if it couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be a serious thriller or a ridiculous one. And there was a whole section in the third act that made me scratch my head and wonder what the hell was going on.

The Final Score - Don Winslow
Winslow has done both the epic crime novel - in trilogy form! - and a series that was intentionally pared down to the barest language possible. I thought his output was better when he wasn’t afraid to write 800–1000 words. So I approached this short story collection with some trepidation. Would the ideas be half-formed? Would he not have time to develop characters? Would they fell like brushed up entries from his notebook that never turned into novels but could be bundled to sell another book?

I was silly to doubt him. This collection is excellent. While the stories are short, he does a really nice job of still making them rich with details and interesting people. One of my favorites was the piece that recounts the conversation of two mob hitmen having lunch at a diner before they go to whack someone. Winslow nails how you would expect these guys to talk. He throws in all kinds of wonderful asides when their chat veers one direction or another. Their interplay is terrific, busting each other’s balls and finishing each other’s sentences.

The Passenger Seat - Vijay Khurana
My first Tournament of Books read of the year.[1]

This tells the story of two boys - almost but not quite out of high school - who decide to take a road trip late one summer. One of the boys insists he is never going back to their hometown. The other thinks that is a joke and is looking forward to an adventure and triumphant return home.

Their journey becomes an exploration of the many issues young men face these days. The difficulties in being emotionally honest with themselves and people around them. Relationships with women. How male friendships often turning into competitions of one kind or another. The outside forces that prey upon these men and turn them towards dark paths because of their confusion about the world they live in.

There is a turn in the story that leads to a proverbial and inevitable result, which spirals as the boys grapple with the consequences of their actions. While neither character is sympathetic or likable, I enjoyed this part of the book. It gets into some serious stuff that we should talk about more directly at a society.

Their story ends ambiguously, and is followed by a coda that focuses on the man who one of the boy’s mothers was having an affair with. I suppose it is supposed to show a glimpse of the path one of the boys was on, and where he could land if he made it to his 40s. I did not think this section worked at all, and found it distracting from the rest of the story.

Another thing that bugged me: Khurana is Australian. That in itself is not a problem; I love Australians! But halfway through the book I started noticing Australian spellings of various words: favourite, defence, etc. While I think the issues he was writing about are universal, in most ways his story felt uniquely American. That linguistic culture clash was jarring to me. But if I wrote a book about a pair of guys in Australia, as an American would I be expected to adopt their spelling and lingo? I’m not sure this was actually a big deal, but once I noticed it I could not stop noticing it.

I am currently reading my second. ↩

Weekend Notes

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 08:01:28 -0400

A focus on family in today’s post.

Prom

Saturday was L’s junior prom.

Originally the plan was for her and a group of girlfriends to go together. A month ago we rented a sprinter van that would hold up to eight, with plans for everyone to gather, get ready, and do pictures at our house before the dance.

Then three weeks ago one of the girls got a date for the night and dropped out of the group because his circle of friends does not overlap much with her’s. And then another girl got a date, but asked if he could come here for pics. Sure, why not?

Next, the kid L dated a year ago unexpectedly asked her to go with him. I get the feeling he may be interested in re-igniting things, but she seems fine just being friends so I think this was a fairly innocent pairing. And then that kid’s best friend asked one of L’s best friends. Plus another girl asked if she and her date could come over.

Parents know how this goes. We went from eight girls, at most, more likely 5–6, to maybe 12 kids. And in the end we only had 10. But we also had parents over for pictures so we had between 25–30 people here.

We were worried about the weather all week but fortunately the storms cleared out in the morning. The sun was not out, it was not warm, and it was a little breezy, but we were able to do pictures outside. This was our fifth prom night, the first with a windchill. The weather apps claimed the windchill was in the high 40s but it did not feel that cold. The girls might disagree.

All the pre-prom stuff went well. The bus driver said the boys were welcome to squeeze in with the girls, which was a bonus. We heard the dance was kind of boring, which is an annual complaint. Everyone got back here ok after.

The hope was they could get into a party not too far from our house, but were never sure if their entire group were on the list or not. C was home to help L with her makeup and volunteered to drive the girls around. We stayed up until she got back right around midnight, saying the girls had no trouble entering the party. I got a text from C at 1:30 saying that everyone was home safely, and then slept through the night. Less stressful than past years where we were either picking up, or staying awake until we were sure our girls were at their landing spot for the night.[1]

L said it was a decent night. All her friends were well-behaved and avoided any issues. The girls cleaned up our basement before they left.

Five proms down, one left.

European Vacation

I teased our big news on Friday.

You may recall M was supposed to spend this semester in Portugal until a change in their immigration rules nixed that. She pivoted by finding a co-op for this semester - more on that in a bit - and deciding to spend six weeks in Nantes, France this summer in a program one of her best friends did last year. It’s a pretty nice set up. Four days of class each week, leaving long weekends for travel. She’ll take one full week off for a bigger trip through Italy, then finish with a week of classes in Brussels. That adds up to 15 credit hours.

She just got everything finalized within the last couple weeks, so we could finally look into going over to meet her. Originally we thought that meant going to France. But when she decided to spend the last week in Brussels, she wasn’t excited about going back to France.

We kicked around several ideas but eventually landed on meeting her in London, spending a half-week there, then flying over to Dublin for the second half of the week. That works out for her as she has a sorority sister who is from London and will be home for the summer. When M wraps in Brussels she’ll take the train under the Channel and hang out with that girl until we get there.

S has been to both cities before but first time for the rest of us. Figure mid-July means warm weather in London, based on recent summers maybe even hot. Dublin still variable but hopefully not cold if wet. We are working on our list of things to do. Our hotels are around the corner from Buckingham Palace in London, and smack in the heart of the city in Dublin.

All, of course, pending our president not doing something that makes either the world end or it just be too dangerous to leave the country. Which seems like a pretty low bar but you never know these days…

Working Girls

M has two weeks left in her spring co-op. It is kind of random, working for an architectural firm mostly funded by government contracts. They hired her largely because of the software platform she worked on at her first co-op. Strangely, though, she’s done almost no work on that this semester. She’s learned a lot about government contracts, and even helped finalize their proposal for a chunk of a massive project that would keep them going for years. She’s impressed them enough that two weeks ago they asked her to come back next fall to finally start working on the software they hired her for.[2] And they are giving her a raise. The bigger pleasant surprise was that they also said they were interested in talking to her about a permanent position after graduation.

Pretty damn cool!

A potential formal offer is a year or so away, and a lot could happen between now and then. Or she may decide she’s interested in going another route. It’s still a nice ego boost, a confirmation she’s doing a good job, and a relief that maybe the search for a “real” job won’t be so scary.

So she has her summer classes, probably one online course in the fall while she’s working, and then a full load next spring to graduate. Kids, those hours you rack up in dual-credit high school courses pay off!

L’s ice cream scooping career is going well. She was floored last week when she got her first real check. She knew they got tips, but was not expecting how much her cut of the daily tips would be. She made $300 or so on that check, OVER HALF was from tips! And these weren’t even on hot summer days. She is looking forward to really pulling it in once summer break begins.

C played phone tag for a few days but finally spoke with a mom who needs help with her kids in the summer. It seems like she has the job, but both sides of that conversation were flakey enough we can’t be sure. 😂 When she heard about how much L is bringing home, she asked L to talk to her boss to see if she needs another body for the summer. Figure watch those kids one day a week, then sling ice cream a couple more, and she’s in good shape for her sophomore year.

To be fair, I missed C’s junior prom when I was in Cincinnati for basketball. But I still stressed about that night from afar. ↩
This is her second co-op, both have kept her on longer than originally planned. She’s doing something right. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 07:19:06 -0400

A pretty solid playlist this week. Two songs I’m especially jazzed about.

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5ULdIllOsaPvq3bHDqmJN7?si=e64ab5db785143e7)

“ATTEMPT A CRASH LANDING - THEME” - The Twilight Sad
Kind of a pretentious title, between the name itself and the CAPS. But this song kicks ass so I’ll allow it. A proper track to kick off a playlist.

“Conflagration Mindset” - Cola
A stark, mechanical piece that sounds heavily indebted to Radiohead. Singer Tim Darcy wrote the lyrics about his experience having his home destroyed in last year’s LA fires, which makes it hit a little harder.

“Alma” - dreary
Dreary ain’t the right word for this.

“Don’t Happy Be Worry” - Dillinger Four
A perfect punk rock song title.

“Orange County” - Gorillaz
I’ve never been a huge Gorillaz fan. I enjoyed some of their early singles but did not follow them closely after that. This song, though? Tremendous and quite a change of pace. Love the whistling.

“I Know!” - Swapmeet
It’s been a few months since I shared an exciting, young, Aussie band. Itch scratched.

“All I Did Is Dream Of You” - beabadoobee featuring The Marias
My goodness this reminds me of something that I can’t quite place. I’m not sure if it’s something from the mid-Nineties (maybe a little Sneaker Pimps?) or something that Eliza Shaddad would do. Lovely song.

“Hökvind” - Les Big Byrd
WHAT AN AMAZING SONG!!! WHAT AN AMAZING BAND NAME!!!

“London Calling” - The Clash
I’ll share more details soon but we have booked our family vacation for the summer. We are going to two cities. Here’s a hint what one of them is…

[embed]youtu.be/X8-Kzm_jo…

“Long Way” - Eddie Vedder
I heard this song twice this week, so it seems like I was being pushed to choose it for today’s video. Somehow I had never seen this performance until last night.

Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 125

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 11:26:59 -0400

Chart Week: April 10, 1982 Song: “Juke Box Hero” - Foreigner Chart Position: #26, 9th week on the chart. This was the song’s peak.

There are songs, albums, and bands that are foundational to our love of music but get forgotten as we age. We go through phases, tastes shift, and over four or five decades pile up huge collections of music that bury some of those early interests.

This week I was reminded that for a couple years, Foreigner was an important band to my developing music tastes. That connection did not last, but in the moment they were kind of a big deal to me.

In fifth grade, Foreigner was one of the most popular bands for us dumbasses who stood around talking about music at recess. That fall, “Urgent” seemed to be everywhere there was a radio. At the time I had no understanding of how insanely horny it was. I just knew the funky guitar intro and sax solo were awesome.

Fast forward a year, the famous Christmas where I received the Pioneer boombox. Along with the radio, my mom got me a stack of cassette tapes I had highlighted in her Columbia House Record Company catalog. One of those selections was Foreigner’s 4 album. If you were a boy who liked rock music in the early Eighties, odds are you owned a copy of 4.

Since I had like six tapes to my name, I listened to them in a constant loop over the holiday break and quickly knew 4 front-to-back. The song that stuck out above the others was “Juke Box Hero,” an ode how fans connect with their musical heroes.

“Juke Box Hero” was built from two different ideas the band brought to the 4 sessions. Lead singer Lou Gramm had a demo based on his experience trying to see Jimi Hendrix but not getting in because the concert was sold out. Guitarist Mick Jones had his own demo based on a young man who spent hours standing in the rain outside the arena in Cincinnati when Foreigner was in town. Producer Mutt Lange guided the band to combine elements of each story into one song.

Over 40 years later, I still think it’s a pretty bad ass song. I still enjoy the moody intro, built on the electric bass and Thomas Dolby’s synthesizers. Jones blowing the song open when he enters with his explosive power chords is still cool as hell. Later he goes off nicely when he solos. Gramm takes his voice to its edge, pushing harder and harder as the song progresses. The chorus is perfect for joining in and throwing your hands up into the air from floor seats at a show.

Listening today, while they tell a clear story, the lyrics aren’t the most profound I’ve ever heard. In fact, they come across as a little cheesy. However, I mostly hear a majestic anthem that celebrates the power of rock. Or, better, The Power Of Rock. Did Jack Black build his career on the concepts laid out in “Juke Box Hero”? I suppose that means the words were perfect for the assignment. Each time I played it this week, I was involuntarily pumping my fist or playing air guitar.

Foreigner 4 was a calculated shift in tone for the band. They had great success in the late Seventies playing standard hard rock. Gramm and Jones wanted more, though, and pushed their sound in a more mainstream direction on the album. It included a power ballad that became one of the biggest songs ever to not hit #1. It also featured the best single of their career, one that was in line with their previous, heavier hits. A track that reminds middle aged fans of their youth, when the people on stage seemed like superheroes. 8/10

youtu.be/Ic02W1bWe…

One of the best pieces of trivia I came across in my research was about Thomas Dolby’s role on the album. I already knew that Foreigner recruited him to play synthesizers. What I did not know what that Dolby was not a fan of the band. In fact, he initially accepted the offer because he ran into a common problem at the time: he confused the two British guitarists named Mick Jones.

“Wow,” he remembered thinking when he got the call, “I’m going to play with the Clash!” However, it was not Joe Strummer’s partner Michael Geoffrey Jones who reached out. It was Lou Gramm’s partner Michael Leslie Jones. What are the odds the same country would produce, at roughly the same time, two guitarists with the same first and last names, who also answered to the same nickname? One was a member of one of the most successful bands in the world in their prime. The other helped found one of the most influential bands of all time.

Dolby persevered, earning critical praise for his contributions to 4. He used the money earned on the project to finance his debut album The Golden Age of Wireless.

Weekend Notes

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 08:44:15 -0400

I had a very quiet weekend.

L scooped ice cream both Friday and Saturday nights. She had some friends over Sunday, one of whom got promposaled here. S went down to Cincinnati for M’s sorority Ladies’ Day on Saturday, spending the night. Sunday L and S went to a bridal shower for L’s “god cousin.” C even had visitors at IU, her aunt and two cousins spending Saturday afternoon with her.

But me? My excitement was power-washing the pool cover and pool deck in preparation for prom pictures next week. I watched a movie. I read a little bit. I kept tabs on the dissolution of the Kansas basketball roster. I watched a lot of golf. Nothing too exciting. At least it was a gorgeous weekend, weather wise.

The Masters

Friday evening it looked like Rory McIlroy was on the verge of something historic. He had a six shot lead after two rounds, a 36 hole lead which had never been blown in a major tournament. He was playing free and easy after finally getting the Augusta monkey off his back last year. The biggest win ever seemed in the cards.

Then Saturday, while everyone else was tearing up the course, he meandered through an even par front nine. Then the oil started leaking on the back nine. His balls went right, then left, then right, then left. He was playing like me, with the two-way miss killing him. He lost his lead, briefly fell behind, and entered the final round tied for first, one shot worse to par than he had been 24 hours earlier.

Which made Sunday’s standard Rory Roller Coaster even more tense. Again a slow start. Again the field making runs at him. He lost the lead quickly. Fell further behind as the top of the leaderboard swapped names every few holes. He was, again briefly, down by three strokes at one point. When Justin Rose birdied nine to take the lead, it really felt like he was going to follow Rory’s lead and finally win his first green jacket after decades of falling just short. Terrible shots on 11 and 12 ruined that.

Then Rory steadied himself, everyone else fell apart, and he cruised to a one-stroke win. Well, cruised is not the right word. Each time he would hit a good shot or roll in a putt, he would follow with a shot that could most charitably be described as “nervous.” On the 18th tee, needing just bogey to ensure a win, he blasted his tee shot well right. So far right he actually had a shot. Which he put in the front bunker. No problem. Escape to 15 feet, roll the first putt to four inches, tap in for a second-straight Masters title, just the fourth golfer to ever do that.

Man, I do not know how he gets through this with his nerves intact because I can barely do it. It did keep me riveted to the TV, though. I think I barely moved in the last four hours of Sunday’s coverage. To the point that my back hurt when I finally rose after his Butler Cabin interview.

CBS and Augusta get as much credit for that as Rory and his competitors. The limited commercials in Sunday’s coverage is one of the greatest things in televised sports. If you have a tight tournament like Sunday’s, are constantly showing shots, and don’t have to go sell insurance or wealth management services every 10 minutes, it is compelling to the point of addiction. I did not want to leave the coach for fear I would miss something important. So many times I told myself, “OK, after Rory hits I’m going to go check on this or that in the other room,” then CBS would cut to Rose or Scottie Scheffler or Cam Young or Sam Burns or whoever standing over their own big shot. Shame all sports can’t be televised this way.

(Edit: Not sure if I didn’t sleep well and my brain was a little jumbled this morning, but I totally forgot that CBS absolutely botched a few insanely important shots Sunday. Most notably was McIlroy’s second shot on 18. Somehow, with dozens on cameras on course, spotters everywhere, and only one hole to worry about, they had no idea where his shot went. Now, he was hitting from an unexpected location after he pushed his tee shot way right. Still, he had a clear shot at the green. Despite that it took like 90 seconds for CBS to realize his ball landed in the bunker. Then it took them another good minute before they could get a camera close to show the lie. The announcers, all of whom were watching on screens themselves, stumbled to figure out what was going on. Trevor Immelman even wondered if Rory’s second shot was buried because the first shot was from so far away. Adding insult to injury, they also completely lost Cam Young’s second shot on the same hole, seconds later. Just an amazing set of gaffes, and not the only times the cameras lost sight of the ball. Which makes it more incredible that this rarely happens. They also chose some absolutely terrible camera angles on huge shots that were more about showing off than giving the viewers at home an idea of what was happening.)

Now Rory has two green jackets and six majors overall. Perhaps this is the one that will calm him down and send him on a run where he wins three or four more majors in the next two-three years? Nah, it’s Rory, he’s never going to play that loose for that long. That will be more entertaining, though, than if he turned into 2000–2001 Tiger for a couple years.

Tiger

Speaking of Tiger…

Can this dude get some help? In every freaking way?

Get some help with the mental demons I’m assuming he is battling. Get some help with the pain that has wrecked his life. Get some help with the pain management which seems to be the real problem.

AND GET A PERMANENT FUCKING DRIVER WHO TAKES YOU EVERYWHERE!!!!

The man is worth $1.5 billion dollars. He can afford to have a whole fleet of drivers at his beck-and-call to make sure he gets everywhere he needs to get safely.

Tiger’s life is already tragic, largely because of decisions he has made and actions he has taken. He does not need to make it more tragic by killing someone else when he is “looking at his phone and changing the radio station.” Allegedly.

Artemis

We watched both the launch and return of the Artemis II spacecraft live. Each time we watched on NBC, mostly because I was a Tom Brokaw fan and have never wavered despite only rarely watching the national news for about 20 years. NBC kind of effed up both events, with weird cuts, their talking heads yapping over the NASA announcements, etc. I wish I had been keeping a notebook because there were so many choices of theirs that annoyed me.

But, anyway, the important stuff. A very cool moment, or 10 days’ worth of moments. The morning of the launch I read a piece about all the concerns about the heatshield. Which made the re-entry process a little nervy. The shield held up and the trip ended a success.

Now, I will say, I followed along with a sense of dread. Not because of the many dangers the crew faced. Rather because this is the United States in 2026. If things went well, one man would take credit for it all. If anything went wrong, that same man would immediately place blame on his predecessor. Despite the fact other than supporting the NASA budget, the president has nothing to do with the mission’s success.

I am torn on the value of a space service given the other budgetary issues our nation faces. That’s a debate for another post. For the moment I can admit it is very cool we are sending people towards the moon again.

Royals/Baseball Rant

College basketball is over. The Masters has passed. This should be the moment I start paying attention to baseball.

And I have casually been checking scores since Opening Day.

However, baseball has pissed me off again and I refrained from signing back up for MLB At Bat.

Mostly because baseball continues to find ways to absolutely rip off fans for money.

I’m not talking about spreading games across multiple platforms that force fans to pay for multiple subscriptions. That’s just part of life these days, no matter what you watch.

No, I’m talking about ESPN taking over all streaming rights for baseball. MLB At Bat was once absolutely the greatest streaming service and suite of apps for mobile devices. MLB has been messing that up on their own for years. Turning it over to ESPN seemed like a giant middle finger to fans who want to see the games. As anyone who has ever tried to watch a college game on ESPN+ knows.

Again, I know all this.

What really got me was the fucked up, back-door screw job[1] MLB and ESPN included in the At Bat package. You see, if you signed up for MLB At Bat, you were required to sign up for whatever ESPN’s latest premium streaming suite is. Only they didn’t tell you this. They signed you up automatically and gave you a free month of the service, setting it to auto-renew. You could immediately cancel the ESPN subscription and keep access to MLB, but none of this was clearly spelled out. It was a clear effort to goose ESPN’s streaming numbers and sucker people into paying for another subscription on top of the MLB one and hope it got lost on the credit card statements and kept renewing even if people weren’t watching it.

Oh, and if you already pay for ESPN+, as we do,[2] you still had to subscribe to this extra level of ESPN.

They may have corrected this after the initial outcry, or at least made a more clear pop up that explains you are actually signing up for two services. I didn’t care. I swore off MLB At Bat for another year. A likely labor stoppage next year will piss me off more, as management lies about how much revenue they generate again all while constantly cooking up ways to squeeze more money out of viewers.

Every sport does lots of things to annoy and alienate its fans. MLB gets the absolute gold medal for putting the people who want to watch its games through the wringer. Maybe I should get over it and get back to watching the Royals on a regular basis. The overt hostility I feel aimed my way keeps me thinking I have better things to do with my time and money than give it to MLB/ESPN.

Also the Royals still can’t hit and, despite their exceptional starting pitching, seem destined to win between 79 and 83 games this year. It’s better than losing 100, but it sure would have been nice if they got even one legit bat over the winter and gave themselves a chance.

Yikes! ↩
Or actually as Verizon pays for us. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 07:40:36 -0400

For the second straight week we lock into a general vibe through this entire playlist. Rather than being reserved, though, this one is bright and full of the vibrance of spring.

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2syOK1WY3q1SkcAODbaVJn?si=7cf573799e134e48)

“Pay No Mind” - Weird Nightmare
Not sure if this sounds more like The Knack or the rock revival bands of the early 2000s.

“Receive” - youbet
The latest in our ongoing series of female fronted bands that sound straight out of the mid-Nighties. I am not yet sick of them.

“Still Around” - Friko
Oh hell yes! I shared Friko’s “Choo Choo” a month ago, and it seemed like a bit of a novelty song, fun but slight. This one here? This is a proper banger.

“Don’t Let Go” - Fantastic Cat
I’ve been reading great things about Brian Dunne, lead singer of Fantastic Cat, recently. I listened to his most recent solo album, which was very much in the Ryan Adams pocket. Hopefully without all the bullshit that comes with Ryan Adams’ music. I didn’t look into that. You might hear something from that album here eventually. His other band, Fantastic Cat, has a new album out today. It’s called Cat Out Of Hell. Awesome title. I listened to a couple of the pre-release singles, and this was my favorite. It might lean a little too close to Lumineers territory for me. Meaning my wife would probably like this way more than I do. That said, not a bad song.

“G.O.D. And The Broken Ribs” - Jack White
Two new songs from Mr. White last week, in advance of his SNL appearance. Neither is essential, but since they are Jack White tracks, they don’t suck either.

“Like A Spark” - Rostam
Mmmm yes, lots of spring in this track. And you hear a little bit of Rostam’s other band, Vampire Weekend, in certain moments.

“Better Weather” - Crystal Tides
Maybe it’s my imagination, but there’s been a minor trend lately, led by bands like the Bleachers, making classic, FM radio pop. As a devotee of American Top 40, you know I am here for it. This track falls right into that (hopefully) burgeoning movement. And we’re also having some better weather!

“We’re Gonna To Be Okay” - Dari Bay
The mantra I keep telling myself, hoping eventually it will be true. Kind of a sick song, too.

“Another Beautiful Day” - Courtney Barnett
I listened to Barnett’s most recent album last week and fell in love with it. I think it’s the strongest album, front-to-back, of her career. The highs may not be quite as high as her best work. But it is rock steady from track one to track ten, which this just happens to be. A terrific album closer for sure. Critic Steven Hyden said Barnett’s music feels looser again now that she’s been around for a few years and has escaped the hype that came with her debut album. I think that assessment is spot on.

[youtu.be/vJZnzZpKv...](https://youtu.be/vJZnzZpKvmM?si=l9Nz_7v_pjhvciQE)

“Weather With You” - Neil Finn & Friends
This past week has been the 25th - TWENTY FIFTH!!!! - anniversary of the concert series that would be my first choice to attend if I had a time machine. Old heads know what I’m about to say already: in April 2001 my hero Neil Finn invited some of his pals - including Eddie Vedder, Johnny Marr, and two members of Radiohead among others - to New Zealand to hang out for a few days practicing songs, play a series of shows, then depart. As the CD and DVD proved, it was an amazing week of music. I honestly can’t believe it is a quarter century old. This performance, which features Tim Finn on co-lead vocals, really demonstrates the sense of community and collaboration that week was all about.

Oh, hell, why not share another…

[youtu.be/LXo7jJ6_v...](https://youtu.be/LXo7jJ6_v18?si=DLhHMgKXjjchvqtZ)

Wednesday Links

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 11:36:19 -0400

A big ol’ bag of links to get you through the day.

An amazing, super in-depth profile of Robyn.

Listening to her music, you’re not enveloped in the minutiae of her emotional universe, as you are with someone like Taylor Swift. Rather, Robyn will extract from her universe the simplest of plots—a pure love, thwarted—and then expand it to encompass everything. Her voice, tensile and clear, is an ideal delivery system for longing; it makes me picture melted sugar hardening on ice.

Robyn, on Her Own

The Ringer’s fantastic Brian Phillips goes back in history to see how our airports became such a mess.

Newly elected President Ronald Reagan, who’d supported the controllers throughout his campaign, decided to fire almost all of them and issue lifetime bans on their rehiring. Eliminating almost the entire pool of trained air traffic controllers had several negative consequences that no one could possibly have foreseen, such as the entire country suddenly having no trained air traffic controllers. Whoops!

The Chaotic Timeline That Led to America’s Great Airport Meltdown

This is a really well done piece about how sports gambling has exploded in recent years, and the many effects it has across society.

But as a society, we are making an enormously risky bet: that we can reap the rewards of a runaway gambling industry without paying any price; that the litany of social ills long associated with this vice—addiction and impoverishment, isolation and abuse, cheating and chasing and corrosive idleness—can, this time, be kept in check; that, unlike every civilization that came before us, we can beat the house.
What are the odds that we’re right?

Sucker: My year as a degenerate gambler

There was tons of coverage of Apple’s 50th birthday last week. Some of the best was at The Verge, which had an entire series dedicated to the event. All those pieces were good, but I really enjoyed David Pierce’s look back on the “iDecade,” when Apple dropped something new and cool every few months.

The company that once couldn’t even manage to improve on the Apple II was now inventing product after product, forcing competitors to play catch-up, then reimagined these new classics all over again a few years or even months later, to somehow even bigger acclaim and bigger sales. We may live now in the world the iPhone made, but the iDecade was truly Peak Apple.

Steve Jobs and the greatest run of products in tech history

This Week In Baseball is coming back! It won’t compare to the original, because finding highlights of games is no longer a difficult task. But still cool it is returning.

Philip Michaels writes about what made the classic show so good. I had never heard about the process to put together each week’s show.

The production team ended up installing 3/4-inch tape recorders in each Major League stadium to capture footage from each game. The tapes would then be shipped via air courier to the show’s production offices in New York, where loggers recorded time codes for the key highlights. Editors would piece together the selections, writers would punch out a script, with narration and music added to the final version. Every week in those early days, the finished tape would then be sent out to various stations for broadcast over the weekend.
“It’s quite amazing we were able to get anything on the air, but it worked,” Belinfate said.

‘This Week in Baseball’ returns, but the original show still casts a large shadow

My schedule allows a lot more time for reading than most people. As this Instagram post shows, it is still possible to read a book per week even if you have a full time job, younger kids, and so on.

How To Read A Book Per Week (Even If You’re Busy)

Weekend Notes

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 08:27:07 -0400

Final Four

Well, at least UConn lost.

That’s the only good takeaway from the men’s Final Four for a neutral observer. The championship game was an ugly slog. Michigan was clearly the better team all night, but was missing easy shots, then forced things by taking terrible shots. The teams combined to miss nearly twice as many shots as they made (42 shots made, 81 missed). Sooooo many sloppy turnovers. Wildly inconsistent officiating.[1] And, since it is 2026, we had a totally needless review in the game’s closing seconds. Amazingly the refs wrapped that review up in record time.

Unless you are a Michigan fan, this is not one that you will put in a time capsule. All film should probably be burned.

The rest of the weekend wasn’t much better. I thought UConn-Illinois would be free flowing and full of offense. Illinois was awful most of the night. A late rally at least made that game a little interesting, but it was the classic too little, too late comeback. And then Arizona apparently sent their JV team against UM and were run off the floor from the opening tip.

Not exactly an example of all that is great about the sport.

And now the transfer portal is officially open, meaning about half the players who have eligibility for next year will now “explore their options.” I rolled my eyes at the Way Too Early Top 25’s that rolled out immediately after the game last night. Those are always dumb, but especially now. You have no idea what rosters are going to look like, how can you rank the teams? Gotta crank out that content, though…

The women’s Final Four wasn’t much better, at least on the court. UCLA went from the worst Final Four loss ever last year, to winners in one of the biggest championship game blowouts ever. South Carolina blew out UConn in their semifinal. UCLA-Texas might have been the ugliest game of the weekend.

At least the women had a huge story that had nothing to do with the scores, Geno Auriemma losing his mind in the closing seconds of UConn’s loss Friday night. I trust you’ve all seen it, or read about it, by now so no need to rehash in detail.

It was an outrageous moment that took away from one of the more shocking FF results in recent memory. South Carolina was decent, but far from the best Gamecocks team in recent memory, while UConn was on a 50+ game winning streak and seemed destined to win the title. Yet the game was pretty much over by halftime. And then Geno went coo-coo and took all the attention away from South Carolina’s dominance or anything UCLA did in the late game.

He has apologized, kind of. Maybe. We aren’t really sure what the interaction between him and Dawn Staley has been since Friday night.

I’m totally on Team Staley here. She is awesome. You can dislike some of her methods - true of any coach - but I think she’s an incredible coach who has moved the game forward. I think she genuinely cares about her players - as does Geno - and has built an incredible program in Columbia. If L was anywhere near good enough to play at that level, I would want her to play for Dawn over Geno. Hell, as much as L loves UConn, she was on Team Staley Friday night, too.

Sports needs spicy rivalries, and too many interactions between coaches and programs these days are vanilla. Or are centered on social media. South Carolina and UConn play this coming November. I guarantee that is going to get a lot of media, no matter what else is going on in the sports world that night.

Easter

We had a nice Easter. I forget why, but our family celebration was moved to Saturday, with us hosting. I believe we only had 16 for the meal portion of the day. Continuing a tradition we began last year, we just ordered a bunch of barbecue and had the family add the sides around it. Worked out ok.

Unfortunately for the four little ones, it started pouring just before people arrived at our house. Our girls did their best to hide eggs in our basement, but it was not as interesting as getting to use our entire yard.

M and C were both home for the weekend. With our celebration on Saturday, L got to work her first real shift at the ice cream shop on Sunday. Between it being cooler and a holiday, I didn’t think they would be busy. But she came home with a sore forearm from all her scooping.

C just has four more weeks of classes this semester. M has four weeks left in her spring co-op.

Surprise Proposal

The CHS prom is coming up in a week and L was planning on going with a group of girl friends who all did not have dates.

She spent Saturday night at a friend’s house and was already home when I came downstairs Sunday morning. S laughed and said, “L has something to tell you.” She was holding a piece of poster board and said, “I got prom-posaled.” The kid she dated the first half of sophomore year asked her out. They are still friendly, although it sounds like he may be interested in re-igniting the relationship where she is lukewarm on the matter. He’s been to our house when she’s had friends over and it makes me laugh every time, because in the year since they dated he has grown 5–6 inches and grown his hair out so it looks a little like Prince in 1983. There are going to be a lot of curls in their pictures.

I guess this throws L’s plans into a bit of a lurch, as we rented a limo to transport the girls. Apparently she is on it, and now some boys will come here for pictures but then get to the dance on their own.

If I was a UConn fan I would be incensed at the disparity in fouls. What that ignores is that while Michigan got away with a lot, UConn was called for roughly one of every three fouls they committed. If this was a regular season game, it seems like there would have been 40+ fouls called. ↩

Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 124

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 09:31:09 -0400

My Easter weekend extends through today, so I’ll save the weekend notes for tomorrow and instead get back on the Reaching For The Stars horse after too long of a break.

Chart Week: April 5, 1986 Song: “What You Need” - INXS Chart Position: #6, 12th week on the chart. Peaked at #5 the week of April 12.

I’ve been writing this series long enough that there are several recurring themes. Today we will look at a single that was a last-minute addition to a nearly-finished album.[1] Not only did it become the album’s biggest hit, it is the song that launched the band into worldwide superstardom.

INXS were already a big deal in their homeland of Australia by 1986, with 11 charting singles including the #1 “Original Sin.”[2] But in the US, they barely scraped the Top 40 once; 1983’s “The One Thing,” peaking at #30.[3] In 1985 they were days from completing their fifth studio album, Listen Like Thieves. However, producer Chris Thomas felt the project lacked an obvious hit and refused to sign off on the final track list.

The band dug into a pile of demos they had set aside. Multi-instrumentalist Andrew Farriss zeroed in on one called “Funk Song No. 13.” He loved the groove and thought it had potential. The band agreed, went back to work, and within 48 hours had recorded “What You Need.”

Stories like that fascinate me. How can bands work for months, sometimes years, on an album, be told they are missing a radio hit, then crank out a monster in a matter of hours?[4] Like, why hadn’t “Funk Song No. 13” inspired INXS earlier in their process?

Obviously it was a good thing for both the band and the listening public that Thomas told the band to keep at it.

INXS were always a hard-to-define act. Although they came along in the early Eighties, they weren’t New Wave. While they landed on the alternative rock chart in the Nineties, they were never a true alt-rock band.[5] They had a unique amalgam of influences that seems like it could only come from Australia. Pub rock roots for sure. While not true funk, certainly a danceable side that had a connection to disco, useful when Duran Duran was selling millions of records. Straight down the middle rock guitars. And the honking saxophone that was the cherry on top of their sundae of sounds.

Although “What You Need” did well around the world, it was biggest in Australia and the US, where it peaked at #2 and #3 respectively. More importantly, it led INXS to a sound they refined and took to another level on their next album, Kick. That was when INXS became, briefly, one of the biggest bands in the world.

“What You Need” has a bit of an odd structure. But I think those unexpected elements contributed to its appeal. In the end, it was a no-doubter of a hit. It appealed to listeners across multiple demographic lines. Dudes liked it because it rocked. Girls liked it because you could dance to it. I don’t think Black radio played it, but it wasn’t too far removed from some other white music that made it on to Urban radio playlists at the time. Michael Hutchence was an incredible front man, with both a fine voice and incredibly magnetic presence. He also might have been one of the most beautiful people to ever walk this earth. His whole presentation - visuals and lyrics - was loaded with an undeniable and universal sexuality, but you could still listen to INXS songs with your parents and it not get awkward. Put all that together and you have a recipe for the archetypical mid-Eighties pop-rock track.

I loved the record because it was in constant rotation right when spring was blossoming my freshman year in high school. We had moved into a new house the previous fall and this was my first opportunity to enjoy our big deck on warm afternoons, or shoot hoops in the driveway after school. Regardless of what I was doing, my boombox was with me, tuned to either Q–104 or ZZ–99, and “What You Need” was definitely a song I turned the volume up a little higher for. I am 100% positive it was on the Spring of ’86 mixtape I made by recording songs off the radio, in there with Van Halen’s “Why Can’t This Be Love,” “Kiss” by Prince, and Force MD’s “Tender Love” among many, many others. It was a terrific spring for music.

Although “What You Need” was not the best song on Listen Like Thieves,[6] it was the song INXS needed in the moment. Good on Chris Thomas for pushing them to make it happen. 8/10

youtu.be/FoEPrbdfm…

This is at least the fourth time I’ve written about such a song. ↩
Great song. ↩
Great song. ↩
The ultimate example is Bruce Springsteen and “Dancing In The Dark.” ↩
Legend has it that when they turned in their next album to Atlantic Records, the label hated it. So the band’s management made a big push to get “Need You Tonight” into high rotation on college radio stations. The band began its next tour on college campuses, not big cities. From there the single spread to both MTV and mainstream radio, and the rest is history. ↩
The best song is the title track, also, IMHO, the best song in the band’s entire catalog. ↩

Final Four

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 16:01:00 -0400

Some quick Final Four thoughts.

I was downtown Monday evening and the place was deserted. However, preparations were well underway for this weekend’s events.[1] One popular restaurant had shut down early and was getting a thorough floor cleaning. A nearby hotel was having its exterior power washed. I imagine similar work was being done all over downtown Indy. Sadly the weather is going to turn just when the games get going, falling from near 80° today into the 30s at night and barely 50° during the day.

I was pleased that one of my last minute Final Four pick changes was to sub UConn in for Michigan State. While UConn is nearly as loathsome as Duke, the Huskies coming from 19 down and beating Duke at the buzzer was a magnificent moment. Especially when it was an Indiana kid who hit the game winner.

However, while sliding UConn in, I also moved Illinois and Michigan out. Like I said, every time I watched Illinois this year they were awesome. I’m an idiot for not trusting my eyes. And while I think a full strength Iowa State could have given Michigan a run, the Wolverines were absolutely locked in last weekend.

If I had three Final Four teams instead of two, I would likely be in a position to win both of the pools I’m in. As it stands, the best I can do is fourth place in each if Arizona beats UConn in the championship game.

In the player draft I do with friends back in KC, I picked a mediocre team to start. Then all hope was lost when Iowa State’s Joshua Jefferson blew up his ankle two minutes into their first game. I earned two points from my #2 pick.

Sports are dumb.

Anyway, despite UConn seeming to round into UConn in March/April form, Arizona and Michigan clearly look like the better teams. It is appropriate since the Final Four is Indiana, home of postseason high school tournaments that defy logic, that the two best teams will be playing in the semifinals. I know, I know, it’s always been that way, with the regional matchups predetermined. And you can never account for upsets.

Still, while UA-UM is the better matchup, the winner may emerge from that game bloodied and bruised, opening the door to yet another UConn title - 🤮 - or for Illinois to grab their first.

I’m sticking with the Wildcats, though. They’ve been the best team most of the season. They are big, deep, and tough. They will outlast Michigan then hold off a game UConn team that wins an aesthetically pleasing, up-and-down game against the Illini.

Oh, Bill Self is coming back. Flory Bidunga has declared for the draft/thrown his name in the portal. One of KU’s tech billionaires might be getting into the NIL game. I’ll save my thoughts on those topics for next week.

The NIT semifinals and finals are also in Indy. I’m sure those teams will all be bringing in tons of fans to fill Hinkle Fieldhouse and the bars of Broad Ripple. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 07:42:18 -0400

We are going to start out heavy but quickly fall into a mood. Seems appropriate for Easter weekend.

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“The House of I” - The Afghan Whigs
The Whigs released a couple new covers earlier this year. Now brand new original music. They still sound great.

“It’s A Beautiful Life” - Francis of Delirium
Glad our only Luxembourg act has some staying power.

“Javelin” - Kevin Morby
As promised two weeks ago, the second excellent new track from one of KC’s finest.

“I Wish I Didn’t Waste Your Time” - Thundercat
The new Thundercat album is out today; the early reviews were terrific. That makes sense, as every preview single I’ve heard has been good-to-great.

“Heaven Of Love” - The Reds, Pinks, and Purples
Man, Glenn Donaldson sounds like he’s going through some stuff on this track. Thankfully he’s turning that into really good music.

“If You Change” - Widowspeak
I haven’t used the Country Or Not moniker in a long time. It applies to the next two songs, although this one feels more early Nineties REM than country.

“Wreck” Brown Horse
A second amazing song from these Brits who sound like southern Americans.

“Easter” - Strand of Oaks
Happy Easter to all!

[youtu.be/BHnJp0oyO...](https://youtu.be/BHnJp0oyOxs?si=elpVoH6kZ6h2upgp)

“Allentown” - Billy Joel
Often when I hear a song that has been included in the RFTS series, I’ll go read that post to remind myself what I wrote about it. That was the case this week after hearing “Allentown,” and was surprised that there was no video attached to the post. It looks like I didn’t start embedding them until the seventh RFTS entry. So I ran over to YouTube, found the “Allentown” vid, and copied it into the original post. [1]

Then I watched it.

Wow. It really is something… Whatever it is I’m not sure it jibbed with Joel’s gritty look at how the Rust Belt was falling apart in the Eighties.

Apparently there was some controversy - shocking! - about it, particularly about the mostly nude men in the showers. Those scenes were stripped from the video played on MTV. I’m not sure the dancer in briefs juggling fire reflected life in industrial Pennsylvania very well, either.

I imagine I will correct the other entries eventually, too. ↩

Reader's Notebook, 4/2/26

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 12:34:48 -0400

I read three-plus books on spring break. I also had three blurbs written up before break that I should have posted two weeks ago. Combine those and you get an extra large helping of my reading notes.

Bright Lights Big City - Jay McInerney I never read this, as it came out just a couple years before I would have been interested in it. I remember when the movie came out and people were shocked the Michael J. Fox took the title role, it being very different than the Alex P. Keaton and Marty McFly we knew and loved. I think because of all that negative publicity, I never saw the movie either. Or at least not the whole thing.

I was expecting an exposé-like novel of how the young and rich live in New York, maybe an American Psycho without all the murders. It was indeed a critique of that era. However, rather than being a broad strokes take, it was much more dialed into the life of Jamie Conway and has far more in common with The Catcher In The Rye than that swath of books about the debauchery of the Eighties. The whole dissatisfied loaner who doesn’t fit into the world he lives in thing.

Because Conway does little to engender sympathy or interest, I found the book to be a bit dry and very dated. As we’ll see in the next entry, sometimes a book’s impact is very different when you read it 40 years after its release.

Less Than Zero - Brett Easton Ellis I read Ellis’ The Shards three years ago and absolutely hated it. However, Less Than Zero and Bright Lights Big City always go together in my head, so I wanted to read them close to each other.

I wish I had skipped this one. It is very much like a junior varsity Shards. Ellis tells the story of bored, rich, addicted kids in LA over a college Christmas break. They don’t do anything of note, other than complain about having nothing to do. There are lots of drugs and alcohol. Sex with neither emotional ties nor, it seems, any excitement. Genuinely horrible people who have no redeeming qualities but will stumble into careers because of their parents. Thank goodness this was much shorter than The Shards so I didn’t waste a week getting through it.

I can see how both of these novels made a bigger impact upon their release. They were telling unexpected stories of characters who, because of their privilege, you would expect to have full, interesting, meaningful lives. Yet they stumble through these vapid worlds where nothing ever happens except the occasional overdose. However, four decades later, these stories aren’t fresh or compelling. And they weren’t written to be cautionary tales, so they lack impact in that way.

I would not recommend these to readers young or old in the 2020s. The only significance in reading them now is to try to reverse engineer why they made waves when they were first released.

Pariah - Dan Fesperman Sometimes I have issues when novels have direct references to modern politics. Those ties can bring in elements of what is in the news that distract from the story. There are definite ties in this book to our current political moment, but they are just light enough that they don’t get in the way.

Hal Knight, a disgraced comedian, actor, and congressman[1] is approached by representatives of the Eastern European nation of Bolrovia and offered a sort of refuge after he has fled the US when video of him mistreating an actress emerges. Turns out the authoritarian leader of Bolrovia is a huge fan of Knight’s movies. In fact, he used them to learn English. It doesn’t matter that Knight’s California liberalism does not match the leader’s right wing views; the dictator wants Knight to start a new life in his country.

However, the CIA knew this approach was coming and got to Knight just before the Bolrovian agents. With gentle prodding, they recruit Knight to work on their behalf while in Bolrovia.

Turns out being an actor and improv comedian is pretty good training for being a spy! Knight is quick on his feet and has an instinct for saying the right thing in tricky situations.

His odd relationship with the dictator is going just fine until he discovers ties between the leader, a group of right wing Americans, and the Russians. Soon Knight is running for his life in an attempt both to escape and get word of the conspiracy back to Washington.

Some of it is a little far-fetched, and we never get a clear idea of exactly what it is Knight has uncovered. As a page turner, it was just fine.

Carl’s Doomsday Scenario - Matt Dinniman Now for the spring break books. I picked them well, as each was a pleasing vacation read.

This is book two in Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl series, where the world has been destroyed by aliens and all the survivors funneled into an intergalactic reality TV program where they fight through a real life D&D-style dungeon for survival.

Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat Princess Donut have advanced to level three. They are among the most popular and successful crawlers in the dungeon, amassing great powers and followers on social media. However, in this episode they are focused on a side quest I’m not sure made complete sense in the larger context of the series. Maybe it will as I get deeper into them. It was still a lot of fun.

The Red House - Mary Morris It seems like I’ve read a variation on this book’s theme - an American woman with Italian roots returns to her ancestral homeland to uncover the truth about her family before they came to the US - at least a couple times before. Most recently Jo Piazza’s The Sicilian Inheritance, which I thought was quite good. This was even better.

Here, Laura is the American in question. Just after 9/11 her marriage is on the rocks and her career unfulfilling. On a whim she decides to go to Italy, to see if anyone there has come across her mother, who disappeared from their New Jersey home 30 years earlier and was never seen again. Eventually Laura meets a man who knew her mother during World War II. In fact, he had a rather large crush on her and helped her when she was in need. Through him Laura discovers the truth of where her family came from, what they experienced during the war, how her mother fought to keep herself and her brother alive in the war’s aftermath, as well as clues to why she disappeared in 1972.

This was a deeply moving story about the choices we make in extreme circumstances. It is also a warning that sometimes the actions that keep you alive in the moment place a weight upon you that you can never escape.

Truly - Lionel Richie While I liked Richie’s biggest hits in the early Eighties, I’ve not retained that fondness as I’ve gotten older. When his memoir came out, I read multiple reviews that suggested it was highly entertaining even for people who did not like his music. That was a pretty fair assessment.

Richie runs through his life and career with terrific verve, sharing the highs and many of the lows. Anymore I view all memoirs of famous people as more self-serving than illuminating. This threads that line nicely. If you hate Lionel it might come off as too much. For anyone who is a casual fan or more, it is a really fun read.

Abandoned Book

Silent Horizons - Chad Robichaux As much as I enjoy novels that revolve around crime, action, and espionage, I occasionally run into one that is just a little too gung ho for my tastes. When I dip into the more militarist side of that world, I stick to recommendations from Steve Donoghue, who is even further left politically than I am. I figure a book about soldiers has to be good if he recommends it. Generally that’s been wise council.

This one, though? Yeesh. I got about 50 pages in and was struggling. When Robichaux described a sniper rifle as being designed to eliminate “enemies of freedom,” I had to pull the plug. Forgive me for hating the troops or whatever.

Quite a combo, but in 2026 America it makes perfect sense. ↩

March Media

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 13:57:57 -0400

Movies, Shows, Etc.

The Diplomat, season three I’m not sure why I put this off so long, this season debuted last fall. Once I started, I figured I would knock it out in four or five nights. However, the early episodes were a little slow and drifted towards the soapy side, as this show can do at some times. Honestly, I was about to abandon it during episode three. It finally found its footing in episode four and I was again hooked. When this show is good, it is REALLY good, with lots of ‘OH SHIT!” moments. A lot of the political stuff is outrageous, over-the-top, and beyond the realm of reality. That’s what makes those parts so good. I still argue that while the relationship dramas within the show sometimes have way too large an influence on the political events, they balance each other enough that I could not help but cackle sometimes. The dinner scene in episode eight? Exquisite!

A-

F1: The Movie Another thing I put off watching way too long. Hits pretty much every sports movie cliché - of course the old white guy ends up winning! - but was enjoyable and aesthetically pleasing along the way.

B+

Anthony Bourdain Shows, selected episodes As mentioned in a Reader’s Notebook entry, I worked off a list of best AB episodes posted on Vulture just after his death. They were a nice representation of both the quality of his TV work and how it evolved over time. Still some work to do on this list so technically Incomplete.

Shrinking, season three As I post this there are two episodes left, and the season while enjoyable, has seemed a bit unfocused. Hopefully the final two weeks bring it all together. We will discuss in four weeks.

Incomplete

Scrubs, season ten I differ from some folks who watched the original Scrubs and have enjoyed the revival with reservations. I really, really like this. I’ve laughed more watching the first five episodes than I have at any new comedy in years. It’s been a tough balance between the OG characters and trying to give the new interns enough attention so you care about them. I don’t mind that. The heart and tone of the 2000s version, which separated it from other comedies of its era, are still there and they make everything work. Even S, who wasn’t a huge fan of the first iteration, has enjoyed these.

Also, strangely, ABC is calling this season one. Come on…

A-

Skyfall Spectre I watched both of these in parts over various nights while in Mexico. I would have added No Time To Die to the list, but Netflix glitched a couple nights. Skyfall is the most visually pleasing Bond movie ever. Spectre has some shockingly bad writing that holds it back.

A, B

Sunday Best Devo I watched these two music docs on our flight home. I had no idea that Ed Sullivan was such a champion of Black artists and outspoken proponent of equal rights for all. Surely CBS would have run him off, just like the man who occupies the theater that bears his name, if he was broadcasting today.

The Devo piece was appropriately weird and fun.

A, A-

The 2026 Barkley Marathons: The Strongest Field Ever vs The Course Always cool to see how the course beats up on each year’s group of elite athletes.

Jayhawk Talk: Another Frustrating End

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 15:49:37 -0400

I only watched a few minutes of basketball here and there over our spring break. It wasn’t that I couldn’t watch; CBS was available on our TV and I’m guessing the one quasi-sports bar on the site could get other games. My enthusiasm for the tournament was low to begin with and I figured I’d rather sit in the sun and read, or go to dinner, than sit inside and watch the games.

We missed KU’s opening game because I was in bed ahead of the late tip. I wasn’t terribly surprised when I checked the score at about 3:40 the next morning and saw KU had to hold on to beat California Baptist by eight. The vibes around this team have been concerning for weeks and as nice as a blowout win to open the tournament would have been, I figured they would struggle.

For Sunday’s game against St. John’s, we had dinner plans that overlapped with the second half. So I muted all my text threads and notifications, ignored the first half, and then enjoyed the evening with my wife and daughter. We got back to our room just after the game had ended, so I only knew that KU had lost by two. Not that they had dug a huge hole, made a terrific run to tie it, then blew the game in one of the worst ways possible. Reading through texts I was glad I did not see the game, as I would have been angry about a number of aspects of the game’s close.

Again, not surprised. Vibes.

Thus ended what was supposed to be a bounce-back season, but became another super frustrating one. While all the blame can’t be laid on Darryn Peterson and his weird health issues, there is no doubting his availability is what killed this team. Yoyo-ing in and out of the lineup, playing parts of some games, and so on prevented the team from ever figuring out who they were. Or, rather, figuring out who they were with him. They were pretty solid without him, handing Arizona one of its only two losses of the season while he was in the locker room sick. When he finally began playing full games, he was not the player he had been when he was only playing 18–20 minutes. The rest of the team became tentative and deferred to him. They had no basketball chemistry.

That might have been a bigger bummer than how the season ended. Peterson was supposed to be a can’t miss, no fucking around, legit generational star. There was always the risk he wouldn’t mesh with his teammates. But I, and most KU fans, would have been fine with the exact same win-loss record but with him scoring 27 points a night, with a couple 40 point nights thrown in. Basically what AJ Dybantsa did at BYU.

KU has had some really good one-and-done players over the years. They all had some kind of baggage, though, that made their seasons seem disappointing.[1] Even the guys who had really good years. Peterson was going to break that string. Until he didn’t.

Once again I feel dumb for putting so much hope into 18 and 19 year old kids.

Given all that, it would have been a miracle if this team did get out of the first weekend.

I’m not sure what Bill Self could have done about that. It was a mess in every way, largely out of his control.

However, his continued failure to properly evaluate and retain talent really hurt this team. Once again, there was almost no bench. Jamari McDowell and Elmarko Jackson both had a handful of decent games. In McDowell’s case he became a decent role player, one you could count on to play solid D and hit a couple shots. In Jackson’s case, he had two or three excellent games. He nearly cancelled those out with double the number of bad games. By all accounts he is a great kid, and worked incredibly hard to return from his brutal knee injury. His basketball IQ, though, is extremely low, and he constantly made terrible decisions. Worse, he was predictable in how he would get himself into trouble, so teams could both play him into a mistake then know exactly how to capitalize off of it.

Those two were basically the bench for much of the season. Jayden Dawson and Samis Calderon couldn’t get on the court. Kohl Rosario started at one point, then got buried because he couldn’t hit a shot to save his life. He seemed to be finding his footing again late in the season, but…well, I won’t get into it since I didn’t see the end of the St. John’s game live. Paul Mbiya was a nobody all year, playing something like 10 minutes in Big 12 play. Suddenly in the last two weeks, he became an awkward if semi-functional piece. It doesn’t feel like the development of any of these players was handled well.

Which brings us to the big elephant in the room of whether Bill Self will return next year or not. For some time it has been assumed this would be his last year, and he only came back this year to coach Peterson. A week ago I was 100% sure he was going to retire. There seems to have been a shift, though, and people with inside knowledge tend to think he will return. If the 2026 class’ #1 prospect, Tyran Stokes, commits to KU in the next few days, it will be a clear sign Self is back. If Stokes ends up at Kentucky, Oregon, or Arkansas, KU might be scrambling to find a new coach in the wake of North Carolina getting first choice from the game’s elite.[2]

Even with a really good freshman class coming in, the question remains is it the correct move for Self to return? Something has clearly been off since his first heart attack three years ago. Again, it is more vibes than anything concrete. Maybe it’s just a coincidence that most of the transfer portal players he has signed have failed to live up to expectations.[3] Maybe it’s just a coincidence players don’t seem to remain at KU and develop the way they once did. Maybe it’s just a coincidence that the NIL era, which KU and Self seemed to be set up perfectly to dominate, has brought a clear drop off in the program. Maybe it’s just a coincidence that sometimes the team does not look well coached.

I don’t know. I’m not in practices and meetings, I can’t tell you if Self is the same coach he was four years ago when he won his second national championship. Something is definitely off, though.

That said, I had to nod my head when I read an article that showed the social media reaction by fans of other schools reacting to the idea that it is time for Self to retire. They basically said KU fans were insane for entertaining the idea. They pointed out the last three “down years” were still pretty decent, and looked worse both because KU failed to get out of the first weekend of the tournament each year and the Big 12 has been insanely strong. They pointed out that Self at 80% is still a better coach than most others in the game. How KU’s “slump” still resulted in 20 win seasons and tournament appearances, where every other Blue Blood has missed tournaments when they have down years.

There’s a lot of truth in there. We KU fans also must realize that what we’ve gone through is likely a long overdue regression to the mean. KU was really freaking good without fail for a long time. Fans of rival schools might make fun of the Jayhawks for getting upset by the Northern Iowas and VCUs of the world, but they still knew that KU would win 25+ games, likely win the Big 12, and earn a top 2 seed in the NCAA tournament every one of those years. That had to end at some point.

I do worry that Self returning will be more of the same. A handful of super talented young guys. Maybe one or two portal players that fit in, balanced by a couple more who do not mesh and never play. Another team that can only go 5–6–7 players deep and, no matter how good they are, falls apart in March because of the weight of all those minutes. I worry Self is even more stubborn now and won’t change either how he manages the game or the roster to allow for how the sport has changed.

All that stated, very respectfully mind you, I can’t ignore that Self is the greatest coach KU has ever had.[4] He deserves the opportunity to go out on his terms, when he wants to. I’m more worried about what comes after he leaves than if he comes back and can only coax 20–24 wins out of a team and not get back to the Sweet 16.

We’ll get to some other hoops talk before the week is over.

Xavier Henry: dad issues. Josh Selby: eligibility issues, weird injuries. Cliff Alexander: eligibility issues, weird injuries, a dad who accepted money from an agent. Cheick Diallo: eligibility issues. Andrew Wiggins: weird. Joel Embiid: weird injuries. Josh Jackson: so much off the court drama. Quentin Grimes: confidence and fit issues. Billy Preston: eligibility issues that nearly destroyed the program. ↩
I have a mental list of who I would want KU to talk to, but I’m not going to reveal that until we know they need to start setting interviews. ↩
To be fair, Melvin Council, Jr. and Tre White were really good most of the year. They also both kind of fell apart late because they were playing so many minutes, caused because the bench sucked. ↩
KU years only. I prefer Bill to Roy Williams, but Roy is a half-step ahead when you evaluate their entire careers. ↩

Spring Break 2026

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 08:49:05 -0400

It was a spring break different from any other we’ve taken. Turned out it was also one of the our best spring break trips, in no way because of who was not with us.

First off, it was straight-up weird traveling with just one kid. Much different than when we traveled without M the last two springs. It kept feeling like we were missing or forgetting something. Only checking one bag? Only needing one room with two beds? Being able to all sit in the same row on the plane? Odd all around.

When M’s semester in Portugal fell through and our March trip there was nixed, we told L she could pick our spring break destination. She wanted to be someplace warm with a beach, but did NOT want to go where a bunch of other CHS kids would be. Thus we picked Cancun, knowing we might see some other Indy folks, but wherever we stayed would not be overrun with them.

This ended up being our easiest trip for travel ever, spring break or otherwise.

The alarm went off at 3:30 AM a week ago Saturday for our 6:20 flight. The Delta desk was jammed up when we arrived at IND, but it only took us 15 or so minutes to get checked in and drop our single bag. IND has been lucky and not experienced any TSA issues during the current funding shutdown. We waited on maybe five people in front of us before clearing the Pre Check line.

Once in Mexico we navigated immigration the fastest we’ve ever made it on our five trips there. Bags came right out. It took five minutes for the transfer van to arrive, but we chatted with a family we know that came in on the same flight while waiting.

We stayed at the Hyatt Ziva on Punta Cancun. If you know the Cancun strip, we were at the very point of the number 7 that forms the area. Our hotel was surrounded on three sides by water, which was amazing. The water in Cancun is as beautiful as anywhere we have ever visited.

Since we arrived super early we could check in but had to wait on our room. We got some breakfast then ducked into bathrooms to change our clothes and headed to the pool. We all just kind of laid there in a daze, sneaking mini naps but not wanting to totally pass out in the sun.

Things continued to go in our favor. We had been told the earliest our room would be available was around 2:00. We got a call right at 1:00 saying we could go up. We quickly unpacked then headed back down to get some proper sun. That night we all passed out early and slept at least 12 hours each.

The Hyatt Ziva is an all-inclusive resort. We’ve done the all-inclusive thing many times, with varying levels of success. This was absolutely our best experience. The food was almost always excellent, which is always the biggest hit-and-miss aspect of the all-inclusive places. The drinks were actually pretty good. There were some roving packs of folks who would invite you to come to the spa or whatever, but they were super low key compared to others we’ve encountered. Not once were we harassed about signing up for family pictures or taking an excursion. The workers always seemed to be trying to make your stay better, not just hustling for tips. These folks got us!

Our room was on the 10th floor, facing south, overlooking the pool. There was a large gazebo directly below us. Five of our seven nights it hosted weddings. It was fun to watch from above and critique fashion choices and wonder how much it costs to have a wedding there. One wedding had only 20 or so guests, the others all between 40–60. Most of these ceremonies were quick, done in less than five minutes. My kind of weddings!

We never left the resort. While Mexico seems to have calmed down after the West Coast violence of a month back, we thought it best to chill. Well, L and I left once. We cut off her wristband and lied about her age so that she and I could take a jet ski ride with her driving.[1] We got 30 minutes to rip around the waves on the north side of the strip. We were limited in how far we could go, so it was just a lot of back-and-forth, but she loved it. I bounced around a lot behind her so did not enjoy it quite as much but it was still a good time.

L went to the gym four or five times during our week. I went just once, and S and I only took a proper walk once. This week is going to mess up my fitness tracking numbers.

We hit every restaurant on the resort. We went to the steak place twice. We did hibachi one night, the regular side of the Asian place another. We tried the Italian place, which was good, and the “American” one, which was the only food fail of the week. As an appetizer we ordered nachos. We know that nachos were invented in the US, but this was supposed to be their American burger joint and these nachos were nothing like what you would get anywhere in America. And the burger was kind of mid, made from an industrial, frozen patty. That is my only food complaint.

We went to the obligatory buffet for breakfast and lunch multiple days and it was really good. We were staying in the private “club” building, and its lobby had a small breakfast area in the morning, multiple lunch options midday, then snacks and drinks all day and evening. Again, all solid at worst.

I’m not a big drinker anymore, but had a few beers each day. A fruity drink or two. Plenty of buttery pastries in the morning. Desserts when we went to the buffet and a couple nights after dinner. Combine that with the lack of exercise and my eyes bulged out a little when I weighed myself upon our return. Time to crank up the cardio!

This was another trip we booked through Costco Travel. Those people know what they are doing. Once again we highly recommend using them. In terms of convenience, price, total package, and their choice in venue, they can’t be beat.

We joked that the weather is never not perfect in Cancun, at least when we visit. The video board in the lobby showed the forecast and it always read a high of 79, a low of 76. Friday we had a sudden, 10-minute downpour, the only rain of the week. Luckily that was the day we rented a pool cabana. Although the cover did not block all the water we grabbed some towels and huddled under them until the rain passed. After 20 minutes the sun came back out and all was normal again.

Our trip home was as easy as the trip down. Our transfer picked us up at 6:15, we were at the airport just before 7:00 for a 10:00 flight. A couple people in the Delta line we waited on. Maybe three people in front of us going through security. I bet both were much busier an hour or so later.

With hours to kill and only having snacks we had set aside, we looked at the food options with trepidation. Everything was open, but did we really want to get breakfast at Margaritaville or Guy Fieri’s place?[2] The Starbucks was swamped. S went checked out the Wolfgang Puck place. A few minutes she came back saying our breakfast would arrive shortly. A lady came over and put paper placemats down for us. A few minutes later she brought our food. I’m not joking, this was one of the best breakfast sandwiches I’ve ever had! At least in an airport. Worth the $80 or whatever we dropped on breakfast for three.

Our flight home was a breeze. We were the only international flight into IND at that hour so just had to wait on the people who sat in front of us to get through immigration. Our bags took a little longer, but that’s only because our gate was right next to immigration and we got there incredibly quick.

We picked up some food on our way home and were in the house by 3:15.

A great, if different, spring break. S said several times, I think seriously, that she wanted to make M and C come with us next year for L’s senior trip. I don’t think she said that because L went on theirs, but because she missed having them with us. Only one more year traveling in March/April because we have kids in school![^3][^3]

Our next trips are already booked. C and L will join S and I in going to Denver for a wedding in June. We will also visit Colorado State for L while there. Just four of us are going to the wedding because M will in the middle of her eight week summer school session in France. She just got her confirmation of acceptance last week and we booked her flight Sunday. We are debating whether the four of us should go spend a few days with her.

The Cherry On Top

We’ll get to the college hoops tomorrow, but a quick final section about what L and I did when we got back to Indy.

The previous weekend 3A #3 CHS beat both the #2 and #1 teams in semi-state to advance to the boys state championship game.[3] Tickets came out mid-week and with the 3A game starting at 6:00, it looked like we could make it, so I bought a couple.

We hustled downtown and parked right next to a group of L’s friends, who snuck her into the student section with her. Because dad had bought two adult tickets, not an adult and one student one. She got to sit in the lower level in Gainbridge Fieldhouse while I was in the section above her.

I won’t break the game down too much. CHS’ opponent was unranked and lost three of their last five regular season games.[4] But they got hot at the right time and won five straight - in the far weaker side of the bracket - to make it to Indy.

CHS got hot early and led by 12 midway through the first quarter. Then they went cold and the game was tied midway through the second period. The Irish got the lead back up to eight at halftime, nine briefly to start the third, then utterly fell apart. They trailed by five late in the third, a late 3 cutting it to two as they began the final eight minutes of the season.

That’s when the Irish decided to stop fucking around. They dominated the fourth quarter. Even with a ton of missed free throws, they won by 10. The game was basically over with 2:30 left so it was an extended celebration before the final buzzer sounded. It was fun to look down on L and her friends jumping and screaming and hugging.

Third state title for CHS, second in five years. And they really should have won two more in between. This year’s team isn’t as talented as the 2022 team which had five D1 players starting. Their banner on the wall of the gym will look exactly the same, though.

At 17½ she was six months shy of being able to drink or drive the jet ski. ↩
Hell no I did not want to eat whatever Fieri’s place was serving at that hour. ↩
Remember semi-state in Indiana means two games. Because Indiana. ↩
To be fair CHS lost two out of three before sectionals. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 07:05:50 -0400

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/12t00IxHlbIcqfDI9luYE7?si=4c8705a007bd4e91)

“Vacation” - Touch Girl Apple Blossom
We are off for our spring break tomorrow. This song is more about getting your heart broken than sitting in the sun, but it is jangly enough to evoke the right feelings.

“The Early Days Of Love” - Brigitte Calls Me Baby
Their album came out last week. There are at least five really good tracks, meaning I 100% would have bought in back in the CD era. Nowhere are The Smiths more influential than on this track, when the guitars are at their most Johnny Marr-ish.

“Kid Gloves” - Prism Shores
A perfect song for the season. It has a shimmer that speaks to the warming of the days, but a shoegaze bottom that represents those maddening cold snaps like what we had earlier this week.

“Knife In The Heart” - Lykke Li
The first time in ages I’ve liked an LL song. This track’s title fits into her normal, sad girl vibe. The music evolves into something brighter and bouncier than anything I can recall her doing. She manages to restrain it just enough so you never get the payoff of a full musical release, making it feel a very Lykke Li compromise. I appreciate her meeting us halfway.

“Dozen Roses” - Thomas Dollbaum
Dollbaum’s voice sounds a lot like David Bazan’s. That’s MJ Lenderman on guitar. Really good song.

“Worry Angel” - Witch Post
I’ve been kicking this song around for a month or two, debating whether to share it. It falls in the middle for me: I don’t dislike it but I also don’t find it super compelling. I decided to stop overthinking it and let you all decide if it was a good idea to include it in a Friday PL.

“Die Young” - Kevin Morby
Two new Morby tracks this week in advance of an upcoming album. Both are great, so you’ll likely hear the other one in a couple weeks.

“World End” - Opal Mag
I just read two books set in the Eighties. This sounds like it came from a movie of that era.

“Hawkmoon (Live)” - Hurray For The Riff Raff
I’m nearly a year into my switch to Apple Music. The one thing I’ve never mastered is finding new music that I’m not specifically looking for. Apple just can’t match Spotify’s Release Radar playlist, at least that I’ve been able to determine. I probably need to do a better job digging in. I was up early today so had a moment to scroll through the new albums and found a new live release from HFTRR. I’m not usually into live albums, but listened to the first two tracks, my two favorite songs of theirs. Including this, my #2 song of 2024.

[youtu.be/mfI1S0PKJ...](https://youtu.be/mfI1S0PKJR8?si=A7f1TnqN_Zuzdd_x)

“True Faith” - New Order
I read earlier this week that it was the 46th anniversary of the release of “Atmosphere,” the final Joy Division single. Which sent me into a mini-spiral of listening to some JD tracks, reading about the end of Ian Curtis’ life, and, naturally, sliding into New Order music from there. All the excuse for including the video of one of my 20 favorite songs ever for the first time in a while. This remains one of the greatest videos of its, or any, era.

Final Picks

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 09:58:40 -0400

As expected, I’ve changed some of my Final Four picks. After the initial run, I realized I can’t have three Big 10 schools coming to Indy.

Every time I’ve watched Illinois this year, their games have been awesome. The most potent offense in the country is a lot of fun to watch. Their band of Euros and an unsung PG from Kansas score almost effortlessly. Their general Euro-ness does cause some occasional bad defense, though. And if they were as good as I thought, would they only be a 3 seed?

So I swapped them for Florida, knowing making that title defense run is an absolute bear even for good teams.

On the opposite side of the bracket, I keep going back-and-forth on Iowa State and Michigan. Michigan was, arguably, the best team in the country until they lost reserve guard LJ Cason last month. His absence definitely knocks the Wolverines down a notch. They’re still very good but lack a stone-cold scorer off the bench.

As for Iowa State, they are hella good, as the California kids would say. Yet the Iowa State-ishness of them is a mental block for someone who has watched really good Cyclone teams flame out in March for decades. They had a couple bad weeks, which will happen in the Big 12, but otherwise rolled through the season. They played Arizona, which has some similarities to Michigan, twice, getting hammered in Tucson and losing that epic game last week in the Big 12 tournament at the buzzer.

The potential Elite 8 game is in Chicago. Iowa State fans travel great, and are close. There are a million Michigan alums in Chicago. I’m not sure either team would have a clear advantage, making it like a great high school regional game where the arena is basically split, or at worst the crowd is 60–40.

Both teams have great coaches who have built rosters to fit their systems.

When I submitted my pool picks yesterday I went with Iowa State, thinking their defense could contain Michigan enough to get the win. But Michigan is much bigger, and I worry that their size will both hamper Joshua Jefferson and give the Wolverines a clear advantage on the boards.

So I was ready to flip this pick.

Until I decided to show some conference love. BIG EIGHT love, mind you, not Big 12, and stuck with the Cyclones.

Michigan State had been my quasi-sleeper pick for a couple weeks. They have some terrific wins. They also had some big losses. I decided the concerns about UConn are overstated. St. John’s is just a bad matchup for them, although Michigan State has some similar qualities to the Johnnies. There’s a huge difference, though, when you play a familiar conference foe that is a bad matchup to a non-conference one.

Besides, I’m probably not giving Duke enough credit for being able to play through their injuries and they’ll end up coming out of the East after all.

So my final, Final Four picks are: UConn, Iowa State, Florida, Arizona. Arizona still to win.

KU beats St. John’s but can’t hang with Duke.

We’ll see how good or bad these look when we get home during the Elite 8.

Wednesday Links

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 08:39:58 -0400

A couple college basketball related links as we prep for the tournament to launch in full force tomorrow.

A great story about a moment in college basketball history I knew nothing about. The video clips, especially, are a time warp to another era. That was the winter I was discovering college basketball, which means I’m extra romantic about it. There was something special about that time when it was still very much a regional sport and teams like Indiana State could be total mysteries to everyone outside Terre Haute.

The Forgotten Larry Bird Punch That Almost Changed Everything

This is a link to an Athletic article on Apple News, so hopefully it works. While it must be taken with a grain of salt, as Will Leitch is an Illinois alum, it is a pretty fantastic take down of Bruce Pearl. It’s no wonder he may be running for the US Senate as a MAGA candidate: he believes rules are for suckers and should be ignored if they get in the way of you getting what you want.

On Selection Sunday’s biggest stage, Bruce Pearl loses and college basketball wins

Weekend Notes

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 08:33:45 -0400

Not a ton to talk about that isn’t basketball related. C came home for her spring break Friday. She took a detour to Cincinnati on the way. Her high school friend who goes to Auburn visited her in Bloomington on Wednesday and they drove over to visit friends at UC Thursday before finally looping back to Indy.

L had another long weekend, as the Indy St. Patrick’s Day parade was Friday and Cathedral always takes the day off for that.[1] She celebrated by filling an online application for a job. She got a response that night, with an interview scheduled for Sunday, at which she got the job! She begins training later today on how to properly scoop ice cream.

We took the girls out for dinner on Saturday evening. S and I watched a movie together. The girls had no interest in joining us for that part of the evening.

Sunday was crazy warm and crazy windy, into the low 70s with winds well above 50 MPH. Followed by storms later in the evening, fortunately just heavy rain and not severe as they had been when they rolled through the St. Louis area. This morning the wind chill is in the teens and we are expecting flurries in the next hour or so.

Big 12 Tournament

Before we get to KU, the Iowa State - Arizona game Friday was one of the great games in recent memory. There was a little lull between about the 10:00 and 5:00 marks of the second half where neither team could hit a shot, there were lots of bad turnovers, and what had been a pretty solid game seemed to go off the rails.

I think both teams were just taking a pause to prepare for the last five minutes. Those were pure excellence. I yelled out loud on multiple shots, in a game I had no rooting interest in. So fun to watch two teams who can trade big bucket after big bucket and never get rattled. Arizona won at the buzzer, but had there been 5–10 seconds left on the clock, I’m pretty sure Iowa State would have hit their own game winner. This game deserved overtime.

Apparently they sucked all the good ball out of the building, because the nightcap stunk. Well, it stunk for KU, who started in a big hole, made one run, then completely fell apart. Houston hit four straight 3s to open the game but, honestly, I don’t think they played lights out. Their defense sure as hell shut KU down, but KU’s offense was so bad that Houston barely needed to do anything to advance. Missing 17 straight shots is hard to do, even against a really good team like Houston. KU managed to do it. Hard to believe KU basically controlled the last 23 minutes of the game when these teams played just three weeks ago.

The last 6–8 games have not inspired much confidence for KU doing anything the next one-to-three weeks. They still seem disjointed on offense. Darryn Peterson definitely has his burst back, but seems like he’s playing more to prove something than with the smoothness and control he’s known for. I swear he was better when he was playing at like 80% and couldn’t make it through the entire game. Bryson Tiller has completely disappeared, and got benched for the second half Friday. Melvin Council Jr. hit a wall last week and admitted he isn’t bringing the energy he brought earlier in the year.

Zero good vibes.

In summary: looks like another short stay in the NCAA tournament for the Jayhawks. Thank the Hoops Gods we won a title just four years ago, although that seems a lot longer ago than that.

NCAA Tournament

I figured KU was a 4/5, and the difference doesn’t mean a whole lot. Folks were clinching up about a possible date with Northern Iowa, as if the 2010 game would have anything to do with a rematch in 2026. If KU slipped to 5 and the brackets were otherwise the same, that would indeed be Friday’s game. Hell, UNI might beat St. John’s and we could get that in the second round. Just like in 2010…

Regardless of opponent, if KU gets through Cal Baptist Friday the second round will be a compelling match up. If it is St. John’s that means KU will face Zuby Ejiofor, who began his career in Lawrence and transferred away when the Jayhawks signed Hunter Dickinson. Ejiofor has become a force in New York and a lot of KU fans wish Bill Self had kept and developed him and Ernest Udeh instead of taking Dickinson. The Ejiofor - Flory Bidunga matchup will be a fascinating battle of strength vs strength. Hell, maybe we need to play Zuby to symbolically close this mini-era of KU hoops.

Going to San Diego is weird when KU is in the East, but that’s par for the course in the modern tournament. Mega conferences ruin so much that is good about sports.

There was a new metric that may have been around a while but I just heard about this year: Wins Above Bubble. It takes the baseball concept of Wins About Replacement and brings it to college hoops, applying it to teams rather than players. It takes each team’s resume and doesn’t compare it to other, similar teams, but rather to a theoretical bubble team. How much better are you than the threshold for getting into the tournament?

I like this. Not because it’s a perfect measure, none of the March metrics are. Rather because it is completely based on results. The NET, which the NCAA uses to build their bracket, specifically has a predictive component in it. This is dumb. They are not predicting a winner, like the people who sit down this week and make their bracket picks. Their task is to select the teams most deserving of inclusion in the tourney, based on their body of work. WAB does that better than NET. So of course the NCAA will stick with NET and pretend WAB does not exist.

Most of all, I like Wins Above Bubble because it shows that Miami (OH) is clearly more deserving of a tournament bid than Auburn. Which the committee got right! Barely.

Fuck the Pearls, by the way.[2]

As I casually watched ball this weekend I was reminded that maybe it is best NOT to watch conference tournaments, at least if you want to pick a good NCAA bracket. How many times have we all fallen in love with some team that got hot for one weekend, only to see them go splat a week later? Or overreact to a team that rolled through the regular season, then stubbed their toe when playing a team for the third time, and we jumped off the bandwagon only to see them make a deep run?

I took a lot of grief last year for picking all four #1 seeds to get to the Final Four. I also won one pool and finished in the money in the other. So screw all of you who talked shit.

I’m actually, at least on my first run, not going chalk this year. My Sunday night, first glance, Final Four is: UConn, Illinois, Arizona, and Michigan. I really want to pick Iowa State, and I think they’ll get to the Elite 8. But Michigan is just so big I think they’ll give the Clones fits. My only other hedge is in the East, where I expect the winner of the UConn-Michigan State Sweet 16 game to reach the Final Four. Arizona wins it all. These could change before games tip Thursday. Illinois and M’s high school classmate Jake Davis better not get too comfortable.[3]

Also worth noting, I will likely not see KU play live again this year. They got the dreaded last game of the night Friday, a spot they’ve famously lost in twice.[4] We have a very early flight to Cancun Saturday morning. So I’ll be in bed before the game tips. If KU wins that, I’ll likely be at the pool or on the beach when they play again Sunday. Get to the Sweet 16? We’ll still be in Mexico. So they really need to win three games for me to see them again, and even then we return that Saturday so there’s a chance I could miss an Elite 8 game. I’m not super confident they can win two games, let alone three.

Yes, they have TVs in Mexico. However, when we were last there over spring break our hotel room TVs did not carry the networks showing the games. I had to follow that epic Purdue-Virginia Elite 8 game via updates on ESPN. If it works out I can watch the games, great. But I’m not abandoning the sun to watch a second round game, nor hanging out in a bar to watch the Sweet 16.

If you put twenty, or even ten years ago me in a time machine and let him know this was how I was spending the tournament, he would have no idea what I had turned into. Shame I still can’t sleep after late games, win or lose.

Zen

I fell into an odd YouTube rabbit hole last night. I needed to tie a knot for something over the weekend and did the standard, clueless guy overhand knot repeated multiple times until the cord was a jumbled mess. Afterward I decided I should learn how to tie a proper knot before I next needed one. Who knew there were so many knots, or that there were so many aesthetically pleasing YouTube channels devoted to them?[5] There’s everything from basic examples that are just stacked time lapsed photos, to ones with high production values and deep explanations. My favorite, though, was KNOTMASTR’s, which are very ASMR-y thanks to their low key vibe and gentle Mediterranean music in the background. I may start using these to reset my brain on the nights I can’t sleep!

I guess once upon a time most of the school marched in the parade. These days it is just the band, cheerleaders, then selected teams and groups. ↩
I’m talking about the former and current Auburn coaches, not my good friends with the same last name in Kansas City. ↩
She has two classmates from CHS in this year’s tournament. ↩
I believe KU has also won multiple games in that slot. ↩
Obviously a lot of people knew this. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 08:40:37 -0400

Another week, another playlist.

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4MbU06JBji8ubvRCE0kOpG?si=44b16e342eaa49ec)

“I Danced With Another Love In My Dream” - Brigitte Calls Me Baby
I’m telling you, if radio didn’t suck, this band would be on the verge of blowing up. The title of this track plays even more into their connections with The Smiths.

“Brace Yourself” - Gladie
As I said when I shared another song of theirs two weeks ago, this band sounds straight out of the Nineties. I’m awake enough this week to realize Letters To Cleo is their closest analogue from that era.

“The Bitter End” - Trashcan Sinatras
I had no idea these cats were still around. They have now been releasing music for 40 years, this being their first new song in four. And it is borderline amazing!

“Blankspace” - Whitelands
Shoegaze is definitely a thing at the moment, but it must be even more popular than I realize, because a lot of bands are being described as such even when they may not fully fit under than umbrella. This band is a good example. Definitely some shoegaze tendencies, mostly in the atmospheric guitars. But it is too melodic and bright to be true shoegaze to me.

“Heaven” - Arlo Parks
Put Arlo right at the top of the list of modern R&B artists that I have a lot of love for. Feels like someone I need to make sure my girls are listening to. This was inspired by the how Parks felt as she left a late night rave set.

“raw power” - Sloome
Funny, every time I hear this song I expect it to be a remake of The Stooges’ classic - it is not - or by the band Sloan. They definitely fall into a similar power pop sound as Sloan, but are not Canadian. Stereogum called them “uptempo Shoegaze.” Come on, are music writers even trying anymore???

“Trickle Down” - SPRINTS
Shame that between SPRINTS and IDLES, we are getting far better critiques of our global economic situation from Ireland and England than from American groups.

“Hedgesitting” - Cola
This band describes the music they have played to this point in their career as “tasteful minimalism,” which is both super accurate and awesome. You still hear some of that here, but you also hear a clear effort to move in a new direction. Way more hooks and grooves than they featured in the past.

“Choo Choo” - Friko
When we get to this time of year, I always think about back in the spring of 2005 when I launched my legendary, if mostly private, music podcast. At that time in my life I was using the term “choo choo” a lot, so this ode to Chicago’s public transit system feels appropriate to play now.

[youtu.be/HUQHhH__4...](https://youtu.be/HUQHhH__4Lc?si=gXiBdO73MMflYAKI)

“Landline” - The Clearwater Swimmers
A slightly different video this week, one with no real visuals. I’ve been wanting to share this track for weeks, but TCS does not put their music on Spotify so I can’t cross-post it. This song is too good not to share, though, so I went with the generic album cover vid so you all can hear it.

Sports Notes

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 13:19:09 -0400

Colts

The Colts held on to their two most important free agent pieces this week. I’m not sure the process was right, nor am I sure the results were ideal.

First, they slapped the transition tag on quarterback Daniel Jones. By doing so they immediately made wide receiver Alec Pierce a free agent, which was seen as a rather large blunder by NFL experts.

However, within a day Pierce re-signed with the Colts. He might be a tad overpaid, especially with the quarterback position in flux. However, it is always worth remembering that deals that appear huge when signed will seem perfectly reasonable as the salary cap increases over time.

Pierce is a fantastic downfield threat, and a surprisingly well-rounded receiver. But he’s never been an NFL #1 WR or put up huge numbers. With Michael Pittman traded to Pittsburgh, he will have every opportunity to prove he’s worth the new contract.

Provided the Colts have someone to throw him the ball this year.

Jones also re-sign a day later for $50 million guaranteed over the next two years. That seems like a lot to me for a dude who will have questionable availability and effectiveness next season. We aren’t even sure if his performance over the first half of last season was legit or a fluke. I don’t know that the team had much choice, though. Chris Ballard won’t survive another rebuild so he was stuck making sure Jones is on the roster next fall. Jones and the team insist he will be available for training camp. That seems aggressive to me, but Jason Tatum just came back from an achilles injury after 10 months and looks great, so I guess anything is possible.

The Colts think they have a quarterback. They have their top receiver back. Those were the two biggest needs of the off season, so I guess we give them an A there. We’ll see if either deal was worth it.

Bam

As you would expect, Bam Adebayo scoring 83 points Tuesday night, the second most in NBA history, generated some takes. Most of them were dumb.

A lot of folks had issues with how the Miami Heat both kept Bam in a game that had long been decided and continued to throw him the ball despite Washington throwing double and triple teams at him. I totally understand this perspective. It certainly runs against some of the unwritten rules of all sports to keep your best players in and let them keep scoring when destroying one of the worst teams in the league.

However, there is a special place in basketball particularly for chasing individual records like this. When someone gets on a hot streak, you keep giving them the ball. As long as you do it in the context of the game, it is usually ok to let a guy keep shooting if he’s trying to get 40 or 50 or more. Especially when it is a guy like Bam who is almost universally regarded as a good dude and consummate team player, and one of the last people you would expect to score 80+.

Lakers coach JJ Redick was critical of Bam being in the game. Which makes him a hypocrite as he’s left his players in games to keep various scoring streaks going. I don’t care if a guy is trying to pass Kobe or just trying to keep a double digits streak going. You can’t bitch about one when you’ve routinely done the other.

There was criticism of how many free throws Bam shot. Well, that’s on Washington for hacking him so much. Washington’s coach complained a little. He might want to tell his players that they aren’t required to foul Bam on every play. He was getting tired. Let him shoot and go grab the rebound. That’s one way to keep a dude from dropping 80 on you.

The stupidest takes were from the Kobe-stans.

Longtime NBA writer Sam Amick wrote that Bam should have stopped at 81, where he would have been tied with Kobe Bryant for the second biggest outburst. Amick’s argument was that Kobe was one of Bam’s heroes and it would have been a fine way to honor him. Never mind that if Kobe was in the same position, there is no way in hell he would have stopped scoring. He would have gone for 85, never mind just getting one more bucket.

Kobe scored his 80th and 81st points on free throws in the closing seconds of a game that LA was winning by double digits. It wasn’t the blowout of Tuesday’s game, and in fact the Lakers came back from being down by double digits at halftime. But let’s not pretend like Kobe got his record in a game that went down to the wire.

I think Bam Adebayo scoring 83 was awesome.[1] It’s a shame so many people are trying to devalue his achievement.

Big 12 Court

I’ve only watched a few minutes of the first couple days of the Big 12 tournament, so my opinion may change after the KU game tonight. But I think the LED/glass court at the Big 12 tournament is ugly. Players seem mixed on the surface, and what it is like when it lights up during breaks in play. I’ve heard from people who have gone to the games say it looks much better the higher you are.

On TV, though, it is way too monotone. All the grays and blacks suck the light out of the arena and it looks like the game is being played in a dingy cave.

Now if KU wins three straight this weekend, I may change my mind. For now I think the Big 12 commissioner should cool his marketing jets a bit and find the court that is the best for playing and watching basketball, not getting people talking about the surface instead of the game.

If it was a player I did not like, I fully admit I might buy into some of the hate. ↩

Reader's Notebook, 3/10/26

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 13:35:33 -0400

I forgot one book in last week’s entry, then another I’m saving because I have a similar book in my queue and I want to write about them together. I hope no one minds that these books are not in the exact order I read them in.

The Anthony Bourdain Reader - Edited by Kimberly Witherspoon One down side to reading primarily on a Kindle is I am never sure how long a book is when you begin. Oh, sure, there are page numbers. But you don’t know if there are a bunch of notes that take up the last 100 pages of a non-fiction work, or an excerpt from the author’s next book the comprise the final 20 pages of a novel. When I began this book and it told me it was a twelve hour read, I was a little surprised. Did Anthony Bourdain really write that much in his life? Surely there were notes that filled the final section.

Nope, this was all his writing. He indeed wrote a lot.

This is a collection of writings from all parts of his life, and from many different sources. Excerpts of the books he was most famous for - Kitchen Confidential and A Cook’s Tour - sections from novels he published, articles he wrote for magazines, comics he commissioned, hand written diary entries, a short play, and a TV script. Along with lots of other stuff.

And, to be honest, it was probably too much. This book would have been better digested in bits rather than working through the entire thing over a week. As much as I admired Bourdain and his work, he had a very specific writing style and after several hundred pages I needed a break.

If I owned this book, I likely would have set it aside for a bit and come back to it after finishing something else. Being a library book, I plowed through so the next person could get to it.

The good thing that came out of it is I’ve loaded up a bunch of his shows that made various Best Of Bourdain lists and have been working through those.

The Concrete River - John Shannon Once again, I have forgotten what source provided me with a recommendation for this. I really need to save those so when I finally get to a book after it’s been on my list for a year or so, I can go back and see what it was that prompted me to add it to the queue.

This is the first book in Shannon’s Jack Liffey series, about an investigator with an aptitude for finding children who have gone missing in LA. In this case, the mother of a boy Liffey had found a year earlier has gone missing, and her family asks if he can take a look when the local police seem to blow them off. Liffey stumbles into something much bigger than simply a missing woman, as you do in books like this.

The story was published in the mid–90s, and takes place in that era LA, after the 1992 riots and the 1994 Northridge earthquake. So there’s a throw-back nature to it to begin with. Then Shannon writes it as an updated take on the hard-boiled, noir-ish mystery. There’s a weird combination of vibes because of that. That combination did not work for me. Some elements of the story seemed glossed over. And I hated how Shannon treated one of his main characters.

In other words, I won’t be reading any more books in the series.

Weekend Notes

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 12:54:26 -0400

The quiet weekends continue. We started our latest in-home project, only to be foiled by problematic wallpaper. S painted a little bit. I cleaned some gutters. We started laying out clothes to prep for spring break packing. Other than that, slow times.

Jayhawk Talk

The one event of the weekend was KU closing out the regular season with a pounding of K-State. Nothing unexpected about that, K-State is trash. Even with KU playing multiple walk-ons in the early moments for senior day, the Cats couldn’t build a lead.

No, what was notable was we finally got a kick-ass Darryn Peterson game. 27 points on just one made 3, and only two made jumpers. Everything was at the rim, on floaters, or from the line. Just toying with the defenders, doing whatever he wanted. An EASY 27 points. Obviously KSU being garbage takes some of the shine off that, but the kid looked good and confident. He was sharing the ball. He made a couple jaw-dropping plays with what seemed like minimal effort. He looked happy! Finally, in the last regular season game of the year, it seemed to be happening.

DP scored 27. Tre White 23. Flory Bidunga added a few more highlight dunks to his collection in what could have been his final game in Allen Fieldhouse. Melvin Council was two rebounds short of a triple double. It was a good day.

Now the question I’ve been asking for weeks gets even bigger: is there enough time to to build chemistry, to establish roles, to figure out how to combine DP’s skills with the rest of the team? For a squad that scored 104 points Saturday, the offense never looked super smooth. Peterson made a couple incredible passes that caught teammates by surprise. There was still a lot of standing around and watching him do his thing. If this game happened a month ago, I would be very excited about the future. But with only a couple practices this week before the Big 12 tournament, then a couple before the beginning of the NCAA tournament next week, I don’t think there is enough time to iron out those wrinkles. You never want to lose but perhaps taking an L Thursday or Friday wouldn’t be the worse thing if it meant more practice hours together between now and when losing means the season is over.

But maybe DP is good enough to carry the team past that. Maybe his presence loosens up the rest of the team enough where not being totally on the same page won’t matter. I wouldn’t bet the mortgage on it, but there’s a better chance of that happening today than there was a week ago.

Weather

It was really nice Friday, nearly 80°! Storms Saturday morning cooled it off, then a chilly morning Sunday before a nice, afternoon warmup. Today and tomorrow will be around 70° and then we start a traditional March roller coaster. You can’t start thinking it is May or anything, but the worst of winter is hopefully behind us.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 09:53:35 -0400

I’ve been going through an especially persistent bout with my periodic insomnia this week. I have no idea how I couldn’t sleep last night but here we are, me bleary-eyed after hours of tossing and turning, getting up to read and reset my brain, then more tossing and turning. We’ll see how that affects the songs I put together for you today, and what I write about them. If this turns to gibberish by the end, you know the reason.

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1rcilkZ2UEkMdyvr8SxRqA?si=7493cd381ad348f1)

“Coast To Coast” - Elliott Smith
Funny how songs get lost to time and the glut of other music. Elliott Smith’s posthumous album From A Basement On the Hill was one of the first full albums I ever bought on the iTunes Music Store back in early 2005. I listened to it often for a month or so and really enjoyed it, but over the years only the album’s best song, “Pretty (Ugly Before)” stayed in my catalog. I was looking at something from that time period this week and was reminded of the album, and this, its excellent opening track. It is now back in my catalog and seemed like a perfect way to begin this week’s PL.

“Nobody’s Heroes” - The Menzingers
“Born To Kill” - Social Distortion
Two brand new and perfectly fine tracks from two bands that have been around a while, Social D the longest.

“Mantis” - Courtney Barnett
Two-for-two on high quality tracks from her upcoming album. This one is a little more in line with her traditional narrative style than the first single.

“Where’s My Phone?” - Mitski
I would make fun of the younger generation and say this song sums them up but let’s be honest: we’d all be lost if you took away our phones. I also told S this should be her theme song since she’s infamous for leaving her phone behind when she runs errands or, several times a year, when she goes to work.

“Never The Same” - The Cribs
This is a new song, but sounds like something that would have dropped in the early 2000s, when everyone was trying to sound like The Strokes.

“She Makes Me Real” - Cardinals
Continuing a couple trends for this week: a stellar opening track to an album, and another artist that we are hearing multiple times from a current release. There haven’t been many notable albums so far this year, but the Cardinals’ is one of the two best I’ve heard so far.

“Lonely Boy” - Lucia & The Best Boys featuring Lauren Mayberry
This autobiographical track by Lucia Fairfull about wanting to get out of her rural Scottish childhood was good enough on its own. Mayberry’s presence takes it up a notch.

“Second Sleep” - Magdalena Bay
One of my girls asked me recently if I ever listened to Magdalena Bay. I said that indeed I had listened to some of their music. A day later this popped up. Music Gods were listening. The intro has an Imperial Era Stevie Wonder vibe to it.

[youtu.be/5AVYDHTOi...](https://youtu.be/5AVYDHTOixU?si=rS87wKQaETf1xdu3)

De La Soul Tiny Desk Concert
This felt like the perfect time to do something unusual for our video selection. The world is such a fucked up place right now, and it feels like, at best, we can just tread water and hope that things will get better in three years. Then this set dropped, and for 23 minutes I was utterly entranced and delighted. There is so much joy here that it made me forget all the bullshit for a spell.

Reader's Notebook, 3/5/26

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 12:13:20 -0400

Such Great Heights - Chris DeVille My second book about modern rock of the year. This one, by one of Stereogum’s best writers, covers the indie rock of the past 25 years. From its rise out of the ashes of ’90s alternative rock to its embrace of hip hop, R&B, and traditional pop music in more recent years. And all the many stages in between.

It is not just an accounting of the bands that were important to each stage of this process. DeVille connects the changes in music tastes to broader changes in culture and technology. He gives the big bands you expect to get attention - Arcade Fire, Death Cab For Cutie, The National, etc - plenty of love while also dialing down to much less well known groups who also had an impact on how music changed over this century. Odds are if a band had any significant moment over that span, DeVille at least brushed across their existence.

Very well researched and written, and extremely thoughtful. One of the better music books I’ve read recently.

Dead Eye - Mark Greaney The third entry in Greaney’s The Gray Man series. Once again his “assassin with morals” finds himself in a pickle, this time trapped by another assassin using The Gray Man as cover for his own plot to kill the Israeli prime minister. With the help of a Mossad agent who understands him to be innocent, the Gray Man lives to fight another day. Not without a lot of dead bodies along the way.

Wild Night

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 16:53:16 -0400

Sub-title Too Long For The Web: In Which An Effort To Unload Some Unused Furniture Becomes An Opportunity To Show What Nice People We Are

The main title has nothing to do with KU’s loss Tuesday night to a very mediocre Arizona State team. A game in which Bill Self was ejected, Jacque Vaughn received a technical, and Elmarko Jackson was called for a flagrant foul, all of which seemed like garbage calls. Didn’t matter, KU was more garbage than those calls. Suddenly the Jayhawks, after winning eight straight, have lost four of six. Two of those capital B Bad losses. I guess it’s a good thing our spring break is a little early and I will be in Mexico during the rounds of 32 and Sweet 16, because surely this team will lose in the first weekend and not available for the second.

No, this post is about an evening when using Facebook Marketplace to get rid of a 23-year-old armoire took an unexpected turn.

We bought this armoire in Kansas City, just before we got married and moved to Indy. It served as our main media cabinet for 15 years. When we moved to our current house, it went to the upstairs bonus room and was also a media cabinet, hosting our Wii and Xbox. Many hours of Minecraft, Madden, and 2K were played on it.

S has been getting antsy about doing “something” with that room, so asked if I could put the armoire on Marketplace offering it to anyone who was willing to pick it up. I drug my feet a little, because every time I sell something on Marketplace it turns into a whole thing. Stupid questions from people. Rude responses. Folks that act interested and then ghost you. You know what I’m talking about.

I finally listed it on Sunday. Sure enough, the crazies came out. Within a couple hours I had five “Hi, is this still available?” auto messages. I replied affirmatively to each and got no response.

Three people responded with “Location?” even though I clearly - with our specific part of Indy, our zip code, and the high school across the street - indicated a particular area. I ignored those fools.

One guy sent me a long message, like three sentences, all in Spanish.

By late Monday I had received 20 responses, only one of which replied when I sent a message back. And then that person disappeared after I told them it was theirs.

Tuesday morning I had a couple new messages. One woman responded immediately. We went back and forth on timing and agreed she and her husband would pick it up that evening. Nice!

When S got home from work she, L, and I worked to get the armoire downstairs. I didn’t think it was going to be very heavy. I was wrong. Very wrong. It was a huge pain in the ass to get to the bottom of the steps. Then we realized it would not make the turn without gouging the walls. As the ladies supported its weight I unscrewed the legs to see if that helped. It did a little, but not enough. After about 20 minutes of fighting the armoire and stairs, and each other a little, we braced it and quickly ate dinner.

We gave it another shot. Just when we somehow got the offending corner to clear the wall, the doorbell rang, the folks picking it up had arrived. We scrambled to get it balanced so they could come in and help, as we needed at least one more set of adult hands.

The husband was kind of a big guy and joined me on the heavy side while S and L took the lighter end. We got it to the front door then outside.

The couple had driven two small SUVs, a Honda CRV and a Volkswagen Tiguan. I silently cussed to myself. I had clearly put the dimensions of this beast on my listing. There was no way it was going to fit in the CRV. I was doubtful about the Tiguan. L grabbed a tape measure. I measured. The CRV was indeed too small. The wife started transferring their three kids car seats from the Tiguan, assuming it would fit there. I suggested I measure that first. Two inches too narrow.

Shit.

This would be a good time to mention that it was pouring rain in the midst of all this. The armoire was sitting out exposed. We were all getting pelted. My glasses were completely wet. This would also be a good time to mention this couple was very nice. Three little kids. She is a nurse, he works in accounting at the first hospital S worked at. They are from Canada, had the accents and general niceness and everything.

S and I looked at each other, both silently cursing, knowing what she would say next.

“I bet it will fit in my car, go measure.”

Sure enough we had three inches to spare in the Telluride. I looked at the Canadians and asked, “Where do you live?” fearing the response.

Turns out they only lived 25 minutes away. In a not a great part of town. I was worried they were going to say Ft. Wayne or something ridiculous like that.

“Well,” I said, “we got it downstairs, it’s not going back in the house. We’ll bring it to you.”

They protested a bit but relented and helped us load it up. The wife thanked us over and over, telling us how wonderful we were.

We got their address and jumped on the highway. Again, it was POURING. We saw a car on the opposite side of I–465 that had hydroplaned and spun into the median. We had the seats so far forward I was all folded over myself, and sitting sideways. There was no way I could have driven. Luckily S has short legs.

We got to the west side and were pleased that while they are adjacent to the rough part of that area, their neighborhood was old and quiet.

We backed into their driveway and hustled the armoire into their garage as the rain fell even harder. The wife told us we were crazy. We agreed. I think she meant it in a good way.

They again thanked us profusely. They offered us gas money, which we declined. She is going to use the armoire in a home bakery she is started. She offered us a loaf of sour dough bread she pulled from her freezer. I just had a piece; it was pretty good.

We said our goodbyes and wished them luck.

On the way home we gave ourselves credit for being such nice people. My back was quite sore today. I’m not sure if it was from the wrestling of the armoire or the patting myself on the back afterwards.

We also laughed at how the easy thing to do would have been to say, “Well, sorry it didn’t work out,” shove it into our garage, and go inside and start wading through the next round of Marketplace fools, waiting for someone with a pickup truck who wanted to get it.

On our drive to their house, I was texting a couple buddies and one replied, “This is how stories that end up on Dateline start.” Which made me laugh. When we got home I called up to L, “We’re back, they didn’t murder us.” She said, “They’re Canadian, they weren’t going to kill you!”

So that was the wild saga of us trying to give away a piece of furniture that predated our marriage by a couple weeks. There are a couple more pieces in that room S is toying with getting rid of. I’m already thinking of ways I can be VERY CLEAR in my listings on the sizes and weights of each so someone doesn’t show up in a Mini Cooper to claim our 4’x4’ ottoman.

February Media

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 08:25:11 -0400

Movies, Shows, Etc.

The Night Manager, season 2 Five years ago this show’s first season confused me a bit, as I struggled with its presentation and pacing. I found season two to be silly and uneven. There was some plot stuff that was flat-out strange and perhaps unnecessary. And I was annoyed when nothing was resolved but rather it all sets up a hypothetical season three.

B-

Miracle: The Boys of ’80 You’re telling me there’s a new documentary about one of the foundational moments in my relationship with sports, a mythical event that even 46 years later still does not make sense? Hell yes I’m going to watch.

Ponies You’re telling me there’s a new show about spies during the Cold War that features fantastic fashion, lots of sex, and incredible needle drops? Hell yes I’m going to watch.

OK, this ain’t quite The Americans. In fact, by the end, it couldn’t have been more different. It falls into a similar place, though. In this case two CIA agents are killed in Moscow in late 1976 and their wives convince the agency to allow them to return to Russia as agents in hopes of discovering what happened to their husbands. It is goofy, almost campy at times. Lots of odd choices in where the story went. Some real head-scratching moments in there. And the finale straight up flummoxed me. It was a fun ride, though, which is what really matters. I felt a little bad about thinking Emilia Clarke was so dazzling, assuming she was like 23, then I learned she was 39 and feel a lot more comfortable sharing that.

B+

Shrinking, season 3 Five episodes into the new season. The cuteness knob might be turned one notch too far, so far. They also need to quit dicking around getting Jimmy and Sofi together. That has to happen, right?

In progress.

Scrubs, season 10 Bill Lawrence ruling my world the last week of the month. Soooo glad this is back. Like the reviews I checked suggested, it does not reach the peaks of the show’s first three years, but no one expected that. It felt warm and familiar and was funny and touching. And that was just in two episodes where the groundwork is just being laid for the rest of the season.

In progress to my brain, A+ to my heart

The Princess Bride After our full-family dinner Saturday, S wanted to watch a movie together. As there were no recommendations from the girls, she landed on this. I think everyone “watched” while staring at their own screens and L even bailed after about 45 minutes. But I stuck with it and was reminded what a great flick this is. C was surprised and pleased to discover it is a Rob Reiner film.

Tasting Switzerland’s Mountain Culture | Alpine Cheese, Snowboarding & Foraging | DIRT Switzerland Cooking on the Edge of the World | Tasting the Wild Food of Newfoundland Maybe I’ve said this before, but while taking a different angle, these pieces are the closest thing we have currently to what Anthony Bourdain did.

Weekend Notes

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 09:40:35 -0400

This will be a brief(ish?) entry as we had a rather lazy weekend and I need to get outside and push the snow that fell overnight off the driveway. It looks like close to 2” from inside.[1] CHS is delayed for two hours so L gets a longer weekend than she already had. Tomorrow will be in the 50s and we’ll be well into the 70s later this week with thunderstorms. March in the Midwest!

Family Time

Both college girls came home for the weekend, each getting here Friday evening. We hadn’t seen M since the first week of January. It was mostly a chance for them to chill. We took all three out for a nice dinner on Saturday, going to a semi-fancy Italian place we had never been to. That was good.

M’s co-op seems to be going well. She showed us a project she has worked on the past few weeks, a 70+ page proposal for a big government contract. It’s for a piece of a $700 million pool of funding that would set the firm up pretty nicely for the next few years. Hopefully there aren’t any typos! I told her she should ask for a bonus if they get the contract.

As I said, L had a long weekend. Saturday was the annual fundraising event at CHS and they always kick the kids out on Friday to prep the campus. I think she was bored. Friday she cleaned her bedroom and bathroom, then her car. M and S were so impressed with her work they paid her to clean their cars on Saturday. Then she did her bi-weekly job cleaning for her grandparents on Sunday. One of the hostesses at the restaurant we went to Saturday is a friend of hers, and L put in an application while we were there. Girl likes to stack up that money!

Jayhawk Talk

I had Saturday’s game in Tucson chalked up as a loss the moment the schedule came out. That was without knowing Arizona would clearly be the best team in the conference this year. And before KU gave the Wildcats their first loss of the season last month. Those factors just made it more of a lock.

So I wasn’t really surprised with Arizona smacked a 15–0 run, or whatever it was, on KU early. We had to leave for dinner before the game was over andI told both of my in-game text threads that I bet KU would make a run just before we left to get my hopes up and annoy me that we got an early reservation, and then fall apart.

I’m a genius! Big start to the second half made it a two-point game. That just pissed Arizona off. When we sat down to our table I checked the score and saw UA was up by 23. Glad I missed it.

In road games against good teams this year, KU has looked like crap more often than not. With the exception of the game at Texas Tech, they were blown out in the second half in each one. And Tech was up 10 and seemed to be pulling away before KU stole that game.

The Jayhawks can beat any team in the country. The issue is it seems like they can only beat good teams in Lawrence. Which is a problem since they only have one more game in Allen Fieldhouse this year.

HS Hoops

Saturday was state title day in Indiana.

The team that beat us two weeks ago finally faded in the fourth quarter. After coming from behind in the final eight minutes two straight weeks, RHS entered the fourth quarter tied Saturday, but lost by eight in the 3A title game. Apparently their best player, who scored 14 on us and 8 last Saturday in the closing periods, had some kind of leg injury, possible cramping, that took her out of the game.

In the 4A game, NHS, who crushed us in November, had a five point lead over undefeated CG going into the fourth quarter. CG was undefeated for a reason, though, and came back to win by three. We lost to them by 13 in January. Those were, by far, the two best teams we played this season. NHS won 3A last year and had finished as runners up in 3A the year before, earning them a bump up to 4A. What a run for the groups of seniors that anchored that team.

After shoveling, it was closer to 3” than 2”. Heavy, wet snow that had also melted and re-frozen at surface level. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 08:10:26 -0400

I realized at about 10:35 Thursday evening that because I have an appointment Friday morning, if I didn’t put this together right away, I might not get it posted until nearly lunch time Friday. Let’s see if I can keep my eyes open long enough to crank out something worthy of your attentions.

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6gLFgnOjcen5g2z8C5RytR?si=c7a4145e082b49f7)

“Stupid Bitches” - Grace Ives
This seems like the perfect song for the moment. (Spotify is fighting me to put this one in Thursday night. Hopefully Friday morning it is working. Apple seems to have no trouble with it.)

“Invisible Ink” - King Tuff
Another great new track from KT.

“Your Eyes” - White Fence
Let’s keep the good grooves going. Some 1970s Bowie in this one? Or, rather, it sounds like an act from the Seventies that was influenced by Bowie.

“Arrow” - Lala Lala
While this artist got her start in Chicago, it really was inevitable that she would move to LA with a name like that. I like the ominous tone of the music and how her vocals offset that feeling.

“Celluloid” - GUM
When I first came across this song, I thought it was GUV, thus was very surprised when it sounded like a cross between Bloc Party and TV On The Radio.

“In The Middle Of It” - Hiss Golden Messenger
As always, HGM provides the warm weather vibes.

“Future Spring” - Gladie
Here’s our latest entry in the Straight From The Nineties sounding acts.

“Phantasms Of The Living” - Mute Swan featuring Sonoda
Some very solid, melodic shoegaze. I’m hearing early 2000s, something I would have caught on Music Choice back in the day, searched for on a file sharing service, then burned to a CD I listened to in my car and at work. Explain all that to your kids!

“Cities In Dust” - Siouxsie and the Banshees
Not their very best, but still a borderline classic that I heard this week for the first time in ages.

[youtu.be/Y3ziTSYyo...](https://youtu.be/Y3ziTSYyook?si=HAm6EWA7q_DpLWqI)

“American Obituary” - U2
After Billy Bragg and Bruce Springsteen chimed in about Trump’s War on Americans, it was only a matter of time before U2 did. As you would expect, the lyrics here are clunky and forced. I have to say, though, this is the coolest sounding U2 song, musically, to my ears in decades. Granted I’ve largely tuned them out for 20-ish years. And I heard another song from their new EP that I though was decent. Perhaps we’ll visit that one down the road.

Wednesday Links

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 11:36:03 -0400

I haven’t read many pieces lately that seemed worth sharing. But there’s a very important TV premiere tonight that forced my hand. Even then, one of these is a YouTube video. I need to read more/better during my Internet time.

OMGOMGOMG, Scrubs is back! One of my eight favorite comedies of all time! I trust Bill Lawrence and the rest of the team behind the show to revive it without sucking too much. I glanced at a couple reviews, both of which suggest while it doesn’t reach the heights of its prime - how could it? - it is the rare revival that works. That’s good enough for me.

Scrubs was never a huge hit, and it won only a couple of technical Emmys during its run. It debuted during the tail end of the ER phenomenon, and then Grey’s Anatomy and House debuted midway through its run—it never even had the hospital-show lane to itself, even though it was much more of a comedy than the others…
The humor provided relief from the kind of angst and despair that Meredith Grey and her peers were dealing with on the other medical shows.

Scrubbing Back In

Please be successful and a viable option in 15 months. 🙏🙏🙏🙏

Rivian Is Betting Big On This $45K SUV

Sports Notes

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 12:55:24 -0400

Jayhawk Talk

Well that was much better. Sure, it took about 17 minutes to get going, but once the Jayhawks found an offensive rhythm last night, they had no issues with Houston. Great games from Melvin Council Jr. and, especially, Tre White. Darryn Peterson played the whole game again! He didn’t do a ton, but two second half 3’s were huge in making sure Houston could not come back. The defense was outstanding. Aside from the slow start, it sure looked like Flory Bidunga was right when he said after Saturday’s loss that the Jayhawks had looked past the Bearcats to the Cougars. Not the instant classic like the Arizona game two weeks ago, but another night when the Phog was rocking and a very good team came in and faltered under the pressure.

Crazy stat: this season KU is 5–1 against the five best teams in the Big 12 (with one more to play against Arizona), but just 1–3 against UCF, West Virginia, TCU, and Cincinnati. And that one win had all kinds of crazy stuff occur to not be another L.

This team can play with anyone. But they can also lose to anyone.

Now to keep Peterson on the court for 30+ minutes the next three weeks, let him settle down instead of trying to force things, and then hope it’s not too late for the team to develop some magic on the offensive end and become one capable of winning multiple games in the tournament.

Olympics Wrap Up

In my blogging life I’ve often kept a notebook of thoughts while watching the Olympics. I never got around to doing that this year. Mostly because while I watched a healthy amount of the games, I never fully locked in. I blame the weird TV schedule. I normally come downstairs just after 7:00 each morning. I would turn on the TV and not only would there be live events on, but NBC was already three hours into live action. And that would stretch throughout the day, with live coverage wrapping up just before dinner our time.

The issue was there were often long gaps between events with nothing live on. That made it hard to keep the TV on and ride sport-to-sport the way you can do in the summer games. I would disconnect to do other stuff then forget about checking back in.

Worse was how NBC broadcast the games (evergreen comment). There was the constant shuffle between NBC, USA, and Peacock. Worst of these was Peacock, where you had to run through the normal streaming app hassle of navigating to what you wanted to watch, sitting through the pre-loaded ad, then hoping everything worked properly. I had a couple moments where the app just stopped working in the midst of something live.

In general I’m not here to argue against using Peacock. We are too far down that path to ever come back and should be thankful NBC still shows anything on traditional stations. However, can we please make the Peacock experience more like switching between cable channels than switching between Netflix and Hulu? The technology really should be there to avoid the gaps in coverage, or having to exit out of what you are currently watching to find other options.

The craziest thing I found in coverage was how you could watch a preliminary event live on Peacock, and two hours later it would be replayed on NBC while the next round was live on Peacock. Example: Saturday we watched the mass start speed skating, which was great. The semifinals were live on Peacock. A few hours later they were replayed on NBC/USA. AT THE SAME TIME the finals were back on the streamer. Which makes no sense. Why on earth are you hiding a final, on a Saturday morning, on the streaming app while showing a pre-taped heat of the same event on “live” TV?

I guess I should be happy the Olympics were in a reasonable time zone after back-to-back winter games in Asia.[1] The odd scheduling kept me from getting fully invested, though. And it forced me to write more about my experience watching the games than the games themselves. Embarrassing for an OG Olympics lover.

What stood out?

Hockey, of course. I’m not a hockey watcher but Olympic hockey, especially in the medal rounds, is terrific. The two finals were spectacular, a pair of 2–1 overtime wins for the US over Canada. Another traditional comment in these posts is that there is no patriotism quite like Olympics patriotism, even when certain powers that be try to fuck that up. I was all-in on hating the Canadians last week.

I know NBC had to lean into the comparisons to the 1980 team, given that this year’s gold medal game fell on the 46th anniversary of the US win over the USSR, but I found it a little thick at times. There is no comparing the context of US-USSR ’80 to US-Canada ’26. They might as well be two different sports. Hell, I’m in the large minority of American fans who watched both games. It was a LONG time ago, and while the current NHL players who made up our team were no doubt inspired by the stories of how that squad of college kids took on the best team in the world, they were all born 20–25 years after the game and only know of it because of grainy clips or the movie Miracle.

Figure skating just isn’t my thing, but I accidentally stumbled onto Alysa Liu’s gold medal winning skate Thursday afternoon, moments after the American women had claimed their gold. I don’t know shit about skating, but in real time I could tell that Liu was skating with a joy, confidence, and ease that seemed uncommon to my amateur eyes. I knew she nailed it, without understanding why. A magnificent performance and deserved gold.

What else did I watch? As much alpine skiing at time allowed, although it was a bummer that these events were usually quite early and I was only able to catch the end of them live each morning. Fortunately I just missed Lindsey Vonn’s horrific crash. They need to find a way to stretch the alpine events out longer. A fair amount of curling. Lots of speed skating, sliding events, and cross country skating. Basically whatever was on during the morning when I was getting going and then while I was working out and could put on the TV.

We never got into a regular cycle of watching at night, since we generally knew all the results. I don’t think it bothered S as much as me, but I hate how tightly edited events were for prime time. Which, again, I get it! Events are basically turned into highlight reels that focus on the Americans over all else. Unless it is figure skating, when shit gets stretched out to cover long stretches of the three-hour prime time window. Another reason we didn’t watch much at night. I can only take so much of the skating crap.

It is a weird time for the Olympics, from a viewer’s perspective. I can literally watch any event I want, whenever is most convenient to me. If you told me that 20–30–40 years ago I would not have understood how that was possible. Younger Me would have expected that Older Me would spend every waking hour flipping around.

However, all those little friction points in the process kept me from fully diving in. Add in weird timing along with dissatisfaction with NBC’s product, and I could not get fully locked in this year. I assume that will change in two years when the summer games are here in the States. Although you never know how world events and NBC might find ways of fucking that up, too.

I’m not sure the IOC thinks things ahead. We just went through a cycle that had three straight games - winter-summer-winter - in Asia. Now we get back-to-back winter games in Europe. I understand the pool of places that can host the games is smaller than it used to be, but can we hop around a little? ↩

Weekend Notes

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 08:45:06 -0400

Last weekend was our first without football. This one was our first without high school basketball, at least directly. Yes, we’ve entered the dog days of winter. Mother Nature was sure to rub it in a bit.

Jayhawk Talk

Well that fucking sucked. Not just coming out like ass in a classic trap game. Not just having the game sitting there, begging to be taken over, and KU refusing to do so until Cincinnati said, “Fuck it,” and ran the Jayhawks off the court over the last five minutes. Not just blowing all the momentum the team had built up over the last month, with games against Houston and Arizona ahead.

Nope, losing to the school your kid goes to is the absolute worst. M let me know about it. And I admit I let her know when KU beats UC in any event. But sports mean way more to me than her so it kind of ruined the rest of my day. I claim to not nearly as wound up about these things as I used to be. This game brought out all the worst aspects of my sports fandom, I guess.

But Darryn Peterson played nearly the entire game, so maybe we can put that to rest, right?[1]

Big week ahead for KU to determine if they have a legit shot in March or not.

HS Hoops

Saturday was Semistate day in Indiana. For you non-Hoosiers, a reminder that Semistate is two games: there are games at 10 AM and noon, with the winners playing at 8 PM for the chance to advance to the state championship game.

In the 3A South Semistate, CHS had played three of the four teams this year, going 2–1. The championship game ended up being RHS, who beat us a week ago, vs JC, who we beat by one in November. JC had a lead most of the night but like last week RHS went on a late run and survived two open looks by JC that would have tied it to advance. JC’s best player is a KU recruit. She scored 24 in the morning game, 33 in the nightcap. Solid.

The 4A state championship game will feature two teams CHS played this year. So, of our seven losses this year, three were against teams that will play for a state championship next Saturday. A team we beat twice really should have made the 2A title game, but got upset in their morning game Saturday.

L had some teammates over in the evening and they watched the 3A game. It was funny to hear them yelling the same things from the basement we were yelling last week about what RHS’ best player gets away with. We taught them well. 😂

L celebrated, if that’s the right term, her season ending by having what she called Sexy Week. She got her ears pierced for the second time on Monday. She looked for prom dresses a couple days. She got her hair cut and colored for the first time in a year on Thursday. She even went to the tanning bed, although, sadly, the kid just does not get much color. Even her redheaded pal tans easier than her. Not sure how she ended up the palest in the family.

Olympics

I’m going to save the Olympics talk for a separate post, but that was a pretty good final weekend of events.

Bears Moving?

Dumbest news of last week was the “agreement” between the Chicago Bears and the state of Indiana to build a new stadium in Hammond, just across the border from Illinois and 20 minutes south of Soldier Field.

I say dumbest news because the Indy media reported it like it was a done deal and the Bears were guaranteed to jump the state line. Which ignored that the vote in the Indiana state legislature that led to the news was just a committee vote, not one in front of the full legislature. No funding has been secured. And it ignored that the Bears still have hearings scheduled in the Illinois state legislature. And, most importantly, that it discounts how things are done in Chicago.

Listen, there’s a greater than zero chance this will happen. However, I think the odds are much lower than our local reporters tried to get viewers to believe this past week. And if it does happen I will cackle at how our elected leaders will trumpet their “pro-business” bona fides while saddling Indiana residents with a tax burden that billionaires who live in another state will reap the benefits from. After years of arguing for “tax fairness.”

The real peach to this potential deal is that while the new stadium will indeed be built on the Indiana side of the border, much of any new development around the stadium will take place on the Illinois side. So Indiana might pony up billions to build and maintain the stadium, along with all the ancillary costs that go along with it, while any of the cherished retail, hospitality, and residential development will send its sales and property tax dollars to Springfield, IL.

Oh, and let’s not forget the biggest fucking elephant in the room: do you actually think the Colts are going to sit there quietly and watch the state of Indiana give handouts to another NFL team? Lucas Oil Stadium is over 15 years old now. A stadium that was built, by the way, almost entirely with funds raised at the county/municipal government level. The Colts may not have LA or Las Vegas to flirt with anymore, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to find a way to get at least as much money out of Indiana as the Bears have been promised. There will be claims that Lucas Oil is outdated, or needs some round of massive upgrades for the Colts to keep up with the rest of the league. And if the Colts don’t get what they ask for, you’ll start hearing about how San Antonio would love a team of their own. Hell, even if this all blows up and the Bears stay in Illinois, you can be sure the Colts will inquire about those funds.

Hammond, IN was the childhood home of writer Jean Shepherd, author of A Christmas Story. His fictional “Hohman” was a fill-in for his home town. I propose if Indiana somehow pulls this off, that the team name be changed to the Hammond Ralphies? The Double Dog Dares? The Red Ryders!

S and I are beginning to contemplate where we might end up when our kids are out of school. I’m starting to think a state with zero professional sports teams might be the best choice.

Weather

Well, we went from the earliest day it’s been over 70° this century to severe storms and tornadoes to windchills in the teens in about 40 hours last week. Then Saturday night it snowed enough that I had to go out and dust off the car windows of all of L’s friends who spent the night. Followed by flurries all day Sunday. It was only 27° but for some reason it felt much colder. We huddled inside with the fireplace going most of the day.

Speaking of those storms last week, the screenshot below shows how close the Bloomington tornado came to C’s dorm. It was on the ground to about I–69, where the damage indicators stop, and her dorm is right at the V in Indiana University on the screen.

Maniacal laughter. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 08:31:52 -0400

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5xIBXihq3JqosAMvRNQtVd?si=51a7c57336914af9)

“This Tornado Loves You” - Neko Case
“Victim Of Luck” - Metric
I put these two songs together, that have nothing to do with each other, because of the weather just down the road last night. C and her dorm mates had to take shelter when a tornado took dead aim at Bloomington. I have to say, as much as I enjoy watching TV coverage of severe weather, I got a strange feeling in my stomach as we watched the radar images showing the worst part of the storm passing within a mile of her dorm. I figured a big, old building like her’s was pretty stout, and she had moved to a safe location inside of it. But, still… She responded affirmatively when I told her the worst had passed, so I guess she made it through ok.

Anyway, here is the only tornado song in my library and a new track from Metric about luck.

“Like I Do” - Cashier
I am not minding the return of early-to-mid Nineties sounding rock.

“23” - Lime Garden
Even if you throw out the accents, this is a song only a British band could make.

“Keeper” - Girl Scout
OK, not an exact match, but I’m getting Swedish Middle Kids vibes from this song. Probably too many synths and not enough guitar to make that comparison really work, but definitely some common threads.

“Dead End” - Snail Mail
Hey, another new track heavily indebted to the Nineties, although in this case more ‘90s power pop and maybe a hint of Avril Lavigne?

“Dirt” - Searows
Gorgeous.

“Sunburned In London” - Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
One of my favorite packs of fun loving Aussies is back. For now this seems like a one-off single, but hopefully means a new, full-length album isn’t too far away.

“Rebel Without A Pause” - Public Enemy
“Keep Hope Alive” - The Crystal Method
Jesse Jackson died this week. Sadly I think a lot of people under 30, 35, 40??? didn’t know who he was, as he had largely faded from public view over the past 20 years or so. But in the Eighties, Jesse was out there. Sometimes too much. There is no doubt he had a massive impact on this country. We could use someone with his voice today. I really enjoyed this summary of his life on the Ringer.

To honor his life, two songs that feature his sampled voice.

[youtu.be/edZ5mez5B...](https://youtu.be/edZ5mez5BdI?si=9bnQ4LMxERaPLo6M)

“Hail, Hail” - Pearl Jam
There have been horrible VHS rips of this, Pearl Jam’s first ever performance on The Late Show, around for years. Worldwide Pants finally released a higher quality version a week ago. A great song in their catalog that gets lost because of when it came out. It became a staple of Paul Shaffer and The World’s Most Dangerous Band during commercial breaks. That’s ironic, as it comes from an episode that was commercial free. Jack Irons could play the fucking drums.

Weekend Notes

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 09:09:37 -0400

I didn’t intend to put this off a day, but Monday ended up including a trip to Bloomington so that kind of messed my routine up. Let’s get to the details of the weekend, which involved a couple rough basketball results.

State Regionals

Well, our girls damn near pulled it off. Saturday they were eight minutes from a huge upset over 3A #1 RHS. They came sooo close to getting it done.

RHS came in with just three losses on the year, two of those were to teams that entered last weekend ranked #1 and #2 in 4A. They beat us by 18 in semistate last year, and returned almost everyone from that team. The computer predicted they would beat us by 11. That seemed generous given how the game started, RHS jumping out to a 9–2 lead. We finally woke up and were down just four at the end of the quarter, and that was with us blowing two layups and missing two free throws.

The second quarter was much better. Even with our best played in her usual foul trouble, we took a momentary lead then went into halftime tied.

The third quarter was even better. We traded punches before going on a run to end the quarter. As the clock ran out we had a WIIIIIIIIDE open look that would have put us up nine. One of our better shooters lined it up and hit the front of the rim. In her defense, she was about four feet behind the 3 point arc, so it was deeper than she normally shoots.

Still, up six going into the fourth quarter on the top team in the state? Hell yes we’ll take that!

Then disaster struck. 90 seconds into the quarter we were down by three. RHS got a (BS) three-point play,[1] forced a five second call, scored again, added a 3, and one more free throw while we were kind of pissing down our legs.

However, we tied it and even took another brief lead before a wild-ass final 90 seconds.

Down four, the sophomore who took L’s place in the rotation got inside and scored. On the other end, RHS’ best player went to the line and, amazingly, missed both free throws. Our sophomore got inside again and was fouled. She returned the favor and missed her free throws, but somehow we got the rebound, tossed it to a wide open girl who laid it in to tie the game with under 30 seconds left.

With 14 seconds left RHS was inbounding under their own basket, and we forced a five second call. Holy shit! We’ve got a shot!

Until we proceeded to shakily break their press and then turn it right back over in the front court. Crap. I felt like I was going to throw up.

RHS missed a shot, there was a battle for the loose ball, and it went out of bounds off us. Their inbounds, under the basket, 1.9 to play. We knew exactly what was coming, as they had run the same play all day, a double screen for their best player to slip to the basket. If we cover her their 6’2” center is on the other side, probably open because of the rotation. It’s a really tough play to defend. After being burned on it a couple times we took a defender off the inbounder and guarded the spot where the roller goes to. For some reason we didn’t do that on this play.

Naturally that was the killer. Their best player got free, rolled to the hoop, and we had to foul her as she tried to lay it in. Two free throws, 0.4 seconds left, this time she did not miss.

52–50 final.

Our girls played their asses off. Ten poor seconds killed us. Or maybe it was those bad 90 seconds to start the fourth quarter. Or the bad two minutes to start the game. A super painful loss, because the win was right there for the taking. Sometimes it’s better to get blown out, I think. Especially when you were the underdog.

As you would expect, it was a rough scene after. Our girls took at least 20 minutes to come out of the locker room, and even then filtered out in ones and twos, everyone with faces red from crying.

When L finally emerged she came directly to us and collapsed into my arms. She was sad about losing. She was sad for the seniors, who is very close with. She was sad she didn’t play. I don’t want to get into it too much, but now that the season was over, she finally let out a lot of negative emotions about why she didn’t play for a month and the person that caused that. I admire the general maturity she’s handled all this with, but was also relieved she actually had some negative emotions about it and was finally letting them out. And it also broke my heart a little bit. She worked so hard to get back after her surgery a year ago, a process that lasted into this season. She had finally settled into a role that while less than what she hoped for, was still as a contributor on a really good team. Then someone else took it away from her and faced no consequences.[2] It was a tough few minutes.

L had plans to hang out with three old travel teammates after the game. One of those girls plays for RHS, which was both awkward and funny. When that girl came over L flipped her two sarcastic birds. A, who also didn’t play, said, “Hey, I didn’t contribute at all!” which made us all laugh. As we were driving home A’s mom sent me a picture that had already posted on the Indianapolis Star’s website of our daughters hugging each other after the game. The contest was tight, tense, and not without controversy.[3] A’s mom posted the picture on Facebook and there were tons of comments about how that picture summed up what sports are all about. It made me happy that L has forged some really tight bonds with girls who play for other schools, and those girls always find a way to hug each other and be nice after the games. I was not that mature at her age.[4]

A 20–7 season is nothing to be ashamed of. Especially when I was worried whether they would be able to win five games after they lost opening night. Indianapolis City champs and sectional champions for the second-straight year. The most wins in over 20 years. Monday L posted tributes to her teammates and titled it Best Year Ever. That was true in many ways.

Now we’re down to summer ball and then 25-ish games next season before our lives as sports parents are complete.

Jayhawk Talk

Well, that was 1000% predictable. KU just knocked off undefeated #1 Arizona Monday in an amazing game that resonated around the college hoops world all week. Iowa State played poorly and lost to TCU on Tuesday. The Jayhawks had pounded the Cyclones when they played a month ago. Throw in another week of silly Darryn Peterson drama as a bonus. I’m not a gambling man, but ISU winning easily Saturday seemed like the easiest bet you could ever make.

KU started well but quickly withered in the face of the ‘Clones pressure defense. It’s like they hadn’t practiced against double teams.

Fortunately I only saw the first half before we left for L’s game, and was focused on high school hoops so didn’t get too worked up about it. Breaking the season into mini runs, KU just finished a stretch at 3–1, including a road win and that Arizona win.

Suddenly just six games left in the regular season. 5–1 would be incredible, 4–2 solid, 3–3 a disappointment.

Sister Time

Not really blog worthy news but M broke up with her boyfriend about a month ago. No further comments about that.

Because of that she was left without a date for her sorority’s Valentine’s Day party. So she invited her little sister from IU. As the party was last Thursday, I drove down to pick C up Wednesday evening. I was surprised there weren’t big, obnoxious banners all over campus celebrating the football team’s national title. That’s what I would have done.

C drove to Cincy on Thursday. Sounds like they had a good time. One of C’s high school buddies is also in M’s house, so she got to hang with her as well. Then Friday she hung out with some other CHS pals who are Bearcats. She drove back Saturday and chilled with us the rest of the weekend.

Her only Monday class is at 3:00 so she asked if I could take her back Monday morning. That was nice as we had some family over Sunday so I wouldn’t have to drive her back late. When she woke up Monday she already had a message from her instructor cancelling class because she had the flu. I think the teacher just wanted to enjoy the day. It was in the mid–60s in B-town and when I dropped C off there were kids scampering about in shorts and t-shirts.

Nice to have C home for a few days. Now that basketball is over, the three sisters have a big thing planned to do together on a weekend when both college girls can be home. I’ll share more about that when it happens.

Legit foul call, but it came way before she started shooting. Should have been RHS ball on the baseline, not a 3-point opportunity. ↩
Although, as noted, the Basketball Gods kept that person’s potential game-tying shot from going in when her team lost in the playoffs. ↩
Don’t get me started on their best player, who fouls and flops and whines the entire game. And to begin the fourth quarter, the fouls were 7–2 against us, which is weird since they were pressing us and we were hanging back in a zone. ↩
And to be fair, some of you I still would refuse to talk to for a while as an adult if your team beat mine. L is waaaaaay more mature than I’ve ever been. 😂 ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 08:36:28 -0400

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0MeodQldwRTo8nMN8A80OH?si=45e24d68587445b3)

“PUNK ROCKY” - ASAP Rocky
One of many successful hip hop artists I knew the name of but was not familiar with their work. At least until I heard this terrific track on The Bridge a couple weeks ago.

“C.L.U.T.T.E.R.” - Clutter
Joining bands like Bad Company, Black Sabbath, Talk Talk, Bad Religion, and Living In A Box, among others, that have songs with the same name as the group.

“Dancing On The Wall” - MUNA
OH SHIT! NEW MUNA JUST DROPPED!

“Twisted On A Train” - King Tuff
Kyle Thomas’ new album is called Moo and he describes it as a back to rock basics effort. I can get down with all of that.

“Twisters” - Brown Horse
For obvious reasons this song gets slotted in next. Very solid twang-rock from the UK of all places.

“NEVER BEEN BETTER” - VIAL
“Burn It Down” - Ratboys
I put these two songs together because VIAL is from Minneapolis and has been very outspoken about the authoritarian military attack on their home city over the past month, while Ratboys wrote “Burn It Down” after the murder of George Floyd but saved it for their newest album. What a disaster our nation has become, and all because a geriatric with the emotional maturity of a toddler got his feelings hurt when the nation voted against him.

“Fading Out” - Primitive Radio Gods
This week’s Alternative Numbers Ones entry was about PRG’s “Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand.” In the piece Tom Breihan referred to PRG as a One Hit Wonder and got into that a bit, noting how it’s not necessarily a bad label. While it is mostly correct to slot this band that way, this track did get a decent amount of airplay on alternative radio in 2000, just not enough to chart, I guess. I always liked it more than their big hit.

“Hazy Shade Of Winter” - The Bangles covering Simon & Garfunkle
’Tis the season to share one of the greatest covers ever recorded. Thankfully winter has become a little hazy around here, and looks to remain hazy for at least a week. The last of our snowbanks should be gone by the end of the weekend.

[youtu.be/TbZ1SEy_w...](https://youtu.be/TbZ1SEy_wxk?si=G1rtzWEVDYzcRUvu)

“Stuck Between Stations” - The Hold Steady
This year is the 20th anniversary of THS’ greatest album, Boys And Girls In America. To celebrate the band is doing a series of dates in Chicago, Boston, Portland, Seattle, and New York, stretched out over most of the second half of the year. Tuesday morning I obtained tickets for myself and a couple brothers in music to the big Chicago show. I am pretty geeked about it. You will hear more about that as we get closer.

[youtu.be/NCem-H3Ca...](https://youtu.be/NCem-H3Ca-w?si=Z7)–8KUNhtBfitMeL

“When Doves Cry” - Prince & The Revolution
Finally, I just stumbled across this amazing piece of history, Prince and his band rehearsing one of his biggest hits.

Reader's Notebook, 2/11/26

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 10:12:12 -0400

With all this terrible weather,[1] I’ve been doing some of that reading shit.

Hotel Ukraine - Martin Cruz Smith Smith died last summer. Over his long career he wrote over 30 books, most famously his Arkady Renko series, which began with Gorky Park. I never read any of his books, although my mom owned a paperback copy of Gorky Park. This landed on a best thrillers list from last year so I gave it a shot.

His hero Renko is on a similar path to his own. Where Smith was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in the 1990s, and eventually died because of it, Renko is in the earliest stages of the ailment. Renko is on a new case that involves people at the highest levels of the Russian government and military just as the second invasion of Ukraine begins. He is both fighting internal forces that want a murder ignored and trying to keep his superiors from noticing the symptoms of his disease.

In the end, the book felt a bit rushed, the conclusion arrived at too quickly. I wonder if Smith knew how near his end was and wanted to make sure he got his hero one last closed case.

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War Diaries: A Radio Amateur in Kyiv - Volodymyr Gurtovy Following that, it seemed like the ideal moment to read this, a book I ran across on a blog several years ago. Its title tells the story: Gurtovy lives in Kyiv and this is his diary of the first year of the war. The radio amateur part doesn’t really come into his accountings much, it was more a promotional line as several ham radio operators in the west encouraged Gurtovy to collect the daily writings he posted on message boards.

As we are four years into the war, it is striking to see how hopeful and certain he was that the Ukraine would prevail back in 2022. The war has been stuck in a messy stalemate for most of the last three years and I wonder if he feels the same today. I was also interested in how being in the thick of war affects one’s views. For example, Gurtovy said the Russians were guilty of far worse than the Nazis ever did during World War II. I can see how when you are being bombed daily you might have a dim view of your opponents. But while the Russians are certainly the most evil side in this conflict and have done many acts that can be labelled as war crimes, I don’t think they’ve reached Nazi levels of evil.

Alternative For The Masses - Greg Prato My first alternative rock history book of the year.[2] This one is focused on the bands that got swept along to success when the Grunge Era began. While there has to be some discussion of Nirvana since they started the alternative rock revolution, there is almost none of Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice In Chains.

Instead Prato hears from members of bands like the Pixies, Belly, Ministry, Primus, along with producers, MTV personalities, and so on who were in the midst of that era.

It is a decent read but it runs into an issue that often happens with books presented as oral histories: it is oddly organized. It has to be hard to turn dozens of interviews into a cohesive narrative, but in this case there is often no flow from one chapter to the next, so we miss that recognizable arc you want from a history book.

I still learned a lot, but this was probably my least favorite of all the Nineties rock books I’ve read. We’ll see if my next one, which moves to the 2000s, is better.

Foster - Claire Keegan A wonderful short story about an Irish girl who is sent to spend the summer of 1981 with family friends. Her home is a stereotypical Irish one: her mother is pregnant, about to add a new baby to an already crowded house. Her father is distant, appears to like “the drink,” and does not bring in enough money. Bills are not being paid, work around their farm is not being done.

The girl is dropped off with no idea how long she will stay. After a rough first few days she eventually settles in with the nice, quiet, slightly older couple in their home. Over the course of the summer she blossoms, forming tight bonds with each of her temporary parents. Just when she feels like she has found a new home she learns the tragic secret the couple has kept from her and gets word that she will be going home when the new school year begins.

Despite checking in at 88 pages and Keegan being rather spare with her words, it packs a true emotional wallop.

The Traitor - Ava Glass Finally, I went back to book two in Glass’ Alias Emma series. I really liked the first one, which was a unique take on the modern spy novel. This one, however, was not nearly as successful. It read like any one of dozens of other books I’ve read. Worse, its big twist was identifiable 200 pages before it happened. I spent a lot of time thinking, “Surely character X isn’t the bad guy,” when indeed character X was the bad guy. Sadly that means I will not be sticking with the series going forward, a shame since the opener showed so much promise.

It was unexpectedly 57° yesterday. Multiple days near 60° next week! ↩
Another is to come soon. ↩

Jayhawk Talk: An Allen Classic

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 10:04:51 -0400

It is funny how my relationship with sports in general and Kansas basketball in particular has changed in recent years. As I get older, I’m less fired up than I used to be. Or, better stated, less fired up as often. I can still work up some intensity, but it doesn’t last as long, good or bad. My family might argue, as there are still plenty of times when I’m either cussing in anger or roaring when a big play happens. Those moments just don’t happen as often, aren’t quite as intense, and pass quicker than they used to.

Then along comes a game like last night’s win over #1 Arizona.

There was 48 hours of buildup for it, including all the stats I dropped yesterday that made it seem even bigger. I was genuinely excited for it all day Monday.

Then, five minutes before tip, came news that Darryn Peterson was out with “flu-like symptoms.” There was much eye rolling and angst amongst the Jayhawk faithful as this news spread. His illness was probably totally legit, but when a player has missed as many games as he has this year, they tend to lose sympathy from fans. “Take some Tamiflu and get on the court,” was the general sentiment in my circle of KU fans.

So when I turned the game on at 9:00,[1] my expectations were low. I turned to a tried-and-true deflection technique of keeping a bunch of tabs open on the laptop searching for info on a few projects I am working on. I can’t get too annoyed by the presumed loss if I’m not totally focused on it! Hell, I might get to go to bed at a decent time.

(Narrator’s voice: he did not get to bed at a decent time.)

Flory Bidunga and Melvin Council Jr. and Bryson Tiller and Jamari McDowell all flipped me the bird, played their asses off, and created one of the great nights in Allen Fieldhouse history.

Arizona is so good, and so tough. KU was working so hard to get points through the first 25–30 minutes, and UA would come down and casually hit a shot without much visible effort. KU would seemingly spend all their energy to go on a 5–0 run to cut the lead, then the Wildcats would make three passes and find a wide-open shooter who would splash the shot. So demoralizing.

The Arizona lead was 11 three minutes into the second half and it really felt like KU had ridden the wave as far as they could. The predictable blowout was coming.

Then Council drained a 3 and brought some life to the building. It was slow and uncertain at first, but eventually it was the comeback that felt inevitable, not the loss. That was an all-time Fieldhouse crowd. Even through the TV you could feel them picking the KU players up. Arizona never seemed super rattled, the way some teams fall apart in Allen. Rather, the intensity of the crowd and KU’s defense just had them making a serious of small, poor choices that added up.

When Bidunga hit a layup with nine minutes left, KU took a lead they never relinquished. KU led by six twice, once with just 50 seconds left, but just had to make it interesting, with a couple bad shots here, a missed free throw there, and a horrific turnover on an inbounds pass to top it off.

This was their night, though, and they held on.

The undefeated had been defeated. KU finally beat a #1 ranked team in Allen. Bill Self still hasn’t lost at home on Big Monday. His reaction after was incredible. There was the pumping of fists, which has only happened a few times. There was the bear hug for Bidunga. There was the walking around the acknowledge the crowd, which I don’t recall him ever doing. This year has certainly been trying on him, both because of his health and because of the whole DP situation. A moment that, temporarily, eased all that pressure played out on national TV.

I never got too down when UA was ahead, or too up when KU was rallying. Until those last five minutes. Then I was all-in and totally engaged. I stayed up another hour to watch all the press conferences as they hit YouTube.[2] I figured this was a terrible time to have a late beer and risk triggering my Afib, so I had a second NA beer. Which, shockingly, didn’t do much to calm me. I tried to go to bed at 12:30 but tossed and turned for over an hour until I went downstairs to read a little more about the game and do some other stuff to try to turn my brain off. Back to bed at 2:30, thankfully finally to sleep shortly after. My schedule is obviously wide open, so I could have slept in. But I always hear S getting ready, and L likes to bang around down the hall while she’s prepping for school, so I was up at my normal time. A little more caffeine than normal, perhaps a quick nap in the afternoon. I’ll be fine. And it was totally worth it.

Another difference about me at 54½: I’m not going to crank out a list of my top games at Allen Fieldhouse to put last night in context. Not only was this a big game, it was a great game. It would slide in right up there with the West Virginia comebacks, multiple Kentucky games, the OU triple OT game, the UCLA game, the 1993 IU game, and so on. In the moment it feels as big as all of those. How this team does the next six weeks will determine whether it was a blip in time or part of something greater.

Thanks to Louisville for absolutely destroying NC State so ESPN switched over before that game was complete! ↩
Bidunga’s meetings with the press have become high comedy. ↩

Weekend Notes

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 09:50:39 -0400

One of the last busy weekends of the season before the late-winter lull hits.

Super Bowl

Every year around this time we have dinner with some good friends to celebrate a shared birthday, S’s and the male half of their duo. This year Super Bowl Sunday was literally the only day that worked for both of us over a four weekend stretch. So we scheduled an early dinner for our celebration. We had trouble finding a reservation but the place we landed on was nearly empty. We realized why when we arrived; they had no TVs! Thus we missed most of the first half of the game, getting home with about 3:00 left in the second quarter.

Obviously we didn’t miss much.

And, thankfully, the game opened up in the fourth quarter.

What a dominant effort by the Seattle defense! They abused and confused Drake Maye all night. Or at least from what I saw. And great for Sam Darnold. He seemed like the classic QB bust, a high pick expected to save the Jets franchise who fell on his face. Worse, one that became a punchline because of his “I was seeing ghosts” game a few years back against the Patriots. I wouldn’t say he’s elite now, but neither is he a Trent Dilfer. This entire season was all about the defense carrying them. Still, despite leading the league in turnovers, Darnold did more than enough to get his team a title.

I didn’t really pay attention to the commercials once we got home, so no comments there.

I’ve never chosen to listen to a Bad Bunny song, mostly because I’m old. His halftime performance was a spectacular piece of entertainment, even with me having no context and not being able to understand more than a few words. I’m sure once I start wading into Super Bowl coverage later I will run across lots of mock outrage about it from the You Know Whos. The same folks who, when they take their vacations to secluded resorts and have 57 drinks by the pool, will sloppily dance to these exact songs when the DJ plays them. Sigh.

Repeat Champs!

After going 20 years without a sectional championship, our Irish went back-to-back this weekend. We played the same two teams we played a year ago in the semis and finals, in flipped order.

Friday we faced Purdue Poly, who we beat by 30 last year in the championship game. This year was closer. We led by just one after a quarter but then 12 at halftime and were feeling pretty good. Our best player got her third foul seconds into the third quarter. Our other best press breaker was struggling because of the flu. We proceeded to panic, gave up a 14–0 run, and found ourselves behind late in the quarter. Fortunately we ended the period on an 8–0 run and were able to extend that lead, winning by 12. We had at least two other girls who were showing flu symptoms. The team had a breakfast and shoot around Saturday morning. S sent a bag of cold and flu meds, liquid IV, and hand sanitizer with L to share with her teammates and, hopefully, help get them through the day.

In the final we played CA, who we beat by 40 a year ago in the semis. There was a story to that game I got into a little bit in my recap. They have a D1 recruit, who is going to Central Florida, a 6’3” sophomore who anchors their defense, and two other nice players. But are basically a one-girl team. They won their semifinal by 18 and were never pressured. I was a little worried when we got to the gym.

Misguided nerves, at least at first. We started red hot, hitting four of five 3’s. An 18–0 run helped us lead 21–5 after one quarter. CA changed their D a little, we got sloppy, and by halftime it was down to seven points.

The third quarter was weird. We were already in a zone, CA switched from a 2–3 to a 1–3–1, and neither offense seemed to know what to do. Multiple possessions involved a lot of standing around or passing the ball around the perimeter with no intent for 30–45 seconds. CA showed the curse of basically running your team around one or two players: when you face a good zone, having two or three girls standing around doing nothing makes it impossible to attack. Their offense generally was their best player getting pissed, driving into traffic, and scoring at the rim. Then we would wast a minute before bricking a shot. There was very little action in the period, but CA did outscore us by three so it was a four-point margin going into the final quarter.

They got it to three points a couple times but never had the ball with a chance to tie. We missed six free throws in the final 90 seconds, which did not inspire confidence, but still won by eight.

Much closer games than a year ago, but I think that is testament to how each of our opponents improved. I believe Purdue Poly returns their three best players and will be a genuine threat to win the sectional next year.

Not only a consecutive sectional championship, but by winning our 20th game, it’s the most wins in program history since 2004. Our reward? We get to play our semi-rivals 24–3 Roncalli, currently ranked #1, and the team that knocked us out of last year’s tournament. Not sure why we play them in regionals this year when it was semistate last year, but there’s never a lot of logic to Indiana sports.

The game will be in Greencastle, about an hour west of town, next Saturday. The game after ours will be another all Indy matchup, between the #1 and #5 4A teams. Again, no logic…

L was back in uniform, as Friday was the first day she was eligible to return. However, since she hadn’t been in an official practice yet, we figured there was no chance she would get on the court. We even hoped for that, as she’s not played in three weeks and stepping into a tense, playoff game would not set her up for success. Maybe she’ll get in next week, after a full week of practice, but as our lineup has been limited to just one or two bench players for the past week, odds are she won’t crack the rotation. Which is a bummer but also fine. If she had a chance to play in some regular season games I think both she and we would be more confident about her getting minutes. Right now she’s probably better suited sitting on the bench encouraging her teammates. She got to snip a piece of net in uniform Saturday, but for the second-straight season a strange injury prevented her from really being a part of the sectional championship team.

A quick note about our host school. We played at Shortridge, the oldest free public high school in Indiana.[1] It is currently in its fifth location since opening in 1864, on the edge of downtown Indy proper. Kurt Vonnegut, among other famous Indianapolis residents, went there. I LOVED looking at the old banners on the gym walls. They won the state track championship in 1905. They won wrestling semistate in 1908 and 1909, but never since. The gym was built in the 1920s but has been updated, and is big and fairly nice.

My favorite thing was the pictures of old teams on the walls. The school’s mascot is the Blue Devil. But there was a big, black and white photo of an old basketball team wearing jerseys that said Satans on them. Satans! In Indiana! In the 1920s! The best explanation I can find is that the original mascot was a cat named Felix[2] but the students decided they needed something fiercer, and voted for Blue Devils, honoring a French flying squadron from World War I, Les Diables Bleus. Along with that came the nickname of Satans, which was used for parts of the ‘20s and ‘30s. Good stuff!

Finally, playing three games we had the genuine pleasure of hearing the Shortridge athletic trainer sing the national anthem. Genuinely the best performances I have ever heard live. This lady was truly amazing. I tried to record it Saturday but somehow failed. I crossed paths with her Friday evening and told her how fantastic she was. And then she was periodically helping girls who had injuries. What a versatile woman!

Jayhawk Talk

Not the most satisfying win Saturday against Utah, but that was to be expected. A classic trap game, falling between Monday’s dramatic win in Lubbock and tonight’s visit from #1 Arizona. Flory Bidunga was, again, amazing but no one else really impressed. Hopefully they were just saving it for the Wildcats.

Something has to give tonight. Arizona is undefeated. In 1001 games in Allen Fieldhouse, the Jayhawks have never beaten a team that was ranked #1.[3] Bill Self has never lost a Big Monday game at home. In their last 12 games against top ranked teams, KU has alternated two wins with two losses six consecutive times. They lost their last two…😳😬

Huge game. The next three weeks are the most difficult of the year for KU, with two games against Arizona, a trip to Iowa State, and a visit from Houston. It would be awesome to start it with a win.

Pacers

Hey, a big trade before the deadline! There had been chatter for a month or so that the Pacers would look to shore up their center position. I kept hearing Indy native Jaren Jackson’s name, who I did not think fit in with what the Pacers run, so was relieved when Memphis shipped him to Utah. Then the Pacers chatter died as the national media was more focused on whether Giannis and/or Anthony Davis would be moved.

So I was shocked, surprised, and pleased when I heard the Pacers were sending Bennedict Mathurin and Isaiah Jackson plus draft picks to the Clippers for Ivica Zubac. Zubac is one of the most underrated centers in the league. He’s not an exact replacement for Myles Turner, as he spends much more time inside than Myles and is not much of a shooter. Where Myles was pick-and-pop, Zubac is pick-and-roll, and one of the best finishing big men in the league. He’s also a better defender and rebounder. A perfect match for Tyrese Haliburton, and Rick Carlisle is the perfect coach to unlock the potential of that combination.

Mathurin seemed destined to be traded. His style was never a great match for the Pacers’ system. In fact, he was the ideal counter to their style, someone who could come in when the starters were resting and just do his one-on-one thing for five minute spurts. The Pacers don’t get to game seven of the Finals without him, but he needs to start and that would be disruptive to the rest of the team. Smart move.

The only dicey thing about the trade was the Pacers including a protected first round pick this year. If the Pacers have a top four pick, they keep it, which is where you want to be this year. If it falls between five and ten, it goes to the Clippers. I think that’s a decent risk to take, but if the lottery balls fall wrong, the Pacers will not pick in the first round in June.

There are still some parts they could move in the summer regardless of what their draft status is. Bottom line, this trade put them on track to be an immediate contender again next year when Haliburton returns, Zubac gets integrated, and Pascal Siakam, hopefully, keeps playing like an absolute stud.

Speaking of Siakam, he should get a lot of rest in the second half of the season. The Pacers need to do everything they can to maximize their lottery odds for getting one of the top four picks and being able to add another potential cornerstone to this roster. Getting Darryn Peterson, AJ Dybantsa, Carlos Boozer, or Caleb Wilson would be a massive reward for losing Hali for a season. Pascal needs to spend more nights on the bench in street clothes than on the court and accidentally winning games.

Olympics

I watched a fair amount of Olympics coverage.

The story of the weekend was Lindsey Vonn crashing out of the downhill Sunday. I rolled out of bed moments after it happened live, so immediately saw live coverage of the aftermath. A couple hours later NBC re-ran the entire race. Then they squeezed it into their post Super Bowl coverage. As I shared with fellow SNL/Olympics Head John in Lee’s Summit, it felt a little like when Buckwheat got shot and “Ted Koppel” kept asking people if they’ve seen the video. “Let’s take a look…”

I have no strong opinions on Vonn racing. An accident seemed inevitable, but she had skied cleanly on Saturday and her wipe out Sunday seemed more because of a fluke - her pole catching on a gate while she was airborne and spinning her off balance - than anything caused by her knee injury. People called her reckless or worse. I figure she was there, this was likely the last time she would ever ski an Olympic downhill,[4] as long as it wasn’t deemed a safety hazard she might as well take a shot and see what happens. Sadly it ended in disaster rather than triumph.

Props to Breezy Johnson for capturing the gold. Best skiing name since Picabo Street.

Wikipedia tells me New Albany High School was the first public high school in Indiana, but it was not free when it opened. Apparently public school meant something different in the middle of the 19th century than it does now. ↩
But, strangely, not THE Felix the Cat. The Shortridge mascot predates the famous cartoon cat, which Logansport High School adopted and still uses as its mascot. ↩
Granted, there have only been five of those games, the last in 2003, also against Arizona. ↩
Although we’ve thought that about Vonn before. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 10:05:40 -0400

A lot of really good music this week, including TWO videos!

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“w-w-w-w-w” - hemlocke springs
This is the latest in a new year I’ve ever gone without creating my working list of favorite songs released since January 1. This is the remarkable song that finally prompted it. I knew nothing about hemlocke springs before I heard this jam, but apparently she’s been getting buzz for some time and has already opened for Chappell Roan. Stereogum described has as a “Gen Z Cyndi Lauper,” which is spot on. Four minutes of super-charged Eighties nostalgia, while still sounding new and vital.

“Heat” - Station Model Violence
It doesn’t matter that I don’t know any of the bands this super group pulls members from, since they are all Australian I had to check them out. This song was inspired by one of the members watching a BBC documentary about Krautrock. You certainly hear that influence in this track.

“Penny In The Lake” - Ratboys
Their new album is finally out today. We’ve heard roughly half of it by now, so I’m not sure there will be many surprises. I’m still looking forward to giving it a spin later today.

“The Shooter” - Institute
Not news that the NRA sucks, but the last couple weeks have highlighted that fact.

“Site Unseen” - Courtney Barnett featuring Waxahatchee
HOLY CROSSING OF STREAMS!!!! Courtney and Katie sound so good together.

“I Did This To Myself” - Thundercat & Lil Yachty
After watching that Yacht Rock doc in December I made a note to listen to more Thundercat. He obliged by putting out a new song. I love the melding of different genres here.

“Pieces” - SPRINTS
This band never disappoints. As I type this it is snowing/sleeting unexpectedly hard. I’m pretty sure if I played this on a loop I wouldn’t have to go out and clear the sidewalk later, the music would melt it off for me.

“After The Rain” - Mirah
An utterly gorgeous song and perfect palate cleanser after the previous track.

“I Ran (So Far Away)” - The Beaches covering A Flock of Seagulls
Amazingly I can’t find that there has ever been an official cover of this Eighties classic. Which makes sense, because it was so sui generis that it was difficult to cover and have any chance of separating the new from the original. My gals in The Beaches take a pretty good crack at it here. They seem like the perfect band to do it, with their sound being an updated take on classic Eighties pop. I’m amused that there are probably a lot of Olds who hated the original but will now get bent out of shape that someone decided to cover it.

[youtu.be/JTiVaqMnR...](https://youtu.be/JTiVaqMnRbo?si=WvHirsVDn7ZvBgwf)

“Spirit Of The Radio”
I found this on YouTube a few weeks back and forgot to share it. The lead singer is ok, but that band? Those kids can freaking play!

From this video I went down a rabbit hole of watching various Rush performances. I was never a huge Rush fan, they were generally too proggy for me. But they had some hits, and all those hits were all very good to great. And then you watch their live performances and see how locked in they were. Great band. Might as well go with their best song to round out the week.

[youtu.be/zE_szIhPU...](https://youtu.be/zE_szIhPUuQ?si=Xb0Sv3rg7ep3OMBA)

Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 123

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 14:50:41 -0400

Chart Week: February 4, 1984 Song: “Break My Stride” - Matthew Wilder Chart Position: #5, 21st week on the chart. Peaked at #5 for three weeks.

Nearly five weeks into the new year without any RFTS entries. Trust me, it’s been keeping me awake at night. Fortunately, during the countdown I listened to last week, Matthew Wilder’s biggest (but not only!)[1] hit was spending its final week in the top five. It surprisingly offers plenty to talk about.

After years of singing backup for artists like Rickie Lee Jones and Bette Midler, and for TV commercials, Wilder signed with Arista Records in 1981. At the time the label was run by the legend Clive Davis, a man responsible for guiding some of the biggest acts in music history. There was some friction between the two. Over his first three years on the label, every track Wilder submitted was rejected by Davis.

Growing frustrated, Wilder wrote “Break My Stride.” Although presented as an ode to being resilient after a relationship ends, Wilder said it was directly about his interactions with Davis. He laid down a demo, sent it to Arista, and…crickets. Not even a rejection, just no response at all. Wilder made some calls and eventually someone found his cassette. On it was a note from Davis saying, “Interesting song, but not a hit.”

Fed up with years of neglect, Wilder asked for, and was granted, a release from his contract. Using his own money, he recorded a fully mastered version of the track that he shopped to other companies. Eventually Private I Records picked it up. And, soon, Wilder proved Davis wrong.

That’s a nice little story about an artist getting lost in the major label machine and fighting for his work to be noticed. The kind of story Casey might share on his show.[2] There’s also another, much better, story about “Break My Stride” that I’m pretty sure Casey would never have included on a broadcast.

For a full decade, Joe Isgro, owner of Private I, was under federal investigation for allegedly making Payola payments to get the label’s music inserted into radio playlists. While the investigation eventually ended in 1996, without any charges being filed, the Feds did determine that Isgro had bought airtime for “Break My Stride.”[3] Perhaps coincidentally, Private I did not invest in making a video for the song.[4]

So, a record came out-of-nowhere, from an artist who had never before hit the pop chart, without any MTV presence, and spent over a month in the top 10 in 1983/4? Shady, for sure.

Although Wilder deserves credit for writing a tune that caught on and spent over six months on the pop chart, you have to acknowledge that fraud helped it gain traction.

That said, I look at Payola in radio similar to how I look at steroids in baseball in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The era was rife with cheating; it wasn’t just Bonds and McGuire and Sosa. I am almost positive there were other tunes on the chart at the same time as “Break My Stride” whose airplay numbers were juiced[5] by bribes to program directors. So as with the most notorious stars of the Steroid Era, I think it’s fair to put an asterisk next to the record while still accepting that it made a dent in pop culture.[6]

“Break My Stride” is so relentlessly optimistic that it can wear you down. While the verses are built around that failed romance, the choruses are a much more universal refusal to let negativity overwhelm you. An ex shouldn’t make you give up on love. Spinning your wheels at work shouldn’t keep you from being ambitious. And a music label mogul who keeps telling you no sure as hell can’t stop you from achieving your dream. It is almost Pollyanna-ish, yet Wilder’s tone is so pure that you are defenseless as it slowly seeps through your armor of cynicism. There’s a part of me that truly hates this song, yet I will almost always start humming along when I hear it. Which makes me hate myself a little bit. Until I realize that I’m happier than I was three minutes earlier.

Dammit.

The true power of the song lies in that light, almost childlike, keyboard riff. That mutherfucker will get stuck in your head. There’s a hint of the islands, without it trying to be a reggae track. It sounds more like it was made in a bedroom on a laptop in 2004 than in a proper studio in 1983. Oh shit, did Matthew Wilder invent Bedroom Pop???

As I tend to do, I’m probably overthinking all of this. It’s just a dumb little pop song that never should have been a hit, but somehow stood toe-to-toe with Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney, Hall and Oates, Duran Duran, and Billy Joel for a few weeks.

“Break My Stride” has been covered a couple times. It’s been ripped off by Puffy and Aaron Carter for their own “original” tracks. It has been used in countless films and advertising campaigns.[7] It was even one of the first old songs to turn into a Tik Tok trend. If you hate it, it is like the proverbial cockroach that just can’t be killed. If it has worn you down, though, Wilder’s words and music are a reminder that when in doubt, you’ve got to keep on movin’. 7/10

This “performance” is something else.

youtu.be/b2jaoeoSt…

His follow up, “The Kid’s American,” reached #33. One other Wilder single reached the Top 100 before he shifted to producing and writing for other artists. Maybe Clive Davis wasn’t so wrong after all. ↩
Perhaps he did talk of Wilder’s struggles at some point, but not in this week’s show. ↩
Isgro was later indicted, and convicted, for extortion. He was alleged to be part of the Gambino crime family as well. ↩
Wilder claims he had a great idea for a video that featured animation, but when he presented it to the label they laughed and said, “Animation? You’re not even getting a video!” ↩
Juiced! Ha! ↩
If I ran the Baseball Hall of Fame all the juicers would be in, but with clear acknowledgements of their actions and the era they played in. ↩
As I was working on this I heard a new version used in an ad for a prescription drug. ↩

Two Nights Of Hoops

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 13:01:42 -0400

An eventful first two nights of the week on the hardcourt. Let’s run through some notes from each.

Jayhawk Talk

The Jayhawks went to Lubbock, refused to take over a game that was there for the taking in the first half, let a couple of rotation players scorch them for about five minutes, and found themselves down by 10 with eight minutes left.

The home crowd was roaring, JT Toppin was finally getting loose, and KU had nothing going on offense. Game over, it felt like. Not a bad loss, as this was chalked up as a likely L from the moment the schedule came out. Still a frustrating one.

Then, suddenly, KU’s defense woke up. A string of stops combined with a Melvin Council 3 and then shots inside by Council, Flory Bidunga, and Tre White narrowed the margin to three points with 80 seconds left.

That’s when Darryn Peterson decided to do Darryn Peterson stuff. A 3 off a flare screen tied the game.[1] Thirty-five seconds later he drilled another 3, KU weathered a missed Tech 3, a terrible turnover by White, and then Tech’s final heave to escape with a massive road win.

The Jayhawks seemed dead with five minutes to play, yet they walked out with the W. Peterson played the entire game, even if clearly not 100%. Bryson Tiller got some huge rebounds. Bidunga showed, again, how much he’s improved from his freshman year.

I don’t want to get too excited given how the rest of the Big 12 schedule looks, but maybe this team officially Has Something? Hold serve against Utah this weekend and next week will be a big moment to figuring out if this is real or not, with Arizona coming to Lawrence Monday then the return trip to Ames, IA next Saturday.

HS Hoops

The 2026 Indiana State Tournament began last night. Our evening was eventful.

We knew the CHS opener would be ugly, facing the worst team in 3A. When we arrived at the gym and saw these poor girls warming up, struggling to dribble the ball, that was confirmed. On the state computer ranking site, the prediction was a 106–9 win, which did not account for running clock or substitution patterns.

We began the game on a 44–0 run before they hit a free throw. And that was with us missing a bunch of layups. And pulling our starters after three minutes. And basically just passing the ball around the perimeter until someone was wide open under the basket. These poor girls. Once on a free throw one of their girls didn’t know where to line up, and her teammate had to first point to a spot and then physically move her to where she needed to stand. After 18 games. 🤦‍♂️

It was 46–1 at halftime when the running clock kicked in. Herron banked in a shot midway through the third quarter for their only made basket of the game. Hell, they only took five or six shots, and this was the only one that hit either backboard or rim.

The final was 65–3. There were other games around the state with scores of 64–5, 61–5, and 81–5. That last result was in a 1A game. Based on the other three, you really have to wonder if there shouldn’t be some kind of relegation in high school sports. If teams can get moved up for winning too much, shouldn’t ones that go 0–19 and average 10 points a game get the opportunity to move down to where they might have a chance in win at least a couple games? I doubt any of those teams that got blasted last night are going to turn into juggernauts and win state titles if they move down a class.

Our game did neither team any good. Fortunately Herron was not one of those bad teams that is angry about it and spends the game hacking and shoving. They seemed almost embarrassed to even be on the court. Still, each time one of our players went up for a layup or tried to get a rebound in traffic, there was the fear something bad would happen in a game we led by 50.

Anyway, we took care of business, rested our starters, and advanced to Friday’s semifinal. We beat our next opponent by 30 in last year’s sectional, but they have improved a lot, going 17–4. They beat a team that beat us, and are just 10 spots below us in the computer rankings.

We hung around for the late game, where our arch rivals BC were playing the host school. This also seemed like a mismatch, with BC ranked 32 spots higher. And it started out that way, with BC leading by 10 midway through the second quarter.

Then disaster struck. One of BC’s seniors drove, got fouled, and crumpled to the floor. She couldn’t move for at least five minutes, clutching her leg and crying. Her mom came down and hugged her. Her dad eventually came down and carried her off the court. We are pretty sure she tore at least one ligament. On a play where there was no contact below the waist. This kid is a great athlete, a three sport letter winner. L says she’s a really nice person. The trainer’s table was in our line of sight so we watched her lie there inconsolable for the next half hour. Just a terrible, heart-breaking thing to watch, not something you wish on any kid, especially a senior playing in her final game.

This obviously messed with BC, both mentally and in how they ran their press, where she is the head of the snake. By halftime their lead was down to one. Our plan was to leave at the break but all our girls looked at us and said “We are staying!” Of course we were staying!

Things got worse for BC after that. SHS got hot, started getting every rebound and loose ball, and BC was playing out of control. By the end of the third period SHS led by 11. They hit a 3 to open the final quarter and we were all looking at each other in disbelief. We weren’t overtly rooting against our rivals. In fact one mom in our group was overtly rooting for them because they were the other Catholic school in the sectional.[2] But most of the dads were pretty entertained.

SHS got their lead by playing loose and borderline out of control. They didn’t change that just because they were on the verge of a huge upset. Their center, who cannot shoot, decided to take a 3 for no reason, air-balling it. Their best player kept dribbling into triple teams and losing the ball instead of simply passing it to a wide open teammate. They were jacking shots rather than burning clock. They kept pressing even though BC was breaking it and getting layups. We were silently screaming at the SHS coach for not calling a time out and telling her girls to slow the fuck down.

The margin was six with 1:30 left. Then two with 60 seconds remaining. With under 10 seconds left it was a three-point game and BC had an open look to tie. Their leading scorer, who will play D2 ball next year, lined it up and let it fly. The ball went three-quarters of the way in then, somehow, spun out. The upset was complete.

At the risk of bringing down some kind of vengeance on us, the girl that missed that potential tying shot? That’s the girl that cheap shotted L three weeks ago. L and her teammates may have had a comment or two about that as we walked out of the gym.

So our biggest rivals are out of the bracket. That doesn’t mean we are guaranteed to get through. Our semifinal opponent is right behind BC in the computer rankings. Beat them and we’ll play either a team with a D1 athlete or the host school that will be on a serious heater by that point. Lots of work to do.

Oh, the other big news is that L is officially in the Return To Play process. We’ll see how things go the next couple days, but she could be eligible to dress and play Friday night if the trainer is happy with her progress.

Tyrel Reed approved. ↩
🙄 ↩

January Media

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 21:17:25 -0400

The Pitt, season one If you haven’t watched, believe the hype. One of the best TV shows I’ve watched in some time. Completely engrossing, never a moment that felt wasted, incredible performances. A well deserved first Golden Globe for Noah Wylie. We will be watching season two as soon as we can binge them all over a couple nights.

A+

The Chair Company I’m not sure what the best way to describe this show is. Because I’m not exactly sure what it is. Is it a farcical send-up of TV mysteries? A straight cringe comedy? Or is it supposed to be serious and Tim Robinson’s weirdness tricks you into think it’s something else? Most likely it’s some Venn diagram combo that falls in the middle. I laughed tons. Cackled even. I bet a lot of people I know would watch one episode and hate it. This definitely is not for everyone.

A-

Casino Royale The Bond flicks are back on Netflix so I had to celebrate by watching at least one.

The Rip Good, not great. That’s the simple review. It certainly doesn’t break any new ground, and the surprises in the final act aren’t major since the whole thing is set up for a big reveal. But as it checks in under two hours and is carried by Affleck and Damon, I can’t complain too much.

Starting the work on our Italian ruin! (#10) These poor people are going to spend every dime they have on this home and maybe it will be ready before they are too old to enjoy it.

Running across a country in 5 days No bullshit, just good content in the latest Beau Miles piece.

Weekend Notes

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 09:31:40 -0400

We’ve reached the part of the year when our weekends get kind of boring. Weather is terrible. No football. Still, A LOT of basketball to get caught up on, at least from the past week.

HS Hoops

L remained out for the past week. It seems like she’s getting better but we’ll see how school goes today and then her follow up with sports medicine goes tomorrow.

Because of the weather we fluctuated last week between having three games and none. And then various combinations in between. Eventually we played all three but it was a battle to get that done. Stupid winter.

Wednesday, after a day’s postponement, we went up to Carmel. That team seems cursed the past few years with tons of injuries. A year ago an injury plagued, mediocre Carmel team played terrible for 29 minutes then great for the final three and beat us by three. Almost the same thing happened this year. We opened up with a 12–2 run, Carmel changed their defense, we lost all our momentum and aggressiveness, and they played a great last three minutes to beat us by six. Dumb game.

Friday night we played Northview, who we beat a year ago in regionals. Friday we got a lead but could never fully put NV away. The lead bounced between 3–8 most of the night before we wore them down and won by 13. Also similar to last year’s game.

Finally, Saturday was senior day and we took on HN, where our coach went to school 30 years ago. They were not very good, at least from a record standpoint, but made us sweat for a while before we took control in the second half and won by 25.

The highlight, or lowlight, was another one of our players getting a cheap shot without the referees calling anything. This one was to the stomach rather than the head like L. And unlike L, this time our girl, as she was doubled over and in tears, complained to the referee. She was awarded a technical foul for her complaint. The gym was mega quiet Saturday and we heard what she said, which did not warrant a T. Although she really should have been smarter about saying anything directly to him. We had very cranky refs in both weekend games. It must be the weather. Hopefully that will pass before the tournament games begin.

Two straight wins to end the season pushed the Irish’s record to 17–6, the most regular wins since the 2004–05 season. Now the girls just need to be healthy and mentally correct for the most important part of the year. We enter the tournament ranked #8 in 3A, #38 overall in the computer ratings, having played the 28th toughest schedule in the state. Seven of the top 10 3A teams are in our half of the bracket. If we are fortunate enough to survive sectionals, this year our regional matchup will be against the #3 team that knocked us out of last year’s tournament.

We beat the #2 team over the summer. We beat the #6 team in November. If we play our best, we can beat anyone in the bracket. Hopefully our girls are ready for it.

Jayhawk Talk

OH MY GOD, IT WAS HAPPENING!!!

ESPN GameDay was in town. It was the 1000th game in Allen Fieldhouse history. The stands were filled with KU legends who had returned for the event. There were also 30-some NBA scouts and executives in town to watch Darryn Peterson and AJ Dybansta play each other for the only time in the regular season. And KU was absolutely destroying #13 BYU when, late in the first half, Peterson decided to deliver on all his hype and detonate the Cougars.

youtu.be/nTGxDJ4c0…

I yelled. Loudly.

A dunk that will be part of KU’s pregame hype video until the end of time.

KU went into halftime up 20 and life was perfect.

Then the reality of the ’25–26 Jayhawks just had to present itself again.

After scoring 18 in the first half, Peterson did not add another bucket. He went to the bench with over 15 minutes left and never returned. The mysterious “cramping” issues, apparently. At this point it’s not worth speculating the why or how or whatever of it all.

Elmarko Jackson had tweaked an ankle or knee in the first half, so other than a couple minutes from Jayden Dawson, KU played the entire second half with the same five players. They weathered a couple early BYU runs but were falling apart before our eyes in the last 10 minutes.

Fortunately KU made just enough plays, especially Melvin Council Jr, and escaped with an eight-point win.

Bryson Tiller has been fantastic the last two games. It seems like he’s finally settling in and understanding his role. Saturday it really paid off, with early points inside, where Bill Self wants him, generating open looks outside, where Tiller wants to be. He hit four straight 3s at one point, and ended the game as KU’s leading scorer.

BYU would have made a run regardless, but KU’s players being absolutely gassed by playing without subs didn’t help. The offense bogged down late, something Peterson surely would have helped with.

But a win is a win in the Big 12, especially on a classic Allen Fieldhouse day like that.

KU gets to fly to Lubbock to face an angry Texas Tech team tonight. Who knows if DP plays, or how much. Who knows how much energy the rest of the team has. This game was chalked up as an L already, so just get through it and be ready for Utah next weekend.

Weather

The beauty of having our new home gym is that I really don’t have to leave the house for anything other than basketball or grocery shopping if I don’t have to. That was definitely the case last week.

Sunday I went out to lunch with a friend. The sun was out and when we got to the barbecue place we had picked, we had a short walk to the door. I commented about how nice and warm it felt, then laughed when I checked and saw it was still just 21°. Bright sun plus no wind can feel very good after 10 straight days with windchills around zero.

It looks like temps will moderate a bit over the next week. It might even be above freezing Friday. However, I was reading a proper weather post last night and it suggested another wave of brutal cold is in store for sometime next week. Lovely.

At least the Winter Olympics are about to start so I’ll have something to keep myself occupied as I remain indoors.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 09:16:47 -0400

The new music is really starting to stack up, which is nice. Also some stuff going on in the world which inspired the inclusion of several other songs.

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7n62MlP6Q2zACiliJt1X51?si=dc5b7c0a82b345b2)

“Slumber Party” - Brigitte Calls Me Baby
Pretentious new band alert! A lot going on here. This band gets its name from lead singer Wes Leavins being pen pals with the late Brigitte Bardot (RIP) when he was young and the film legend allegedly addressed him as “Baby.” Then he humbly claims his main vocal influences are Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra, along with musical influence from Radiohead, New Order, and the Strokes. It all seems a little curated for me, but that is how you promote a band, or anything, in 2026.

A pretty good song, though. You definitely hear all those influences along with The Smiths. Two decades ago I would say this band is poised to turn into something big. Today? Unless one of their songs gets picked up on Tik Tok it seems like they will toil in semi-obscurity.

“Votive” - The New Pornographers
TNP keeps chugging along. Their 10th studio album will come out in March.

“Queen Of Nothing” - Softcult
A nice, shoegazey track that focuses on the struggles women face in modern society. Their new album is out today.

“2SIDED” - Arlo Parks
After a three-year wait, the phenom’s new album is just two weeks away. Songs like this make me glad I’ve finally started to check out her work.

“I Like You” - Cardinals
A nice change-of-pace from Cardinals’ previous singles.

“Fallen Cloud” - Austra
I’ve played a few Austra tracks for you over the years. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to share this, as it dropped in early November. It is swirly, dance club goodness.

“Lonely Night” - Butler, Blake & Grant
Since I have lived in Indiana longer than any other state, when I saw this track’s title I immediately thought of John Mellencamp’s classic. This is definitely not a cover. Lovely song even if their improper use of commas in their name bugs me.

“Wheel Of Change” - Hand Habits
Meg Duffy said this song is about relationships and not being able to return to a previous state. I know it’s not a perfect match but it feels like we are in desperate need for a wheel of change in this country, because we can’t remain where we are at the moment.

“Streets Of Minneapolis” - Bruce Springsteen
A bit clunky, but that’s to be expected for a song that was written, recorded, and released inside of 36 hours. The sentiment is what is important.

“Fuck I Hate the Cold” - Cowboy Junkies
It might get over freezing next week. Might.

[youtu.be/H5DYhT3iE...](https://youtu.be/H5DYhT3iEW4?si=dzSJcGeJuWGVFy4k)

“Know Your Rights” - The Clash

You have the right, not to be killed
Murder is a crime
Unless it was done
By a policeman

Thursday Links

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 10:29:13 -0400

A couple links about where technology is headed.

Joanna Stern does such great work with tech-focused multimedia for the Wall Street Journal. Here she shows how her team “broke” an AI agent that was tasked with running a vending machine. I found this both incredibly funny and creative, and another sign that folks need to pump the brakes on the “AI revolution.”

There is no doubt that there are tremendous opportunities for AI to change our lives, the economy, etc, but we have a long, long way to go before it can safely deliver on those promises. Fortunately the creators of the AI agent tested in this piece seem to understand the limitations of their creation and are focused on getting their product to work rather than rush something half-baked to market.

We Put an AI Vending Machine in Our Office. It Gave Away Everything.

And then there’s this piece by Jason Fried about the problems that come with attempting to go all-in with smart home tech. This sphere has intrigued me for years but I’ve not jumped in beyond a few smart outlets because I know it fails the fundamental test of “can the rest of my family figure it out if something goes wrong and I’m not home to guide them/troubleshoot?” We have friends who replaced all their light switches with smart ones and it nearly caused a divorce.

And the lag. Lag everywhere. Everything feels a beat or two behind. Everything. Lag is the giveaway that the system is working too hard for too little. Real-time must be the hardest problem.

The big regression

Wednesday Notes

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 12:25:33 -0400

A few more randoms to clear out of the notebook and brain.

Weather

Well, we got through the snow. The roads here in Indy were still anywhere from fair to terrible yesterday when I was out and about. CHS did eLearning the first two days of the week then began on a two-hour delay today. I drove L in partially because I wasn’t sure of the roads but mostly because they have a game tonight and this way she can ride home with us rather than take the bus back to school to get her car. There was significant improvement but still a lot of major roads that have stretches that are awful.

Last night is when the real cold hit. It was –7 when I got up today. No real wind but that will kick up soon and really drive the windchills down for the next few days. We are supposed to stay below zero at night through Sunday, and the extended forecast shows zero days where we get above freezing. The snow is a pain in the ass but the cold is the real motherfucker.

Kid Health/HS Hoops

Well, L was still having minor headaches yesterday when we went to sports medicine so we have to go back in a week before she can, potentially, be cleared. She will miss three games this week, then the beginning of sectionals are likely in doubt as it will take several days of Return To Play activities before she can actually suit up for a game.

I’m not sure if the timing works out exactly right but her first game back could be the sectional championship game against…BC, the team that gave her the concussion. Or rather the team with the girl who gave her the concussion.

The random sectional draw was less maddening than last year, when we got matched with BC in the opening round. This year CHS and BC, the clear two best teams in the sectional, are on opposite sides of the bracket. But we both play in the opening round with teams lower than both of us in the computer rankings getting byes. Indiana always gonna Indiana.

We open Tuesday against a team that hasn’t won a game this year, has scored more than 30 points just one time, and is averaging 14 points per game. They are ranked 394th out of 400 schools in the state. Yeesh.

Game Announcers/Music

I’ve watched a lot of high school basketball the past three years.

I’ve come to a rather definitive conclusion: there are three kinds of game announcers, at least in Indiana. Your first kind will play Van Halen’s “Jump” before the opening tip off. Your second kind will play Kriss Kross’ “Jump.” And your third kind will play no music at all.

I’m almost positive this covers 98% of the games I’ve watched during L’s career.

Super Bowl

I can’t believe I made no mention of Sunday’s NFL conference championship games in my Weekend Notes post. I blame spending too much time out shoveling.

The AFC game was both terrible and awesome. Pretty terrible football. Pretty awesome weather, at least after halftime. It was a celebration of teams that still play outdoors, and in Denver’s case, still play on real grass. I don’t care if the snow made the game sloppy and disjointed. It was fun to watch!

It was shocking that the Football Gods have jumped back on the Patriots’ side after taking a few years off. What has that franchise done to deserve this treatment?

The NFC game was a lot better. All season it has felt like whoever came out of the NFC would be the heavy favorite in the Super Bowl. I still stand by that, but do we really trust Sam Darnold to perform well in that big of a moment? But, also, Drake Maye has been kind of stinky in the playoffs. I saw an early line of Seattle –3, I think, and that feels right to me. Regardless of QB play, it seems like a game that the defenses will dominate.

I just reverse jinxed us into a 45–42 shootout. You’re welcome.

Belichick

News dropped yesterday that Bill Belichick was not elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.

Come one, man.

I know he’s weird and surly and has done real damage to his reputation during his first year at North Carolina. But he’s the arguably greatest coach the pro game has ever seen. Certainly the best coach of his generation and this century. How does anyone vote against him?

There were rumors former Bills and Colts GM Bill Polian led a group against Belichick, arguing that he needed to wait a year because of his involvement in the spygate and deflategate scandals in New England. Polian is close with Patriots owner Bob Kraft, who is also, stupidly, not in the Hall of Fame yet. There was thought that Polian and others would not vote for Belichick until Kraft gets in. Which is dumb all around.[1]

When I was a young sports fan Halls of Fame were important to me, and it mattered who got in and who did not. As I aged, though, I realized there were a lot of arbitrary rules, some not even written down, that determined who was elected. The statistics revolution in baseball has shown us that some “legends” who got in easily in the old days had pretty flimsy cases, while others are sitting on the outside when the stats show they were much more valuable and productive than considered when they played. So I don’t get too fired up about the annual news cycle when another HoF vote comes up.

Still, it’s ridiculous that Belichick did not get in (and that Kraft isn’t already in).

College Sports Meltdown

College sports gets a little closer to destroying what makes it special every day.

A couple weeks ago football coaches voted to allow players to appear in up to nine games and still be eligible to redshirt. NINE. The NCAA still has to approve but whether this rule goes into effect this year or in a couple, it’s pretty clear it will happen.

This is insane. Especially when there’s always been the different rules for football and basketball where you could play in up to four football games, out of an 11+ game season, and still get a redshirt while playing a single minute in a single game of a 30+ game basketball schedule made you ineligible to redshirt.

We’re at the point where redshirts need to go away. There needs to be a strict rule where you have six years after you graduate from high school to play five years of college sports. It doesn’t matter if you go to a junior college or D1 school first. It doesn’t matter if you take a year off because of an injury, or because your coaches want to hide you behind a better player while you develop. The clock starts and expires at the same time for each graduating class. No more 27 year old college athletes. No more temporary restraining orders. No more waivers from the NCAA.

Oh, and then there’s this fucking nonsense where a judge cleared the way for Charles Bediako to play basketball for Alabama. Unlike the kid that Baylor signed a few weeks back, Bediako had signed an NBA two-way contract. While he never got called up to the NBA, he did sign that contract. And somehow he’s eligible to return to college nearly THREE YEARS after he left???

Bediako and his attorneys argued that had he known that NIL would explode like it has, he would not have left Alabama. When what really happened was he was not prepared and/or good enough to play in the NBA.

So much for making a choice and living with the consequences, I guess.

There are just no rules anymore, and there’s no organization with the power to institute them. So like everything else in life at the moment, policy comes down to filing a lawsuit and hoping you chose your court district properly and get a favorable ruling. Eventually the rules will be determined by a bunch of billionaires who can get the attention of the ADHD monster in the White House to sign an executive order that both clamps down on how much athletes can earn and protects the alma maters of these mega-donors.[2]

Again, a simple rule: if you sign any pro contract in the US, your college eligibility is gone. If you play in the NBA summer league, you are a pro. If you play in the G-League, you are a pro. It’s not hard.[3]

I think the UConn athletic director had a great idea when he said the NCAA should not count any of these games Bediako plays for Alabama when making the NCAA tournament field. I remember a time when colleges would not play an athlete if there was even a hint they might be ineligible, even for the tiniest of reasons. There was always the fear they would have to forfeit games and face future penalties if they played a kid who took $100 at an AAU tournament or flunked a history class when he was a freshman in high school. Now schools just don’t care and don’t fear the NCAA punishing them after the fact.

Polian has denied all of this. ↩
Fuck Texas Tech. ↩
Of course what is hard is how these prep schools so many elite recruits funnel through are basically pro programs. And then there’s the whole mess of European players signing and playing in professional leagues as teenagers but not actually being considered pros. ↩

Reader's Notebook, 1/27/26

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 14:01:40 -0400

The Devils - Joe Abercrombie
Another book that appeared on multiple Best Of lists I scrolled through at the end of 2025. With good reason: it was one of the best books I’ve read in the past year or so.

At its core this is your classic quest novel. A teenager is identified as the presumptive heir to a throne that could reunite two churches that have been split for ages. Her ascension promises not just to bring those two wings together, but protect the Western world against invaders from the East.

Abercrombie builds his world on a mashup from multiple genres and ages. The story seems to take place in the Middle Ages in Europe. The religious schism is clearly based on the divide between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. The battles with the Eastern invaders are obviously modeled on the Crusades. However, the Eastern invaders are not Muslims or forces from Asia, but rather Elves. Evil Elves. So there are ties to fantasy fiction.

And then there is the travel party for the young princess, selected by Papal decree to transport her to the city of Troy where she can reclaim her rightful place. There is a monk with faith issues. A knight who has been cursed by a witch with immortality, meaning no matter how grievous the injuries he suffers in battle are, he will survive them and live to fight more. A jaunty pirate with an oddly broad work history. A sorcerer, err, magician.[1] A horny werewolf who will either fuck or kill just about anyone who crosses her path. A laid back vampire. And, oh no!, and elf.

Also there is an inter-species, same sex relationship. Not sure I’ve ever written that phrase before, as I’ve never read a story that included that angle.

This may sound messy and even dumb, but Abercrombie makes it work. And work well.

The magic of his book is that he takes this story that is set in some ancient, mythical world, and has the characters speak and behave as if they are alive today. Lots of sarcasm and cynicism. His party members needle each other as much as they fight for each other. Anytime one of them gets a little too proud, their partners immediately humble them. In the end, naturally, they come together and bring it to a (mostly) happy ending.

There are also elements of horror in the story, as Abercrombie’s descriptions of the violence in the battles reminded me of an early Stephen King novel.

Even when you mash up all these disparate elements, when the core story is fairly straight forward and familiar, you can’t be lazy if you hope to engage readers. Abercrombie’s writing is excellent. He captured my full attention from the opening pages and kept it to his conclusion.

Even if you aren’t into fantasy, or Middle Ages European history, or horror, I think any reader would find something in this book to love. On top of being just a terrific tale, it made me laugh out loud constantly. That alone, these days, can make a book worth the effort.

This is a recurring title argument that is very funny. ↩

Weekend Notes

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 10:21:13 -0400

A cold, snowy weekend that was pretty lazy when we weren’t braving the weather to clear our driveway.

Weather

The big event of the weekend was the massive winter storm that blew through the eastern half of the US. The snow started at our house around 4:00 Saturday afternoon and didn’t stop until nearly 6:00 Sunday night. Based on the maps I looked at, we were in the 11–12” range. Bloomington got over a foot. The area where our old lake house is got closer to 15”, which has to be a nightmare on those windy, hilly, rural roads. The entire area is pretty much shut down for at least today.

Saturday I got our snowblower started but was not convinced it would actually work. The last time I used it, two years ago, it would start but not actually throw snow. Yet I let two summers pass without it getting serviced. Idiot.

Naturally when we made our first pass at the snow Sunday morning the auger stopped moving as soon as it hit snow. I changed the tension on the control lever with no change. After some Googling my guess is the auger control belt needs to be adjusted. Which I could probably figure out but was not going to attempt when the windchill was sitting right at 0°. So we spent over three hours shoveling over three shifts, which included helping our older neighbors a bit. The first round wasn’t too bad, as S and I were all bundled up, the snow had paused, and there was no wind. I didn’t get cold at all, although my glasses were frozen most of the time. In two hours we got almost all the driveway cleared.

The next time we went out to help the neighbors there was a breeze and you really noticed the cold.

I went out after dinner to get rid of the two additional inches that fell during the day. It only took 45 minutes or so, but was the coldest stint of the day. It was worth it, though, as there is a much more significant breeze this morning and the windchill is –11.

CHS is closed today. IU is closed today. M’s co-op told her to work from home. S’s office is even closed, although she is doing video visits all day. In our family text thread I joked that I was taking the day off, too. No one else found that funny.

I am actually off to the airport this afternoon, taking my sister-in-law to the airport. Watching the news this morning the highways were a little dicey in some areas, so hoping five hours will give crews time to get them cleared better and I’ll have an easy shot to IND and back.

Now we get to sit around and hate on winter for a while. The low temperature every night this week will be well below zero. This snow isn’t going anywhere for at least a couple weeks.

HS Hoops

A disappointing week, in multiple ways.

Tuesday the 3A #7 Irish took their 13-game winning streak into the game with undefeated 4A #3 Center Grove. Our girls didn’t match the energy they had a five nights earlier in the City championship game and were down 11 after one period. That was game, as they tread water from there but never made a big run, losing by 13. We let their best player score 17 in the first quarter. Only foul trouble slowed her down as she finished with 28. She’s a D1 recruit and is super solid in every way, a fun player to watch. Friday night she dropped 38 on a top 5 4A team.

We had games scheduled for both Friday and Saturday nights, however each was postponed due to the weather. With this week being the last of the regular season, we are scrambling to either reschedule one of those or find a replacement so we can have a proper senior night. We have a road game scheduled for Tuesday that will likely get played, but as everything is up in the air around Indianapolis right now there is no guarantee.

The worst disappointment, though, was L’s health. I mentioned that she took a shot from a BC player in the City championship game. I undersold that. It was an intentional forearm to the back of the head after the play ended. We missed it in real time but when we saw the video a day later, we were shocked. L just guarded this girl to the baseline where she lost the ball. No contact, no foul. Then this girl came back and delivered a shot to L’s head as she walked away. A ref was standing five feet away and didn’t do a thing.

L said her head hurt all weekend but didn’t complain too much, so her idiot parents didn’t do much other than tell her to keep taking Motrin.

Tuesday she texted me after school saying that she had failed a concussion test before the CG game. Freaking great.

She tried to go to school Wednesday and Thursday, but had to come home after an hour. She made it through the whole school day Friday but didn’t feel much better. Her symptoms stretched into the weekend. She was supposed to go in to get re-evaluated this morning but her sports medicine doc’s office is closed so that has been pushed to Tuesday.

I’m not going to say much more about the incident itself, and how higher ups are handling it. I will say the girl that hit L came to our house Wednesday to apologize. They are friendly which made it even more outrageous.[1] I told L her relationship with that girl and her feelings about the incident are hers to determine, but I wasn’t super fired up to trade pleasantries when she was here. I stayed in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner. I respect her for coming over even if I don’t think she seemed super affected by her actions. Certainly not as affected as L.

Jayhawk Talk

Another good week for the Jayhawks. Mostly.

A closer-than-needed win in Boulder on Tuesday. I missed it because of the stupidly late start and just went back and watched highlights. CU is not good, and we tried to blow the game about three times. But road wins are road wins.

Darryn Peterson rolling his ankle was not a good thing. Predictably he did not play Saturday. This seemed like a legit injury. His weird leg issues for the first two months of the season have burned up any leeway fans give him for injuries, though. With a full week off now, I imagine he’ll be back for the BYU game Saturday. And then worry about him doing too much against his old rival AJ Dybantsa and hurting himself again…

Anyway, Saturday in Manhattan was looking dicey. KU was clearly the better team, but just couldn’t seem to put the Wildcats away. The lead would balloon to 10, the K-State would hit two 3’s and it’s back to a tight game. As the game moved into crunch time Peterson’s absence was especially notable, as the offense really seemed to be bogging down.

Then the Jayhawks played a magnificent final five minutes and turned the game into a rout. Melvin Council Jr. was terrific. Flory Bidunga dunked all over KSU. Bryson Tiller might have played his best game of the year. The KU scoring line was very weird. Five players in double figures. The other two players who got minutes each scored zero. Feast or famine, I guess.

KU got through the easiest part of their Big 12 schedule 5–2. Those two losses really should have been wins, and will cost them dearly. The next nine games are absolutely brutal. As weird as it sounds for KU fans to say this, 4–5 would not be an awful result over this stretch. 5–4 would be great. I guess we’ll see how healthy DP is, whether Tiller can continue his good play, and if the role players will not fade against the league’s top teams.

I want to stress here that the girl that hit her is NOT L’s buddy from St P’s. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 08:28:10 -0400

A different week around our house, leaving less time for music, but I still managed to put a little something together for you to listen to.

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3lWGQVRW1K3jR7dKPyaCNb?si=1a6fda3437564d34)

“Long Live Love” - Sugar
The second new song from Sugar dropped this week, along with the reveal of a full tour later this year. They come as close to me as Cincinnati. So if any of my brothers (or sisters) in music want to spend a Tuesday evening in October in the Queen City, let me know. I would not call this an A+ Sugar track, but I am happy they are coming back.

“Talk To Me” - Robyn
Robyn still got it.

“By The Lake” - Bory
Ain’t nobody going to be by the lake for a while, so it’s nice to dream of summer time as we prepare for our biggest winter storm in several years. Hope everyone is safe and warm this weekend.

“Bullshit Fuck” - Dirt Buyer
Some serious 1996, third-wave grunge band vibes here.

“Give In” - Sea Lemon
The latest gorgeous dream pop track from this band.

“Grassoline” - Morgan Nagler
Nagler has been all over the indie rock world in recent years as a collaborator and contributor to other artists’ work. She released a couple singles last year but will finally release her debut album in March. Seems like she and Kevin Durant might have a favorite way to pass their free time.

“Living Proof” - Cat Power
Cat Power’s The Greatest came out 20 years ago this week. This was the only song I really loved. I do recall, though, the massive outpouring of critical praise for it, at least in the part of the music blogosphere I was discovering at about that time.

“The Dead Heart” - Midnight Oil
Rob Hirst, founding and longtime drummer for Midnight Oil passed away this week. RIP.

[youtu.be/XfR9iY5y9...](https://youtu.be/XfR9iY5y94s?si=F4)–9pg7gCgggNRYj

“Down Under” - Men At Work
Apparently a bunch of fuckwits in Australia who hate immigrants have been using this song at their events. Colin Hay is not happy about it, and has gone public letting the world know not only that he does not approve and was not asked if his song could be used, but also reminding people that he, too, is an immigrant, moving to Australia when he was a boy. So I’ll share this to support Hay, his legendary song, and to tell the fuckwits to, well, fuck off.

The New Gym

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 14:26:06 -0400

We are three weeks into the New Year and I’ve still not written about an important development that took place over the holidays.

I mentioned last fall that we were looking to convert part of our unfinished basement into a workout room. S had an appropriately bougie plan that would fit the rest of our home’s design. We brought in a contractor that had done good work for some friends. It took a few weeks but eventually we got a quote that was reasonable. We were waiting for an opening in his schedule, but it looked like he would be able to start by Halloween, at the latest, and would be finished before Thanksgiving.

Then we hit a snag. Or rather, our he did. After Halloween passed without work beginning he admitted that while he was serious about the project, his framing/drywall guys viewed it as a quick job that wouldn’t make them much money. So they kept pushing bigger, more lucrative jobs ahead of ours. Three different times he gave us a start date. Each time it came and went with no work begun.

A week before Christmas we got sick of waiting and pulled the plug. It was a bummer but at least we hadn’t paid him a dime yet.[1] Plus I could just keep going to the Y to workout.

A couple days later we made a Costco run and found some foam floor tiles on display. While we had hoped for heavy duty wood flooring, these would be perfect for a gym. And be way less expensive than the high-end product in our original plan. We measured our space and the next day I returned to Costco and literally filled my car with floor tiles. $350 well spent!

When we installed them they were a nearly perfect fit! We ordered an exercise bike and weight rack. While waiting on those to ship we moved our 25 year old treadmill from the extra bedroom into our new exercise room. The new equipment trickled in slowly, but a couple days after Christmas everything was set up. Once we hung a TV on the wall we were in business.

It isn’t as bougie as S had hoped, but it’s functional as hell!

Not framing in the walls saved us some space. It would have felt a lot tighter had it been built as we hoped. Lots of gyms have an “industrial” feel with exposed ductwork, so the lack of a finished ceiling matches that vibe.[2] We don’t have enough power outlets or lighting, something that would have been corrected by licensed contractors. For the meantime we have a heavy duty extension cord and lamp that fulfill our needs. At some point we will see if any of our friends with electrical skills can assist in adding some lighting.

I admit it has been nice on very cold days to just walk downstairs without having to get bundled up for the two minute walk to the Y. With a generic rack it takes a little more work on my part to go from exercise to exercise, but that’s a minor complaint. I still need to do some research to replace a few elements of my workout plan on the different equipment, but for the time being I can get 80–90% of my Old Man Plan in. I’ve worked out 19 of the first 22 days of the year, so a better start than I had in 2025.

L is excited about it, as she will be able to workout at home once she’s not taking weight lifting at school anymore. And S is integrating working out into her schedule. If only it was possible to swim in our pool during the winter I’d have just about the perfect setup for my exercise needs.[3]

It probably should have been a red flag when he didn’t ask for a deposit. ↩
Grasping at some straws here. ↩
Technically we could heat the pool in the winter. At the cost of thousands of dollars in natural gas, not to mention really taxing all the equipment to have it running in –20 windchills. ↩

The Magical Ending

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 11:28:29 -0400

We moved to Indiana in the summer of 2003. IU basketball was one year past an unexpected run to the national title game, where they lost to Maryland. It seemed like they were coming out of a lean period and would reclaim their place amongst the game’s elite. While not inevitable, it felt like the 2000s could bring another national title banner to Assembly Hall.

Nearly 23 years later the Hoosiers haven’t sniffed a Final Four and are on their seventh coach over that span. And, somehow, someway, the football Hoosiers are national champs. The program that, until the second week of November, had the most losses in the history of college football. The most amazing and dramatic turnaround in the sport’s history, all due to the arrival of coach Curt Cignetti.

The craziest thing about Indiana winning a football national championship? That it actually has seemed inevitable for about three months. Ever since they went into Eugene and beat Oregon. If you didn’t fully buy in then, their miracle win at Penn State should have converted you. Facing Ohio State in the Big 10 championship game? The Buckeyes did not seem like the prohibitive favorites they had been over the Hoosiers since pretty much the beginning of time. Outside Columbus, OH, did anyone really consider it an upset? And after that? It didn’t matter who popped up in their path, IU was going to roll through their three CFP games and claim the title.

Alabama and Oregon provided little resistance. But Monday Miami actually kept the result in doubt until the final seconds. Well, kind of. While tense, I never felt the Hurricanes would actually pull out the win. Part of that is because I think Carson Beck is the most overrated player of this decade. He delivered on that reputation when he short-armed a pass that turned into an IU interception that sealed the game. Throw that ball five yards longer and he might be wearing a national championship shirt today. But he Carson Beck-ed it and the Hoosiers were champs.

That’s not fair. Beck alone wasn’t the reason Miami lost, and he made a few nice plays.[1] There was that brutal, unforgivable blocked punt that turned into an IU touchdown. That, as much as anything, might sum up this IU team. Cignetti’s Hoosiers would never let a rusher get to the punter untouched like that. They almost never make mistakes. On the rare occasions they do, they quickly make up for them. Cignetti’s offense isn’t some ultra-modern, cutting-edge scheme that is tough to prepare for. It relies on intelligent, experienced players executing in concert to precision. They just run smart shit, over and over and dare you to stop them. And if you stop them on one play, they’re probably going to beat you on the next one.

The biggest moment of the game was Fernando Mendoza’s amazing, immediately legendary, touchdown run on fourth down that clinched the game. The perfect cap to an amazing year. The play that will appear on magazine covers, posters, and t-shirts that IU fans will display for decades.

While I think Hoosiers would have loved another blowout, that was a hell of a title game. At least the second half. Both teams made runs, both teams answered. Massive individual plays. Some nice adjustments by the coaches. A few major gaffes. It had all the drama you want from a game that determines a champion.

Now we will see if this two-year run was a fluke or the beginning of a trend. I don’t see any reason to bet against Cignetti.[2]

But, come on, that last throw was brutally bad. He should have to pay back NIL money it was so bad. But Miami was dumb for giving him $4 million plus given his track record. A good, sometimes very good, quarterback, but he’s never shown any signs of being elite. ↩
As I write this Tuesday morning I’m watching the IU press conference. For all his quirks and occasional oddness, Cignetti is an incredibly good guy with the media. Frank and open, often funny. Winning a national title sure helps, and he can be cranky quickly when he senses a slight or is peeved, but he generally gives genuinely illuminating answers rather than the same coach speak on repeat. ↩

Weekend Notes

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 12:45:46 -0400

I was thinking about putting off the Weekend Notes until tomorrow, given that today is a holiday. Since tonight is kind of a big night for the state of Indiana, I figured it’s better to clear everything out so I can focus on another topic tomorrow.

HS Hoops

City champs again!

For the third straight year we faced arch rivals BCHS in the City tournament championship game. Once again it was a tense, tight affair.

The Irish got an early lead and held it the entire game. Somehow we were up 12 midway through the second quarter. I say somehow because our best player picked up three fouls in the first quarter and spent the rest of the half on the bench.[1] With two other starters sitting because of their own foul troubles, we gave up an 8–2 run to end the half. Given who we had available, we were thrilled to be up six.

The second half began with some BS. As BC was inbounding, one of their players jumped in front of our best player then flopped. Yep, they set up a play to try to get her fourth foul before a second ran off the clock. Luckily the BC player oversold the contact and the refs ignored it. It’s one thing to go at her, but I hate coaches who pull crap like this. Funny how I used to really like the BC coach before L got to high school and now I do not care for him at all.

Seconds later our best player scored to put us up eight. On the next possession she got called for another garbage foul. There was 100% a foul on the play but it was clearly on another Irish player who swiped at the ball and got a lot of arm while our best player was retreating from contact. So she went to the bench with seven minutes left in the quarter. Things did not look good.

But our girls were tough and hung on. They answered every BC run. The Trojans made it a one-point game twice but each time we would extend it back to 3–4. With a minute left it was a single possession game. BC didn’t score again. After a BC miss we got a run out and they committed an intentional foul which turned into three made free throws for us, we added a few more and walked off the court winners by seven points. It was the biggest margin of victory in the rivalry in four years, but obviously deceptive given the score with 60 seconds remaining.[2] We will take it, given all our foul issues. While our best player was able to come in and hit some huge baskets and free throws late, our top inside player fouled out with four minutes left and we had another player finish with four fouls. BC had one player foul out and another end the game with four. Refs were not letting much go.[3]

Not sure my heart rate got back to normal until several hours after the game. The crowd was big and loud. We had our best student section turnout of the year. As always BC brought a million people. If you didn’t have a kid in the game, it would have been a lot of fun to watch. For those of us invested, it was way too stressful.

L played in four different stints, maybe seven minutes all together. Drove and missed a shot in the lane. Had a nice assist against their zone. One turnover when she got trapped and passed to a teammate who had already cut away. She had maybe the best (and only?) box out of her life and drew a foul when the BC player shoved her to get a rebound.

Most importantly for her, despite winning a City championship every year of her career, she finally got to cut down the nets. Her freshman year she was on the JV team that won, but they didn’t get to cut nets because varsity lost at the buzzer in overtime. Last year she had just come back and was still on JV. Although both JV and varsity won, the JV girls weren’t invited to climb the ladder. Friday night she was able to snip a piece of net she actually helped earn. After varsity was done, somehow, the JV girls got to cut their share even though they lost their semifinal game. A few of us junior dads jokingly raised our eyebrows about that.

Thanks to the joys of when the Indy City tournament falls in the calendar, we will likely play BC again in three weeks in sectionals. For the first time since L has been in school, that game will be at a neutral site. I’m sure it will be wild no matter where these girls play. I’m already stressing about it.

15–4, 13 wins in a row. Just four more games remain in the regular season. Tuesday is a big test, undefeated 4A #3 Center Grove. They’ve averaged beating us by 16 points the last three years and this is the best team they’ve had in that stretch. But it’s also the best team we’ve had.

Jayhawk Talk

Now that’s more like it! Two straight big wins. Of course, both were at home but a week ago this team was floundering and I’m not going to dismiss the progress.

Darryn Peterson was incredible Friday night.[4] Simply unstoppable, one of the most efficient performances ever by a KU player, 26 points in 23 minutes. Of course he barely played in the last 10 minutes, but we don’t know if that’s because he couldn’t play or just because KU didn’t need him.

Even better was Flory Bidunga absolutely dominating. That was some old school, Bill Self vs Scott Drew stuff, throwing Flory lob after lob and him finishing. The big bonus was Gus Johnson being on the mic and coining the phrase “BIDUNGA DUNK!” on national TV. Good times.

A couple road games this week. We’ll see if that momentum built at home travels.

NFL Playoffs

Wow, what a weekend! Three games that people will be talking about for a long time, for various reasons. Two overtime games. Two snow games! And one stupid blowout that was basically over after the opening kickoff was run back for a touchdown.

Buffalo - Denver was incredible. Full of swings, wild plays, huge mistakes, and then a Broncos victory in overtime that was quickly undercut by news that Bo Nix broke his ankle and is out for the remainder of the playoffs. I’m starting to think Josh Allen is never going to win a Super Bowl. I don’t think it’s fair to put all that on his shoulders. He came along at the wrong time, right when Patrick Mahomes was in his peak. This year’s Bills team was very good in some areas, but pretty mid in others. Just because the Chiefs and Ravens didn’t make the playoffs didn’t mean this was a clear path to Santa Clara for the Bills. But Allen did make an absolute mess of the game Saturday. His needless fumble before halftime was a massive blunder and gave the Broncos three points. He missed a wide open receiver who could have won the game in regulation. He missed another open receiver in overtime that would have put the Bills in field goal range before the unbelievable interception that flipped the game. He didn’t have the worst quarterback game of the weekend - we’ll get to that in a moment - but he made too many errors for a player of his stature.

Guess who benefits most? The freaking Patriots, that’s who. Good Lord, are we going to have to deal with them for another decade? And ahead of schedule?

The real story from the game in Foxborough was the historically terrible performance of Houston QB CJ Stroud. That was an embarrassment to all football. It’s going to take him a long time to get over that performance, at least in terms of how others see him. I don’t care if the Texans go 15–2 next year and he plays MVP-level ball. Until he doesn’t shit the bed in the playoffs I don’t want to hear any more Stroud hype.

Finally - because the Niners Seahawks game doesn’t deserve any words - that outrageous game in Chicago that wrapped up the weekend. You had a frenzied Chicago crowd, you had snow and cold, you had the Bears and Rams staying even the entire night.[5] Just when it looked dire Caleb Williams made one of the greatest plays in NFL history to send the game to overtime. I screamed at my TV. I bet a lot of you did, too. My social feeds exploded.

The Bears defense did their job on the first possession of overtime and the offense was two first downs away from being in position to win it. Then Williams threw a bad interception. Cris Collinsworth tried to put the pick on the Bears receiver who cut off his route. I think there’s some validity there but the throw also felt off as soon as Williams released it. Maybe it was just the full Caleb Williams experience. In some ways it was the perfect end to the weekend, capping the poor play of Allen and Stroud with a true stinker of a QB moment.

Seriously, that interception ruined one of the great moments in NFL history. Imagine if the 49ers had let the Cowboys drive and steal the NFC title game in 1982 after The Catch. Or, for me, if KU had shit the bed in overtime after Mario Chalmers tied the national championship game in 2008? What a bummer. Good thing it’s a holiday because I don’t think anyone would have shown up for work in Chicago today anyway.

We are left with New England traveling to Denver to face a quarterback who hasn’t started a game in over two years and Los Angeles going to Seattle to face a team they should have beaten twice and have their own quarterback injuries to deal with.[6] Every team has some glaring weakness. Oddly, the defenses are better than the offenses on three of these teams. That’s not supposed to happen in this era.

Feel like New England is an easy pick, the NFC game a more difficult one. I think Matthew Stafford’s experience gets him past the Seattle D. The Rams looked shaky on offense last night, though, and the Seahawks are way better than Chicago on defense, so I’m not super confident in that take.

One was pretty soft, and probably should have gone to a teammate. I counted four times when the refs gave the foul to the wrong player, affecting both teams. Her third foul was straight BS. ↩
Since L has been in school the margin of victory in the varsity games has been six, one, three, and one. Plus the JV City championship game last year was on a buzzer beater. ↩
Although they did miss a BC girl delivering a forearm shiver to the back of L’s head during a dead ball. A ref was standing right there. To be fair I missed it until L sent me the film clip Saturday, but I wasn’t standing six feet away like the ref. I asked what caused it, “I played good D on her.” Also, one ref made a lot of bad calls all night. After one particularly bad one I said, to the folks around me, “That ref hates basketball.” They all laughed. I was dead serious. ↩
I followed the score then watched the game Saturday morning. ↩
The two snow games might have been perfect snow games. There was enough so you could see it in the cameras and it was sticking on the fields, but it didn’t really affect the game. Those rare games in Buffalo where a foot of snow falls during the game are a lot of fun, but you don’t want a playoff game being determined by which team gets a lucky break when someone does or does not fall down while trying to run through snow drifts. Save that stuff for the regular season. ↩
Although Sam Darnold looked fine when I was watching him Saturday night. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 16 Jan 2026 09:33:18 -0400

The new music really started flowing again this week. At one point my folder of songs to review was crammed with more than 40 tracks. Trying to work through those means a lot of songs got only one play instead of several. As I type this nothing is really planned out for where this playlist will go, so I guess we’ll find out together.

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/55jdcLEh1oq83kKaV6Ne1u?si=d0209574cc7e496e)

“DESIGNED TO LOSE” - The Twilight Sad
As you would expect from The Twilight Sad, this is a profoundly deep and dark track, written by lead singer James Graham as he attempted to balance the joys in his life with his mother’s long battle with dementia.

“Efficiency” - Konradsen featuring Beharie
I was not surprised that this song came from a score lead singer Jenny Marie Sabel was writing for a short film. It definitely has that film soundtrack vibe.

“Chasin’ Luv” - GUV
If I play enough songs that sound warm and springy maybe winter will pass faster? (Checks forecast) Well, not in the next 10 days isn’t.

“HAVE A HEART” - TURNSPIT
ALL CAPS FTW!!!! This duo sounds like an English Phantogram.

“Straight Drop” - cootie catcher
I would not be surprised if this had been a deep track on the soundtrack for a mid–90s movies about wacky kids in high school.

“The House That Doesn’t Exist” - Melody’s Echo Chamber
So glad that Melody Prochet is fully recovered from the serious car accident she was in nearly 10 years ago, and is again making wonderful songs like this.

“Nightshade” - Delaney Bailey
Downcast music for a downcast time of year.

“Nothing Yet” - TOLEDO
Seriously, a lot of CAPS in titles and band names this week. This track also fits the bummer mood of the moment. Seriously, why did S have to be from Indiana and we have to endure these craptastic winters?

[youtu.be/yISNT2wUm...](https://youtu.be/yISNT2wUmwA?si=4yWEWWm8cTIGUh0D)

“Heroes” - David Bowie
Last weekend I read several pieces about the 10th anniversary of Bowie’s death, followed by a day of listening to a lot of his music. I think my reaction to the news he passed was like a lot of the world’s: I didn’t believe it, since he had just released a new album three days earlier. Dying people don’t release new music!

It took me a while to really process his death, as the day after Bowie passed, my stepdad died. While I drove to central Missouri all the SiriusXM stations were working Bowie into their playlists, and the obligatory All Bowie channel popped up. Still, it more glanced off me than hit.

Eventually I was able to acknowledge what Bowie meant to so many artists who came after him. Whether in sound, in look, or in how they managed their careers, you can argue as many artists were directly influenced by Bowie as any other act this side of the Beatles. At least in the kinds of music I mostly listen to. No one was as daring, as willing to push boundaries, as willing to reinvent themselves and trust their audience to eventually catch up as David Robert Jones.

As tends to happen even with legendary artists, Bowie’s catalog has been somewhat elevated in his absence. This is a perfect example. I don’t know that this was one of my five favorite Bowie songs 10 years ago. Now I think it is a perfect, absolute classic. I don’t like it more simply because he is gone. Rather I took a moment to listen to it more closely, read up on its backstory, and came to better understand all that was wound up inside of it. And as will any all time classic, while centered on a specific incident, “Heroes” remains broad enough that it can be applied to nearly any moment and scenario. Thus, this has become an anthem for so many causes that seem to be teetering on the brink between success and failure. We can beat them, just for one day…

Reader's Notebook, 1/15/26

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 10:14:21 -0400

I started 2026 with two books that were recommended from a couple sources I trust. With mixed results.

American Sky - James Grady This novel landed on the best non-fiction list of Steve Donoghue, a poster of tremendous and voluminous year end lists. Thus I was really excited to get to it, described as a muscular, coming-of-age story. It left me wanting.

The story follows Luc, a young man growing up in Montana, from roughly 1963 to 1970. As he grows, the world around him changes dramatically, from the JFK assassination to the beginning of the Vietnam War to the emerging counter culture. Grady, in great detail, takes Luc through his junior high, high school, and college years. Dates, jobs, family life, school, the things his friends and community are going through.

It was most fascinating to see how while 1960s Montana was very conservative, there was also a freedom that came with people looking the other way for things they might not approve of but felt wasn’t their business. As one example, there was an abortion clinic on Main Street, an open secret no one spent too much time worrying about because folks understood it filled an uncomfortable need. Imagine that occurring today in Montana!

Anyway, the sweep of history and how it affected people roughly my parents’ ages was compelling. But I grew tiresome with the repetition of events in Luc’s life as he aged. I think there was a very different and more compelling way to tell his story that Grady missed.

The Ten Year Affair - Erin Somers I pulled this from a different Best Of list. It wasn’t especially original but did have a properly sensual energy throughout.

Two young parents - Cora and Sam - meet at a baby play group session. There’s immediate chemistry between them. That connection eventually teeters on the edge of becoming Something, but for various reasons is not acted upon. As their families become more intertwined, Cora has a recurring fantasy that they are carrying out an affair. She imagines all the details, down to the meals they have together, the conversations they share, and the location they use to carry out their extracurriculars. Eventually the lines between reality and fantasy are crossed and the affair is consummated. Strangely, a part of Cora is disappointed when the hotel they choose isn’t as glamorous as the one in her mental fantasy. While no one’s life is truly ruined by the fling, the end result is somewhat predictable.

Basically a story that has been written many times, but now for millennials. Congrats to them! It was interesting to read as someone older than the characters, looking back on that same period of my life. Not necessarily for the sex stuff - as far as I know the play groups I was a part of weren’t launching points for affairs - but as a reminder of how hard marriage is, how hard parenting is, how hard it is to find a career that both satisfies and pays the bills, how hard it can be to forge friendships once you leave school. And how hard it is to do all of that at the same time, the toll of one aspect of your life affecting all the others. Being an adult is tough!

There are shelves full of books about infidelity, so Somers didn’t break any new ground here. She just stretched out the Will They, Won’t They element longer than most. Which almost made it disappointing when Cora and Sam did cave. But a novel like this really wouldn’t work without the payoff, for lack of a better word, of them finally deciding it was worth putting their marriages in jeopardy and finally acting on the temptation that had been lingering there so long.

Wednesday Catch Up Notes

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 13:14:43 -0400

A very good Tuesday night in our house. First, the Irish began the City tournament with an expectedly easy, 33-point win. Next, as a nice surprise, KU pounded previously unbeaten Iowa State. Can’t ask for a better evening than that.

Rather than dive into those games, I’ll instead share a post I’ve been sitting on for nearly two weeks. I really should have posted it on a weekend, as most of it is rather out-of-date. There are a few really good nuggets in here, though, so it is better to post late than delete it.[1] I’ll throw in a few other bonus notes that have popped up since.

Elf sure was on TV a lot last month. It seems like five different cable channels had the rights to it, and it was available on multiple streaming platforms.Christmas Vacation was on nearly as often.

Not that I’m complaining. The girls laughed when I would switch from one movie to the other during commercial breaks when they were both on. Somehow I managed to never watch Christmas Vacation all the way through. Long time readers may recall I’ve had a recurring dream for years that I get to Christmas and haven’t watched any of my usual movies. Maybe I’ll stop having that dream now?

Anyway, I remember the days when it was special to find these movies on cable, as they would run maybe once a week on a single channel.

I will complain about there still being tons of Christmas-themed ads on TV through the first weekend of January. Watching football Jan. 2–4 I lost track of how many ads had a holiday connection. And not even like a post-Christmas sale angle, straight Christmas-time vibes.

Maybe it was because the holidays fell on Thursdays this year and that kind of messed everything up. I sure had no idea what day it was most of the time from L’s last day of finals until she started J Term. Years ago I advocated for a dramatic change in our calendar to help us get through the winter months: move Christmas to January 25. There’s no biblical reason for it to be on December 25, Christmas and New Year’s are too close to each other, January sucks. Moving Christmas back a month would help us get through the worst time of the calendar year. Now I’m thinking we also need to make Christmas and New Year’s Days always fall on a Friday. Add/subtract days in other months as needed so these mid week holidays don’t mess everything up. I’m sure that won’t be too difficult, right? We have an authoritarian president who thinks everyone has to do what he says. If he can make this happen, I might re-evaluate my opinion of him…

The main high school reporter for our local paper has a nice gimmick he pulls out each year when he writes preseason, all area teams for football and basketball. In addition to asking the kids about toughest opponent, when they started playing, favorite player, how they picked their number, etc., he always has some tie-in to what’s going on at the moment. Sometimes it’s their favorite song, show, social media app, or feelings about some other trend. For the boys basketball preview in early December, he asked players how many of Santa’s reindeer they could name.

Nothing made me worry about the future of our country more than the responses. SOOOOO many kids couldn’t name a single reindeer other than Rudolph. A couple didn’t even get the most famous reindeer of all. Don’t they teach the kids the song anymore???? What really threw me was that multiple, like at least five, kids named “Dixon” as one of the reindeer. WHO THE FUCK IS DIXON? I get the Vixen is a weird name, and there are several that start with D. But Dixon?

I was relieved that my girls did much better when I quizzed them. All that Christmas music on rides to-and-from school when they were little paid off.

We noticed another pronounced reduction in the amount of Christmas cards we received this year. We are down probably 25–30% from just a couple years. Which makes sense, as more and more of our friends ease into empty nest-dom. S has already said next year is the last time we send a family card out. We barely got them out this year, and ordered the absolute minimum our printer would allow. After handing them to family, neighbors, and co-workers, we were left with a handful to mail to friends in other locales. If you did not receive one from us it was not personal. In fact, you’re just ahead of the curve as we end that phase of our lives this time next year.

Some NFL announcer thoughts. The Colts got the Ian Eagle - JJ Watt combo a lot this season. Eagle has been great for years. I was pleasantly surprised by Watt. He played recent enough to be familiar with the modern game. It seemed like he could be critical of players and coaches, but never over-the-top. And he had a subtle humor that meshed nicely with Eagle’s. I was expecting a bigger personality from him based on how he enjoyed media attention as a player. I liked that he never tried to be bigger than the game he was analyzing.

I thought Tom Brady improved a lot this year. He still sounds too stiff and sometimes repetitive of his partner. He still makes the occasional large gaffe, like Saturday when he said the Eagles taking a time out to avoid a delay of game penalty was a good call, ignoring that if they didn’t get the first down on the ensuing play, the game was basically over where the extra time out would allow them to extend it. But he began to loosen up and I enjoyed when he would get excited about something that happened on the field. He also did a better job of using knowledge from his career to explain specific plays. He still has a lot of room to get better, but he was not the unlistenable disaster he was a year ago.

However, I do not get him doing Pizza Hut commercials. There’s no way he’s eaten Pizza Hut pizza, and maybe any pizza, since he graduated from college.

Perhaps this has been clarified/debunked since it first came up a week ago, but during the TCU-KU game, ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla said that this year on video reviews in the Big 12, referees will make their decision based on just one camera angle.

The dumbness of this was quickly apparent as on the play in question viewers at home saw three different angles. Two showed the ball clearly going off a TCU player’s hand before it went out-of-bounds. A third made it seem possible that Elmarko Jackson touched it last. It was never explained to TV viewers which angle the refs were seeing.

Fortunately for KU, the refs gave the ball to the Jayhawks, who tied the game and sent it to overtime seconds later.

If Fran’s assertion was correct - and when has Fran Fraschilla ever been wrong about anything? - it is super dumb. Limiting camera angles is not the way to improve replay. I still insist until the college game allows referees to retroactively award fouls during replay reviews like the NBA does, using replay in the college game to determine possession is idiotic. Seriously, don’t get me started…

Peacock announced that they will soon roll out a feature, likely only available on TVs with the latest audio capabilities, that will allow viewers to mute announcers while still hearing the crowd noise. HOLY SHIT THIS IS BRILLIANT!!! KU fans quickly called this the Mute Fran feature. I’m sure you all have your “favorite” announcer you will use it on.

Peacock simply must share this feature with every other broadcaster.

OK, finally, I haven’t collected enough items for a new Dumb Or Not post, but one thing has been sticking in my head for a while: targeting penalties in football. To me it is asinine that a player’s first targeting penalty results in an immediate ejection. We’ve all seen plays that, upon review, might be legit targeting penalties but only happened because of the flukiness of each play, not out of intent. A safety is coming in to make a tackle and the runner ducks his head into the him at the last moment, they knock helmets, and suddenly that defender is out for the rest of the game.

I get the purpose of the ejection, but it is far too punitive and subject to chance rather than malice. There needs to be some kind of warning, like a yellow card for soccer or even some kind of penalty box like in hockey, rather than immediate ejection.

About 10 years ago there was a period where if you barely touched a quarterback’s head it was an immediate 15 yard penalty. That has pretty much gone away. I don’t usually feel bad for Aaron Rogers, but he got destroyed Monday night and at least twice there were hits that I was shocked were not flagged. It seems like on those calls we’ve swung way back from where we were a decade back. Perhaps even with the concussion fears some sanity will eventually come into play and the way targeting is penalized will be adjusted.

Or rather nuggets that would have been better if posted in December. ↩

Weekend Notes

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 08:58:14 -0400

CFP

My goodness! I expected IU to beat Oregon. But like that? A complete ass kicking, the type you expect Alabama or Georgia or Ohio State to put on some feel-good-story team that got a bunch of breaks and stumbled into the playoffs? No, no way could the Hoosiers do that to the Ducks, a team loaded with five star recruits and future NFL players. Yet they did. Without much effort, it seemed.

There are about 130 schools who should be kicking themselves for not hiring Curt Cignetti when they had a chance. They let little old Indiana do it and now the Hoosiers are about to win a national championship. In football. In one of the greatest single seasons in college football history. What a time to be alive.

The other semifinal between Miami and Mississippi was a lot of fun, full of late twists that were terribly exciting. And, sure, Miami will be playing in their hometown and home stadium. But you saw how the Hoosiers turned Atlanta into Bloomington south Friday night. The Canes will fill a lot of seats, but they will not get the home field advantage you would expect a team in their situation to have.

HS Hoops

We drove about an hour north of town, just past Muncie, for a game Saturday afternoon against DHS, who had the same record as us. They had played the 122nd toughest schedule in the state, to our 22nd, but you never know, right?

Well, we should have known. After an ugly first quarter, which ended with us up 6–1, we cranked it up and spent the majority of the game ahead by 17–22 points. It was one of those games where both teams kind of didn’t want to be on the court in the fourth quarter and it drug on too long. In the end, we won by 17, giving up just 24 points to a team that was averaging nearly 60 per game. Tenth straight W for the Irish, if you’re counting, up to 12–4 on the season.

L played decent minutes: the closing seconds of the first quarter, all of the second, spot duty in the third, and a solid chunk of the fourth. She had two highlights. As the clock ran out in the first quarter she caught a pass at midcourt, took a couple dribbles, and launched a shot from about 35 feet as the buzzer sounded. It hit the front of the rim, the backboard, the front rim again, the back rim, and then spun out. Would have been a cool way to finally hit a varsity 3.

As the second quarter ran out she got absolutely plowed by two defenders. Just wiped out. No whistle. When she popped up I saw her saying, “WHAT THE FUCK???” Clearly she got something athletic from her mom!

The whistle was very weird in the first half - at one point the total fouls were 11 against us to three against our hosts - and this play set our coaches off. As they walked to the locker room we saw a referee following them, telling our head coach she could talk to him but her assistants needed to be quiet. She yapped back, as she tends to do, so soon he was taking steps towards our locker room. He yelled “If you want us to even up the fouls we have to even up the score, too!” Which got us parents fired up. I tossed in a couple “Walk aways!” at him. Yeah, I told him!

Anyway, L missed the other two shots she took, grabbed one steal, and had one turnover. Again, not doing much in the scorebook but she’s handling her minutes without too many mistakes, which keeps her in the games.

This coming week is the Indianapolis City Tournament. We are the #1 seed. Our arch rivals, who we’ve played in the championship game the last two years, are struggling a bit and got the #3 seed, but I would still not be surprised to see them Friday if we win our first two games.

Jayhawk Talk

Well, it’s officially time to panic.

Thankfully I missed all of Saturday’s game at West Virginia while we were up in Muncie. I did not go back and watch the game when we got home. I was disgusted enough following it on my phone and getting updates from friends.

This team is a mess, I fear Bill Self has lost his mojo, and I’m not sure what will fix any of it. If KU can’t give Iowa State their first loss of the year tonight, then win at Baylor on Friday, there aren’t many clear paths to a .500 record in the Big 12. Which suddenly puts even making the NCAA tournament in doubt. Which would have sounded utterly ridiculous three weeks ago. Or any time in the last 40+ years. But this is what we’ve come to. Feel free to talk pleasure in my distress after the charmed life as a college basketball fan I’ve lead almost my entire life.

NFL Playoffs

First off, I have to admit a monumental mistake in my picks post Friday. I called the Chargers the San Diego Chargers. That says a lot about that organization that after nearly a decade in LA, I still think of them as San Diego’s team. I know the Raiders are in Las Vegas and they’ve moved 20 times in my life.[1] My apologies to the entire San Diego, errrrrr, Los Angeles Chargers organization. It’s a shame my snub didn’t fire them up so they played better Sunday. I think I’m done with all the people who insist that Justin Herbert is an elite quarterback. He missed so many not terribly difficult throws Sunday. I have corrected my mistake.

Man, what a weekend of football! Until the Chargers - Patriots game, almost every contest was great. And at least that nightcap was close most of the way even if it kind of sucked. I didn’t get to see all of every game for various reasons, but most of the time when I was watching the football was good. Or at least exciting.

I lost one Super Bowl team already (Jacksonville) and was lucky not to lose the other (LA Rams). Chicago made me sweat it out, which I kind of expected. I’m 3–2 going into tonight.

Back To School

We took M and C out to breakfast Saturday after dropping L off at school. M then returned to Cincinnati. She begins her spring co-op today, working in the marketing department of an architectural firm. She will be taking one online course to go with that gig.

We drove C back to Bloomington Sunday afternoon, her classes resume today. IU does spring semester rush, which began last week, and she decided not to go through with it. Which did not surprise us. That choice fits her personality. While a lot of her high school friends and her roommate are rushing, most of the new friends she made in the fall are not, so she’ll have a nice balance going forward.

Last week was CHS’ annual J Term week. L has developed an interest in possibly attending law school. Through a friend she hooked up with an attorney who happens to be the chief lobbyist for IU Health, and shadowed her at the state house last week. L got to sit in on committee meetings, meet several state senators, and follow the lobbyist as she interacted with legislators. L realized that she definitely does NOT want to be a lobbyist. But she did get a greater understanding of how our state government works (or sometimes does not work).[2] One of the senators she got to meet is not affiliated with the party that most represents her views, but she told me she really liked that he was open-minded rather than an ideologue, and made some comments about a few recent political developments in Indiana that were forced upon us by lunatics in DC that matched her feelings.[3]

In the end it was a highly educational week for her. I’m not sure if it swayed her either way on law school, but she has a lot of time to figure that out. Both of her godparents are attorneys and made some suggestions for courses of study in college to help her get there if she ends up wanting to take that leap and will also leave her with a solid base if she decides those extra three years aren’t for her.

She starts regular classes today, too.

We took all the holiday decorations down last Thursday. The girls are all back in class (or working). The holidays are over and our house is emptier in multiple ways this morning.

Or three. ↩
She will take AP Government next year, so some of the basics were new to her. ↩
I don’t think there’s any possible way to identify the person she met with from this vague post, but I do not want to get anyone in trouble. ↩

NFL Playoff Predictions

Fri, 09 Jan 2026 13:30:04 -0400

Every four weeks for the past four months I’ve shared some brief thoughts about the NFL season. The common theme was I had no idea what was going on, as teams took turns looking good for 2–3 games then looking terrible.

Following that trend, as I look at the playoff bracket, I am befuddled. How the hell am I supposed to have confidence in anyone from this group of teams? There isn’t a single one that doesn’t have at least one major question. The top two teams in the AFC are both making huge jumps partially cleared by the Chiefs dropping out of contention. The #1 NFC seed has a massive question at quarterback.

I’m thrilled that I don’t gamble and had a compulsion to bet money on any of these games.

Fortunately I’m just a dumb blogger, so here are some half-assed picks for the bracket that will entertain us for the next month.

AFC

New England over Los Angeles. There is zero chance the Chargers fly all the way across the country, play in cold weather, and pull the upset. Easiest pick of the bracket.

Jacksonville over Buffalo. I can’t believe I’m making this pick, but the Jags are genuinely good on both sides of the ball and the Bills are too porous on defense to stay in the game.

Houston over Pittsburgh. I have real concerns about the Texans, but I think they will pressure Aaron Rogers all game and their offense will do just enough to win.

Jacksonville over New England. I’m telling you, the Jags are way more complete than a lot of people realize and the Patriots took too big of a leap this year.

Denver over Houston. A month ago I would have picked Houston here, but Denver will get the win as long as Bo Nix doesn’t throw five interceptions.

Jacksonville over Denver. WHAT THE HELL KIND OF WORLD ARE WE LIVING IN WHERE THE JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS MAKE THE SUPER BOWL??? DUUUUU-VALLLL!!!!

NFC

Chicago over Green Bay. These teams have played two super fun games in the last month. The Packers are too banged up, though, and I think Caleb Williams has one OH SHIT!!! game in him before he flames out.

Philadelphia over San Francisco. If the Niners had any defense at all, they win. The Eagles will do their normal thing where they fuck around and barely win. But win they will.

Los Angeles over Carolina. Second easiest pick in the bracket.

Seattle over Chicago. Caleb Williams will come in sky high after beating Green Bay and the Seahawks’ defense will quickly humble him. As long as Sam Darnold can stay upright Seattle wins.

Los Angeles over Philadelphia. There’s a part of me that wonders if the Eagles will wake up now that we’re in January. That their offensive play calling will finally start taking advantage of all their gifts on that side of the ball. Then I remember I’ve decided that Jalen Hurts is actually bad at his job and it was a total fluke he destroyed the Chiefs last year.

Los Angeles over Seattle. Sports are weird sometimes. Everything lines up for an aging player to have one, last moment of glory. This may be that year for Matt Stafford. Unless he gets destroyed by one of Seattle’s linebackers in the first half and spends the rest of the game on the sideline wearing a baseball hat trying to figure out where he is.

Super Bowl

Rams over Jaguars. The Rams have been there before, the Jags will just be happy to be there.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 09 Jan 2026 09:10:21 -0400

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“Gold Paint For Blue Skies” - Peter Matthew Bauer
Former Walkmen lead singer Hamilton Leithauser released an excellent album almost exactly a year ago. Here his former bandmate’s latest sounds like it easily could have been a Walkmen song. I can’t help but wonder what it would sound like with Leithauser on vocals.

“Rule 31” - Radio Free Alice
I love this band’s name, harkening to clandestine shortwave stations of ages past. They tap into a different kind of post-punk from Preoccupations, but you hear some similar influences.

“95” - Yumi Zouma
A super melancholic song about getting everything you dreamed about and finding it leaves you empty. Perfect for January!

“X-Ray” - The Notwist
Not many German artists in the indie rock world, so perhaps this is the first ever appearance by a German band? I knew of The Notwist back in the early 2000s. They’ve been active very sporadically over the past 15 years. Pretty cool that they are still hanging around and making solid music.

“We’ll Burn That Bridge When We Get To It” - Bory
Good song or not - and this is pretty good - this deserved inclusion for its title alone.

“Cut Fruit” - Remember Sports
Following the success of Momma and Rocket last year, another female-fronted band that taps deep into Nineties alt rock for their sound.

“A Gun In Every Home” - Wings of Desire
I don’t have much to say about this song, mostly because I can’t get over that the lead singer’s name is James Taylor. This couldn’t sound less like the James Taylor a lot of us grew up on.

“High Road” - Charlotte Day Wilson
I enjoy that moment every month or two where I stumble across another track like this, that blends R&B with other elements to create something that defies categorization while sounding amazing.

“Downtown” - The Afghan Whigs covering Still Corners
Cincinnati’s greatest rock export released two new covers just before Christmas. This one, a cover of a 2016 Still Corners track, fits the band’s sound perfectly. The original was much more of a synth-pop track. On the cover Greg Dulli and his partners add that classic Afghan Whigs sense of drama and danger.

[youtu.be/a3ir9HC9v...](https://youtu.be/a3ir9HC9vYg?si=yVPh3BkyioCyQoik)

“The Sun Always Shines on T.V.” - A-ha
Ya’ll might recall that in 2024 each week I shared a video from the corresponding week in 1984. I decided not to continue that into last year with songs from 1985. This morning I found myself having no idea what to include for a video so I’m jumping back into the 1986 charts. Not saying I’ll do it weekly, but when in doubt that will be my crutch, generally focusing on lesser known tracks at the bottom of the Top 40.

For this week the song that kept A-ha from being a one-hit-wonder in the US. Although I imagine most folks completely forgot about this track. It reached #1 in Germany, the UK, and #2 in their native Norway, but only #20 in the States. While not a bad song, it lacks the magic that made “Take On Me” a world-wide smash. Number 37 this week in 1986.

Hoops Notes: Overtimes For Everyone

Thu, 08 Jan 2026 12:35:51 -0400

A wild couple nights of basketball that included three extra periods to resolve two games. Because of that, a rare mash-up of college and high school notes.

Jayhawk Talk

From the verge of a disastrous 0–2 Big 12 start to an exhilarating win that didn’t really answer the questions thanks to a pretty amazing three minutes Tuesday night.

KU’s defense completely fell apart in the second half, giving TCU layups and wide open 3’s, which the Frogs refused to miss. From a nice halftime lead to looking at a 10-point deficit in a stretch of about 10 minutes. Eventually TCU’s lead got up to 16. KU seemed lifeless and stupid. I turned the TV off. I had a quick memory, though, of West Virginia games past. I quickly pulled the game up on my laptop, not seeing just one missed free throw. I was getting constant texts from other Jayhawks fans and might as well have the game on while we were bitching to each other.

The momentum shifted. TCU missed a free throw. KU started making shots. TCU stopped playing with the same intent and suddenly seemed frightened of blowing it. Then it was a three-point game and KU had the ball with about five seconds left.

Enter Darryn Peterson.

I had jinxed the phenom moments earlier, noting that while we might be about to lose, at least he played nearly the entire game. Only to see him check out and strap pads onto his legs.

Down three, needing a 3, he checked back in, got fouled behind the arc, and hit all three free throws. The Frogs then made their second horrific turnover of their collapse and Peterson was checking back in for a last shot. He got one off, but forced a 3 that clanked badly.

Overtime!

KU took control early and weathered a late flurry of TCU 3’s to escape with a miraculous victory.

Again, so reminiscent of those three epic comebacks against West Virginia in the 2010s. This one was different, though. Those WVU teams were all very good, this TCU one is nice but not a Final Four contender. And those KU teams were also Final Four good, where this one? I’m not sure even the most optimistic of KU fans thinks it has the qualities needed to win four games in March.

That made Tuesday’s win more remarkable than those WVU ones. There was no Frank Mason or Devonte Graham to bail the team out. Peterson is more talented than those two legends. But he’s also younger and dealing with whatever he’s dealing with that keeps him from playing. He scored 32 points in 32 minutes Tuesday, none bigger than the free throws that sent the game to overtime. However, other than the last 10 seconds, he didn’t play at all in the final seven minutes of the game.

What was most concerning about Tuesday’s game, and the previous Saturday’s loss to UCF, was how terrible the KU D looked. This was a top 5 defense coming into those games, and they got torched. Both UCF and TCU were hot from behind the arc, but not like epically hot. It was more they hunted mismatches and then punished them. Worse, the switch-everything defense has taken away what is best about Flory Bidunga’s defensive game: blocking shots and grabbing rebounds. Too often he was guarding someone out on the arc when a shot went up. Bryson Tiller seems totally lost on defense, switching late or sometimes just forgetting to switch. Tuesday he had nine points and seven rebounds in just 20 minutes, but was so bad defensively Bill Self had to get him off the court. If he could get to just mediocre on D he could have a real impact.

Being able to switch five is great, but if you can’t rebound and a couple players constantly get burned, it might be time to re-think that strategy.

Now for the Peterson Problem.

I have no idea what’s going on with DP. I believe he has a legit ailment. For it to stretch on this long and barely respond to treatment is very weird. There’s a lot of oddness about the situation that, since it is 2025, has turned into sometimes ugly and unfair speculation. I’m certainly frustrated. I don’t think he would go off the way he has in the minutes he played if he was faking something. I’m beginning to have concerns that something much more serious is going on with his body.

The remarkable thing is how freaking good he is, playing limited minutes at less than 100% health. KU has never had a player with his scoring ability. He is fearless, sometimes dangerously so. You see why he arrived with so much hype.

That said, he’s messing up this team. Not intentionally. But sitting out most of the first two months of the season has everyone standing around passively when he is on the court. He hasn’t learned to trust his teammates yet, thus is basically playing elevated AAU ball. That he is so good allows him to get away with it.

I continue to be hopeful that he can stay on the court. Time is truly running out, though, for him and his teammates to learn to play together so they can make some kind of noise in March and this doesn’t seem like a wasted season for everyone involved.

HS Hoops

Wednesday the Irish put their eight-game winning streak on the line against NHS, a suburban school that is traditionally very good but came into the game really struggling thanks to a brutal stretch of injuries. They won the state championship four years ago on the back of a player who is now at UConn. Their best player from last year, when they beat us by 22, is now at Miami (FL). They beat us up pretty good in the June summer league. The computer pegged us as nine-point favorites, which seemed high to me.

NHS hit a couple 3’s early and jumped out to a 10–2 lead. We fought back and trailed 12–10 at the end of the first quarter. For the rest of the night, neither team led by more than four points. The game was tied at halftime. We were up one after three. After one of L’s former travel teammates tossed in a short jumper just before the final buzzer, the teams were again tied after regulation.

In the extra period, we trailed by a basket and were inbounding under our own hoop with two seconds left. We threw a lob to our best leaper who caught and shot in one motion, the ball dropping in as the horn sounded. Good for her, as she had missed at least three shots right at the rim earlier. Double overtime! Our girls went crazy and for a moment I was worried they didn’t realize we had just tied the game, not won it.

In the second overtime, we again trailed, this time by one, as the clock was running out. NHS had the ball and for some reason we weren’t trying to foul. Also for some reason their point guard, who destroyed us in the extra periods, decided to pass to no one with about 10 seconds left. One of our sophomores grabbed the loose ball, raced up court, and hit a twisting layup with 3.9 seconds left. After a timeout NHS missed a desperation heave and we escaped with a 69–68 win.

What a battle! M and C came to the game and C said that was as locked in as she’s ever been for a game. L played about six minutes. She missed a breakaway layup in the first half because NHS’ toughest defender was chasing and I think made L take her eyes off the rim.[1] In the second half she clearly got fouled on the perimeter and was pissed when nothing was called, so drove into traffic and earned a harder foul. She was perfect on both free throws. Moments later she had a tough turnover by over-dribbling against their trapping defense. To be fair to her, we had about 1000 turnovers so hers didn’t really stand out.

Another close win that, hopefully, pays dividends in the upcoming tournaments.

Unfortunately there was a picture of this miss in the digital edition of today’s paper. ↩

Reader's Notebook, 1/7/26

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 09:56:35 -0400

My final four books of 2025, which ended up being my most prolific reading year on record. Appropriately, and I’m not making this up, I read 67 books last year. Honest to God! SIX SEVEN!!!!

Cross, Sanctuary, The Devil - Ken Bruen Three more entries in Bruen’s brilliant Jack Taylor series, read over roughly a week. Somehow they are getting even darker, with a terrific twist in Taylor’s life thrown into this set. I have now read eight of the 18 official Taylor books, all over the past six months, happily buying up used copies from Thrift Books. I imagine I’ll do some damage to the rest of the series this coming year.

Big Chief - Jon Hickey I have a couple Best Of 2025 Books lists saved, and added several of them to my personal reading list and library holds. I forget which list this one appeared on, but it was a worthy entry.

Its main character is Mitch, a young attorney who returned to the Anishinaabe reservation in Wisconsin he grew up when he hit a bump in his career. Eventually he landed as chief of staff to a childhood friend who pulled an upset win in the election for tribal president. The book picks up two years into that stint, with the president in the midst of a tough reelection battle. They face charges of corruption, a group of extremely angry reservation residents, and an insurgent opponent who seems poised to oust them from office.

In the final days before the election things truly go off the rails. The protests become violent, Tribal police battling their own citizens. The president begins taking erratic, often illegal actions. And a long-time white benefactor to both the tribe and Mitch dies under mysterious circumstances.

Along the way Mitch is forced to face a lot of uncomfortable truths about his upbringing, how he managed to get out of the rez when so many of his childhood friends were stuck, how he is tied to corruption both present and past, and deal with leftover trauma from his mother’s death years earlier. It’s a lot for a young dude. He doesn’t always handle it well. That messiness really made this book strike home with me. We like to think that we will triumphantly defeat all the challenges life throws at us. Often, though, we stumble along the way, making wrong decisions or, more likely, putting off making those choices because their options paralyze us.

And like so many modern pieces of pop culture that are centered on Native Americans, Mitch has to wade through a ton of questions about who he is, what community he feels most at home in, and how he deal with all the emotions that bubble up from that internal conflict.

Fitness Update

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 11:43:42 -0400

A few more catch up posts I need to crank through before we officially turn our backs on the old year.

The final quarter of 2025 ended up being my worst workout stretch of the year. Not a huge surprise, as the weather turned, I had a couple weeks of foot pain, I spent several days shuttling C back-and-forth as she battled her mystery illness,[1] and then the holidays hit. My longest stretch of not breaking a sweat before December was three days. I will add a small asterisk to that, as over spring break S and I only took short walks each morning. But that was still better than the absolute nothing I did for seven straight days in late December.

That killed my numbers for the month, and I logged just 17 workouts in December. This was pretty poor timing as it coincided with the time of year I eat the most crap and I managed to pack on 4–5 extra lbs. over the final five weeks of the year. Something to focus on losing right away in the new year!

Those drug my Q4 totals to 63 of 92 days, or 68%. For the year, I worked out 274 days, or 75% of days. I also had five bonus workouts mixed in: shoveling snow on days I also worked out, a second walk after other cardio, moving M in 90°+ heat.

One obvious area for improvement is not letting as many weekend days slip by without doing something active. Once we got deep into summer I hit an excellent groove with my swimming. This year I will aim at getting into that rhythm earlier in the season.[2]

That said, I’m pretty proud of how diligent I was with my workouts. For years I’ve taken a little notebook to the gym that listed my strength workout for the day, but I never did a tangible tracking of those workouts. Logging them into the chart I found on Reddit last January was a great visual reminder and motivator of where I was. That helped me turn 2025 into my best fitness year probably ever in terms of events. In typical me fashion, though, my weight barely budged over the first 11 months of the year. I’m not sure how much room there is to adjust my caloric intake, as I’m always hungry. I suppose that’s one goal going forward, to experiment a bit in finding more snacks that knock down those hunger pangs while giving myself a chance to burn off the extra pounds.

Other goals for this year are to find some additions to the Old Man routine I’ve been on for over four years. It is effective, has variety to it, and is focused on the physical limitations we hit as we get older. But I need to be better about mixing supplementary exercises into it. I also need to be more committed to stretching, core strength, and other non-sexy parts of working out. It’s relatively easy to do a cardio workout, or lift weights for 40 minutes. It’s harder to be equally motivated to lay on the ground for 10–15 minutes afterward doing boring things like planks, mobility work, etc.

I’ve printed off and begun filling in my 2026 sheet. I’m already off to a better start than I was a year ago. There is one other major change in my fitness routine for 2026. But that’s a topic for another post.

We never officially identified what her issue is. S and her partners have some ideas, but nothing that can be proven. Every test for something specific came back negative. Most likely a reaction to something viral that was worse than the actual virus. The important part is that whatever the cause was seems to have passed and C used the break to rest up and get mostly back to normal. She has a few residual issues, but all minor and more annoying than disruptive. Hopefully another peaceful week and she can begin the second semester next week close to 100%. ↩
We did have two lost weeks early in the season because of pool issues, which did not help. Fingers crossed next summer brings a healthier pool, too. ↩

Holiday Break Notes

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 09:01:07 -0400

Shut down the blog for nearly two weeks and there’s a lot to catch up on. I’m sure none of you want to get back to work anyway, so consider this a public service on my part.

Holiday Stuff

It was your standard Christmas around our house. I spent nearly all Christmas Eve day prepping, making five casseroles for Christmas Day plus baked beans to take to our Christmas Eve gathering. That evening event was boisterous and packed, as it always is. Luckily it was just warm enough to either be in the garage or near the fire pit.

On Christmas Day we hosted the annual family brunch, although with a couple of S’s siblings away and one family not yet in town, it was only 16 or so people. Our guests from Denver flew in late afternoon and we had a small dinner for them, assisted by my sister-in-law the chef.

As far as I was aware, everyone was well behaved.

Friday was our nephew from Denver’s 16th birthday. He requested dinner at our favorite hibachi place, where we’ve taken him and his family a couple times over the years. We taught him well! A bunch of folks went to see the new Avatar movie after, although L and I skipped that since she had to be up early the next day and I didn’t have much interest in watching a 3+ hour movie in a theater.[1]

Saturday after L’s game we met a bunch of cousins at a local park where they played and everyone ate pizza. It was in the 50s, but there was a nasty breeze that made it feel much cooler. Many of us made poor choices with our jackets.

Monday morning a good chunk of the family came to watch L’s game, then we gathered for the last big get-together of the week for lunch.

On New Year’s Eve, M went back to Cincinnati, C was out with friends, and L had a group over at our house. Everyone was safe and had good nights. S and I had a quiet night chaperoning L’s group from our bedroom. We watched the Miami-OSU game, she napped, I read, and we made sure everything downstairs was in order. L’s friends called it a night around 2 AM.

Since New Year’s C and L have had friends over several times, and M brought her boyfriend back from Cincinnati for the weekend but it’s been quiet otherwise.

S was a little under the weather over the weekend plus we had our guest, so we decided to leave the Christmas decorations up until next weekend. Which is fair, given this was a short Thanksgiving-to-Christmas year.

We also knocked out a home project over the break that I’ll share more about later this week.

L starts J-Term today while M and C enjoy their last week off before the spring semester begins.

HS Hoops

CHS played three games over the holidays.

The Saturday after Christmas they made up the game that was snowed out two weeks earlier, traveling about 45 minutes east of Indy to take on Eastern Hancock. EH was 9–2 coming in and feature one of the best juniors in the state, a Ball State commit who averages over 30 points per game. That said, beyond her they don’t have much. But last year she tore us up, we played kind of dumb, and we lost by 13.

No such worries this year. We jumped on them early, they couldn’t handle our press, and we led by 12 after one. That snowball kept rolling down the hill. We were up 34 at halftime and our first bucket of the third quarter invoked a running clock, which remained in effect the entire half. We never got sloppy, even with the starters barely playing in the fourth quarter, and cruised to a 65–29 win. Our defense was fantastic, holding the top scorer to just 10 points.

L played basically half the game, the entire second and nearly all the fourth quarters with a few minutes in the first and third. She only took one shot, ripping a rebound and going full-court, throwing a hesi at a defender, and finishing past the D1 recruit. She grabbed a couple other rebounds to give her a varsity career high of three. A couple turnovers, but one on a bad call and the other when a teammate didn’t focus and let a pass go through her hands. She was excited that one of her uncles and cousins watched with me, and that one of her closest friends on last year’s team, who is now playing at an NAIA school, surprised the team by showing up. Her face lit up when she saw T sneak in just before tip.

Monday we played across the street against a west-side Indy school. We led by double figures almost the whole game, just letting a sloppy stretch in the third quarter make it closer than it should have been, holding on to win by 10. This is a 20+ point win if we don’t miss a bunch of easy shots and not have a couple girls play kind of dumb. L played about five first half minutes, hitting one of two free throws but committing two fouls. She didn’t get back in as another bench player had the best game of her career and deserved the minutes. L was bummed she didn’t play better with so many cousins, aunts, and uncles in attendance.

Tuesday we were back across the street playing the host school. They had a sub-.500 record but are working in a new coach and we knew they would be very physical. We built a nice 11 point lead just before halftime, hitting 6 of 13 3’s, and then spent the second half slowly pissing down our legs. We gave up the lead, then scored eight straight. Gave it up again and pushed it back up to six before escaping with a two-point win. There were multiple times when players shoved each other and lots of shit talking. One of our parents was ejected from the gym. There were some terrible calls, almost everyone going against us. Eventful! And stressful.

L played about 11 minutes, checking in with just under 4:00 left in the first quarter and remaining in until halftime. She grabbed a couple rebounds and had an assist, but did not take a shot. We leaned hard on our starters in the second half and she did not get back in.

Those three wins made it eight-straight for the Irish, who are now 10–4. The girls earned a mini-break, getting five days off before getting back to practice today. There is a tough week ahead, one game against a 4A school that is usually pretty good but has had terrible injury luck lately, then on the road against another 3A school that begins the week 10–4.

UConn-Butler

One of L’s Christmas presents was front-row seats to see the UConn women on their annual trip to Butler the Sunday after Christmas. The seats were almost too good; we were directly behind the TNT announcing team and our view of mid-court was partially obscured. We could see ourselves in their monitors so were careful to not do anything dumb when the camera were on them. Officially we were just in the front row of the permanent seats, as there were two rows of temporary floor seats in front of us. But, still, pretty good seats!

I would rather have been a little higher for a better angle but it was cool to be just a few feet from the ladies on inbounds plays. L and I were both struck with how big, meaning muscular, almost all the players were. You don’t necessarily pick that up on TV.

The game went as expected. Butler hit consecutive 3’s and was up 10–6 midway through the first quarter and then UConn decided to stop messing around and ripped off a 39–2 run. They are so talented. We paid a lot of attention to their offense. It isn’t all that complex, but it doesn’t have to be when you have the talent they have. Still, the players do have to run it correctly to be efficient, and they were locked in Sunday. It was also impressive to watch how hard they play, especially on defense. Their guards just abused Butler’s. At halftime the Bulldogs had 19 turnovers, 12 of them UConn steals. And that didn’t count tipped passes or times when UConn nearly got a steal but the ball went out-of-bounds.

As you would expect the crowd was almost entirely pulling for UConn. That included L. To be fair, Butler only has one more Indiana native (3) than UConn (2), so there was lots of local support for a couple Huskies. The AAU program L played for was started by parents of a UConn player, so we saw tons of middle school girls from there in their travel gear.

CFP

Wow, what a quarterfinal round! I thought Miami had no shot against Ohio State. A rough third quarter aside, they beat that Buckeye ass.

I thought Oregon - Texas Tech would be a high scoring game that went down to the end. The Ducks beat that Red Raider ass.

Despite Alabama’s illustrious history I didn’t think they had a chance against IU. The Hoosiers proved me right, beating that Crimson Tide ass.

Then the game of the round, Mississippi’s amazing comeback win over Georgia. I figured the game was over at halftime, and muted it so I could give my latest book some attention. I glanced up and saw things were happening and locked back in right as the game went crazy and Ole Miss took over. What a collapse for Georgia, what a moment for the Rebels who were abandoned by their coach a couple weeks earlier.

I hate to jinx them, but no one looked close to as good as IU last week. The tournament is theirs to lose. I think any of the three remaining teams could beat them, but I don’t think it is likely. One of the greatest stories in college sports history is two weeks away from being completed.

Colts

An appropriately stupid way to end a stupid season. The Colts had no real incentive to do anything yesterday against Houston. With no first round pick there was no upside to resting all the starters. The difference between eight and nine wins would make the most marginal of differences in their later picks. Jonathan Taylor had a shot at the rushing title. It was a chance to see if Riley Leonard was a viable NFL quarterback. Not losing seven straight to close the season might motivate some of the players.

The Colts fought pretty hard and had the lead until the closing seconds. Then they decided to run a multiple-lateral play as time ran out, the ball ended up on the turf, and a massive Houston lineman ran it in for a Big Man Touchdown that padded the final margin.

Like I said, perfect way to end this dumb season.

The Colts have already announced GM Chris Ballard and head coach Shane Steichen will be back next year. I honestly don’t know if that’s good or bad at this point. Firing them would likely mean a total reset of the roster, which I don’t think anyone is in the mood for. But keeping them and hoping that Daniel Jones can be close to as effective next year as he was this year before he got hurt seems to doom them to another 7–8–9 win year. There are a lot of big personnel decisions to be made. I’m not convinced Ballard should be making them, and a new GM would likely want to ditch Steichen and bring in his own guy.

Perhaps the franchise should change its mascot to Sisyphus.

As an added bonus, the Pacers have lost a franchise record tying 12 straight.

Jayhawk Talk

We’ll save the latest basketball drama until after tomorrow night’s game.

Good news for the football team, though, as Andy Kotelnicki the architect of KU’s offense in the first three years of the Lance Leipold era, is returning after two years at Penn State. Kotelnicki can certainly fall into the “Too Cute” camp of OCs, but there’s no doubt that the KU offense under him was the most dynamic it had been since the Todd Reesing days. While KU lost one quarterback to the portal, Isaiah Marshall announced he is returning. I think Marshall should have gotten many more snaps this past season, and has the potential to be very good. He was recruited specifically to play in Kotelnicki’s system and it’s kind of incredible he stuck around for two years while K was at State College, PA.

Hopefully Kotelnicki’s presence means the Jayhawks can grab some solid offensive talent from the portal.

Weather

We could not have asked for better weather right around Christmas. It was in the 50s for several days, although since this is Indiana, the sun was reluctant to come out and it seemed cooler than it actually was. A couple days I bundled up to go grab the mail and was surprised at how balmy it was.

Last Sunday it was nearly 70° and muggy, only the second time since 1948 it has been that warm, that late in the calendar year here. Shortly after L and I got back from the Butler game, severe storms roared through. There was even a confirmed tornado in southern Indiana.

When I got up the next day the windchill was –1°. Midwest weather, baby! It literally snowed all day Monday, never heavily but still unceasing, yet we just got a dusting since the ground was so warm.

The week ahead looks warmer than normal, but the weather folks are already warning us that things will crash again as we get deeper into January. Fun.

Plus I’ve never seen the first two movies in the series. ↩

December Media

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 14:59:54 -0400

The Usual Suspects

Elf Christmas Vacation A Christmas Story

A+, A+, A+

Holiday Baking Championship Well, they did it. After how ever many years of watching these holiday baking shows - at least a decade - the Food Network finally drove me away. Following the semi-debacle that was this year’s Halloween Baking Championship, I was hoping things would return to normal for Christmas. Alas, based on the first episode it seemed like it had also been hammered into stupidity by the producers. Too many home bakers with more personality quirks or wacky backstories than baking skills. Too much emphasis on drama and cattiness. After watching the first episode I deleted the others already queued up and canceled future recordings. Time to re-discover the British Baking Show to get my fix, I guess.

Sad F

A CHRISTMAS STORY (1983): 20 CRAZY Facts You Didn’t Know! 20 CRAZY Facts About ‘‘Elf (2003)’’ 20 Crazy Facts About ‘‘National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation’’! These pieces with the auto-generated narrators drive me nuts. There might be good content, but I can’t ignore the mispronunciations and little verbal ticks. Get off my lawn!

A- for content, D- for delivery

The Lost Version of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation Now this is fantastic! Both digging up some scenes that were cut from the theatrical release of Christmas Vacation and showing how brilliant John Hughes’ original script was.

Colbert’s Canceled Christmas: The Last Noel Not sure this top’s Colbert’s first Christmas show, which featured John Legend’s immortal “Nutmeg,” but it’s a pretty good way to end his run.

Regular Stuff

Platonic, season two Mostly enjoyable, although there were some odd choices along the way. Like the weird podcasting jag by one of the supplementary characters. Lots of sophomoric humor. And the fact Seth Rogan always has gorgeous girlfriends in his shows and movies kind of annoys me. He’s not an attractive dude and I’m sure he smells like weed all the time.

B+

A House of Dynamite Sad that frightening movies about potential nuclear war are no longer speculative fiction, but once again cautionary tales. I’d feel much better about the world if Stringer Bell was our president than the person currently holding the office.

A-

Starting 5, season two We have friends who lived a couple doors down from Tyrese Haliburton when this was filmed. They said they never saw him, but his girlfriend was often out walking their dog. So we looked for them in the background of neighborhood shots. Never saw them.

Netflix nailed this one, with two of their featured stars for this season, Hali and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, making it to the Finals against each other.

Shai’s act gets on my nerves a little. He has a Kobe quality where his every action seems calculated and refined. James Harden is more interesting than I expected. Jaylen Brown is a genuinely admirable dude. And Kevin Durant is one of the greatest personalities to ever play the game. And the Pacers’ ridiculous post-season run was front-and-center.

Put it all together and a pretty solid season two. Although I admit seeing the locker room scenes after Hali blew out his achilles was a little hard to watch.

A-

I cycled for 48 hours to get to work Amazing Beau Miles bullshit.

Yacht Rock: A Documentary We re-upped with HBO and I finally got to watch this amazing show. So much goodness in it. Not sure what my favorite part was: Thundercat. Steve Lukather’s hair. How crazy prolific the dudes in Toto were. Or how much Michael McDonald and the lead singer for Ambrosia have blown up while Kenny Loggins looks as fit as ever.

A+

Wake Up Dead Man We watched the latest Knives Out movie with our guests from Denver, nine total people aged 54 to 13. The younger ones didn’t like it. Us old folks did. I missed the silliness from the first two, but this one felt more indebted to classic thrillers, and thus a little more substantial. And I enjoyed its examination of faith. It could just as easily have pissed off and delighted people from pretty much every religious perspective.

A-

Podcasts

60 Songs That Explain the ’90s: The 2000s - “Hallelujah”—Jeff Buckley 60 Songs is on temporary hiatus, but Rob Harvilla dropped this bonus episode last month. Timely, of course, because for some strange reason various remakes of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” have become Christmas songs over the past decade. Which strikes people like me as absolutely insane; while there is certainly a religious component to the song, it has nothing to do with the Biblical roots of Christmas. Harvilla gets into the back stories of Cohen and Jeff Buckley, how the original version of this song came to be, how John Cale’s 1984 rendition became the de facto standard that most future artists covered, and how Buckley’s 1994 recording brought it to the mainstream. It ends with a wonderful interview with filmmaker Amy J. Berg, director of the new documentary It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 09:58:42 -0400

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6tvtOhBpV86iwslJC9dDey?si=bf12d86559754283)

“The New Year’s Resolution” - Spielbergs
I made just one resolution this year, and I already broke it. Such is life.

“Fighting Back” - Voxtrot
Voxtrot had a little moment during the blog rock era in the 2000s. Next month they will release their first album in 19 years. On this lead single they sound like they haven’t missed a beat in their time away.

“Day In The Sun (Gettin’ wit U)” - De La Soul, Q-Tip & Yummy
A magnificent, classic De La track from their new, and presumed, final album.

“Gimme” - Hazel English
A delightful piece of springy jangle pop to help us get through the worst time of the year.

“What’s Right” - Ratboys
Everything is pointing towards the new Ratboys album, out in a month, being excellent.

“No One’s Forgiven” - Flight To London
HOLY 1980s!!!! This lands somewhere between classic Tears for Fears and cheesy, anonymous track from an Eighties movie. And the video is an homage to Genesis’ “Land of Confusion” video, with puppets acting out the group’s frustrations with the modern political world.

“Nothing On Me” - White Lies
Another blast from the past, this track blends post-punk, early electronica, and even some Rush-like elements.

“That’s My DJ” - Esther Rose
Not the kind of song I expected when I saw the title. Here Rose writes a love letter to her new home of Santa Fe, NM and the rave culture there, but does so in a manner that fits her musical style.

“Mother Mother” - Tracy Bonham
Last week’s Alternative Number Ones article (subscription required) landed on this track from June 1996. At first glimpse it is nothing remarkable, a good-enough track (Tom Breihan gave it an 8, I would say 7) that is fun to listen to but I bet most of you had forgotten about it. However there was a notable piece of trivia and cultural explanation that went along with it.

“Mother Mother” was the last track by a female solo artist to top the Billboard Modern Rock chart until Lorde’s “Royals” in Twenty-freaking-thirteen. SEVENTEEN YEARS. How could this possibly happen?!?!?

Well, Breihan writes, it was largely due to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which allowed for massive consolidation of ownership of radio stations in this country. As Clear Channel snapped up stations, it forced homogenized playlists upon them. Soon a pop station in Kansas City was playing the exact same music as pop stations in Chicago, Dallas, New York, and LA. And the other pop stations in town were playing the same playlists too. In the Modern Rock space, this meant squeezing out female artists in favor of more aggressive bands fronted by dudes. Thus the late Nineties rise of Nu Metal and other associated nonsense.

Sigh.

If you wonder why radio sucks, look back to 1996. And find a way to support your local independent station, if you are lucky enough to live where one still exists.

[youtu.be/W8r-tXRLa...](https://youtu.be/W8r-tXRLazs?si=kg95dQrrBAr3VMAe)

“Video Killed The Radio Star” - The Buggles
I, like many of you, was surprised to hear that MTV’s remaining music channels were largely killed off earlier this week.

First off, I didn’t realize there were still MTV music channels. I guess they were buried deep in most cable packages, in those swaths of channels you only end up in accidentally.

Second, I’m not sure anyone really watched them or that they mattered. Their deaths are not a moment like 1996 that will irrevocably alter the media landscape. More a sad footnote. If you ever watch a music video these days it’s almost certainly on YouTube. And MTV itself, with all its dumb reality programming, still exists.

Each of the video channels apparently signed off with this classic, the first video that MTV aired when it debuted on August 1, 1981. RIP.

End Of Another One

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 13:27:12 -0400

For my readers who have followed me here for years - thank you all! - you know my brain works in very linear/circular ways.[1] I’m very into the rhythms of the year: the flow from week-to-week, the changing of the seasons, when school begins and ends, etc. Something was ingrained in my brain when I was young, or perhaps I was just born that way. Regardless, the end of one calendar year and the beginning of the next has always struck me as an Event, even if we rarely actually celebrate the actual arrival of the New Year anymore.

So I can’t help but be reflective about everything that has transpired over the past 12 months.

For our family, 2025 was mostly good. I think L might argue a bit, given the offensive extra bone in her foot and how it wrecked much of her basketball year. Other than that, though, we were mostly healthy and successful.

M continued her race through college. Amazingly, she just has one “real” semester left, although she won’t graduate until the spring of 2027. She got her first co-op last summer, a major step in her life, which led to another that begins in two weeks. She moved off-campus. She stayed in Cincinnati for all of 2025, holidays and a couple weeks before her summer job began excepted. She’s had a boyfriend for over a year. 😬 She is doing very well.

C hung on and graduated from high school. She will be the first to admit that her high school years weren’t always the best, for a variety of reasons. But she persevered and closed that chapter in her life. She is off to a much better start at IU. We gave her grief this week that the class that kept her from having straight A’s was personal fitness. Then again, when she signed up for an 8 AM gym class, it was going to be a big ask for her to not sleep through a few. 😂 She’s made new friends, reconnected with some old ones, and while sometimes doing it in a different way than her mom and I would choose, is off to a good start in Bloomington.

L continues to do great academically, better grades through 2.5 years of high school than either of her sisters earned. She is a good friend and teammate, someone who others lean on in difficult moments. Basketball wasn’t always what she wanted it to be this year, but 2025 ended on a good run for her. She’s started to get an idea of what she wants to after graduating from high school in 18 months.

S and I are healthy, the most important thing we can say as we move into our mid–50s.[2] This year was the least we’ve traveled in ages, an anticipated effect of the kids being in our home less and less. We’ve made the first tentative plans for what happens when the kids aren’t coming home anymore. Or, rather, talked about what those plans might be.

The Pacers delighted us. The Colts teased us. The Hoosiers shocked us. The Jayhawks confounded me.

Lots of good music and books.

Our little bubble is good.

It was outside the bubble that was problematic in 2025. I don’t need to get into specifics, you all watch/read the news.

The long, slow slide into becoming a nation that doesn’t try to fix problems anymore but rather looks for someone to blame and believes that punishing them solves our issues was accelerated. More power than ever was accumulated in fewer hands than ever. The First Amendment was basically rendered impotent, any organization daring to dissent threatened with the full, punitive powers of the Federal government. So much of the new technologies pushed on us are aimed more at distracting and controlling us than helping us. Our government and highest tiers of our business world are hyper-focused on pushing half-baked ideas that have a clear end in rendering broad swaths of our workforce redundant, not to mention the potentially dire effects on our environment and resources.

It’s tough with children who will be looking to start their careers soon to not be afraid of how their options will be much more limited than when I began working. And to wonder if they should want to start families when they are ready.

I don’t care who you voted for, you can’t look at the trajectory we are on and believe it ends in a good place. And, sadly, I think so much of this is being baked into the system that even an electoral change in 2026 or 2028 won’t be enough to fully reverse course. I used to believe in the slogan Love Wins. Even if it was a bit banal. These days, I’m not so sure…

Well, that’s a fun way to end the year!

I am extraordinarily thankful for those of you who check in here, no matter how frequently/infrequently. It is definitely a form of therapy for me, even if most of the things I write about are trivial.

Happy New Year to you all.

If anything can be both linear and circular, it is my weird mind. ↩
Please don’t let me be jinxing us… ↩

Favorite Songs of 2025

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 16:12:44 -0400

Once again we have reached the end of a calendar year and one of the greatest days of the blogging year: the unveiling of my favorite songs of 2025.

This year the process was as fun as I can recall. As you know, I keep a running list throughout the year, constantly shuffling songs in and out as they catch my fancy. When fall arrived this year I wasn’t really sure about the songs I had stashed away for the final evaluation. But once I dove in I realized this was a pretty solid collection. Often when I begin that review process, I immediately delete a swath of tracks. This year, though, my list stayed pretty constant at around 30 songs. That kept the final size of this year’s favorites in question until just a few days ago. In the end I saw a pretty clear delineation right around the #20 spot.

Thus, I present my twenty favorite songs of 2025.

A couple other notes before we dive in.

Be warned, there are a lot of gay songs this year. Well, the songs themselves aren’t gay, but they are performed by queer artists and are about queer love. Although since I believe love is universal, their sentiments apply to us all. Unless you’re a fascist and think we should deport the gays. If that’s you, you’re probably not reading this post or listening to the music I listen to.

The geographic breakdown this year:
8 artists from the US
7 from the UK
2 from Australia
2 from Canada
1 from Ireland

Finally, honorable mention goes to the following bands, who each released multiple excellent tracks from excellent albums but weren’t quite good enough to crack my top 20: Momma, Rocket, The Berries, and Snocaps.

20 - “Forever” - TTSSFU
Tasmin Stephens is one of the most innovative, daring, and interesting artists in the indie rock world at the moment. And here she made a song that would have sounded perfect in an ‘80s or ‘90s teen movie.

[youtu.be/rF96EK2TW...](https://youtu.be/rF96EK2TWMc?si=l6o6fkJAcqTT80ei)

19 - “Chrome Dipped” - CIVIC
I’ve been a fan of this band for a couple years. On their latest album they shifted from a classic, Aussie punk sound to a more traditionally heavy one. This track punches you in your stomach over-and-over and you love every second of it.

[youtu.be/K_6-4-fLb...](https://youtu.be/K_6-4-fLbZA?si=G3x-FGbakIuyNu8E)

18 - “Coinstar” - Runner
A gorgeous, billowing song about all the freedoms that go with becoming an adult and the pressures they can cause.

[youtu.be/hcZ80v0tb...](https://youtu.be/hcZ80v0tboo?si=YU3fDs17efEfF2Z6)

17 - “When Your Heart Is Broken” - Bob Mould
The legend returned this year - I saw him live! - with another fine album of loud, melodic, indie rock. Late in the year he announced that Sugar was getting back together as well. This was the most Sugar-ish song on his solo album.

[youtu.be/7oxAWfKr0...](https://youtu.be/7oxAWfKr0pc?si=CAj68Z9NQ1PKb3E_)

16 - “T&A” - Blondshell
Sabrina Teitelbaum has a knack for writing songs about the messy parts of relationships. Last year’s #9 song was her “Docket,” on which she and Bully sang about the perils of remaining faithful while being a touring musician. Here she sings about how easy it is for a casual friendship to slip into something more, and the consequences of letting that happen.

[youtu.be/0Zy1_ZbBb...](https://youtu.be/0Zy1_ZbBbJg?si=RAYapQz1kx3IU4wF)

15 - “Everything Is Coming Up Roses” - World News
Is this a song about keeping your head up when things get heavy? Or a sardonic reminder that the world is on fire? The music supports the first interpretation, but the words seem to lean towards the second. “Bad things happen all the time…”

[youtu.be/VMURetSXa...](https://youtu.be/VMURetSXap4?si=iiNemF03DUKzdTuk)

14 - “NW1” - Mên An Tol
I don’t understand most of this song because it is filled with references that only someone who is from London would get. What is unmistakable, though, is the intense love of one’s hometown, in this case the borough of Camden.

[youtu.be/KE3SEV68G...](https://youtu.be/KE3SEV68GX0?si=gLfk)–3wJu1VQHtEA

13 - “Knockin’ Heart” - Hamilton Leithauser
Leithauser’s solo work has never been as intense as when he led the legendary Walkmen. His This Side Of The Island album was all about growing older and being comfortable with that. A long way from “The Rat.” While it may not been as angry as the greatest Walkmen songs, it was the rare solo effort that at least had some of the same energy.

[youtu.be/5OqMSMIAz...](https://youtu.be/5OqMSMIAzZ4?si=-kPh2-q82fEhS82S)

12 - “Hero’s Blood” - Pastel
Oasis returned this year, to the delight of many. But Pastel reminded us that The Verve was actually the best British band of the Nineties (non-Radiohead division) [1] by basically morphing together several songs from Urban Hymns into this monstrous stomper.

[youtu.be/p_FEtZLkx...](https://youtu.be/p_FEtZLkxW8?si=gn89vXi499JS-td6)

11 - “Andromeda” - Preoccupations
A ferocious song by the best current practitioners of post-punk. Like all the best post-punk records, you could drop it in any year from 1983 to today and it would fit in.

[youtu.be/bh0SWoQY0...](https://youtu.be/bh0SWoQY0Xk?si=PmCUhsa1Re8V6Qk3)

10 - “Touch Myself” - The Beaches
When an ex is so in your head you can’t…well, you know.

[youtu.be/JKDd8Tmxu...](https://youtu.be/JKDd8TmxuXE?si=o0RESvjEo3sadvBn)

9 - “It’s Amazing To Be Young” - Fontaines D.C.
Last year’s #4 song was about IDLES lead singer Joe Talbot being totally in love with his daughter. This song was inspired by FDC guitarist Carlos O’Connell becoming a father, and the sense of hope and possibility it filled him with.

[youtu.be/EU8UIDC9q...](https://youtu.be/EU8UIDC9q68?si=4Gc_DloOpzXcyyhH)

8 - “Not In Surrender” - Obongjayar
The horniest song of the year? The “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” lines are one of the best musical moments of the year.

[youtu.be/vMm8naokM...](https://youtu.be/vMm8naokMSY?si=S4tNvKa0T52bU75c)

7 - “East London Hotel” - Broken Fires
Best opening line of the year:

The neatest Scottish whiskey flows,
Into tumblers trimmed with gold

Makes me wish I still drank scotch.

A glorious sounding song about…gentrification. That has to be a first on these year end lists.

[youtu.be/5ZPnqgcwq...](https://youtu.be/5ZPnqgcwq0Q?si=-YjnaFEdyl7fkizS)

6 - “Bethany” - Craig Finn
Arguably our most literate songwriter, Finn’s latest album was built around the concept of a minister who had fallen from grace because he did not believe in God. In classic Finn form, from there he spun out tales of the minister and the people around him. As an added bonus, he brought in The War On Drugs’ Adam Granduciel to help write and produce the album. And Granduciel brought some of his TWOD pals to play. This track features four members of the band. Their presence is unmistakable, especially Robbie Bennett’s piano and Granduciel’s solo.

[youtu.be/NTuna0P5i...](https://youtu.be/NTuna0P5it4?si=JYaUMK8OVJs2Vzb5)

5 - “Nostalgia’s Lie” - Sam Fender
Granduciel also helped produce Sam Fender’s latest album.[2] Of the songs on the People Watching album, none were as obviously influenced by Granduciel as this one. Those big, open chords are the perfect middle point of his sound and Fender’s. That’s Adam on the acoustic guitar, too.

[youtu.be/gNQ5tPep8...](https://youtu.be/gNQ5tPep8yQ?si=5pS-bbdyFEGSvH94)

4 - “If She Was A Boy” - Gatlin
A first-crush song for the modern age, when all those sweet and overwhelming feelings of any teenage love are complicated by wanting to be with a person you’ve been taught you shouldn’t want to be with.

[youtu.be/6P-UOrGqN...](https://youtu.be/6P-UOrGqNoQ?si=lk_z4CKiq-gCDrc6)

3 - “Sugar In The Tank” - Julien Baker & TORRES
When I first read that these two indie rock artists were making a country album, I figured it was a joke. Or if not a joke, a lark; a slapdash side project done to pass the time.

Then I heard this song.

Good Lord!

It blends a healthy dose of traditional country music - both Baker and TORRES (Mackenzie Scott) grew up in the south and went to college in Tennessee - with modern production underneath that tethers it to their indie rock roots. And it is subtly, or maybe not subtly, subversive: two queer artists making a song in Nashville that co-opts the sounds of that town while singing about their personal lives. Not your normal Country Music Awards fare.[3] The song is so warm and joyous that I bet a lot of anti-gay country fans would not get offended by it until someone explains who is singing it and what they are singing about. Or maybe I’m not giving those folks enough credit and they will accept that a song is a great song, no matter who sings it.

Hell, it turned this anti-country listener into a fan. Maybe Baker & TORRES have the magic that can bring our nation together!

[youtu.be/V4kYwPXrD...](https://youtu.be/V4kYwPXrD0o?si=H3OhmWe4U5SqfqzG)

2 - “Change My Mind” - Phantastic Ferniture
Of the surprise albums of the year, none was a bigger surprise[4] than Julia Jacklin getting her pre-solo era band back together. PF were a one-off deal to begin with, which made it especially crazy they returned with two new songs this year. Both were very good, and this absolute banger came out early enough in the fall to shoot up my rankings.

I don’t listen to tracks on repeat as often as I used to. This and the #1 song of the year were the two that had me hitting the Back button often. I love how it addresses a heavy topic - the dissolution of a relationship - but there’s such a lightness to Jacklin’s voice, and openness to being swayed, that it sounds flirty and fun. And that bass drum gets me pounding my steering wheel every time I hear this in the car.

[youtu.be/g0aBbK2MW...](https://youtu.be/g0aBbK2MWdA?si=7z_t6w1BJWOMGb5I)

1 - “mangetout” - Wet Leg
Any questions about Wet Leg being a flash-in-the-pan, borderline novelty act were erased with the release of their second album, moisturizer, this summer. There was a pronounced growth in their lyrics and the ideas within the songs without losing the fun and quirkiness that characterized their 2022 debut.

This was the finest example, and my favorite song of 2025. So many clever lyrics that make me cackle every time I hear them, including the lines of the year:

You think I’m pretty, you think I’m pretty cool
You want to fuck me, I know, most people do

The balls, or ovaries I guess, to sing a line like that! Few songs telling an unwanted romantic advance to shove off have been as enjoyable.

[youtu.be/k80nQyBjm...](https://youtu.be/k80nQyBjmyo?si=9z1Gc_nVe85OYukF)

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6frOpJXz2d40U8GsTBejPu?si=529196499b29438e)

Fight me! ↩
It looks like 2026 might bring a new TWOD album. ↩
Interestingly their album, Send A Prayer My Way, topped the UK Country Album chart but did not chart on the US Country Album chart. ↩
To me at least. ↩

Christmas Playlist

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 08:45:54 -0400

Time to close up Ye Olde Blogge Shoppe for the Christmas holiday. To celebrate I’m going to offer a playlist I last shared a couple years back that features some of my favorite Christmas music deep cuts. Some of these are fun, some are wonderful, all of them are terrific.

Merry Christmas to all my readers!

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2ePGgAHss85zKUcdlV9ZyS?si=ed2b0abae2c94a77)

Weekend Notes

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 10:25:36 -0400

A relatively chill weekend for us without any of our football teams playing and no KU basketball.

Power Out

Friday morning I was jolted out of bed around 5:30 when high winds sent a tree or branch into a power line located a couple hundred feet from our back windows. The sky lit up with all the fun colors that electricity can produce. Luckily our power just blinked for a moment then functioned as normal. Which was great as the wind chill was down in the single digits and not expected to rise much during the day.

However, right around 4:00 that afternoon, long after the high winds had passed, our electricity failed. I checked the power company’s website and it showed that just six houses were out, and there weren’t any major outages elsewhere in the city. So hopefully it would be a quick restoration.

Our power came on for about 30 seconds just after 6:00 then went back off. I checked the website and it showed that our outage had been fixed. That’s not good. I logged another request and we waited.

About an hour later there were guys with headlamps wandering in our backyard. I went out and told them what had happened and they struck into the wooded area where our feeder line runs through. A few minutes later one of them came back and told me a large tree was lying on our line. The crew that had been out earlier probably caused it, but didn’t think the transformer it led to fed any houses, so left it for someone to come back and repair once the sun rose Saturday. Which was super annoying. The guy I talked to said that crew was coming back out - they better have to return in the cold and dark and fix their mistake - but the catch was they had to wait on a tree crew to come take care of the offending lumber. He said it might be several hours before they made it.

It was right about this time I started watching YouTube videos on how to get our gas fireplace to function when the power was out. It took a few tries but I did get some heat flowing through our living room.

And, fortunately, the tree crew showed up soon after and our power was back on shortly after 10. Our thermostat said 61° when it came back to life. It would have been a lot chillier if we had to spend the night in the dark.

HS Hoops

Saturday we played our annual pre-Christmas game against the Christian academy that’s a couple miles from CHS. They were once a state power, winning seven state titles in a 13-year span, but have fallen back in recent years. We beat them pretty easily a year ago and they lost a couple really good seniors from that team.

We wasted no time, jumping out 10–0, 19–2, and eventually 24–6 by the end of the first quarter. We let them cut it to 10 early in the second quarter but dropped another run on them and basically led by between 15 and 20 until the final three minutes of the game when their best player hit three consecutive 3’s. The 14-point win was our girls’ fifth straight, moving the Irish to 7–4 on the season.

L played in every quarter, logging about 12 total minutes. She didn’t do a ton when she was in, registering just one turnover aside from her shooting. But the shooting was decent. 3–5 from the field for a career-high six varsity points. She hit a fantastic cutting layup in traffic on an inbounds play. I’m not sure how she got the ball off amongst three defenders. She hit an elbow jumper. And she added another cutting, baseline layup off a great pass from our post player. And I’m pretty sure she was fouled on her only other miss inside the arc. She had a wide-open 3 when she first came in that was long.

This was the gym where she got her first serious varsity minutes and scored her first varsity points two years ago. Shame we won’t play there again in her career.

All the juniors were pulled back up to varsity Saturday so I was interested to see how the minutes would be divvied up. For this game at least L got the most run of that group, and she took advantage. She needs to get stronger with the ball but other than that, she’s doing what she needs to do when she’s on the court with starters.

We will be making up last week’s snowed-out game the Saturday after Christmas. That means the girls will play three times in four days, which will be nice practice for the City and State tournaments in January.

Football

Man, there was some crazy-ass football this weekend. I did not watch a ton. I just picked the right games/moments to pay attention.

The end of the Green Bay - Chicago game Saturday night was literally insane. Like bonkers. Nutso. I yelled out loud multiple times and I didn’t care who won. A rematch in the playoffs would not suck, although the Packers seem to lose multiple players to injury each week so I’m not sure it will equal the first two games between these teams.

Then the closing minutes of the Pittsburgh - Detroit game Sunday were nearly as entertaining. Poor Detroit. It seems like they had 20-ish games of excellent football before turning back into a cursed franchise. What other team would be called for offensive pass interference TWICE in the final 30 seconds of a game, each flag wiping out a potentially game-winning score?[1]

Thank goodness there was some solid pro football because the CFP games sucked. I’m glad I missed most of the Miami - Texas A&M game. What I saw was an offense to modern football. It was a shame Tulane was not ready for their moment, and James Madison took too long to get their shit together, making the other two games not very interesting if you weren’t a Mississippi or Oregon fan.

I was able to see part of Alabama - Oklahoma Friday after the power came back on. What I saw was not terribly compelling. It’s almost like the teams that filled out the bottom of the bracket are closer to mediocre than great, yet we’re on the verge of adding more soon. 🙄

Officially On Break

C wrapped up her finals, although it took an extra couple days.

You may recall she had been sick so we brought her home the weekend before finals and then I drove her back in horrible conditions Monday morning.

Tuesday she was throwing up again so had to miss her test that day. I rushed down and brought her home and we spent Wednesday at a variety of appointments trying to figure out what’s up with her. A visit to her normal doc, lots of blood work, and then an ultrasound.

The good news is that everything was pretty clean. That’s frustrating because it didn’t really explain what caused this. We are going to repeat the blood work after Christmas to make sure the things that were slightly askew have returned to normal.

And she’s feeling better, which is the important part. She was able to drive back on her own Thursday to make up her final. She is fortunate that was an option.

L’s final day of exams was also Thursday but she still had to go in for two classes on Friday. At least it was only a three-hour day.

Now everyone gets a few weeks off to rest and, in C’s case, hopefully get back to normal health.

Family Project

In addition to preparing for Christmas week, we kicked off a little DIY project. We’re about halfway complete; I’ll share more in a week or so when we get a delivery that allows us to wrap it up.

Cleveland fan would like a word. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 19 Dec 2025 08:52:11 -0400

I am putting the finishing touches on my Favorite Songs of 2025 list. Not sure if it will get posted before or after Christmas, but it is getting very close, my friends!

For this week’s playlist I’ll share the songs that were in the running for the final list but just missed.

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2KMNrynzoqZd7f55r8npoJ?si=3493579c5e214f54)

“Afraid Of Guns” - Motorbike
Best new music from Cincinnati I heard this year.

“Charm” - The Men
Modern punk masters still have it.

“Avalanche” - Snocaps
The Crutchfield sisters’ triumphant return.

“Sports Gun” - Lawn
Those roaring guitars that sound like dive bombers are incredible.

“Born In The USA (Electric Nebraska)” - Bruce Springsteen
The mythical Electric Nebraska album was finally revealed this year and included this alternate take that channeled Neil Young and Credence Clearwater Revival.

“It’s A Mirror” - Perfume Genius
The latest evolution in musical and stylistic chameleon Mike Hadreas’ career.

“Dreams” - Jade Bird
It was tough to leave a song this gorgeous off the big list.

“The Feeling Is Gone” - The Horrors
Depeche Mode’s Violator updated for the 21st century.

“Bonnet Of Pins” - Matt Berninger
Who would have guessed Berninger’s solo work would sound exactly like The National?

“Angelus” - The Berries
The Berries’ debut album was filled with mellow, smoldering tracks like this that were all excellent, but ultimately too similar to garner a top 20 spot.

“Renegade” - Doves
The second album of Doves’ comeback was not quite as good as the first, but it’s still good to be getting new music from them.

“Light Night Mountains All That” - Ratboys
Every year there’s a song that comes out deep into the calendar that misses my favorites list and I end up regretting it. Here is this year’s nominee, the last song I struck from my top 20. Hopefully the new Ratboys album has something that earns a spot on my 2026 list.

[youtu.be/OR07r0ZMF...](https://youtu.be/OR07r0ZMFb8?si=bZh-iuZx8BPk9ZdP)

“Christmas In Hollis” - Run-DMC
I’ll share a holiday playlist soon. Consider this the appetizer.

Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 122

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 11:22:11 -0400

Chart Week: December 11, 1982 Song: “The Look Of Love (Part 1)” - ABC Chart Position: #20, 14th week on the chart. Peaked at #18 for three weeks in January 1983.

As a true music geek, sometimes it really pisses me off when a band’s best song was not their biggest hit. I realize this is purely subjective; who am I to say that a single that barely cracked the Top 20 is a better track than two others that each landed in the Top 10? Well, in this case, I would say I’m absolutely correct.

ABC’s “The Look Of Love (Part 1)” is a foundational track of early Eighties pop music. The band had one foot in the synth pop world where others like Human League and Soft Cell were rooted. It had another in the neo-soul world that would soon spin out Culture Club. Neither was ABC a true New Romantic band, like Duran Duran or Spandau Ballet.

In fact, that slipperiness in where to slot ABC was part of their genius. There were strong connections to classic Motown music. Direct lines to club music. The thick orchestration this track was built upon could be seen as a homage to the Philly Soul of the 1970s. Perhaps that inability to pin them down was a reason why ABC wasn’t as successful here in the States as some of their peers.

They were also one of the first bands to adopt a classier and more refined visual representation than their older brothers the punks had displayed. It was all coordinated suits and carefully styled hair for Martin Fry and his bandmates.

There is some good trivia behind “The Look Of Love (Part 1).”

Trevor Horn was the main producer of the song. He was such a stickler for detail that he brought in the woman who dumped Fry and inspired “TLOL (P1)” to deliver the line “Goodbye” in verse two. He wanted it to be as authentic as possible. Kind of weird, but also kind of cool.

Horn believed the original demo needed something to give it an emotional boost and make it feel “epic.” He brought in Anne Dudley, who composed and played the orchestral parts of the track on synthesizers. A year later she and Horn founded the ground-breaking band The Art Of Noise.

There were several remixes of the record. “The Look Of Love (Part 5)” was specifically targeted at dance clubs, and Horn built much of it on samples. It is one of the first songs to lean so heavily on samples.

When you draw one of those charts that connects bands to other acts and genres, ABC’s lines went all over the place.

As I said, this was not ABC’s biggest hit, at least in the US. It stalled out at #18 for nearly a month in early 1983. Their lovely 1985 track “Be Near Me” peaked at #9. Two years later, their homage to Fry’s hero, Smokey Robinson, “When Smokey Sings” made it all the way to #5.

“Be Near Me” is quite nice. “When Smokey Sings” is overly nostalgic and lacks the punch of “The Look Of Love (Part 1).” To me it’s ridiculous either of those songs were bigger hits.

That is mostly because “TLOL(P1)” is a magnificent track.

Musically, it hits from its opening. The keyboard notes immediately capture your attention. The fills from the horn and “orchestral” sections build drama. And then the crash of drums and introduction of that disco-tinged electric bass line defeating any resistance left. You will follow this song wherever it takes you.

Martin Fry is another entry of the long line of white, British singers who do not sound ridiculous taking a stab at soul-influenced music. His voice conveys the exact right combination of emotions as he sings about digging yourself out of a romantic hole. He is a guide to get you through those rough patches when you’ve dumped or been dumped and feel like the next relationship will never present itself. He offers no magic solution. In fact, he’s just like us:

I don’t know the answer to that question If I knew I would tell you

There is comfort in hearing a singer in a suave suit, fancy haircut, and booming voice who appears to have it all together has had his heart broken too. But he found a way to get through it.

What is unexpected is this is not a breakup track. Rather, it’s an affirmation that each of us has much to offer and is worthy of love. It reminds us that there is joy in getting through our darkest romantic moments.

I’ve probably just given entirely too much weight to a pop song that was aimed as much at moving people on the dance floor as making them think deeply. Great songs can have that effect. Sisters and brothers, this one is a 9/10.

This properly whack-a-doddle video is the cherry on top.

youtu.be/cNEdxZURT…

Wednesday Links

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 17:37:02 -0400

Some of these I knew, some were new. I can’t believe this one was new to me.

“Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Joy Division was a direct response to the popular pop song “Love Will Keep Us Together” by Captain & Tennille.

Very Good Music Fun Facts

So fun he quickly did it again.

More Very Good Music Facts

The Ringer recently re-did their best TV episodes of the century list. Naturally the very best episode of The Bear got an extended breakdown.

The Rebirth of Richie Jerimovich

We are roughly a decade into the streaming music era. While streaming is the most convenient and affordable method of consuming music for listeners, it has stripped away even more of the sliver of profits that artists receive for their music. In this piece the Welsh indie band Los Campesinos! detail how much (or little) money they made off their most recent album, one they had total control over from production, songwriting, marketing, and distribution perspectives. And how much that would have been chopped up if they operated like a traditional band. It’s a wonder we still have new music.

Here’s How Much Money Los Camp! Make From Streaming…

Wonderful piece by Steven Hyden about the new doc covering the life of Jeff Buckley.

The Myth Of The Tragic Troubadour

Brilliance from McSweeney’s.

SHEILA GRANT (Sales Director): Why no kitchen table?
LARKIN: Because kitchen tables are for fucking Candyland. We’re selling a political mode of thinking: deduction as power. Think less “family night,” and more “I will find the hidden structure of your choices, and then I will destroy you.”

The Mastermind Box Cover: What the Hell Were They Thinking?

This is a tremendous story/bit/whatever you want to call it.

[embed]youtu.be/B5GM10HdX…

Conan Blames Jason Bateman For His Dad’s Death (Feat. Will Arnett)

Weekend Notes

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:38:46 -0400

Winter is kind of horseshit. Talk about that and other things that happened over the past few days below.

Winter Weather

The biggest event of the weekend was our latest winter storm Saturday. We didn’t quite hit the predicted snowfall of 6–7 inches, but we were easily over 5” at our house. It started snowing late morning and continued all day long. Fortunately L’s game was cancelled, and we didn’t have any reason to leave the house. A good, all-day snow is a beautiful thing to watch from the comfort of your heated home.

Luckily it was light, fluffy snow so S and I made easy work of clearing the driveway just before the arctic blast hit.[1] This is now the second snowiest December in Indianapolis history. A nice warmup is coming later this week, so we will get a temporary break.

HS Hoops

As I noted, L’s game Saturday was snowed out. Not sure if it will be made up or not.

Thursday we played our Catholic sisters from up in Hamilton County. GCHS starts four freshmen. They aren’t very good but they know exactly what their coach wants them to do, are in the right positions, and are scrappy as hell. We led by just three after one quarter but then got it going and pounded them by 31. L played about 10 minutes, spread across the entire game, and had three points, two rebounds, an assist, a steal, and a turnover.

The Irish snuck into the 3A media rankings last week at #16. Interestingly the computer puts as at #5 in 3A, #28 overall. That’s more a function of our schedule, the 19th toughest out of 399 total teams, than our play.

This is finals week at CHS so the team has a nice breather, not playing until Saturday and then nine more days off until their next game.

Homecomings

M wrapped up her finals on Wednesday and came home that evening. She starts her spring co-op on January 12 so will be home for about a month, with some travel mixed in while she’s here.

Finals begin at IU today. However, C was home over the weekend. She had been sick all week and it seemed to be getting worse, so we wanted to give her three days at home to rest and study in peace. I picked her up Friday morning. We were worried it was mono but two tests came back negative, so not really sure what the deal is.

I drove her back early this morning for her 8AM final. We left the house at 6:30, which should have put us there with 10–15 minutes to spare. I was not factoring in black ice on the highways. We made it about 20 minutes from home normally and then ran into sections that had re-frozen overnight. Naturally a bunch of idiots were still driving 60+ MPH. Even controlling my speed I nearly spun out three different times. We lost count of how many cars were into the median or off the side of the road. Once we got out of Indy the roads were fine. I dropped her off at the psychology building at 7:59.

I went to one of my favorite Bloomington breakfast spots to let the roads clear a bit. She texted that she had completed the final before I had finished my meal.

The way home was nearly as dicey. I–465 east bound was completely shut down because of an accident. I sat in stop-and-go traffic on 465 north for over 30 minutes because of multiple accidents. As soon as we passed the wrecks people took off like maniacs even though you could see ice in all lanes. I made it home in just under two hours, 45 minutes longer than normal.

C has another exam Tuesday morning followed by a paper defense and then is done. Hopefully my drive tomorrow is less exciting/harrowing.

KU Hoops

Well, that game Saturday evening against North Carolina State sure was something. Exciting. Maddening. Exhilarating. Confounding. Tense. Cathartic.

I’ll focus on another adjective: outrageous. And that is reserved for Melvin Council Jr. The Wolfpack was daring him to shoot. Smart strategy, as he came in hitting 17% of this 3’s on the year. He seemed to embrace the challenge and hit two of his first five. He also missed a couple shorties in there and I was screaming at the TV for him to stop shooting.

Fortunately he didn’t listen to me.

Two hours later he had made a total of nine 3’s, more than twice his previous career high of four. It was the second-most 3’s in a game for a KU player, trailing only Terry Brown who hit 11 in game against…North Carolina State in 1991.[2]

Council ended the night with 36 points. Having an overtime period helped him pad his numbers, although he missed two massive free throws in the closing seconds that could have rendered his performance worthless. His outburst mirrored another famous Go Off game by a KU player, Elijah Johnson’s ridiculous 39-point explosion in an overtime win at Iowa State in 2013.

KU was lucky Council decided to turn into Steph Curry for the night. Most of the team sucked on offense. Darryn Peterson was very good…until he left the game with about 3:00 left with some kind of leg tightness. Crap. I’m assuming he won’t play Tuesday, who knows the following Monday. Then we start the process of trying to integrate him into the lineup again.

KU’s offense was ass the first 10 minutes, and it felt like no one was sure what to do with Peterson on the court. That’s to be expected as the defense focuses on him. But with him missing so many games, there hasn’t been time for the coaches to scheme around that and the players to figure it out. Instead of having a better idea of what they want to do and being comfortable executing it when conference play begins, KU will go into the Big 12 schedule still working through issues that should have been resolved a month earlier.

Sigh.

The kid is sooooo good even in limited minutes and with this mystery leg ailment. I hope we get to see him at full strength sometime this season.

Colts

Well the whole Phillip Rivers thing went way better than I expected. If not for a short kickoff after taking the lead with under a minute to play, the Colts might have pulled off the massive upset.

I am shocked that Rivers was able to hang in there all day. Seattle has a wicked defense, he is basically immobile, and his arm strength is crap. This seemed like it would be an embarrassing blowout and another sign this franchise has lost its way.

Remaining competitive means bringing in a 44-year-old grandfather who hadn’t played in five years was a reasonable risk. Hopefully just for one week. I imagine that with a game of film to study teams will have a game plan for exploiting his limitations. If Riley Leonard is healthy next week, he really needs to play. I don’t care that the Rivers kept Sunday’s game close or that he and coach Shane Steichen are pals.

Sports Injuries

First Peterson was again limited by whatever weirdness is going on in his lower body.

Then Patrick Mahomes and Micah Parsons both tore their ACLs within a couple hours Sunday.

Finally Sunday night I was wrapping up the latest season of Netflix’s Starting 5 and had to sit through Tyrese Haliburton blowing out his achilles in game seven of the NBA Finals again.

Yet another reason why sports are dumb and I’m an idiot for letting them control my life so much. And I don’t even like Mahomes or Parsons, but it sucked that two more of the best players in a sport are out.

Although it was already down in the low teens when we were shoveling. ↩
I was there, in the best seats I ever had for a KU game. Great fucking game. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 08:49:52 -0400

Just enough songs this week to put together a playlist, with a little help from a couple seasonal tracks. This is likely the last normal FP of 2025.

Also, I think I finally figured out how to embed Apple Music playlists. With Spotify becoming more and more problematic, I think it is important to offer than option even if most of my readers are on Spotify at the moment.

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7po07MiDSybEPX4Ew0OlXw?si=4ce642d51d5b4f6b)

“December” - Cheetah Cheetah Bison
Gorgeous track.

“I’ve Got A Broken Heart” - The Lemon Twigs
Is this brand new or something from 1983? Or even 1963?

“She Said, He Said” - Softcult
An achingly intense song. On top of the very grungy music, it is about the many reasons why so many sexual assaults go unreported. Not exactly light fare, but important.

“Corner” - Hank Bee
A warm blanket of a track.

“Can’t See” - Westside Cowboy
Stereogum named WC one of their best new bands of 2025. This is their third appearance on a Friday PL, each entry different from the previous. A lot of depth for a new artist.

“Stuck” - Hatchie
As I’ve already said, Hatchie’s latest album does not match her best work. Yet I’m sharing another pretty solid track from it, so it can’t be that bad.

“No North Star” - Massage
Our second, old-school-yet-new jangle pop song of the week. And maybe topical? North Star. Christmas. Etc. Oh, NO North Star. Clearly another attack in the UNFAIR and ILLEGAL WAR ON CHRISTMAS.

“A Little More Christmas” - Andrew Kerr
Kerr came up with this and “December” during the pandemic, when he was stuck at home alone. You can hear that mix of both uncertainty and hope that characterized that time in each track.

“Listen The Snow Is Falling” - Galaxie 500
Just under two more inches of snow last night, making this the snowiest December in Indy in 20 years. A bigger dump forecast for tomorrow followed by windchills as low as –30. I’ll be turning this up to 100 and playing it over-and-over.

[youtu.be/cBD11LNsC...](https://youtu.be/cBD11LNsCvk?si=dq38myDAZXBlIwjG)

“Lazy Eye” - Silversun Pickups
SP released a new single last week. I listened to it once and did not like it. Magically this performance of their greatest track popped up in YouTube shortly after. A brilliant performance of a brilliant song.

Reader's Notebook, 12/11/25

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 08:13:33 -0400

The Poet’s Game - Paul Vidich
Vidich’s books have been hit-and-miss with me, perhaps because they lean more towards proper literature than pulpy, exciting spy works. There’s a dryness and darkness to them that feels very Russian, and for me difficult to connect with.

Honestly I could flip a coin on this one to determine whether it was a hit or a miss. Like his other books, it lacks that crackling energy I want from the genre. However, as this book largely takes place in Russia - a former CIA agent attempts to help his former source inside the Russian government escape without damaging the ex-agent’s business interests in Moscow - and has a big, dark twist to it, that tone fit.

Vidich writes good, complex stories. I just wish they had a little more excitement to them and less brooding protagonists who sigh a lot.

Turkey Trot Murder - Leslie Meier
I was cleaning up my library holds in mid-November and saw a section of books about Thanksgiving. It seemed like the perfect time to read a light, possibly silly book centered on the season, so I grabbed this one.

It was exactly what I expected. Overly broad, stereotypical characters. Silly, but not in a funny way. A mystery that wasn’t super mysterious. Worse, it really wasn’t all that Thanksgiving-centered. I don’t mean to act like my tastes are super sophisticated, but this book was the opposite of sophisticated. Which, to be fair, was exactly what I was looking for.

The World’s Greatest Detective And Her Just Okay Assistant - Liza Tully
As the title suggests, “the world’s greatest detective,” not sure exactly how that was determined, has a new assistant who is younger, much less experienced, and constantly disappoints her boss. They take on a case of an alleged suicide of an heiress that some of her family believe to actually be a murder. While the inscrutable detective goes about her affairs in her own peculiar way, she leaves her assistant to stumble along on her own, performing the grunt work of the investigation and ripping her each time she makes a mistake.

They solve the case - It was murder! And there were two more related to it! - but the path to get there is more formulaic than satisfying.

A Christmas Story - Jean Shepherd
You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out: Life Lessons From The Movie A Christmas Story - Quentin Schultze
First, the 18th consecutive year I’ve read Shepherd’s basis for the classic movie.
Second, I read this newish, semi-companion piece by a friend of Shepherd. Schultze means well but I think he really stretched things suggesting that there are 20 deep life lessons you can take from the movie A Christmas Story. And that’s coming from someone who loves the movie and has long believed there is more to it than the simple, childish humor you think of first when you consider it.

Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 121

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 14:00:05 -0400

Chart Week: December 1, 1984 Song: “Valotte” - Julian Lennon Chart Position: #18, seventh week on the chart. Peaked at #9 the week of January 12, 1985.

When Julian Lennon released his first album in the fall of 1984, there was no mistaking his genetics. His voice was eerily similar to that of his late father. Hell, I was 13 years old and far from a Beatles expert, and even I was shocked at how much son sounded like dad. “Valotte” could have been on Milk and Honey, John Lennon’s posthumous album which had been released earlier in 1984. There is little doubt that similarity was the biggest factor in Julian’s first two singles peaking in the Top 10 in the US. Because neither song was all that great.

Although he was a newcomer to the pop charts as a recording artist, 21-year-old Julian had already made an impact on them.

While still in nursery school, he drew a picture of a girl in his class with five stars around her. His father asked who was in the picture and Julian responded, “Lucy, in the sky with diamonds.” Thus the inspiration for the record of the same name.

When John divorced Julian’s mother, Paul McCartney wrote a song for the lad about not letting their split get him down or sour him on love. Originally titled “Hey Jules,” it morphed into “Hey Jude,” and became one of the biggest hits of the rock era.

Despite his connection to those two tracks, Julian was largely new to us Americans. In the UK, however, he was constant tabloid news fodder. Especially when he turned into a bit of a party boy in his late teens. During this show, Casey shared Julian’s reflection about those wild days.

“Now I’ve got a brain. I used to be a bit loose in the head. I didn’t think much. Now I think too much.”

What a quote! The beginning sounds very much like something his dad would have said, especially the “loose in the head” bit. The end sounds very much like an artist trying too hard to have his music taken seriously.[1]

The problem with Julian’s music, especially “Valotte,” are that they sounded too much like what his dad might have been recording in 1984 if he was still alive. In other words, middle-of-the-road music made by a middle-aged man. Julian doesn’t sing with the passion or energy that a 21-year-old who has been through some serious shit should sing with.[2] “Valotte” is about that key moment in a relationship when you aren’t sure which direction it will go. There is no sense of fear or excitement about those possibilities in Julian’s voice. It’s just a long sigh.

And while I’m not sure Julian can be held responsible for how the track was produced, “Valotte” has a sleepy quality that makes me think of background music you might hear at a dentist’s office. Worse, the song and album were named for the French chateau his record company sent him to on a writing retreat. That’s some very middle-aged, privileged man stuff right there. Just a few years earlier artists Julian’s age were living in squalor in London as they created punk and New Wave.

After those first two top ten hits - “Too Late For Goodbyes” reached #5 - Julian did not have much musical success. Eventually he got into other things, including acting, producing, photography, and writing. Most importantly, he and his half brother Sean became rather close over the years.

Julian Lennon’s father cast a huge shadow over his life and career. When he finally took a stab at making his own music, the world was desperate for a reminder of his father’s genius. That hunger and the Lennons’ common vocal traits got a lot of people to buy Julian’s albums and a lot of radio stations to play his singles. Sadly Julian was not talented enough to carve out his own musical niche. 5/10

[youtu.be/IrR-vqvxO...](https://youtu.be/IrR-vqvxOnk?si=WnOUrJ3gWShMvU5Z)

It makes me think of Sting for some reason. ↩
By comparison, The Beatles were in their Hamburg days when John Lennon was 21, and he was screaming himself hoarse each night. ↩

Weekend Notes

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 09:51:55 -0400

A HUGE sports weekend in our house, for a lot of reasons.

Border War

I’ll start with the best part of the weekend, for me at least, KU pounding Mizzou in Kansas City. And Darryn Peterson was back! Well, kind of. That’s a whole other deal that I’m not going to get into today.

The Tigers battled gamely for 16–17 minutes. They seemed to have momentum after a thunderous Mark Mitchell dunk forced a KU timeout. However, the Jayhawks put the hammer down in the four minutes before and four minutes after halftime and were never truly threatened again.

Now with five games in the books since the basketball rivalry was revived, we’ve had four bonafide blowouts and one game that was a nine-point KU win that felt like it would have stayed between five and nine points if the teams kept playing all night. Maybe next year, the final game currently scheduled between the schools, will have some real drama in the last 90 seconds.

I did not know until Saturday that this year’s game was, technically, a KU home game and next year’s will be a Missouri one. I’m on record as thinking it’s stupid to share these games between campuses and Kansas City. Pick one or the other, but not both. If the KC games will have a pronounced home advantage for one team rather than being a near 50–50 split, there’s no reason to play them. Can we blame former KU athletic director Jeff Long for this? It’s stupid enough to be his idea.

It was also stupid to play this game at 1:00 on a Sunday in December in Kansas City. It was nice that the NFL scheduled the Chiefs game for the evening, but imagine if they hadn’t. Official attendance was announced as over 15,000 Sunday. ESPN never offered any full crowd shots to show if that was accurate. I bet you could have sliced a third off that number if the Chiefs had a 1:00 game. People love their Jayhawks and Tigers, but the Chiefs will always be bigger than anything else going on in KC.

I also did not realize that the future of the series is in doubt. I’m not sure if the vagueness from Bill Self about extending it is posturing or just tweaking Mizzou fans. Based on what he’s said in recent weeks, though, it sure seems like he’d rather play North Carolina every year than Missouri.

He makes a valid point about needing to take advantage of every NIL opportunity when scheduling. So unless David Booth and the Mizzou Wal-Mart connections want to turn this game into a pay-for-play event, KU will focus on more multi-game tournaments like the Players Era tournament where they are likely to play three high major teams. I’m not sure Missouri is the game that should be sacrificed for that. Especially if these NIL games make it even more difficult to play quality opponents in Allen Fieldhouse. College sports is in a really weird place right now; more on that later. With non-conference, on-campus games getting rarer and rarer, and often limited to two year contracts, keeping Missouri on the schedule long term gives an anchor to the first semester games that everyone will look forward to.

I don’t think the hate will ever be what it used to be, at least amongst the players. But Allen and Mizzou Arena are much better environments when the old rivals come to town instead of Towson or whoever.

By the way, that’s 10 KU wins in the last 12 games versus the Tigers. Pretty nice!

Colts

The Colts were playing at the same time Sunday - again, stupid time for a college basketball game! - so when I checked for updates at halftime I was bummed to see Daniel Jones’ season ended on the wet turf in Jacksonville. And probably the Colts’ season. And, honestly, next year too. The big plan to build around Jones is dead and, unless Chris Ballard can pull some kind of miracle over the summer, it will likely be Riley Leonard or Anthony Richardson behind center next fall. Maybe Jason Bean will get another shot next summer.

A brutal, brutal injury for Jones. He was on the verge of getting a huge extension from the Colts in a couple months. His late season swoon could be written off to the broken bone in his other leg. The Colts were all-in on him and had no other options. Then his achilles popped and he’s/they are screwed.

In one calendar year Indianapolis teams have lost Tyrese Haliburton and Jones to achilles tears. Fernando Mendoza and Braden Smith better be very careful between now and New Year’s Day, because something is clearly in the air here.[1]

College Football Playoff

Holy shit, the Hoosiers did it! I knew they had a great shot in Saturday’s Big Ten championship game, but I still expected Ohio State to win. That’s basically a pro team and no matter how good a story IU was, how solid a team they are, talent was going to win out, right?

IU said “fuck you and your 80 future first round draft picks.” They took every shot OSU threw at them and gave them all right back.

I’ve obviously watched a fair amount of IU this year. The thing that really struck me is how smart and locked in they are. They just don’t make mistakes, or if they do, they aren’t crippling ones.

For example, on Ohio State’s final drive, when they had third and goal inside the five, the Buckeyes ran a really nice play that would be a touchdown like 80% of the time. But an IU linebacker picked up the running back immediately and killed the play. I imagined OSU running that same play against KU’s defense and could only see KU players falling down, running into each other, or looking at each other while no one covered the running back and gave up the TD.

Even sweeter for IU fans, Purdue got destroyed by Iowa State Saturday. So as the football Hoosiers were ascending to #1, the Boilermakers were taking the worst home loss ever for a top ranked basketball team. Alas, the basketball Hoosiers got run out of Gainbridge Fieldhouse by Louisville, so it wasn’t a perfect day for IU people.

Who am I kidding. Even the most ardent Hoosier hoops fan was fine losing a December basketball game to clinch the school’s first conference title in over 50 years, first outright one in 80 years, and first ever #1 ranking.

As for the CFP itself, I love that there’s controversy. The playoff, in general, is a good thing. I think 12 teams is at least four too many, though. And the dumbness surrounding the process will get even dumber when another four teams are eventually added. In a couple years we’re going to be arguing about why the 17th best team in the country was left out.

I get why Miami got in over Notre Dame. They beat the Irish way back in week one. If all other factors are close, and everything I saw had the teams neck-and-neck by nearly every metric, that game nearly four months ago has to carry some weight.

That said, I don’t understand how Notre Dame could be ahead of Miami in last week’s rankings then fall without either team playing this week. One of the talking fools on ESPN said the committee “needed all their information” before making the final determination. THERE WAS NO NEW INFORMATION FOR THESE TWO TEAMS. BYU losing Saturday had zero impact on Miami’s and Notre Dame’s resumes.

Now, is Notre Dame the better team now? Oh, absolutely. I don’t think anyone is scared of Miami while no one would want to go to South Bend next weekend. Any tournament, though, needs to be based on your full season’s accomplishments, not just what you’ve done over the last month.

Bowl Games

Notre Dame made things even dumber by announcing Sunday evening that they would not accept a bowl bid. I don’t think that’s going to make many neutrals support your cause, Irish.

Worse, earlier in the weekend both Kansas State and Iowa State announced they would not accept bowl bids. Not because they think they were screwed by the playoff process, but because they both had coaching changes last week. Which might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Both schools named new coaches within a day of their previous coach’s departure so it’s not like they were in some lurch without either a permanent or acting coach. Both schools, I would assume, had been preparing as if they would play in a bowl game. And suddenly because of a little hiccup they decide not to play in whatever crappy game they were slotted to?

My new rule: if you are bowl eligible and you turn down an invite, you are automatically banned from going to a bowl the next season, no matter how many games you win. Theoretical 12–0, 2026 Notre Dame would be stuck at home because 2025 Notre Dame acted like babies.

I made a joke Sunday afternoon that we were just a few dominos away from KU going to a bowl. Turns out KU, and at least eight other five-win teams, turned down offers to fill open bowl slots. The word from one national writer was this group of teams all declined because so many of their players had left campus already.

I say, who cares? Surely KU, Auburn, Florida State, etc. could round up 60 kids who want to practice for a couple weeks then go play one more time this year, right?

I get that going to Birmingham on December 29 to play Georgia Southern isn’t exactly a plum assignment. But get over yourselves. KU should let a bunch of sophomores and freshmen get a shot in a game that really has no stakes.

Like I said in the basketball section, college sports are in a weird place right now and it is hard to predict where they will be next year, let alone in five. This feels like it could be the beginning of the end of the bowl system. The playoff will expand in another year or two, and once there are 16 teams playing will anyone care about those crappy bowl games that used to fill up late December? Once upon a time there were only a handful of bowls and it was a genuine accomplishment to make one. Perhaps the playoff will lead us back to that point.

HS Hoops

After L’s big night last Tuesday we wondered if there would be any change in her role for their next game. Thursday, just before the team turned their phones in, she texted saying that she was not playing JV that night. Her work paid off!

That only translated to 3–4 minutes of game time in the varsity game. Which was fine. She got fouled right before halftime and hit both free throws. She also grabbed a rebound and had one turnover. It wasn’t a night where we needed her as our starting guards played well and weren’t in foul trouble.

We played a 4A team that was 5–1 coming in. Midway through the third quarter we were up 16 before our offense fell apart. ZHS got as close as four but never got it down to one possession, and we stretched it back out for a nice 12-point win. One of L’s former travel teammates on ZHS played almost the entire game. They each scored two points, so L was much more efficient!

The girls get a full week off from games before they play again this Thursday.

Omen?

Sunday my first cold of the season started to hit me. In general I feel fine, but my nose refuses to stop dripping no matter what drugs I take.

It was so bad I went into M’s room to sleep since I was constantly blowing my nose and I figured S deserved a decent night of sleep even if I was unable to. Good thing M doesn’t come home for Christmas for two more days.

At about 3:30 AM we were all woken by our smoke alarms going off. After dashing through the house to make sure nothing was actually on fire, I grabbed a ladder and started pulling alarms from the ceiling. I found the offending one on my third try, in L’s room. The wiring on it has always been weird but I’ve put off fixing it for seven years because it was never troublesome. Just to confirm, there was no smoke in her room so she wasn’t having a cigarette in the middle of the night.

Naturally I could not fall back to sleep after. It was pushing 5:00 before I finally passed out and I got maybe 90 minutes of sleep before L started banging around in the bathroom next door.

Hopefully that’s not a sign this is going to be a bad week.

One Reddit poster went even further back. Paul George and Victor Oladipo both had horrific leg injuries that torpedoed Pacers seasons, and the Fever were knocked out of the WNBA semifinals this year when Kelsey Mitchell’s entire body locked up on her. Cursed city. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 09:14:10 -0400

Apologies for there not being a playlist last week. I intended to post one but didn’t get around to it before I had to take C and her friend to the airport. That leaves me with a lot to share this week. We’ll see if I am able to edit or that means you get a super-stuffed edition this week.

[embed]open.spotify.com/playlist/…

“Jungle Love” - The Time The great Jellybean Johnson died a week ago. He was the longtime drummer for The Time and worked as a producer for many other artists after The Time split.

“Barbed Wire” - Cardinals Another terrific track from these Irish fellas. Every song they’ve released so far has an insistent stomp to it. Here it is dialed back a hair from their other singles, but it is still there pushing things forward.

“IDLE HANDS” - VIAL THIS IS A SERIOUS BAND. THE CAPS TELL ME SO. Do they sound more like Sleater-Kinney or L7?

“Daffy Duck” - Massage Surprisingly not a difficult song to search for. I was worried combining “Daffy Duck” and “Massage” would return some things I did not want to see.

“Eyes Closed” - Melody’s Echo Chamber I dig the quasi-trip hop elements Melody Prochet has added to her sound here. I also hear some Revolver-era Beatles.

“Talk To God” - Now, Now Now, Now had some terrific songs in the 2010s but had faded into obscurity. They reemerged last month with an EP that contains their first new music in seven years. They haven’t missed a beat.

“November Was White, December Was Grey” - Say Hi “Snowflakes” - Dropkick To this point in the season, this has been the fourth snowiest winter in Indianapolis history. That sounds worse than it actually has been, as we’ve only received about seven total inches of snow here in the city. Another storm is expected to slide through over the weekend, so it seems like this will be one of those years were we get another 2–4” every 4–5 days and everything stays covered and frozen until March.

“Good Time Christmas” - Lou Rawls Man, I only have three weeks to include Christmas music this year. I’ll share at least one full Christmas playlist between now and the big day. I figured for my weekly selections I would go a little outside the box. Lou Rawls’ Christmas album is an underrated gem I only discovered within the last 4–5 years. This track should give you an idea of how the whole thing sounds.

[embed]vimeo.com/155135842

“Many Rivers To Cross” - Jimmy Cliff The final member of the generation of giants that made reggae an international success died a week ago. Jimmy Cliff was the finest singer of the group that included Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Desmond Decker. This January 31, 1976 Saturday Night Live performance is stunning.

Also, this song always makes me think of this scene from High Fidelity.

NFL: Down The Stretch They Come

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 15:20:11 -0400

As NFL week 14 begins tonight with a massive game between Dallas and Detroit - Are the Cowboys for real? Can the Lions salvage their season? - it reminds me I’m due for my monthly collection of thoughts on the league.

Sadly the NFL remains as inscrutable as it has been all season.

Two weeks ago it seemed like Philadelphia had finally stopped fucking around and were ready to romp through the last third of their schedule. Then they lost back-to-back games and once again present as a team that can’t find a way to make their many excellent parts work together.

Going into last week, the Rams seemed to have replaced the Eagles as the NFC’s Super Bowl favorite. Then they lost to Carolina.

Which left Chicago as the #1 seed, for the moment. I’m not sure even the most ardent Bears fan genuinely believes their team is the best in the conference.

The Cowboys are hot, but there is a flukey feel to them. It will take a lot of work just to make the playoffs, with no room for error.

My preseason Super Bowl pick Green Bay is fighting injuries so I can’t say I have a lot of confidence in them at the moment.

Gun to my head, if you forced me to pick an NFC favorite at the moment, I think I would take LA. Knowing one hard hit on Matthew Stafford means their chances are toast.

Maybe someone will get hot over the next month and take control of the NFC.

The AFC isn’t any clearer.

New England is the current #1 seed. If not for a week one loss to the Raiders, perhaps the worst loss in the league this year, they would be 12–1 and all but clinched the top seed. As quickly as you can turn teams around in the modern NFL, I refuse to believe you can go from missing the playoffs multiple years to the Super Bowl in one season. Yet who do you trust to go into Foxborough and beat them in January?

Maybe Denver, because of their defense. But Bo Nix is going to do some dumb shit and make it hard for the Broncos to win more than one playoff game.

The Colts? A month ago I would say yes. But today? Zero chance. Hell, the Colts might not even make the playoffs now.

Houston might have the best chance, as they have the most fearsome defense in the league and a quarterback who isn’t spectacular but, when healthy, finds ways to win. In fact, I think CJ Stroud is everything people think Jalen Hurts is, or, rather, want him to be. The problem with Houston is they are currently the first team out of the playoffs and go to Kansas City this week.

Maybe Pats fans should be concerned about Buffalo the most, even if they complete the regular season sweep of the Bills next week. One of these years it’s going to work out for Josh Allen, and the Patriots are starting to rack up some significant injuries.

Actually, I would be most worried about the Chiefs. KC might not make the playoffs, but if they do every team in their path will be in fear of Patrick Mahomes figuring it out and the defense doing enough to win multiple road games and return to the Super Bowl. I bet every other team in the AFC is rooting hard for the Texans to basically end the Chiefs season this weekend.

That’s 500-ish wishy washy words about a wishy washy league. I’d love to go out on a limb and make a bold statement. The NFL in 2025, though, makes that impossible, as there are no dominant teams, too many players in major roles on contenders are hurt, and too many teams are one key injury away from having no chance.

I will make an updated Super Bowl pick, though. I’m not going to like it, but I will do it. Rams vs Bills.

Wednesday Notes

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 12:18:52 -0400

A couple quick notes before an emergency high school basketball update.

Weather

We had winter storm #3 of the young season Monday evening into Tuesday morning. The heaviest snow of the event fell right during Monday rush hour, meaning both S and L had to drive home in it. They made it here safely, if slowly. Once again we were in the predicted 2–4 inches zone, with the expectation it would be on the heavier end. If we made it to two inches here it was just barely. I got up early Tuesday to clear off the driveway and it was a pretty easy job, 50 minutes of pushing and sweating that counted as my workout for the day.[1]

CHS announced a delayed start Monday evening. While I was out shoveling they switched to eLearning, so L got a nice, easy day at home. I’m not sure why the roads were so bad in the city since they had all night to work on them. With CHS having kids come from such a wide area they have to be extra careful for those who come from outlying areas where the roads are worse than in the city.

Holidays

These years when the calendar provides almost no gap between Thanksgiving and December always mess with my mind a little. Like, it’s already December 3? It feels like we lost a week somewhere.

KU Hoops

I only saw the last third of KU’s loss to UConn last night. The Jayhawks were up six when I turned it on, got it to eight, then decided to see if they could still win without making a basket and while missing free throws. Amazingly, that did not work out for them. If only there was a way to score more points and not have the offense completely bog down. Maybe something will change before the Missouri game Sunday, but why get my hopes up when that change keeps getting kicked down the road another week.

HS Hoops

OK, the real reason for this post. I noted that if events warranted, I would return to the more regular high school hoops updates. Well, last night justified such a post.

The Irish took on Ben Davis, a traditionally super athletic, physical team we’ve been known to struggle with. L started off the JV game great, looking confident and finding angles in the defense. She hit five of her first six shots and added a free throw. Right before halftime she hit a 3 and we were up 12 at the break. She had 14, the other junior had nine.

Then the coaches decided to split her and the other junior, with L sitting the third quarter and her buddy the fourth. That was nearly disastrous. We gave up half the lead while L sat. When she came back in she was cold and did not hit another shot, forcing a few bad ones. The game got as close as one point but we held on for JV’s second win of the year.

The varsity game was close all night. In the third quarter BD cranked up their pressure and we could not handle it. There were multiple stretches when neither team could hang on to the ball and it became a middle school game. Turnover, turnover, turnover, jump ball, turnover, turnover, turnover, jump ball.

With about 90 seconds left in the third quarter our coach was fed up and sent L into the game. Honestly, I was more nervous than when she came into games as a freshman. I was just hoping she could avoid making a mistake and survive that minute-plus.

She made it through that stretch without incident and we went to the final quarter up one. During the break, she stayed in one of the five seats reserved for players who are on the court. She started the final period and played the entire eight minutes until the final horn sounded.

Obviously, she held her own. She helped break the press as a release valve for our primary ball handlers. She moved the ball quickly when she got it. She slid over on defense and got her hands on the ball to force a tie up. Most importantly, she wasn’t messing up so she stayed on the court.

With about two minutes left she got a huge defensive rebound that turned into a basket for us on the other end. She is not a good rebounder so to get one in a varsity game in a key moment was a big deal.

A moment later she filled the lane on a 2-on–1 break and finished to put us up five. On the next possession she found a seam and drove through the defense to hit another layup. In the final minute, as we tried to kill clock, she got fouled and hit one of two free throws.

When another teammate was shooting free throws in the final seconds one of our senior captains jumped on L and gave her a hug. When the clock ran out to clinch the 10-point win, the JV coach came over and hugged her. She was beaming as she left the court. It was a great night to do it, as a bunch of her friends were in the stands watching. Up in the stands, mom and dad were thrilled.

Put it all together and it was the most successful day of her high school career. Nineteen total points, two wins, and nearly 10 minutes of varsity playing time in a close game.

She’s been trying so hard to get her mojo back, both mentally and physically. For at least one night it was there. Last night doesn’t guarantee anything, not how her body feels, not her confidence, not her opportunities going forward. But it was such a relief for one game, at least, that she was able to put it all together.

November was my second worst workout month of the year, thanks to the weather, Thanksgiving, and some of my nasty foot pain which knocked me out for a couple days. ↩

November Media

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 22:00:11 -0400

Video

Slow Horses, season five A bit slower to start than some previous seasons, but a pretty fantastic ending. And plenty of Roddy Ho meant this might be the funniest season so far. At least one more season to come.

A-

The Lowdown Lots of critical praise for this, which turned out to be pretty accurate. Other than a lull in the middle of the season, it was very good. Sterlin Harjo, who also created Reservation Dogs, was the main force behind this one. Quirkier than RD - it leans towards Coen Brothers territory - and not quite as moving, it does work up some powerful emotional moments in the final episode. Ethan Hawke was terrific.

A-

A Man On The Inside, season two Solid, but lacked the charm and heart tugging moments that were unique to season one. The finale added some of that back but it wasn’t enough to make this season as good as its predecessor. Bringing in Ted Danson’s real-life wife Mary Steenburgen as his love interest was a nice touch.

B+

Being Eddie I watched this Thanksgiving night and laughed quite a bit. Eddie Murphy has always been one of the most centered and well-adjusted mega stars. Even with this film obviously being highly reliant on his cooperation, it showed that he has some flaws, although they are flaws a lot of “normal” people have like anxiety. It also seemed like he might be kind of a lonely guy despite having 10 kids who he had strong relationships with. It seemed like that was by choice, but it still struck me. It hinted at another pivot to more adult comedy in his future. I hope that’s the case and even if it doesn’t reach his mid–80s peak, it provides some more highlights to his career.

A-

Cheers, “Thanksgiving Orphans” We got rid of our last BluRay/DVD player over the past year. I assumed I could watch this on either Peacock or another network but had a moment of panic Thanksgiving night when I realized that was not the case; Hulu only carries seasons one-through-four. Luckily I was able to buy this episode for 99 cents - what a bargain! - from Apple and watch it for the 38th consecutive year. S and M watched with me and did not find it as hilarious as I always do. The pacing of the jokes leading up to the legendary food fight is exquisite.

A+

The Edmund Fitzgerald Along with the podcast below, I watched this to honor the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the Fitz. Two things jumped out at me: amazing that no one knows exactly what caused the ship to sink - there are at least three theories - and that there has not been a major shipwreck on the Great Lakes since then. I also did not know that Gordon Lightfoot’s song was recorded after almost no rehearsal and the album version was the first take the band put on tape.

I got rescued while filming a TV show Don’t worry, not giving up on the Beau Miles bullshit. This one is pretty crazy.

Restoring our Italian farmhouse: We’re getting ready for take off! (#9) First new video in this series in a month or so. And, sadly, not much progress. It’s starting to get a little annoying.

Is Maine the Culinary Capital of New England Food? | DIRT Maine Maine has been on our list for years. One of these days we’ll make it.

Podcasts

Edmund Fitzgerald: 50 Years Below A good pod from the Duluth News Tribune, where the Fitz was last in port before its final voyage.

Holiday Weekend Notes

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 12:48:00 -0400

Thanksgiving week 2025 is in the books. It was mostly good. Other than me thinking Friday was Saturday all day. Lots happened, so here’s a lengthy breakdown to wade through as you ease back into your routines.

Thanksgiving

We hosted this year, only having 15. We could fit everyone at one (big) table!

I feel like I have the food portion of hosting down. I know how to make a decent turkey. I have a couple go-to recipes for sides that have never failed. Everyone has an off year, though, and this was mine.

First, the turkey was just ok. Not sure why, or if maybe it’s just because I don’t like turkey as much as I used to, but it seemed kind of mid to me.

Second, I messed up my mashed potatoes. As we were eating them I noticed something was off, but couldn’t place it. Later I realized that in my late rush to get everything done, I had failed to double the fats/liquids to match the doubled quantity of potatoes. Idiot. I’ve only been making them this way for a decade or so, and always double the recipe.

Third, I’ve been making Giada De Laurentiis’ holiday dressing for over two decades now, and it always pleases. The catch is her recipe calls for chestnuts. In the early days of preparing it, I was never able to find them. So I freelanced, subbing in water chestnuts instead. Which is weird, I admit, because water chestnuts and roasted chestnuts have nothing in common. But it worked so I stuck with it.

This year, though, I actually found roasted chestnuts at Costco! I’ve never had them so had no idea what to expect. I was a little repulsed when I popped one into my mouth and they were mushy rather than crunchy. They added nothing to the dressing. I’ll go back to water chestnuts next year.

Food issues aside, it was a nice day with our smaller-than-normal group. The football was good, too.

We slowly got the Christmas decorations up over the weekend, working in waves. We watched Elf Thanksgiving night, part of Christmas Vacation on Sunday. On my drive Sunday evening - more on that next - I finally busted out some Christmas music.

Weekend Traveller

C flew to Atlanta on Friday to visit a high school friend that goes to Auburn. “Pretty cool!” you might say to yourself. “Going to Auburn the weekend of the Iron Bowl sounds amazing!”

Well, she had a good time but it had little to do with the game. They did not have tickets, everything in town was overpriced because of the game so they didn’t get out much, and the weather was chilly, for the south, so they didn’t even go explore campus. Not how I would have spent a weekend in an SEC city but that’s me.

Other than being delayed about an hour getting out of Atlanta Sunday evening, travel went well. This was her first time traveling alone, or without us rather, and while we were checking in often, she did a good job arranging for a ride back to the airport on Sunday, getting through the airport, etc.

Well, there was one issue. Another friend of theirs was flying down with C. He got dropped off at our house Friday morning and I was taking the pair to the airport. On his way here he texted C and told her that he had left his ID in his dorm in Cincinnati. Oh boy. He arrived at our house with a fist full of documents to prove his identity. He even had a photo of his driver’s license, so we printed that off quickly.

Fortunately other than it taking a lot longer for him to get through security as they asked him a bunch of questions and gave his bag extra scrutiny, he got through TSA checkpoints in both Indy and Atlanta.

It’s a good thing he’s a nice kid otherwise we might have killed him.

I met C at the airport Sunday night and drove her back to Bloomington. She has two more full weeks of class before finals begin.

High School Hoops

Two games last week, Wednesday and Saturday. On Wednesday JV got their first win of the year. L scored the first bucket of the game but those were her only points. Varsity gave up just 28 points…but only scored 22. A truly brutal game to watch, nearly as bad as some of those 80 missed shots, 60 turnover games I covered back in the day.

Saturday we flipped it, varsity winning by three, JV losing by three. L scored five points in the JV game, all as we were coming from 12 down in the fourth quarter. She got pissed off by two terrible calls and played much better after. I told her she needs to find something to piss her off before the games because she clearly plays better then.

Varsity is 3–4, JV 1–6. Two more games this week.

KU Hoops

An unexpectedly good week for the Jayhawks, who won three games in Las Vegas without Darryn Peterson and after losing Jayden Dawson before the opening game. Every day a different player stepped up. Flory Bidunga destroyed Notre Dame. Melvin Council Jr. was great against Syracuse. And, out of nowhere, Elmarko Jackson was massive against Tennessee. Tre White was good all week. Bryson Tiller was solid in each game. I missed the Tennessee game, but happily followed the score from a high school gym as KU erased a 12-point deficit and eeked out the win. We’ll see who is cleared to play for tomorrow night’s game with UConn…

A great week, as the team is figuring out how to play without Peterson. They might be solid defensively. Bidunga and Tiller are developing some nice chemistry. Once Peterson is fully healthy, that takes the pressure off him needing to score 20+ every night. Word was he spent a lot of his summer working on parts of his game that have nothing to do with scoring, as NBA scouts wanted to see how he could move the ball. A perfect situation for him to come back to, learning to trust the teammates around him.

KU Football

How very KU Football to tease us by hanging with #14 Utah all day Friday, even holding a lead early in the fourth quarter, then absolutely falling apart thanks to some horrific decisions by Jalon Daniels. The fourth game this year KU has led in the fourth quarter but failed to win.

A terrible way to end his career, but it also neatly summed it up. After throwing just four interceptions all season, he threw three Saturday. The first snuffed out a good drive deep in Utah territory. The second was perhaps the worst decision/throw of his career,[1] and was picked off in the end zone. The final one turned into a 97-yard pick six when he hit a defender in the numbers. There was also a play late in the third quarter when he threw behind a receiver instead of in front of him on a fourth down play. Put it in front, it is at least a catch and first down in the red zone, maybe a touchdown. Instead it was a turnover on downs.

Jalon helped turn the program around, so deserves credit and thanks for that. He won at Texas. Played one of the best individual games in school history against Arkansas. He put them in position to make two bowl games. But KU has also tread water the past two years, and his uneven play was one of the biggest causes. He deserves slack for coming back from so many injuries and never being the same athlete he was before TCU broke his back three seasons ago. But, damn, get better at the other things like decision making to make up for your limitations.

Now comes the worst part of the year, waiting to see what young players will enter the portal when it opens. Some of which may be dependent on if there are any changes to the coaching staff. The expectation is there will be at least one major change, perhaps a coordinator or two leaving.

Next year becomes massive for whether Lance Leipold has a long future at KU. He’s recruited decently, but not many of his high school recruits have turned into solid contributors. His portal success has been decidedly mixed, with some really good additions balanced by others who barely played. He needs to get some guys who can get on the field and make an impact immediately.

Babysitting

Friday M watched a four-month-old baby at our house. Baby F is a sweet little thing, not fazed by strangers at all. L was very excited to see her as she is the granddaughter of L’s godparents. They sat together on the couch and played for a full hour after her evening bottle. M and F were napping on the couch next to me during the KU game. Which meant I was silently screaming and pulling at my hair as the Jayhawks fell apart.

Weather

Our first big winter storm of the season came through Saturday evening. Saturday morning the weather folks were saying 2–4” here. We didn’t even get that, my guess is just under two inches of heavy, wet snow that mostly fell while we were at basketball. I went out late and pushed it all off the driveway to keep it from turning into a sheet of ice when the temps crashed overnight. Now it is going to be numbingly cold all week with a couple chances of snow. I do not like true winter weather.

Colts

Uh oh.

Daniel Jones is apparently playing with a broken leg. Sauce Gardner at a minimum severely strained his calf early in Sunday’s game against Houston, at worst destroyed his achilles. Three brutal calls went against the Colts late Sunday, helping seal the Texans’ victory. OK, two brutal calls and one extremely strange call.

Now all the margin the Colts built up over the first half of the season is gone. They will travel to Jacksonville next week tied with the Jaguars for first place. A loss could drop them to third place depending on Houston’s game against the Chiefs. Every game left on their schedule is against a team with a winning record. It might be time to panic.

Oh, and remember the Colts traded next year’s first round pick - and another first round pick - for Gardner. Cursed franchise.

Replay

I get more adamant every week that we need to either get rid of replay review or dramatically curtail its usage.

Two examples from Sunday. In the Colts game, referees missed a clear face mask on the Colts’ final drive of the game. But face mask calls cannot be challenged and are not automatically reviewed, so the Colts were screwed.

However, in a game later (Buffalo-Pittsburgh maybe?) a face mask was called on the field but an automatic review said it was an incorrect call and overruled it.

Then in the night game, there was an automatic review that ruled a player was down by contact. But, by rule, that auto review could not throw a flag for the illegal trip that caused the runner to be down.

None of that makes any sense. You can overrule one kind of face mask call but not the other. And you can overrule a call to say a runner was down, but not acknowledge he was down because of a foul by the defense.

And why the fuck are there automatic reviews at all?

If the goal of replay is to get missed and incorrect calls right, it clearly fails if not applied evenly. Burn the whole system down and start over.[2]

(This is also the moment to mention there was a massive replay moment in the Michigan-Ohio State game Saturday that really should have taken away an OSU touchdown but the refs didn’t have the balls to make the call. That said, it was a call you could never make with the naked eye. This is the shit we need to eliminate.)

Lane Kiffin

This is long enough so I won’t go too deep here. But only Lane Kiffin could turn getting a job that will pay him something like $12 million per year into an opportunity to make himself the victim. Man spent 10 years rebuilding his reputation and pissed it all away in a week.

A high bar to clear. ↩
Only coaches challenges, say three per game. None of this “you get an extra one if you win the first” garbage. Pick a number and stick with it. Show replays at real-time speed, no slow motion. Officials have 30 seconds from when they first view the video to make a call. It’s not that hard. ↩

Tuesday Links

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 09:04:48 -0400

This whole Olivia Nuzzi thing is wild. I remember reading one of her pieces a few years back, when she first rose to prominence, and thinking she was trying too hard to make herself part of the story. Little did I know!

Another example here of a writer who only dabbles in politics cutting through an issue better than the alleged experts.

A guide to the absolutely ludicrous Olivia Nuzzi media scandal

OK, Tyler Parker is my new favorite NBA writer. Very much in the spirit of Shea Serrano, combining astute analysis with stupidly fun nonsense. Like here, where he goes into great detail about how Dirk Nowitski sits on a couch.

This is really sophisticated, high-level stuff and he’s pulling it off like it’s nothing. It’s electric television. We’re better for it.

Who Is Winning the NBA’s TV Arms Race?

If you plan on watching the final season of Stranger Things here are two good recap pieces to remind you of the basics without going back and watching the first four seasons again. I’m going to wait until all the new episodes are out before jumping in; I’m sure our girls will be watching as soon as they drop.

Wait, What Do I Need to Remember From ‘Stranger Things’ Again? Stranger Things Recap: Everything You Need to Remember Before Season 5

Can’t believe I just discovered this store.

Effin’ Birds | Featuring custom t-shirts, prints, and more

Finally a couple quick YouTubes that would have landed in my monthly media posts before I started paring those back.

Can you drive west to lengthen the sunset?

[embed]youtu.be/U8F7UNK9j…

Triumph’s Rik Emmett breaks down the Double Necked Guitar

[embed]youtu.be/4uF0fW8pw…

Weekend Notes

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 09:17:13 -0400

HS Hoops

It was a two-game weekend for CHS.

Things began with a bummer when L was told on Thursday she was going back to JV (along with one other junior). She needs minutes and JV needs players. That was a rough night in our house, as you might imagine. That’s about all I’ll say on that topic for now.

Friday we drove 90 minutes south to play 3A #7 Jennings County, who came in 3–0.

In the JV game L played most of the first half and we were up one at halftime. She sat the entire third quarter and the early moments of the fourth quarter. When she came back in we were down 15. Over the next four minutes she hit a layup, had a couple assists, and then hit a 3 to cut it to two with about 40 seconds left. But we couldn’t get a steal and lost by 3. She had eight points and 4 assists. She played with confidence, which was the key.

I was looking forward to the varsity game as JC has a girl who is going to KU next year. She was spectacular. Despite hitting just 2–10 3’s, she still had 24 points and a ton of assists. When she realized she wasn’t hitting from deep she was smart enough to start punishing us with short jumpers from the elbow and baseline. She had some Larry Bird to her, a no-jump jump shot with a high release we could not threaten. Not sure how her skills will translate at the next level, but it was fun to see her play.

As for the game we controlled it all night, weathered a late rally, and survived a 3 that would have tied it before they hit a follow-tip as the clock expired to win by one. Made for a nice ride home!

On our way out of the gym the dad of one of our assistant coaches pulled L aside and told her he coached for 35 years and he saw that she needed to play, so while it might be an ego hit to get moved down, in the long run it will be good for her. He said she’s a good player and he loves watching her so to stick with it. I think that helped her a little bit.

Saturday we played Norwell, the defending 3A champs who moved up to 4A this year. They were coming off a 13-point win over last week’s 4A #1 team, too.

In JV, L took a bump to her face and got a bloody nose two minutes into the game. She stayed on the bench - sometimes over a trashcan spitting blood - until halftime. Our girls did not play well and were down by 32–10. I had to leave at halftime but was pleased to get updates as L decided to play a little ball in the second half. She scored 13, mostly on drives with some free throws sprinkled in. They still lost by 22.

Then varsity got annihilated by 42. I was glad I missed that. Varsity is now 2–3.

In weird comparative scores, on Friday we beat Jennings County by one, on Saturday Jennings County beat Warsaw by 5, two weeks ago Warsaw beat Norwell by 14, and then Norwell beats us by 42. Try making sense of that.

L is apparently a magnet for injuries. Friday she got a nasty elbow - unintentional - right in her sternum and has a serious bruise there. Saturday in addition to the bloody nose, she took a knee to her thigh while scoring and was hobbling around Sunday.

Games on Wednesday and Saturday this week.

Dad’s Day

I had to leave L’s game early Saturday because it was Dad’s Day at M’s sorority down at UC. We had a fun afternoon and evening together.

We hung out at her sorority house with friends for a bit, went to a big three-house frat part down the street for about an hour. That was kind of funny because of the band that was playing. As we walked to it, I heard “Even Flow” and wondered why the DJ was playing 90s tunes. Then I saw there was a live band on a stage. They played nothing but 90s grunge/rock hits the entire time we were there. Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day, etc. The other dads and I were laughing that they must have known we were coming and got a band that played music from our college days. The band itself was really good, but the singer did not have the voice the cover Eddie, Kurt, Scott, Chris, etc.

M’s house “granddaughter” is one of C’s good friends from CHS, so we spent a lot of time with her and her dad, who I had met on spring break in March. We hung out at a couple bars with other girls from her house. This was the first time I’ve been to a bar with my legal-to-drink daughter, which was kind of fun. After eating her favorite pizza in the city, she took me back to her house for a quick tour. I hadn’t been there since we moved her in, so was able to see how she and her roommates had decorated it. I dropped her and her boyfriend off at a bar and headed back to Indy.

BYU was in town. M’s not really into going to games so we didn’t get tickets. Good move as it got slotted as the 8:00 PM game. I would have needed a hotel room if she did want to go to the game. Obviously there were tons of Mormons in town. Strangely we saw none of them at the frat party or either of the bars we went to.

KU Football

Thankfully basketball and traveling on I–74 kept me from watching KU’s crappy performance. Well, I saw the first two drives, when Iowa State marched with zero resistance and then KU’s long snapper put the ball 15 yards behind the punter, and that was enough. Unlike last year, when the coaching staff rallied the team after a brutal start to play their best football in November, this team has gotten worse as the season progressed. Coaching? Talent? If the Jayhawks want to be more than a 4–5 win team every year, they need to figure it out. Again, I used to wish for nothing more than a mediocre team, so I guess this is better than the years we were lucky to win two games. Apparently I should have asked for a mediocre team that was also interesting to watch.

Colts

Well, what the hell do you take from yesterday’s game in Kansas City if you’re a Colts fan? The Colts were the better team for three quarters and had an 11-point lead. But the last score, a field goal, felt like a missed opportunity to put the game away when they had to settle for three instead of seven.

Sure enough the Chiefs came roaring back to win in overtime, and the Colts offense was terrible in those final 20-ish minutes. Daniel Jones looked decent in the first half, but steadily got worse as the game progressed, and threw a couple terrible passes in the fourth quarter. The defense, missing their stalwart DeForest Buckner in the middle, did all you could have asked of them, but were gassed late.

So are you excited about going into Arrowhead, even against a Chiefs team that may not be as good as they’ve been previously in the Mahomes era, building the lead and hanging tough? Or are you worried that Jones might be re-growing the pumpkin shell he had when he was in New York and that combined with the tougher schedule over the next six weeks means the Colts are going to blow their great start?

I have no idea, but I’m not super confident. I guess the good thing is if Jones is indeed toast, hopefully that keeps the Colts from locking him up with a long-term contract in the offseason that blows up their salary cap for a half decade.

Now Jones does deserve some grace, as he apparently has some kind of minor lower leg injury that was hobbling him a bit. But this is also 3–4 weeks of regression towards Bad Daniel Jones territory that cannot be ignored.

One game lead over Jacksonville, two games over Houston. Four of the Colts’ last six games are against those two division rivals. The Colts control their destiny but have very little room for error.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 21 Nov 2025 08:46:42 -0400

Between wrapping up the first pass through my Apple Music library, doing some work on my Favorite Songs of the Year list, and other random stuff, I didn’t spend as much time listening to newer music as I normally do this week. So a blend of the new and old.

open.spotify.com/playlist/…

“Hinge” - VILLANELLE Is this a Nirvana tribute band? The band is led by Gene Gallagher, son of Liam. And he was obviously influenced more by Kurt Cobain than his dad. If someone sounded this much like Oasis I bet Liam would have some thoughts.

“Here Come The Rugby Boys” - The Just Joans I can’t decide if this is the greatest song ever, or the worst.

“Normal Today” - Hannah Jadagu A real nice piece of indie pop.

“This Hotel Room” - King Hannah And this is a gorgeous song regardless of genre.

“Up Against The Wall” - Peter Bjorn and John And this is just a freaking great song.

“Tunnel of Love” - Bruce Springsteen November is the month I always try to listen to Tunnel of Love a couple times. It fits the mood of the month well now that the sun disappears shortly after 5:00 PM, and I bought my first copy of it on cassette in November 1987. As I was listening to it this week I realized that I likely played it at some point while we were driving east as we moved from San Leandro, CA back to Kansas City, which we did this same week of 1987. Great album, great song.

“I Wanna Be Adored” - The Stone Roses Gary “Mani” Mounfield died this week. He played bass in The Stone Roses, and was a massive part of their sound. In fact, lead singer Ian Brown credited Mani as being the element that brought the band’s sound together. He’s right there in the epic slow fade up in this track. After TSR split, he joined Primal Scream for some of their most notable albums.

“Swastika Eyes” - Primal Scream Hey, this is one of the PS songs Mani played on! I decided to include it because of the bullshit news that dropped yesterday about the United States Coast Guard no longer classifying swastikas as hate symbols. Even if you are a fuckhead that doesn’t believe in the Holocaust or thinks Hitler had some good ideas or whatever, THE UNITED STATES FOUGHT A GOD DAMN WAR AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT THAT USED THE SWASTIKA AS ITS OFFICIAL SYMBOL. It was our most glorious moment as a nation. And now a branch of the US fucking military has decided it does not represent hate? How does this even come up? Does some captain want to fly a swastika flag on his ship? Or are there just a lot of fuckwits in the Guard with swastika tattoos?

Every day I think the world can’t get any more broken, and every day someone finds a way to prove me wrong.

EDIT Apparently someone with a functioning brain realized this was an awful mistake and the Coast Guard has decided that swastikas are, in fact, symbols of hate.

youtu.be/z1NabFrhe…

“Scared Of Fear” - Pearl Jam I was scrolling around to find a video for this week and came across this, from the band’s appearance on Howard Stern’s show just before Dark Matter was released. I love the mix on this, you can really hear both guitars. Stone Gossard’s rhythm guitar has a very Boston-like sound.

Music Update

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 14:05:46 -0400

A quick (hopefully!), navel-gazey post today to share that my initial run through my entire library on Apple Music is finally complete!

After transitioning over from Spotify in April, I spent several weeks attempting to recreate how I organized iTunes over 10 years ago to balance both new and old music in a daily playlist. This makes heavy use of Smart Playlists, which select music based on date added, rating, play count, and other rather granular details.[1]

Once I got that set up, I had roughly 3600 songs in my library with zero plays since the switch. By the end of the summer that number had barely crept under 3000, so I did some tweaking to pull in more unheard tracks. I figured once I had listened to everything once, the true magic of Smart Playlists would take over. After nearly three months of extra attention, I finally cycled through my last of those songs Wednesday night!

Hooray me!

Now I’m sure a few of you might be asking, “How did it take you that long to listen to those songs? I thought you listened to music constantly?”

A good and fair question.

My daily playlist is balanced about 50–50 between songs added in the last 45 days and everything else in my library. I sample a lot of new music each week, taking suggestions from multiple music sites. Not all of those new songs stick, but I do listen to them at least once. That’s anywhere from 20–50 new tracks each week.

I also still use Spotify in my car, as the Tesla app for it is wonky, but not nearly as maddening as their Apple Music app. If I don’t remember to go back and sync what I listened to in the car with my Apple Music library at home, those plays aren’t accounted for.[2]

Finally, my music listening in the house has decreased a bit from where it used to be since I also work through podcasts and listen to The Bridge a little each day.

If I sat at a desk and worked all day like a regular person, and thus was wed to one source of music, I would have gotten through all those songs much quicker.

Anyway, not that any of you will really care, but after seven months of work, I’ve finally finished the first pass through my music library. Just in time to start listening to holiday tunes next week!

As currently constructed, my Daily Driver playlist pulls from nine different Smart Playlists. ↩
A stupid, manual process in which I look at my Last.fm history, find the song in Apple Music, push Play, then drag the slider to the end so it registers having been played. Normal, sane people would never bother with this. Rumor has it Apple CarPlay is finally coming to Tesla soon, so that may eliminate this stupid process. ↩

Hoops Notes

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 11:35:32 -0400

Let’s run through some quick hoops thoughts.

Jayhawk Talk

As expected Darryn Peterson did not play last night against Duke. As expected, Duke won comfortably. Not as expected was KU showing a lot of fight and progress from last week’s games. There was still, obviously, a big hole on offense due to Peterson’s absence. But the Jayhawks controlled the first 15 minutes of the game and were in terrific shape until first Flory Bidunga and then Tre White went to the bench with three fouls before halftime.

In each of my in-game discussion threads, pretty much every other KU fan I interacted with was positive about how the team played. Way too many missed 3’s, but it’s KU, that’s going to be the case. Too many rebounds given up, but Duke is one of the biggest teams in the country and that will happen. And just too much bad offense because the alpha was not on the court. The ball definitely sticks late in the shot clock and guys who are not natural scorers pretend that they are. White and Bidunga did their best. Melvin Council probably tried to do too much. Kohl Rosario and Bryson Tiller had games you expect of freshmen against Duke in Madison Square Garden.

You can see all the potential, though. You see the athleticism, the energy, and what seemed to be a pretty positive team despite the result. Get Peterson back and this team is fine.

And the 1988 throwback uniforms? Spectacular. That little splash of yellow has never been repeated in a KU uniform set, as far as I can recall, and sets these apart. The block K on the shorts? Fabulous! It also helped the team that wore these won the national championship with the greatest player in program history. If I collected jerseys I would absolutely own one of these.

High School Hoops

Two games to get caught up on.

Last Thursday we drove out to Mooresville, about 50 minutes away from our house just past the Indianapolis airport, last Thursday for the second game of the year. MHS is normally a very strong program; they reached the semistate finals just three years ago. I had this listed as a game that would be very tough to win.

We started the game on an 11–0 run and never looked back. We were up by 30 most of the second half, and L and all the other juniors played the entire fourth quarter. Our energy as a team was night-and-day from the opener two nights earlier. The offense looked better, the defense ratcheted up. And we pressed a lot more than we had in the opening game.

Before that fourth quarter run L played 5–6 total minutes again. For the game she was 0–3 from the field, an assist, two steals, a turnover.

Last night we played the #6 ranked 4A team, which was coming off a two-point, overtime loss to the #2 team in the state. They have two D1 commits and are traditionally a very strong program. Last year, when they had another D1 girl, we uglied it up and lost by 12 in a game we missed a million free throws.

This year? Yeesh, not as good.

We fell behind early and never got the offense going. We basically trailed by 16 the entire game, lucky that HSE was not hitting from deep, until they finally made some 3’s late to make it a comfortable 21-point win.

L got in for the last 90 seconds and didn’t do anything to register in the boxscore. She and one of her former travel teammates did guard each other for that stretch.

Friday night we drive down near Louisville to play a team that has a girl who is going to KU next fall. Then Saturday we host the #9 4A team, who moved up after winning 3A last year. They also played last night, and beat the #1 4A team by 13. Yikes.

Reader's Notebook, 11/18/25

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 09:10:41 -0400

Somehow I haven’t read a spy book since July. It was time to revert to the mean, so this entry features one proper spy story, one that brushes up against the genre, and a proper mystery.

Sheepdog - Elliot Ackerman When I added this to my reading list, I noted that it was described as being for people who liked Mick Herron’s Slow Horses series, either the books or show. There is some truth there, but I wouldn’t say they are siblings. More like cousins once-removed. In fact, this felt more like an Elmore Leonard or Carl Hiaasen novel.

An ex-CIA officer, Skwerl, is having a difficult time after an unceremonious divorce with the US military. He stumbles upon a private group that provides lucrative jobs for people with his skills and is tasked with stealing a jet. He’s not given a reason for the mission, just that he needs to get the plane somewhere safe temporarily to facilitate other events. He and the Afghani pilot he’s recruited for the job, Big Cheese, will get a pile of cash for their efforts.

Things quickly go sideways, and continue to go sideways, in hilarious ways. Skwerl’s girlfriend and Big Cheese’s wife are pulled into the mess. So is an Amish farmer with a BDSM fetish. And some other very Hiaasen-like characters.

A fun, funny page turner.

Fortune Favors The Dead - Stephen Spotswood This is the super charming first book in an unconventional mystery series. It is written from the perspective of one of the main characters, Willowjean Parker, a former carnival worker who ends up in World War II-era New York and, completely randomly, saves the life of an unorthodox private investigator, Lillian Pentecost. The two form a partnership, with Parker doing a lot of the footwork for the brilliant Pentecost, who suffers from Multiple Schlerosis and has moments when she is physically limited.

Parker is writing from down the road, looking back on her career, here not the first mystery the duo solved together, but one of the most interesting, involving multiple deaths within a prominent business family, a “seer/psychic,” and several parts of New York society that were hidden deeply underground in 1945. It has a snappy style that immediately comes to mind when you think of that era. It was good enough that I’ll probably read another in the series at some point.

The Collaborators - Michael Idov An American CIA agent loses an asset when he is killed by the Russian commandos. Soon the agent’s team is assassinated, and the agent just avoids being killed in the attack. His investigation leads him to a young American woman whose billionaire father recently disappeared after wiping out all the accounts he managed. Naturally their stories are intertwined and lead to adventures in Latvia, Portugal, Morocco, Turkey, and Russia. Almost Bond-like!

As much as I like a book that is brisk, there seemed to be something lacking from the overall plot, the parts falling together too easily. That said, it ends with a clear jumping off point for continuation in a book that is due early next year. So I guess I appreciate Idov not carrying on too long if there’s more to come.

Weekend Notes

Mon, 17 Nov 2025 11:52:13 -0400

Another pretty laid-back weekend in our house, made even chiller without football games for either KU or the Colts. Trust me, I still sat on my ass and watched a lot of football. Strangely I watched more on Saturday when it was in the low 70s than Sunday when it was still nice but significantly cooler.

With the holidays sneaking up on us and a busy weekend ahead, S and I did begin to prep for hosting Thanksgiving. We moved a ton of furniture to clean floors and rugs underneath and baseboards and windows behind them. While moving items in one room we decided to go ahead and rearrange that room for the first time since the movers placed everything nearly seven-and-a-half years ago. It was a little like back when I lived in an apartment on my own and would start cleaning then, two or three hours later, I had reconfigured my whole space. Just now I have a helper and my back hurts more afterward.

KU Hoops

Well, the Darryn Peterson thing has officially gotten dumb. The thing is, I don’t know if we should consider it dumb or not. Bill Self seems annoyed by the whole thing, his best player now missing consecutive games and likely out for tomorrow’s contest against Duke because of an injury that has a lot of weirdness about it. It began as cramping and turned into a tight hamstring which has DP sitting watching his teammates.

Which could all be 100% legit and there just hasn’t been good communication between Peterson and Self. Peterson is known as a fiery competitor so perhaps he hasn’t been honest with his coaches because he wanted to play through the injury and then it became worse than he thought.

There are vibes of when Remy Martin had his knee injury in 2022 and he and Self did not seem on the same page about it. Or, worse, Joel Embiid’s one year on campus, when he had a couple legit injuries - it was Embiid, of course he was injured - but while he wanted to play his family and handlers insisted he sit to protect his draft status.

Maybe it’s less combative than that, but it seems representative of the age we live in. Once upon a time college athletes relied on their schools’ medical personnel to determine the severity of their injuries and course of action when rehabbing. Now kids get their own advice from outside sources. Which is probably a good thing!

Like in professional sports, though, it seems like kids like Peterson who are walking lottery tickets, err on the side of extreme caution to avoid bigger injuries. Again, probably a good thing! But annoying when the public doesn’t get the full picture. Worse, when it is a kid like Peterson, who KU fans, and college basketball fans across the country, have been looking forward to watching for a couple years and his limited time in college gets cut short by something that doesn’t sound that serious.

I’m trying to remain positive and hope it is just a minor injury that they are being uber-cautious with that will pass soon and we’ll get to see DP actually play a whole game without incident. He has been SOOOOOOO good in the minutes he’s played, and that’s without going full-bore in the North Carolina game and on a team that is full of new-to-each-other players who are trying to figure things out. He’s deserving of all the hype based on that limited sample.

As for the game Saturday, KU looked like ass for the first 30 minutes. Flory Bidunga seemed like the only player who understood how to guard Princeton’s offense. Even he had a slow start, but once he got going had his best game as a Jayhawk. Which he really should against the talent that Princeton had.

This may shock you but it looks like yet another KU team that cannot shoot. The guys who came in with reputations as shooters look terrible. Guys who had redshirt seasons during which they could have worked on their shots look terrible. Guys who are mediocre shooters look profoundly mediocre. The good news is Peterson will be the best shooter when he comes back, and his game opens up the floor to make his teammates’ shots easier. I’m already prepared for a 2–22 night in March that sends the Jayhawks home, though.

There has been chatter that because of some changes in eligibility rules by the NCAA, KU could try to add a player between semesters, with expectation it would be another big. IF KU decides to add a player to an already deep roster, it sure as hell better be a shooter. I don’t care if Flory is undersized, Bryson Tiller is more comfortable playing outside the paint, and Paul Mbiya is too projecty to get serious minutes. This team’s downfall will be its shooting, not its rebounding. And if they get healthy, they are more than athletic enough to make up for the rebounding part. Find someone who isn’t going to shoot bricks all night and watch the court open up for DP and everyone else.

Hopefully in a couple weeks we’ll look back on this and think it was silly there was so much conversation about a minor injury. The key is getting Peterson back before he misses too many of the big non-conference games on the schedule so this team isn’t in too big of a hole going into the Big 12 season.

College Football

Saturday we had three games going for the first two hours of the day. IU-Wisconsin, Cincinnati-Arizona, and Notre Dame-Pittsburgh. C was at the IU game, M was traveling this weekend but watching her Bearcats from Florida, and we had Irish friends who drove to Pittsburgh for that game.

After another slow start the Hoosiers pounded the Badgers to move to 11–0. Now only lowly Purdue stands in the way of a perfect regular season for IU. The Bearcats kind of fell on their faces and lost to UA at home. I was not all that impressed with Arizona a week ago, but I guess KU’s loss to them is good now? The Irish humiliated a Pittsburgh team that had talked a lot of smack coming in. It’s always funny when the broadcast shows a coach’s fired-up pregame speech to his players then they go out and just get hammered.

Saturday was great because there was a marquee game in every time slot. Notre Dame-Pitt early, which ended up being a dud. Oklahoma-Alabama at 3:30, which was terrific. And then Texas-Georgia to cap the night, which was fun for all us Texas haters. There were a couple other decent games scattered through the day that were worth catching for a few minutes. And then KU hoops in the middle of it all.

No wonder I barely left the couch. Sure, it might have been 70° outside, but it was super windy so it wasn’t like I could do much in the yard since everything was blowing around. I did get the gutters cleaned out and the pool cover cleared off Sunday.

NFL

With no Colts I only casually watched Sunday’s games. At the risk of stepping on my monthly league reviews, Sunday felt like a big day.

We learned Philadelphia’s defense is fearsome enough to get them through their inexplicable offensive issues. Actually those issues can be explained: Jalen Hurts stinks. How did this guy win a Super Bowl? Now I probably just reversed jinxed Hurts into throwing for 400 yards against the Colts in the Super Bowl.

We learned Detroit are frauds and Green Bay might be too.

We learned Chicago might be the best team in the NFC North?!?!?!

We learned the Chiefs might be toast, although the Chargers seem more done than them, so even with a two-game deficit, I would not be surprised at all if KC catches and passes LA over the next month.

We learned the Broncos are legit. Or legit-ish, I guess.

We learned the Bills are back…until they lose another stupid game.

We learned the Patriots might not be true Super Bowl favorites, but it’s going to be tough for anyone to catch them for #1 seed in the playoffs.

We learned the Rams might be the only team that can challenge the Eagles in the NFC.

Pacers

Just when you think things can’t get worse, they do. Aaron Nesmith wrecked his knee last week. Luckily there was no major damage, so he’ll miss about a month rather than require season-ending surgery.

The team lost two more games last week, falling to 1–12, the worst start in franchise history. Their last five losses have all been by at least 17 points.

It got so bad last week that the team had to play shorthanded because one of their hardship contract players, who cannot be replaced, had the flu.

The only good news is that Bennedict Mathurin is expected to return tomorrow night, with a few other players soon after.

I’m glad I was lazy and never got around to ordering my Pacers TV package this year. I’ll just let them do their thing this year, get a good draft spot, and check in again next year when Tyrese Haliburton is back and has Peterson or AJ Dybantsa or Cameron Boozer next to him. There’s my second jinx of the day: the Pacers will now end up with the lowest possible draft pick they can get based on their record. Although next year’s draft is mega-deep, so maybe even that will be good enough to make this year of hell worth it.

A busy week ahead. Three high school basketball games. A pretty big KU game Tuesday that I probably won’t get to see much of. Thursday through Saturday I will be driving to-and-from Bloomington; North Vernon, IN; and Cincinnati.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 14 Nov 2025 09:04:09 -0400

open.spotify.com/playlist/…

“Dopamine” - Robyn Our Swedish Queen has returned! Her first new music in over seven years.

“WAITING FOR THE PHONE CALL” - The Twilight Sad Speaking of artists that have been away for a bit, this song is the first new music from The Twilight Sad in six years. They have a very special guest on this track; The Cure’s Robert Smith, a long-time fan of the band, joins to play guitar.

“alone” - Neva Dinova This band put out new music just a year ago. But before that, it had been 16 years since they released new music. What is in the water this week? This song is perfect for the moment, when the sun sets at 5:30 and night begins far too soon.

“Analog Ways” - Radioactivity OK, I’m starting to get freaked out a bit. This comes off Radioactivity’s first new album in a decade. Definitely a different vibe than their regular, DIY-punk sound. Almost brushing up against Heartland Rock.

“The Package” - De La Soul COME ON, MAN, STOP IT!!!! The lead single from De La’s first album in 10 years…This playlist is getting spooky, maybe better suited to the week of Halloween than two weeks after. The first album after the death of founding member Trugoy, it will feature a lot of big named guests. Pete Rock produced this track.

“Heathcliff” - snocaps OK, finally a new band. Although the Crutchfields had not made music together for a decade or so before they started snocaps. Last week I shared an Allison C track. This week Katie C gets some run.

“Wonder” - Hatchie Hatchie’s 2019 album Keepsake is one of my favorites of the past decade or so, a collection of nearly perfect dream pop tracks that doesn’t have a single miss. That sets a very high bar, and while Harriette Pilbeam has done some nice things since then, her work has never reached those same levels. Her new album Liquorice is no different. Actually it is different. It’s probably my least favorite of her albums as there are definitely some skips on it. Thankfully she can’t help herself and still has a couple really nice tracks, notably this near-banger.

“Northern Lights” - Science For Girls with Boots Ottestad Let’s blow the dust off this 2007 classic to wrap a week that brought one of the most spectacular Northern Lights events in recent years for us non-Northerners. I was even able to see them, with the naked eye, from our backyard, something I couldn’t do even during last spring’s big geomagnetic storms.

[embed]youtu.be/xlxs_I3oA…–gXsk[/embed]

“History Never Repeats” - Split Enz I can’t think of a better way to wrap up this week’s music. The Splitz announced earlier this week they are reforming for a brief tour Down Under in 2026. They officially broke up in 1984. There have been a few reunions over the years, this will be the first time they perform together since 2009.

High School Hoops: An Ominous Start

Wed, 12 Nov 2025 10:43:03 -0400

Last night CHS finally played their first game of the year. I say finally because their opponent, and many other schools in the state, had already played two games. I know our coaches were trying to find a game to fill last week, but that fell through and we got off to a late start to the new season.

Maybe it was that difference, one team having been on the court - and losing - twice versus the other getting real action for the first time. Or maybe it was because one team shot a ton of 3’s, and made at least seven, while the other barely looked to launch from deep and made just one for the night. Or maybe our Jesuit sisters are just better than us. Regardless, the season began with a disappointing 17-point loss.

That disappointment was especially bad because we led by nine in the first quarter, and six at halftime before totally falling apart in the second half. It seemed like a fairly evenly matched game until fouls caught up with us - two of our starters each picked up their third fouls early in the third quarter - and the Jesuits started hitting 3s.

L didn’t play much, maybe 6–7 minutes total. She took only one shot, making a layup on a break after a nice pass from a teammate, and had one turnover, otherwise not checking any scorebook boxes.

Her foot is back to 100% but you could definitely see some rust in her game after not playing much over the past year. She spent most of the summer working on her conditioning rather than her game, and I’m afraid that showed. I’m also nervous that a combination of changes in her body - she’s stronger but slower than she was as a freshman - and what the varsity wants to do on offense - she should never dribble as much as she did as a freshman - take away her old strengths and she’s yet to develop new ones to take their place.

It was just one game, though, so no need to make broad assessments yet.

What was concerning for the team was this should have been one of our most winnable games. And we lost by nearly 20. We have our typically super difficult schedule and are trying to replace four starters from last year. Plus our most talented girl is playing on an injured knee that we are all worried could get worse at any time. I looked at the schedule after we got home last night and did not see a lot of opportunities for W’s.

Again, it’s early. In June we beat the team that lost in the 3A state title game last spring. We should get better. The problem is the competition gets better, too. Next week we play the #5 4A team that has two D1 seniors.

This is also my chance to say I will probably not write as much about high school hoops this season. L’s role is much more limited than it was as a freshman on JV, and as we hoped it would be last year before she got injured. She’s a 10 minutes-per-game player, and some nights that will be five, others 20, depending on fouls, injuries, matchups, how well she plays, etc.

There are also some weird vibes in the program that I have some thoughts about. I think this site is fairly well anonymized, but if someone did enough digging they could match me up with my kid and then with her team. I don’t want to put her in a bad position because someone got busy with Google and found her dad’s opinions. Rest assured, though, I’m saving those thoughts and whenever she plays her last game, I will happily share them.

I will still do weekly roundups, but they won’t be as detailed as they were two years ago. I reserve the right to change my mind if L suddenly starts playing 20 minutes a night and scoring 10 points per game. Or make them less frequent if writing about this team becomes painful.

Weekend Notes

Mon, 10 Nov 2025 09:08:49 -0400

Well, a real bummer of a sports weekend that was partially saved by Jonathan Taylor. Let’s get into it.

Friday

Shades of late August/early September as I was both listening to the Cathedral game and watching sports on the TV. My attentions were less divided than back then, though, as most of my attention was on the KU-North Carolina game. Which was a lot of fun for the first 20 minutes as KU took an 8-point lead into halftime, then kind of a pisser for the second 20 as UNC ran the Jayhawks off the floor.

I don’t want to overreact, but my two biggest fears about this year’s KU squad may be true: not enough shooters in general, and no true Robin to Darryn Peterson’s Batman. Bryson Tiller tried in the first half, swishing four 3’s without touching the rim. But he also hacked so much he fouled out midway through the second half without adding another point. Tre White was really, really bad, and I hope it was just from trying to do too much. I liked some of the things he was trying to do, but the execution was not there Friday.

It’s the first of a pretty brutal stretch of big games over the next six weeks. With a team this young, you expect high highs and low lows. I still insist they are going to be a lot of fun to watch when things are clicking. Certainly more fun than the last two years’ teams. How many wins does that translate into is the big question.

I kept the volume down on the CHS game, just checking in during commercial breaks in basketball. The first time I checked the #2 Irish were down 7–0 to #1 New Palestine. Apparently New Pal ran back the opening kickoff.

Later I heard screaming on my nearly muted radio and turned it up to hear that CHS had just forced a safety. And then ran the ensuing kick back 65 yards only to be tripped up inside the five. Things were looking good! Until they threw an interception in the end zone.

That interception ended up being the play of the game. NP led 20–15 late and CHS was driving before throwing their third interception of the night and that was the game.

No one had come close to New Pal all year, but CHS was two special teams plays and a bad throw away from pulling the upset. L went to the game and said it was a ton of fun. Well, other than the interceptions.

A 7–4 season for the Irish, with losses to class 6A #1 and defending state champs, class 5A #1 and defending state champs, and two out-of-state teams both ranked in the top ten overall in their states. I’m assuming next year, my final as a CHS parent, will be about the same schedule as this year, and another date with New Pal in sectionals.

Saturday

OK, the weekend was not a sports disaster for our entire family. HOLY SHIT THAT IU GAME!!!! What a ridiculous catch by Indianapolis’ own Omar Cooper Jr. to keep the Hoosiers undefeated. 12–0 and a #1 vs #2 matchup with Ohio State in Indy is all but guaranteed now.[1]

Then came pisser #3 for the weekend, the perpetually snake bit Kansas Football Jayhawks. They got the best performance from their defense all season, only to see a pick six cancelled by a penalty, another interception overturned on replay review, and a third interception that would have been a sure pick six and game-clincher dropped. Naturally, after their best game of the year, the D fell apart on the last drive of the game and let Arizona march the length of the field and score with 39 seconds left to win.

Every single KU fan knew it was coming. We were powerless to stop it. Hell, our kicker hadn’t missed a kick all season and pushed a chip shot just right late in the game, opening the door for the Wildcats.

Yet another loss pulled from the jaws of victory, something that has happened entirely too often the past two seasons. Just a cursed program, and it will be cursed forever. I keep waiting to hear the new stadium has collapsed or something.

At this point in the weekend I was really hating sports. I told several friends I was going to buy a big pile of 5000 piece puzzles and spend my weekend afternoons putting them together instead of getting constantly let down by my teams.

Sunday

And, good grief, the Colts came close to making it a totally lost weekend. Daniel Jones was doing New York Daniel Jones things. The kicker missed a PAT and field goal. The defense, after being solid most of the day, pulled a KU and let Atlanta march right down their throats to take a late lead.

Fortunately the Colts hit a field goal to send it to overtime and then Jonathan Taylor capped off one of the greatest rushing days in franchise history with a touchdown that gave the Colts the win.

I have to say, these European games are kind of great. The Colts kicked off at 9:30, ended just before 1:00, which is very West Coast to begin with. Then I sat on my ass and watched most of the Giants-Bears game as it began to snow outside. Then I rolled into Lions-Commanders until the in-laws came over for dinner.

Oh, I almost forgot another shitty part of the sports weekend. We were all excited after the Colts traded for Sauce Gardner on Tuesday. Then on Friday came news that defensive MVP DeForest Buckner was going on the IR with a neck injury. A massive loss that was certainly felt up front Sunday. If the Colts can tread water through the next three weeks then get him back healthy, and Jones isn’t indeed turning into a pumpkin, I will have some postseason hopes for this team.

The Pacers lost two more games over the weekend to fall to 1–9, but as they are now doing the low-key, one-year tank, I’m fine with that.

Family/Weather

C hitched a ride with a friend Friday and was home for the weekend. She’s been laid low with the “Frat Flu” that apparently struck most of the IU campus after last weekend’s Halloween festivities. Her roommate was going out of town and she didn’t want to deal with her dorm’s usual weekend nonsense, so came home to get some downtime, meds from momma, sleep in her own bed, and work on some papers in quiet. She was feeling better when I took her back to B-town Sunday evening.

As I mentioned, we got our first snow of the season Sunday. It started as light snow that melted as soon as it hit the ground. By late afternoon Sunday it was sticking. By late Sunday evening, the yard was covered but the roads still clear. I had zero issues driving C back to school. Many rural schools are delayed this morning. CHS is actually delayed, too, but that is for an already scheduled educator event.

It was 70° last Thursday, nearly as warm Friday. This morning the windchill is in the teens. Next weekend? Close to 70° again. Midwest fall weather roller coaster time!

Jinx, but did I jinx IU into blowing a game against Wisconsin or Purdue, or Ohio State to another loss to Michigan? ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 07 Nov 2025 08:39:04 -0400

open.spotify.com/playlist/…

‘’Over Our Heads” - Snocaps Last week’s big music surprise was the new album from Katie and Allison Crutchfield. Rather than resurrect one of their previous bands, they brought in pal MJ Lenderman and longtime Waxahatchee producer Brad Cook to do something completely new. It is a nice blend of what each sister does well. Believe it or not, I think I might prefer the Allison songs a little more. This is one of her best.

“Let Your Hands Go” - Guv Guv used to be called Young Guv. I guess he’s all growned up now? A nice shift from his former power pop sound to this, which has some Kasabian and some very early Madchester elements (Inspiral Carpets, maybe?) to it.

“I’m Your First” - flowerovlove The Sabrina Carpenter Effect? I wouldn’t say this artist is a copy of Carpenter, but there are a lot of common elements.

“Miss” - Florence Road The second track I’ve shared by this Irish band. This one takes a very different path than the first. It takes a minute or so to get going, but once it starts, it cooks.

“Expanding Blue” - GUM “One Thing At A Time” - Gumm I’m not sure I would normally share either of these songs. But two bands with nearly identical names releasing new singles on the same day deserved recognition. Good thing they sound nothing alike or it would be even more confusing.

“PONR” - Preoccupations Yet another band that has just released some tracks that did not make their most recent album. Speaking of Preoccupations, I put in my first serious work on my Favorite Songs of the Year list this week. They might want to order tuxes for the official reveal ceremony next month, as I would wager they will be on the list.

“Minutes To Memories” - John Cougar Mellencamp It’s November, which means it’s time to break out the real fall music, including Mellencamp’s Scarecrow album. So many good songs on it, this might be the best. I love the line in the third verse about him doing things his way and paying a high price.

“The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald” - Gordon Lightfoot “Fellas, it’s been good to know ya.” Fifty years ago this coming Tuesday.

youtu.be/OQjH97VY6…

“Ridiculous Thoughts” - Cranberries I always listen to the first two Cranberries albums this time of year. I discovered their first album in the fall; the second one was released in the fall. And so many of their songs fit the season’s vibe. This is one of my 3–5 favorites of theirs, but it is way too much of a banger to be relegated as just fall music.

Reader's Notebook, 11/6/25

Thu, 06 Nov 2025 16:33:49 -0400

The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins

One of the great parenting gifts I’ve received recently is L re-discovering her love of reading over the past year. She started reading more in the spring while she was rehabbing. When summer rolled around she kept up with it. After she got a Kindle she really took off. She is connected to my Amazon account, so I could see how quickly she was blowing through books, sometimes one per day. Even after classes began in the fall she continued to pour through books. Her AP English instructor has students read on their own 20 minutes each class. While L spends a lot of free time on her devices, I also find her reading regularly. Her pace is a little slower now, but she’s still getting through a book every 7–10 days. I think she’s trying to catch me for total books read this year, so I need to stay on my current pace.

One of her summer reads was The Hunger Games series. She’s asked several times since if I had ever read it. Shockingly I had not. I say shockingly because at some point we owned all the physical books, I believe they were passed down to the girls from one aunt or another. I’m pretty sure M read them; C is more of an audiobook girl, so if she got into the series it was on that format.[1] I guess I was busy reading all my other books and, eventually, we passed our copies on to someone else.

Despite having a very long list of books I’d like to read, I decided to tackle the series over the past couple weeks. At least the original three books to start. Somehow I had only the vaguest idea of what the stories were about - I haven’t seen the movies, either - so was really entering blind.

For the most part I enjoyed them. They are built on a compelling central concept. Suzanne Collins’ world of Panem has that proper dystopian mix of feeling both futuristic and as if the time had turned backwards. She leaves a lot of details of how Panem came to be and how it matches up with the modern United States vague, which I thought was fine. They do read very much like the Young Adult novels they are, often racing through big moments. That is also fine; sometimes less is more and I wish “traditional” novelists would keep that in mind. The core characters are interesting but have clear flaws so they present as authentic teens rather than archetypes. The love triangle between Katniss, Gale, and Peeta did get a little tiresome, but, again, these are books written primarily for teens and that probably connects with them better than men in their 50s. I certainly understand why the books, and then movies, were so popular.

My biggest complaint is that the ending is kind of a dud. After 1100 pages or so I wanted a little more out of the finish. I will say, though, that part of the story was consistent with other moments where Collins took the reader right up to a big moment then skipped past it to show the results rather than process.

L and I haven’t sat down to talk the series through yet. We have a long car ride together in two weeks and maybe we’ll do a full debrief then. She’s read the two companion books, so perhaps she’s waiting for me to get to them before she really unloads on me.

She’s given me a couple other books she’d like me to read. I’ll get to them, but I need to work on my list for a bit.

Or she was listening to the Harry Potter books for the millionth time. ↩

NFL Mid-Season Review

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 12:04:25 -0400

It is time for our monthly overview of the NFL. As with the month one check-in, teams seem committed to confounding and keeping us from making any broad assessments about which are the best.

Before I get to my breakdown, some thoughts about the Colts making, for the first time in years, a move at the trade deadline. And a huge one at that, sending two first round picks and Adonai Mitchell to the Jets for Sauce Gardner.[1]

There were plenty of rumors about the Colts jumping into the market, with the Bengals’ Trey Hendrickson the reach goal and any number of solid if unspectacular DBs the more realistic targets. And then they went out and shocked everyone by landing Gardner, who no one expected to be on the market after signing a contract extension over the summer. Gardner’s play has fallen off over the past two years, but some of that could be simply because of playing for the Jets. He gives the Colts a potential lockdown corner that perfectly fits their defensive scheme. He improves the weakest part of the team. With several injured DBs hopefully working their way back onto the field, that weakness could easily become a strength over the back half of the schedule, which will be tougher than the front half.

The move comes with risk. Maybe Gardner can’t get back to his previous level of play. Maybe Daniel Jones turns into a pumpkin and it doesn’t matter what the defense does. Maybe the Colts are snake-bit by injuries the rest of this year and next, and those two first round picks end up being top 10 selections for the Jets. I do like them making a big move that not only helps this year’s team, but involves a player under contract into the future as well.

Of course, I was excited when the Colts traded for Trent Richardson in 2013 and he ended up being one of the biggest busts in NFL history.

So we’ll see?

(Listening to a podcast this morning and reading a couple articles, a lot of national folks do not like this trade for the Colts. The key is giving up two first round draft picks when the team’s success is tethered to Jones remaining effective and healthy. They could well be looking to draft a QB again in 2027, and the Jets now own that pick. Jones must keep playing well and re-sign with the Colts this offseason and continue to play well over the course of that new contract for this deal to be worth it, regardless of how Gardner plays. In other words, 😬)

The Colts, Broncos, and Patriots are tied for the best record in the league. I don’t think anyone but the biggest homers would suggest those three teams are Super Bowl favorites.

Just behind them are the Bills and Eagles, also with two losses but one fewer win because of bye weeks. I think these remain best bets for the #1 seed in each conference, but each team’s losses have been concerning enough to cause confidence to waiver.

The NFC North is better than I expected it to be, with the four teams currently separated by one win. My preseason Super Bowl champion was Green Bay, based on my expectation they would get better over the course of the season. Well, when they lose they lose really stupidly, and they have a couple major injuries to contend with. Worse, their coach, Matt LeFleur, seems to have lost his courage, consistently calling incredibly safe and boring games. Maybe he doesn’t trust Jordan Love or his offensive line, but it doesn’t seem to be working: they just scored 13 points in a loss to Carolina! Take some risks and unleash your offense, dude!

The Chiefs and Ravens are still trying to climb out of early season holes, both teams getting healthier and more complete each week. There’s basically no margin for error for the Ravens, the Chiefs have a little more room to work with but can’t mess around too much over the next two months no matter what their playoff pedigree is.

So here we are, two months into the season, and there’s not been any obvious separation at the top. Every team that has six or seven wins has at least one really dumb loss. Every team expected to contend has at least one huge injury that is holding them back, and/or costing them a significant player for the rest of the season.

If I made stupid preseason picks, it seems like I should make equally stupid midseason picks. I’ll just pick the playoff teams for now, in no particular order.

AFC

New England Buffalo Indianapolis Denver Kansas City Pittsburgh Baltimore

It seems like the Chargers have too many injuries and too much Charger-ness to hang on to their spot, the Ravens will do their normal win 6–7–8 straight thing, and Pittsburgh will do just enough to hang on to a playoff spot.

NFC

Eagles Packers Buccaneers Rams Lions Seahawks 49ers

I’ll too lazy to pull up all the schedules, so will take a pure guess that the North beats each other up more than the West, thus the Seahawks/Niners get in over Vikings/Bears.

We’ll touch base in four weeks to see how dumb I was on November 5.

Great name! ↩

Tuesday Links

Tue, 04 Nov 2025 15:16:43 -0400

I just found this fantastic profile of American Treasure Katie Crutchfield that came out last spring. I knew she had a twin sister - more on that later this week - but did not know there was a third sister in the family. Turns out that sister’s story is a huge, emotional part of the music Katie has made in recent years. Their relationship made for a powerful section of this profile.

In music, the “Crutchfield sisters” have been a known entity for well over a decade; the New York Times first profiled Katie and Allison together in 2012, and five years later credited them with shaping the sound of the best rock music today. “People only really know about two of us because Katie and I have always worked together,” Allison continues. “But there’s always been three of us, with one of us kind of out of the picture. So to listen to a song like ‘3 Sisters’—it’s hard. But it feeds the part of me that knows, at some point, there will be three of us again.”

Waxahatchee: She Lives for the Sake of the Song

This is an amazing piece of sports journalism. I promise that reading it will improve the overall quality of your life.

Ranking the 117 Best NBA Names of the Quarter Century

Proof we’re not the only country where certain powers-that-be are focused on ginning up fake political controversies in place of talking about real issues and how to solve them.

Australian Prime Minister’s Joy Division T-Shirt Sparks Major Political Controversy

Sad Internet news: Uni-Watch is dead. For a variety of reasons the best source for content about sports uniforms suddenly folded shop last week. I’m not sure how long the site will remain up, so the post explaining why it is going away could be gone by the time you click on the link below.

As tech writer John Gruber noted, Uni-Watch came from that glorious moment in the Internet’s history when you could take about any interest, no matter how esoteric, and find a handful of enthusiast blogs that covered it in great detail. Those sites are fewer-and-fewer as many of them either get scooped up by bigger sites or they pivot to video, podcasting, or whatever.

I’m still delighted when some new interest strikes my fancy, I dig around, and come up with a small site or two run by a single person that helps me to understand it better.

Uni Watch: 1999–2025

Weekend Notes

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 08:30:43 -0400

Not the most exciting weekend we’ve ever had, although there was one, massive event that sucked up a lot of my attention and messed with my sleep schedule.

Halloween

As usual a low-key night at our house. We had maybe 40 total trick or treaters. It’s always weird because we can see tons of kids just a block away, but few of them come to our door because they would have to scamper across a very busy street to get here.

Our favorites were a group of 7–8 10 year old boys who all had the inflatable sumo costumes…and the one little brother who was forced to tag along in his non-matching costume. Then there was the sweetest little girl, probably just 3 or 4, dressed as a princess, who after picking her candy from our bowl took two steps into our entryway and gave S a hug. I was a little disappointed I didn’t get one, too, but S is a lot more approachable than me if you’re barely three feet tall.

I was also impressed by the number of pre-teen girls who complimented us on our porch decorations. Well raised!

L went to a party last week, so spent Halloween night seeing a movie with some of her friends.

HS Football

I kind of forgot Friday was a football night until after we had turned off the porch lights and switched World Series game six on. I quickly checked the Cathedral broadcast and heard the announcers rummaging through the record book, looking up the most points CHS had scored in the state playoffs. I’m not sure if they set a record, but they won 68–0. I guess they got some injured players back? But the opponent was really bad, too.

Now they move on to the sectional title game, where they will face #1 New Palestine, who have won 24 straight games, 47 of their last 51, and haven’t lost at home in five years. It is #1 vs #2, but it’s going to be a very tall task for the Irish to extend their season next week.

College Football

Kind of a boring weekend at the college level.

KU got off to a sloppy and slow start against Oklahoma State, but thankfully got their shit together at halftime and blew the game open. The running backs were healthy-ish, so that was nice, but you still see such a big difference from last year when Devin Neal was there. Hopefully this gets addressed in the offseason.

Five wins with three to play. If the defensive secondary could cover anyone I would hope the Jayhawks could pick off at least one of those games to get bowl eligible. But Arizona and Iowa State both have quarterbacks that can sling the ball around, so we’ll have to hope for a hyper efficient game from the offense and turn those into shootouts where we score last. The season finale against Utah is likely hopeless, as they are just too good.

The Utes knocked off M’s Bearcats in convincing fashion late Saturday. And the Hoosiers just kept rolling along.

Colts

Well, I guess a game like this had to come along at some point, it might as well be at Pittsburgh where the Colts never, ever play well. They had four total turnovers on the season coming into the game; they turned it over six times against the Steelers. The first was a flukey, although totally avoidable, error fielding a punt by Josh Downs. At least one interception was tipped. I kept hearing on podcasts how crap the Pittsburgh D had been this season. For one day at least, they fixed all their issues. Lots of pressure, receivers couldn’t get open, and they mostly kept Jonathan Taylor contained.

Hopefully the Colts got all the bad vibes out of the way and can get back on track in Berlin next week.

World Series

HOLY SHIT!!! What was already an entertaining series achieved legendary status with its epic game seven Saturday night. I had no real care which team won - more on that in a moment - but I was literally yelling at my TV in delight multiple times as game seven went off the rails.

First off, what a fantastic crowd in Toronto! As someone who endured a 30 year gap between World Series wins by my team, I appreciated the emotions pouring out of Blue Jays fans as they got closer and closer to ending their title drought.

Until Miguel Rojas decided to fuck all that up by yanking a hanging, 3–2 slider over the left field wall with one out in the ninth. Miguel Rojas! Or, as Canadians will now call him forever, Miguel Fucking Rojas. The Blue Jays had a 91% win probability before he connected.

Rojas wasn’t done, though. With the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, he fielded a ball on a bad hop, somehow managed to not fall down, and fired a throw to home that just beat the potential winning run. Naturally, and correctly, it went to a replay review and OH SHIT, Will Smith’s foot might have come off the plate!!!! We were about to get the absolute nightmare scenario for sports, a championship decided because a replay review overturned a call on the field. Fortunately for everyone but Blue Jays fans, it appeared that Smith got his toe back down just in time and we avoided that nonsense. Besides, Toronto still had the bases loaded. Which led to one of the craziest plays you will ever see, Dodger centerfielder Andy Pages wiping out teammate Kiké Hernández to haul in a deep shot that would have won the game had it fallen.

On to extras innings!

In the top of the 10th the Dodgers loaded the bases with one out…and could not score. A 1–2–3 inning by the Blue Jays set up professional ballplayer Smith to declare he only wanted to catch one more inning by crushing a two-out homer that gave the Dodgers the lead.

The Blue Jays got two on with one out before a double play ended things, making the Dodgers the first team to repeat since the turn-of-the-millennium Yankees.

What a freaking game! And I didn’t even mention Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto coming in and pitching 2.2 innings and getting the win…one night after throwing 96 pitches and getting the win that evened the Series at three games each. After throwing a complete game earlier in the series. Shohei Ohtani does so many things that we label as unbelievable, but his teammate and countryman one-upped him Saturday night (and Sunday morning).

That was one of the wildest sporting events I have ever watched. I was so wound up afterward that I couldn’t sleep. I was still buzzing, tossing, and turning as the clock briefly hit 2:00 then fell back to 1:00. Not the first time a World Series game has caused me to miss my extra hour of sleep.

I got the feeling that almost all my friends but one or two were pulling for the Blue Jays. I get all the Dodgers hate; it is ridiculous how much money they have spent over the past couple years assembling their roster. Call me a hypocrite, but I’ve never been able to muster up the same hate for them I’ve always had for the Yankees. The Yankees out-spent everyone when there were no financial ramifications for doing so. The Dodgers pay a hefty premium for all their spending. And somehow they still manage to develop young prospects within their system. By one ranking, they had the fourth-best collection of minor league prospects this summer. And I’ve always admired their progressive view of talent. They were one of the first franchises to go after players from Latin America hard. They’ve developed a bit of a pipeline to Japan. Oh, and waaaay back they kind of broke the color barrier.

As fun and (mostly) likable as this Blue Jays team was, and as terrific as their fans were, I have this weird, strong dislike of the franchise because of the two ALCSes the Royals have played them in. Which is strange because the Royals won both times. That 2015 team, especially, had some real dicks on it, and for some reason I hold that against their current roster.

That is not to say I was pulling hard for the Dodgers. I just wasn’t rooting against them like most non-LA people were.

Now to start hoping the Royals can find a bat or two over the summer and get back to the postseason themselves next October.

October Media

Sun, 02 Nov 2025 22:33:20 -0400

Another month in which, both by choice and by chance, I didn’t watch a ton of TV. Also remember I’m stripping out a lot of the trivial stuff I glance at on YouTube (although I’ve cut a lot of that, too) and just sharing the substantial or impactful things I have watched/listened to.

Harvesting Tequila, Surfing Secret Coves & Tasting Legendary Mexican Flavors | DIRT Guadalajara Typically terrific stuff from the DIRT crew.

Wet Leg’s Rhian Teasdale Gets Candid About Band’s Humble Beginnings Wonderful.

Halloween Baking Championship, season 11 Well this was a wild ride. It began with a couple extremely annoying contestants - one of which might be the most annoying to ever appear on the show - and some tweaks to the show’s format that I did not like. Throughout the season there was a lot of stuff that seemed even more edited to produce drama than in the past. And while this show is often a step down in ability from the Holiday Baking Championship, no one in this year’s group of contestants was awe-inspiring.

But I’m a sucker for sitting and watching these mindlessly, so by the end I was resigned to it being fine. And then the winner was declared and it seemed they were chosen more for their sob story than their bakes. I made the mistake of reading some message boards to see how other viewers felt and, for the most part, folks were not happy with this season, the winner, or choices the production team made.

I try not to be influenced too much by those, but this season was definitely less enjoyable than ones from the past. But I’m old and a creature of habit so I’ll probably watch again next year.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 08:15:34 -0400

open.spotify.com/playlist/…

“Halloweenhead” - Ryan Adams When Halloween falls on a Friday, I kind of have to play this.

“Anywhere” - Ratboys Second pre-release banger from the next Ratboys album, which has officially been given a February release date.

“Paint Me A Picture” - Magdalena Bay MB just released two pretty good singles, I slightly prefer this sultry one.

“Doldrum Days” - Miki Berenyi Trio Berenyi still makes music that has strong ties to her days in Lush, this one a perfect match of title and tone.

“I Don’t Have The Heart” - Sharp Pins We heard from these cats earlier this year. Another fine piece of retro rock that sounds a little like very early Beatles music.

“Crashing Heights” - Sunflower Bean As has happened a few times over the past month or so, this is a new track added to a deluxe version of an album that came out earlier in the year. Not sure why this wasn’t on the original version of Mortal Primetime.

“Just Be Friends” - SASAMI & Soccer Mommy After appearing on last year’s Favorite Songs list, SASAMI returns with this gorgeous, country-tinged track. She said she listened to a lot of country while recording her latest album, and was impressed by how horny the genre is. Who knew?

“Dracula” - Tame Impala Obligatory.

[embed]youtu.be/dju4e74Dq…

“Tom Sawyer” Reimagined As A Funk Song Oh man, this is a ton of fun! My only complaint is it looses the big drums that are the hallmark of the original.

Dumb Or Not

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 12:38:49 -0400

A week into the NBA season and I’ve already listened to two podcasts and read one article that tries to decide if early developments are legit or not. Based on 2–4 games. Because that’s the world we live in. I thought I would take that concept a different direction and work through several subjects to determine if they are dumb or not.

Darryn Peterson Not Playing Because Of “Cramps and Soreness”

Oh boy. Just four days after destroying Louisville for 20 minutes then basically sitting out the second half, KU’s best player did not dress for the exhibition game against Fort Hays State.[1] Since it’s 2025, there were immediate conspiracy theories on even the most level headed of platforms.

I’m going to hope it was just a combination of the “cramps and soreness” and perhaps an illness that kept Peterson from playing and not some bigger injury that is being hidden or any of the other ideas that got thrown around. Not dumb but has potential to become dumb.

ESPN+’s Broadcast Quality

The KU game was on ESPN+, which always worries me. You never know what’s going to go wrong. Tuesday it was audio that was cutting out at various parts of the game, and often not perfectly synched up with the video. Par for the course, but indeed Dumb.

NCAA Allows Players and Coaches to Bet on Professional Sports

Oh good Lord, this organization needs to be burned to the ground. The Dumbest

Ohio State Whining About Having to Play at Noon So Often

Oh, boo hoo, the defending national champs and perennial contenders are claiming they have a recruiting disadvantage since they have so many noon Eastern games. They say it’s hard to get recruits into town who aren’t from the Midwest since these kids are usually playing on Friday nights. I feel real, real bad for the Buckeyes, how will they ever stack their roster three-deep with NFL players at every position? <Looks at current recruiting rankings, sees OSU at #4. Shakes fist.> Pretty damn dumb

Oh, and this was a month after Ohio State was one of the few schools to argue against limiting the transfer portal window, claiming that teams like them that make the college football playoff will not have the same opportunity to recruit transfers. Again, this is a school that signs a top five high school class almost every year. If they know they need a quarterback or running back or whatever, I think they’re going to find a way to talk to a kid even if they’re preparing to play Georgia. And, to be honest, schools who are NOT in the CFP deserve some kind of advantage in recruiting. Take your massive payout and opportunity to play for a national title while everyone else gets to fight over transfers. “They’re Just Trolling Us Now, Right?” Dumb

Pacers Injuries

The Pacers lost Andrew Nembhard on opening night. He remains out for an undetermined time. Two games later Bennedict Mathurin hurt his foot and is week-to-week. Obi Toppin then hurt his hamstring and is out at least a month. Bench players Peter Taelon and Kam Jones are on the injured list. Johnny Furphy has only played a few emergency minutes as he works through a foot injury. TJ McConnell won’t play his first game until sometime in November. Things got so bleak the Pacers actually gave Mac McClung a contract this week. Meanwhile they are now 0–4 after losing to Dallas by two last night. This one is Annoyingly Dumb but since it may put them deep into the lottery, could turn out to be Not Dumb At All. We’ll see in May when they learn their draft position.

MLB Replay

Actually all sports replay reviews.

We got home from L’s scrimmage last night and I turned on the World Series and immediately saw back-to-back replay reviews. Each of bang-bang plays involving the same baserunner. We don’t know what the replay officials were looking at, but Fox rolled each in super slow motion, freezing at key frames to determine if the runner was safe or out. The reviews stopped play for roughly five minutes.

I’ve ranted about this before, but if you have to do something the human eye can’t do to make a final call, we’ve gone too far. We are too worried about a runner coming an eighth of an inch off the bag, a football moving half an inch when a player hits the ground, etc. All things we can only see because of super HD cameras and zoom lenses and other technology. Replay review should be designed to overcome clear mistakes, not these tiny imperfections that, if we had the ability at the time, would likely overturn countless famous moments in sports history. Very Dumb

Weather

We went straight from 80° every day to 50°, which is a little annoying but not necessarily dumb. Fall is supposed to be chilly. I was reading a long-term forecast last night that suggested after a warm up next week, we could go straight to winter, with temps in the 30s and chances for snow. Why can’t we just have six weeks where the temps slowly transition from 80s to 70s to 60s to 50s to 40s instead of these abrupt swings? Fucking Dumb.

Big deceased parent grudge match as my mom and dad were FHSU alums. ↩

Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 120

Wed, 29 Oct 2025 10:43:38 -0400

Chart Week: November 2, 1985 Song: “Lovin’ Every Minute Of It” - Loverboy Chart Position: #9, 11th week on the chart. This was its peak.

First off, shout out to my brother-in-music E$ for messaging me when he heard this song on an old AT40 while driving through Iowa recently. Astute listeners may recall that I heard my first throw-back countdown show on a drive through Iowa many years ago.

Loverboy was one of my favorite bands in the early 1980s. Mostly because they were another entry point to rock music opened by my uncle. In fact, that combination of band and relative was part of one of the greatest weekends of my childhood.

In March, 1982, I spent two days hanging with my uncle and his roommate at Oliver Hall on the KU campus for the dorm’s Little Brother/Little Sister weekend.[1]

I don’t remember too many details of that visit. There was an epic pickup basketball game where the college guys took it easy on me and made me look really good in front of their girlfriends. I was shocked none of the 19–20 year old ladies watching asked for my number. I had my first slices of Pyramid Pizza. I toured campus and bought a t-shirt and stickers at the KU Bookstore. Good, eleven-year-old kid stuff.

And we listened to a lot of Loverboy. My uncle had the both of the group’s albums, Loverboy and Get Lucky, and they were in the highest of rotation that weekend. Vinyl on his dorm-room stereo, tape in his Monte Carlo as we cruised around town. I was quickly enthralled by their blend of rock guitars and pop synthesizers. My favorite tune of that weekend wasn’t one of their big hits, but rather “The Kid Is Hot Tonight,” which had not cracked the Top 40 in the US. “Where will he be tomorrow?” is a question we should always ask of the newest, hottest fads. By the time I went back home on Sunday, I was exhausted, knew I wanted to go to KU, and a confirmed Loverboy fan.

Loverboy had a handful of solid songs and one semi-classic that’s played around 5:00 every Friday all over the world. But this big ol’ stomper of a record was their most successful single.[2] However, in music biz cliché, it nearly did not happen.

The band was wrapping work on their fifth studio album in early 1985. Columbia Records listened to the results and told them they needed one more track, something that would be a sure radio hit.[3]

The guys were burned out after months of studio work and not in the frame of mind to write another tune. They reached out to fellow Canadian Mutt Lange, who was fresh off turning Def Leppard into one of the biggest acts in the world. Lange said he had an idea that might fit their needs. But he was working in London, Loverboy was in Canada, and they could not arrange time together in a studio. A phone call was arranged, on which Lange played the song that became “Lovin’ Every Minute Of It” a couple times.

When they hung up, the band raced to their instruments and tried to recreate what they had heard. This may not seem like a big deal today, but in the Eighties long distance calls were often scratchy and hard to hear. Throw in a trans-Atlantic connection and it’s amazing the band retained any of Lange’s concepts. Lead singer Mike Reno has said while Lange gets the credit for providing the inspiration, the final product was as much their creation as his.

What set Loverboy apart during their run was their blend of straight-up rock with a hint of New Wave. For some reason they weren’t derided by the Young Dumbass demographic for this combination. The older dudes on my school bus generally liked Loverboy where they would dismiss other, similar acts. I always wondered if they escaped mockery because they were Canadian.

On “Lovin’ Every Minute Of It” they dialed the New Wave way back. You still hear keyboards, but the guitar is much more forward, which turned it into a swaggering brute of a track. It perfectly captured the hedonistic environment rock bands lived in just before the explosion of AIDS and the realization that maybe doing a lot of drugs wasn’t the path to a long career. It was all about having a good time, in tone and words.

Ahhh those lyrics… In a decade in which singing about sex became much less subtle, not many songs were as overt as “Lovin’ Every Minute Of It.” The naked lust in the words is almost cartoonish, like a 13-year-old wrote them, not a bunch of rockers nearing 30 who, you would assume, had been through a relationship or two. They are so over-the-top that they hit as hilarious rather than off-putting.

Put it all together and this was a record made to be played in strip clubs.

“Lovin’ Every Minute Of It” can come across as silly, excessive, and even boorish. However, it is just a big, horny Golden Retriever of a song. It is stupid and crashes into things making messes all over the place. It will probably fuck anything that moves. But in the end, it’s just a lot of harmless fun. Too much fun to judge harshly. If I owned a Monte Carlo, I would absolutely pop this cassette tape in and turn it way up.[4] Whoa, oh, whoa, whoa it’s an 8/10.

youtu.be/bohVV_KlS…

Despite being a Little Nephew, I still qualified. ↩
Their debut single, “Turn Me Loose,” was their biggest hit back in Canada, peaking at #7 to #17 for “Lovin’ Every Minute Of It.” ↩
Kind of like Bruce Springsteen’s label telling him Born In The USA needed a hit single, which led him to write “Dancing In The Dark.” ↩
I’m old now, so I wouldn’t turn it up too loud if I wanted to be able to hear later. ↩

Weekend Notes

Mon, 27 Oct 2025 08:37:18 -0400

What a weekend. S and I were actually social three days in a row! That’s a record or something. Thus I’ll break it down a little differently than normal.

Getting Out Of The House

Friday we went to a fund raiser some friends were hosting for a lady who is running for secretary of state here in Indiana next year. On our way over we were wondering if we would know anyone else there. We were pleasantly surprised to see some old St P’s friends as soon as we walked in. We figured the wife had similar views to ours based on some of her Facebook posts and should have known the husband was down, too, based on the industry he works in. Still a fun little surprise for us all. Later some other friends walked in and really blew our minds. Afterwards S and I decided the husband of that duo may have just been along for the ride, but the wife was super into the cause.

I’m not going to get into the details of the event much. This candidate seems promising, but there are so many impediments to her even getting her party’s nomination that I fear the tremendous amount of work she’s committed to over the next year will be for naught. Props to her for stepping up and making the effort to try to change the course of our state.

Saturday was the annual Halloween party one of S’s sisters and her husband host, always a good time. We watched their nine-year-old for the afternoon so they could focus on getting ready. It was a cool, cloudy night, so perfect for eating chili and standing around a fire. As we realized a few years back, having older kids means we can sneak out just when all the little kids start crashing from too much sugar and running around and screaming. L did none of those things.

Then Sunday we went to lunch with some good friends at a new (to all of us) restaurant. It was good to catch up and the meal was fine.

After we got home we spent the rest of the afternoon packing all the deck and pool furniture into the pool house for the winter. Then we did some final reorganizing of our basement. I believe I mentioned a couple weeks back that we had been waiting on a quote to turn part of our unfinished area into a home gym. That quote came in, we accepted it, and we are hoping to get started in the next week-to–10 days. Thus we needed to complete the clean up and consolidation project we had been doing down there in preparation. Now hopefully the project starts when it is supposed to.

KU Hoops

While we were at the event Friday, KU was playing an exhibition game two hours south in Louisville. KU looked bad in exhibition games the last two years as preseason #1, so I wasn’t too broken up about missing this one. Then I got a text saying Darryn Peterson had scored 24 points in the first half. Holy crap! And KU was up on the #11 Cardinals by double digits. Since it was an exhibition I couldn’t find a running score anywhere online. By the time we got home the game was in the final two minutes and KU was effortlessly breaking UL’s press and then hitting free throws after getting fouled to close out a comfortable win. Apparently DP barely played in the second half because he cramped up? And other than him, no one really shot the ball well? When I watched I did see Bryson Tiller and that dude seems super athletic and understands how to rebound. Color me cautiously optimistic for the coming year.

KU Football

Rats.

Not sure why I got my hopes up. Although to be fair to me, I didn’t really think KU would beat Kansas State. But when I saw they were betting favorites I wondered if that crappy start to K-State’s season was lingering. When KU forced a fumble on the opening kickoff and scored five plays later, I was feeling pretty good about things.

Those good feelings went away quickly. The KU touchdown probably should have been reversed on review, but thankfully there wasn’t a conclusive camera angle showing that Jalon Daniels was fumbling before he broke the goal line. Then KSU quickly answered and took over the game. I turned it off at the end of the third quarter tired of seeing a team that was seemingly unprepared despite having a week off, tired of Daniels making terrible decisions and awful turnovers.

This team can still make a bowl game, and I think even a crappy one would do a lot for the health of the program going forward. The offensive line is too inconsistent, which forces Daniels to scramble too much, which leads to those bad decisions, plus he’s too physically limited to do what he could do three years ago. The team lacks a true #1 running back, the receivers are also inconsistent, and the defense too young and too thin to control a game.

I remember when I used to say I just wanted KU to be mediocre with the occasional good year sprinkled in. So I remind myself that things could be worse. A lot of years at this point in the calendar KU was 1–7 or 0–8, not 4–4.

At least IU and UC won again, so the rest of the family is enjoying football season where I’m wondering when the basketball team plays again.

Colts

I missed much of the Colts game while we were doing our work outside and in the basement. Every time I glanced at the TV, Jonathan Taylor was galloping into the end zone again. That guy is good. 7–1 and the next two opponents are terrible on defense (Steelers) and a general mess (Falcons).

Pacers

The Pacers opened their gap year with a bang, taking the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder to double overtime before losing. Andrew Nembhard suffered a shoulder injury in the first half, leaving the Pacers without a true point guard for most of the game. And Bennedict Mathurin fouled out in the first overtime. Not sure how they made the game so competitive.

After Sunday night’s loss to the T-Wolves, the Pacers are 0–3. Nembhard is out indefinitely, Mathurin missed Sunday’s game with an injury, and Obi Toppin had to leave Sunday’s game early with his own injury. Of the 18 players under contract, only nine were available at the end of their game in Minnesota. And they still only lost by four.

Less than a week in they are handling this season perfectly. Lose a lot, get into the lottery and hope you can grab one of the three franchise players at the top of next year’s draft, then welcome Tyrese Haliburton back next year and take off.

Other Stuff

Brian Kelly gets $54 million because LSU fans are mad they are mediocre? Being either a Fortune 500 CEO or big time coach are the only jobs in the world where you can utterly fail and get paid massive amounts of money to go away. I wonder if all the politicians, talking heads, and billionaires who have been screaming about kids getting paid to play college sports will say a word about Kelly failing at his mission and being rewarded for it.

I’m on quite the hot streak with my baseball viewing. Each time I turn a game on, something big happens. I tuned in right as Shohei Ohtani was taking over the NLCS. I literally turned the TV on 30 seconds before George Springer’s home run gave the Blue Jays the lead in game seven of the ALCS. Friday I flipped to game one of the World Series in time to see the Blue Jays’ nine-run inning that busted that game open. And Saturday I was going back-and-forth between games all evening, but landed on baseball just as the Dodgers hit two home runs to take control of that game.

I think Dodgers and Blue Jays fans should be making it worth my while to tune in when their team comes to the plate as the series moves forward.

Friday night was a bye week for 6A and 5A in the Indiana state football tournament, so Cathedral will start the postseason this coming Friday.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 24 Oct 2025 08:18:23 -0400

open.spotify.com/playlist/…

“Stay In You Lane” - Courtney Barnett Our Aussie queen is back!

“Talk To You” - Sam Fender featuring Elton John Last week Fender won the Mercury Prize for best album from the UK or Ireland. The next day he announced a deluxe version of People Watching that will come out in December. Good timing! This song features Elton John on piano. On the credits I can find, the rest of the backing band is listed as Sam’s usual crew, but it sure sounds a lot like The War on Drugs.

“Back Of My Hand” - The Belair Lip Bombs Latest track from the Jack White-approved Aussies.

“Holy Roller” - The Format I can’t figure out if I actually remember The Format from their early ‘00s run, or just recognize Nate Reuss’ voice from his next band, fun. Weird because I remember the name The Format but can’t place any of their songs, so probably the second? The band’s first album in nearly 20 years was produced by Brendan O’Brien, famous for his long work with Pearl Jam, and features O’Brien on bass and brief Pearl Jam drummer Matt Chamberlain.

“Need” - SPRINTS Their standard ass-kicker.

“I Want You” - Debbii Dawson From need you to want you… I’ve really enjoyed how each of Dawson’s songs have quite different sounds. The rare straight pop artist I can get onboard with these days.

“Illegal Hit” - Yttling Hit This band is a project of Björn Yttling, core member of Peter Björn and John. YH’s first album came out in 2007, this from their new, second album. That’s quite a gap. And quite the stylistic swing from his other band.

“Atlantic City (Electric Version)” - Bruce Springsteen The fat, expanded edition of Nebraska is out today. “Atlantic City” is the only song from the original I ever liked very much, so it was the first song I went to check out this morning. A definite change in tone with the full band, taking a step towards the Born in the USA sound without getting all the way there. I still prefer the haunting spareness of the original, but nothing wrong with this one.

youtu.be/Ofrqm6-LC…

“Blue Sky Mine” - Midnight Oil Perhaps the Springsteens of the Australian rock scene? Midnight Oil always sang about something, often about how the government and corporations were stomping on the rights of individuals, mostly the Aboriginal Australians and working class immigrants. Amazing that they had as much pop success as they did given the material they were covering.

This, by one measure, was their biggest American hit. It topped both the Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts in 1990. Their next single, “Forgotten Years,” also topped the Modern Rock chart. However, neither peaked as high as on the pop chart as the song that made their name in the States, 1987’s #17 “Beds Are Burning.” I would put “Beds” as their fourth or fifth or even sixth best song, but that’s the story of pop music, right? The best songs aren’t always the biggest hits. Nothing’s as precious as a hole in the ground…

[embed]youtu.be/XZVpR3Pk-…

“Tainted Love” - Soft Cell

BREAKING NEWS…moments after posting this I read the news that Dave Ball, the more musical half of the legendary band Soft Cell, passed away on Wednesday. “Tainted Love” deserves its own post at some point, so I won’t dive too deep into it now. Certainly one of the most timeless and recognizable tracks of its era, or any era really. This is the current official video for the song, but it bugs me a bit that it’s clearly been remastered and sounds a little too shiny for what started as an obscure, underground track from a niche group in 1981.

Reader's Notebook, 10/23/25

Thu, 23 Oct 2025 10:14:55 -0400

Just one book in this entry, as I’ve begun a trilogy that might take a week or so and don’t want to forget about this one in the interim.

The House Across The Lake - Riley Sager I read a couple of Sager’s thrillers last October, and they had a nice dose of spookiness that butted up against the supernatural without being too weird. Most of his books were already claimed at the library and this was the one that remained, so download it I did. I was not disappointed, although it did have a crack or two that bugged me a bit.

In this book Casey Fletcher, an actress whose life fell apart after her husband’s death, is holed up in her family’s Vermont lake house, ostensibly to sober up. Instead, she spends her days drinking and using the high-powered binoculars her husband left behind to look around. One day she sees a swimmer struggling in the center of the lake, so races her boat out to save a woman just before she sunk under the water for the last time.

Turns out that woman is a new neighbor, a retired supermodel who is married to a tech bro. Fletcher and the model strike up a quick friendship, although Fletcher notes that the model and her husband seem to have a strained marriage. She takes to staring into their house across the lake with the binoculars and sees strange things. Arguments. The wife sneaking through the house to look through her husband’s laptop. An actual physical confrontation. Then one day the wife is gone and the husband’s explanation does not add up.

Fletcher’s efforts to uncover the truth are a pretty standard, and entertaining, thriller. Sager hinted at some supernatural elements early but those got pushed aside rather quickly. The final quarter of the book brings those elements back in with a vengeance. So much so that I’m not sure if they worked. Or at least I wondered if I should go back and read the first couple chapters again to see if they jibed with how the book began.[1] Whether they totally align or not, they allow Sager to bring in a massive twist that is a true “Oh shit!” moment, which leads to some solid swings in plot over the last 50 pages.

Mechanics aside, it works, especially when you read it quickly in the spookiest time of the year. I’m not sure I buy into everything Sager did to get there, but the story itself was fun enough that I didn’t care too much about whether the logic totally clicked into place.

I did not do this. ↩

On 30(-ish) Years Online

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 08:44:52 -0400

The wonderful piece I’m linking to below reminds me that I missed a golden opportunity this time last year when I failed to post a retrospective on my 30th anniversary of first getting online. Sadly, for some reason, it whizzed by without me realizing the significance of the moment. Which is a damn shame because you know I would have cooked up something really good to honor it.

So let’s do it for year 31! Well, a pared-down version, I guess.

My life online started sometime in September, 1994, after one of my roommates brought home a Mac Performa[1] he claimed was for his architecture classwork. He got a couple games that were typical of the era: not every good but useful for wasting time. We explored Apple’s online community, eWorld, a bit, but quickly lost interest. He let me install America Online and soon I was using the computer more than him.[2]

It took me a week or two of stumbling around to find message boards that matched my interests. Soon I was talking KU football with Jayhawks all over the country.[3] One fateful afternoon I ran upstairs and virtually screamed at Michigan fans after one of the greatest plays in college football history on a general college football board. When the college hoops season began, I learned how to battle fans from other schools, arguing about recruiting and games.[4] Thanks to the Italian soccer board, I was able to fall in love with Serie A after the Italian national team had captured my heart during the World Cup earlier that year. When Vitalogy was released later that fall, I dissected it with other Pearl Jam fans. And, of course, I was pestering my friends who had begun to scatter around the country to sign up for email so I could send them daily messages.

There’s no doubting what a massive impact discovering the internet had on my life. It opened up opportunities for an introvert like me to connect with people who had the same interests, or in some cases totally opposite interests, all over the world. No longer did I have to hope the library had outdated books about topics that caught my fancy. Now I could find dozens, eventually hundreds, of sources that were updated with the latest information in the sphere. I had always been a serial hobbyist. Quick and easy access to like minded folks allowed me to bounce around to even more topics that momentarily piqued my interest. There were probably dozens of very niche topics that I was a super expert on for a week to 10 days and then slipped from my mind forever when the next bright, shiny object popped up.

Being online then was so primitive in actual experience. It was almost exclusively a text-based journey, any graphics were very basic and loaded incredibly slowly. If you wanted to listen to music while you surfed, you better have a stereo or radio nearby, because you sure as hell couldn’t stream songs.

I think that simple structure was actually a good thing. You had to engage your imagination to flesh out ideas. The sitting and waiting while data loaded on your screen, line-by-line sometimes taking well over a minute, gave you time to anticipate and predict what was to come. Sometimes your guesses were quite wrong, which added drama to the delays. Like all early technological developments, you were entranced by the possibilities and potential if slightly letdown by the reality of what the Internet had to offer. Akin to being a kid on Christmas Eve without the payoff of Christmas morning.

In time the Internet got faster and more complex, and for a long time, better. I’m not sure exactly when the true zenith of the Internet was. The late Nineties, when music sharing was rampant and DSL/cable lines took downloading to a whole other level? The early 2000s, when blogs became a thing and it seemed like there were millions of cool people writing about and linking to other cool things? The Web 2.0 era, when things started to look truly amazing and sites like YouTube and Twitter changed how we interacted with media and people? Some might even say despite all the issues with the Internet today, from the endless ads to the gatekeeping by a handful of companies to governments telling us what we can and can not view to the general toxicity of any forum where people can talk about and to each other, the instant access to high quality media on nearly any device balances all of that out.

I would never want to go back to the Internet of 1994. It was slow and basic and, honestly, kind of boring. But like every new idea that takes hold, it had a magic to it that has disappeared as the technology it was built upon raced forward.

I took the easy route, using AOL as my (heavily restricted) portal to the Internet. Others, like the author of this piece, cobbled together the many tools needed to get online on their own. I switched to a private ISP in 1996, and by then you did not have to do the endless configuring that geeks had to do just a few years earlier. Naturally I dove in and learned how to tinker with this setting or that to customize my experience. But I never had to do that early trial-and-error just to get on. AOL was really a game-changer in opening the Internet to the average, non-technical person.

Compare all that to today, where, yes, you do need a handful of different applications to browse and check email and listen to music, etc., but you basically sign into your Google and/or Apple accounts and never worry about the settings again.

My first months in cyberspace

Likely something in the Quadra 63x line if you care about such details. ↩
Partially because he realized he got more work done at studio on campus and would spend long hours there working, leaving the Mac free for me to use. Might my life be dramatically different if I hadn’t been left, unsupervised, for hours and not gotten addicted to the Internet so quickly? ↩
I’m still in touch with several of those folks on a private Facebook group after decades of sharing a private Listserv. ↩
Oddly back then on the college basketball boards, KU and UCLA fans were the archest of enemies. ↩

Weekend Notes

Mon, 20 Oct 2025 07:42:14 -0400

A very busy weekend centered on the entire family getting together to watch football. Or at least prepare to watch football.

Friday

M came home Friday afternoon, so we got to hang with her for the second time in two weeks. We sat around catching up while listening to Cathedral’s regular season finale against 6A #10 Warren Central. To complicate matters the Irish were again missing seven starters, including their quarterback. So a sophomore would be getting his first ever varsity start. I figured the running back would get a lot of carries.

Sometimes I know stuff! CHS indeed ran the ball a lot. They had leads of 14–0 and 21–14 before Warren tied things up late in the third quarter. CHS just gave the ball to their RB over-and-over until he finally scored the winning touchdown. He went for 248 yards and three TDs on the night.

The Irish finish the regular season at 5–3, much better than I thought they would be when the calendar turned to September. Now they get a week off before what should be an easy opener to the state tournament.

After football ended all the ladies filtered out of the room. I haven’t watched much of the baseball playoffs, but I turned the NLCS on just in time to see Shohei Ohtani crush a ball that went 469 feet. Turned out he had led the game off with a homer as well. I kept watching as he mowed down the Brewers on the mound. Just for fun Shohei hit another home run as the Dodgers swept the poor Brewers out of the playoffs.

Milwaukee my sentimental pick in the NL this year, but you can’t argue with one of the greatest, if not the greatest, individual performance in playoff history. Plenty of hitters have hit three home runs in a postseason game. Plenty of pitchers have struck out 10 batters in an October game. No one has ever done both. Shohei is just ridiculous.

Saturday

After a couple weeks of prep, IU homecoming was finally here. M and L took off a little after 10 to pick up one of L’s friends then head to Bloomington ahead of us. S and I got on the road about 10:45 and pulled into our primo tailgating spot right at noon. We had her uncle’s tickets, which included a parking pass directly outside the stadium entrance. We set things up and waited for the kids and friends to filter in. M had to go through a whole process to park her car somewhere that it wouldn’t get towed then make it back to her friend she was spending the night with before making it to the stadium.

We got to see a lot of C’s friends. M made a lap of the parking lot with one of her high school buddies and they ran into tons of friends. Even L and her friend had CHS pals swing by. Our little corner of the parking lot was teeming with Indianapolis Catholics. You just can’t get away from them!

Per C’s request, I made a massive vat of chili. The only problem was that, while we were tailgating, it was 80° and breezy, the final day of a very warm, extended summer. That didn’t stop me from downing some of my famous chili, but not as many as our guests partook as we had hoped. We brought a lot home.

This was our first full-on IU tailgating experience, and S has been prepping for weeks. We even bought a fancy battery that would power our two Crock Pots - one with the chili, the other with Buffalo Chicken Dip - for a couple hours. We may have overestimated on food and drinks, but you’d hate to run out, right?

OK, the dumbest thing we did was forget to buy ice on the way down. So I had to walk a few blocks to a little convenience store and grab a bag that I lugged back. I was alternately sweating from the walk and freezing from the parts of my body I had wedge the bag against.

All week we had been watching the forecast carefully. Some point over weekend was going to be the moment when two big fronts brought in storms and wind that blew the heat away and let the autumn chill race in behind them. Earlier in the week it looked like things might be dicey all day. By Friday it seemed like the weather would hold off until late afternoon.

As we were winding down the tailgate and getting ready to head into the stadium, the sky kept getting darker and darker. I checked the radar and there were big storms creeping in from Illinois. But as the crowd packed into the stadium, the cell network basically froze and I couldn’t get updates. Did we have an hour or three? I couldn’t tell.

We made it to our seats midway through the first quarter, just as IU took the lead. Unlike the game against Michigan State we went to four years ago, this time there were no sections of Spartan green scattered through the crowd. The stadium was absolutely packed and nearly everyone was wearing Cream and Crimson.[1] This was my fourth trip to an IU game. As weird as their stadium is in some ways, when it is completely filled it is a really good environment. It is compact, completely closed in, and you are close to the field. It was quite loud.

Just before halftime the sky got even more ominous. S and the girls were there more for the tailgating than the football, so when the game hit the two minute warning, we started to hustle out. So did at least a third of the stadium. By the time we made it out of the concourse, just as IU was scoring, the skies opened up. We said goodbye to M, who was staying in town for the night, piled C and a couple of her friends in with us, and went to her dorm just as the downpour began. We unloaded some leftovers into her fridge, she showed L her room, and we hung out while the worst of the rain passed.

It will normally take about 10 minutes to get from her dorm back onto I–69. Between the rain and so many people leaving the game, it took us a full 45 minutes. And then we drove home in persistent rain, luckily missing the worst of the storms. The game was delayed briefly, but by the time we got home it had just ended, and I caught the Peacock interview with Curt Cignetti.

My assertion that he’s a weirdo was confirmed at the game. We were behind the IU bench and I kept looking for him. Finally I found him. IU had the ball at their own 20. He was standing by himself, 50 yards upfield. What kind of coach does that? As a friend who knew of Cignetti years before me said, “He’s different.”

So a really fun day in B-town. It was a full-family event and until the rain hit, almost a complete success. On the way home I said I think my preference for sports would be to either tailgate or go to the game, not both. Like go to one game and go all out in the parking lot, with tons of food and drink, a big spread for people to roll through, and then listen to the game while packing up and head home before the crowd, then another game show up late, maybe have a drink and snack at someone else’s gathering, then go inside and watch the game.

I must be getting old.

Sunday

What a difference 18 hours makes. I was sweating Saturday afternoon. Sunday morning the windchill was 37°. Our yard was covered in leaves that had blown off in the storms. Our pool cover had as much water on it as it’s had in months, taking nearly two hours for the pump to clear it. Fall has arrived!

We mostly had a lazy day. Two nephews came over and S and I assisted with their homework while their mom got some stuff done. It was pretty humbling that the nine-year-old’s Spanish homework is beyond what I could decipher with my once-decent Spanish. He does go to a Spanish immersion school, but good grief, he’s nine. I told him I could only figure out a few words and he needed to ask mamacita for help later.

M and C had lunch together in B-town before M went back to Cincinnati.

The Colts were back in LA, site of their only loss of the season a few weeks back, this time to play the Chargers. And they pretty much beat that ass. The offense was fully locked in again. The depleted defense was solid until they began to wear down a bit in the second half. Even then, they came up with a huge fourth down stop to ice the game.

The Chargers might be the most injured, least fortunate team in the league, so I’m still not sure how good a win this was. Maybe the Steelers in two weeks will tell us more, but are the Steelers actually any good?

Another sign that the seasons have officially changed? Today is the first day of official girls high school basketball practice in Indiana. L and her teammates have been doing twice-a-week conditioning and scrimmaging before school for six weeks, but today is when they get back on the daily grind again. Their schedule is still a bit in flux, but currently their first game will be November 11.

I even got my first IU shirt since grad school, celebrating the return of the Bison mascot. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 17 Oct 2025 08:01:51 -0400

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/03v5PJTxT3s4rCEe6jQ1no?si=5fcdc031567746a7)

“House Of Dead Memories” - Sugar OH SHIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!!! SUGAR IS BACK!!!!! Like, seriously back. This isn’t a song that was recorded 35 years ago and lost on a master tape hidden in a producer’s basement and unearthed when he died or something random like that. Bob Mould, David Barbe, and Malcolm Travis got together this summer for the first time since 1995 and recorded it. It may be something leftover from their original run that was just demoed back then, or it could be the first step in a full return of the band. The official announcement does not offer a release date for a possible album, so perhaps we shouldn’t get our hopes too high.

The band has scheduled two shows in New York, two in London for next spring. Maybe that’s to see if they can get along while recording more music before scheduling a more extensive tour? Or maybe this is just a brief moment for those of us who think Copper Blue is one of the greatest albums ever recorded to celebrate the men that brought it to life.

“Sick Sad World” - Bob Vylan This starts off sounding like it might be a novelty song for the Halloween season, then morphs into a much broader statement.

“Cross Your Heart” - Momma From a deluxe version of the Welcome To My Blue Sky album that will drop next month. Maybe not quite as high as the high points on that album, but still pretty good. Another reminder that this has been a great year for female-fronted bands that make grungy music that calls back to the Nineties.

“Why” - Radioactivity I always think it’s odd that bands sometimes have songs they perform live for years but never record, or at least never release them on records or singles. That’s the case with this song, a fan favorite that these Texas garage rockers finally put on (digital) wax.

“No Cops In Heaven” - Split System Offered without comment.

“Favourite Pair Of Shoes” - Lande Heckt A bit of a palate cleanser.

“Across The Line” - Remember Sports This could easily be an early Waxahatchee song.

“Untitled (How Does It Feel)” - D’Angelo Damn, D’Angelo gone at just 51. I can’t lie and say I was this big fan of his. I knew a few of his songs. I was aware of his musical presence. I knew that he was somewhat reclusive, appearing sporadically with albums that were considered instant classics. But I never really dove into his work.

This song, though, I’m not sure if you could miss it when it came out. Certainly not its video. Apparently that video really messed D’Angelo up, as he believed it wasn’t a representation of who he really was. You wouldn’t think a (then) mega-fit, young man like him could have body image issues, but they plagued him the rest of his life after the reaction to the video for this song. Because of that, I’ll share the song.

If you can handle it, look up his performance of “Sometimes It Snows In April,” on the Tonight Show from right after Prince died. It will get to you. I could only find it in those weird Facebook posts that are impossible to share.

[youtu.be/_WmPeLOLD...](https://youtu.be/_WmPeLOLDnA?si=LQ8NLGn5eq3HIQqp)

“Mountains” - Prince Let’s honor D’Angelo with some Prince falsetto, which no doubt influenced him.

A Mid-Lease Car Update

Thu, 16 Oct 2025 16:13:56 -0400

As we are in the back half of October, that means I am officially halfway through my current auto lease. With 18 months in the books as an EV owner, and 18 months left before I need to make a decision on my next car, it seemed like a good moment to check in and see how I feel about things.

It is a fraught time to be an EV owner. The full power of our federal government has turned against any and all efforts to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and expand our native industry in related fields, all in the name of “protecting American manufacturing.” It’s not the point of this post, but that is as head in the sand as you can get about climate change, moving to renewables, and keeping the US on the forefront of the latest technologies. China has already passed us, in most ways, in the EV space. If we abandon the industry, stubbornly insisting that gas-powered vehicles must remain the default, we will have no chance of catching up when it becomes obvious we made the wrong choice. All because EVs are “woke” in the eyes of a cognitively compromised toddler in an 80-year-old’s body.

Oh, and there’s the whole Elon Musk thing. Thankfully that has calmed down a bit. I do own an anti-Elon bumper sticker, but figured since I live in Indiana, slapping it on my car might cause more trouble than leaving my bumper naked. He’s still an out-of-touch weirdo who has far too much influence on the world outside his businesses, but at least he’s kind of shut up for the moment.

Anyway, the car, right? That’s why we’re here?

I’m still like 98% in love with my Model Y. There are, like any car, some minor annoyances, but nothing that makes me think, “Gee, I can’t wait to turn this in and get something else.” As much as I loved my Audi Q5, there were a handful of inconveniences that had me looking forward to what was next.

My use of the car has really changed this calendar year. With L not playing travel ball over the summer, I didn’t take as many long trips in it as I expected, so my mileage is very low. That had the greatest impact on my tire life. EVs hate tires. The explanation you hear most is that is because of how much they weigh. I would argue against that, though. My Model Y weighs only marginally more than my Q5, and over 1000 pounds less than my Chevy Tahoe. I think it’s more about how people drive their EVs, taking advantage of all that immediate power and torque, blowing through their layers of rubber faster than they would in a traditional vehicle of similar size and weight.

I haven’t done enough research on the tires Teslas ship with, but mine are performance models, which may also break down a little quicker.

I was nearly halfway through my tire tread when I had them rotated at about 8000 miles, which seemed insane. Since then I’ve been a little more conscious about how I drive, always keeping the car in Chill mode unless I’m showing off for a new passenger, hoping to stretch this original set out as long as I can. I fear even with my reduced driving I will still have to replace them at some point in the second half of my lease. I miss the days when 40,000 mile tires lasted 40,000 miles.

Without any other major issues, the question becomes what will I do when this lease ends? When Elon was tearing the government up, there was no doubt that I would be driving something other than a Tesla in May 2027. I won’t say that’s totally changed, but perhaps the window is open slightly to either keeping my current Model Y if possible, or at least considering another Tesla.[1] I worry about Musk’s focus for the company. Tesla does so many things correctly that everyone else is chasing, most notably charging and software, but he seems more interested in his robot dreams than making the next Model Y dramatically better than the current one.

The elimination of the EV tax credit changes the math on what my next car can/should be. When I start shopping we will be smack in the middle of a four-year stretch where we have two kids in college. That puts a serious crimp on our budgeting and losing that $7500 credit doesn’t help. Also, with L going off to college, I may be driving even less than I currently am. Do I need an EV with a battery big enough to get to Cincinnati or Bloomington easily and that can haul stuff to-and-from dorms? Might the better choice, both in terms of budget and needs, be to downsize to more of a “city car” and rely on S’s Telluride for those longer trips?

When I got my Tesla in April 2024, I expected that there would be a whole range of competent competitors when that lease was up. Thanks to all the punitive measures of our government, EV development in the affordable range seems to have come to a halt. Chevy mades decent EVs, but have scaled back their long-term plans. Kia/Hyundai makes very good EVs, although they are still plagued by the electrical issues that drove me away from them 20 months ago. And the Korean manufacturers may begin focusing on other markets thanks to their recent battles with the US government over multiple issues. Volkswagen might be in serious trouble, as they face pressures from Chinese manufacturers in Europe. There’s a part of me that can see the standard VW line disappearing as the company focuses on its higher-end brands like Audi and Porsche, although that could be a decade away.

I’m still anxiously awaiting the release of the Rivian R2 sometime in 2026 (fingers crossed). Hopefully they arrive on time, in the price range promised, and lack some of the QC issues the current range of Rivians have shown as they have expanded their production numbers. But might that be too much car for my needs in 2027 and beyond?

Then there’s the option of going back to a gas powered vehicle, or perhaps a hybrid. If I’m not going to be driving much, do I really need a car that has tons of power or is zippy?[2]

That is all a year-and-a-half away. Based on my first 18 months, I would still absolutely recommend EVs for people that are in the market for a new car.[3] The loss of the tax credit complicates matters, but if your budget is in the $40,000–55,000 range, they should remain part of your shopping process, even with all the new baggage that comes with EV ownership.

When I signed my lease, Tesla did not include the option to buy it when your lease ended. They have since made that an option on new leases; I don’t know if those of us with the older agreements will get that offer or not. ↩
An argument that, frankly, has always been valid. Other than when we were towing a boat twice a year, I’ve really not needed the power ↩
One of my sisters-in-law got a Model Y in the final days of the Federal tax break, partially on my recommendation. ↩

Wednesday Links

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 10:51:20 -0400

Steven Hyden with a wonderful retrospective on one of the great American bands that never really went away, at least on classic rock radio, but also never had a big revival.

Listen to the Cars in 2025, and you’ll hear the accumulated history of 20th-century rock music—the elemental directness of Buddy Holly and Elvis records, the songwriting sturdiness of the Beatles and Beach Boys, the art-pop leanings of the Velvet Underground and Roxy Music, the electronic minimalism of Brian Eno and Kraftwerk, the arena-rock accessibility of Tom Petty and Cheap Trick. And you’ll also notice signs pointing to a lot of music that came after, including large swaths of indie, punk, and alternative rock.

Oh So Near: The Cars’ Deep (and Deeply Underrated) Influence on the Future of Music

I spent much of Sunday morning reading this super detailed accounting of Stevie Nicks’ and Lindsey Buckingham’s years together as an act before they joined Fleetwood Mac. A fascinating look at how they persevered through some extremely lean years. It’s always amazing how many legendary acts came so close to not making it.

One of my favorite nuggets in the piece is how, when they were still a couple, Nicks cheated on Buckingham…with another man named Lindsey! What are the odds?!?!

I also enjoyed this reaction from her parents when she told them she was taking her own path.

Stevie’s family were furious. After five years of college, she had quit school and was about to live with her boyfriend (her parents considered that a sin). “What are you going to do?” they asked. “Be in the circus the rest of your life?”

Their warning was correct, in both the best and worst ways.

The Ballad of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham

As I’m paring down my monthly media roundups, I thought I’d share some of the more fun YouTube shorts in these links posts. Here’s a great one to start with. I’m not sure what’s most impressive about this: that he has the ability to play all these differing styles, that he was able to put these together in a way that made musical and chronological sense, or that he was able to nail it in one take. Super interesting how some pieces sound exactly like the originals and others take slightly different approaches. I guess some of that is due to the guitar he’s using and even with effects pedals, he could only match so many tones. That’s notable after watching the video a month ago about different ways to play “Purple Rain.”

TOP 80 GREATEST GUITAR INTROS

LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOO!!!!!!!

It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers

Reader's Notebook, 10/14/25

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 15:36:49 -0400

A bit of a slog lately, as I’ve worked through a group of books that I did not love. These are the risks you take when you grab suggestions from many different sources.

Swag - Elmore Leonard Last month I came across an article that was an appreciation of some of Leonard’s lesser known works. I’ve read several of his most famous novels but never really dove into his deep catalog. This was one of the books highlighted in that piece. I was not prepared for how it lacked in so many of the elements that made Leonard a great writer.

The book takes place in Detroit in the 1970s. A car thief and a serial scammer come to an uneasy partnership and begin robbing small businesses all over the metro area. They aren’t super flashy with their money, but they live a life of casual hedonism, laying out by a pool all day with the younger women who also live in their apartment complex while planning their next score. Eventually they slip up and get caught. The good times end.

I honestly found the book kind of boring. It was soooo dialogue based, and those words weren’t nearly as sharp as in books like Get Shorty. It felt like the two men were having the same conversation over-and-over. There also wasn’t any of that spark and humor that propped up Leonard’s best work.

Oh well, I guess it was interesting to see where one of the greats got his start, and how he did not always have his fastball.

Finna - Nino Cipri A weird-ass book. Actually, it’s a novella so I’m not even sure it can be called a book.

A wormhole between worlds opens in what is basically an Ikea with a different name and an older woman who was shopping with her granddaughter disappears into it. Two employees, who used to be romantic partners, are tasked with going into the wormhole and finding her. Some very odd shit happens while they are in the other world.

The story is brisk. Probably too brisk. It felt more like a draft where Cipri was fleshing out ideas that really should be in a much longer book. Because of that it felt half-baked, or maybe three-quarters baked.

Cipri got their MFA at the University of Kansas, so I salute their work even if it didn’t do much for me.

The Red Tree - Caitlin R. Kiernan And finally this, which was suggested as a spooky book appropriate for the season.

I should have known I wasn’t connecting with the book when I kept losing focus and thinking about other things the first few evenings I read it. However, I made it past the magic 100 page mark still hoping it would turn into something good so I had to finish it. I thought seriously a couple times about breaking my rule and giving up.

The book is presented as the posthumous work of author Sarah Crowe, the leftovers of a journal she kept while residing in an isolated home in rural Rhode Island before she killed herself. Her journal reveals the strangeness of the house, its basement, and a very creepy and apparently powerful oak tree that sits near it. In her journal she also shares excerpts from a manuscript she found in the basement that details the long history of death and general horror centered on the oak tree. Turns out the man who wrote that manuscript hung himself, just as Crowe eventually did.

The Red Tree felt like it was building towards a classic horror payoff, where the source of evil is revealed. That reveal never happens, though. This big honking question the entire book is built upon never gets answered, which seems like a ripoff after a week of reading. There was just so much work and building then nothing happened as a result. Maybe I sensed that was coming, and that’s one reason I didn’t enjoy this book. I also kind of hated Crowe and her relationship with the painter who was also renting space in the house.

Hopefully I pick my next few books better.

Weekend Notes

Mon, 13 Oct 2025 15:08:53 -0400

Another weekend that was brightened by visits from college kids and a few more signs that we are deep into fall.

Fall Break Part 1

M came home Wednesday evening. UC had a two-day fall break this year, but she had to go back Friday evening because her boyfriend’s fraternity had their annual trip to the horse races in Lexington, KY Saturday. She’s doing well. In fact, her life got even better while she was home.

She’s been scrambling to line up a co-op for the spring semester after her Portugal trip got nuked. She was having trouble since so many of the potential jobs had been snapped up already, so was leaning towards asking her boss at her job from last summer if he would hire her full-time for the spring. She’s currently working about 10 hours a week for him, and he seems to love her, so she thought that was a possibility.

Two weeks ago she landed an interview for a new opportunity. They called her back for interview number two last Tuesday. On Friday she got a job offer from them. Making really good money, too. It’s for a very small firm that does hospital redesigns, so I’m not really sure how marketing gets rolled into it, but I’ll guess they’ll figure that out.

She was very excited. As much as she enjoys the job she’s been doing part-time, and as confident as she is they will make her a full-time offer when she graduates, she wanted to get some different experience before she finishes school. Hopefully this spring job is as good as it seems.

I drove down to Bloomington to pick up C Thursday afternoon, as IU just had Friday off for fall break. For about 24 hours all three girls were in the house at the same time again. Unlike her last trip home, which was quick and impromptu, this time C was able to get her old high school crew together on Saturday night. S took her back Sunday evening after we had the in-laws over for dinner.

As has been a fall break tradition for years, we all got flu shots, M and C going Friday, L and I on Saturday. Unlike the old days there was no trip to Steak & Shake after, partially because most of the S&Ses around us have closed, partially because their CEO is pro-fascism.

L has just two days of school this week before CHS’ fall break covers Wednesday-through-Friday. Sure would be nice if they all had the same breaks and they were the same length.

Friday morning was the first morning it was below 40° when I woke up. I checked the pool and it was down to 71° after not being heated since last Sunday. Good timing, as our pool guys came later Friday to close it for the season.

And S’s sister in Denver and her family booked their flights for Christmas over the weekend. Now if it wasn’t going to be close to 80° the next two days, there would be no doubting where we are in the calendar.

On to football…

High School

Rough night for the Irish Friday. They went to Kentucky to play a team with a similar record to theirs. The first half was a slog with Cathedral missing two field goals, which left the teams tied 0–0 at halftime. Worse, CHS’ quarterback got hurt and left the game and did not return. The home team scored 17 straight points after halftime and I turned the broadcast off. The Irish made a little run but still lost 17–10 to end their winning streak. One more game left in the regular season.

Last night was the sectional draw and, amazingly, the blind draw didn’t have #3 CHS vs #1 New Pal in the first round. CHS gets a game against a 1–7 team while New Pal plays #6. Obviously in a state with a brain, those matchups would be flipped. And we’ll see if the Irish have their starting quarterback, or any of the other seven starters they were missing Friday, for any postseason games.

College

Who would have ever guessed the game I was looking forward to most this weekend involved IU? Early in the day we were taking advantage of the beautiful weather doing a few projects so I wasn’t able to watch very much of UC’s win over UCF. That game seemed closer than it should have been. Then I watched almost all of IU’s win over Oregon, which just might be the biggest win in school history.

I still maintain that Curt Cignetti is a complete kook, and might be on the spectrum. But that MFer can coach. It’s not like he has tons of talent, although having a very good quarterback goes a long way. He took a bunch of guys who were mildly regarded as recruits into Oregon and really controlled the entire game against the much more talented Ducks.

Looking at IU’s schedule, there’s really no reason they shouldn’t go undefeated now. Back-to-back games at Maryland and Penn State next month could be tricky, but Maryland has lost two straight to other mid-Big 10 teams and Penn State is literally falling apart. It would be very IU to be 11–0 and then lose to Purdue, but I really can’t see that happening. Cignetti gets two full months to build up that chip on his shoulder about Ohio State before the Big 10 title game.

I was not expecting much from KU’s visit to Texas Tech. The Red Raiders are the best team in the Big 12, apologies to M and her Bearcats, with a prolific offense that KU’s defense pretty much had no chance against. That was proven on the first Tech snap of the night, a run right up the middle for a 71-yard TD. Right about the time Tech went up 21–0 C and her friends came back after dinner. I set them up with a fire outside then went upstairs, figuring there was no need to watch KU lose by 60.

I missed the Tech quarterback getting hurt and then KU somehow ripping off 17 straight points before halftime. In one text thread a couple of my buddies and I were debating whether we should watch in the second half. I walked downstairs a few plays into the half. The TV was still on and as I was grabbing some water, Tech ripped off another long touchdown run. That’s all I needed to see. Back upstairs I went.

The good news is that was the best team KU will play this year and there is a bye week coming up so, hopefully, they can get a few injured guys back for resurgent Kansas State in two weeks. The bad news is the defense seems determined to give up 20-ish points each week before they figure out what they are doing. The Jayhawks D needs to figure their shit out to give the offense a chance.

Colts

If the playoffs started today, the Colts would have the #1 seed in the AFC! Not saying how they got to 5–1 on Sunday will inspire a lot of confidence, though.

It was another gorgeous day so I was bouncing around a bit. It seemed like the Colts were in control early but every time I sat down to watch a few minutes the game seemed far too close and they were punting way too often. A HUGE defensive stand late saved them and coupled with a Jacksonville loss, moved Indy into first place in the AFC South. Still, this was a super banged up Arizona team. I don’t think this game should have been close.

The next third of their schedule is much tougher, with games against the Chargers, Steelers, Chiefs, and the first matchup with the Texans in there. The defensive backfield has been decimated by injuries since training camp, and lost another starter yesterday when Charvarius Ward ran into a teammate during pregame warmups and suffered a concussion. The Colts struggled against the pass all day because they were basically running a bunch of walkons out as DBs. They could use a week off.

Oh, and under the Cursed Player file, add Anthony Richardson. Dude has had a weird career already. Sunday the backup QB was warming up in the locker room with an elastic band. Somehow the band failed/slipped/whatever and struck Richardson in the face, breaking an orbital bone. Who breaks their orbital bone warming up before a game they most likely would not have played in? Anthony Richardson, that’s who.

Anyway, the Colts weren’t super impressive but got another win that stays in the W column no matter how it looked.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 10 Oct 2025 07:24:58 -0400

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4I739P1vODsreoZSExAp2f?si=1a56afaf1ac74cea)

“October” - The Helio Sequence We’ve finally had a couple of cool days and chilly mornings, although temps will creep back up closer to 80 next week. Close enough for me to bust out this fall classic, at least classic to me.

“Break The Girl” - Florence Road Wonderful, bouncy track by some young ladies from Wicklow, Ireland.

“Automatic” - Spiritual Cramp In their write up about this song, Stereogum compared this band to early ‘00s’ bands like the Killers or TV On The Radio. I hear a ton of Editors in it, who were from about the same time but a different scene.

“Spirit Of Your Friend” - Doves Doves have a greatest hits collection coming out next month. Like all such releases, there has to be a new or lost track (or both!). This is the lost track, recorded back in 2005. I wouldn’t say it stands up with their best, but it is a Doves song, so still worth sharing.

“the one” - Gabriel Jacoby What a fantastic, joyful song! You can draw a lot of straight lines from this song to many musical giants. D’Angelo. Prince. Sly Stone.

“Rusty Mountain” - Neko Case I believe I’ve said this before, but Neko is an American treasure.

“Samson” - Public Circuit I refuse to believe this is a new song by a modern band. In fact, I will insist, this track was made for a movie in the mid–80s that was never released. It sounds EXACTLY like a song that could have been in Fletch or Real Genius or any of a dozen other movies that were in high rotation on cable in the late Eighties and early Nineties. I will not accept any evidence to the contrary.

“Lie In The Fire Again” - The Berries The Berries’ album is filled with warm, soaring jams like this. If I still listened to albums very much, I probably would have listened to it a million times over the last month. Good fall music album, too.

[youtu.be/Gsm82xc43...](https://youtu.be/Gsm82xc43Oo?si=7ygo9q6fOWZREWab)

“Deeper Water” - Paul Kelly The first time I heard this song was five or so years ago, when a then five-year-old live version Kelly recorded with Neil Finn hit my feed. I’d never tried to find the original until this week. I prefer the Finn collab, because it’s Neal after all. But this one is nearly as good. I love artists that can retain their native accents while singing like Kelly.

Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 119

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 09:09:46 -0400

Chart Week: September 24, 1983 Song: “It’s A Mistake” - Men At Work Chart Position: #38, 13th week on the chart. Peaked at #6 for two weeks in August.

What clichés about Eighties music jump into your head the quickest? Big hair and spandex? Synthesizers? Gender ambiguous British men in suits wearing more makeup than your mom? Artists with little-to-no musical talent earning hits based on the quality of their videos and/or the prettiness of their appearance?

Here’s one I bet wasn’t top of your list: nuclear destruction.

Yep, kids, in the Eighties we were all a little obsessed with the potential end of the world due to nuclear war. It was a constant presence and source of anxiety that filtered into pop culture. Hardly a week went by without a song in the American Top 40 countdown that somehow referenced the geopolitical cloud that was hanging over all our heads.

One of the most unexpected such songs came from goofy Australians Men At Work. I say unexpected because, at the time, Men At Work presented themselves as stereotypical Aussies: out for a good time and getting into wacky adventures along the way. The true depth of lead singer Colin Hay’s lyrics, and their focus on his mental health issues, didn’t become obvious until many years later, when he stripped the songs down and performed them solo.

Still, even without having that insight, “It’s A Mistake” was already a departure from what we had heard from Men At Work to that point. Musically it was more somber and reserved than their earlier songs. While the video brought in some of their lightheartedness, it was still impossible to escape what the mistake Hay was singing about entailed. Which made it a bit of a bummer.

While other songs about nuclear annihilation were either strident, anti-war anthems or focused on turning the world’s anxiety into a dance party, “It’s A Mistake” instead examined the absurdity of the nuclear era.

First, it highlighted the disconnect between the troops on the ground, who would bear the brunt of any direct conflict, and their military and political leaders who were tucked safely behind the frontlines. And then how, in the nuclear age, that buffer would not matter once the missiles began flying.

Next, it hinted at the political argument that justified the massive military budgets of the era: that each side should amass as many weapons as possible to make the consequences of war so profoundly destructive that neither side would ever risk a first attack. By the time the Cold War spun down in the late Eighties, the US, USSR, and their allies collectively possessed enough nuclear weapons to destroy humanity as we knew it several times over. Mutually Assured Destruction was counted on as the ultimate safety on the nuclear trigger.

Hay tapped into what was most ridiculous about that concept: when you have that many weapons, all it takes is one error to launch a single missile, which would quickly be followed by all the other missiles. In the video this is demonstrated by a raving general accidentally hitting his big red button when he’s attempting to put out a cigarette.

That idea was not so far-fetched. Two days after this countdown originally aired, the Soviet Union’s early warning system detected the launch of a missile from the United States. Soon four more missiles were identified in the air.

Soviet doctrine was to immediately launch a counter strike. However, lieutenant colonel Stanislav Petrov, the officer on duty monitoring the warning systems, felt something was off. Surely, he thought, if the US was launching a first strike, it would send hundreds, if not thousands of missiles towards the USSR. He decided to wait for further evidence that confirmed a launch. Just like in the movie WarGames, there were nervous moments until confirmation came that no missiles had struck the USSR. Had a less sober man - this was Russia in the ‘80s, so I mean that both figuratively and literally - been on duty, it is likely none of us would be here to read this silly blog post.

An investigation determined it was most likely an anomaly caused by the sun reflecting off clouds that fooled the Soviets’ early warning satellites into signaling an attack was in process.

Yikes.

This is one example, there are dozens of others that are public knowledge, and surely more than have been buried in classified records.

We didn’t learn of Petrov’s actions until 1998. So, as “It’s A Mistake” was ending its chart run, it still seemed like a fictional, worst-case scenario rather than a true insight to how precarious the line between war and peace was.

“It’s A Mistake” is a fine song. I remember being disappointed by it when I was 12, but that’s because I was an idiot.[1] Like a lot of other pre-teen dipshits, I was blinded by the classic “Down Under,” and the band’s earlier videos, in which they presented themselves as Antipodean goofballs. I wasn’t prepared for Hay’s deeper tracks like this. I do know I enjoyed the video, and understood its message, but the song itself didn’t really resonate with me.

Today, I really enjoy those sharp, open chords on the choruses. The reserved musical tone fits the mood of the lyrics. Eventually I realized how good those words were. And while Hay was not a great singer, the final chorus is probably his best performance.

Alas this was Men At Work’s final Top 40 song in the US. As often happens with bands that become massively, globally successful overnight, the group fell apart because of egos, jealousy, artistic differences, and money squabbles. What remained of the original band recorded just one more album, which got bad reviews and barely snuck one single into the Top 40 in Australia. Hay eventually toured with two new versions of Men At Work, but that was because the band’s name was more recognizable than his. During their brief peak, Men At Work gave us two all timers and two other songs that might not have been as catchy, but were nearly as good. 7/10

youtu.be/I0AxrOUJ6…

Same for Men At Work’s previous single, “Overkill,” which is even better. ↩

Fitness Update

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 10:50:32 -0400

We’re a week into the fourth quarter of the year[1] and I bet a few of you are annoyed with me for not sharing my latest fitness update. My bad. Here it is.

Q3 was my best of the year so far. Which makes sense as it was the warmest, least stormy stretch of 2025 so the pool was always available, even if I had to kick the heater on in the morning to get it warmed up a bit over the past month.[2]

I worked out - either strength training, cardio, swimming, or taking a walk longer than 30 minutes - 78 of 92 days, or a cool 85% of days. By comparison, I worked out 73% of days in Q1, 74% of days in Q2, so a big bump up. And that was losing a day when we moved C into her dorm. A little perturbed with myself for being lazy two other days in August and not stretching out a really long consecutive days streak. As it stands, I’ve had two streaks of 11 straight days breaking a sweat.

Again, these are not to brag but to motivate. I’m super lucky that my schedule allows the opportunity to work out every day, my gym is literally a two minute walk from my front door, and we have a pool.[3] I know most of you have very different time constraints. Find 20–30 minutes in your day and do something to get your heart rate up, it’ll be good for you.

The irony of my efforts is that my weight simply does not change. I’m still in the same 3–5 pound range every time I weigh myself. I could lose 5–10 pounds, but as a man I am fortunate those extra ones are hidden until I take my shirt off at the pool. I suppose that’s a downside of being home all day. Anytime I need a snack, one is available, so my caloric intake generally fluctuates with my workout schedule. Take a day off, I don’t get hungry in the afternoon. Work out hard three straight days, I’m probably adding another half meal sometime in the afternoon or evening.

I hope you raised four fingers and walked from one side of your house to the other sometime last Tuesday. ↩
I need the water at least 85° to get started. I’m kind of a wuss about chilly water. ↩
We are currently getting quotes to finish part of our basement as a workout room. There is a complication so it may not happen, but if we are able to move forward that will eliminate my excuses on the days the windchill is below zero. ↩

Weekend Notes

Mon, 06 Oct 2025 12:03:57 -0400

A much better weekend of football compared to a week ago. Added bonuses of fun stuff involving two of the kids, and maybe the last summery weekend of the year. Let’s get into it.

Friday

Friday was L’s 17th birthday. To celebrate we took her and some of her friends to our local hibachi place, which is always fun, more-so with six goofy high schoolers. Our dinner overlapped with the start of the big Cathedral-Center Grove game, but none of us cared, as we expected it to not be much of a game. I think the dinner gave the girls an excuse to not drive the hour-plus it takes to get to CG. “We’re gonna get killed,” one of them said when we mentioned the game.

After dinner I went outside to set up a fire pit for the girls and some boys who would be joining them. I pulled up the Cathedral broadcast and was pleased to hear that they were up 8–0 in the first half, and had just blocked their second Center Grove field goal of the game. Interesting.

The Irish got the lead up to 18–0 before weathering the inevitable comeback to win 21–15. It was an incredible defensive performance. Class 6A #2 CG came in averaging 37 points per game. CHS got eight sacks and 13 tackles for losses, blocked those two kicks, and forced two fumbles, one of which turned into a defensive touchdown. That side of the ball has come a long way since they were lucky not to give up 50 week two.

By the computer rankings, CG was a 15-point favorite. Now, they were missing a couple key players on offense, but Cathedral was also missing two starting linemen and were down to their third-string long snapper, which contributed to a field goal clanking off the upright just before halftime.

Terrific win, and the Irish are proving me wrong when I suggested they might not win another game four weeks ago.

Saturday

A lot of casual football and baseball throughout the day, as the matchups weren’t great. So I was still kind of fresh when the KU-Central Florida game started at 7:30. KU’s defense, on the other hand, was not so fresh. They got gouged early, just like last week, contributing to a 14–0 hole.

They got their shit together, though, and held UCF to field goals on their next two drives while the offense finally got going to go into halftime down just 20–14.

Then the defense bowed the fuck up in the second half, shutting the Knights out, including two massive stops inside the red zone, one on fourth and goal at the one with 2:00 to play. The offense added 13 points in the third quarter and that was enough.

The final three minutes were stressful as hell. The game seemed over about three times, only for a penalty, fourth down conversion, or something else extended it. Pretty sure S thought I was insane during that stretch as she sat on the couch next to me binging her latest show on her laptop.

UCF isn’t great, but as KU didn’t win a conference road game for like 20 years, I’m not going to be picky about how it looked. Now the Jayhawks have won away from Lawrence in Big 12 play five straight years, which seems kind of miraculous.

And the loss to Cincinnati looks even better after they beat up on Iowa State this week. I’ll go ahead and jinx them by saying they have a great shot at being 10–1 going into their final game of the regular season against TCU.

Our Saturday night bonus was C making a quick, impromptu trip home. One of her friends texted her at about 6:30 saying she was coming back to Indy, did C want to ride with her. C had no plans so jumped in the car. She is coming back later this week for IU’s brief fall break, and she was just home two weeks ago, but it was still good to see her. She is, apparently, in the rowdy dorm, and that’s not really the way she rolls, so she was happy to get out before the usual Saturday night nonsense started.

Sunday

It took a couple series to get going, but eventually the Colts locked in and thrashed the Raiders. A comprehensive ass kicking, which is always fun. Big time concerns about kicker Spender Shrader leaving the game after getting hammered by a defender. Good thing it wasn’t close and punter Rigoberto Sanchez had to attempt a crunch time field goal.

Speaking of Sanchez, or Sanchezes I guess, Saturday news broke that Fox broadcaster Mark Sanchez had been stabbed in an altercation early Saturday morning while in town to do the Colts game. A few hours later we learned Sanchez had actually been arrested and labeled as a suspect by Indianapolis police. Details are still a little murky but it sounds like alcohol and an argument over a parking spot led to Sanchez attacking another man, who pulled a knife to defend himself.

Now, you’ll never guess what happened next. Our governor and lieutenant governor both jumped to conclusions and used the episode to attempt to score political points. Yes, sleepy Mike Braun, our worthless governor who would be happiest if he never had to speak or actually perform any functions, quickly suggested that Indianapolis city leaders were responsible for the attack and warned that he was going to step in if they didn’t get control of the city.

OH SHIT, IS THAT NATIONAL GUARD MUSIC?!?!?

Clearly Braun was assuming it was a 15 year old Black kid, or even better, an immigrant with loose ties to a gang in Central America, so he could advance the argument that our big cities are out-of-control. He also assumed that Sanchez was the victim in the attack.

So very funny that it was a 38-year-old, former professional athlete who was drunk and attacked an elderly man. That man’s identity has not been released yet, but rumor is that he’s not from Indy. Two out-of-towners got into a fight and the Guv, who apparently took his little blue pill Saturday morning, got all worked up about blaming all his usual suspects rather than, you know, calling the police and asking what happened. Which I’m assuming a governor has the power to do.

The governor eventually deleted the post. Or, rather, someone on his staff did, because there is zero chance he understands how to delete posts.

Our country is beyond doomed.

KU Hoops

Man, what a week for KU basketball, both men and women, on the recruiting trail.

The men followed up last week’s commitment from the #1 point guard in the senior class by adding a top 80-ish player who is considered one of the best defenders in the class, a top 10-ish player in the class of ’27 who is expected to try to reclassify into the current class, and Sunday night from the #3 center in the class. Four commitments in a week. Usually KU is lucky to get one early commit then has to wait around until actual signing week to hear on others. This year recruiting is basically done and practice hasn’t even started yet. I remember when Late Night was an opportunity to bring in a bunch of kids and hoped they signed a couple weeks later. This year I guess it will be aimed at juniors and sophomores.

The KU women got a commitment from a player who is in L’s AAU program. Obviously a year older and a level of play higher, but we’ve watched her play several times. I have to admit I was usually focused on one of her teammates, who is from the Indy suburbs and committed to Florida. The girl going to KU is ranked in the 60s in her class.

I forget if I already mentioned it but the KU women’s other early commit is also from Indiana. Cathedral has played her team each of the last two years, once in summer ball, and are scheduled to play them again this November. When she was a sophomore she dropped 27 on us when our girls were focused on her senior teammate who is now at Michigan State. Last year we held her in check. I’ll be paying close attention to her next month.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 03 Oct 2025 07:24:43 -0400

open.spotify.com/playlist/…

“Summer Soft” - Stevie Wonder You find It’s October, and she’s gone…

“Dipped” - HighSchool Earlier this year Aussie band CIVIC released a song called “Chrome Dipped.” Now we have another Aussie band, which does not sound very Aussie at all, with a similarly named track.

“Light Sleeper” - Home Front One of my top 5–10 post-punk bands making music right now.

“DCWDTTY” - Bartees Strange Strange takes some post-punk, mixes it with some Tunde Adebimpe-sounding vocals, and turns it into an ode to his hometown of Washington, DC.

“Little Black Dress” - Francis of Delirium Terrific pop song that will probably get ignored. Corporate radio sucks. Also a reminder to put a pin in Luxembourg on your map of countries included in this series.

“Everything Is Coming Up Roses” - World News For the most part, this is a Proper Fall Music song, although the guitar solo rips it out of the cozy realm for about 30 seconds.

“Modern Age” - Dancehall This band reminds me, sonically, of Bombay Bicycle Club a bit.

“Fall Away” - Good Flying Birds Hey, these kids are from Indy! This song began as a voice memo, sent from one member of the group to another, who banged out the basic track in his parents’ basement up in Carmel. It doesn’t get more 21st Century than that. This track has a fuzzy, blog rock era vibe.

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“I’d Run Away” - The Jayhawks I’m not saying this to be mean, but The Jayhawks had one of the biggest gaps between how great they sounded and how…not great they looked of any band ever. Great fucking song from a great fucking album, but watching this I was reminded why I don’t think I watched their videos very often.

Reader's Notebook, 10/2/25

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 08:57:25 -0400

In the Weeds: Around the World and Behind the Scenes with Anthony Bourdain - Tom Vitale A book that has been out three years but I managed not to hear about until just now. Written by one of Anthony Bourdain’s closest associates, it is definitely a warts and all accounting of what it was like to work with the late chef/TV personality. It should not be a surprise that Bourdain was, at times, prickly, quarrelsome, thin-skinned, impatient. Basically all the things that plague anyone who travels, let alone someone who does it full time and films a TV show in the process. He was prone to wild mood swings which Vitale, and others around him, often bore the brunt of. Again, no surprises.

That honesty is what made this book enjoyable. It would be easy to portray Bourdain in the way so many admirers of him have: as a counter the typical toxically masculine American man. And there were a lot of things about Bourdain worth integrating into our lives. But he was, like all of us, flawed, deeply and in many ways. I think Bourdain would have been thrilled that Vitale didn’t hide those less glamorous aspects back.

But Vitale did show what drew so many to Bourdain. His curiosity. His sense of empathy for people who were different than him. His desire to tell stories that didn’t fit into the standard, made for TV boxes.

I think this passage summed up the whole of Anthony Bourdain best:

Tony’s demons ensured he was a difficult and, at times, fearsome person to be around. Anthony Bourdain was a great man, even though he could, at times, be a less successful human being.

The Ministry of Time - Kaliane Bradley I must admit that sometimes books about time travel don’t always work with my brain. I appreciate the opportunities the genre presents. But when there are the inevitable twists that can only exist because of the time travel element, I often find my brain rapidly switching back-and-forth between options, trying to make sense of them. Like when you shift your gaze quickly between two objects, trying to determine which deserves your attention. Obviously a me problem.

This time travel story was pretty good. Taking place in the modern era, a young, never named British woman is recruited into a secret group in His Majesty’s government that is shepherding a group of folks from the past into modern society. Her subject is a dashing polar explorer from the early 1800s. Other members of the group are drawn from the trenches of World War I, a battle in the 17th century, and the great plague of the 1600s, each of whom has their own “Bridge” to the 21st Century.

As you might imagine, integrating these people into modern society is a bit of a chore. And mindfuck. Much of the story is told with great humor, the absurdities of taking a man from pre-Victorian England and placing him in a world where women have jobs and dress provocatively and crass language is common played up to maximum effect. Eventually the inevitable romance between the main character and her “ex-pat” fires as well, complicating matters.

Oh, there’s another rather large complication, as the Bridges uncover the reality of how their expats arrived in modern London, the implications of the existence of the portal that brought them forward in time, the knowledge that the portal isn’t secret, and the reality that their government is working to use the portal in nefarious ways.

I thought it was quite a good story at its core. There was a little clumsiness with one element. I thought it was interesting that some others found that part of the story fine, but had similar complaints about another plot element. Which I think would make this a solid B+ for most readers.

Dungeon Crawler Carl - Matt Dinniman I’ve heard about this book in multiple, random, unconnected ways over the past year or so. On message boards focused on other subjects. In book blogs. On a podcast or two. I finally took a stab at it. While not heavy lifting, it is one of my favorite reads of the year for pure entertainment value.

Carl lives in Seattle with his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend’s cat. Late one night he and the cat survive a sudden cataclysmic event that ends the world as they know it. Soon they discover an entry level to a “dungeon” below the earth’s surface, with instructions that should they enter, they can earn their safety before the final process in the planet’s total destruction begins.

Carl and the cat, Princess Donut, enter and are quickly transformed. Not only can Donut talk, but both she and Carl now have attributes like characters in a role playing game. They begin encountering “monsters” and must battle for their survival. They learn that they are, in fact, in a massive, completely real RPG that they must fight their way through in order to survive. As they defeat opponents, they gain powers, weapons, and bonuses. And they discover they are not only fighting for their lives, but are also participants in a Survival-like show that lifeforms around the universe are watching.

There’s a lot more depth to it than that, but it’s more fun to discover it on your own.

For me, who has always loved the idea of RPGs but not necessarily their execution or time it takes to figure them out up front, this was great stuff. The book is very violent, in a cartoony way. Dinniman fills his story with hilarious moments, and a lot of critiques of modern society. Carl and Donut have just made it to level three of the dungeon by the book’s end. I’m absolutely going to continue to follow their journey.

September Media

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 08:11:10 -0400

September seemed like a long month. Yet here we are and I only watched one TV series and zero movies? The first holiday baking show of the season is already stacking up in my YouTube TV library, so next month should be better.

Also, over the past week or so I’ve been dialing back my YouTube usage for various reasons. So that part of these posts may get leaner beginning next month.

Movies, Shows, etc

US Open Good stuff.

Slow Horses, season four Had to squeeze this in before season five began. Of course then I found out season five is being released one episode at a time, so it’ll be a few weeks before I start that one. Another highly entertaining and enjoyable season.

Shorts, YouTubes, etc

Eels Are Insanely Mysterious… This is the craziest goddamn thing I’ve ever seen. So crazy that I had to go look up some of its assertions after I finished, thinking that surely some of them are made up. Turns out it is pretty accurate. Eels are fucking insane.

How Boston fooled the world with More Than A Feeling Fooled the world into loving them.

So, we found this ruin Only one new entry this month in our favorite series about Norwegians attempting to rebuild a centuries-old, abandoned ruin in Italy.

Stephen Revisits Will Ferrell’s Legendary Animal Expert Segment Cilantro.

WTF Happened to Better Off Dead? 10 Things You Didn’t Know About BetterOffDead Classic. Anyone who disagrees is horrifically wrong.

Behind-the-scenes with the US Open racket stringing team When I watch segments like this, I wonder if slight adjustments really make a difference or if it’s purely a mental thing.

What tennis pros look at when they pick a ball Interesting. So science tells us the fluffier ball travels slower. But they didn’t explain whether the difference in speed has a true, real-life effect on reaction times. Like does a returner have an extra half second with a fluffy ball? Or is it milliseconds and does not really impact play?

I Tried the HARDEST Race on the Planet Training for any endurance race over just two weeks is nuts. To do a super endurance race THAT FINISHES ON A MOUNTAIN is off the charts nuts. A lot more impressive than the short course triathlons I did 25 years ago.

7 LEVELS of the PURPLE RAIN Intro! This is fun and makes me wish I could play guitar. Or understand anything he was talking about.

Why The Biggest Mexican Restaurant Of The ’80s Suddenly Vanished Chi-Chi’s was awesome! In the years when my mom was working multiple jobs, sometimes a special treat on Friday nights would be for us to go for a late dinner after she finished job #2. There was nothing like a chimichanga and some fried ice cream and then going home and passing out about 15 minutes into Friday Night Videos.

Finding money to pay for my family’s dinner So much goodness in the latest edition of Beau Miles Bullshit. His wardrobe! The amazing, very brief, personal admission about 2:45 in, and then the name of the restaurant he and his family dine at to end this piece. I would go to Ripper Rooster every night if we had one!

Car Content

Lucid Gravity Review - Will this save Lucid? Let’s hope.

Porsche vs Lucid | Going Nuclear with 2,253 HP Insanity.

Podcasts

The Rest Is History I’ve linked to this before, and it has stayed in my feed of pods, but I only listen to it occasionally. Their recent season about the first year of World War I sucked me back in.

No Laying Up: The Trap Draw Another pod that I’ve been listening to for years, but I wanted to call attention to their recent conversation with Pete Buttigieg. He is the most laid back, normal sounding politician I can ever remember hearing speak. A lot of very personable pols fall apart and sound lost or fake when they get away from their core message. Not Mayor Pete. You know, if 40% of the country isn’t going to vote for him simply because of his party, I’m not sure the whole “gay thing” is big a negative as some think, and he should just run in 2028.

Some More Sports Takes

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 13:32:58 -0400

As promised, a few more sports takes.

NFL

A month into the NFL season, so time for a quick look at where we are at.

Is there a dominant team, or any clear Super Bowl favorites? I don’t think so.

Buffalo is undefeated, but only thanks to an epic comeback in week one against Baltimore. Their defense has been shaky as hell. The Ravens are a complete mess at the moment. I’m not worried about them missing the playoffs; their schedule is much easier on the back half, they play in a terrible division, and they always start slow. Now, they’ve put themselves in a very difficult position where their most likely path to the Super Bowl will go through both Buffalo and Kansas City, on the road, so I rate them, at best, as the third choice to come out of the AFC. Are the Chiefs fixed? It’s too early to say, and they are in a soft spot in the schedule, so we’ll find out in a couple weeks when they play Detroit. Of the other AFC teams, only San Diego seems capable of challenging the Bills-Chiefs, and as they just had a typical Chargers loss to the Giants, I put no faith in them.

As for the Colts, their ceiling has elevated some from my pre-season expectations. They seem like a 9–10 win team now if they stay healthy. They are going to have to put up points to balance their porous defense. We’ll see how they look when they play the Chiefs and Texans back-to-back in November.

In the NFC I guess you have to say the Eagles remain the clear favorite. They are back to doing the “winning but looking bad doing it” thing they do all-too-often. But it wouldn’t be Philadelphia without some kind of drama that gets people fired up. They’ll be fine.

My preseason Super Bowl pick was Green Bay, based on my belief that they would be a much better team in January than September and October. That is still on the table, as they’ve looked very good in a couple games, and pretty mediocre in two others. Their season-long battle with Detroit will be fascinating. The Packers dominated the Lions week one, but the Lions have been more impressive since then. That race, and perhaps the #1 seed in the conference, may come down more to which team handles its business better against Minnesota and Chicago than the rematch later this season.

Like the AFC, I think there’s a pretty steep drop off after the top teams. That could change if the Niners get healthy, Minnesota figures out its quarterback situation, or even if Dallas can find a way to play any defense at all.

I picked Green Bay over Buffalo a month ago. I’m not super confident in that choice at the moment, but I also don’t see a reason to revise it quite yet. We’ll take another look at the end of October.

Royals

My half-assed, no-research-involved prediction for the Royals this season was 86 wins. I hoped that would be enough to sneak into the playoffs again this year. Then, who knew, if Baltimore made it the Royals could sweep them again before losing to a division champ.

They ended up winning 82 games, and would have needed at least 87 to reach the postseason.

Once again the offense let them down. Too many long stretches in the season where they would have one good inning then eight in which they did nothing. Their lineup just had too many holes. Top prospect Jac Caglianone came up after destroying the minors and did the typical Royals minor league phenom thing by scuffling badly in his two big league stints, which sandwiched a trip to the DL. It was asking a lot for him to fix all that ailed the R’s offense. Hopefully he gets his confidence back and can slide into a full time role next year. He has all the talent.

Carter Jensen was impressive as a late season call-up. He closed the season with a 482 foot home run. Hopefully Salvador Perez has at least one more year left, allowing Jensen to roam while spelling Salvy behind the plate occasionally.

Pitching was a strength of this team coming in. If not for several injuries, I think the staff might have been good enough to carry the team to the postseason.

The good news is most of the injuries have resolved themselves, or should by next spring. Along the way the R’s found three new promising arms in Noah Cameron, Ryan Bergert, and Stephen Kolek. There are a lot of good arms in the staff, a mix of veterans signed for multiple years and young guys on rookie contracts. The team has to use a combination of that strength to find another bat for next year. And they need to do better than the Brady Singer for Jonathan India trade from last winter. Singer was solid for the Reds, helping them reach the playoffs, while India was kind of stinky.

The big benefit of being in the American League Central is you’re never really out of the race. Cleveland was a dozen games back in July, still 10 back when September began, and ended up winning the division. Healthy pitching + improvement from the young hitters + the addition of at least one more legit bat should be enough to get the Royals back in contention next year.

Playoff predictions? Given I’ve barely watched or followed any baseball aside from my limited attention given to the Royals, I’m not sure I can make even quarter-assed picks.

Instead, I’ll rank the teams by my rooting interests, from who I most want to win to least.

American League: Seattle Detroit Cleveland Toronto Boston New York

National League: Milwaukee San Diego Cincinnati Philadelphia Chicago Los Angeles

Bruce Pearl

This fucking guy.

Yet another coach who spent his career demanding his players sacrifice their personal needs for the good of the team, who demanded individual responsibility and acceptance of the coach as supreme, has decided to abandon his program at the moment most convenient to him and his needs but that is worst for the university.

There have been many of these craven turns over the years, coaches quitting after the academic year has begun forcing their former employer to basically hire who he tells them to hire. And in this case it’s Pearl’s fucking son, who has never been a head coach at any level. In fact, his entire post-high school basketball career is a product of his father’s position. He played at Tennessee when his dad coached there. After trying the real world for a few years, his dad hired him as an assistant. Now, with pops quitting six weeks before the season begins, young Steven has been named the new head coach and given a five year contract

Auburn was just in the Final Four and they are handing the program over to a man who has never been a head coach at any level.

Oh, and get this, Bruce Pearl didn’t quit because he was burnt out, facing a health challenge, or other reasonable explanation. No, this asshole is expected to run for either the US Senate or governor of Alabama and realized that if he coached this year, he would miss valuable time campaigning for the primary elections next spring. Way to turn you back on the kids you recruited, Bruce!

A man with zero political experience thinks he can just jump in and instantly become one of the most powerful politicians in the country. Based on that alone it should be obvious that he’s aligned with our current president.

I’ve never wanted a coaching hire or political campaign to fail as publicly and embarrassingly as I want the Pearls to fail in their next endeavors. Given the state of our country, pops will probably win and then be our next vice president.

Weekend Notes

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 14:59:27 -0400

Two weeks ago my theme for the football weekend was special teams. This weekend it was the teams I follow having meltdowns in the fourth quarter. Only one of those teams survived, sadly the team I care least about.

High School Football

Cathedral played Trotwood, a team from Ohio, for homecoming. The Irish jumped out to a 18–0 lead and led 18–6 at halftime. After an early fourth quarter touchdown they led by 19. It was looking good.

Trotwood scored twice to cut the lead to four late in the fourth quarter.[1] Then CHS threw a pick six and trailed with four minutes left. The Irish went four-and-out, setting the Rams up with a short field to ice the game away. A THS receiver got wide open and dropped a sure touchdown that would have clinched things. The Irish held on fourth down and raced down field to score with under 20 seconds left for the dramatic win.

That leaves CHS 4–2 with three weeks to play. Two of those games are against 6A top ten teams.

KU

It was a completely beautiful weekend in Indiana, with seasonably cool mornings turning into hot afternoons. I spent three-and-a-half hours Saturday sitting on our back porch watching my Jayhawks take on M’s Bearcats. The 93-yard touchdown to start the game for KU was great! And, in fact, much of what the offense did Saturday was terrific.

But the freaking defense was criminally bad, turning UC quarterback Brendon Sorsby, who started his career at IU, into a Heisman candidate. Now, KU started the game missing two defensive starters, one to injury and one to a targeting suspension. And moments after the suspended player returned, one of KU’s other defensive leaders got his own targeting ejection. But that soft-ass zone they were stuck in all day was clueless against UC’s attack. If I didn’t care who won I would have been laughing my ass off at how wide open UC’s receivers were getting.

KU battled. The offense kept putting up numbers to hang with the Bearcats. The defense got two stops in the fourth quarter, which allowed KU to jump ahead with just under two minutes left. It felt like it wouldn’t be enough. Then a Sorsby pass on third down floated a little, went through one KU defender’s hands, and then another’s, before falling harmlessly to the turf. I yelled and smacked my palm against our table. I knew that was the mistake KU teams always make that keeps them from winning games. Sure enough, UC converted on fourth down and seconds later were scoring to take the lead with too little time for KU to move the ball.

A super frustrating loss for so many reasons. The defense was 2010s KU bad. Jalon Daniels made a terrible turnover that cost KU a touchdown.[2] Two massive penalties wiped away UC touchdowns and KU couldn’t take full advantage. KU lost a home game and might have ruined their chance to make a bowl game in the process. Plus I spent nearly four hours staring at a TV when I could have been doing something productive on a gorgeous day, and then got harassed by my daughter about the result.

Piss.

I worked out my anger by taking a hammer and screwdriver to a stack of old hard drives I found in our basement that needed to be destroyed. Not sure it helped all that much, although I was able to enjoy the fantastic Oregon-Penn State game later in the evening.

Also, how about C’s Hoosiers? That is a clutch-ass team. Not sure how they go from being terrible a couple years ago to bullies that quickly. Maybe Lance Leipold needs to study Curt Cignetti’s system.

Colts

You hate to blame one player for a loss. The result of each game is a combination of everything every player does over the game’s 60 minutes, even if individual blunders are sometimes the most obvious causes.

Well, it’s tough not to put the Colts’ loss to the Rams squarely on receiver Adonai Mitchell. I’m sure you’ve seen the first way he made himself known Sunday, making an utterly ridiculous catch, bouncing off a couple receivers, racing down the field for 76 yards, avoiding being either pushed out of bounds or tackled and then reaching for the goal line only to let the ball slip from his hand though the end zone for a Rams touchback. It wasn’t like what Jonathan Taylor did last year, being cocky and dropping the ball early for no reason. Mitchell was off balance, running full speed, trying to make a play and got excited in the process, allowing the ball to slip from his grasp. The Colts still lost seven points because of it.

Then, in the fourth quarter, with the game tied, Taylor ripped off his own ridiculous run, bouncing off multiple tacklers before finding space, kicking it into gear, and racing 53 yards to break a tie with about 3:00 left. Only there was a flag. For holding. By Mitchell.

Oh man.

Naturally the Colts couldn’t finish the drive after the penalty. They punted and pinned the Rams deep in their own end. And after a TV timeout decided to only run 10 men onto the field. Which is a problem when one of your cornerbacks trips himself at the line of scrimmage and leaves a receiver wide open and there’s no one behind him to help. The result was an 88-yard, game-winning touchdown.

Why was I cursed by having to watch such terrible defense all weekend? If I had a dog, I would have kicked it.[3]

Sports are dumb.

Fever

Speaking of dumb, for the second straight Sunday the WNBA scheduled the Indiana Fever to play at the same time as the Indianapolis Colts. It’s amazing that the league has had so much growth the last couple years, because the people who run the league seem to be idiots.

I flipped back-and-forth a few times, watching the Fever grab a lead just before halftime and then hold off the #2 seed Las Vegas Aces in the fourth quarter to tie their semifinal series at two games a piece.

This remarkable team, which should have been dead three weeks ago, is now a single win away from making the WNBA Finals. Game five is in Vegas, and I’m sure Aja Wilson is going to be locked-the-f in, so odds are long. The Fever shouldn’t be here in the first place, though, so there’s really no pressure on them. Hopefully Kelsey Mitchell has one more magnificent game in her.

Also, I saw sooooo many bad foul calls in the few minutes I watched. Two were overturned by replay reviews. A couple more probably would have been reversed if challenged. I’m not sure how these refs can be so ridiculously bad every game.

KU Hoops

It’s not basketball season yet but there was some KU news that balanced out the football loss. The number one rated point guard in the class of 2026, Tay Kinney, committed to play for the Jayhawks on Sunday. He’s not at the same level as Darryn Peterson, but it’s nice to have DP’s replacement next year locked up. Kinney said a big factor in choosing KU was Jacque Vaughn’s presence, and the opportunity to play under someone who played and coached in the NBA. JV already paying dividends!

Bonus to steal a kid most thought was headed to Louisville for about a year. Double bonus that he’s from the Kentucky suburbs of Cincinnati. If M cared about recruiting I would have let her know about it.

Now I will say, Kinney seems like he’s kind of annoying. At least to an old man like me. He’s super out there on social media. He helped popularize the “6–7” meme your kids are probably driving you crazy with. He already sells his own brand of 6–7 bottled water, and had special cans in KU colors made for his announcement video. If he has six turnovers against Kentucky in the Champions Classic but puts out three videos that week, I’m going to be super irritated. I will also realize I am an old men.

I have some more sports takes, but I’ll save those for tomorrow.

Apparently THS doesn’t have a placekicker, so they went for two after each touchdown, which caused some odd scoring margins as the game ebbed and flowed. Their best player is a D1 recruit at tight end, plays defense, and is also their punter and kickoff man. I love shit like that you only see in high school. ↩
Evergreen event. ↩
Not really. Violence against animals is bad. Don’t do it. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 26 Sep 2025 07:53:29 -0400

A busy week that’s been a bit out-of-sorts, so this week’s playlist includes more old music than I’ve been doing recently. Still good songs!

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“Light Night Mountains All That” - Ratboys Last week I shared a recent cover by Ratboys. Right after that they dropped a new single of their own, although no word on a new album date. This one rips.

“Another Second Chance” - Rocket The fifth track I’ve shared from Rocket this year, which seems a little excessive. Their album doesn’t even, finally, get released until next week. Not sure there are going to be any decent songs left to listen to after this slow trickle of early release singles.

“Misery” - The Living End Man, I loved The Living End’s 2001 album Roll On, a fiery blend of old school punk, Aussie pub rock, and pop. I believe I followed up with them a little in the early 2000s but, as far as I knew, they had disappeared. Turns out they kind of had, although they continued to make music deep into the 2010s. They have a new album out today, their first in eight years. This isn’t up to that 2001 level, but it’s not bad.

“16/25” - Softcult File under Pretty Songs About Ugly Subjects.

“Stone Shadow” - Glyders Some very cool, old fashioned, garage rock.

“When This Gets Out” - The Persian Leaps A four-year old track that sounds like classic Smithereens.

“T–60” - Broken Record Some quality, grungy, Nineties-like guitars in this one.

“Jacksonville” - Sufjan Stevens We are 20 years past Sufjan’s Illinois, which was supposed to be the first of 50 albums focused on each state in the union. That project kind of fizzled out, to no one’s surprise. He’s made some amazing albums since, but this is the only one I ever really connected with. I don’t think there’s been a more inventive songwriter this century.

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“I Fought The Law” - The Clash Sonny Curtis died last weekend. A friend of Buddy Holly’s, he worked with Holly and joined his band the Crickets after Holly left Texas for New York. He wrote several terrific songs, but this was his best, most famous, and most enduring, covered by many other artists over the years.

Thursday Links

Thu, 25 Sep 2025 12:06:55 -0400

I’m off to the eye doctor shortly, which means he’ll dilate my eyes, which means I’m going to be worthless all afternoon. So rather than finish another post I was working on, I’ll share some links instead.

I offer this one without comment, lest any of you report me to my boss and get me fired.

How to Tell the Difference Between a Lone Wolf and a Coordinated Effort by the Radical Left

As happens too often these days, a sports writer serves up a more insightful and honest assessment of our country than most writers at the New York Times or Washington Post are allowed to.

Each individual act of capitulation has emboldened Trump to press for more. It has also created a precedent that makes both the president’s assault on free institutions and those institutions’ relinquishing of their freedom seem normal. It says to the government, You have our permission to do this to us.

The Age of Corporate Capitulation Won’t Work

I mean, come on, bro. Not sure if cheesy, prime time medical dramas ever went to this level.

Doctor walked out of operation for sex with nurse

When Childhood Obsessions Turn Into Letdowns

Tue, 23 Sep 2025 19:17:29 -0400

We are planning for a project that would involve finishing a portion of our currently unfinished side of the basement. To prepare, I’ve been going through some of the crap stored down there to free up space. Part of that is digging through the massive box of sports cards I’ve been lugging around for decades.

I knew these were largely worthless at this point. My generation grew up hearing about the cards bought for pennies in the Fifties and Sixties turning into items that could finance a family vacation, home addition, or even college tuition fund. So we hoarded and hoarded, slipping our best cards into plastic sleeves and acrylic cases to preserve their condition for the magical day when we turned them into big payoffs.

Of course, we didn’t understand supply and demand at the time, forgetting those old cards were valuable because not many were produced in the first place and few of those survived their teenage owners’ childhoods unscathed. In the Eighties, however, each collection was produced in massive numbers, making them all common and worth nothing. If we were smart, we really should have sold our cards before we went to college instead of tucking them into basements, closets, and attics thinking they would be multiplying in value as they sat.

So, yeah, I knew my page of Rickey Henderson cards was worth less than when I first bought them. But a part of me figured, if I have 10,000 or whatever cards stored, maybe I could bundle them into lots and make a few bucks on eBay. Surely someone would pay $50 for 1000 random cards, right?

Turns out no one wants to do that. In fact, I saw some guy selling a box of roughly 5,000 cards for something like $20. The shipping was more than his actual auction value, which seemed wild.

Maybe there were some individual cards in there that could be worth something. I didn’t want to go to the effort of sorting them out and then having them professionally assessed and graded so I could sell them with their condition certified.

Thus I came to the conclusion that nearly everything in this huge tote was worthless and, with a heavy heart, decided to just trash them all.

I’m sure some of my fellow Gen Xers just involuntarily shuddered as they read that line. I still can’t believe I did it.

Now there was one card in my collection that would have been worth a fair amount of money even today had I not done what most people did when they got it in 1981.

I owned the Larry Bird - Julius Erving - Magic Johnson tri-card from the Topps 1980–81 basketball set. For some crazy reason, that year Topps divided the area of a traditional card into three sections, each for a different player, with perforations to detach them from each other. Yes, the dumbass writing this tore the three sections from each other. I recall having mixed feelings when I did it, but as I was already storing the set in a tiny jewelry box I found that was perfect for the individual pieces, I tore away.

Idiot.

That card has sold for as much as $9600 recently. There are a couple on sale for over $10,000!!!! Now, even if I had kept mine intact, I doubt I would have remained in mint condition over the years. But maybe I’d still get a few hundred for it? Alas. I’m holding on to these three mini cards both as a connection to my youth and a reminder that collecting things should always be more about the experience it produces than the possibility of a future financial windfall.

Weekend Notes

Mon, 22 Sep 2025 09:22:24 -0400

A slightly different weekend than usual around here. Plenty of sitting on my ass watching football, which is normal. But a couple car trips, a gathering, and two visitors mixed things up a bit.

High School Football

Cathedral had their one easy game of the year Friday, against winless Southport. In fact SHS had not scored a point this year. You knew it was going to be a rough night when the radio announcers said one of the keys to the game for CHS would be to get to a running clock situation as quickly as possible.

Mission accomplished. The Irish scored on a 65-yard TD pass on the first snap of the game. By the end of the first quarter it was 37–0 and the announcers were debating whether the 35-point clock mercy rule can kick in before halftime (it can not). 54–0 final, the cherry on top when a freshman ran for an 85 yard TD when CHS was just trying to run the clock out.

Elsewhere in Indiana, one of the schools I used to cover on a regular basis, EHS, cancelled their homecoming game and all homecoming activities because of a “harassment complaint” that was filed Friday. We’re not really sure what that means, but it seems super serious. In fact, the school said the remainder of the season is in jeopardy. I hate to make assumptions but this seems like something major is going on with the head coach, right?

Homecoming

Traditionally at CHS, homecoming is not a big deal. Or at least the dance part of proceedings. As long as our girls have been there, the homecoming dance was the night before the game and very casual: you went with groups of friends and no one dressed up, with kids usually wearing shorts and t-shirts. We always heard this was because the school has a winter formal in December and someone thought two big dances was too much to ask kids to prepare for.

That changed this year, with the student council going back to a traditional, semi-formal homecoming dance. And for some reason they had it the Saturday before the homecoming game. Maybe the kids don’t understand how homecoming is supposed to work. Or perhaps it was just the only night the student activity center was available.

Anyway, L went with a buddy of hers on the boys basketball team and had her group of friends over to our house before hand to eat and take pictures. They seemed to have a good time here. She said the dance itself was kind of trash. As was the party she went to after. She’s not a big partier, which was part of her assessment, but I think it was also a strange mix of kids, something else she’s not super tolerant of. She was home just after 11:00.

College Football

Part of the fun of her having friends over Saturday was that their gathering overlapped with the first half of the KU-West Virginia game. Good thing the Jayhawks were beating that ass. Or, rather, good things that WVU is kind of ass this year and even a B- offensive performance by KU was enough for a comfortable win. The defense was outstanding, but you wonder if that was just because the Mountaineers were so bad. I think the boys enjoyed me yelling at the TV a couple times while they were here.

In WVU’s defense, they’ve lost three of their best offensive players already. But their O-line looked terrible. It was one of the worst QB protection jobs I can recall. And I’ve been a KU fan for 45 years!

So not sure how much you can take away from the win. Jalon Daniels continues to be inconsistent. I think we need to accept that’s who he is after five years of injuries and hope he can keep things together for another three months because there’s no Jason Bean behind him anymore.

Again, it is a measure of how far the program has come that many of us were annoyed by the score at halftime. Not too long ago we would have been thrilled to be up 20–3 on a Big 12 opponent at halftime. Instead we were counting the missed opportunities for more points.

Big game against Cincinnati this week. Or at least big in our house. KU is an early 6.5 favorite.

How about C’s Hoosiers?!?! Holy crap! I had several friends ask me if I thought IU was legit going into their matchup with Illinois. I said I thought so, but that game would tell us a lot. IU answered every question, hanging 63 on a top ten team and were driving to score again before they ran out of time. Pretty sure Curt Cignetti is climbing the list of most hated coaches in the country quickly, which is funny since he coaches IU. He gets on my nerves but I figure IU fans deserve some fun after decades of futility.

We have tickets for homecoming next month and I’m actually interested in seeing them play in person. The turnaround in Bloomington is remarkable.

Visitors

Two visitors over the weekend. First, my father-in-law is spending a few days with us while his wife is out-of-town. That’s been tough. He’s not in great health and struggles with a lot of basic stuff. It’s hard to watch a man who was so gregarious and active be constantly wiped out and reserved. S and I work hard to find things to laugh about in his behavior (without making fun of him) to balance out the sadness and frustration. He’s with me today and S will take him back to his place tonight when his wife returns from her trip.

He has always been one of those old men who walks around other people’s houses and turns off any lights he finds on. This has caused both laughter and anger in the 22 years I’ve lived in Indy. Once, many years ago, S was in the basement studying for her boards and he was over helping me with a project. Without being asked, he opened the basement door, saw the lights were on, and switched them off, eliciting much cussing from the basement.

Well, he still does that. But in the modern, smart(-ish) home era, he gets confused sometimes. I have several lamps that are on smart plugs which turn on around sunset then automatically off at various times. One of the lamps doesn’t have an obvious off-switch. Friday evening I found the entire smart plug pulled from the wall, lying on the table next to it. He’s persistent in reducing our electric bill! That is one we laughed at. Each night before bed I make a circuit of the house resetting things he has “adjusted” for us.

Thursday I drove down to Bloomington to bring C home for the weekend. Well, kind of. Her weekend plan was to go to Cincinnati to visit some high school friends on Friday and then her big sister on Saturday. So she needed to come home to get a car. She normally has just one class on Fridays, a discussion for her political theory class. They had an exam on Tuesday so the discussion was cancelled and I was able to get her Thursday night.

Like the first time I saw M her freshman year, C talked all the way home. Seems like she’s off to a good start. Classes are going well and she enjoys them all. She’s made some new friends while still seeing some of her high school pals. She and her roommate are getting along, although she doesn’t love her dorm because it is constantly loud and chaotic. She’s joined a couple of clubs. She has probably already found a group of girls to live with next year.[1]

She had a good time in Cincy then drove back early Sunday so she could spend time with us. Which, naturally, turned into her napping most of the day until I drove her back in the afternoon so she could go to a Colin Jost concert on campus.

I have to say that the drive to Bloomington is so easy. After over 10 years of construction, the upgrade of US highway 31 to Interstate 69 finished a year ago, making it a clean shot to B-town. No more stoplights between I–465 and when you exit for IU. No more constricted lanes while the road was being improved. It’s a smooth, 70 minute drive.

On my drive back Sunday I had a strange experience. I was cruising along at about 80, passing another car, when I noticed a huge pickup was suddenly right on my ass. As soon as I could I got back into the right lane. This truck ripped by me. It was a huge, Chevy, dually truck. In the back bed was a massive, carved, wooden bear statue strapped so it was upright. And this truck was going at least 90. Just for fun I got up to 86 or 87 and homie was still pulling away from me like I wasn’t moving. I guess someone needed that bear in their yard ASAP!

Always good to see the college kids, especially when it seems like they are doing well. I’ll repeat an observation from two years ago when M came home for the first time: one of the great moments in parenting is when your college kids come home and you hear them spending time with their siblings, giggling and having their own conversations away from S and I.

Colts

OK, I don’t want to get too excited about the Colts’ 3–0 start. They’ve beaten two of the worst teams in the league and then were a fortunate/controversial penalty call away from losing to Denver a week ago. But they have POUNDED those two bad teams, looking terrific on both sides of the ball. The next four weeks should tell us a lot. Two trips to LA to face the Rams and Chargers sandwiching home games against the Raiders and Cardinals. Getting at worst a split from those games and you’re feeling pretty good about the team, especially if they can stay close in the two road games. It is a bonus that Houston is 0–3, giving the Colts a nice cushion on the pre-season picks to win the AFC South.

There was a very 2010’s Kansas football moment in the Colts game. Indy was up 17–6 late in the first half with Tennessee driving. The Colts held on third down leaving the Titans with 4th and one with 45 seconds left. The Colts called a time out to stop the clock. After the time out the Titans offense remained on the field, standing around looking confused. So Tennessee called their own timeout. After a pause they ran their kicking team onto the field. Only to get a delay of game penalty because they were standing around waiting to get a kicking ball onto the field. A delay of game penalty after not one but two timeouts! Very Turner Gill/Charlie Weis/David Beaty. And then the Colts blocked the field goal, drove down the field, and kicked their own field goal as time ran out. It’s amazing how things spiral for bad teams.

Fever

I feel bad about giving up on the Fever. Not only did they win their opening playoff series, they went into Las Vegas Sunday and stole game one against the Aces, controlling almost the entire game.

Since the WNBA will always WNBA, the game was played opposite of the Colts game. Between than and me not expecting much, I never switched over. I was sitting in C’s dorm room when I saw that they had, in fact, won. I’ll be tuning in for game two, which means they’ll probably get crushed. Still a pretty remarkable story. No matter how this series ends up, it is some measure of redemption and consolation for a season that has, mostly, been a disaster.

As we expected, she will probably not go through rush in January. She’s just not a good fit for that process in general, and IU’s is especially intense. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 19 Sep 2025 07:41:55 -0400

This week’s list might be a teensy bit leaner than normal. We have a couple house visitors and it’s been a busy week, so less time to stock this up over the past few days.

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1sYqXGH4mDSfdLFuWle5oI?si=1cd65398d8b04d95)

“September” - Earth, Wind, & Fire It’s that time of year.

“Change My Mind” - Phantastic Ferniture Before she struck out on her own, Julia Jacklin had a band with some friends. Their last album came out in 2018. This week they released two new songs. No word on if a proper album will come out, but this track smokes (the other isn’t too bad, either) and went straight into my working list of favorite songs of the year, so hopefully we’ll hear more from JJ and her crew.

“F*****g ’n’ Rollin” - Phantastic Ferniture Might as well throw one of their OG tracks at you, too.

“Joseph” - Bab Bad Hats & Ratboys I’ve never heard of Bad Bad Hats, but apparently they are kind of the Ratboys of Minneapolis? Their debut album came out a decade ago and made enough of an impact on other artists that they’ve put together a cover version. This is Ratboys’ contribution, which sounds like it could easily be one of their songs. Ratboys are in the studio working on their next album, too.

“Sweet Nothing” - Saintseneca This track seemed like a nice transition from the last.

“Wind Chime” - The Berries I shared the first single off The Berries’ debut album a month or so ago. The album has been released, and it a wonderful set of songs that all sit in similar sonic territory, perfect for fall.

“Weeping Sky” - Pictureplane A properly dark song for our nights to get longer than our days starting this weekend.

“Heaven’s On Fire” - The Radio Dept. Everything is on fire, why should heaven be any different?

[youtu.be/ongmqrbT8...](https://youtu.be/ongmqrbT8OU?si=aDP-NL-tKcVdror8)

“Drown” - Son Volt We just hit the 30th anniversary of the release of Son Volt’s debut album, Trace. One of the most unexpectedly delightful albums of my life. I was not aware of Uncle Tupelo’s music when they were a working band. From what I knew of their sound, I wasn’t going to be into either of these new bands - Son Volt and Wilco - that were set to emerge from its ashes in 1995. Wilco’s “Box Full Of Letters” was a wonderful song, full of wistful reflections on a relationship (or band) that had dissolved. But “Drown” blew me away, with its big guitars and Jar Farrar’s unforgettable voice.

Still, I did not expect to like their album. For some reason I picked it up and despite much of it drifting into the Tupelo No Depression sound, I loved it. It is one of a handful of albums I try to listen to, front-to-back, once a year.

Steven Hyden wrote a great remembrance of the album to honor its anniversary.

Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 118

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 13:58:41 -0400

Chart Week: September 8, 1984 Song: “Sunglasses At Night” - Corey Hart Chart Position: #9, 16th week on the chart. Peaked at #7 the week of September 1.

Every era of music has its own unique set of identifiers that some listeners use to immediately discredit and dismiss a song. Two entries ago, I discussed string sections in Seventies rock. In the Eighties, it was the synthesizer. To many music fans, often young men, the presence of a synthesizer meant a record was artificial; a soulless studio creation by people lacking musical skills. Or worse.[1] Tweak some knobs, punch some buttons, type in some code and you’ve got a synth pop track.

Like most critiques, there is some measure of truth in there. There were a lot of awful songs in the Eighties recorded by people with no talent other than owning a programmable keyboard.

But that line of thought also ignored that most synth pop songs were, like traditional rock music, built by artists with genuine talent coming up with the melody and chord progressions, lyrics, and then arranging it all to make a coherent whole. Sometimes all this was done on guitar or piano before taking it to the digital space. Synth pop songs still had to tap into universal truths to become hits, meaning they had more soul than they were commonly given credit for. The process to record them was just different than when the Beatles worked at Abbey Road or the Stones spent time in a French Chateau making Exile On Main Street.

Corey Hart’s “Sunglasses At Night” is high on the list of derided synth pop tracks. Written off as fluffy, manufactured crap by some, it has a surprising depth that isn’t hard to discern if you give it a chance. However, too many people were distracted by the track’s unforgettable, unstoppable synthesizer hook and Hart’s physical appearance to get that far.

“Sunglasses At Night” almost didn’t happen. Hart was working on his debut album, First Offense, in England. He was nearly done, but kept coming back to a melody that he liked. It was stuck in his head but he couldn’t find the momentum to complete it. He decided to sing some placeholder lyrics to it - “My Cigarette Is Wet” - and set it aside, something to focus on for his next album.

While he was in England, he bought a pair of classic Ray Ban Wayfarer sunglasses, which were coming back into vogue. However, because of the dreary UK weather, he wasn’t able to wear them. After returning to Canada, he donned the shades constantly. So often that his friends made fun of him for never taking them off.

Lightning struck! “I wear my sunglasses at night” fit the melody he had been sitting on! Hart went back to the studio and finished the song, a last minute addition before First Offense was pressed.

That little moment of inspiration changed Hart’s career. Although he had released a single eight years earlier when he was just 14, First Offense was his debut full-length album, and “Sunglasses At Night” was the lead single from it. It didn’t take long for listeners, whether they loved him or hated him, to know who Corey Hart was.

That opening synth line is one of the most recognizable of the decade.[2] It sounds like circus music twisted to wring out all the fun, turning it dark and foreboding. Those opening notes were enough for some folks to reject the song. Its title didn’t help. I recall a lot of people thinking it was about a guy who was too cool and bragging about it, looking down on others. It didn’t help that Hart was a very handsome man. And French Canadian, for crying out loud! He might as well have been Boy George to a certain segment of the pop music audience.

Despite all that backlash,[3] “Sunglasses At Night” made it to #7 in the US. It remained in the Top 40 for almost four months. From late July through September, you heard it nearly as often as Prince, Bruce, and Cyndi. MTV, for obvious reasons, loved Hart as well, keeping the video in high rotation.

“Sunglasses At Night” is a good song. Maybe very good. Hate all you want, but the opening synth line is immediately recognizable and iconic. Hart’s voice is interesting. It does have a lot of sexy-boy pout in it, but when he cuts loose, there is some grit there as well. Maybe a poor man’s Charlie Sexton, to drop an obscure reference on you. The obligatory, cheesy guitar solo is a lot better than others of the same ilk. You could easily convince me it was Steve Stevens, Billy Idol’s guitarist, playing it.

And, honestly, I think the lyrics are pretty good. They fit the noir-ish vibe created by the music. Is he wearing his sunglasses at night to follow a woman he loves as she cheats on him? Does he wear them because she’s cheating with him, and he’s trying to hide from their shared sin? Is he a private eye? Or, as the rather dumb video suggest, is he some kind of political dissident who is wearing sunglasses because…well, I’m not really sure what anything in the video has to do with the lyrics.[4] Whatever the reality of the situation, Hart does a nice job portraying its moral ambiguity. The whole “This is wrong, but it feels so good”-ishness of it all.

OK, maybe not B.F.A. in creative writing material, but I like how there is uncertainty about the meaning of his lyrics, and how they set up a compelling story for the listener to contemplate.

One of my tests for songs like “Sunglasses At Night,” which I’ve heard hundreds of times over the years, is how do I react to it now. Some songs I loved with I was 13 I can’t stand anymore. This one I’m just fine with. I’ll turn it up just a little when it comes on. And depending on the circumstances, I might yell out with Hart on the chorus. See the light that’s right before your eyes, this one is a 8/10.

youtu.be/X2LTL8KgK…

I recall a consistent dismissal of songs that were synth heavy because they sounded “gay.” Or some term more offensive and common for the time. It didn’t help that a lot of the men making these songs wore makeup, styled their hair, and wore flamboyant clothes. A few of them actually were gay, but most were raging heterosexuals. Aspirationally heterosexual for us dorks just trying to get a girl to hold our hand. Joke was on the haters when, by the end of the decade, most hair metal bands that were allegedly tough guys also wore makeup, styled their hair, and wore flamboyant clothes… ↩
Straight off the top of my head, most recognizable opening synth lines of the Eighties aside from Hart’s: “Don’t You Want Me,” Human League; “Sweet Dreams,” Eurythmics; “Take On Me,” A-Ha; “Jump,” Van Halen. I’m sure I missed some obvious ones. ↩
I admit I may be over-remembering the backlash. It could have just been amongst the 13-year-old dickheads I rode the bus with. While they may not have been as aggressively against it as I suggest, most American males in 1984 were far more interested in Van Halen, ZZ Top, and Ratt. ↩
How Eighties! ↩

Tuesday Links

Tue, 16 Sep 2025 07:39:59 -0400

A terrible day for America, but this is A+++ headline writing.

In win for infectious diseases, Florida to end all school vaccine requirements

I was never a full-time journalist, but this piece brought back some memories of my days at the Daily Journal. Especially the footnote about keeping a running box score of a high school football game. I’ll get to The Paper at some point.

The Local Newspaper Is Dead. That’s Why We Have ‘The Paper.’

A journalist decided to dig into what all those weird recruiting texts we all get mean. The one he followed, at least, seemed like an awful lot of work for a pretty meager profit for the scammers.

Also, the thing that always drives me crazy about them is how they’ve allegedly reviewed my resume and are very impressed, but include the disclaimer that I must be at least 25 to apply for whatever position they are pushing. If they had reviewed my record, wouldn’t they know I’m well over 25???? Stupid scammers.

My Scammer

Finally, I suggested that my wife put copies of these in her office. She did laugh, but I don’t think she’s going to take my suggestion.

Weekend Notes

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 12:13:29 -0400

There was a theme for my football weekend: special teams.

High School Football

What a game Friday night, in the big Indy Northside Catholic matchup!

Class 4A #1 Chatard jumped out to a 13–0 lead early in the second quarter. The 5A #4 Cathedral defense had actually stopped them on both drives, only to be called for penalties that kept the Trojans alive. The Irish seemed to score their first TD since their opening drive of the season only to have it called back for a penalty. They settled for a field goal, making it a 17-point swing based on CHS being dumb.

It was 13–6 at halftime, then CHS scored consecutive touchdowns in the second half to take the lead and were driving again before a fumble set up a tying score for Chatard midway through the fourth quarter.

The last 90 seconds were nutty. CHS forced a BCHS punt, which they blocked. Kind of. The poor punter muffed the snap and basically kicked the ball after it had bounced off the ground, directly into the face mask of a rushing CHS player.

CHS ran the ball and the clock then brought out their all-state kicker to boot a 45 yard field goal with 12 seconds left to take the lead. Chatard got the ball to midfield but then their QB was sandwiched on the final play of the game. 23–20 final.

Nice win for Cathedral. Baring a huge upset down the road, probably their only chance to salvage anything from this season, given the remaining schedule and the best 5A team in the state being in their sectional. A brutal loss for Chatard, but one that really should not distract in any way their drive for a 4A state title.

L and her friends who came back to our house after the game were enthused by the result.

College Football

I barely watched the early games Saturday but was glued to Georgia-Tennessee and Texas A&M-Notre Dame from 3:30 until about 11:30. Both were fantastic games. Props to the Football Gods for having the first game go to overtime so it ended just as the marquee evening game was kicking off.

At some point S asked me what special teams were. I like that she’s not afraid to ask these things. I explained.

Naturally the UGa-Tenn game came down to special teams, with the Vols missing a field goal that would have won the game in regulation before losing in overtime.

As did the Notre Dame game, with the Irish flubbing the hold on the PAT that would have put them up seven with just over a minute left. A&M scored, made their kick, and won by one.

And the only early game I watched was the closing seconds of Georgia Tech’s win over Clemson…which came down to a field goal as time expired.

Oh, and I had a buddy at the Baylor game who said he spent the first half trying to figure out who the folks he was sitting by were related to on the team. Eventually he realized it was the BU long snapper. That kid got flagged for blasting someone at some point.

Special teams, friends.

Colts/NFL

But wait, there was more. The Colts went to 2–0 thanks to a massive special teams play. Saturday when breaking down special teams I told S that you can’t hit the center on snaps on kicks. Well, that how the Colts beat Denver. They missed a 60-yard attempt as time ran out. But the Broncos were flagged for hitting the Colts center. The ball was moved up 15 yards and Spencer Shrader nailed his second chance to win the game.

S missed the play but was excited when I told her how special teams played a huge role.

It was, frankly, a lucky win for the Colts. Not just because of how the game ended. Their offense was really good outside the red zone, but bogged down too often once the ball got inside the 20. Shane Steichen needs to call better plays. Like too many teams, the Colts get boring and predictable when the yards to go get fewer.

But the defense? Stinky. Yeah, they were missing a couple starters again. According to the Sunday night stats, though, they didn’t officially hit Bo Nix once in the pocket. You can’t win in the NFL without consistently pressuring the quarterback. And the Denver wide receivers were torching the Colts DBs all day long. Two of Denver’s scores came when there was terrible communication between the Colts LBs and DBs, leaving receivers wide open. The Colts were fortunate they were in position to win the game in the first place. The flag on Denver was just the cherry on top.

We didn’t get the Giants-Cowboys game in Indy - we had Bears-Lions which was fun to watch, too - so I missed the special teams impact on that one.

I’ll wrap this up by giving full props to the NFL for adjusting the kickoff rules. Last year’s changes sucked the life out of the kickoff, giving teams zero incentive not to just blast the ball out of the end zone for a touchback.

But the new rule, which brings touchbacks out another five yards - and is now 15 yards further than the classic touchback rules - does the exact opposite, forcing teams to keep the kick in play. Nicely done!

Now fix the onside kick situation so there is a reasonable chance of success.

Fever

The Fever opened their series against Atlanta Sunday in the midst of football action. Last year I switched back-and-forth all day when they began their playoff series. This year? I checked once. I immediately saw a horrific foul call that the Fever had to waste a challenge/time out to correctly have overturned. Then I heard this was the second time they had to do that. And it wasn’t even halftime yet. In the 5–6 weeks it’s been since I last watched a game I blocked out how terrible WNBA referees are. I was reminded, switched away, and never checked in again.

Also, would you believe this, another Fever player was hurt and unavailable. This time it was just a concussion for Damiris Dantas, but still.

Like the last two months have gone, the Fever had an early lead Sunday then faded. This season will be, mercifully, over soon.

Family Bummer

We got bad news last week. M’s semester abroad program advisor sent her a message saying “Oh, by the way, Portugal has changed their entry visa process and now you have to go to Washington, D.C. to apply in person.” The advisor said you had to book an appointment at an office in D.C. and that it would be a good idea to hurry, as M needed to submit her visa to the program in about six weeks. M went on the website to schedule…and there were no appointments available. Like not even a couple months out. It just said to check back later. This was concerning.

Tuition is due this week, which was the biggest issue. There was no way we were going to pay that bill when we weren’t sure she could get a visa.

I did some digging and found that there are special hours when students can just walk in without an appointment. These hours are 8:30–10:30 each Monday morning. Terrific. I had her follow up to make sure that was accurate. It took a couple calls - the email listed bounced messages back and the phone number on the website rang without being picked up - but eventually she confirmed. We both spent the afternoon researching with plans to reconnect in the evening when S was home.

I started checking flights from both Cincinnati and Indy to DC. To make this work we really would have to be in D.C. yesterday so she could be in line this morning. As you might guess, it would not be a cheap flight. And I wanted to go with her to make sure she wasn’t hassled getting into a hotel, had some moral support, etc. So we were looking at a $2000-ish trip to stand in line for two hours and hopefully submit an application.

Then as I reviewed the documentation she would have to attach to her application, I saw we would have to have proof of air travel and her travel insurance paid for. This was turning into an extremely expensive week.

When S got home gave her the details and we agreed there were too many steps that needed to be taken in too short of a time frame, with no guarantees of success. Fortunately by the time M called, she had figured that out on her own. She took the disappointment pretty well and quickly pivoted to aiming for a summer program.

That also wipes out our spring break plans, as we were going to take her sisters with us to visit in March. I had been looking forward to this trip for six months already.

My biggest annoyance with all this is Portugal’s process changed on August 15. Meaning, had her advisor, you know, advised her, M either could have gotten an application submitted on line before the change, or we could have at least had more time to get a D.C. visit scheduled.

This might all be for the best. M’s one friend who was supposed to go with her was having serious second thoughts even before she found out about the visa changes. And M was realizing five months overseas was a long time. Doing 3–8 weeks in the summer seems much more manageable.

Apparently Portugal is changing their rules because it has traditionally been one of the easiest countries in Europe to get into. Something like 15% of Portugal’s population are foreign nationals and they’ve decided that is too much. Even if a lot of those people are working professionals who are paying taxes and contributing to society. But who am I to tell another country how to run their affairs? Mine can’t do anything sensible. You would think, though, that students would somehow be exempt from these stricter rules.

Oh well. Now we’re trying to figure out what to do for spring break with just L and plan on doing a family trip to wherever M picks to spend part of her summer.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 12 Sep 2025 08:15:13 -0400

A juicy list this week with a bunch of good, new tracks; a throwback; a re-imagined classic; and another by a classic artist that is new to me.

open.spotify.com/playlist/…

“New Distraction” - fanclubwallet Perfect, late summer song. Our three weeks of False Fall have passed and it is going to be in the 90s much of the coming week, so the song fits the moment in our part of the world.

“56 Nervous Breakdowns” - Luke Maines & Peter Buck The latest release by the (kind of) ongoing project featuring Maines of Auteurs and Buck, formerly of R.E.M.

“Hey You” - The Belair Lip Balms An Australian band signed to Jack White’s label? I’m all in based on that alone. The band name is kind of dumb, though.

“In Your Head” - Nation of Language Not many bands do synth pop like this, that both honors the classic, Eighties stuff and stands on its own, as well as NoL.

“Wonder” - Danger Mouse and MorMor Tom Breihan called this track “new-wave soul,” a description I quite like.

“Young Offenders” - Spiritual Cramp An up-tempo song about having fun with your friends? Yes, please!

“Guard Dog” - Snooper Another single from Jack White’s Third Man Records, this one more punky than the first. Good use of dog barks and cowbell!

“freefall” - Jane Inc. And now our second artist from Toronto (MorMor is also from there). A wonderful track that calls back to the poppy R&B of the early Nineties that crossed racial and musical lines.

“Dance Stamina” - Pluto A really solid song that would have been out right when I started my old music podcast. This band had a big moment in their homeland of New Zealand, with this song spending over half a year on their Top 40, and the album going double platinum. Their Wikipedia page is kind of fun, written either by a superfan or someone in the band trying to bend the narrative.

“Born In The USA (Electric Nebraska)” - Bruce Springsteen What a year for the true Springsteen Heads. First the box set that featured seven albums that had been sitting in his vaults for decades. A movie about the making of his Nebraska album later this fall, starring Jeremy Allen White. To go along with that, a remastered version of that 1982 album that includes perhaps the holy grail of Bruce’s vault: the mythical “Electric Nebraska” album. After recording Nebraska on his own, he took the songs to the E. Street Band. He was dissatisfied with how they turned out and shelved them, releasing his original, spare takes.

Included in those sessions were early work on some of the songs that ended up on the Born In The USA album in 1984. Including this, which sounds nothing like the album version and is completely awesome. It is much more raw and immediate than the synth-heavy version that ended up on Born In The USA. I hear some Credence Clearwater Revival. That fits. The message of the song is far less ambiguous in this form, but given how people still don’t understand what “Fortunate Son” is about, I’m not sure if “BITUSA” wouldn’t have still been hijacked by people who didn’t bother to listen to its message had this been the version sent to radio stations.

youtu.be/Hvqgb1D6O…

“Union City Blues” - Blondie The other night my uncle asked what I thought of this song. I had to admit I had never heard it, or at least didn’t remember ever hearing it. Pretty good track. The video, though, is something else. I had never seen Debbie Harry play guitar before, for starters. And then the second half? Well, I guess you shouldn’t ask white men on drugs to dance while filming.

Reader's Notebook, 9/11/25

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 14:08:32 -0400

The Magdalen Martyrs, The Dramatist, Priest - Ken Bruen
Books three, four, and five of Bruen’s Jack Taylor series. I read them in five or six days. They are that good.

Like many series there are multiple repeating themes and plot devices. Bur Bruen was a good enough writer that he made each book completely compelling and just different enough where they did not feel like three versions of the same story.

A big part of that is that Jack Taylor himself is such an interesting character. Always bouncing between addiction and sobriety. Violence and peace. Healthy and destructive relationships.

In The Dramatist, after the latest set of mysteries have been resolved, almost too easily, Bruen casually threw out one of the biggest plot bombs I’ve ever read. So casually I had to back up and re-read a paragraph to make sure I understood it properly. That devastating detail hung heavily over Priest, and I assume over future volumes that I will eventually get to.

Proper Irish noir.

The Sicilian Inheritance - Jo Piazza
After that run of dark mysteries, I needed a palate cleanser. This ended up being a little heavier than anticipated, but in a very different way from Bruen’s books and with a healthy counter of lightness.

It is told in two, overlapping sections. In the first an Italian-American woman’s life (Sara) is falling apart. Her restaurant has failed and she’s declared bankruptcy, her marriage has crumbled, and her favorite great aunt has died. She and that aunt planned on traveling back to their ancestral home in Sicily but Sara’s troubles pushed that off until it was too late. Among her aunt’s final wishes was that Sara take her ashes back to Sicily and spread them, while trying to figure out what happened to Sara’s great grandmother, who stayed in Italy when the rest of her family moved to the US.

The other half of the story is about that great grandmother, Serafina, and her wildly interesting life in the early 20th century. She was a remarkable woman, far ahead of her time, something that in rural, early 1900s Sicily, aroused great suspicion and scorn.

Sara’s time in Sicily is hilarious, maddening, and a little frightening as she confronts various forces that don’t want her to discover the truth of her family’s history. In the end, of course, she uncovers the real story and things work out fine. But there are some dramatic revelations along the way. And the ending of her great grandmother’s story is remarkable.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book. It was on my list because I had read multiple glowing reviews of it. Yet I was still worried it was a little light for my tastes, even if that was what I needed at the moment. This was a terrific read, with just the right amount of seriousness, humor, and mystery.

Moonbound - Robin Sloan
Sloan also wrote Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, which I read a few years back and very much enjoyed. This came with glowing recommendations and started off incredibly. It takes place in a future earth, 11,000 years in the future to be exact, which is recovering from a series of calamities over the years. Thus Sloan mixes both sci-fi and fantasy, and sends his main characters on an old-school quest to discover a way to fight an evil wizard. Oh, and “dragons” who have taken over the moon. I put dragons in quotes because they aren’t dragons in the fantasy sense, but rather a name given to a group of humans who went off on their own and, well, it’s complicated. There are also talking animals. It would be a clumsy mishmash if Sloan wasn’t so adept at blending these elements.

This book is incredibly funny. It is touching. It is engaging. But for the first two-thirds or so it was setting up to be perhaps the first step in a longer quest, which kept me thinking it was the first in a series. Maybe Sloan was headed that way, realized partway through his writing he didn’t want to get tied down to a trilogy, and adjusted. The ending is fine, I was just expecting more. Hell, maybe that’s just on me and I let my expectations and misunderstanding Sloan’s aims get in the way of a terrific book. I still really liked it, just was left wanting more when it reached its conclusion.

US Open Notebook

Tue, 09 Sep 2025 14:18:16 -0400

As promised, a few more thoughts from the US Open I scribbled down over the past two weeks.

In general ESPN’s coverage was quite good, as usual. They mix in enough back court matches during the afternoons to give you an idea of that environment. They also do a great job in those pre-prime time hours switching to different matches to at least make you aware there might be a different, more exciting match that you can view on ESPN+.

I really like Chris Eubanks. Smart, enthusiastic, interesting, understands how to get his points across quickly between points.

My biggest complaint about the TV coverage was that, of course, in-game, errr, match interviews have spread to tennis. At least it was just with coaches, but it is still super distracting to have the announcers talking with someone court-side for an entire game. A couple times these interviews got awkward as the coach’s player was struggling and it became more difficult to ask questions. Let’s hope they don’t try to interview players between sets next year.

Actually, strike that. As much as I hate in-game/match/event interviews, ESPN was really bad at showing the close call replays. A couple times you could hear the crowd gasp and the announcer yelling “OH, SO CLOSE!” but the cameras were focused on one of the players instead of the replay the players and the entire crowd could see inside the stadium.

Another quibble is how they supply us with on-court audio. We hear the grunts and groans of players clearly, probably way too clearly. But when a player is screaming after a point, either in celebration or anger, they cut the audio. I get they need to do this to assist in muting expletives and the players also want some privacy. But I want to hear it all.

Speaking of player audio, it’s long cracked me up how a player will make a mistake, or their opponent will hit a winner they have no control over, then they turn and scream at their box like they were the ones who caused the error/loss. One of the dumber behaviors of any set of professional athletes.

Along those lines, it is also amazing how many players, including some of the most accomplished in the sport, will look at their boxes in confusion asking for help. This might be a sign that players are over-coached and even the most instinctual and talented can’t think for themselves when the moments are too stressful. Novak Djokovic, arguably the greatest player in the history of the game, did it, for crying out loud!

Wednesday afternoon brought one of the most touching moments of the week, a lengthy ceremony to honor ESPN’s Cliff Drysdale, who was announcing his final tournament. There was the standard video with highlights of his career, followed by a lengthy roundtable in which nearly all the ESPN talking heads and a few behind the scenes staff came out and said a few words to “Cliffy.” This got to me, not because I have any great love for Drysdale and his broadcasting, but because almost everyone on set was bawling their eyes out. He obviously had a huge impact on the people he worked with. You’d have to have a pretty cold heart not to appreciate that.

The summary of his career was fascinating. He was once ranked in the top five as a player in the 1960s. I had no idea! I also had no idea he was South African, which is 100% on me. Once you know that the accent is obviously from SA not Australia. In my defense, his long-time partner back in the early days of ESPN was Aussie, so perhaps I was too young to know the difference when I first heard them and my mistake was based on that. He also organized a player walkout during his playing days that led to Wimbledon paying players. He helped to form the ATP. He was one of the pioneers of the two-handed backhand. He was in a group called The Handsome Eight that helped get World Championship Tennis off the ground. The Handsome Eight!

Cliff is 84. He may have hung on a few years too long. I remember a couple years ago a podcaster saying they loved watching the US Open, partially because of the excitement that came with wondering if Cliff was about to say something inappropriate. That made me laugh because I had that same feeling sometimes. But, for the most part, he was still pretty good at his job.

I read Jon Wertheim’s post tournament summary on Sports Illustrated yesterday and he suggested ESPN will bring over a couple big names that broadcast their other sports next year. Hopefully they actually know something about tennis.

Finally, one of my favorite things about the US Open is because it falls at this clear transition in our calendars. Spreading across Labor Day weekend, it begins in summer and ends in fall. Back in the day, the Open was sometimes the only sports you could find on national TV over the holiday weekend. That has obviously changed, but it is still there, helping to usher out one season and welcome a new one. When the tournament ends, I always feel ready for fall, whether it is cool and breezy like this year, or whether we are still suffering from summer-like temps, which is more common.

Also, while I’m not a New York guy by any measure, the Open begins a stretch that if someone forced me to live in NYC for a few months, this is the stretch I would choose. The Open to end the summer. Fall in the northeast, where the mythology of American falls was created. Maybe wear some J. Crew and go to an Ivy League football game! Thanksgiving with the parade in the city. Then the holidays, which after 23 years of watching Elf, Christmas in New York seems as ideally Christmasy to me as the ones I grew up in.

Weekend Notes

Mon, 08 Sep 2025 14:23:17 -0400

A very busy weekend, at least when it came to me sitting on my ass in front of the TV.

High School Football

A week after being shut out by the best team in Indiana, Cathedral was barely better against one of the best teams from Ohio. The Irish managed just two field goals in a 24–6 loss to St. Xavier. Ohio rankings are weird; I’ve seen St. X ranked anywhere from #2 to #7 in the largest class. Either way, they are very good. We went out to dinner so it was 17–0 when I was first able to listen. CHS ran the ball nicely, amassing over 200 collective yards on the ground, but once sacks were factored in, managed less than 20 yards passing. Just a killer.

The schedule doesn’t get much easier. This week is arch rival, 4A #1 Chatard, who has stomped a couple good teams. CHS usually has a clear talent advantage over their little brothers. Not sure that’s the case this year. For the first time since I’ve been following high school football closely, Chatard is ranked well ahead of CHS in the state-wide, all-class, computer rankings, #5 to #34. Lose that game and it’s pretty easy to see a 2–7 regular season ahead of CHS. A long way from when they went 37–4 over three seasons just a couple years back.

If you’ve been to a high school game this year, you know there is a new emphasis on unsportsmanlike behavior. It seems like if there’s any yapping at all, a flag gets thrown. In the three games I’ve followed I’ll give the refs credit: they’ve generally been smart enough to throw flags on both teams so the penalties offset. But I’m 100% sure that at some point this year a close game will be decided when someone pops off, the refs hear it, and his team in penalized 15 yards for it.

Refs have enough to worry about, and get consistently wrong, in the high school game. Adding this point of attention was dumb.

Return Of Kansas vs. Missouri

I did not have definitive expectations for the first Kansas-Missouri football game in 14 years. Based on the interim in which the schools did not play, my Jayhawks should get blown out in their first trip to Columbia in nearly 20 years. But KU is far better, in every sense, than they were during most of that stretch, and I had no idea how good this year’s Mizzou team was. A line of MU minus a touchdown, give or take a half point, felt right. I think the last one I saw was –5.5, so I wasn’t the only one unsure of how this would play out.

It turned out to be kind of a fun game. The Tigers pounced early, which had me thinking worst case scenarios and how soon I would flip the TV to the US Open and confine the game to my laptop. Then KU scored 21 straight points to take an unlikely lead into the second quarter. A KU fumble, with a ridiculous uncalled penalty, turned into a safety and field goal for the Tigers and KU’s momentum was gone. The game was tied by halftime and it felt like it was just a matter of time before the rout by the home team began.

Only the second half was more settled, and back-and-forth. KU took the lead. Then MU reclaimed it. KU, magically, jumped ahead again midway through the fourth quarter. Could the defense get a stop and pull the upset?

Nope. Mizzou scored four minutes later.

Finally, the inevitable kick in the nads: Emmanuel Henderson Jr. dropping a perfectly thrown third-down pass that would have moved the chains. Crushing. KU still might have lost, but to have their final chance get snuffed out because their best receiver couldn’t hang on to a ball that hit him in the hands was especially cruel. I would have gone for it - KU’s defense was gassed by this point - but Lance Leipold punted. MU seemed most interested in just running out the clock. I would have been fine with a four-point loss. However, the KU defenders lost their mind on a simple running play and allowed a 65-yard touchdown, which made the final score look more comfortable than the first 58 minutes were for Tiger fans.

Despite the dropped passes, the missed blocks, the at times horrific tackling, the confusing refusal to change defensive looks on 3rd/4th down, and a total lack of a running game, this was a pretty good result for the Jayhawks. They had the lead on the road against a bitter rival. They scored 31 points (with a boost from a defensive score) against a defense that is probably as good up front as any they will face this season. They rallied twice, and were doing their best to do it a third time before Henderson’s drop. This loss is going to look really good later in the year, since somehow Missouri got the easiest possible schedule available for an SEC team.[1]

Now a week off before Big 12 play begins. Hopefully the coaching staff can both recharge the team after this loss and clean up some of the errors. There are enough chances for wins on the schedule where not making a bowl game will be very disappointing.

Colts

Colts??? Colts!!! I take back everything I said and admit I was wrong. Starting Daniel Jones was the right move. The offensive line has been rebuilt. The defense was fast and fierce. The Colts scored on their first three possessions Sunday. The last time the franchise did that, they won the Super Bowl. So, clearly, this is a championship team.

Yeah, yeah, Miami really might be trash. Their offense was dreadful, their defense on its heels all day. The Colts took advantage of their trashiness, though, something they’ve not done often the past few years. It was the first opening week win in 12 years, so that counts for something, too. Five of their next six opponents won this weekend - small sample size alert - so we’ll see quickly how real Sunday’s performance was.

Rest Of The NFL

You’ll look dumb real quick if you make too many broad assumptions based on week one. Luckily as I only saw little bits of the other games, I’m not going out on any limbs just yet.

I did stay up to watch Baltimore-Buffalo last night. In the second half, when it looked like the Ravens were firmly in control, I muted it and tried to read my current book. I was having trouble focusing and noticed the Bills were driving, down 15, so figured I’d give the game a few more minutes and then head to bed. Great choice!

There are 16 weeks left in the regular season but we might have already seen the game of the year. A wild, wild, wild ass final four minutes, with the Bills scoring three times to win at the final gun. Baltimore was awesome for the first 50–55 minutes. Derrick Henry looked unstoppable. Their defense was stout. Lamar Jackson was flinging the ball around. And then Josh Allen went into super-duper hero mode and the Bills pulled a bunch of magic to steal the game.

A fun game, and perhaps a massive one, if it is the difference maker that has a January rematch played in Buffalo rather than Baltimore.

US Open

We caught much of the second set of Saturday’s women’s final as it lined up with halftime and the first drive of the second half of the KU game. I was not surprised that Aryna Sabalenka won. She’s the best player in the game, her only fault being she gets in her own head too often. She really seemed to be locked in the second week of the Open. She did have some outbursts, but in her final two matches you could see her making a conscious effort to control her emotions and to channel her anger. A couple times Saturday she even gave wry smiles when she made errors. If she can continue to harness those emotional demons, the rest of the tennis world is in trouble.

Funny how we kind of missed the biggest story of the tournament. First it was Venus Williams’ return. Then it was Naomi Osaka’s comeback. Then it was Amanda Anisimova’s elevation. All along the real story was Sabalenka maybe solving the biggest flaw in her game. I guess we’ll find out next year if this change was real and permanent.

I did not watch Sunday’s men’s final. Partially because I was watching football. Partially because we were prepping to have friends over for dinner. And partially out of protest of the USTA’s ridiculous request that media covering the event not publicize any reactions related to the visit of a certain tyrant/toddler. We get a little closer to becoming Hungary, China, or North Korea every day and roughly half of our country thinks it’s just fantastic. I know not tuning our TVs to the match didn’t make a difference in ABC/ESPN’s ratings, or register in any way in YouTube’s algorithm. Most people were, like me, watching football anyway. But it felt like the right thing to do.

It was a rough end to two good weeks of tennis. I jotted down some other notes from the tournament. For the one or two of you who might care, look for another post focused on them in the next day or so.

Fever

Somehow things got worse for the Fever last week. Thursday, Chloe Bibby, one of the many players signed to replace an injured starter who had flashed great shooting in some of her minutes, was ruled out for the rest of the season because of a knee injury. She was the fourth Fever player to get knocked out for the season.

A few hours later, just as the Thursday night NFL game was starting, Caitlin Clark announced she would not return this year. Make it five players.

Sheesh, what a nightmare season. Despite all that the team clinched a playoff berth over the weekend. They’ll sneak in as one of the final seeds and likely get dispatched quickly because of their makeshift lineup.

The whole CC thing has been weird, for sure. Our local newspaper columnist, who is kind of wacky, decided to dive into the weirdness. It was one of the most disjointed, wild columns I can recall him producing. He got into why the true nature of her injuries was kept so quiet. He whined about how when she suffered her most recent setback, in July, the team said she was “day-to-day,” but here we are in September and she hasn’t played in six weeks before finally being ruled out for the rest of the season. He got into her change in availability for the All Star Game and 3-point shooting contest. I think he was basically saying the Fever had been lying about the true nature of her injury to keep selling tickets without being brave enough to actually say that clearly.

Then he went on a tangent about how she had never been injured in her life before this season, connecting that to her efforts to bulk up in the off season to protect her against the physical defense she faced. Again, I think he was basically calling her/the Fever out for being dumb in training without straight-up saying that. The most asinine part of this angle was that he said she faced physical defense in college, too, and it never caused her to breakdown. As if being guarded by 18–21 year olds when you are the best player at that level is anything like being guarded by physically mature women in their late 20s and early 30s. He also made some other comments that were so vague, yet ominous, that I wonder if he’s accusing CC of intentionally sitting out the season because she was fed up with how she was officiated, mad at the Fever training staff, mentally worn out, or some combination. But, again, he never comes right out and says any of this stuff so the reader is left to wonder what the hell he meant.

For those of you not in Indy, this was the same columnist who was suspended and banned from covering the Fever Clark’s rookie year after he asked her a bunch of weird/cringey questions at a press conference early in the year.

There are legit questions in his piece. Maybe she did put too much stress on her body and needs to adjust her training methods going forward. Maybe the Fever did hide the true extent of her injuries. But his arguments were framed so poorly that they get lost and you spend more time shaking your head that his editors didn’t tell him to go back and try another draft.

Anyway, a lost second season of the Caitlin Clark era. We’ll see if she can get her body functioning properly again next year and then what the Fever look like with a new CBA expected to change how the entire league looks.

I keep waiting for some old cranks - and this state is full of them - or right-wing radio hosts to suggest Clark’s disaster season is the result of the WNBA being “woke,” or because it’s filled with militant, Black, lesbians who hate a “perfect white girl” like CC. Or because there’s fluoride in the water. Or because she’s been vaccinated. You know, stuff that used to be whispered about by the true nutjobs but has become a normal part of our daily discourse.

One of the many rules for when you lose a rivalry game: demean your opponent’s schedule. But, come on; no Georgia, no Texas, no LSU, then South Carolina, Alabama, Texas A&M at home. Who did MU pay off to get this magnificent slate? If the Tigers don’t win at least 10 games it’s time to fire “Coach Drink.” Super dumb nickname, by the way. ↩

NFL Predictions

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 10:49:21 -0400

It’s that time of year again: the moment for some extremely half-assed NFL predictions.

To begin, let’s spend a few minutes discussing my local team, the Indianapolis Colts.

This week The Athletic ran a feature about what franchises were the most optimistic about the upcoming season. This was based on reader input, so highly unscientific. The Colts were dead last. I could stop right there and move on to the league-wide predictions.

The Colts are a such a mess that despite some major improvements on the defense, one of the best running backs in the game, and a group of above average receivers, only the most wildly confident of fans has any belief that the team will be worth watching this season. The way the front office and coaching staff have made a mess of the quarterback situation for the past decade colors everything. Even if the rest of the team is solid, the expectation is that despite playing in the weak AFC South, the quarterback is going to outweigh all else and turn this into another lost season. I think the real fear is the team will again fall into that range of true mediocrity and win just enough games to not be in the running for a difference-making quarterback in next spring’s draft. And the cycle will repeat.[1]

There’s also the feeling around Indy that no matter what happens on the field, there will be a new coach and GM next year, which means a full reset is in order. Throw in (kind of) new ownership and any optimism is being pushed down the road at least a year until that new leadership comes in plus we get a feel for how Jim Irsay’s daughters are going to run the team.[2]

Maybe Daniel Jones manages the game just fine. Maybe Tyler Warren is the perfect target for his short passes. Maybe Jonathan Taylor can stay healthy and run for close to 2000 yards. Maybe the offensive line can replace two lost starters without missing a beat. Maybe the defensive front is as stout as observers are saying and the defensive backs can stop losing a player every week to injury. Even then you’re looking at 8–9 wins at the very best. Which, again, means the Colts are drafting a lineman and not a quarterback.

You hate to overreact to week one, but if the Colts can’t beat Miami at home this week, things could get ugly quick. Keep in mind the Colts haven’t won a week one game in 12 years. Despite playing another team in some turmoil at home, this is not a given. Lose that one and I think you’ll see a lot of cheap tickets for home games available on the secondary market the rest of the season, often snatched up by visiting fans. And the Colts fans who do come will be loud in expressing their dissatisfaction.

Now for the rest of the league.

AFC East

Buffalo as long as Josh Allen is healthy. I’m not sold on any of the other three teams being strong enough to challenge them.

AFC North

Baltimore as long as Lamar Jackson is healthy. Cincinnati will be more fun to watch because their offense might be legendary and their defense should be terrible, making for wild, high scoring games. I’m not sure all the parts fit in Pittsburgh. Cleveland gonna Cleveland.

AFC South

Houston as long as CJ Stroud is healthy. Hell, he might be able to miss half the season and the Texans could still win this pathetic division.

AFC West

Kansas City as long as Patrick Mahomes is healthy. So many people are crazy pumped about Denver. I don’t get it. They were lucky often,[3] and were poor against good teams last season. They might be better than a year ago, but I don’t see a team that’s going to challenge the Chiefs over 17 games. Oakland/Las Angeles/Oakland/Las Vegas will be better. The Chargers will be the Chargers. A tough division, to be sure, and that may drag the Chiefs win total down a little, but they are still the champs.

AFC Wildcards

Denver Cincinnati San Diego

NFC East

Philadelphia as long as Jalen Hurts is healthy. In my limited time watching last night, I was surprised that Dallas could hang with them, so this division might be tighter than I first expected. Washington will regress unless Jayden Daniels is truly a generational player. New York will be better, but still pretty stinky.

NFC North

The most interesting division in the sport. Can Detroit keep their momentum going after losing both coordinators? Can Jordan Love stay on the field and limit his turnovers, and will Micah Parsons be healthy enough to elevate the defense so the Packers can challenge the Lions? Minnesota might be the most talented team in the game, but are running who is an effectively a rookie quarterback out who hasn’t played in nearly two years. Can Ben Johnson get Caleb Williams to the level Chicago expected when they drafted him? I’m torn between Detroit and Green Bay. I’ll mentally flip a coin and take the Packers.

NFC South

Tampa Bay as long as Baker Mayfield is healthy. Almost as crappy a division otherwise as the AFC South. In fact, because of schedule differences, I’m picking the Bucs as my shock #1 seed in the NFC.

NFC West

I heard a stat last week that I have not verified but sounds true: San Francisco has either made at least the NFC title game or missed the playoffs for 22 straight seasons. That is wild, wild stuff. This division is similar to the AFC West just without the clear favorite. Every team could win it, but every team is also one key injury away from falling apart. Christian McCaffrey is already on the injured report because of his calf. Healthy now or not, he’s not holding up all season. So I’ll DQ the Niners. Matthew Stafford isn’t playing 17 games, so the Rams are suspect. Does anyone really trust Arizona? That leaves Seattle, I guess. I’ll go with the Seahawks but I’m not crazy about it.

NFC Wildcards

Detroit Minnesota Dallas

Playoffs

AFC Baltimore (2) over San Diego (7) Kansas City (3) over Denver (6) Houston (4) over Cincinnati (5)

Buffalo (1) over Houston Kansas City over Baltimore

Buffalo over Kansas City The Bills finally get over the hump. Unless they don’t.

NFC Philadelphia (2) over Minnesota (7) Green Bay (3) over Dallas (6) Detroit (5) over Seattle (4)

Tampa Bay (1) over Detroit Green Bay over Philadelphia

Green Bay over Tampa Bay

Super Bowl

Green Bay 31, Buffalo 24. Poor Buffalo. I think the Packers get locked in and healthy and go on a run through the playoffs.

As always, do NOT take these picks to your favorite betting app or friendly, neighborhood bookie. I am not responsible for your gambling losses.

Don’t forget this goes back to when GM Ryan Grigson decided Andrew Luck didn’t need an offensive line and got pummeled so much he had to quit the game. The franchise still likes to complain about Luck’s retirement catching them by surprise. But that was seven years ago and it was front office malpractice that forced Luck into that position. ↩
To be fair, it seems like they may have been running the team for a while. Which does not bode well. ↩
Although not as often as the Chiefs. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 08:08:37 -0400

Not to ruin your expectations before you work your way through this week’s songs, but I’m not sure about a few of these. Feels like we’ve reached a lull in the new music where I have a lot of B songs. Don’t get me wrong, there are some decent ones in here, especially in the front half of this list. I’m just saying if you get distracted and can’t finish it, I don’t think you’ll miss anything life changing.

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“September Gurls” - Big Star December boys got it bad.

“Rock A Bye Baby” - Jean Dawson Holy 1985!!! This sounds like every song that came out that year trying to capitalize on Prince’s success, or was made by a Prince-produced act. I’m not complaining.

“Another Life” - Alabama Shakes After ten years apart, three of the four original members of Alabama Shakes are back together playing music again. This is the first new track to come from that work. Pretty solid.

“Lose It Again” - Hatchie My girl Harriette Pilbeam has a new album lined up for November. She brought in Jay Som to produce, which pushes the indie rock slider up a few notches without losing her standard dream pop goodness. I just realized I think I like that new Chappell Roan song so much because musically it really lines up with Hatchie’s sound.

“Act Like Your Title” - Rocket This is the fourth Rocket track I’ve shared over the past few months. Another sign of the modern music industry: at least four advance singles well before their album comes out. At this point I’m not sure it will be worth listening to when it drops next month, as surely I’ve heard all the good songs already, right?

“Lucky” - Mên An Tol A big change from the first MAT song I shared, which was all noisy and distorted.

“Eidolon” - Hibou I’m not sure where I came across this song, as a quick search this morning didn’t show it being discussed in any of the major music sites I follow. It sounds springy as hell but I’m not going to sit on it for eight months.

“Godlike” - Twen Stereogum described this as a “breezy, late-summer chiller.” I guess that fits the moment. I’ve also seen this band’s name presented three different ways: Twen, twen, and TWEN. Someone needs a style guide.

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“Play The Game Tonight” - Kansas There’s kind of a big football game involving my alma mater tomorrow. It’s being played in Missouri during the afternoon, so I’m not sure how much it applies. The best I could do to reference the moment.

Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 117

Thu, 04 Sep 2025 13:35:14 -0400

Chart Week: August 30, 1986 Song: “Dreamtime” - Daryl Hall Chart Position: #23, 5th week on the chart. Would peak at #5 the week of October 4.

Through the history of pop music, there has been a natural career progression for lead singers of successful bands: once your group peaks, hit the eject button and record a solo album. Sometimes this split is a result of the climb to the top had been long and arduous and everyone needing a break from each other. Sometimes it was simply about money, a front person wanting to capitalize on the band’s rise without having to divide up the proceeds. The week of this countdown, August 30, 1986, at least 12 of the 18 solo artists on the chart began their careers fronting bands.[1]

Daryl Hall was one of them. Just after he and John Oates topped the pop chart for the sixth and final time with 1984’s “Out Of Touch,” he briefly stepped aside to record his second solo album. Two years later he was back with Oates, and they would continue recording together for nearly 20 more years after that.[2]

Like every singer who struck out on their own before him, making a solo album allowed Hall to control the entire song writing process and expand his sound beyond that of Hall and Oates. It’s not easy to find reviews of the Three Hearts In The Happy Ending Machine album, but noted grump Robert Christgau suggested Hall had overstuffed it with ideas. Maybe he needed Oates as an editor.

The idea that a newly solo singer would branch off in a new direction must have already been programmed into my head when this record was released, because “Dreamtime” sure came across as more muscular than your typical H&O song. I thought there was an edge to it that didn’t line up with the band’s classic blend of Blue Eyed Soul, Philadelphia Soul, pop, and New Wave. In retrospect, there is a lot of overlap between “Dreamtime” and the pile of hits Daryl and John created during their Imperial Phase.

Adding to that suggestion of a new direction was Hall’s look in the “Dreamtime” video. He wore a black leather jacket for much of it, a big change from the brightly colored blazers he wore in so many H&O videos. Playing a guitar the entire time was a contrast to the group’s performances, where he was more likely to be seen either behind a keyboard or out front singing into a microphone with Oates next to him on guitar. Those visuals combined with the guitar in the song - the solo was played by Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics, who also produced the record - made the whole project came across as tougher than classic H&O.

Again, this was all my impression in 1986. When I listen to the song now, I realize it’s not as heavy as I believed it to back then. While it was climbing the charts, it felt adjacent to the new, poppier sound of Van Halen.[3] Today I hear a much more complex track than I realized, with multiple layers that are all firmly grounded in the pop world. The opening riff and Daryl’s jacket distracted me from the truth that it could have easily been tracked on a H&O album and seemed right at home. It is straight, mid–80s, poppy rock.

There is nothing remarkable about the song’s lyrics, which also isn’t dissimilar from a Hall and Oates song. They aren’t silly or nonsensical, but neither are they very profound. Hall is concerned about a friend who has built up a fantasy world to avoid her problems, and encourages her to wake up, confront them, and better her life. Just like a H&O song, the power of the lyrics comes more from Hall’s delivery and their marriage to his melody than the words themselves.

The video for “Dreamtime” is one that I distinctly recall watching for the first time when it debuted. This was back when MTV would promote the “world premiere” of videos from big artists so fans could clear their calendars, set their VCRs, and claim their TV screens to see the newest, latest vids the first time they aired.

If we had cell phones at the time, I definitely would have texted all my buddies about how awesome the video was. I think most of them would have agreed. I had just turned 15 and was listening to almost exclusively to rock music that summer. Daryl Hall rocking? Hell yes! It was the perfect song at the perfect moment for me.

For some reason “Dreamtime” doesn’t get played much anymore. Certainly not in comparison to Hall and Oates’ biggest hits. That’s a damn shame. It is a really solid record. While it might not be a classic, it deserves a better fate than to have been largely forgotten in the pop music world. It’s time to wake up, this one is a 7/10

youtu.be/oed8rUV_w…

Literally minutes after posting this I found this terrific version from a Live From Daryl’s House performance last year. Like the original, it also features Dave Stewart.

[embed]youtu.be/6jXK1dyI6…

In that list: Steve Winwood (The Spencer Davis Group, Traffic), Lionel Richie (Commodores), Michael McDonald (Doobie Brothers), Belinda Carlisle(The Go-Go’s), Peter Cetera (Chicago), David Lee Roth (Van Halen), Jeffrey Osborne (L.T.D.), Paul McCartney (The Beatles), Peter Gabriel (Genesis), Rod Stewart (Jeff Beck Group, Faces), Patti LaBelle (Labelle), and Kenny Loggins (Loggins & Messina) along with Hall. ↩
And, of course, had a nasty legal battle over the past year about the rights to their music. One writer said he now understood what his friends who had parents divorce when they were kids went through after news of H&O’s split broke. ↩
VH’s third single with Sammy Hagar, “Love Walks In,” was at #36 this week. David Lee Roth’s first single after his official VH divorce, “Yankee Rose,” was at #16. In the interim between when DLR left the band and Hagar joined, Eddie Van Halen approached Hall about taking the gig as the band’s new lead singer. Hall politely declined. ↩

Wednesday Links

Wed, 03 Sep 2025 09:01:33 -0400

Short week. I’m sure none of you working stiffs want to do anything productive. Here are some links to help get you a little closer to the coming weekend.

Here is the oral history that led to my re-watching The 40 Year Old Virgin a couple weeks ago. I loved this tidbit.

Apatow: Steve talked about chest waxing like he had never done it, but after we made the movie, I realized that Steve had clearly been waxing himself for years and knew exactly what was coming. He has never admitted that to me.

The Oral History of ‘The 40-Year-Old Virgin’

I have mixed feelings about the whole new Royals stadium issue. They would be even more mixed if I lived in Kansas City and my tax dollars were on the line. This piece uses the battle/discussion for where the Royals will end up to explore the different options every franchise faces when choosing where to build a new ballpark.

What Royals’ ballpark drama can teach us about MLB’s future

Not a Best Albums list, and not from a music site, which makes this list different from any other I’ve seen. While I could argue about some notable omissions (no Prince?!?!?!), nine of my favorite 30 or 40 albums show up on here. Also, some of their Key Track choices are very strange.

The 50 Most Influential Albums to Hear Before You Die

Yep, making people pay more for used cameras and video games, vintage clothes, and old vinyl records is going to bring back TONS of jobs to America.

Trump Tariffs Cause Chaos on Ebay as Every Hobby Becomes Logistical Minefield

As this site shows, the notion that if you tunneled completely through the earth you would come out in China is generally wrong for Americans. In fact, most of us will come out in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It is fun to put in other places, though, and see what its antipode is.

Antipodes Map

No explanation needed.

All 173 Cold Opens of ‘The Office,’ Ranked

Weekend Notes

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 08:53:14 -0400

A laid-back, restful holiday weekend is in the books. Friday was the highlight in terms of number of things going on, so that will be the focus of my notes this week.

Friday

As happens this time of year, my attentions were pulled multiple directions Friday evening.

The Cathedral game started at 7:00 on the radio. They were taking on 6A #1 and defending state champs Brownsburg, now ranked #35 in the country. I wasn’t expecting much. I was not disappointed. BHS won 29–0, the first time the Irish have been shut out in a decade. It could/should have been a lot worse. BHS turned the ball over inside the CHS five yard line three times. 50–0 was absolutely in the cards. The Irish need to get their offensive line figured out if they don’t want this season to be a disaster.

At 7:30 the KU-Wagner game started on ESPN+. I didn’t expect much from this one, either, and again was not disappointed, but in a good way. KU won easily, 46–7. The only Wagner score came on a defensive error so bad I honestly wondered if KU blew that play intentionally to make future opponents think their defense is terrible. And KU had two red zone turnovers, so 60–0 was in play.

The big bummer of that game was that Bengally Kamara, KU’s top incoming defensive player, did not play because of an injury sustained in practice last week. Early word was that it could be season-ending, a brutal blow given he is the best, most disruptive player on the KU D. That has softened a bit, and now thought is he could return this season. Still a major blow with Missouri this week, and then the beginning of Big 12 play two weeks after.

So that was on the radio and TV, although I turned the CHS game off once they got down 22–0. When game one of the big Royals-Tigers series started, I pulled that up on my computer and had it sitting next to me on the couch. That was fun, with the Royals jumping out to a quick 3–0 lead. But they blew it, and by winning only one of three over the weekend slipped behind Texas as the first team out of the Wild Card race. They really need to sweep the Angels and Twins this week and hope both the Rangers and Mariners have bad weeks.

Finally, I was flipping over to the US Open during commercials in the KU game and once it ended. More on that in a second…

US Open

Like, literally a second.

A pretty good first week of the Open. We’ve watched at least part of the action each night, and quite a bit between football games over the weekend. Lots of good story lines this year.

Taylor Townsend, the #1 doubles player in the world, reaching the fourth round was one highlight, although her failing to capitalize on eight match points to advance to the quarterfinals brought her run to an unfortunate end. If you don’t follow tennis, there was some controversy on her journey, although not of her making.

Coco Gauff firing her coach and adding a new one a couple weeks before the tournament and trying to rebuild her serve in the midst of the final major was kind of a wacky story. She had a couple too-tight matches then looked great Saturday, before getting blitzed by Naomi Osaka Monday. Amazing that she won the French Open just three months ago. Hopefully she comes back with a stronger, more structurally sound game next year.

But the story of the week has to be Venus Williams’ return to the Open. She lost her first round singles match, but has reached the quarterfinals of the doubles tournament playing with Layla Fernandez. They both look like they are having a wonderful time, and doubles tennis in general looks way more fun than singles. All kind of ridiculous shots that leave the viewers and players laughing. I’m glad Venus’ presence has meant a little more time given that side of the tournament.

It’s also been hilarious just to watch those two together. Venus is 6’1” and 45 years old. Layla is 5’6” and 22, and looks even younger because she is so tiny. We keep laughing every time we see them standing next to each other. They look more like a mother-daughter combo at the local park than highly accomplished players in the biggest event of the year.

Also interesting that because of a partnership with the WTA, Venus earned an online degree from IU-East and Layla is working on her degree through that program. They should have worn their school gear!

Oh, dumbest announcing moment of the tournament came Friday, when Ben Shelton had to retire from him match after injuring his shoulder. As he walked off, one of the B team announcers on ESPN declared, “He’ll be back, and he’ll be back better than ever, you can rest assured of that.” Really? How does he know? Maybe Shelton just destroyed his shoulder and whatever surgery/rehab required to repair it robs him of his powerful serve, or leaves scar tissue that makes him inconsistent? With modern sports medicine, odds are he will come back and be competitive. But how can an announcer insist all will be well, better than well even, before any diagnosis? This guy was British so I blame the way British announcers jump to wild conclusions.

Premier League

The first massive game of the season was Sunday, as Arsenal traveled to Liverpool. It was a tense, at times disjointed game, with Liverpool winning on an other-worldly free kick late in the game. Bummer for Arsenal but not unexpected. It’s a long season, although naturally some British commentators are suggesting the title race is over after just three games.

One of the odder things about European soccer is that the summer transfer window, when teams can sign players from other squads, extends three weeks into the season. So there is this summer-long drama in the soccer press about who will sign where, but it doesn’t stop when the season begins. Even after having an entire summer to bolster their roster, or unload players they no longer need, teams can continue to make moves through their first three games. Then suddenly they can’t, until a brief transfer window opens in January.

In US sports, we always get the rush of activity when free agency begins, then things usually calm down. Same with trades, there seems to be a flurry just after the season ends then things quiet down until just before the trade deadline.[1] My brain is used to that, so the Euro system seems weird to me. I think some of the European restrictions are because teams there are always playing in more than one competition, and players need to be locked into rosters before the Champions League begins.

Anyway, that’s your Euro soccer education piece for this week.

Rest Of The Weekend

S was on call all weekend, and Saturday was listed as one of the occasional weekends she had to go into the office for four hours. Friday she found out since Monday was a holiday and the office would be closed, it wasn’t opening for Saturday clinic. To celebrate we took L to brunch that morning. Then Sunday we already had plans to meet friends for brunch. That’s right, two brunches in two days! We are getting wilder as we shed kids! Then Monday evening we strolled across the street and sat around our neighbors’ firepit while sharing a few beers with them. Unprecedented levels of socializing for us!

I watched a fair amount of college football all weekend. The games didn’t match up all that well, so I did not launch YouTube TV’s multiview. I’ll save that for this coming weekend, when the schedule is jam-packed.

Finally, L and her teammates began fall conditioning at 6:00 AM this morning. For the first time I did not have to get up at 5:15 to drive her there. Naturally, I still woke up when I heard her banging around. I hope that’s just a day one thing and I can sleep through her preparations on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the next month.

Last week’s massive trade between Green Bay and Dallas shows that’s not always the case. ↩

August Media

Mon, 01 Sep 2025 07:50:38 -0400

Movies, Shows, etc

Dept. Q Lots of chatter about this in July, all saying it was basically Slow Horses but in Scotland and with cops. Which was very accurate. But this was much, much darker than any of the Slow Horses seasons I’ve watched. And broader. In some ways funnier. And definitely more moving. Episode eight was a little flat, which had me leaning towards a B. But episode 9, the season finale, was nearly perfect, one of the better season enders I can recall watching.

A-

Apollo 13: Survival I watched this doc after hearing that Jim Lovell had passed. Very well done.

25th Hour One of many Spike Lee movies of this century I had never seen. As much a love letter to New York in the early days after 9/11 as a movie about a man spending his last day before heading off to prison.

Miami Vice When this came out in 2006, between me having little kids and it getting mediocre reviews, I never bothered to see it. Recently there seems to be a revision of opinion about it, and I’ve come across several sources that claim it’s better than people think. They were wrong. The original TV show had major problems with dialog and story, but Crockett and Tubbs were always so cool you could get past this. This movie had all the same issues, maybe even bigger ones in the same areas, but failed to make Crockett and Tubbs seem cool. Like not at all. Which made this a rather laborious two hour watch.

Platonic, season one I hadn’t heard of this show until season two premiered last month. That’s the problem with streaming services you bounce in-and-out of: if you’re not looking for a show, they can be easy to miss. Even one that got mostly good reviews. The dynamic between Rose Byrne and Seth Rogan was terrific. It takes a different path than Shrinking, for example, but still falls right into that funny/touching area that Apple TV+ does so well in. We’ll be jumping into season two at some point in September for sure.

A-

Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band A fascinating accounting of Springsteen’s most recent tour, from how the shows and setlists were put together, to how the band interacts during the show, and how that tour differed from just about ever other tour of his career. It is striking how age is now very apparent in Bruce’s body and voice. The final third of the show rams this home, focusing on how many of his most recent songs have tackled the subject of death, how that has become a big theme within his shows, and how he’s tied that back to songs he wrote 50 years ago.

A-

40 Year Old Virgin I watched this after reading this great oral history that celebrated the movie’s 20th anniversary. Still holds up.

No Laying Up: Northern Ireland Not sure I’ll ever make it to Northern Ireland, let alone Ireland proper. But I will have to force my arthritic hands to swing a golf club if I ever am there.

Shorts, YouTubes, etc

Why did France halt its invasion of Germany in 1939? Not sure I knew the French crossed the border when the Germans were attacking east. Also, France gonna France.

Inside This Regenerative Ranch Built by Husband-and-Wife Co-Founders Not sure I could ever live on a ranch, but if I did it would be a huge bonus to have a dope house like this.

Inside Sydney Architect’s Clever DIY Transforming Apartment As a counter you have this, maximizing an extremely small space.

Inside My Backyard Office Cabin I’ve said this before: I wish I had a career that could justify building a swanky office in the backyard. Blogging does not count.

Home Library DIY: domed ceiling, shelves, secret door, rolling ladder I love our house. To be honest, though, my one quibble is that the modern, bright, farmhouse style does not allow for an old school, earth-toned book room like this. Amazing little project, although the dome is a little much.

I Went to the Tour de France… It All Went Wrong A slightly dramatic title, but seeing the Tour in person is on my travel bucket list.

Dropping 2 metres a second in South Africa | HANSKOP F*&k me!

We Put $1000 Parts on a Walmart Bike Watch one damn video about bike repair and you get flooded by a ton of others. I have to admit, this was cool. I wish I had the mechanical abilities to overhaul my bike like this.

Crash Course on Vintage Toyotas From World’s Coolest Mechanic Shop | Shop Class Episode 1 w/ DECKED Somewhat along those lines, it would be cool if I knew anything about cars. As I don’t, I either pay people to fix them for me, or buy cars that basically don’t need any tinkering.

Jason Sudeikis confesses the REAL inspiration for Ted Lasso to Jason and Travis Not exactly breaking news but I always enjoy hearing Sudeikis talk about the process of creating Lasso.

Why Haribo Refuses to Expand Beyond Gummies Of interest to my wife, who is a gummy bear fiend. Also, weird title, since they clearly show at least one product that is not a gummy.

Cincinnati…The Paris of America Calling Cincy Paris might be going a little far, but the city does have some cool architecture.

Magic Gliss Mountain Coaster Ride (no brakes) | Andorra 🇦🇩 The World’s Longest Mountain Coaster Ride (no brakes) | 4K | Andorra 🇦🇩 Alpine Coaster Golm (no brakes) 4K | 2600m | Montafon 🇦🇹 Seriously, could you justify going to Europe just to ride these things?

Absurd gute Achterbahn mit Tunnel unterm Parkplatz! And we segue into a traditional coaster…one that goes under a parking lot? Twice?!?!

How Much Longer Can War Prop Up Russia’s Economy? Fuckers.

Wolf Rock Lighthouse maintenance visit and tour Fascinating.

I Made a Floppy Disk from Scratch Give this man a black belt in geekery.

Building a Watch From Scratch In Brooklyn Although this guy might go to a whole other level of geekery. Building complex manufacturing equipment out of random, found items? GTFO!

Built Himself a Free House in the Mountains Alone But this guy says, “Hold my beer,” and builds a house on his own using only relatively crude hand tools and, with only one or two exceptions, materials he harvested from the environment around him. Bonus points for the ASMR qualities of this vid.

So, we found this ruin And finally I stumbled across this series and S and I quickly watched all their available videos. An insane project to rebuild an 800 year old home on overgrown terraces above the Amalfi coast. As you might imagine, it’s a far more complex project than remodeling an old home in the US.

The Mission: Run 100km before it’s too late Some Beau Miles bullshit that just might make you cry.

I planted a forest four years ago An update on some old Beau Miles bullshit and a reminder of what his next big project is.

The mafia is killing Italian football Is this why the national team has stunk for the past decade or so?

The Longest tyre Roll in the world! WORLD RECORD?? This is equal parts silly and fun. I’m amazed it didn’t flip on its side at some point before it ran out of steam.

Bob Odenkirk Replies To Fans Online | Actually Me How did I not know Odenkirk wrote the Matt Foley Motivational Speaker sketch until now?

Mr. Show | The Audition Sketch The Odenkirk piece led me to this, which is an all-timer. I never watched Mr. Show but thanks to YouTube, I was able to knock out a bunch of sketches from its run.

Bon Jovi - The Acoustic Performance That Changed MTV I remember how pretty much everyone, whether they liked Bon Jovi or hated them, was blown away by this performance. I forget if I saw it live, most likely not, but I do recall taped copies floating around our dorm hall and finding ways to watch in rooms that had a TV and VCR.

ICONIC Band ERASED ALL of Their MUSIC from EXISTENCE & Then DISAPPEARED Forever! | Professor of Rock I have avoided this guy’s videos, because they drive me a little crazy. Especially all the CAPS in his titles. I mean, come on. But a brother-in-music forwarded this one, and while the list is all over the place and I’m not sure it makes any sense, it was interesting.

Car Content

1st Time DRIVING Lucid Gravity! Best. Car. Ever. I have a friend who was supposed to get his Gravity three weeks ago. It’s been delayed three times as they try to fix a few issues before it is cleared for final delivery. If he ever gets it, I will need to schedule a visit to take a ride in it.

Photography

Kansas Border Project: Episode 7 The Canon 5D Classic - An Endless Roll Of Kodak Portra This will make any photo better, instantly.

Podcasts

Good Hang with Amy Poehler This pod debuted in May but I just got around to adding it to my pretty beefy podcast rotation last month. It is fantastic. Poehler is an American treasure. You should add it to your queue.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 29 Aug 2025 08:14:44 -0400

Yes, it has arrived: the end of summer. Good thing we’re about to hit the best three months of the year, or I’d be more sad that another summer is in the books.

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“Summer’s Over” - Jordana & TV Girl Obvious starting point.

“Chateau Blues” - Spoon Spoon are in the early stages of recording their next album. They also started a new tour opening for the Pixies this week. With those shows delaying work on the album for a bit, they decided to go ahead and drop two new songs from the sessions. I wouldn’t call either one of Spoon’s best. I think both sound a little raw so wonder that if they make the final album, they will it be in more refined versions.

“Forever” - TTSSFU A little more mainstream than their other songs I’ve shared, which I think I like a little more.

“Ring Ring Ring” - Tyler, The Creator In yesterday’s RFTS post, I promised a new, much better Telephone Song. Here it is. The Bridge has been playing it a lot lately, and the bass line, stolen from Michael Jackson’s “Off The Wall” got into my head. Really good song beyond that bass line.

“My Crud Princess” - No Joy Jasamine White-Luz describes this song like this:

“Like you are sifting through deep soil and coming out just covered in crud but still feeling cute. Going a little feral while still trying to maintain composure because you’re in public.”

Yeah, I can’t match that.

“Fundraiser” - bar italia More whacked out pop from these fools.

“Elton John” - Miya Folick Folick wrote this after her father died, and the flood of memories that came with helping her mother clean out his stuff from the home they shared. Specifically, Folick recalled the first time she played the Troubadour club in LA, and her dad telling her of seeing Elton John there in 1970.

“Stuck” - Soft Science This song is from a couple years back, and I shared it then. When it popped up this week I was reminded of so many mid–90s shoegaze songs when I was just discovering that genre. And now, 30 years later, we’re in the midst of the biggest shoegaze revival of them all.

“The Bleeding Heart Show” - The New Pornographers Two music anniversaries this week. Twenty years ago The New Pornographers’ Twin Cinema album dropped. A lot of good songs on it, but this has always been #1 for me.

“End Of Summer” - Tame Impala One last weekend. Don’t run out of time.

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“Born To Run” - Bruce Springsteen This week was also the 50th anniversary of the release of the Born To Run album, an absolute keystone moment in rock music history whether you like Bruce or not. Years ago I came up with the theory that every American rock band is trying to be either Bruce or Van Halen. No matter the genre or sound, they were on one fork of that road.[1] I wonder who would have been the counter to Van Halen had this album failed, like Springsteen’s earlier albums, and he faded away.

All of Springsteen’s naked, overwhelming ambition to become a star is readily apparent in this song. Each element is pushed to its absolute limit. If he was going to go down, he was going to go down giving everything he had. Good thing he made an absolute classic or it would have fallen apart under all that weight.

It would have been very cool to see Springsteen live in the 1980s.

Bon Jovi, famously and successfully, tried to do both at the same time. ↩

Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 116

Thu, 28 Aug 2025 10:58:06 -0400

Chart Week: August 20, 1977 Song: “Telephone Line” - Electric Light Orchestra Chart Position: #16, 11th week on the chart. Peaked at #7 for two weeks in September and October.

When I dove into this countdown last Saturday I was interested to see what it had to offer. Would a particular song jump out and lead to my next RFTS post? Or would Casey share some fun, new-to-me story that got my music trivia juices flowing?

Turns out it was neither. Instead, just after I pushed Play, I began working through my RSS feeds for the morning. One of the first new posts I saw was from the Classic Song of the Day site. And the song of the day just happened to be Electric Light Orchestra’s “Telephone Line,” which was deep in the second hour of this show. My decision was made for me!

I wish it had been something else. “Telephone Line” is not one of my favorite ELO songs.[1] But I stuck with it. After reading that Classic Song post I pulled up some other pieces about the record. Then I read up on ELO’s career. I learned that despite all their hits, the band was never popular with music critics, and were often labeled as an “uncool” band. I wanted to figure out why that was the case.

I couldn’t find any clear evidence. Thus it was left to me to form a theory (or theories) on my own. Oddly, I couldn’t find confirmation that critics actually hated ELO, either. Instead, the band was simply dismissed as lightweights, never given the same respect as other acts that were charting at the same time.

I think there are several explanations for this. One of the biggest was the elephant in the room: they sounded a lot like the Beatles, or rather an updated take on the Beatles sound. John Lennon even called them the “Sons of the Beatles,” meaning it as a compliment, and suggested you could draw a direct line from the Beatles’ more experimental music to ELO’s. That endorsement wasn’t good enough for critics, I guess. Or perhaps they took it more as a put down than praise.[2] While the sound may have helped sell albums, it did not earn them glowing reviews in Rolling Stone, etc.

Next, while ELO had some similar traits to the prog rock acts of their era, they weren’t exactly prog. Or art rock. Or AOR rock. Or any of those other ‘70s sub-genres. Critics hate it when they can’t cram an artist into a rigidly defined box, and ELO was difficult to pin down.

The band was also largely a studio creation, and relied heavily on production wizardry and electronics when building their sound. All those “strings” in their songs? More often than not, those were synthesizers. In the mid-to-late Seventies synthesizers meant fake and stings meant disco, two strikes with a lot of tastemakers.

I believe there was also some pushback because they were a very successful band, in terms of record sales, but most viewed their music and lyrics as rather vapid. Compared to contemporaries like Pink Floyd and Steely Dan, ELO took far fewer chances and were telling far less complex stories. You didn’t need an advanced literature degree and a thesaurus to understand their songs, which made them seem insignificant in comparison. They were neither cynical nor ironic but rather straightforward.

Finally, as I reviewed their hits while working on this post, I was reminded how many of their songs sounded alike. There are a lot of really good tunes in there, but they all sound so similar that they blend together. Jeff Lynne’s voice never varied much. There was almost always the same combination of instruments, arranged in comparable ways. Tempos stayed in a familiar range. If you didn’t speak English, you might think the layered vocals in all their choruses were singing the same words song-to-song. They found a formula that worked and stuck with it. There’s no mistaking an ELO song for someone else.

Add all that up, and music critics found it easy to brush the band off.[3]

I did learn that there has been a long, slow, re-appreciation of ELO’s catalog. I wouldn’t say they’ve been elevated to the top of their era, but many more recent discussions of their work give Lynne credit for his production skills and describe the songs as serviceable and memorable, if not necessarily era-defining.

Now, “Telephone Line.”

The whole Telephone Song thing is one of the most used tropes in pop music history. Whether it is the nervous call to ask someone out for the first time, a call just to say you love someone, or, the worst, the call to a former lover that goes unanswered, it’s all been done a thousand-and-one times. Thus, you really have to nail it to stand out. The heartbreak in “Telephone Line” is right up front, drifting to the maudlin. But there’s nothing compelling about it. In fact, have a bigger urge to laugh at Lynne than sympathize with him. I want to grab him by his shirt, give him a good shake, and tell him to get the fuck over it and find someone new, that he sounds ridiculous with all this whining.

Then there’s this:

Doo-wop, doo-be-doo-doo-wop, doo-wah, doo-lang

Again, there are plenty of examples of nonsense lyrics in great songs that work just fine. These are just dumb, especially in a song that’s supposed to be a serious accounting of sadness.

To its credit, it does stand out from ELO’s other big hits in that it is slower and doesn’t make you want to dance. It doesn’t stand out from all the other Telephone Songs, though.[4] One critic called this the “best Lennon/McCartney collaboration that never was.”[5] They must have heard a different song than me, because prime John and Paul would have done far better than this. 5/10

An interesting tidbit from that Classic Song of the Day post: because Lynne viewed the US market as more important than the British, he made sure the ring tone was an American one rather than European. He said they dialed a US number they knew wouldn’t be answered and let it ring over-and-over until they could accurately mimic it on a Moog synthesizer.

“See!” a critic might shout, “They couldn’t even be honest about the emotional heart of the song, they had to use technology to recreate it.” Not a terrible point. I wonder if Casey ever shared this anecdote while the song was in the Top 40.

youtu.be/tJWpaVASR…

Quick, power rank ELO songs. Go! 1 - “Don’t Bring Me Down,” 2 - “Mr. Blue Sky,” 3 - “Livin’ Thing,” 4 - “Turn To Stone,” 5 - “Evil Woman.” Or maybe “Sweet Talkin’ Woman” at #5. One of the woman songs, for sure. ↩
Lynne earned an invitation to the studio when the Beatles were making their White Album and he said it had a massive influence on how he made music. He worked with George Harrison in the Eighties, was in the Traveling Wilburys with Harrison, and co-producer on the Beatles “Free As A Bird” single made for their first Anthology collection in 1995. A lot of ties between ELO and the Fab Four. ↩
This was later, but in 1980 they also were part of the disastrous film Xanadu, along with its soundtrack. That movie nearly killed Olivia Newton John’s career, and certainly didn’t do ELO’s any favors. ↩
This week’s Friday Playlist has a new telephone song that is soooooo much better. ↩
I guess some critics did like them. ↩

Reader's Notebook, 8/26/25

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 08:37:31 -0400

I’ve been on a hot streak this month. In addition to the books below, I have three more I need to share. As they are related, I’m saving those for next week.

King of Ashes - S.A. Cosby The latest addition to Cosby’s growing collection of terrific thrillers. Here Roman, a rising Atlanta financial advisor to athletes and other celebrities, returns to his childhood home in Virginia when his father goes into a coma following a car accident. When he arrives he learns that accident was most likely the result of poor decisions his younger brother has made. Soon Roman is about as deep as you can possibly be in his brother’s mess, and is using every tool at his disposal to extricate his family.

This book is dark, dark AF as the kids sometimes say. Do they still say that? Roman’s family’s crematorium plays a large role. There is an additional family mystery about the disappearance of Roman’s mother when he was a teenager. When the truth of that is revealed, well, I’ll admit I let out a gasp of shock.

Careless People - Sarah Wynn-Williams I did not plan on reading this book when I first heard of it. I already knew Facebook is full of horrible people at the tops of its leadership structure. People who routinely break laws, even when instructed by governments and courts to follow them. People who claim to want to transform the world through connecting people in innovative ways, but in reality only care about collecting as much data on its users to sell as many ads as possible. People who spout similar techno-libertarian babble as other Silicon Valley billionaires about standing firmly and proudly for freedom of speech, but never accepting that with freedom of speech comes both responsibilities and the understanding there are consequences that must be faced. And, of course, like so many companies who make the same claim, when forced to pick between protecting free expression and cowering to the wills of authoritarian governments, they will always work to please the autocrats since that means more paths to sell ads.

Again, I knew all this. So this book didn’t interest me. Until Facebook tried to stop it from being published. A request that quickly ignored. And made me suddenly interested in it, if only to strike a small blow against the company.

Wynn-Williams’ tale isn’t that different from other whistleblower accountings. Even when written about different companies in different industries, they often have the same arc: company blows up over a period of rapid growth, along the way its leadership either loses sight of its initial goals and morals or deliberately leaves them behind, people at the highest levels behave poorly, etc. She has all kinds of stories in those veins. None of them are surprises because no matter the industry or era, people will always be people. Thus it is expected that the leaders of Facebook are morally bankrupt who profess one set of values in public while operating under a completely different set behind closed doors. Witness their claims of having zero tolerance for sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior in the workplace, but then protecting senior leaders with long histories of exactly those accusations.

Even if some of her stories aren’t true, hell even if they’re all not true, there’s little doubt that Facebook’s leadership is as rotten and corrupt as any company we’ve ever seen.

The Dad Rock That Made Me A Woman - Niko Stratis A wonderful memoir/music book detailing Stratis’ life, growing up in the rural Yukon Territories of Canada always being uncomfortable in the body she was born into. She struggles in school, in relationships, in work, but two things are always there to help guide her: her family and music. When she comes out as transgender, and eventually transitions to become a woman, it is only those two things that accept her without reservation.

I Am No Guide: Pearl Jam Song By Song - Brian Stipelman and Brandon Rector The guys on the State of Love And Trust podcast recommended this book, and have had at least one of its authors on recently. As the title suggests, it is a song-by-song accounting of Pearl Jam’s career. Or at least all their album tracks. With a few exceptions most of the B-sides are skipped over.

I was looking forward to this. It turned out to be over-the-top analysis by super fans who almost never criticize a song. I cranked through it simply because it was so over-the-top. Not every song is a grand statement on life, relationships, or the world around us. Yet they just kept pushing and insisting they were. Here’s an example of the writing, their breakdown of the songs “My Father’s Son”:

The music is nasty and insecure, the bass line angry and self-recriminating like the morning after the familiar repetition of a terrible mistake. The guitar hovers just behind—a shiver up the spine, intimations of broken promises, past failures, and the specters of those we disappointed. The bridge offers a twisted carnival celebrating a tainted, poisoned future—a fresh start forever in view but permanently out of reach. It would be nice if we could cut off our past, and start over, a “volunteer amputee.” But we cannot run from what has happened. There is no getaway. We can only confront and learn from it.

Jesus, give it a rest, fellas.

Weekend Notes

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 08:43:43 -0400

A relatively laid-back weekend that saw the return of football at multiple levels and a glorious change in the weather.

High School Football

The high school season began in Indiana Friday. 5A #2 CHS took on Ben Davis, a traditional 6A power that won state two years ago but is in rebuilding mode.[1] I figured CHS would win fairly easily. I guess that happened. The Irish were never really challenged, but could only score once themselves for an 8–0 win.

A bizarre referring decision cost them at least two more points. The Irish blocked a BD punt that bounced around and eventually went out of the end zone. Which, after every rule I reviewed, is 100% a safety. For some reason BD a touchback out of it. I saw a replay and CHS never had possession so I have no idea how the refs decided it was a safety. Naturally BD took advantage and had their best drive of the night, breaking the red zone on the other end before the 4th Irish interception of the night snuffed that out.

CHS moved down to 5A this year but play their usual hella-difficult schedule. And they have the defending 4A state champs, who may be one of the 3–4 best teams of any class, in their sectional so I’m not sure this is going to be a super successful season.

L skipped the game. Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease, somehow, has been spreading around the school and she said she didn’t want to get it from high fiving “dirty freshmen.” Had she known they would only score once maybe she would have re-thought that. But she did go hang out with friends, so I’m not sure avoiding the disease was her true motivation.

Kansas Football

The whole “Week 0” moniker is dumb, and I’m not sure we need football a week before Labor Day, but I was glad that was an excuse for KU to be on regular Fox with no competition Saturday night. Especially with it being the unveiling of the (60%) new Booth Memorial Stadium. It looked fantastic. It made sense to do it in the order they chose, but was a bummer that the remaining old part of the stadium is what you saw in the standard camera shots. With the dearth of games, the stadium even got some run in a couple of the broader sports news roundup newsletters I get, all very positive. As a Kansas fan, I’m waiting for something horrible to happen to counter these good vibes. Like an earthquake that destroys the entire stadium.

Fresno State was a good opponent to open the season against. Not very good but not terrible either. KU won easily, 31–7. It could have and probably should have been a bigger win, but there was the standard “we’re holding stuff back so future opponents don’t see everything.” Which I also think is dumb.

Jalon Daniels looked really good, except when he got hammered twice and took a minute to get up. They have to find a way to keep him from getting blasted a couple times a game. The running game looked really good. I think the two new receivers were terrific. The D-line was as good as I can remember. Two of the transfers on D look like difference makers. My biggest worries are pass blocking and the defensive secondary. The D was great on first and second down, but struggled on just about every third down.

Lots of time to get better, and I’m sure there are more complex schemes waiting to be rolled out once the competition gets tougher.

Arsenal

OK, American football wasn’t the only football I watched. I’ve been a casual follower of Arsenal for nearly 20 years, 20 years in which they haven’t won the Premier League. They still are not favorites this year, but after making a series of massive moves in the transfer market, they have their best shot in decades to win the league. So I decided to try to watch more matches this year. Which means when events warrant, I’ll roll them into my weekend updates.

I watched a solid chunk of their 5–0 win over Leeds Saturday. They are obviously still working in some of the new players and their biggest signing was announced just before the game so wasn’t even on the field, err, pitch.

They go to title holders Liverpool this Sunday, which will tell us a lot about whether they are truly ready to challenge or will be finishing second for the third-straight season.

Weather

LET’S FUCKING GO, MOTHER NATURE!!!!

Those storms that passed on Tuesday took us straight from brutal summer to glorious fall. It did take a couple days for the heat to fully slide away, but by Thursday afternoon it felt like early October. Highs in the 70s, lows right around 60, no humidity. This morning when I woke up it was 55. The forecast shows this pattern sticking around for at least a week.

It will surely get hot a couple more times - there is nothing better than an October heat wave - but the past five days have been amazing. We deserve them after the previous six weeks.

College Girls

We FaceTimed C on Saturday. She seemed to be doing well. She’s reconnected with a girl, E, that was one of her best friends in grade school but who she drifted away from in 7th/8th grades before E went to another high school. They are in the same major so will have classes together. E also took a class that started in early August so she had already met a few girls which opened some doors for C. We got a message from E’s mom, who we love and spent a lot of time with back in the St. P’s days, saying how happy it made her that our girls had linked up again. C said she had run into a couple other girls that were at St. P’s before going to public high schools, one of whom lives just a couple blocks from us. I don’t know if those two will stick, but it is funny that she’s already run into several kids she grew up with on a campus of nearly 50,000 students.

She also told us she walked her schedule on Friday and her classes weren’t too spread out. IU is a big, sprawling campus, but luckily in the older core, you’re never more than a 15–20 minute walk from anywhere you need to be.

When I go to bed at night I have a Focus setting on my phone that blocks all calls except from numbers I have cleared. I don’t need those sports threads I’m in making my phone buzz once I call it a night. When I woke up Saturday morning I had a bunch of texts from IU that came in between 2:30–3:30 AM telling kids to shelter in place and, eventually, that it was safe but to avoid a certain area. I hustled down and turned on the news and saw there had been a shooting right off campus, an 18-year-old girl apparently shooting her boyfriend in the leg. Neither of them were students but it was still pretty close to where students might be on a Friday night/Saturday morning.

Luckily C was back in her dorm and safe. M joked that there was a shooting just off campus at UC her first night in the dorm her freshman year, so she still had C beat.

What a time to be alive. 😬

Sunday was Bid Day at UC. This year M was in the role of helping girls who are going through rush, rather than vetting them for her house, so she saw a different side of it. She had told us her Little was “obsessed” by one of C’s good friends from high school.[2] We found out yesterday that girl is going to be in M’s house. The formal Big-Little relationships get locked in later in the fall, but there’s a chance C’s friend will end up being M’s “granddaughter” in the house. Small world.

IU and UC both start classes today. And with that begins the most expensive two years of our lives with two in college and one still in private high school. As a bonus, since M is going overseas in the spring, her tuition for that program is due in three weeks. I may need to go sell some plasma. Do they still buy your plasma?

BD has a really good defensive back that is committed to KU, but I didn’t hear his name once. Not sure if CHS was avoiding him or he didn’t play. ↩
It cracks me up how she always uses this term. The active members always find a recruit to be “obsessed” with during rush. Seems weird to me. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 22 Aug 2025 07:20:32 -0400

As I begin putting this playlist together Thursday evening, I’m not really sure where it is going. There are several older songs in the queue and I’m trying to figure out which newer ones to pull in. Let’s take a musical journey together and see where we land!

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“From The Night” - The Prize Hell yes! Some very solid power-pop-punk from Australia.

“Simply Obsessed” - Field Medic If you combined Trace Mountains and Wild Pink, but turned them into jangle pop, the result would probably sound like this.

“Drunk Surfer” - Westside Cowboy This song sounds a little more Manchester than their first single I shared a few weeks back. It also has a solid, mid-aughts sound. It isn’t too different from what bands like Maximo Park, Kasabian, etc were doing back then.

“Cry Cry Cry” - King Princess Two straight weeks with a KP song, each of them with very different tones.

“The Subway” - Chappell Roan I missed the whole Chappell Roan moment a couple years back. I knew of her pushback against the pressures and expectations placed on artists, but didn’t know a thing about her music. Then on July 4, while listening to The Bridge’s Top 909 songs of the century, I was completely blown away when I heard “Pink Pony Club” for the first time. What a completely amazing song! It was #3 on that list, thanks to a nice local artist bump for the southern Missouri native. This is her latest single. It is very nice, but nowhere near as good as “PPC.” She does have a wonderful voice, though.

“Bleed Together” - Soundgarden I love it when this song pops up. The most Pearl Jam-y song Soundgarden ever recorded. I’m still not convinced it wasn’t recorded during the Temple of the Dog sessions with the PJ guys behind Chris Cornell. If they had released it a few years earlier - it appeared on their 1997 compilation A-Sides - it might have been a monster hit.

“Clampdown” - The Clash Joe Strummer would have turned 73 yesterday. Raise a toast…

“New York Groove” - HELLO It is US Open time! This track is being used in some of the ads for the tournament this year.

“Summer Song” - Joe Satriani Running out of weeks to play these songs.

[youtu.be/MxGEVIvSF...](https://youtu.be/MxGEVIvSFeY?si=R_tvP)–88CMYUzPK_

“Wheel In The Sky” - Journey I had something else lined up for this week’s vid. But I spent a lot of Thursday evening watching random stuff on YouTube. One for Journey’s “Stone In Love” came up and I sent it to a brother in music, E-Bro, so we could laugh about it. He sent this one back, among others. We were both floored by the fashion, especially guitarist Neil Schon’s look. And is it just me, OR DOES HE LOOK A LOT LIKE 1979 PRINCE??? Wild, wild stuff. Also a pretty badass song that has held up well.

Moving In

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 11:46:19 -0400

Like some of our friends a few hundred miles west, yesterday was college drop-off day for us. We picked a good one, too. The first day of IU dorm move in was Tuesday, a day that saw heat indices well over 100° with rounds of heavy rain in Bloomington. Wednesday, though? Cloudy, relatively cool, with a blessed relief from the humidity that has plagued us all summer. That part of the day was a big win.

Actually, most of the day was a win. We arrived at noon for C to check in at Assembly Hall and get her card programmed for her room. Then we drove over to her dorm, which is a big complex of several buildings. The kids had been sent a video, and parents had been told, that you basically get in line, pull up to the building, dump all your stuff into carts that helpers will take to your room, fight for a parking place, then go to your kid’s room and start unpacking.

It did not work quite that way, and for a moment I was panicking that we were going to have to drag everything we had crammed into two cars several blocks.[1] But S found a nice worker who let her park in a space that was not officially for parking right in front of the dorm so she could unload. I parked on the backside of the dorm and after we had unloaded the first round, we found one of the many kids zipping around in golf carts to transfer all that gear to the dorm. Both times we grabbed one of the official movers to throw everything into a cart that they shoved to C’s room. Soooo much easier than when we moved M into her room two years ago.

C’s complex is weird. It is six different “buildings,” but they are all connected, with elevators on each end. So we took the closest elevator to the street, then wandered through the twisting hallways, transitioning from building to building, until we arrived at her room. Her roommate, who is from Bloomington, had moved in earlier and was waiting for us. We did have to do some rearranging, as C’s bed was right under a conduit for some electrical wiring that would make it tough for her to sit up, but after a couple hours she was basically settled.

We needed lunch and a couple items for her room so we grabbed a bite then braved the sole Target in Bloomington. Parking was a mess. As we walked in another mom wished us good luck. Inside was like those news shots of grocery stores before a hurricane hits. It was a true madhouse, overflowing with people, aisles picked over and empty, and insane lines to check out. We needed four things but even that was a chore because C wanted a lamp that was a specific size, they had very few left, and the two we tried used oddly sized bulbs and we couldn’t find matches. We eventually decided just to order her one off Amazon.

We returned to the dorm and said goodbye outside. I’m not sure why, but this entire day and the goodbye itself was much easier than two years ago. Still tough but instead of being a mess for hours, this time I just had a minute or so where I couldn’t talk. That’s not a reflection of my relationship with M vs C at all. There are a lot of factors that go into it, but I think the biggest is that we’ve been through this once and it wasn’t the overwhelming emotional punch it was the first time. It also helped that it was just the three of us, where two years ago we took the entire family and it was extremely sad watching the girls say goodbye to each other. When L said goodbye to C before she left for school Wednesday, they were giggling rather than crying.

Roughly four hours from arrival to departure, with lunch and an apocalyptic Target visit thrown in. The drive home was the hardest part of the day, as we ran into rush hour traffic in Indy. Oh, getting from the dorm to Target, which should have been a five-minute drive, was more like 20 because traffic was so crazy on campus, too.

But Kid #2 has been dropped off and is on her own, officially a Hoosier. Fingers crossed it all goes well. She texted this morning saying someone had already pulled a fire alarm and they had to evacuate, so she’s getting the full college experience quick!

My parents aren’t around to rebut, but I swear we moved me to school in one car, and basically all I took was a laundry basket and maybe a suitcase full of clothes, a backpack filled with notebooks and pens, a boombox and cassettes, and a typewriter. I’m sure there was more, and I added more over time, but it was dramatically less than what kids take today. ↩

Sports Notes

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 07:40:54 -0400

A few sports notes before we head to Bloomington in a couple hours…

Colts

Welp, it’s official: the Colts are a disaster.

Tuesday they named Daniel Jones as the starter for the coming season. Which means Anthony Richardson must have been really, really bad in camp, because Jones is about as mid as you can get in an NFL quarterback. Even in 2022, when the Giants made a surprise run to the playoffs, his stats were remarkably pedestrian. He’s not a difference maker. All he does is eliminate the dumb plays that Richardson has routinely made in his two, injury plagued seasons.[1]

Honestly, I’m not sure why GM Chris Ballard and coach Shane Steichen haven’t already been fired. They are the ones who messed this whole process up. They are the ones who drafted Richardson, a player with immeasurable raw talent but who barely played in college and was the ultimate project coming into the NFL. They are the ones who have seemed lukewarm on Richardson since he arrived. They are the ones who brought in older quarterbacks to mentor Richardson, but neither was interested in actually mentoring him when they got to the Colts. They are the ones who have jerked Richardson around. I guess the firings will come in January, baring a miracle season.

If the Colts had a chance to be good I would understand this move. They are firmly locked into a 6–7–8–9 win range, though. Richardson might be a genuine bust. Given his pedigree coming in and injuries since being drafted, I do not understand why a mediocre team isn’t giving him another shot. Maybe he would just get hurt again, or continue to complete less than 50% of his passes and commit horrific turnovers. But maybe this is the year he stays healthy and figures it out. He’s a lottery ticket that the franchise has given up on.

I guess the Colts are more interested in a best case scenario of them lucking into nine wins and then losing in the first round of the playoffs.

Fever

Man, it is getting bleak for the Fever. Sophie Cunningham wrecked her knee Sunday, confirmed Tuesday to be an MCL tear that knocks her out for the rest of the year. That’s three season ending injuries in 10 days. And still no word on when Caitlin Clark will return.

Not sure what the team did to the Hoops Gods but they obviously pissed them off. Please say a prayer that they don’t mess with Kelsey Mitchell! She’s been balling out and if the Fever can somehow stay in the playoff hunt, deserves MVP votes.

US Open

Tuesday afternoon I accidentally came across the new US Open mixed doubles tournament. I knew it had been moved forward this year, but didn’t realize matches would be during the day, at least for the first two rounds.

In effort to make the tournament more interesting, and let’s be honest, sell more tickets and TV ads, the format was revamped this year. Rather than running during the traditional two weeks of the Open, it is instead a two-day mini tournament. Prize money was cranked up, the winners getting over five times what last year’s winners received. How teams qualified was adjusted so that some of the biggest names in men’s and women’s tennis were eligible to play.[2] And instead of a 32 team field, just 16 are included. Two rounds on day one, two rounds on day two and there will be a champion.

The actual game format was also adjusted. Sets are first to four games, tiebreakers at 4–4. If there’s a third set, it is a first-to-ten tiebreak.[3] Within a game, at 40–40, whoever wins that point wins the game, eliminating advantages. And service on these deuce points is made to the same gendered player as the server. In the matches I watched I couldn’t tell if there was a faster service clock or if the players were naturally playing quicker, but there was no futzing around between points. Grab the ball, bounce it, serve. One match ends, the next two teams roll onto the court. In some cases winning teams got a 10–15 minute break before their second match. Almost like winners keeping the court in pickup basketball.

It was entertaining, brisk, and fun. The players seemed relaxed and enjoying themselves. I think it helped that most of these duos were brand new partnerships, so it took on the feeling of a casual match at the club rather than a Grand Slam event. My only complaint was the matches, at least when I was watching, were only on ESPN, so there was a lot of split-screening and then missing of big points in one match when attention was on the other. This is fine in the early rounds of the singles tournament. But when you are already in the quarterfinals, throw the games on ESPN and ESPN2 so I can switch back and forth on my own.[4]

That is, naturally, the rub. Some of the best mixed doubles teams didn’t make the event because of the new eligibility rules and are missing out on the bigger prize pool. That casualness can come off as not worthy of one of the biggest trophies on the tennis calendar. There have been complaints from some doubles purists about the limited field and cheapening of the championship given the adjustments.

I understand that but I really enjoyed the hour or so I was able to watch. I will be tuning in tonight to see who wins. It was a nice, laid-back appetizer for the big tournament which kicks off Sunday.

OK, you can argue that with a stout o-line, Jonathan Taylor at running back, Tyler Warren as a potential franchise tight end, and no game-changing deep threats, keeping it simple is the smart move, and Jones’ higher floor is exactly what the Colts need if they don’t trust Richardson. ↩
Pegula, Swiatek, Alcaraz, Djokovic, Medvedev, Andreeva, Tiafoe, Shelton, Fritz, Rybakina, and Venus Williams were among those entered. World #1 Jannik Sinner was to play until he fell ill over the weekend. ↩
Until the final, which reverts to traditional six games to win a set, best of three format. ↩
There may have been separate coverage on the ESPN app, but I didn’t check. Even then, we all know switching between events on a streaming app is far more complicated than through regular channels. ↩

Tuesday Links

Tue, 19 Aug 2025 11:00:26 -0400

I just read Niko Stratis’ book, which is part memoir, part reflection and analysis of the music she has loved. I found this interview with her, and this passage really struck me. I strive for my posts that are about music and memory to be accurate, but I often wonder how accurate my recollections really are.

Ultimately, I’m never going to fully know the past. I’m in my forties now, so some of those years are so far in the rearview that it’s hard to see them perfectly anymore, and that has to be okay…And that is a hard reckoning as you get older, of “What are the stories I’ve told myself are true, and what are the stories I actually believe are true?”

Niko Stratis On Building Identity Through Sound

Now see, I had been thinking something along these lines, mostly given the putrid state of the Eastern Conference. But when a national writer says it, it makes me start getting my hopes up. And the Pacers really should be leaning into not being good this season and finding a way to land at the top of a jam-packed draft.

The Indiana Pacers will win more games than they did last season.

The Biggest Zags of the NBA Offseason

Sigh.

American stupidity is nothing new…But we’ve really stepped it up a couple notches this year. We are no longer anti–intellectual. We are actively anti-intellect. Close your eyes and imagine what would happen if the idea of seat-belt laws had been introduced into the country now. You know exactly which of your high school friends would performatively launch himself through a windshield on Instagram to show he was an alpha, and you’re lucky if you can think of only one.

Welcome to the Era of Big Stupid in America

Truly the end of an era. I’m disappointed in myself for not writing 2000 words last fall about the 30th anniversary of me logging onto AOL for the first time.

AOL Pulls the Plug on Dial-Up Service

I started tracking the books I read in 2007. Over that span I’ve finished 920. If I live as long as the man in the article below, I would need to average just 71.4 books per year to match his total. I like a challenge but, jeez…

A Man Read 3,599 Books Over 60 Years, and Now His Family Has Shared the Entire List Online

I had no plans to watch the new version of War of the Worlds even before hearing it is one of the worst reviewed movies ever. I still don’t, but I am thankful it has generated all kinds of hate content like this.

Please, give this a skim before committing real running time to this piece of shit. This isn’t a so-bad-it’s-good movie like Battlefield Earth or The VelociPastor or most of the garbage fish-monster movies. War of the Worlds is a so-bad-it-hurts movie.

The 21 Worst Things About the Worst Movie of the Year, ‘War of the Worlds’

Weekend Notes

Mon, 18 Aug 2025 07:49:23 -0400

A pretty chill weekend, with not a lot to share. Most activities revolved around making final preparations to move C to IU this Wednesday. A final trip to Target. A final order (or three) on Amazon. Many loads of laundry. A lot of organizing of our bonus room, which is the staging area. There are whole sections of the floor in there I haven’t seen since June that are exposed again as S worked hard to get things jammed into boxes and containers and bags. I’m hoping we can get everything in one car but that’s probably overly optimistic and we’ll be taking two.

In somewhat related news, M’s new house in Cincy has kind of been a disaster so far. As the other roommates moved in, more problems kept presenting themselves. The biggest is that their electrical circuits aren’t large enough to handle all the girls running window air conditioning units, so they keep tripping. Fortunately for M her room is not affected by this. But the poor girls upstairs have really been suffering.

There have been a variety of other fairly significant issues. The girls keep turning them into the property management company, some are resolved, some are not. One parent got fed up and sent a really nasty email to the company, threatening them with legal action if they don’t get the issues resolved quickly. Yikes!

M’s plan was to stay in this house her final two years of school. S and I are going to give it a couple weeks, but if things don’t get better, we are probably going to tell her to find a different place for her senior year. The only saving grace is that she’ll be overseas from January through May, so if the house remains a disaster, she only has about five months in it.

Knocking on wood things get a little better and she can get through the first semester.

I must admit, though, I keep wanting to tell her, “Yeah, this is pretty much exactly what I expected to happen when you moved into a 124-year-old house that has been primarily used by college students for who knows how long.” I’m keeping that to myself for now.

Oh, S and I (mostly S) wallpapered our laundry room. It took six hours over two nights, and we still have some finishing work to do pending obtaining another roll of paper. I wasn’t convinced this was the greatest idea. If you know my wife, though, you know that once she gets a project in her head she has to knock it out. I was wiped out and pissed off and I did very little of the work. I’m not sure how she kept her cool. Although she did admit when we were done she probably would not do that ever again.

This project was delayed several weeks because the place we ordered the paper from made a huge mistake. Rather than sending us what S ordered, our initial shipment contained four rolls of Lion King decals. We did not order anything that was in any way related to the Lion King. And we ordered full rolls of wallpaper, not decals that were to be placed over painted walls. When they arrived I thought she had ordered them for some of the exam rooms at her office.

S sent in a request for replacement with pictures of the incorrect product. For some reason it took the company like two weeks to process it. First they asked for confirmation that all four items we received we incorrect. I guess we didn’t make that clear on our form. Then they told us multiple times they were “working hard to see how this happened.” S had to send multiple follow-up messages.

Here’s a customer service hint: just ship the right fucking replacement product! We don’t care how this happened, or why. We just want what we ordered.

When we finally received the correct wallpaper last week, we laughed that there were stamps all over the packaging noting it was a next-day air delivery and the paperwork inside noted that it was a “HOT” shipment and to ensure proper items were packed.

Big Money For KU

There had been rumors for a while that KU was having trouble scrounging up enough money for phase two of the football stadium renovation project. There were also rumors that donors had been reluctant/unable to pour money into NIL because they had been asked to give so much for phase one of the project.

All those concerns got wiped off the board Wednesday when alum David Booth committed to giving $350 million to the school, one of the biggest individual gifts ever made to a college. A healthy chunk of that will be used for the football stadium. It already had his name on it; makes sense that he wants it finished. The rest will go into a fund that should fund KU’s “athlete reimbursement fund” for at least 20 years. I used that euphemism because I still don’t completely understand how the new system of revenue sharing and NIL work together, and I don’t know if this money can be shoveled into both of those buckets or just one.

Regardless, it puts KU in a fantastic position budget-wise. That $20 million/year that can be allocated to student athletes is taken care of for the time being. It frees up money for other projects. That financial security should make KU even more attractive when the next round of conference realignment comes around.[1]

I’m not sure that if you are able to give this kind of money, dumping it all into college athletics is the best way to spend it. But who am I to tell someone like David Booth what to do with his money. I wish I had to worry about what people think about me because I threw tons of money into sports rather than academics, infrastructure, or some other aspect of a school that, you know, helps its actual mission.

Somewhat related, Bill Self had a press conference on Thursday. He seemed pretty normal, certainly more normal that he was a couple weeks after his heart attack in 2022. He hinted at, but said he would not share details about, having “complications” after the ’22 event. Hopefully his docs and his body are being honest with him and he genuinely is healthy enough to deal with freshmen who make dumb mistakes, referees who make bad calls, and all the other pressures of the job.

Stupid Weather

After two months that were very hot yet also had at least one good downpour per week, our rain has dried up over the past two weeks. And with it our lawn. The grass started getting crispy so I hauled out the sprinklers a couple nights last week.

Saturday evening after dinner I looked at the forecast and saw zero percent chance of rain, so I watered for a couple hours. S and I sat down to watch a show. Around 9:30 I got an alert on my phone that storms were approaching. I get these all the time this time of year and it’s some little, pop up storm that scoots by us. I pulled up the radar. Waves of bright yellow and red headed right towards us. What the hell???? We ran out and put all the pool furniture cushions away as lightning lit up the sky.

We indeed had borderline severe storms with heavy rain for over an hour, then continued showers overnight and into Sunday morning. It took about 90 minutes for the pool pump to get all the water off the cover once the skies cleared. In other words, I watered the lawn for no reason.

Put this high on the list of dumb things I get irrationally angry about.

There is online chatter that things are going to remain calm on that front for the next 3–4 years before either the Big 10 and SEC carve up the ACC and Big 12, or folks get smart and skip that step and just go straight to one mega-conference that controls all TV rights and divides schools up into geographically sensible divisions. Say of eight-to-ten schools. In other words, the old conferences with one big TV deal that unites them all. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 15 Aug 2025 08:13:54 -0400

A funny thing happened as I began putting this week’s list together. I noticed a common thread through many of the songs in my working pile of music. So that led me in a slightly different direction than I had planned. See if you can figure out what these songs all share.

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2dQT3Sx3Oma0FXQsOQtWIT?si=4087503f5e464da0)

“Magic” - The Cars A song better suited for early summer, but I hadn’t gotten to it yet this year and this seemed like the perfect week to squeeze it in.

“Dreams” - Jade Bird The slightest hint of country in her voice, also bumping up against Brandie Carlisle territory. Nothing wrong about any of this.

“Dissolve” - Glimmer At Stereogum, Tom Breihan described this band as having a “fuzzed out take on early Foo Fighters.” You can hear a bit of “Everlong” in this track, for sure.

“Girls” - King Princess At first listen, this song is sexy as hell. Once you pay attention to the lyrics, though, you realize there is a lot more going on, and none of it very comfortable. Certainly not sexy.

“Drawbacks” - dust Proper post-punk from Australia.

“Float” - Jay Som & Jim Adkins On their first new album in six years, Jay Som brought in several collaborators. Here Jimmy Eat World’s Adkins is the guest. The video for “Float” has some callbacks to JEW’s classic “The Middle.”

“Mind” - Golden Apples Golden Apples are generally thrown into the shoegaze revival camp. This song? It sounds way more like it drew inspiration from Lou Reed and Bob Dylan.

“Beg” - SPRINTS SPRINTS making SPRINTS music.

“august” - Taylor Swift T-Swift has been awfully quiet for quite some time. Which is weird for someone who loves the public eye. Maybe she’s decided to let other artists suck up all the attention she used to demand and is living a life of peace and solitude.

I kid, of course.

[youtu.be/0csYYDUVn...](https://youtu.be/0csYYDUVnR8?si=xXUgWOca5FhZvtDN)

“Oceans” - Pearl Jam My little twist on this week’s playlist wasn’t that clever. At some point I noticed I had four or five tracks with single-word titles in the queue, so I decided to stick with that theme for the rest of the list. Which, naturally, made me think of Pearl Jam and how they were famous for doing that across most of their early albums. They made fun of themselves for this by naming a song “Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town.”

This stunning performance kicked off their MTV Unplugged episode. If you weren’t sure about the band’s chops based on the early singles in 1992, this song had to win you over.

Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 115

Thu, 14 Aug 2025 08:45:30 -0400

Chart Week: August 14, 1982 Song: “And I Am Telling You I Am Not Going” - Jennifer Holliday Chart Position: #26, 7th week on the chart. Would peak at #22 for three weeks.

One aspect of the pop chart that messed with my head when I was young was how songs that were huge hits on the genre charts would barely dent the pop Top 40. It seemed like there was always a song by a Black artist stuck at #34 on AT40 for three weeks that had already been #1 on the soul chart. Or a song that dominated the country chart but spent a month shuffling between #39 and #31 on the pop list.

“Why was this?” I thought. Isn’t a hit a hit? Just because a song doesn’t get much or any play on pop stations, isn’t it still popular?

I obviously didn’t understand the methodology of the pop chart at the time. And in the modern era of legal downloading and streaming services, we’ve learned those genres that were considered niche 40 years ago are now the most listened to forms of pop music. Hip hop, R&B, and country command the Hot 100, while most of what is analogous to the pop music of the Eighties has faded and rock has basically disappeared.

I never listened to country music, so those songs by Barbara Mandrell or whoever were always frustrating annoyances in between the newest singles from Hall & Oates and Michael Jackson. However, as I’ve shared before, my mom listened to our local “Black” station, KPRS, often. So when a song that was getting heavy airplay there snuck into Casey Kasem’s show, I got excited.

One of the more satisfying examples was Jennifer Holliday’s legendary “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going,” the feature song in the musical Dreamgirls. My mom owned the Dreamgirls soundtrack, so I heard Holliday’s signature song, and all the others from that show, on a regular basis in the summer of 1982.[1]

“AIATYING” was certainly an unlikely hit. A gospel-inflected song from a Broadway show wasn’t exactly a representation of the mainstream in 1982. It was massive on the Black Singles chart, capturing the #1 spot for a full month. Holliday’s performance was so astounding, though, that it broke down all the significant barriers between it and pop chart success.

It was an unlikely hit for more than that.

According to the story Casey shared on this week’s show, Holliday was just 19 when she auditioned for and got the part of Effie in the Broadway production of Dreamgirls. Almost immediately she and show director Michael Bennett began clashing. He was dissatisfied with her acting and she was too young and/or stubborn to take his notes. Eventually Bennett fired Holliday. Fed up with New York, she moved to LA.

Six weeks later, though, Bennett realized he had made a huge mistake. He called Holliday back to New York for a dinner, where they cleared the air and he explained what he wanted from her on stage. They went to Broadway shows and watched movies together, with him pointing out techniques other actors used. She re-joined the cast and her acting improved. Dreamgirls became a hit, largely on the strength of her performance. In 1982 she won the Tony Award for Best Actress. A year later she won a grammy for best female R&B performance for “AIATYING.”

Good thing they resolved their issues!

You don’t have to be a theater fan to be affected this record. There isn’t an ounce of doubt what it is about. It is one of the most emotional, forceful, and jarring statements about fighting to keep a relationship alive in pop music history. Holliday’s voice is gigantic, coming from the bottom of her soul. We hear her confidence that if she sings them big and loud enough, her words will be enough to convince - hell compel even - her man to take her back. This stanza, especially, is almost overwhelming:

I’m stayin’, I’m stayin’ And you, and you You’re gonna love me!

Goddamn!

It’s no wonder that this song brought the house down each night Holliday performed it.

There is one weak section in the lyrics, the middle verse, but that’s not Holliday’s fault. Fortunately, it passes quickly and she can go back to throwing down.

Holliday never had another pop hit.[2] She has battled serious health issues her entire adult life. Like Effie, though, she didn’t give up and continued to record music and perform until the Covid years. I hope she’s doing ok today.

Tear down the mountains, yell, scream, and shout, this is a 8/10

youtu.be/V5XIMWlfF…

“Steppin’ To The Bad Side” is the only other song on that album that rings a bell to me now. ↩
Jennifer Hudson played Effie in the 2006 movie version of Dreamgirls. Her version of “AIATYING” made it to just #60 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #14 on the Hot R&B/Hip Hop chart. It did top the Dance Club Songs chart, though. ↩

Wednesday Notes

Wed, 13 Aug 2025 11:14:57 -0400

Fever

Well, I sure jinxed the Fever! The last time I mentioned them I pointed out how they had their longest winning streak in a decade, all without Caitlin Clark. Since then they’ve lost three-of-four, the only win against hapless Chicago. Worst of all was last week’s game in Phoenix. I didn’t stay up to watch the game but in the morning the final result was on my phone screen: a 95–60 loss. NINETY FIVE TO SIXTY?!?!!?

I read the game summary while eating breakfast and learned that both of the Fever’s remaining point guards were lost for the season during the game. Sydney Colson tore her ACL, Aari McDonald broke her foot. Not only did the Fever play roughly half the game without a point guard, but they were also playing a Mercury team that was pissed off that DeWanna Bonner, who ghosted the Fever earlier this year and forced a trade to Phoenix, was booed by the Indiana crowd a week earlier.[1] Thirty five points might have been a good result given all that.

Last night the Fever lost to Dallas at home by one. They had so many terrible possessions where the shot clock was running out and someone who was definitely not a point guard was trying to make something happen. Plus the refs gifted the Wings three points in the fourth quarter. When L and I watched these teams play a month ago, the healthy Fever won by 19 and it wasn’t that close. Yikes.

I guess they do need Caitlin back.

The ESPN crew last night said the plan now is to ease CC back into team practices in two weeks when they have a five-day break between games. That would give her nine games to get back in shape and re-integrated into the team before the playoffs begin. Whether her body holds up this time is anyone’s guess.

At this point I don’t think it’s realistic to expect the Fever to figure it all out and make the deep playoff run people were expecting when the season began. Other than Sophie Cunningham, most of their lauded additions have been mixed at best. Something has just been off about them all year, and that’s before you get to the injuries. With a new CBA coming - and perhaps a lockout along the way - I guess they hit the reset button and try again next year. Only three players are signed beyond this season, so it could be a whole new team beyond Clark and Aaliyah Boston next spring.

Hot Take: August Sucks

This one might blow your mind: I think August might be one of the three worst months of the year, behind only February and January.

Think about it. It’s literally called the Dog Days, because the heat has (most years) been hanging around for 4–6 weeks and anything growing outside is starting to get crispy. After 60 days of hot and humid weather, just stepping out your door sucks the life out of you. Yesterday I went outside to pull and spray some weeds. I was outside maybe 10 minutes. I was not exerting myself. My shirt was completely soaked when I was done. And this was before noon, on a cloudy day.

The kids go back to school. This sucks for the kids - it’s too early - and it sucks for the parents because the first week or so of the month is a mad rush to get all the school supplies purchased, fall wardrobes figured out, schedules planned, etc.

Sports suck in August. I’ve long been on record as hating the NFL preseason, or at least how it comes to dominate the media. Games that don’t matter are given more attention than baseball, WNBA, and any other sport playing real games at the moment. Players are lost for the season because of injuries that occur, again, in games that don’t count for anything. I hate it all.

That said, baseball and the WNBA are also in their dog days, and unless your team is on a hot streak (hello Milwaukee!) it’s easy to get sick of watching them when the excitement of the trade deadline has passed and the drama of the pennant race has yet to really crank up. Plus, with 800 teams making the MLB playoffs, the pennant races aren’t nearly as exciting or interesting as they once were.

The best summer movies have already been released. Same for TV shows, whether on traditional networks or streaming services which are holding any truly good shows for deeper in the fall.

August also sucks because of its tweener status. July has Independence Day and, often, vacations for families who had June sports. September brings the start of fall, a break in the weather, real football, and the excitement that comes with the final third of the calendar year. August can’t compete with that.

To sum up: August is terrible. If anyone ever tries to argue that summer is better than fall - and I have some sympathy for this suggestion - August is the weak spot that collapses that view. However, according to my limited understanding of astronomy, earth science, meteorology, and the Gregorian calendar, it looks like we’re stuck with it.

Add this to the list of super dumb WNBA controversies. Bonner was supposed to be a big free agent signing last winter, an experienced wing who can score, rebound, defend, and serve as mentor to the Fever’s younger players. That never happened. The full story didn’t come out, but it sounds like she pouted when she lost her starting job early in the season, stopped coming to practice, and even missed a couple games with “personal issues.” Which I guess is her right as a veteran, although I don’t think her contract promised her a starting job. Fever fans are 100% justified in booing a player they felt checked out on her team and may have wrecked its chances for success. That’s sports. ↩

Tuesday Links

Tue, 12 Aug 2025 07:24:46 -0400

Steven Hyden on seeing Oasis in London.

Noel Gallagher is not a great or even cogent lyricist, and his melodies can sometimes seem a little samey. But when it comes to writing songs that large groups of individuals in various states of inebriation can sing in unison, perfectly, Bob Dylan and Beethoven have nothing on him. He is the absolute genius of that very specific art form.

I Saw Oasis At Wembley And It Was The Greatest Stadium Show Of My Life

This article annoys me for several reasons. First, I’m pissed at myself for never thinking to pitch something like it when I was neck-deep in the kickball world. Second, it focuses teams from the south side of Indy. Third, that there aren’t 500 words about the day L kicked six home runs vs. St. L. Finally, that it avoids the “real” side of kickball I shared with you often. The umpires who don’t know the rules. The coaches who blatantly cheat. The idiot parents on the sidelines.

Then again, the Pope might have placed a call and killed the article if I had threatened to expose that side of the game.

Holy Rollers: Girls’ Catholic School Kickball

When we were moving M last week, we saw small lizards scattering each time we walked up or down her front steps. Which seemed weird. There aren’t lizards in this part of the world, right? Then M told us some story about how a kid smuggled some lizards home from a vacation in a sock and they are all descended from them. That story seemed so outrageous it had to be made up.

TURNS OUT IT WAS TRUE! What a crazy story!

10 lizards were smuggled into Cincinnati in a sock. Now there are tens of thousands.

What the hell??? Did someone put armadillos in a sock???

Armadillos are officially in Indiana, and they are expanding

Weekend Notes

Mon, 11 Aug 2025 07:58:08 -0400

Some notes about things, some of which happened before the weekend began. But first…

A Blog Update

Yes, I fucked around with how the site looks over the weekend. I believe I had used the same theme for six or seven years. That package had not been updated in ages, and while it has continued to work through Wordpress updates, I kept getting warnings that it may fail at some point. I liked the way it looked and I don’t have near the enthusiasm for messing around with that stuff as I did 10 years ago, so I kept kicking that can down the road, figuring if I woke up one day and it didn’t work, I could just slide into the default theme and then look for a replacement.

I finally broke down, though, and putzed around with some free themes Saturday night before I paid $20 for a “professional” package on Sunday. I think “professional” just means it gets updated more often than the free ones you find on Wordpress’ site.

Anyway, I think I’ll stick with the look you see now for the time being, although there may still be some random tinkering. I did not like the way the new theme presented in simple black and white, so shifted it to the color scheme you see. I’ve never had a two-column setup before, so thought I’d try it. It has been a long time since I used a format that just posted excerpts of posts on the main page. Maybe since I used Moveable Type, which would have been in the 2005–2006 range.

I also added a tagline for the site, one that I think is very funny if you get the reference. I know a few of you will.

See that little moon up in the top menu bar? You can use that to toggle the site to dark mode, if you wish. Other than that, not many changes for you, my loyal readers.

Let me know if you find anything that doesn’t work.

Moving Day #1

Thursday S and I went to Cincinnati to move M from her summer place to the one she will live in the next two years. We had a fair amount of stuff here that nearly filled S’s Telluride. I had a cargo van reserved in Cincy for the big stuff. I very much wanted to avoid driving anything bigger than that on the narrow, hilly streets of the Clifton/Over the Rhine neighborhoods. I had checked and the cargo van was big enough to move a queen-sized bed, which is what M has. Then Thursday morning I had a moment of panic when she sent us pictures of what stuff was hers in the basement. I didn’t realize she’d have a big-ass dresser, some barstools, a nightstand, plus a large headboard. I feared S’s wrath if we got down there and all this shit wouldn’t fit.

M was working so she left a key for us and we started loading up around 3:00 PM. Our goal was to be done right around when she got off work and could collect the key for her new place.

It was hot and steamy. I was a sweaty mess. I might be too old for this. But we got all that shit into the van! Pretty easily, even. So easily that we decided rather than wait for M to join us, we’d just head to the new place, about three blocks away, and start unloading as she had already received the code for the door there. S and I are both “I’m not here to fuck around” types when it comes to moving. We don’t always communicate well while in the midst of this, but we get shit done. M was the only one moving in that day, the first day of the lease, so there was no one in our way and nothing in the house to block our path. We not only had her old place packed up, but we had everything unloaded from the van and S’s car before M got to the new one. Efficient!

The new place is old. Interesting. A little creepy, at least when totally empty. People who knew me in college will remember the place I lived in for two years with six other guys. M’s new place reminds me a lot of that. It is even seven years old than mine, built in 1901. And it’s been 30 years since I lived in that house. I don’t remember it being super run down, but I was a dumb college kid then. The age shows at hers. Especially the basement, which is straight-up scary. I think I would rather pay to do my laundry somewhere than have to go into the basement to use theirs. Their neighborhood is a little sketchy, too. But that’s Clifton for you. She’s the dumb college kid now, and isn’t really fazed at all by its condition.

M got what we think is the best bedroom. It’s the only one on the main floor, but way in the back and you have to wind around to get there. There are a lot of architectural “quirks” to the house from over a century of updates. One of the more interesting ones is that there used to be an entrance where her room is. At some point it was turned into a bedroom, and the entry plastered over on the inside. But they left the door on the outside. So inside her room, you see a normal wall. Outside, though, they left the door, just made it inoperable. The window panes are still in place, even. Through them you see the back of the plastered walls. Wild. I’m not sure what the point of that was. I should have taken a picture because I’m not sure that description makes total sense.

She and her six roommates will be sharing two bathrooms, and one is right next to her room. She has a window air conditioner. Some of the rooms upstairs do not and were hot as hell when we were there. I really hope all those girls are bringing their own window units. I remember how hot my room in Lawrence was in the summer, and how chilly it could be in the winter. But I loved that house and all the memories that came with its quirkiness. Hopefully she has the same experience.[1]

She has about a 10 minute walk to campus, up a steep hill. Fortunately she’ll be overseas this winter so will only have to deal with it in the cold her senior year.

Her summer internship officially ended on Friday. However, they asked her to stay on and continue working on the project she was assigned over the summer through the fall semester. It will be 10–15 hours a week, she’ll still get paid, and it looks great on her resumé, so she dropped a class to make it work. I think she’ll be doing some of that work this week before sorority recruitment begins next weekend.

Back To School

Thursday was also CHS’ first day of the year, so L is now officially a junior. And driving herself. Weird after all these years to just have one kid in school locally, and she being pretty much independent from us. She texted me from her math class that day saying how easy it was, and how her teacher was surprised she got an answer right . The next day she moved up to honors. Look at the big brain on L! Because basketball dominates the first semester, she was reluctant to load up her schedule too heavily. Now she has one honors class, one AP, and her Spanish class is for college credit.

C has one more week at home; we move her on the 20th. IU does rush in January so she’ll go about ten days later than M did when she was a freshman.[2]

Jim Lovell

Lovell, the commander of the Apollo 13 mission, died Friday. A true, unquestionable, American hero. In his honor I watched the Netflix documentary Apollo 13: Survival that night. It is very good. They didn’t Netflix it up at all. It reinforced what a great man he was, not just because of his calm, cool demeanor in the face of a disaster in outer space, but also in how being in space affected him. I’ve seen a lot of footage of Lovell, read a lot about him, and have always been endlessly impressed with his easy demeanor. He never came across as a hot-shot test pilot, but just a normal, fairly humble guy.

At the end of the program you hear him talk about what it was like to see the earth from outer space. How you don’t see cities or borders, and you realize that’s home to all humans and we need to find a way to protect the earth and live together in peace.

Compare that to the people who are now in charge of our space program, their goals, and how they view their mission…

RIP

I looked it up and it appears that house is for sale again. I randomly came across it a few years ago when it was on the market and was amazed at how amazing it looks with the most recent gutting. I am also bummed someone ripped out the basement rooms we built in the summer of 1992. I’m sure they were all up to code and very safe. ↩
We’re not sure she will rush. I would guess no, but we’ll see how the first semester goes. I think she would be ok in a house. Rush at IU is supposed to be very intense, though, and I’m not sure she’s up for that. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 08 Aug 2025 08:34:02 -0400

Several repeats of artists I’ve played recently who have more solid, new music out.

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4s8rTf2kcdLGrtXrnzYNxt?si=146f44ed92674909)

“Sleep All Summer” - Crooked Fingers Hey, our freshman-to-be’s theme song!

“Angelus” - The Berries Before we get to the repeats, here’s a new song from a new artist that is crazy good.

“Call You Back” - TTSSFU Even if you don’t listen to the words, just from the tone you can tell this song is about desperate, late night interactions when a relationship is doomed but one person hasn’t gotten the message yet.

“All Day All Night” - Big Thief This makes it two songs from the next album that I’ve really dug.

“Dancing With The Europeans” - The London Suede This band’s sound never changes. I have no issues with that.

“Love To See You Shine” - Opal Mag So much of the Nineties influenced music I’ve shared recently has modern shoegaze. There is a touch of that here, but more big, crunchy riffs that recall the days when modern rock ruled the airwaves…

“Wide Awake” - Rocket …similar territory to where all this band’s songs live.

“Dog” - Daisy The Great One of several terrific tracks I’ve picked up on The Bridge lately. Like many public stations, they recently lost all their Federal funding. Find a public station near you and do something to help them stay on the air.

“Be A Bitch” - Maren Morris When in doubt…

[youtu.be/n5Y5wPiY0...](https://youtu.be/n5Y5wPiY0L4?si=M0zoVzs_IgjPmOyz)

“America (You’re Freaking Me Out)” - The Menzingers A daily lament. This song and video are five years old. The Menzingers knew where we were headed.

Reader's Notebook, 8/7/25

Thu, 07 Aug 2025 08:39:01 -0400

The Happy Isles of Oceania - Paul Theroux The latest re-read - for the fifth, sixth time? - of my all time favorite, non-fiction book. I actually meant to take it when we traveled to Hawaii four years ago but couldn’t find it. It turned up a year or two later and has been sitting on my shelf, waiting for the right moment. I decided I will continue to read it once every ten years or so as long as I am able.

As with each return to it, I’m fascinated by the changes in the world from when Theroux paddled through the Pacific in the very early 1990s. Shortwave radio is dead, so that could no longer be his lifeline to the world. Surely if he repeated the trip today, he would have a device of some kind that had a satellite connection on it, even if just for emergency purposes. I wonder how much his various destinations have changed, and in what ways they have not. How many of the people he talked with are still alive.

I used to dream of making a similar adventure. That was always an extreme stretch, but at my age it seems even more unlikely. I finally made it to Hawaii in 2021. Maybe I’ll find my way to a few of the other islands Theroux visited at some point.

The Unfortunate Englishman - John Lawton Book two in Lawton’s Joe Wilderness series. This one mostly takes place right around the time the Soviets are putting up the Berlin Wall and involves more back-and-forth between East and West by agents of both sides. To be honest, I read the next book in my list too quickly after this one and they kind of ran together. Another failure on my part to take the proper notes while reading.

Gabriel’s Moon - William Boyd As with The Unfortunate Englishman, this takes place in the early 1960s. In this case, Gabriel Dax is an English travel writer who stumbles into one of the biggest moments of the Cold War and, as a result, gets sucked into the world of espionage. His minor role ends up becoming extremely important on two different fronts of the Cold War.

What I liked most about this was that Boyd wrote it in a style that very much fit its age. It felt a little like one of Ian Fleming’s Bond novels, although perhaps not as glamorous nor violent. Like Bond, Dax is a bachelor. He also enjoys fine foods, drink, cigarettes, and ladies. But as he’s not officially on Her Majesty’s payroll, everything is stepped down a few levels from what 007 experienced. I’m not sure how close it came to how an Englishman would actually live in the Sixties, but it seemed right to my brain.

Apple In China - Patrick McGee A fascinating book that got a lot of attention in the tech world when released earlier this year. It traces Apple’s history, focusing most on the second Steve Jobs era, when the iMac, iPod, and iPhone brought the company from the verge of bankruptcy to the most valuable in the world. Along the way Apple became more and more reliant upon China for manufacturing those products. When Xi Jingping assumed power, and turned the country into an autocracy, Apple was suddenly beholden to him if they hoped to remain as the leader in their space.[1]

This is an important read because Apple is not the only company in such a position. If China somehow crippled Apple tomorrow, it would suck, but we could all go buy phones and laptops made in Korea or other non-Chinese markets and carry on. But if China ever takes out Taiwan, or cuts off their own chip manufacturing complex, it would have much more dramatic effects on the world economy. And the book is a good explainer/reminder that it is wildly unrealistic and unserious to insist that we need to make iPhones, etc in the US and think it will happen. But we live in unserious times…

And now also beholden to another autocrat here in the US. ↩

Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 114

Wed, 06 Aug 2025 12:50:32 -0400

Chart Week: August 5, 1978 Song: “Love Will Find A Way” - Pablo Cruise Chart Position: #9, 10th week on the chart. Peaked at #6 the week of August 26.

There are many factors that go into determining my favorite musical years. Clearly the songs are the biggest factor. It is a huge bonus if most of the best tracks of a given year were hits during the summer months. And then there is the personal side: if a lot of important things happened during a calendar year, odds are its music will stand out a little more.

1978 is one of my favorite music years. I have several, distinct musical memories from those 12 months. It is heavily rooted in the personal, though.

The biggest event in my life that year was my parents separating for the first time. When they split, my mom and I moved from Cape Girardeau, MO to Jackson, MO, about 30 minutes away. I don’t recall their disengagement being all that traumatic to me. However, with our move came a change in schools that March, which did distress me. I had a solid crew at Nell Holcomb Elementary who talked about Star Wars and CHiPs at every recess and lunch period. Starting over again, two-thirds of the way through the school year, was tough. I remember spending a lot of time in the nurse’s office because I was stressed and sad.

In retrospect I realize it was absolutely the uncertainty of my family life that created that angst, not just having to make new friends. By May, when I beat the alleged fastest kid in first grade in a gym class race - a contest that is still talked about in reverent tones in that part of the state, by the way - I had begun to build a new support system of dorks and doofuses.

Music memory one: Initially my mom and I moved in with a neighbor of one of her co-workers, a woman who had just gotten divorced and kept the house in the settlement. We occupied a corner of her basement, with two beds set up on opposite walls, and shared the most basic of bathrooms. The shower was a concrete slab with a drain and a plastic curtain. The other side of the basement was a large family room. We did not have much privacy.

Upstairs was a piano. I had no idea how to play, but I remember sitting at it with American Top 40 playing in the background and attempting to match the notes of songs. Every so often I would get lucky and nail a few correctly. I was super impressed with myself. Never had one lesson!

Music memory two: My mom still worked at the TV station in Cape. That summer she signed me up for a day camp that was near her office, so each day I rode with her. The radio was always on, usually tuned to KJAS.[1] I know my mom was thrilled the day I shared the joke I had picked up from older kids based on a popular song of the moment:

Q: What did Kenny Rogers say when his tire came off? A: You picked a fine time to leave me, loose wheel!

Music memory three: In August my mom drove me out to her parents’ home in central Kansas, a nine-hour trip. I spent several weeks visiting with them and my dad’s folks before he came to bring me home. On the way back we spent a couple days in Kansas City staying at his sister’s. When we returned to southeast Missouri he dropped me off at the new apartment my mom had moved into while I was away. Again, the radio was always on during these drives. When I hear any song from the Grease soundtrack, I think of the wind blowing in the open windows (no air conditioning) and my sweaty legs sticking to the vinyl seats.

As I listened to this countdown last weekend, I had clear recollections of so many of these songs from that chapter in my life: our months as basement renters, the trips to-and-from day camp, and the long hours on I–55 and I–70 for my summer vacation. Pablo Cruise’s “Love Will Find A Way” wasn’t the best song of that period, but for some reason it stood out from the others.

The proto-yacht rock record was a perfect song for the time. David Jenkins has a nice voice, he sounds like a less soulful, poor man’s Daryl Hall. The chorus and gorgeous backing harmonies (“Find your love again!”) were tailor-made for the tail end of the AM Radio Gold era. That was mostly how I heard the song, on AM radio through the tiny speakers in my parents’ respective Toyota Corollas. But the bottom end, that lovely bass line, and the mellow guitar licks were ideal for the FM dial, where album-oriented rock was drawing listeners over to the better-sounding side of the radio spectrum. There is a hint of Fleetwood Mac in there, too, if you try to hear it.

Pablo Cruise was part of another summer trip to central Kansas.

When I made my annual visit in the summer of 1981, my dad’s youngest brother was home from KU. Uncle D played in a local softball league with some buddies. One night my grandmother took me to watch the game. Rather than sit in the bleachers with her, I volunteered to be the team’s bat boy. It was a pretty awesome gig! I got to sit on the bench with a bunch of 20-year-old guys who were drinking beer, spitting, swearing, and playing softball. I tossed the ball with them as they warmed up before the game. I raced out and grabbed their bats after they made contact. My presence made them look like a much more professional operation than their opponents.[2]

The highlight of the night was when a player got hit in the head by an errant throw and began bleeding profusely. I grabbed a towel and leapt off the bench to assist. I got a few “Atta boys” from an umpire and a couple players as I shuffled back to the dugout. That might have been the proudest moment of my life to that point.

What does any of this have to do with Pablo Cruise? Well, my uncle had an awesome Pablo Cruise trucker hat in his closet. I thought its palm tree motif was super cool. Rather than wear my battered YMCA team hat, or a Royals cap, I donned it while I performed my batboy duties.

Any time I recall that moment, I start laughing. A skinny, 10-year old kid with tube socks pulled up to his knobby knees, who was also wearing two batting gloves and a Pablo Cruise trucker hat, running out to grab loose bats in a mediocre beer league game in Great Bend, KS. Absurd![^3][^3]

Pablo Cruise gets shit on a lot because of their laid back sound and the era they came from. There was nothing dynamic or very interesting about them. They were just there, filling space between Bob Seger and Foreigner. “Love Will Find A Way” is a pretty standard take on the “Hey, I know your heart got broken, but if you keep your chin up, you’ll meet someone new” song. That said, it was pleasant enough, reminds me of some good summers, and is a track that I will usually stop and listen to when it pops up. Plus they made cool hats. Keep your heart open, it’s a 7/10

youtu.be/yZ_X6DRyb…

Coincidentally, Casey shouted out KJAS on this countdown. That callsign is now assigned to an FM station in Jasper, TX. ↩
I have ZERO memory of whether they won any of the games I attended. Which is a shame. If I was a better writer I conjure a dramatic scene in which I stood behind home plate holding a bat while the winning run slid home safely just under the catcher’s tag and was the first person to jump on the runner in celebration. Captured for posterity by a photographer from the local paper who just happened to be strolling by. A fuzzy photo that remained on my grandmother’s refrigerator for years. But I’m not that good of a writer. ↩

July Media

Tue, 05 Aug 2025 07:30:07 -0400

Movies, Shows, etc

Arrested Development, season one I figured “Why not watch this again?” the week of July 4th. Never disappoints.

Long Way Home This is Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman’s fourth series about riding motorcycles long distances. I watched the first, 20 years ago, and then didn’t realize the others existed. Luckily this one landed on Apple TV+ and the visuals are fabulous, although the actual travel insights are often rather banal.

A-

Tour de France - Unchained, season three This is the final season of this show, which made sense through the opening episodes. It seemed pretty similar to the first two seasons. But then they got into Jonas Vingegaard’s physical and emotional rehab from a horrific accident in April of 2024 and got much more interesting. What if you were one of the very best to ever do your craft, but suddenly had a fear of part of the job. In Vingegaard’s case, should he be pushing his body to the limits to took to compete, and was it reasonable to rocket down mountain roads at ridiculous speeds again?

B+

Tour de France I wrote about this a couple times. Not the most interesting race this year, but still a July, morning tradition for me.

B+

Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead Weird film. It came out in 2007, but was structured like a ‘90s movie yet felt like something made back in the ‘70s. Lots of long pauses where nothing happens attached to very cinematic visuals. And it keeps getting darker every minute. The whole pacing thing threw me, and then since every character is a terrible person I wasn’t invested in any of them. I wonder if I would have liked this more if I saw it when it was first released. Marisa Tomei was very naked in two scenes, which I’ll admit I did not mind.

The Studio One of the funniest yet also most uneven shows of the year. When it is good, it is laugh-until-you-cry good. When it doesn’t hit, though, it can descend into meaningless silliness pretty quickly. Bryan Cranston is a national treasure.

B+

You Hurt My Feelings This is one of those movies about middle aged people that will hit different viewers in different ways. I laughed a lot, as I found most of the scenes hilarious. S thought a lot of it was very cringey and uncomfortable. Another film that had some weird pacing issues, which given it was just over 90 minutes long, meant the story might have been a bit thin.

Nonnas You generally can’t go wrong when you make a movie that centers on Italian food. Like most Netflix projects, this shaves off little pieces of other movies (Maybe it was just me, but I felt a lot of Chevy Chase’s nostalgia in Christmas Vacation in Vince Vaughn’s performance) and follows a familiar format. In this case it’s a sweet story with a really good cast, so it worked. Enjoyable but not one that will necessarily stick with me very long.

A Real Pain This got decent buzz as a very good comedy. I did laugh some, but I would not categorize it as a comedy. Two Jewish cousins from New York travel to Poland to tour their grandmother’s homeland. They both have issues but one of them has ISSUES. It gets awkward often. And, let’s face it, exploring the remnants of the Holocaust will never not be deeply moving, which takes away from the funny bits.

B-

The American I watched this a few years back and found it to be too slow. I’m now tracking a list of Best Movies On Every Streaming Service list on Vulture, and this was on June’s entry. So I gave it another watch. Still slow. This time S watched with me. When it was over she said, “That was interesting…” I don’t think she meant that she was entertained.

Shorts, YouTubes, etc

What if the moon turned into a black hole? Science!

Using YouTube to plant a forest Some cool Beau Miles bullshit.

29,000 Feet Up Mount Everest with DJI Mavic 4 Pro Not the first time I’ve seen a video along these lines. I will always watch them.

This Sahara Railway Is One of the Most Extreme in the World A staggeringly long train.

60 Miles Across Scotland | Photography, Camping & Kayaking I watched this while I was reading a book about kayaking in the Pacific. This seems the easier of the two, although I’m not sure I could do it.

I Took America’s Most Remote Mail Flight. It Was WILD. Alaska is a weird place.

7 Things You (Probably) Didn’t Know About Office Space Trivia about a classic movie? Sign me up.

24 Hours in One of California’s Best Kept Secrets | San Luis Obispo I visited a 5,000 cow dairy farm | Exploring Hidden Gems in Fresno I like this guy’s travel vids.

Embracing the Unknown | Our Last Days in Canada These kids are podcasting about Japan now, so I guess their next series will be about that country?

Norm MacDonald Eviscerates ESPN Awards Show (1998) The ESPYs may be our dumbest award show, but they did give us this legendary performance.

Norm Macdonald’s MTV Beach House Story I couldn’t watch just one Norm clip.

Inside NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert Set | Set Tour | Architectural Digest Very cool. Remember that our president is doing all he can to get rid of wonderful shows like this.

The Most Adventurous Outdoor Competition We Could Dream Up | 72-Hour Challenge Colorado Part 2 Good, clean, Huckberry fun.

Overnight in the Highest Hut of the Alps | CAPANNA MARGHERITA 4556m This is truly amazing. HOW THE HELL DID THEY BUILD THIS? TWICE?!?!

Weird Things You Didn’t Know About The TDF Pidcock’s Infamous Descent Seen From my Chest Cam Crash and Burn on Vall d’Ebo Cycling content.

Leaving Rome - Bikepacking ITALY - EP.1 I watched four episodes of this very cool journey. But the dude is just too weird for me to continue.

How Curb Succeeded Where Seinfeld Failed Not sure I agree with all the conclusions but all us Curb/Seinfeld fans have thought through some of these.

The Beastie Boys Flop That Became a Cult Classic | Paul’s Boutique I will never tire of reminding people that I loved Paul’s Boutique from first listen.

Field Notes Founder Aaron Draplin Doesn’t Bullshit I’d like someone to make a video about me with this description.

1976: BIG JIM’s Big BOOZY Bike Trip to Braemar Maybe the most amazing thing I’ve found on YouTube this year.

Photography

A Week of Film Photography on Maui Two lenses i love & two gathering dust.

Podcasts

Wild Ones My daily Tour de France summary of choice. I’m linking to their YouTube page, which I used more often than their podcast feed this year.

Weekend Notes

Mon, 04 Aug 2025 10:41:38 -0400

A very busy weekend, at least the front half.

A Wedding

Friday evening we all went to the wedding of O, the oldest daughter of our neighbors at our old house. M was a bridesmaid, her first of many I’m sure, so it was an extra big deal for her. It was a very nice ceremony and reception; the bride and groom seemed to be having an awesome time which is most important.

The most fun part of the event was the mix of cultures. O’s husband is Hispanic; he was born and raised here but his parents and most of their generation came from Mexico at some point. So there was a lot of Spanish in the air. There was a mariachi band that played before dinner. The food was Mexican. The DJ’s were Hispanic. We laughed at some of the culture clashes in how the DJ’s ran their part of the night. Lots of talking over the various moments like the cutting of the cake, father-daughter dance, etc., encouraging people to applaud throughout rather than after. Most of the white people music was stuff like “The Electric Slide,” etc that was some form of coordinated dance. Then it was almost all Mexican tunes, which was when the part really lit up.[1] At one point the groom’s stepmother danced through the entire hall, handing out whispy glowsticks and forcing everyone to get out on the floor and wave them in time to the music. There were no words, she’d just hand you the stick and move on. I had to assume this is something that is normal at Mexican weddings?

Anyway, a very fun night. M’s boyfriend came up and hung out for the rest of the weekend, too.

Weather

Man, did we get perfect weather for the wedding! That was key as the reception, while inside, was in a room that had garage doors that could open to an outdoor area. It was in the upper 70s and clear to begin, pleasantly cool when we left at 10:30.

This has been a deceptively hot summer. We haven’t come close to hitting 100° on the thermometer, and in fact are behind normal in days over 90°. However, it seemed like for six straight weeks every day was 87–89° with ridiculous humidity, so the heat index was always deep into the 90s. A few days early last week it was over 110°.

We had heavy rains come through Thursday morning and that both cooled it off and took the humidity with it. You could not have asked for a better weekend in early August. We have one, maybe two more days of that left before the heat returns.

A Trip Back

Saturday afternoon S and I drove up to some farmland that her dad owns that is about 30 minutes north of the city. It had been eight or nine years since she had been up there and she wanted to take a look at it again.

There is an old, unoccupied house on the land that looks super creepy. We just looked at it from afar. You never know who or what might be in these abandoned homes. There was a hole that seemed perfect for raccoons and other critters to access one of the upstairs bedrooms.

I enjoyed S recognizing parts of the area as we drove through it. Her family lived about a mile from this land until she was in seventh grade, but she still remembered the names of a lot of families that had lived around there in the ‘70s and ‘80s. She showed me how far she and her siblings were allowed to ride bikes on a gravel road. I’ve been out there a couple times in our 22 years here and development keeps getting a little closer. It was really interesting to imagine how remote it was when they lived out there. Famously she and her brother got plopped onto snowmobiles and were carried on them to the nearest open road to catch the school bus after the great blizzard of 1978.

I like to pull up Google Maps and look at the places I lived growing up. For all the places I lived before we moved to Kansas City, which would have been the same age when S lived in the country, I can barely remember anything about those areas. Impressive that she could recall so much. Of course we moved a lot where she lived in the same home for the first 12 years of her life, so it’s a little different.

We also drove around the luxury neighborhood that is not too far away. Its golf course is hosting a LIV Golf tournament next weekend, and preparations were already in place. It was pretty impressive to see the TV towers already built, a new, temporary club constructed near the first hole, and other signs that a pro golf event will be held there. It’s also indicative of LIV that this event is being held on a random, neighborhood course in the Indianapolis suburbs.

We looked in this neighborhood eight years ago, more to get ideas than anything else. It was WAAAAY out of our price range.[2] The two homes we looked at backed up to a fairway on the front nine. It would have been fun to heckle the guys who have taken the Saudi blood money from the comfort of my back porch.

Royals

Hey, the Royals had a good trade deadline! At least according to the experts. They brought in a couple halfway decent bats to platoon in right field. They added some arms. They didn’t give up much. They also re-signed Seth Lugo rather than trading him. Then they won two of three in Toronto.

However, it seems like every time they get a little warm, a matching cold streak is soon to follow. They are without shouting distance of the Wild Card, but with so many teams in the mix it will take a truly scorching stretch of baseball to nab a postseason spot.

I’m not sure if any of the deadline moves are needle movers for this year, but the return of Lugo and the additional arms should keep pitching a strength next year. Now if they can just find a real bat or two for the outfield in the offseason…

Fever

The Fever have won five straight, the longest current winning streak in the WNBA and the franchise’s longest run in a decade. And Caitlin Clark hasn’t played a single one of those games. Hmmm…

I mean, at some point, some talking head is going to jump on that point, right?

It’s not really a fair argument, since when she has played this year, she’s never been 100% healthy. It’s been a series of lower body injuries that have hampered her. I think you can chalk up some her increase in turnovers and lower shooting percentage to her bottom half never being right.

What I notice, too, is that when she’s not on the court, the ball really moves. There is a lot of motion in the Fever’s base offense, but when she’s on the court, the ball is almost always in her hands. With her out, it zips just as much as the people without the ball move.

I’m no coaching expert - my middle school experience is clear evidence of that - but I wonder if the key to unlocking the Fever’s full potential is, once Clark is healthy again, taking the ball out of her hands a little. I don’t think you turn her into a 2-guard; she’s too good of a passer to not want her running the offense. But maybe less of her dribbling, probing, and looking for either a cutter or shot for 24 seconds and more early actions and then getting it to back to her late in the shot clock and then letting her operate?

Again, it’s hard to evaluate her and the team when she hasn’t been healthy. As she keeps breaking down, there are questions of whether it makes sense to bring her back this year. If the Fever keep winning without her, and remain in the upper half of the playoff hunt, I think you sit her as long as you can and try to bring her back in September to work back into shape and be ready for the playoffs, and hope she re-integrates quickly.

As we left L said, “Man, those Hispanics can throw down!” The groom said many of his relatives were complimentary of her: “That white girl can dance!” As always, she was the bridge across differences! ↩
Our constant question is “What do these people do?” Most of the homes cost millions. Plural. And this is a large neighborhood. I guess some people are just mortgaged to the gills? ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 01 Aug 2025 07:31:38 -0400

Another big, eclectic mix of music this week.

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“Summer Drive” - Dragon Turtle For those moody, nighttime drives when summer’s hold begins to slip.

“mangetout” - Wet Leg It took a minute, but a song from the new WL album finally jumped out at me. This track has all the cheek of their first album - so many sly lyrics! - with a slight edge that, to my ear, recalls the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

“Alright Alright Alright” - Westside Cowboy My records indicate that I’ve not shared this song before. My brain keep telling me that I have, though. Oh well, it’s a fun enough song that it’s worth including again if my records are suspect. I’m not sure I believe this group is from Manchester, either. They sound very West Coast to me.

“Willow” - she’s green This sounds a lot like Hatchie, both in vocals and music. The group is from Minneapolis, which is about as opposite of Hatchie’s native Australia as you can get.

“Punch Drunk” - Broken Fires BF’s “East London Hotel” is one of my favorite songs of the summer. I finally checked and they indeed have an album coming out in November and this is another pre-release from it.

“Pay Per View” - Georgia Maq The wonderful Camp Cope officially broke up two years ago. Maq had already released music on her own before, so this is not really her solo debut. The music takes a different path, but her voice remains magnificent.

“Quiet Life” - shame Man, I’m not sure how to categorize this song. At first it seems like it’s taking a run at the Lord Huron sound. Then it picks up the pace and its Britishness presents itself, falling closer to bands like Fontaines D.C. or The Clockworks, with just a hint of rockabilly in there. I think it slaps.

“Ain’t Quite Right” - Still Blank Stereogum described this band as “folk-grunge.” That’s a new one on me. I guess it fits.

“Can’t Do Nuttin’ For Ya, Man!” - Public Enemy My brother-in-law, Mahk in Bahston, shared a wonderful blurb with me a few weeks back. Responding to the notion that the United States would deport immigrants from nations like Venezuela to Nigeria, the Nigerian foreign minister said, honest to God, “…you’ll remember a line from Flavor Flav, ‘Flavor Flav has problems of his own, I can’t do nothing for you, man.’” Nigeria is my new favorite country.

“Huddle Formation” - The Go! Team I heard this one night this week while making dinner. Let me tell you, that dinner tasted a little better than normal thanks to my bopping around to this jam!

“Boys on the Radio” - Hole Maybe a stretch to call this a summer song, although the word summer is in it. And, hell, it is a perfect song for cranking up while driving around with the windows down at night. Which, honestly, I haven’t done in about 30 years, but it is one of those core summer experiences I can never shake and can’t help but reference often.

[youtu.be/Naf5uJYGo...](https://youtu.be/Naf5uJYGoiU?si=UetJH6qVTKP6j7z2)

“Hey Ladies” - Beastie Boys Over the weekend I came across a great YouTube vid breaking down Paul’s Boutique. All the excuse I needed to listen to that classic album and then share this amazing video with you. Free James Brown.

Thursday Links

Thu, 31 Jul 2025 08:58:59 -0400

Too late to implement this idea for the summer of ’25, but something for parents to keep in mind for next year.

Just like the 1890s and the 2020s, they’ll play with the unvaccinated kids down the street and drink raw milk until dark. Then at daybreak, I’ll hand my children their metal lunch pails, button their fifty-button shoes, and they’ll shuffle off to their factory jobs, because in the Gilded Age, and southern states in the 2020s, no snowflake child labor laws exist.

I’m Giving My Kids a ’90s Summer—the 1890s

A good look at how and why today’s Tour de France riders are somehow faster than 20 years ago, yet also (as far as we know) cleaner than they were in the Armstrong era.

…at his blood-doped peak, two decades ago, ~Armstrong was averaging an estimated 6 watts per kilo~. In 2004, on that same climb in the Pyrenees, ~he took nearly six minutes longer~ than Pogačar did last year. In other words, Armstrong on dope then would be an also-ran next to Pogačar today.

Science Is Winning the Tour de France

Is there a more frustrating, maddening, tantalizing player in the NBA than Joel Embiid? When he’s healthy and at his best, he might be the most unstoppable offensive force in the game. But that has happened all too rarely in his career, and it seems more likely he’ll have a bizarre injury that knocks him out for weeks or months than show any kind of consistency. Then there are the personality traits that drive people around him crazy.

I love Jo, since he’s a Jayhawk. Had he not had multiple bizarre injuries his one year in Lawrence, KU may well have another Final Four banner. Those moments when he was locked in? There were the hints of how good he would be when he won the NBA MVP three years ago.

I also understand why there are a lot of basketball fans who despise him.

This very, very long piece gets into why he is the person he is. My biggest takeaway is that as smart as he is, he was not prepared in any way for his meteoric rise when he arrived in the US. He went from coming off the bench as a high school junior to the player who would have been picked first in the draft if not for an injury three years later. And so much of his aloofness goes back to the Sixers not believing him when he told them his foot wasn’t healing after his first surgery.

I doubt it will change the public view of Embiid. But it is probably the best look we’ll ever get into one of the strangest careers of any modern athlete.

Joel Embiid sees you

Steven Hyden’s most timely list ever.

The Best Songs About Summer, Ranked

Jayhawk Talk: Can't Take The Heat?

Wed, 30 Jul 2025 09:09:52 -0400

I probably should have included this in my Weekend Notes post, but was also debating how deep to go on the latest health scare for KU coach Bill Self. Without knowing much about what actually happened, I didn’t want to turn it into 3000 words about the future of the program. That’s always a possibility when I start writing about KU hoops, though.

What we know for sure is that Self suffered “concerning symptoms” while playing golf last week, was taken by ambulance to a hospital in Lawrence, and received two stents. I’m no cardiologist but that seems super serious. Also, if you’re in your 60s and had a heart attack two years ago, I’m not sure it’s smart to play golf in the midst of a heat wave. But that’s just me.[1]

We also know Self was released quickly and feeling fine. And apparently had lunch with a recruit who was on campus Monday. Or at least that was the message KU put out.

This was crazy timing as the same afternoon of this latest cardiac event, I was watching his recent interview with Andy Katz. They began with some health talk and Self mentioned that he didn’t really feel right for a year after his 2023 heart attack.[2]

There have been strong rumors around the program for six months or so that Self has privately told people this will be his final year. While he has never addressed this publicly, there has been some pushback from others on this timeline.

My first thought after this latest episode was that if he gets cleared to coach this year, by both his doctors and his wife, this is definitely his last year. And the arrival of Jacque Vaughn both made more sense and seemed super timely. No offense to any of Self’s long time assistants, but if he is told that he can’t coach this year, I’ll take Vaughn over any of them, even if JV has never coached a single college game.

Now, inserting stents is a pretty normal procedure, with recovery measured in days rather than weeks. Had this episode been more serious, I doubt he would have been sent home so quickly.

So, yes, very concerning. But perhaps as life/career altering as it seemed at first. And hopefully this kept something bigger/more serious from happening to Self down the road.

This is just another massive warning light that the Self era is coming to an end soon(-ish). At this point I just hope he is able to go out on his terms rather than because his body, medical team, and/or family tell him he can’t coach another game.

The message board chatter about summer workouts was that Vaughn was taking a strong role in what the team was doing. All rumors here, but his main task was shifting the offense to a slightly more NBA style that allows Darryn Peterson and other athletic wings clear paths to the basket. I want to see this in games, because while the build up may be a little different, Self’s best offenses were always when motion on the perimeter got Jalen Wilson, Ochai Agbaji, Devon Dotson, Josh Jackson, Frank Mason, etc. clear paths to the rim. Based on that I think these changes will be less dramatic than some are suggesting, and perhaps more about personal differences between the current roster and those of the past two years than anything Vaughn has put in.

Another summer rumor is that the team has been working more on full court pressure, leveraging its athletic length to make up for some half court deficiencies. Suggesting that any team will press more in the upcoming season is an evergreen college hoops summer rumor. And then when the team gives up three straight layups in their first team the coaches scrap it. So we’ll see about that one.

To wrap up, it was a pretty dicey day or two for KU fans. Knock on wood Self is now healthy and can devote his full energies to this team, and then make a decision about his future next April with a clear head and relatively clean bill of health.

Our heat index was 114° that day. Not sure if it was as high 500 miles west. ↩
Self also told Katz that in addition to Vaughn, he called Nick Collison about the open assistant coaching position. Fascinating. KU fans have this dream scenario where if Vaughn eventually becomes the head coach, he will surround himself by other former KU players. Aaron Miles, who was actually my top choice to fill the opening Vaughn filled, Keith Langford, and Wayne Simien have all been mentioned. Collison is currently an assistant VP/GM in Oklahoma City. I don’t know if he has coaching aspirations, but with all the changes in college sports, maybe someone with administrative, roster construction, salary cap knowledge like that is as needed as someone who has sat on a bench. And other than Danny Manning, there would be no better former KU player at teaching bigs how to operate in the low post. ↩

Weekend Notes

Mon, 28 Jul 2025 10:22:23 -0400

The clock is starting to run out on academic summer. There are actually a couple public districts around here that started last week. The one we live in starts this Thursday. L returns on August 7. It goes by fast. Some notes from one of the last weekends before we start worrying about school schedules again.

A Big Birthday

M turned 21 on Friday. She’s all growns up!

She had a bash with friends in Cincinnati that night. She survived the night, which is the key. She told us she never planned on getting super crazy and her focus was on having a good time. Not sure how many drinks she had but she said she told people she had no interest in doing anything close to 21 shots.

It sounds like a fun mix of people. A bunch of sorority girls were there. A group of high school friends drove down for the night. The crossing of streams went well. One of her best childhood friends - who is actually getting married this week - attended, too.

We went down Saturday to take her and her boyfriend out to lunch. Originally I wanted to make this kind of a big weekend, as we didn’t have a chance for a proper family trip this summer. For a variety of reasons we decided to just go down for a brief visit. Part of my original plan was going to a Reds game either Saturday or Sunday. It ended up being a fine decision to skip that, as it was brutally hot all weekend and I believe there were scattered thunderstorms down that way Sunday. There would have been a lot of complaining from everyone but me had I forced the fam to sit out in that. And, honestly, I’m not sure I would have liked it all that much either.

We went to Pepp & Dolores, a very hip Italian place in the Over The Rhine area of Cincy. Between the six of us we got four different pastas, all freshly made, and all were fantastic. Although we let M drink with us in Italy, it was fun to have a legal drink with her in the states. I acted mock offended at our waiter for not IDing her.

We also got to see the house she’s living in this summer. As she was going through the stack of gifts her friends had given her I noticed something was off about the house. Finally I asked, “Is this building tilted or am I having a stroke?” Indeed the building did have a significant lean to one side. M told us you can’t put round things on the floor or they will roll. Her bed is against the wall that she will roll into if she gets to the edge. Cincy is very hilly, but I’m not convinced the house was leaning in the direction of the hill it is built on. A little concerning, but hopefully it stays safe for two more weeks until we move her three blocks to the place she will live in the next two years.

She is in her friend’s wedding Friday so will be back here on Wednesday.

Tour de France

A rather uneventful final week for the Tour. I watched most days. The challenges to Tadej Pogacar never developed, despite him seeming a little under the weather in the last days of the race. I think all his challengers blew themselves out trying to tire him over the first two weeks and had nothing left when he showed the slightest of cracks.

We did get some rain in the mountains last week, which is always the best cycling to watch.

Pogacar beat Jonas Vingegaard by just over four minutes. Vingegaard was nearly seven minutes ahead of the third place finisher. Yawns from a competitive standpoint. As I’ve said before, I’m not a huge Pogacar fan, mostly because he seems a little robotic and uninteresting. With four wins, though, he’s entered the pantheon as one of the greatest ever. He seemed a little surly and uninterested over the past week. Maybe that was because of the relative ease of his win. I don’t know that there’s another rider who can challenge him if he’s healthy. Is there enough there to motivate him to go for a record tying fifth Tour win next year?

As a side note, of course Lance Armstrong “won” seven Tours. He’s largely viewed as a psychopathic liar these days, and any efforts at acting like a normal human being generally come off as pathetic attempts to make people forget not that he cheated, but that he actively destroyed the lives of people who tried to hold him accountable.

So I was shocked that Peacock had a daily post-race show featuring Armstrong and his former lieutenant George Hincapie, who also blood doped back in the day. I always turned Peacock off as soon as each stage was over so I never watched the program.

That seems particularly tone deaf by NBC. Even if you accept the argument that everyone else was doping when Armstrong was riding (I lean this way) I can’t find a justification for giving him a platform. The number of people who are interested enough in him to tune into a show he hosts on a streaming platform can’t be big enough to move the ratings/revenue needles for Peacock. And far more are probably like me and actively turned off by his presence. I think the most likely people to devote time to a program like this are the hard-core cycle-heads, and these people generally loathe Armstrong.

I guess if you view the Tour through the lens that everyone is cheating somehow and it doesn’t really matter, then you can justify his presence.

Home Tech Follow Up

Some of you may recall that when we moved into our new house seven years ago it took nearly four weeks for Xfinity to show up to run the line to our house and get us online. And then it was three more months before they sent someone out to bury our line. In the interim our lawn guys had to carefully avoid it since it laid on top of the ground. Oh, and the guy who showed up to bury it did it all by hand with a spade. We have at least 150 feet of cable running from our house to the main line. It took him over an hour. Throw in poor, post-construction soil, and this guy did a terrible job, putting the line barely under the surface. In the years since it has been cut at least five times by contractors.

Fast forward to our new service with Metronet. Their line was run to our house on a Thursday. The following Tuesday a crew showed up to bury it. They brought one of the big cable-burying machines and had it under ground in less than five minutes. Amazing.

Wednesday I got an email from Metronet saying they were merging with T-Mobile Fiber. Not sure how I feel about this. Metronet was based in Indiana, which was a bonus. We’ve never used T-Mobile for anything and their fiber business is new so I have no idea what Metronet rolling under their umbrella will mean for our service, for customer service, etc. Fingers crossed it just means eventually our bill will go to a different office and everything else stays the same.

Thursday we got our final bill from Xfinity in the mail. Also in the box was a separate mailer from them saying they missed us and offering us some deal or another. I didn’t really read the details, it went straight into the recycling. Their promotions department is on top of things. I guess we’ll be getting these weekly for the rest of time.

We also got two Metronet promotions in the mail last week, so their marketing people haven’t got the message that we’re onboard with them yet.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 25 Jul 2025 07:18:57 -0400

Back to extra-stuffed this week. So stuffed that I’ll only include one summer song. And apologies to Chuck Mangione, but there’s no room to honor his passing with more than these words.

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“Summer Nights” - Van Halen Perfect late July song.

“Touch Myself” - The Beaches Not a remake of that song, but definitely about the same subject. And a strong Song of the Summer contender.

“Cowbella” - bar italia I’m not sure if they were going for this, but every time I hear this song I think of Elastica. Or maybe druggier Elastica?

“The Scene” - Hotline TNT Some poor DJing here. I’ve only been sitting on it since the summer began. It deserved to be shared much sooner.

“Adored” - Been Stellar Not quite as good as the songs they released a year ago. It’s a little more contemplative and less straight rock. It reminds me a bit of Silversun Pickups.

“Paint By Number” - Coral Grief I’ve been kicking a few of this band’s songs around for several weeks. I finally broke down and picked this one to share with you. I hope you like it.

“Reticence” - Girls Names This song is a decade old, so from before I started doing Friday playlists. I 1000% would have included it had FPL’s existed then. I love this band’s blend of dark post punk and jangly indie rock.

“Let It Happen” - Tame Impala Currents was released 10 years ago last week. Its highlight is this stone-cold classic. Five stars all around.

“Twilight Zone” - Golden Earring George Kooymans, guitarist and vocalist of Golden Earring, died this week. His passing got lost in the wave of other, more notable deaths this remarkable week. Shame. One of the obits I read suggested that if the term Two-Hit Wonder was a thing, Golden Earring might be the best example. “Radar Love,” from 1973, is a Classic Rock radio staple. This track went to #10 in 1982 and has never dropped out of rotation on Eighties stations. Eleven-year-old me thought it was the coolest song on the radio.

“War Pigs” - Black Sabbath You didn’t have to be a fan of Ozzy Osbourne to know a shitload of his songs. That’s certainly the case with me. I never owned one of his albums or singles, never taped a song of his off the radio, never downloaded any of his songs. I was never deep enough into metal to be interested in his music. But I can sing along to the choruses of at least half a dozen of them because Ozzy was always in the air.

A few years ago I learned that Ozzy was actually a big hippie in the Sixties. That helps to explain this song, one of the most incandescent, ferocious anti-war songs ever made. It kicks all kinds of ass. He may have loved darkness and the occult, but deep down he just wanted everyone to love each other and have a good time.

It’s amazing he made it to 76. One obituary this week stated that researchers had studied him and determined that he was a genetic freak, able to tolerate drugs and alcohol in quantities far beyond the normal human being. That explains a lot.

[youtu.be/dSn5c8HAr...](https://youtu.be/dSn5c8HArw4?si=23yCcqwBoPR0k9M1)

“Killing in the Name of a Terrible Holy Lie” - Nine Inch Nails and Various Artists I miss good mashups like this. I know things got a little out of hand in that moment, about 20 years ago, when mashups blew up. But when done well, how can you not like them?

Fitness Update

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 11:52:28 -0400

A belated review of my fitness activity in April-through-June. You can read about the first quarter of the year (and L’s ED visit) here. I exercised 73% of the days in those three months, which I was hoping to beat in Q2.

Which I did. Barely. Officially I was at 73.3% in Q1. This past quarter I was at 73.6%. May was my best month of the year, but then a couple travel weekends, pool issues, and a heat wave in June made that my worst month of the year. The good news is I’ve locked in this month and am on pace to break May’s number.[1] I’ve also increased the distance I’m swimming by 25% since the beginning of this month.

Somehow in there I had a blip where my weight jumped up noticeably for two weeks. I would blame S for buying a Costco cheesecake for Father’s Day/my birthday and me being dumb enough to eat most of it over the course of a week. Seriously, I have zero self control when it comes to cheesecake, or monster Costco desserts in general. But the weight gain came two weeks later, so I’m not sure that was the cause. Fortunately I’m back to normal. The human body is a weird thing.

Blue days are strength training, red gym cardio, black other cardio (normally walks), and the new addition of green is swimming. Not that you can tell blue from black from green very well in this picture.

I just jinxed myself into my back going out, my arthritic foot pains flaring up, etc. ↩

On Malcolm

Tue, 22 Jul 2025 11:47:46 -0400

Celebrity deaths that are somehow connected to your childhood always hit a little harder. But, man, the news that Malcom-Jamal Warner drowned while on vacation in Costa Rica had an extra big wallop to it.

Part of it was the circumstances. Pretty much every person who reads this has been on a vacation with a loved one and gone for a swim. Thus while incredibly tragic, Warner’s death had an everyday quality to it.

Bigger was that Warner was one of the few heroes of my late childhood who was roughly my age.[1] Almost everything he was going through as Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show was stuff I was going through. Maybe his family had a little more money than mine. Perhaps he was a little cooler. Certainly he was more willing to make a fool of himself, especially when it came to trying to impress a girl, something I was mortified to do. But when he got emotional and his voice cracked because his sister messed up the shirt she was sewing for him or his parents dismissed his big ideas, all us other teenage dumbasses knew that pain.

My heroes in the early Eighties were mostly athletes, men who did superhuman feats I struggled to repeat in my backyard or on rec league fields and courts. Theo Huxtable was a hero not because he was an incredible athlete, but because he was putting all the ups and downs of being a teenage boy right there an the TV screen for all of America to see. These were universal concerns, and it was validating for them to be an integral part of the most-watched program in the country.

The Cosby Show has largely been erased from our culture, for understandable reasons. With that we’ve lost one of the most remarkable programs in TV history, one that broke down countless barriers without being edgy or radical or actively courting controversy. This was an upper-middle class Black family, living in comfort in an integrated neighborhood, that looked and acted pretty much just like the white families of the same backgrounds that had dominated prime time TV for 30 years. Especially for my generation, we saw that Black folks were just like us, no matter what our racist grandparents might think.[2] While that was all the vision of the now disgraced Bill Cosby, the actors who played his children were the ones who made the biggest impact on me. As the only boy in the house, Theo was the one I connected with the most.

Malcolm-Jamal Warner came from an era when a lot of child actors washed out - or worse - in one embarrassing way or another. He always seemed steady and comfortable with who he was and willing to find new avenues to stay in the entertainment business without flailing to find the same level of success and game he had as a teenager. He seemed like a genuinely good dude.

Here are two terrific pieces about Warner’s life.

Malcolm-Jamal Warner Wore the Gordon Gartrell Shirt Like No Other Malcolm-Jamal Warner and the Other Side of the Climb

Warner was a year older than me. ↩
Some of you grew up with parents, and even siblings, that were just as racist as our grandparents. ↩

Weekend Notes

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 11:31:03 -0400

Once again this weekend notes piece will involve more than what went on from Friday to Sunday. I’ll start with a focus on the actual weekend, though.

WNBA All Star Game

The best players in the league were all in Indy over the weekend for Saturday’s All Star Game. While that was exciting, it was tempered a bit by Caitlin Clark getting injured again Tuesday and not participating in either the 3-point contest Friday or playing in the All Star Game Saturday. She did “coach” her team, though.

The biggest point of this section is that L got to go to the game. And not only was she in Gainbridge, but she had amazing seats. The dad of one of her best friends runs the business that puts the gigantic decals on all the buildings around downtown for whatever the latest event is.

Because of that he has tickets to pretty much every game. L has been their guest at Gainbridge before, for the Big 10 tournament last March, and assumed she would be sitting in the suite again. Apparently the suite was reserved for VIPs so the girls had to slum it in the sixth row.

Pretty cool.

She had a good time. She and her friends were close enough that the mascots all kept coming over and harassing them. They were sitting near all kinds of famous people. They got to meet and take a pic with WNBA player Nika Mühl. She dropped $112 on a Paige Bueckers jersey. I told her I really hope CHS has multiple jersey days this year so she can actually wear it.

The game itself was ok. They introduced a fun wrinkle by having four-point spots behind the 3-point arc. Which, in theory, was cool. But it turned out both teams just kept chucking from that point. Team Collier was hitting them while Team Clark was not, and that was the difference.

I think a good tweak for next year is to make those only count for four points in the last two minutes of each quarter or something. Not that the ASG will ever be real ball - Clark told her team not to even bother with defense and just chuck all night - but watching 25 foot shot after 25 foot shot got a bit tedious.

It being the WNBA, naturally there was a manufactured controversy. The players came out before the game wearing shirts that said “Pay Us What You Owe Us,” referring to their current CBA negotiations with the league. The usual crowd who never watched a WNBA game before Clark was drafted piped up and criticized the move. God forbid workers stand up for their rights and to be paid their fair share of the massive amount of money the league is now bringing in. Especially when the workers are all women, mostly Black, and many of them queer.

Never a dull moment.

Tour de France

I had been enjoying the Tour de France each morning until this weekend. Defending champ Tadej Pogacar came in as the heavy favorite, but there was hope that two-time champ Jonas Vingegaard could put pressure on him. The two were sitting in second and third places, separated by a minute, when the race finally entered the mountains on Thursday. And Pogacar promptly destroyed everyone. Vingegaard himself finished well ahead of everyone else, but at the end of the stage was over four minutes behind Pogacar in the general classification. The only hope for an exciting final week is that Pogacar has some kind of major illness or accident. I’m not a huge fan, but I’m not rooting for that at all.

I’ll still watch this week, but it will likely be with far less attention that I gave the race the first 10 days.

British Open

Speaking of dominating performances, Scottie Scheffler solidified his position as best golfer in the game with a relatively easy win at Royal Portrush. He makes it look so easy that the comparisons to Tiger Woods in his prime have started. I’m not sure those are fair or accurate. Scheffler doesn’t blow away the course the way young Tiger did. But he does have a clinical, unperturbed style that is reminiscent of Tiger’s second peak.

He also is far less single-minded and weird about winning that Tiger was. Scheffler has always said how he doesn’t get too worked up about failing on the golf course because he is a very religious man and believes there are bigger things to worry about. Last Tuesday he admitted he doesn’t burn to be the best, nor is his goal to be a role model for others as a golfer.

I usually bristle when athletes bring religion into the conversation when explaining their success, mostly because is it often framed as God being on their side somehow. Which the heathen me has always taken to the next logical step that God must have not been on the opponent’s side, then, right? And I refuse to believe whatever higher power there might be has any interest in who wins a stupid game.

But Scheffler has never been an evangelist when he talks about his faith. He talks about his personal experience, and suggests that faith frees his mind rather than gives him some kind of boost over his opponents. Which I totally respect. And I admire that Scheffler seems a lot more normal than most high level athletes who are so wired to win or motivated by slights that they turn into psychopaths.

One thing that really drove me nuts about NBC were the incessant ads for their upcoming NBA coverage, featuring a variety of NBC personalities singing or humming along to John Tesh’s famous “Roundball Rock” theme. I get that networks always celebrate when they re-gain rights to sports they used to have. But Fox Sports bought “Roundball Rock” a few years back and used it for their college basketball coverage. It’s not like it was buried and you could only hear it on grainy rips of old VHS tapes on YouTube.

I might have been ok with the ads if they didn’t run them during EVERY commercial break. And they’ve also been running them during Peacock’s Tour de France coverage. So I’ve seen them a million times this month.

House Stuff

As mentioned last week, I had two visits from contractors. One planned, one unplanned.

Tuesday morning I went to the basement to grab some chlorine tabs for the pool and noticed wet concrete under our water heater. Uh oh. We’ve been in the house seven years, which means it was probably installed 7.5 years ago, which is right in line with when traditional heaters can begin to fail.

I noticed the water was all coming from the top of the tank, not the bottom, so I was hopeful maybe it was just a leak.

I had a service come out and they confirmed that tanks can rust out from the top as easily as the bottom. So we needed a new one. Terrific. Water heaters ain’t cheap, friends.

I called early enough that we were able to get a new one installed before the day was over. We still had hot water until the crew showed up so everyone was able to get a shower in before they removed the old one, and then I could wash dishes normally after dinner.

You think stuff is going to last forever, especially when you buy a new house. It is a little shocking that we’ve been here long enough that some of the original parts are beginning to fail.

The planned visit was on Thursday. Without writing a million words about it, I’ve been wanting to jump from Xfinity for cable and internet for a while, for a variety of reasons. But they are the only service in our neighborhood. I even looked into various satellite options but those are all much, much slower than what Xfinity provides.

Last December, though, Metronet ran fiber through our neighborhood, including right through our yard. Some dudes were out digging holes and running the lines on the coldest week of that month.

I discounted Metronet because their line is on the north side of our house. Our Xfinity line comes in from the south side and feeds into our basement where our network box is. To get from the north side to south side of our house, you would have to run several hundred feet of line and either go under our driveway or find a way to go around our pool without hitting anything. I didn’t want to mess with that so figured it wasn’t an option.

It only took me seven months to realize I’m an idiot and they could absolutely run a line to the north side of our house. Like, literally, I am such a dumbass.

I scheduled them to come out on Thursday. The guy showed up and said it would take probably two hours to get everything installed.

Sweet.

Again without going too deep into it, a two hour job turned into five. We are apparently the first people to sign up for service since they ran the line, so the poor guy had to drag his ladder all over our neighborhood and climb utility poles to connect the overhead lines to the underground ones. The heat index was 95° while he was doing this. We only had small bottles of water so I gave him a cooler that was filled with 10 of them, and he finished every one.

Once our new network was running and stable, I signed up for YouTube TV, which I’ve wanted for some time. The first two months, while we have a series of discounts, we will pay close to $200 less per month for the same internet speed and basically the same TV offerings. Even when the discounts go away, it will be over $100 difference. And we were about to have some Xfinity discounts expire so that was going to go up anyway.

Through the first weekend I’m pleased with Metronet. They use Eero boxes for internet, and with just two we seem to have better internet throughout the house than the three Xfinity boxes gave us. YouTube TV took a minute to get used to, but I like it so far. I’m looking forward to fall sports season when I can use the multiview to watch four games at once. I will have to pay to get Pacers games, and the app they used last year had all the usual issues those services are known for.

Other than fighting with a couple of our TVs for a few hours to get everything set up, it’s been a pretty easy process[1]. But I wasn’t the one climbing utility poles in the heat.

The installer said someone would be out in the next two weeks to bury our line. I put up a bunch of flags and stakes and ran out to warn our lawn guys about it when it showed up. Hopefully whoever shows up to take care of the line doesn’t take four months like Xfinity did when they installed our line in 2018.

We are using an Apple TV as the interface on our main TV, an Amazon FireStick 4K on another, and on our outdoor TV just using the built-in apps. This will cause some confusion with some people in our house. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 18 Jul 2025 07:31:26 -0400

This week’s playlist is dominated by the ladies.

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5SzWq3O8UnsqRly0vDE73x?si=a65c0e29779d40ac)

“Pool Hopping” - illuminati hotties Yeah, pool hopping sounds great and all, until every pool you jump into is 95°.

“Jealous Boy” - The Bug Club A suggestion from brother-in-music E$. I’ve been trying to figure out who this group sounds like for a couple weeks but can’t quite pin it down. So I stopped worrying about it and focus on enjoying the song.

“davina mccall” - Wet Leg I somehow completely missed their new album dropping last week. It has an 86 on Album of the Year, so I need to get on it.

“Wreck” - Neko Case Neko never sits still, so you her output can vary. This is in line with her best work.

“Welcome To The End” - Maren Morris This is on a benefit album for an organization that supports LGBTQ+ kids. Lord knows our government is going to do anything to help those kids anymore.

“Quitting” - Eliza Mclamb A delightful power-pop jam produced by Sarah Tudzin of illuminati hotties.

“If She Was A Boy” - Gatlin I was sure this was Katie Gavin of MUNA at first. It sounds a lot like her. Wild that their names are so close.

“Summer Girl” - HAIM I recently saw someone describe HAIM as the “queens of the summer song.” If that is true, this was the song where that began.

[youtu.be/wdNyo_Q8d...](https://youtu.be/wdNyo_Q8dqE?si=bV69Kjb9xQfJFTjt)

“No Curse” - Waxahatchee From 2017, when there was a little more of her punk origins in Katie Crutchfield’s sound.

Reader's Notebook, 7/17/25

Thu, 17 Jul 2025 10:13:05 -0400

This week has gone a little off the rails. We are expecting a contractor at the house shortly, which was planned. Had another very much unplanned visit on Tuesday that ended up costing us the equivalent of a nice vacation. More about those next week, probably. I had planned on saving my latest RN post for after I finish my current book. I’ll go ahead and post what I have to get some content up for my loyal readers.

The Barn - Wright Thompson One of the most difficult books I’ve ever read. Thompson dives deep into the 1955 murder of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American boy from Chicago who was lynched by white men while visiting family in Mississippi. Not just about the murder or resulting acquittal of the men who killed him. But also about the environment in Mississippi at the time and how it got to be that way. Thompson went way back, to when the earliest Europeans made it to Mississippi and their interactions with the native people of those lands, through the age of slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and into the Jim Crow era. Along the way he ties little moments of history together to explain how (some) Southern whites harbor grievances against their northern counterparts. He also jumps ahead to today, to examine how the truth of the Till murder has long been buried in Mississippi, at least amongst the white population.

This is important to Thompson because he grew up a few miles from the barn where Till was tortured and likely murdered before his body was weighed down and thrown into a river. Despite being the son of progressive Democrats who fought for civil rights, Thompson had no idea about the history of the barn. How on earth could that happen, he wonders? Well, turns out a lot of white folks thought it was better just to move on and never discuss it rather than honor Till’s memory and maybe teach their children to treat people who looked different than them a little better than their grandparents did.

Like I said, this was a difficult read. Each day, though, I think it becomes increasingly important to keep stories like Emmett Till’s alive as a minority of Americans who have taken over power think it’s better to hide the more disturbing parts of our history because it might make white people uncomfortable. Don’t get me started…

The Killing Of The Tinkers - Ken Bruen Book two in Bruen’s Jack Taylor series. As with most book series, I don’t know that the bones of the story were much different from the first. That said, Bruen is such a good writer and the story is so tight and quick that I have no problems sticking with it.

Tuesday Links

Tue, 15 Jul 2025 11:34:04 -0400

Bruce Springsteen’s Tracks II set came out a few weeks ago. I’m not a big enough fan to wade through all the songs, but I did sample the ones highlighted in the various articles that dropped at the same time. Naturally, Steven Hyden had the best of the bunch.

Another Side of Bruce Springsteen

At some point I lost touch with Joe Posnanski, I believe it was when he took all his posts behind a paywall and stopped writing regularly for any commercial sites. Thankfully I was forwarded this piece and see that it looks like his site is free again. Or at least partially free?

For baseball fans my age, the 1979 All-Star Game was a keystone moment in our sports lives. The All-Star Game as an institution was awesome to us because of Dave Parker’s throw. That was the first All-Star Game I ever watched. While I don’t watch the game much anymore - tonight I’ll likely be watching Slow Horses on my iPad while I have the Fever game muted on the TV - I still get a little tingle when it comes around. Its roots are in that night I sat on my aunt and uncle’s horrible brown shag carpet and watched Parker unleash a missile from right field.

The 1979 All-Star Game drew a 45 share. Yes, it was a Tuesday night, and there was nothing else on television, but forty-five percent of all the televisions on in America were pointed to the Seattle Kingdome for that game. There were 115 million fewer people living in America in 1979 … and yet 24 million more people watched that All-Star Game than the one last year. It was just that big a deal.

“Bet” — On Dave Parker, and THAT Throw

Both a fascinating piece about how film works, and a reminder that George Lucas kind of sucks.

This is not the ‘Star Wars’ you thought you knew

A disturbing look at why the wildfires in Canada never seem to go away. Zombie fires? Seriously?

Why Canada is riddled with wildfires that burn year-round

Wait, I thought liberals were supposed to be the snowflakes.

Attorney general: ‘Everyone is Welcome Here’ sign cannot be displayed in Idaho schools

Weekend Notes

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 09:37:04 -0400

We had a great weekend highlighted by some visitors, both local and from KC, and lots of basketball. But first we need to jump back and review C’s trip to Bloomington for orientation.

Orientation

We got up bright and early to make check-in at 9:00 AM last Monday. Thank goodness the I–69 extension is finally complete after a decade of work. Once you get out of the Indy construction it is a breeze to get to B-town. No more stoplights every two miles!

For the first 90 minutes we were together, but then separated for the rest of the day. I went to several parent sessions, most of which were informative. We were supposed to link back up for dinner before the parents were dismissed and the kids shuffled on to evening activities, but C decided to have dinner with her future roommate, who lives in Bloomington. I might have been a little annoyed she didn’t share this with me earlier in the day so I could have left before I had to return home in rush hour traffic. Alas…

I was back for an 11:00 session on Tuesday, which was also when she had her enrollment appointment. We finished about the same time then took a tour of the dorm she will live in. She’s in the biggest dorm on campus, it’s actually a complex that has three satellite buildings and one central one. She’s excited because there’s a Starbucks in the basement of the main building. There were a bunch of high school campers there so the cafeteria was bustling. For some reason they didn’t walk us through it but the food sure smelled good.

It seems like she had a good time. One of her best friends was in her group both days, so that helped. They stayed in single dorm rooms and her AC unit wasn’t working, so she had to battle a sweltering room to try to sleep. She had fun at dinner with her future roomie. She seems happy with her schedule, although she has an 8:00 AM class two days. We’ll see how that goes. We will move her in on August 20, so it’s coming up quick. Our bonus room is starting to fill up with our many Amazon and Target purchases for her.

Travel Hoops

This was a big AAU weekend, both open for recruiting and for teams that play on a “circuit,” it was the last weekend to lock in places for next week’s nationals.[1] Her team had games Thursday through today. We went to watch them play their Friday games. She didn’t tell me that her coach’s daughter asked if she could play. I would probably have let her if she had told me and her coach thought it wouldn’t get him in trouble. I guess it’s probably best, as I’m not sure her body is ready for the full-contact style that is travel ball.

Her team played great in their first game, coming from seven down to beat a solid team by one. Then they got absolutely run out of the gym by a team from Nebraska. This team was all skinny, scrappy white girls. But they could shoot the shit out of the ball and ran great offense. L was glad she wasn’t on the court for that one.

I missed most of that one because I walked down to the feature court to watch a U17 game that featured a team that had two girls over 6’3”. There were coaches from Texas, Duke, NC State, Auburn, Rutgers, IU, and plenty of smaller D1 schools sitting along the baseline, so I figured they must be big prospects. Turned out they weren’t. They were both kind of messes. But this girl on the other team was crazy good. She was only 5’10” or so but had a crazy handle, made great passes, and moved well without the ball. Oh, and she also hit four straight 3’s without touching the rim before the other team decided to stick one defender on her and never let her get open. I always get mad there aren’t rosters at these events so I can look up kids and see where they are ranked and track where they end up going.

I know L missed playing travel, but her team was kind of weird this year, and I think it would have really frustrated her had she played. There were several girls who seemed to have no interest in playing team ball. I’m guessing one girl was told by her high school coach to work on her shot, because she took at least 800 shots a game. And she’s not that good. Other girls just would not pass ever, and either take their own awful shots or pound the ball until they turned it over.

It was nice for L’s coach to tell me several times this season how much he missed her. Not because she would have been the best player or anything, that definitely was not true. But as I’ve said many times, she has a steadying presence and is a vocal leader who isn’t afraid to call out teammates. His team needed that, as his daughter is probably the best player but very quiet and always tries not to step on people’s toes since her dad is the coach. Another girl who has played for him for six years, and is L’s best friend on the team, is fiery and physical, but also isn’t good at bringing teammates together. Had L played that would have given them four girls who had been together four seasons, plus a true voice on the court, and perhaps that could have brought the entire roster together.

Or maybe L would have been pissed after every game because this player never passes and that player doesn’t know the sets etc.

Some of her friends were down in Louisville for the weekend. You may have heard on the news that the tournament was suspended Sunday because there were reports of shots being fired at the Expo Center. It turned out there was no shooter, but I’m sure that was awful to experience. We’ve been there the last three years and that place is jam packed. I can’t imagine what it would have been like had someone actually been firing bullets in a building filled with girls playing basketball.

One of her friends who was there texted, “Well, I guess someone went 0–4 and was DONE.” Sometimes you have to laugh not to cry?

Wimbledon

I did not watch much of the tournament over the past two weeks. The match I paid most attention to was Thursday’s women’s semifinal between Amanda Anisimova and Aryna Sabalenka. What a fun match! Anisimova rebounded from taking an extended break from tennis a little over a year ago to upset the #1 seed and make her first Slam final.

What struck me was Sabalenka. I’ve never been a huge fan, for a variety of reasons. But over the past year I’ve found myself admiring her more because she is such a compelling, yet tragic, figure. When she’s on, she seems like by far the best player in the game. But she has these hiccups in the biggest moments, and then often very honest, human reactions to them. You can see her losing faith in some aspect of her game, and the rest of it slowly unraveling. Maybe the reason I didn’t initially like her is because she came across as an old-school, Eastern European robot designed to destroy anything in her path. These meltdowns make her much more relatable. The fact that she seems to have grown as a person, and usually apologizes for her mistakes and mis-speaks makes me like her more.

But I was still rooting against her. Shame Anisimova had nothing left for Saturday’s final.

I didn’t watch the men’s final because I was busy. As you’ll read about in a moment.

Visitors

My old high school pal Stacey and her kids were in town over the weekend. They came by Saturday evening, along with our local friends the H’s, for dinner, drinks, games, and conversation. Some big storms passed right before dinner, but they cooled it off just enough that late in the evening the kids were able to get in the pool for a swim in the dark. I think the water was still around 95° so it wasn’t exactly refreshing…

Fever Game

Sunday L and I went to our first ever Indiana Fever game with our visitors. It was a big game, as Dallas was in town with Paige Bueckers. L is not shy about saying she’s really not a Caitlin Clark fan anymore,[2] and that she much prefers Bueckers. This was the first time the two phenoms were facing each other as pros - CC was out injured for the first Dallas-Indiana game of the year - so it became one of the most anticipated games of the season.

It was a great game…for about 15 minutes. The Fever were up 33–31 when they absolutely blew the game open with a 31–8 run. Soooo many breakout layups. I’m not sure Dallas has ever practiced transition defense. It reminded me of how KU ran all over Miami in the second half of their 2022 Elite Eight game.

The arena was packed, so that run was great. I don’t think it was quite as loud as it was last month in game six of the NBA Finals, but the place was rocking. Interestingly, there were also a lot of young ladies there who love Paige, too. When Dallas did something right, which wasn’t often, there was a smattering of applause. But when Paige did something, there were big roars. Not as big as when anyone on the Fever did something, but it was also very noticeable.

CC is obviously the big draw, but as this is Indiana the top six or seven in rotation have really been embraced by the crowd. Everyone loves the quiet determination and brilliant scoring of Kelsey Mitchell. Aliyah Boston is admired as much for being the public face of the team off the court as for her low post game. How can you not love Lexie Hull? But newcomer Sophie Cunningham is the clear #2 choice behind CC. I think the girls love her because she’s a badass, she’s Insta glamorous, and she plays with flair. And, of course, the dudes like her for all those reasons and a few more. We sat pretty high up but I heard several people yell “We love you Sophie!” A little kid got on the big screen with his sign that said “Marry Me Sophie C!” There was lots of laughter when they showed him, and comments about how he wasn’t the only one with that dream. Props to him; you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

The Fever won in a blowout. Clark hit a long 3 to start the game, had some amazing passes, but otherwise continued to look like she’s not 100%. Cunningham had a big game. And Bueckers had the best statistical line of anyone. Just about everyone went home happy. Well, other than the Dallas players, I guess.

L’s team plays in the U–16 Rise level on the Under Armour circuit. The top 32 teams play in the platinum division next weekend. Coming into this weekend they were ranked 28th, and their coach thought they had a good schedule so could at worst defend that spot. ↩
It’s mostly because of the whining and complaining and taking plays off on defense. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 11 Jul 2025 07:24:36 -0400

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.

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2CnJg251LFrvr1Hk0tvFuX?si=cb590b13eee140f3)

“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.

[www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp3eBnnFFrM)

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)

Thu, 10 Jul 2025 07:57:00 -0400

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.

youtu.be/M-UaEQHA7…

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

youtu.be/yHuhABPbO…

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

youtu.be/7_fYRU0Fd…

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.

youtu.be/mRCsO2kJw…

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

youtu.be/CU3mc0yvR…

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

youtu.be/KqlIFLb6j…

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.

youtu.be/PaYvlVR_B…

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.

youtu.be/KgHA0sYvx…

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

youtu.be/olo9MCKos…

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.

youtu.be/zginCd6D0…

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.

youtu.be/9sfYpolGC…

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.

youtu.be/F6ImxY6hn…–5

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.

youtu.be/e-xPosJqe…

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.

youtu.be/PWgvGjAhv…

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.

youtu.be/eDPhsByCL…

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

youtu.be/Ijk4j-r7q…

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.

youtu.be/xMr86enHv…

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

youtu.be/OkITsv3Nk…

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

youtu.be/E9ck_FhoD…

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!

youtu.be/CTAud5O7Q…–0-xoT1qe

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.

youtu.be/asI2DsUPW…

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.

youtu.be/qaeWss85_…

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.

youtu.be/3Cem1ME-O…

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.

youtu.be/1LmX5c7Ho…

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.

youtu.be/OJNFwGdh4…

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

Sun, 06 Jul 2025 22:27:04 -0400

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

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. ↩
Of course Myles is staying in the Midwest, so it’s not like he’s going to LA or New York. ↩
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

Thu, 03 Jul 2025 11:24:32 -0400

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!

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Reader's Notebook, 7/2/25

Wed, 02 Jul 2025 10:15:23 -0400

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

Tue, 01 Jul 2025 08:01:30 -0400

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.

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.

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

Mon, 30 Jun 2025 14:00:28 -0400

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.

John Mulaney, Bob Odenkirk, Jon Bernthal, Gillian Jacobs (especially this season!), and of course Jamie Lee Curtis. ↩
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

Fri, 27 Jun 2025 07:48:19 -0400

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

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“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.

[youtu.be/trGX3ET3j...](https://youtu.be/trGX3ET3jTQ?si=CQhViv7F6JCMvCFL)

“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

Thu, 26 Jun 2025 11:10:58 -0400

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

[youtu.be/VegvworoM...](https://youtu.be/VegvworoMX4?si=_aGkUpUkgZbdtMSv)

Vanna White turns 69 next February. Nice. ↩

Wednesday Links

Wed, 25 Jun 2025 09:10:19 -0400

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.

“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

More Hoops Notes

Tue, 24 Jun 2025 10:30:40 -0400

A day later I still have a lot of Pacers thoughts. And I still need to catch you up on a very busy weekend. So this may turn into two posts, depending on how long I yap about the first topic.

Pacers Followup

I became a Pacers fan when we moved to Indy in 2003, but they have never been at the top of my sports fandom rankings.[1] Although they have climbed a lot over the past year! Still, when they lose I’m not as mad or upset as I am when KU loses, or when good Royals teams have lost. So I was a little surprised how emotional I was when Tyrese Haliburton went down Sunday. For the Pacers season to end like that was devastating. To get so close and then it end not just because the other team was better, but because your best player’s body failed him was a massive gut punch. I was kind of in shock when it happened, saying “Oh no,” over and over when he hit the crowd, hoping he would get up.

But it really hit me after the game was over. Seeing Haliburton on crutches, waiting for his teammates as they walked to the locker room was tough. We invest all this time and emotion into sports, and it becomes a huge part of our lives when a team goes on a run like this. I know Haliburton is a mega-millionaire, as are most of his teammates. And no one “deserves” a result in sports. But in those moments it feels grossly unfair.

That said, his injury made the actual loss easier to take. Although they fought hard, the second he went down, most of us knew the Pacers had no chance to win. It was sudden and resolute. A loss is a loss, but something about the drama being stripped away made it suck less. It shouldn’t matter but to me, at least, it did.

I found it funny in a morbid way that some people accused the Pacers of gamesmanship for the way they reported Haliburton’s calf injury after game five. Like they were exaggerating to throw the Thunder off. Add that to the list of weirdness in the conversation about Hali.

Big props to Rick Carlisle. I did not appreciate what a great coach he was until this year. He coached the Pacers when we first moved here and had one great team, and another that was poised to be great until it flamed out in epic fashion. At the time it felt like he was just doing what everyone else is the league did: play power basketball based on toughness and size and defensive excellence.

He won a title in Dallas, but that was a year when the playoff bracket opened up for a variety of reasons and riding one of the best players in the world going on an epic hot streak.

I was not super excited when the Pacers hired him for the second time in 2021. That was because I had no idea of the coaching journey he’s gone on through his career, always open to new ideas and perspectives, learning to match what he asked his teams to do to the talent they had. The past two years have been the culmination of that. A year ago the Pacers were this insane offensive team that couldn’t guard a high school roster. In time Carlisle made adjustments both in set and what he asked his players to do. To their credit, they bought in. Eventually, when the team got healthy this year, they settled into a withering style on both ends. In retrospect, as good as that system was for the regular season, it was perfectly suited for the postseason, where half the goal is just to wear down your opponent over seven games. Podcaster Zach Lowe said Monday that he spoke to a player who faced the Pacers this postseason who told him that the Pacers are an awful team to play against.

Carlisle also seems like a genuinely curious and empathetic human being. I’m sorry I didn’t appreciate him sooner.

Also deserving of credit are the players for buying into Carlisle’s system. It is based on constant motion, on pressuring all 94 feet, on fighting over screens rather than switching or going under. Basically killing yourself every minute you’re on the court. That only works if everyone buys in. It took some time - Pascal Siakam has admitted he had no idea how fast the Pacers played and how much he’d have to improve his fitness to fit in when they acquired him a year ago - but eventually that happened. In the process it unlocked players like Aaron Nesmith, TJ McConnell, and Obi Toppin, who had struggled to find their NBA footing. And it elevated Andrew Nembhard from role player to starter.

And props to Kevin Pritchard and Chad Buchanan for deciding to build around Haliburton’s unique skill set. A lot of front office’s are reluctant to buck trends or ask players to sacrifice for the greater good. For at least two seasons it has worked for the Pacers.

The Pacers made an interesting trade a week ago, swapping some draft picks with New Orleans. It was an odd time to make a deal, in the middle of the NBA Finals, but it was primarily viewed as an effort to unload picks this year when the Pacers are facing a salary crunch. It didn’t seem super important at the time but they also re-acquired their first round pick next year which had been traded around a few times. With Haliburton out for the coming year, suddenly that looks like a great move. I think the Pacers should still be decent next year, mostly because they play in the Eastern Conference. But swapping the #23 pick this year for one that could be in the teens next year seems smart. Hell, depending on other roster decisions and the health of other players, that could turn into a very nice pick/trade asset.

Ah what to do this summer. Myles Turner is a free agent. There are not a ton of teams that have the need nor salary cap space to sign him, which may reduce his value. The Pacers have said they would love to keep him, but to do so will push them into luxury tax territory for the first time in franchise history. He just turned 29 and seems to be declining just a little. With Hali missing next year, is it worth the cap hit to keep Turner around and hope he can still be as effective in two and three years as he enters his 30s? Tough decision. I think I would lean to letting him go, as emotionally painful as that might be to a guy who has spent his entire career in Indianapolis. But is a reduced Turner in ’26–27–28 better than trying to develop some young guy over that same span? Seven footers who can shoot the 3 don’t grow on trees.

That choice is tougher since the Pacers have no backup centers under contract. They lost their two opening day backups in the first 10 days of the season to achilles injuries, and playoff role players Thomas Bryant and Tony Bradley should be third options at best.

Do you move any other pieces to clear space to keep Turner? Bennedict Mathurin has two years left on his rookie contract. As much as his change-of-pace is perfect off the bench, I’m not sure he totally fits in with what the Pacers want to do when their starters are on the court. With Haliburton out, will Mathurin defer to players he probably thinks he’s better than? I like his potential but the fit has always bothered me. This could be a sell high moment for chemistry alone. Or maybe Carlisle relishes the chance to make adjustments that cater to Mathurin’s skill set.

The post-Finals discourse has been interesting. At least in the pods I listen to and the articles I’ve read, it’s been as much about how this Pacers team captured the attention of the NBA world as the Thunder winning and potentially kicking off a dynasty. Some of that was because of Hali’s injury, but it was also an appreciation of how ridiculous the Pacers were over the last two months.

I also think it’s funny that there is a lot of hate for the Thunder among hardcore NBA fans. How can you hate a team from a small market that just won their first NBA title? There are complaints about their playing style (the constant fouling on defense combined with the foul hunting on offense), their lack of interesting personalities, their whole “we do interviews together” bit, the way their front office has both stacked up tons of future drafts picks and lucked into some good players they may not have deserved, and the fact the franchise was stolen from Seattle. I say wait until they’ve won another title or two before you start hating them. Every franchise should want to be like the Thunder.

Kid Hoops

OK, L had a very busy week last week. Also a concerning and frustrating one.

Last Monday she had a PT appointment that went very well. Her activity got amped up and she got through the session without any pain. She was cleared to play up to 20 minutes per day for the coming week.

Wednesday night we were back at action in the local summer league. She played about five minutes in the first half against an experienced, tough team and held her own. Then she never came back in. I was keeping score so couldn’t see if she was having an issue, so I wondered if maybe the coach was saving the rest of her minutes for game two. After the game she said she was having intense pain in her foot and could barely walk.

Oh shit.

Fortunately the pain was on the opposite side of where her surgery was. She was wearing new shoes and I wondered if that was the cause, but she claimed they fit her fine. She managed to play a few minutes in game two but was still struggling. We also lost both games and the girls got a long “talking” to after the second one from their coach. I put talking in quotes because there was a lot of yelling.

Friday morning they got on a bus and drove down to Lexington, KY for a team camp at Transylvania University. Calling it a camp was a little silly: this was just an excuse to play up to eight games in three days. There were no skills sessions or anything.

I told her to let me know how things went Friday, but never heard anything. I didn’t know if that was good or bad.

I drove down Saturday morning and when I walked into the gym, she was on the court in their first game of the day. That seemed good. When I reached our other parents they said she had just scored on a nice layup. She had another one later.

After the game, though, she came up and was limping badly. Still opposite of where her surgery was. She was beside herself and eventually dissolved into tears. I told her again that I really thought this had more to do with her foot struggling with overloading because of rehab and her new shoes than anything serious. I also said if she was in that much pain she did not have to play, and would be happy to talk to her coach about it. I think that was part of her worry, talking to the coach.

They had three hours until their next game so she went back to the dorm to rest while us parents went downtown for lunch. I checked in on her an hour later and she said she would talk to her coach on her own. After she messaged me that the coach was nice about it and told her it’s more important to be healthy in the fall than now.

When I went back to the gym for game two, L looked much happier, like a weight had been lifted. She ended up sitting out the rest of the games over the weekend. We’re going to give the foot a few days to heal and then try going back to her old shoes to see if it is just a fit issue. She doesn’t have PT this week but when we go in next week we’ll see if her therapist has suggestions about getting everything to fit properly.

As for the team, they played really well. In fact they won the “tournament,” which was great given they were down to seven players after L sat out. If our best player, who wrecked her knee a week ago, had played I think we would have destroyed all the teams we played. None of them were very good. But it was a good chance for the girls to learn how to fill roles they haven’t filled before. A couple of L’s classmates who were not very good last year played really well over the weekend.

Sunday’s game were rather strange. The games Friday and Saturday were all 20 minute, running clock halves. Sunday’s first knock-out round had 16 minute running clock halves. And then the semifinals and finals were both “overtime” games: played with a five minute clock that stopped on dead balls. I’m not sure if this was to save the girls after already playing so much or because they needed to gym for something else at 1:00 PM.

We won our first OT game 4–1. Then the championship game 7–4, the other team hitting an uncontested 3 at the final buzzer.

Us parents thought this whole concept was a little silly, but our coach told us after it was actually great from her perspective. It gave her a chance to work on late-game stuff that’s often hard to replicate in practice. You can tell girls there are 2:00 left and you are down two, but there’s no real pressure there. These two OT games were pretty sloppy, partially because everyone was wiped out, but also because you could tell the girls felt that pressure of the clock.

Lexington

Just being down there one night, and watching a lot of basketball, I didn’t get to spend much time exploring Lexington. One of the other dads and I decided to watch the Independent League Lexington Legends play some baseball Saturday evening. We got into the stadium for $11, got a burger and beer for another $12, and enjoyed about four innings of mediocre baseball before we ducked out. Pitching at this level is suspect, and it was already 5–2 Legends when we took our seats in the third inning. When we left in the seventh, it was 15–4. Lots of bad defense, too. But it was a really nice night at the old ballpark.

Rupp Arena was only a half mile from the Transylvania campus and my plan was to walk over in one of the breaks. But it was approximately 999° all weekend, and I didn’t want to die of heat exhaustion in Kentucky. We drove by on our way out of town and it was as had been described to me many times: a massive, nondescript building on the outside that is attached to shopping and hotels. There is a large parking lot across the street that I was hoping I could pull into to at least take a quick picture. But even on a Sunday morning with no activities scheduled, the gates were down and I was going to have to pay to get in. I’m sure it’s nice on the inside. But it has zero character on the outside and is not in the middle of campus. Allen Fieldhouse it ain’t.

I actually wrote nearly 1000 words on my history as a Pacers fan and decided none of you wanted/needed to read that. ↩

Crushing

Mon, 23 Jun 2025 09:33:24 -0400

Sports can be unbelievably cruel sometimes. They can step up and make the worst possible thing happen in the worst possible time.

That’s how the Indiana Pacers’ dream run through the postseason ended last night. Not because the favored Oklahoma City Thunder dominated the third quarter to turn a close game into a comfortable win, clinching their first NBA title. That was just normal sports, not an unexpected result at all.

What was cruel was what Pacers fans had been fearing since the end of game two: Tyrese Haliburton’s achilles tendon rupturing as he attempted to drive past a defender midway through the first quarter. The Pacers were up 14–10, Hali accounting for nine of those points on three 3-pointers. Unlike the careful manner he played in game six, he looked fully engaged, fast, and intense, screaming at the crowd after his third 3 forced an OKC timeout. And then he was crumpled on the ground, hitting the court repeatedly with his fist as the Thunder ran the other way for a dunk. The Pacers’ title hopes were on the floor with him.[1]

Just like Dame Lillard and Jason Tatum earlier this postseason,[2] the cruelest of modern sports injuries seems to have taken Hali, too.[3] Not only did it cost him game seven, but most likely all of next season. We probably won’t see him in uniform again until October 2026.

Brutal. Unfair. Cruel. Sports.

(A quick aside about what a wild run the narrative around Haliburton has been the past year. First it was “Why is he on the Olympic team if he isn’t playing?” Then, “Why did he accept a spot on the Olympic team if he was injured?” And, “He’s ruined the Pacers season by selfishly playing in the Olympics rather than rehabbing.” By April he was the “Most Overrated” player in the game, based on a poll in which nine players voted for him. Then he was Mr Clutch Shot. Then he was “not a true superstar” because he didn’t score enough. Which became louder when the non-basketball focused national writers started paying attention, claiming he needed to do more when they had not watched the Pacers all year to see the Pacers were successful because Hali was far more likely to have a 19 point, 12 assist night than ever score 30. Then he was hurting his team by playing injured, only he had to play because it was the Finals. Exhausting. I only paid a little attention to all this, usually just getting what was included in the game broadcasts, but it reinforced my decision to ignore pretty much everything ESPN says about basketball when the ball isn’t in play. And sometimes ignoring the in-game commentary, too.)

Haliburton’s teammates honored both him and the collective character they’ve shown this entire postseason by not giving up. They fell behind by six then charged back to take the lead a couple times. They were somehow up one at halftime after a long 3 by Andrew Nembhard. Despite the bleakness of Hali’s injury, we were all wondering, “Could they pull off one more miracle?” Could they find a way to survive the OKC pressure for 24 minutes, find a way to manufacture and make shots, find a way to contain SGA and J-Dub and the Thunder role players?

No, they could not. But they sure tried.

The third quarter was a disaster. If not for another crazy TJ McConnell quarter the Pacers could have easily been down well over 20 points going into the final period. But too many turnovers, too much passive play, and, to give full credit, far too much OKC D overwhelmed the short-handed Pacers.

They kept fighting. The Thunder showed some nerves late, and after falling behind by 21, Indiana got it down to 10 points once, eventually losing by 12. Without Haliburton, though, and without anyone other than Bennedict Mathurin doing much on offense in the final period, there was never the feeling that they might steal the game and title.

The Thunder are worthy champions. They were the best team in the NBA this season. They have the best player. They probably would have won had Hali stayed on the court, even if he matched SGA shot-for-shot. It sucks the Pacers didn’t get that shot, though, because of the cruelty of sports.

Thus ends a hell of a ride, one that went back much further than just the last two months of playoff basketball. The Pacers, fighting injuries and rehabs, started the season 10–15 before winning five straight. Then they got blown out by OKC and Boston in back-to-back games after Christmas. The loss to the Celtics was by 37 points and the Pacers could not have seemed further away from the game’s elite. Two nights later they beat the Celtics by nine. That’s the moment I thought they might be finding themselves. A loss to Milwaukee on New Year’s Eve muted that a bit, but they followed that with six straight wins and were off, steadily climbing the Eastern Conference standings over the next three months. They wouldn’t lose consecutive games until early March, when they dropped three straight to bad teams, concerning for a team fighting for a playoff seed. Again they rebounded, going 15–4 over the last month of the regular season and checked in as the #4 seed in the East.

They weren’t just winning, though. They were winning CRAZY games. Scoring four points in 1.9 seconds. Coming from 12 down with a minute left. Every game seemed close - except when they hung 162 points on Washington - and the Pacers were always the team making the winning plays while their opponents cracked. I didn’t write about them much until April 14. Here’s what I said then:

In other words, I’m not sure if this team is quite as good as their record indicates. Or, on the other hand, maybe they’re a team that never gets down on themselves and are comfortable in difficult situations. Throw in the experience from last year’s conference finals run, and perhaps they are a super dangerous team?

I hedged my bets, but in retrospect super dangerous seems right.

In sports we too often focus on the end, and whether our teams win or not, the ring culture that LeBron James decried last week.[4] I did not give the Pacers much chance in this series. Then they stole game one, took game three, and were rolling in the third quarter of game four. They gave me hope and suddenly heartbreak was in play. It sure would have been great to take game seven down to the closing minutes and see which team buckled and which team’s culture and cohesiveness carried them to the title. But I can’t be too disappointed after the wonderful ride this team took the city on.

When the Royals won the World Series in 2015, I wrote that some champions remain anonymous, but that team would always be remembered for how they ran and caught everything and got key hits in the biggest moments and came back when their backs were against the wall. This year’s Pacers team did not win the title, but they also carved out an identity that will be recalled for years to come. They were the team that came together at the right time, that never let the odds faze them, that never withered when the pressure was the highest, that always thought they were the best team no matter who they were playing.

Pacers fans should be disappointed about Sunday night, but not about this season.

They weren’t nearly as impactful, but in the past 15 years the Pacers have lost Hali, Victor Oladipo, and Paul George to terrible leg injuries. ↩
To be fair, the Pacers benefitted from these injuries, both directly and indirectly. ↩
Honestly shocked some idiot, like our current HHS Secretary for example, hasn’t suggested vaccines are responsible for all these achilles injuries. ↩
Is there a DUMBER opinion than LeBron complaining about players chasing rings? Irony is truly dead. ↩

Three Down...

Fri, 20 Jun 2025 10:17:57 -0400

OMG OMG OMG!!!!

The Indiana Pacers are playing for the NBA championship Sunday night!

Thursday was a wonderful night of professional basketball. At least if you are a Pacers fan. They started out slow, missing like their first 100 shots, and trailed 10–2. From then on it really wasn’t much of a game. The Pacers destroyed the Thunder in pretty much every way. Their defense was suffocating. They were ferocious rebounders. Their offense was locked in. It was the proverbial snowball turning into an avalanche, and the best team in the NBA this season was powerless to stop it. The final margin of 17 points hides that the Pacers were up by 30 at the end of the third quarter, when OKC effectively threw in the towel, sitting their starters the entire fourth quarter. I’m not sure that has ever happened in the NBA Finals.

It was even more satisfying given every minute since game five ended was spent worrying about Tyrese Haliburton’s health. I was of the opinion that if he was not 100%, the Pacers had no chance. He was not 100%. The Thunder had no chance. Sports are weird.

What was great about this performance was that it embodied everything that the Pacers are about. Obi Toppin was the leading scorer with a modest 20 points, four of which came very late against the OKC scrubs. Pascal Siakam had 16 points, 13 rebounds. Andrew Nembhard scored 17. TJ Freaking McConnell, man. The reserve guard had a ridiculous 12 point, 9 rebound, six assist, four steal night. The Thunder know he’s coming and every game he does things they can’t handle. No one was incredible, but everyone pitched in. What is also crazy is that the Pacers had two long cold stretches. They could have easily led by 40 or more before the third quarter ended.

Haliburton played and was fine, scoring 14 points. He didn’t do anything spectacular. Well, other than this ridiculous pass to Pascal Siakam on the break just before halftime:

[youtube.com/shorts/fM...](https://youtube.com/shorts/fMCefn02jx8?si=d779i4h6Q0W2LnZV)

I yelled, too.

The huge lead allowed Hali to sit most of the second half. I’m not sure if we can count on him being fully healthy Sunday, but at least he should be available.

The series will be decided in Oklahoma City. This was a perfect final game of the season in Indianapolis, an extended celebration for a team that has brought this city a tremendous amount of excitement and pride during the postseason. It’s been fun for the national media to discover, or re-discover I guess, how great a venue Gainbridge Fieldhouse is. That place was rocking every minute of each of the three games it hosted over the past week.

Anything can happen in a game seven. Given how this series has swung, and how much it swung Thursday, it’s hard not to fear a hard correction back towards the Thunder. SGA might score 45. Jalen Williams might score 45. They BOTH might score 45. The Thunder may find their defensive mojo and keep the Pacers from getting into their offense before there are five seconds left to shoot. They might run Indiana out of the building, flipping the script from last night. But as I’ve been saying for two months, never count this team out.

All that matters is that the Pacers have a shot. Forty-eight minutes left on this wild ride that began back in March on a crazy Haliburton shot in a regular season game against Milwaukee. The crowd chanted “‘Cers in Seven!” as the clock ran out Thursday. That’s not as ridiculous as it sounded two weeks ago.

BTW, S and I watched outside on our porch, probably the first time we’ve ever watched a Pacers game there. They don’t play many games in June so we don’t get this opportunity often. C had a bunch of friends over and they were kind of loud in the basement, the weather was nice, so we decided to stick to the outside TV. Same spot I watched the Gold Medal game in last summer’s Olympics. Yes, I am hoping for good weather Sunday so I can watch outside again.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 20 Jun 2025 08:10:06 -0400

Summer is here (officially)! The time is right…

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6JAyHMd8FY0zlmDNCiyH1r?si=5dc54ac9c4954fbb)

“Dancing In The Street” - Van Halen A lot of people shit on it, but this is one of my all-time favorite summer songs.

“This Summer” - Sleigh Bells This track comes from an album called Bunky Becky Birthday Boy. Hint, hint.

“Waawooweewaa” - OK Cool We need more songs titled after things Borat said.

“Big Empty Heart” - Cardinals NOT Ryan Adams former backing band, but rather another excellent group from Ireland.

“Incomprehensible” - Big Thief The first Big Thief song I’ve liked for quite a while.

“drains” - mary in the junkyard This UK band sure sounds a lot like Big Thief.

“Disintegrate” - The London Suede Proper Suede music!

“Heaven Is A State Of Mind” - Pictureplane This sounds straight out of a mid-Eighties movie that would replay endlessly on cable TV.

“Bitcoin Takes A Hit” - CVCHE Totally not a scam.

“No Rain, No Flowers” - The Black Keys The Keys are back. They sound less like Jack White each year. Speaking of Jack White…

[youtu.be/ru5afNNSP...](https://youtu.be/ru5afNNSPeU?si=M0F7KiOvcADRW4hG)

“Archbishop Harold Holmes” - Jack White John C. Reilly starring in a video for a Jack jam? Yes the hell please!

Great Eight Comedies

Wed, 18 Jun 2025 14:21:12 -0400

I’ve been busy trying to finish an amazing book and get some work outside done before storms roll through later. For today’s post I dug into my list of ideas and found this one, which has been sitting there since George Wendt died last month and news broke that there will be a Scrubs revival.

With minimal commentary, here are my favorite TV comedies of all time.

Cheers A few years I went back and watched the early years and was amazed by how well they hold up. Same anytime I come across a clip. A perfect combination of high and low brow comedy.
Seinfeld I used to say this didn’t hold up as well as Cheers because it was, often, so topical. Does “The Non Fat Yogurt” hit as hard now as it did at the time when it pretended to swing the NYC mayoral election? There is also the argument that Curb Your Enthusiasm takes away from Seinfeld’s brilliance. I’ve made that argument myself at times. What defeats that critique, though, is that I can flip on a Seinfeld episode and almost always get sucked in. I feel like Curb isn’t as satisfying in small bites.
The Office There is no comedy I’ve watched more in the last decade. Which is weird because its original run ended in 2013. The first five seasons are so good I don’t mind that I’m not really interested in anything that came after them.
Arrested Development The back half of this list is heavy with shows that were wildly popular amongst critics but rarely got good ratings. This is kind of the originator of that sub-genre.
Community A lot of similarities between this and Arrested Development, in terms of how meta it was, how people who loved it REALLY loved it, etc. Also had a monkey named Annie’s Boobs.
Parks & Recreation Take the bones of The Office, move it to Indiana, and make it 75% sweeter. I still maintain if Comedy Central showed reruns of P&R as often as The Office, it would be just as popular.
Scrubs Where Bill Lawrence began his run of comedies with heart.
Curb Your Enthusiasm Above I said that this is right there with its cousin, Seinfeld. As much as I enjoyed it, I think this is the least universal of the bunch. I know several people who either didn’t find it funny or were put off by it.

There are plenty of other shows I enjoyed, but if you were going to ship me off to an isolated location with only a hard drive that included my favorites for entertainment, these are the eight I would require.

A Bummer Of A Game Five

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 08:53:53 -0400

After a nearly two-month dream ride, the Pacers run might be over. It wasn’t just that they lost game five in Oklahoma City last night by 11, after trimming an 18-point deficit to two midway through the fourth quarter. It wasn’t just that they routinely threw the ball away. It wasn’t just that they missed open shots when they could hang on to the ball.

It was more that Tyrese Haliburton played most of the game hobbled by whatever lower leg injury he has been dealing with the past couple weeks. It was allegedly an issue late in game two, but in games three and four he showed no ill effects, at least none that were clearly visible on TV. But last night, after slipping and aggravating the injury early, he was never at full strength, and sat out a little longer than he normally would. Fortunately for the Pacers TJ McConnell might have played the best game of his life. That both wasn’t enough and isn’t likely to be repeatable, though.

Haliburton’s game is based on speed and changes of direction and jumping while knifing around defenders. If he is compromised in his ability to do that, the Pacers have no shot.

There is the hope that with two full rest days before game six he can rally and be close to full strength for that elimination contest.

My fear, though, was that each time he grabbed his calf we would see him crumple moments later after his achilles had given way. At this point there’s a part of me that hopes the Pacers get blown out early Thursday so he can sit without suffering a potentially devastating injury that would wipe him out for not just this series but all of next year, too. NBA players love to destroy their achilles in the playoffs. Ask Jason Tatum and Kevin Durant, among others.

Game five was a great, brief explainer of both of these teams to the casual fan. The Thunder are a remarkable collection of young talent. SGA is the current MVP and one of the three or four current best players on the planet. Jalen Williams is too good to be labeled as just a sidekick. Chet Holmgren, if he can stay healthy and get stronger, will likely be one of the 15 best players in the league soon. Yes, Oklahoma City might have three All-NBA caliber players. Then they have a nearly perfect supporting cast around those three. And they have like a billion draft picks in the coming years, so they are perfectly positioned to weather the eventual salary cap hell.[1]

The Thunder are very good, very young, and set up to be that way for a long time. You have to be careful declaring dynasties these days; a year ago at this time we thought there was a new Boston Celtics dynasty. If any team in sports is positioned to dominate for the coming future, though, it is OKC.

Then you have the Pacers who are also built around two remarkable, if slightly less exceptional players than SGA and Williams. There’s no one in the NBA quite like Haliburton. The same can kind of be said for Pascal Siakam. Those two are both in the top 25 players in the league. They also have a fantastic and near-perfectly suited roster built around them. Again, that collection of talent isn’t as exceptional as the Thunder’s, but they work in a way that makes them far better as a sum than you would expect.

The Pacers are also unfazed by falling behind, whether it is because they are playing dumb, out of control, etc or their opponent is just handing it to them. They keep doing their thing knowing eventually it will start working again and they’ll get back into the game. Last night the Pacers were terrible in the first half. Throwing the ball away constantly. Taking bad shots and missing easy ones. Yet the Thunder couldn’t put them away and in the third quarter the inevitable comeback began. They just didn’t have enough, either as a team or from their superstar, to pull off another miracle.

It’s funny how these series go. I didn’t think the Pacers had much of a chance when it began, knowing how good OKC was. Then Indiana stole game one and seemed to break the Thunder’s collective spirit in game three. Instead of admiring the Thunder I was learning to hate them, from SGA’s constant pushoffs and referee bailouts on touch fouls, to Lu Dort and Alex Caruso manhandling the Pacers in the middle of the court without ever getting called for it, to Holmgren’s constant whining and truly unfortunate aesthetics. This is what is supposed to happen in the NBA Finals: you end up despising the team you are rooting against. Had the Thunder won this thing easily I’m not sure I would have gotten there. But the Pacers made this a series, and if they don’t pull off a massive upset over the final two games, will honestly look back on it as one they let get away, not one where they were hopelessly overmatched.

I’m starting to get into eulogy territory and it’s too soon for that. Hopefully I can put it off one more game and save it for next week. Between Hali’s health and the Thunder starting to feel locked in, things don’t seem promising for Thursday. You just never know with these Pacers. Maybe they have one more amazing game left in them and can send the series back to Oklahoma where anything can happen in game seven.

The Thunder were, in fact, one ping pong ball away from owning the #3 pick in this year’s draft. Kevin Pritchard has done a terrific job building the Pacers, but Sam Presti has done an all-time job turning the Thunder into the franchise with the best and longest path to sustained excellence in the league. ↩

Weekend Notes

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 08:32:34 -0400

A full, fun weekend that had healthy doses of sadness and even a little fear.

KC Trip

As mentioned Friday, I headed back to Kansas City for the weekend to attend the memorial service for Jack N, the father of one of my closest friends. We’re at the age where these are happening more frequently, but no matter the circumstances they are never easy. It was a fine service and honored the deceased in a way I think he would have appreciated.

That was the reason for the trip. I obviously did more than just attend the memorial.

I flew in Friday afternoon, my buddy Dave picked me up, and we headed directly to Joe’s Kansas City Barbecue, where I knocked out a jumbo Z-Man, fries, and a frosty Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat. Joe’s never disappoints.

On our way to Dave’s house, which was my home base for the weekend, we stopped at a liquor store. I was thrilled that they still had some Boulevard Irish Ale not only in stock but in the cooler. Where it was once kind of easy to find in Indy before St. Patrick’s Day, it has disappeared in recent years. An unexpected bonus!

That evening Dave and his wife had plans, so I took my Irish Ale to John N’s house. Despite having just returned from an overseas trip and planning for his dad’s services the next day, he was gracious enough to invite me out not just to visit but so I could avoid having to watch the Pacers game in a bar. I figured KC drinking holes would lean heavily towards the Thunder.

Anyway, John and his family and I had a good conversation while watching a little of the Royals game and all of the Pacers game. More on that in a bit.

Dave let me borrow his car, a 2019 Audi Q5. Fitting the theme for the weekend, it was like being with an old friend! I found it interesting that despite being just two years older than my Q5, his drove very differently. I’m no mechanical expert but I think his engine was tuned slightly differently, making it feel smoother than mine had been. However, his media screen was not touch capable, so I drove myself a little crazy trying to tap the screen to have Siri read texts to me without any success. There’s your mini car post for the month.

Saturday morning Dave and Maureen took me to Gram & Dun for brunch. I ate what was, without a doubt, the best breakfast burrito I’ve ever had. It was amazing.

After the service and reception, our friends the Murrays hosted a small gathering, which eventually moved to Waldo Pizza for dinner. I’m almost positive I had not been to Waldo Pizza in 22 years, so that was excellent.

Saturday also just happened to be the 22nd anniversary of the day S and I got married in KC. It was kind of wild to be back there, sadly without her, when that day rolled around. I was pleased to hear the lady who guided us through our pre-marriage classes is still active, and our good friend Ann remains close with her. I was also glad that it wasn’t 102° like it was the day we got married.

Sunday morning Maureen, despite it being her birthday, made sure to send me off with a wonderful breakfast. I was on the mid-morning flight back home. When the weather is right, there may be no easier trip in the world than flying between Indianapolis and Kansas City. Two new airports that are super easy to navigate and don’t get super busy. I was door-to-door in exactly three-and-a-half hours. Had I driven, I wouldn’t have been to St. Louis yet in that time.

One other travel note, the Racing Louisville FC women’s soccer team was on both of my flights. Apparently there are no direct flights between the ‘Ville and KC, so they must have bussed up to Indy. They lost to the KC Current Saturday evening. I did not mention the result to the players who were next to me in the boarding line Sunday.

I know a lot of the people I saw this weekend are readers of this site. It was great to see you all, although sad it took a funeral to get me back there this summer.

Pacers

Man, the NBA Finals were on the Pacers racquet, to use a tennis term. Up 2–1 in the series and leading by 10 points late in the third period, with Obi Toppin going to the line for two free throws. I had a bad feeling when he missed both, which turned out to be a key moment in the Thunder coming back to even the series at two games.

I watched the entire game, as already noted, at the N’s house. And while I was paying attention, we were also catching up. So my attentions were, at best, split 50–50 all night. For example, the play when SGA pushed off, traveled, and then got an and-one that gave OKC the lead barely registered. Had I been watching that play at home in my normal seat, I would have been screaming and yelling, possibly punching things, and maybe had to take a walk outside. For sure I would not have been able to sleep after the game. I shared this with a non-KC friend and he said, “That might be the healthiest move: force yourself to watch games with people who will make you unfocused on the result and less stressed.” Only took me (almost) 54 years to figure that out!

You hate to say the series is completely over after how good three of the first four games have been, but the Pacers have certainly blown their advantage and put themselves in a tough spot. At least they get to come back home for game six regardless of what happens in Oklahoma tonight. Never count them out, but they are running out of chances.

HS Hoops

It was an open recruiting weekend for high school sports - there were a bunch of college softball coaches on my flight Sunday who had been in Kansas City for a big tournament - and CHS played four games in an annual event here in Indy. Friday they went 2–0, including waxing a team that beat them last year and has one of the best rising juniors in the state. She scored 30+ but our girls kept the rest of the team in check. L didn’t play much in the first game, but got in for most of the fourth quarter of game two. Her travel coach was there and sent me a picture of her inbounding the ball. I shared it with S and she noted that L’s legs are back to being the same size! She’s got her muscle back after the weeks of cast and boot.

Saturday S went to the games and sent me some good updates. That might have been the highlight of the weekend; I’m not sure she’s ever sent me updates before! L played a little more, and a little better in each game. She got to the rim and scored while faking a defender in one. In the other, she scored, got fouled, and swished the free throw.

They beat a good team in the morning game, and then played the team they lost to in sudden death overtime a week ago in game two. We were waxing them, up almost 20, when things got bad. Like seriously bad.

S sent me a message saying our best player had suffered a “devastating” knee injury, probably tearing her ACL. S said the girl was screaming, other players were looking away, and it was just a terrible situation all around. A little later she updated me that it seemed like she had actually dislocated her knee, and the on-site trainer had popped it back into place. OK, 😱🤮

Then another five minutes went by and S texted me that one of L’s best friends had just broken her finger and left the game.

Obviously our girls were a little shook by all this, and tried their hardest to blow all of that lead. L got a lot more minutes and admitted to me later she was not ready to handle the ball against pressure yet. Glad I missed all of that.

But our girls hung on to go 4–0 for the weekend.

We don’t have an update on our star. S was concerned that despite just being a dislocation she could have also torn ligaments as well. I guess we’ll find out soon. That’s a serious bummer for her and our team. And our other injured girl will have surgery on her finger and be out the rest of the summer. The girls have 10 games this week and just eight healthy players, one of whom is still rehabbing her dumb foot and not in full basketball shape yet.

I thought summer was supposed to be fun.

Oh, and L was up in the air trying to block a shot when she got sideswiped by a teammate and knocked to the floor. She has a massive bruise on her hip and actually got some whiplash when she hit the ground and her head snapped back, so her neck is super sore and tight.

It might be time to get her some golf clubs.

US Open

With the travel I did not watch as much of the US Open as I normally would. I was home in time to see the wild final three or four hours Sunday, which included a long weather delay, a moment late in the tournament when six guys were tied for the lead, some epic meltdowns and classic US Open destroying the best golfers in the world stuff, and then JJ Spaun rolling in a ridiculous 60-foot putt to ice his first major victory. Conditions had eliminated most of the best and best known golfers, but the final two hours were a lot of fun to watch.

Royals

They stink.

I’ve not written much about them this year. I’m not watching them as closely as I did the back half of last season, but I am tracking scores each night. There have been a lot of bad Royals teams over the years. This one may well be the most frustrating because they get good-to-great starting pitching almost every night and just cannot hit the ball. It doesn’t matter whether I check the score early or late, I’m almost certain the Royals will have no more than two runs, and most likely none. It’s really uncanny how poor they are at scoring. I guess this is balancing how great they were last year at getting runners in scoring position home.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 13 Jun 2025 07:23:45 -0400

Well this has turned into quite a significant playlist. We lost two absolute musical giants over the past week. I found an incredible live performance from an artist we lost nearly 30 years ago. I am also headed back to Kansas City for the weekend, so I have to throw something from the (old) KC scene in there. And then I still continue to have tons of new music that’s worth sharing. Strap in for a long one.

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1Y8MV74YjQ9Ndjqei8Xz7c?si=39d570b6730d4237)

“Hot Fun In The Summertime” - Sly & The Family Stone Sly Stone was the first legend of the week to die. His peak was cut short by issues with drugs and mental health and the resulting chaos those caused in his personal and music lives, but Sly was one of the towering figures in music when the 1960s turned into the 1970s. As a DJ, he played The Beatles on Black stations in the Bay Area, spreading their reach. His band broke all kinds of barriers of race and gender. Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye were already headed towards more thoughtful, political writing, but Sly opened the door for that to be commercially viable. There is zero doubt that every funk artist that came later in the Seventies was indebted to him. And while Prince was inevitable, I’m not sure he would have been the same artist he was had Sly not paved the way. Oh, and Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation and sooooo much of sample-era hip hop would sound completely different without Sly.

“Good Vibrations” - The Beach Boys I was never a Beach Boys fan. That mostly comes from their schlocky, late 70s revival when I was first discovering them and then how Mike Love turned them into a conservative, money making machine in the 80s. In time I learned to appreciate how good and inventive much of their early music was, and the impact it had on so many bands, most notably The Beatles. Especially this song.

All the good Beach Boys music came from the mind of Brian Wilson, who passed on Wednesday. He may have been the ultimate tortured genius, forever chasing the sounds he had in his head and never quite capturing them in the studio. Another talent who was derailed by mental health illness and resulting drug use. It’s kind of amazing he and Sly both made it to their 80s. RIP to each of them.

“Say Goodbye, Tell No One” - Kathleen Edwards My favorite new song of the past week or so.

“East London Hotel” - Broken Fires My second favorite new song of the past week or so. These lads are from Wales. This weekend I’m traveling to celebrate the life of a great Welsh American.

“Deep End” - The Lemonheads “Hot Roy” - Peter Murphy Two brand new songs by artists that were huge 30-ish years ago but have been quiet for a long time. Both of these are fine.

“Glad” - Saint Etienne I’m not going to pretend I’m a big SE fan, but they deserve respect for hanging around for 35 years. They just announced their final album will come out this fall. The lead single features both Tom Rowlands of The Chemical Brothers and Jez Williams of Doves. Not bad partners.

“Inept Apollo” - Nation of Language This is some good, mid–80s synthpop, made in 2025.

“Hope I Die Tonight” - Paw Man, we are about to hit the 30th anniversary of Paw’s second album, Death To Traitors, being released. That was the one that was supposed to launch them into the stratosphere. Only their record label was merging and melting down and they lost their marketing support and it hardly sold at all despite getting terrific reviews. Still one of the best concerts I ever went to was in late July, 1995, when Paw played The Bottleneck in Lawrence. They were a lean, mean rocking machine that night.

“Summer Breeze” - Seals & Crofts We’ve had those good summer breezes this week.

[youtu.be/KOjP1d8Wz...](https://youtu.be/KOjP1d8WzIg?si=qpUnxNDvFxM-RA8s)

“Grace” - Jeff Buckley My God is this an incredible performance. I discovered this on a Bluesky thread. I’m not even sure how that thread landed on this song, but the person who posted it said “GodDAMN he didn’t phone in one single performance.” Buckley really should have been a giant, but the Mississippi River claimed him on May 29, 1997.

A Night Of Hoops

Thu, 12 Jun 2025 12:30:36 -0400

A full evening of basketball with some big moments worth sharing.

Pacers

WOW! Up 2–1 on the massive favorites thanks to two amazing quarters.

Oklahoma City was the better team for two periods Wednesday, the first and third. Sadly for them, the Pacers were even better in the second and fourth and now lead the NBA Finals.

I only saw the second half - more on that momentarily - but that was a fantastic game. The teams made runs at each other all night, neither able to land a knockout punch until the closing five minutes or so when the Pacers strung together makes and stops while the Thunder all seemed to whither under the pressure of the pace, moment, and crowd.

Bennedict Mathurin has driven me crazy this postseason. It has often seemed like he’s trying to do too much, and he’s had several moments (especially in the Cleveland series) when he let his emotions get the best of him. He was magnificent Wednesday. 27 points, from every part of the floor, and always within the offense. He’s the only guy on the Pacers roster who can play the way he does, getting his shot when the offense breaks down, so it is a massive bonus that he seems to be locked in for the moment. Now we just need him not to try to force things Friday night.

TJ McConnell did TJ McConnell things. In one sequence he got two steals and accounted for four points in about 15 seconds. Those four points tied the game before the Pacers took over. Obi Toppin had some more rough moments early, but he was fantastic in the closing run. So good that Rick Carlisle sat Pascal Siakam for the final four minutes, not because Pascal wasn’t playing well but because Toppin was so good.

It was a mature, big boy, classic NBA Finals win. It may not mean a thing in the end, but if the Pacers win this series, standing up to the Thunder in game three will be as important as their game one comeback.

It was so fun seeing the NBA Finals played here in Indy. The crowd seemed lit, and the parts of podcasts I’ve been able to listen to so far raved about how great the environment was. There’s been grousing from some about two small market teams playing each other in the final. That ignores both that these are two of the most fun and interesting teams to watch - way more fun than the Knicks, Lakers, or Celtics - and that these are two super passionate fanbases in insanely loud arenas. Everyone worried about the names on the fronts of the jerseys and airport codes is missing a series that is everything you can ask for on every other level.

High School Ball

I missed the first half of the game because it was week two of high school summer ball. And the most important aspect of that is that L was back on the court last night for the first time in nearly five months.

She was not cleared to play a week ago, so sat out a close loss to the defending 4A champs and a nice win against another 4A team on Wednesday, then a 2–1 trip to a shootout in Lafayette last Friday.

But this week she was cleared to play 10–15 minutes. She ended up playing the lower side of that across two games, partially because that’s how the rotations worked and partially because they practiced and then lifted weights in the morning so she was sore all over.

She did ok.

In the first game she played the last four minutes of the first half. For her only shot attempt she found herself open on the wing, stepped into a long–2, and drained it. Her only other scorebook entry for that game was a turnover when she waited a little too long to pitch it ahead on the break and a girl made a fantastic play to pick her pass off.

We won that game, against the team that lost in the 3A state title game last season (we would have played them to go to state had we won our first semi-state game), in overtime. That team immediately played again and lost that game in overtime as well. Their best player is this amazing junior. She scored 18 in the first half against us. I didn’t see the official book from either game, but she had to have scored close to 60 points for the night. And these are 40 minute games with running clocks.

In our second game L played the first six minutes of the fourth quarter. She had a rebound and nothing else. She and one of her travel teammates were battling for a loose ball and apparently she cussed, sending them both into giggling fits. After the game I mock yelled at them both for not taking the game seriously.

She looked slow, sore, and out of shape. While she’s been watching practice the past two weeks, she wasn’t a full participant until Monday, so she still needs to integrate into what her teammates are doing. I told her not to push things, not to get frustrated when things are hard, and not to worry when she fails. Rehab is a long process and we’re not to the end yet. The important thing is to get back on the court, start getting her body back in basketball shape, and give us a base to work over the second half of summer. The goal is that she’s back to 100% and ready to fight for minutes in October.

Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 112

Tue, 10 Jun 2025 08:15:57 -0400

Chart Week: June 5, 1976 Song: “Love Really Hurts Without You” - Billy Ocean Chart Position: #36, 10th week on the chart. Peaked at #22 for two weeks in May.

It’s always fun to be surprised when listening to old American Top 40’s. As I worked my way through this countdown, and glanced ahead at the list of songs on Top 40 Weekly, I did a double take when I saw Billy Ocean’s name.

Really?!?! Billy Ocean in a countdown from 1976?!?! I had no idea! I thought he was just an Eighties act. Even more of a surprise was that his first hit song was excellent.

Leslie Sebastian Charles began his recording career in 1969. For most of the early Seventies he recorded music and performed in clubs without much success. During the day he would hammer out demos in studios. At night, he worked a variety of jobs, including on the assembly line at the Ford Motor plant in Dagenham, East London. By 1975 Charles had adopted the stage name Billy Ocean, partially taken from a soccer team called Ocean’s 11 in his homeland of Trinidad.[1] Ocean’s debut album, called Billy Ocean, came out a year later.

One night while working at the Ford plant, Ocean heard “Love Really Hurts Without You” on a radio someone had tuned to Radio Luxembourg. He walked out of the plant as soon as he heard it, knowing that if his song was on the radio, his days of toiling to make ends meet were over. It was time to focus full-time on being a performer.

That move had mixed results. “Love Really Hurts Without You” reached #2 in the UK, #22 in the US. Ocean’s next two singles reached the top 20 in the UK, and 1977’s “Red Light Spells Danger” also peaked at #2. However none of those singles hit at all in the States. In fact, Ocean would not have a Top 40 American record again until 1984, when, out of nowhere, he hit #1 with “Caribbean Queen (No More Love On The Run).” Over the next four years he had two more #1 hits, two #2s, a #4, a #10, and two other top 20 singles in the US. An impressive, borderline legendary run.[2]

The roots of that stretch were in this song.

There is a heavy, classic Motown influence on “Love Really Hurts Without You.” Almost too much, to be honest. This could easily be a Four Tops song. Fortunately Ocean throws everything he has into his performance, which keeps it from sounding like just another Motown ripoff.

There’s an economy to the piece, how it quickly falls into a rhythm and nothing deviates from that even as progressive instruments, and eventually Ocean, join it. It grabs you right away and doesn’t let up until the final fade out.

Ocean is singing about a woman who breaks his heart by turning him on then leaving him alone as she goes home with someone else. Nothing about this song makes me think of a broken heart, though. There is some pain in Ocean’s voice, certainly some longing, but more than anything else, I hear a sunny smile. There’s an infectious joy to his voice that makes you focus on the general vibe of this tune. It swings. It is, as he describes his lady friend in the opening line, groovy. All that combines to make the song seem more like a shrug that acknowledges a missed chance at love that will be soon replaced by another opportunity. There are plenty of fish in the sea, good things come to those who wait, etc.

Maybe “Love Really Hurts Without You” was a little out of time in 1976, better suited to the Sixties. But hearing it for the first time in 2025, there ain’t nothing wrong with it. 7/10

[youtu.be/LWWQTqJhh...](https://youtu.be/LWWQTqJhhKA?si=AwfJvLM71a4XLD)–

Yes, the soccer team was named after the old Frank Sinatra movie. Which, of course, has been remade and turned into a series since. ↩
The biggest of those were: “Loverboy,” #2; “Suddenly,” #4; “When The Going Gets Tough The Tough Get Going,” #2; “There’ll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry),” #1; and “Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car,” #1. ↩

Weekend Notes

Mon, 09 Jun 2025 10:58:23 -0400

Pacers

Well, the Thunder showed up Sunday evening. As has been routine in these playoffs, the Pacers missed a ton of open looks early as they fell behind. The difference in game two was that I don’t think it would have mattered. OKC was absolutely locked in from the beginning and once they took the lead on a 10–0 run the result was never in doubt. The 42–21 run in the second quarter was too much for the Pacers Devil Magic to overcome.

What amazes me most about the Thunder’s D is how it is actually good defense. With one exception, they don’t foul a ton. They are just in your shirt through effort, speed, and talent. They refuse to let you get by, doing so because they move their feet faster than you move yours. They get their chests into you and leave their hands off, saving those to swipe at the ball rather than grab and hold like so many other teams do. Which makes it even tougher because you can’t complain to the refs in hopes of getting some calls to ease their pressure.

As I said, there’s one exception, and that is Alex Caruso. That dude fouls 15 times on every play. His hands are always on whoever he is guarding, wrapping them up, pulling them, etc. The Thunder might not be in the Finals had the refs called him even occasionally for how he beat up Nikola Jokic in the Denver series.[1]

That wouldn’t have made a difference last night, either. The Thunder were better and more focused while the Pacers missed their chance to stay close early then let OKC’s pressure get most of them sped up.

Tyrese Haliburton was a little passive early. Which brings me to my complaint about the announcers, especially Richard Jefferson. He kept ranting about how Hali needed to be more aggressive, take more shots, insert himself into the action. Which I agree with a little bit. At the same time I wondered if Jefferson had watched the Pacers/Hali at all during the regular season. That is never their game. Hali gets on hot streaks but it almost always happens in the second half. Not because he’s passive, but more because he’s a pass-first point guard and the Pacers spend first halves spreading the ball, getting everyone involved, breaking down the defense, and then Hali pounces when they get tired and either over-help or get lazy. I agree the Pacers need to play a little out of character if they want to win this series. But you can’t be something you’re not. Hali taking 35 shots is not a recipe for winning in OKC. Still, he probably needs to take more than three shots by the mid-point of the second quarter.

The Pacers lost far more because most of the other players stunk Sunday, regardless of what Hali did.

My other big takeaway: SGA is incredible. That dude hits shots that just don’t make sense all night long. Like from a physics standpoint. He’s not a small dude at 6’6”, but he is so wiry you don’t expect him to have the strength to hit turn-around, fade-away jumpers from 20-feet after putting three moves on his defender. It’s outrageous.

Thankfully the refs have yet to bail him out with the weak calls he tends to draw in the regular season. The Pacers have also done a nice job of being physical with him up until he throws his foul-drawing moves at them. I like that they’ve let both teams be physical without it ever getting out of hand. Let’s hope that continues and SGA isn’t shooting 15 free throws a night the rest of the series.

Bummer of a game, but the series is tied coming back to Indy, which is the best the Pacers could have hoped for. Just as the Thunder have bounced back from each of their playoff losses, so too have the Pacers. They’ll have the crowd the next two games, along with the comforts of home. They need to find a way to better attack the Thunder and withstand their pressure if they want to go back to Oklahoma with a chance to still win the title.

French Open

I was an occasional watcher of the French Open over the past two weeks, but Saturday I watched every minute of the fantastic Coco Gauff - Aryna Sabalenka final. It was an intense and entertaining match. Just like when they played in the US Open final two years ago, Sabalenka was dominant early before Coco righted herself and stole the match. One of the things I found most fascinating about the match was that the older, more experienced player was the one who lost her shit while the younger one played almost without emotion. It’s like Coco knew Sabalenka would crack if she could stay in the match long enough. She just keeps living up to the crazy hype that accompanied her arrival on the scene seven years ago.

I was in-and-out for the mens match Sunday. I was passing through the room when Jannik Sinner was sitting on three match points, so I turned the TV off and went outside to deal with a pool issue. Several hours later when I glanced at ESPN I was amazed to see that Carlos Alcaraz had come back and won. HOW?!?!?! And he won the closing tiebreak 10–2??? Holy shit! An NBA writer said that was like opening an overtime period with seven straight alley-oop dunks.

Pool

I thought I was having one pool issue late last week. It turned out to not be an issue, but rather a sign that a much bigger one was slowly presenting itself.

The bottom of our pool started looking green last week. Slowly, in the corners of the deep end, but getting bigger each day, and spreading to an area in the shallow end, too. I assumed it was green algae, something I’ve never had, so took a water sample to the pool store and got a diagnosis. They put me on a 36-hour schedule of intense sanitization to kill off the algae.

By Sunday the green was still there, but seemed contained a bit. So I decided to vacuum all the crap on the bottom of the pool out into the yard, bypassing the filter in hopes I could kick it back on and the water would return to normal quickly. As I vacuumed I thought it was strange the “algae” seemed very thick and heavy. And still very green. Shouldn’t all those chemicals have killed it, and shouldn’t it be kind of light and amorphous? I vacuumed it all out, backwashed my filter, and kicked things back on. Green material immediately started pouring out of the return jets. There were already large deposits on the pool floor. WTF???

I killed the system and decided to scoop out whatever was in the bottom of the pool for a closer look. That wasn’t algae. Instead it was the glass media we use in our filter. I had no idea it was green. Had I known that I would have realized a week earlier something in our filter was slowly failing and allowing the glass to return to the pool with the filtered water. And that failure was getting bigger each day. And I shot a couple hundred bucks of brand new filtering media into our grass.

It also should have been a clue that despite these fields of green on the pool floor getting larger, the water was remaining clear.

I texted back-and-forth with our pool guy, who seemed confused by what was going on until I sent him pictures of the glass I had removed from the pool. That’s when he confirmed something in the filter has failed. He’s going to do his best to get here today to take a look, then hopefully it’s a quick/easy/cheap fix that doesn’t involve ordering parts that take a week to get here or, God forbid, replacing the entire filter.

We’ve been pretty lucky with our pool over the six seasons we’ve had it. Eventually, though, they are like boats and become money pits. We already knew this was likely the last season for our current liner. Looks like that won’t be the only cash we’ll be pouring into the system this year.

Grad Parties

Saturday was C’s biggest day of grad parties of the year. She had seven on her calendar.

She began the day heading 45 minutes south to a co-party by two of her closest friends. When she returned home S and I joined her for the next four. The first was 35 minutes east of our house. The second 10 minutes west of that one. The third 15 minutes back east. Then the fourth was back near our home. We did quick pop-ins at the first two. We aimed to do the same at the third, but as there weren’t many people there we felt kind of bad and spent more time chatting with the parents than we expected to. They are nice, that was fine, but it meant we only had 15 minutes or so at our last one, which was the one S and I wanted to go to most. We hustled home and then C realized she didn’t have time to make the next one, so we called it a night and ordered sushi. Had we known that was the case, we would have stayed longer at that last party. There were a bunch of families we love from St P’s there, all of whom sent their kids to different high schools so we don’t get to see them very much.

After dinner C was off to one more grad party and then a normal party. She has one or two more on her calendar later this month, but the bulk of her friends are now out of the way.

Listening to Bill Simmons’ pod while taking L to the dentist this morning, he made this same point: Caruso is a hack and it is inexplicable how/why he gets away with it. ↩

Playoff Miracle, Vol. 186

Fri, 06 Jun 2025 08:19:35 -0400

I have a very busy day, but still want to squeeze in some quick words about game one of the NBA Finals.

It started about how I expected: the Pacers were sped up and nervous and when they could get shots, were missing thoroughly makable ones. The Thunder were also nervy at the beginning, but their defense found its footing and began shutting down everything the Pacers wanted to do. At times it looked like a mismatched college game, where the Pacers had three guys standing 40 feet from the basket trying to figure out how to even begin the offense, let alone get decent looks. Obi Toppin was truly awful. Myles Turner only marginally better. Tyrese Haliburton quiet. The only good thing was that the Thunder were also missing shots, otherwise the margin could have easily been 20+ at halftime.

I wasn’t worried, though. I didn’t think the Pacers had much of a chance to steal a game in OKC to begin with. I expected game one to be rough. I just wanted to see if they could settle and find something in the second half to build on going forward.

Boy did they!

It was the same playbook we’ve seen over-and-over from this team since Christmas. Trailing by 15 early in the fourth quarter, the Pacers finally found some comfort on offense. They never had that quick, 10–0 in 30 seconds run that flipped the game. The Thunder hit at least three shots that seemed to have wiped out any Pacers momentum. Turner missed a wide-open 3 that would have cut it to one with around 4:00 left and that seemed like it might be the ballgame as the Thunder stretched it back out to a 9-point lead.

And then Aaron Nesmith and Andrew Nembhard hit consecutive 3’s to make it a 3-point game. Nembhard hit two free throws and Pascal Siakam got an offensive rebound and scored to cut it to one. Could the Pacers get a stop? Well, they got two, sandwiched around a dead ball rebound for the Thunder. And then it was Tyrese Time (Tyme?).

They freaking did it again. The only lead of the night, coming on their last shot attempt of the game, a cold-blooded, pull up J over one of the best defenders on the planet.

Pacers up 1–0.

Crazy stuff. This Team of Destiny shit is getting hard to ignore.

This might have been a massive outlier, the game one upset that wakes up the Thunder before they win the next four to claim the title. For one night, though, that Pacers Devil Magic worked again and turned a blowout into an instant classic.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 06 Jun 2025 07:23:24 -0400

After a slight lull, the music has really started to pile up again, so we are back to the thick and juicy playlists.

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“Celebrated Summer” - Hüsker Dü (Nods head.) Yeah, this is the good shit.

“Did I Say Too Much” - The Beaches Serious Song Of The Summer vibes here.

“Inland Ocean” - Matt Berninger With the NBA Finals featuring two teams from the middle part of the county, it seems like a no brainer to include this song. Especially since Indiana is right there in the lyrics. OMEN?!?!

“Not In Surrender” - Obongjayar All kinds of goodness in this track. His voice reminds me a little of Sananda Maitreya’s (FKA Terrence Trent D’Arby).

“Chemical Reaction” - Debbii Dawson Stereogum described this song as if “…a mad scientist blended a bit of ABBA, Dolly Parton, and a sprinkle of Queen.” You can’t go wrong with that combo!

“I Don’t Want To Die” - Good Looks GL just released a Deluxe Edition of last year’s Lived Here For A While album. No surprise that every new song is exceptionally solid.

“Don’t Want To Know” - World News This sounds like the result of combining a jam band with U2.

“Real Power” - Golomb Dumb band name. Nothing wrong with this song, though. Yo La Tengo + Izzy Pop, maybe?

“That Summer Feeling” - Jonathan Richman A summer classic.

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“Come Out And Play (Keep ‘Em Separated)” - The Offspring This week’s Alternative Number One, an absolute ripper that still rips now, no matter how silly and regrettable The Offspring eventually became.

NBA Final Preview

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 09:21:43 -0400

The NBA Finals have arrived. I’ve been listening to podcasts previewing the series all week, and reading everything The Ringer has posted on the topic. Since I know most of you are 1) far busier than me and 2) don’t care as much about the result as I do, allow me to offer a summarization of all that content: the Pacers are a very good, super entertaining, resilient team that plays a style that is tough defend and absolutely deserves the full respect of every basketball fan and analyst. BUT, Oklahoma City has a historically stout defense that seems designed to offer matchup nightmares at every position for the Pacers (and just about any team) and will have the best player in the series, thus the Pacers have almost no chance.

It’s been funny to hear all these talking (and writing) heads repeat almost the same message, being very careful to make sure people understand they really like the Pacers.

I get it.

Even wearing my Gold-colored glasses it’s hard to find an angle that makes this series work for the Pacers. Not just because of the pure matchups between these two teams, but because true upsets are rare in the NBA Finals. The closest thing we’ve had to an upset in the past 20 years was when Toronto beat Golden State in 2019. The Raptors actually won more games than the Warriors that year, but were viewed as underdogs because, well, they weren’t the Warriors. And in that series it took Kevin Durant only playing limited minutes because of an earlier injury then blowing out his achilles and Klay Thompson blowing his ACL to clear the path for the Raptors title.

Before that you have to go back to 2004 when the Pistons knocked off the Lakers, in truly the biggest NBA Finals upset of my life. Those Lakers were heavily favored but were also getting old and dysfunctional and the Pistons were uniquely positioned to give them fits.

So we have one upset, that really wasn’t an upset, that came about because two of the best players of their generation suffered season ending injuries during the series, and the other was because a team was old and hated each other.

Sadly for the Pacers, the Thunder have neither of these issues. They seem to be completely healthy at the moment and are super young and project an image of everyone being on the same page. Maybe there’s an injury during the series that shifts things, but the Thunder aren’t the Knicks, seemingly always teetering on the edge of losing all their best players because of overuse. And the Pacers are the team that is more banged up at the moment.

Several folks have used last year’s Eastern Conference Finals as a model for this series. The Celtics swept the Pacers in four games, but the Pacers easily could have been ahead 3–1 rather than going home. It was a deserved sweep by a better team, but three of the games were decided in the last 10–15 seconds, one going to overtime. The Pacers battled, but they either weren’t good enough or made too many errors in the game’s biggest moments.

I’m not sure this series will be as exciting and tense as that one. It’s hard to look at the individual matchups and find paths for where the Pacers can keep games basically even until the closing minutes, when their crazy, late-game, devil magic can take over. I don’t think it will be a game of blowouts, but also I’m not sure the final result will be in doubt as long in each contest as it was in the Celtics series.

For the Pacers to have a chance their big two can have no slippage. Tyrese Haliburton can’t have the games where he’s passive and lets the Thunder dictate his pace or decisions on offense. He can’t have either bad shooting games, or games where he simply doesn’t shoot, something that has happened once in each of the Pacers first three playoff series. Pascal Siakam, quite simply, has to be exceptional every night. He has to get behind the Thunder defense for easy baskets like he’s done all year. He has to be efficient hunting mismatches and then punishing them in the half court. He has to stay on the court by not picking up cheap fouls.

Even if those two can stay locked in for every game, there can be no slippage by the supporting cast. Myles Turner will get open looks in this series; the Thunder’s defense is designed to allow those because of how they close off the paint. He needs to knock those down. Andrew Nembhard and Aaron Nesmith can’t get suckered into forcing things when the ball ends up in their hands late in the shot clock. Both tend to get into trouble when they have to drive and have limited options. The Thunder defense is set up to force exactly those situations, and then kill players who make bad decisions when faced with swarming defenders from all angles.

There aren’t a lot of weaknesses on the Thunder for the Pacers to attack. I think the biggest Pacers advantage will be forcing the pace, but the Thunder are fine playing fast. In fact, they play faster than the Pacers by some measures. The key will be to get the Thunder’s D overreacting to pressure and finding ways to get wide open looks in the secondary break, or in the early opportunities out of the half court when the Thunder snuff out Pacers breaks.

One other small measure of hope for Indiana fans is that Rick Carlisle and his staff are excellent tacticians. Each series they’ve found a new way to attack their opponent that was different from how the Pacers played during the regular season. The Thunder don’t have many flaws, but I’m confident Carlisle has found some and designed new ways to attack them. Are those series swinging adjustments or ones that will simply win a few possessions before the Thunder counter and regain their advantages? We’ll start to find out tonight.

My prediction has not changed: heart Thunder in six, mind Thunder in five. Which aligns exactly with almost every podcaster I’ve listened to. For the record, I had that locked in before I listened to any of them. So they’re copying me, not the other way around.[1] There aren’t many reasons to be confident the Pacers will capture their first NBA championship over the next couple weeks. At least they have the chance.

I’m sure Bill Simmons, Zach Lowe, and all the other NBA guys at The Ringer checked into my site before going public with their own picks. ↩

Wednesday Links

Wed, 04 Jun 2025 11:03:48 -0400

John Siracusa is one of the most respected members of the Apple blogosphere. In these two pieces he lays the smack down on Tim Cook.

Apple Turnover Apple Turnaround

Another bonkers and amazing addition to the legacy of the Voyager project: thrusters that had been assumed unusable for over 20 years have been revived. I keep waiting to hear that the minuscule budget line that keeps this project has been X-ed out by you -know-who.

NASA’s Voyager 1 Revives Backup Thrusters Before Command Pause

As lazy as it is to keep rolling out remakes of old stuff, I will give a re-booted Scrubs a shot. Also an excuse to go watch some of the old ones again. Standard def ain’t going to be pretty.

Zach Braff Boards ‘Scrubs’ Reboot at ABC

A moving piece about how music can affect us, and how that changes when the people that make the music are revealed to be (possibly) terrible humans.

I can’t hear those words in the warm, paternal way I once did, knowing that someone else’s daughter claims he damaged her. It’s as simple as that when it comes to these matters of art vs. artist: Can you listen to the music without hearing ghosts in it?

The Arcade Fire Problem

It was inevitable but there seems to be a growing movement to “re-discover” CDs and CD players amongst some music geeks. Which is cool; I don’t judge anyone for diving into the history of physical music formats. A sub-set of that group is interested in Sony MiniDisc players. I never had one, but always thought they were super cool. This article looks back on how they worked and what made them unique.

How MiniDisc Worked

The entire site is a cool reminder of when Sony made the greatest shit.

Finally, a modern review of Fletch.

The Cult Movie Club: Fletch @ 40

Reader's Notebook, 6/3/25

Tue, 03 Jun 2025 12:56:37 -0400

Taste: My Life Through Food - Stanley Tucci Coincidentally my hold on this came in just as his latest travel/food show premiered. It is equal parts autobiography and food diary of his entire life. He writes exactly as he speaks on his travel shows, which is either a good, comforting thing or annoying based on what you think of those shows. I read a review of his new show that complained about how into himself he is. If you share that view, you might want to skip this one.

James - Percival Everett An amazing book. It is framed as a re-telling of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, but told from the perspective of Jim, the escaped slave that accompanied Huck on his travels. If you know Everett and have read any of his other books, you know this won’t be neither an easy tale, but will be told with tremendous courage and inventiveness.

We quickly learn that most slaves speak and behave much differently when amongst each other in private. Where they act simple and uneducated around whites, when isolated together they speak better English than the white people who subjugate them. They teach their young ones how to behave in public, including lessons in “slave speak” - “Yas massa,” etc - and how to never reveal to white folks their true level of intelligence. If something is missing in the house, you lead them to it while making them think they found it on their own. You never, ever leave the impression that you were responsible for solving these life’s little mysteries.

Jim and Huck fall in together and flee Hannibal, MO down the Mississippi River. They have adventures. They defy death multiple times. But, again, the story is told completely from Jim’s perspective. His mission is to escape capture and find a way to return to Hannibal to buy his wife and daughter’s freedom. Thus he is constantly on the lookout for whites up and down the river who are searching for him. When they enter a town, he must act like he is Huck’s responsibility. When he falls in with other, sympathetic whites, he is forced to behave as if he were their slave. And so on.

The book is split into three sections. The third is pretty intense, and has a monumental surprise reveal in its opening pages. There are a couple clues leading to this moment, but I still had to re-read the passage several times to make sure I understood it correctly. Despite understanding that this book took place in 1861, it was still disturbing and upsetting to get this view of the US during the time when slavery was still legal and how even “kind” whites often treated Blacks like animals rather than humans. We know that the real lives of slaves were far different than what was presented in either contemporary or historical accounts. I like that Everett gives his characters some control over their lives and makes them clearly more enlightened than the people who own them. They don’t just crave freedom. They can make passionate, educated arguments against slavery far more informed than the arguments in favor of slavery.

I know I’ve read Huckleberry Finn as an adult, probably 20–25 years ago, so I just read a quick synopsis of it to remind myself of the gist. I wish I had re-read the entire book to see how Everett’s story lined up with and diverged from Twain’s. Twain was always subtly subversive, so I think he would appreciate what Everett did with the bones of his original.

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This - Omar El Akkad This was a difficult book, for many reasons. El Akkad is an Egyptian-born journalist and author who currently lives in the US and has US citizenship. In this he writes mostly about the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict and how, in his view, the coverage of it in the west has been extremely one-sided and how the defense of the Israeli viewpoint has spilled over to many other aspects of our society. You watch the news, you know what he’s talking about.

I’m not going to get into all the details of that conflict. I feel like my views mirror what most people’s are: that the Israelis had an absolute and unquestioned right to defend themselves against the terrorists that attacked on October 7, 2023, but that response has gone well beyond what was proportionate and appropriate and is more focused on wiping out the Palestinian state than securing Israel’s borders.

El Akkad writes about not just the horrors of the war itself, but how it has spilled over to affect politics and society in the western world. Even if you do not have strong feelings about what is going on in Palestine, if you support democracy and free speech, you have to be upset at how those concepts have been set aside within the debate over the war.

More interestingly to me is how El Akkad uses the Israel-Palestine situation as a jumping off point to discuss the many flawed ways we Americans view ourselves, the inconsistencies in our national myths. For example, Americans love to side with the plucky underdog, and often view ourselves as exactly that, a remnant from our Revolutionary War days when we defeated the greatest world power of the era. Never mind that we have been, since World War II, not just the biggest power of the era but the most powerful nation in the history of humanity. Adhering to the idea that we are underdogs absolves us from acknowledging the realities of our place in the world, from taking responsibility for our actions. We are always fighting some greater evil, no matter that there is no power equal to ours.

The title also refers to how so many of us often prefer to stay silent or not take a stand in moments of crisis, but later suddenly find the courage to proclaim our opposition to policies that went awry.

This book made me think more about our country than the Israel-Palestine war. I would imagine because of that it will not appear in many school libraries, and likely be banned from most public libraries at some point. I’m shocked El Akkad hasn’t had his citizenship stripped and he been shipped back to one of the countries he lived in before becoming an American. God forbid we ever question either our national myths or policies. Especially when it a brown, Muslim, born halfway around the world leading the questioning.

Hell Yes 'Cers!

Mon, 02 Jun 2025 08:36:36 -0400

Holy shit, it happened! The Pacers are in the NBA Finals!

I gotta be honest, I was angry Friday morning. And worried. After the Pacers played like ass in New York Thursday it meant little to me that the series was coming back to Indy for game six. It seemed like the Knicks had figured out how to contain the Pacers offense with backcourt pressure, they were gaining confidence on offense, they were defying all the odds by staying healthy, and most infuriatingly the Knicks bench played better than the Pacers reserves on Thursday.

This did not bode well for Indiana closing out the series Saturday and avoiding what would be a monumentally stressful game seven in New York tonight.

All that stress and worry was silly. The Pacers took care of business and sent the Knicks home with a magnificent, cathartic win Saturday. The Pacers won every quarter, stretching their lead a little further each period. The Knicks made some runs but seemed to whither in the fourth quarter, which set up a glorious last seven minutes or so when the Pacers blew the game open.

Each Pacers win in this series was a specific player’s game. The unlikely, near miracle win in game one will forever be the Aaron Nesmith game. Pascal Siakam dropping 39 points in game two slapped his name on that one. Tyrese Haliburton’s ridiculous boxscore line claimed game four for him. And while the clinching game was a typically balanced effort by one of the most balanced teams in the league, that game will always be the Andrew Nembhard game for the way he made life a living hell for Jalen Brunson on defense and somehow managed to finally find his offensive game in the process.

Nembhard was simply brilliant. The refs let both teams play, so while he was using his entire body to guard Brunson, Brunson was also getting away with his forearm shivers, grabbing of arms, slamming his shoulder into Nembhard’s chest, and even flat-out headbutting Nembhard without getting whistled for a foul.[1] Funny thing happened in that process: I think Brunson wore himself out as much as Nembhard wore him down. Brunson, the league’s reigning Clutch Player of the Year, looked thoroughly wiped and ineffective when the Knicks needed him most. Meanwhile Nembhard was keying the Pacers final surge to put the game away.

This might have been the biggest surprise in a series full of surprises. In last year’s playoffs, Nembhard could not guard Brunson at all. In brief moments on Brunson earlier in the series, he continued to struggle. When Nesmith wasn’t on the court the Pacers resorted to either Bennedict Mathurin or Jarace Walker to try to slow Brunson knowing Nembhard would not be effective. But when Nesmith got two early fouls Saturday, and appeared to be hobbled by the leg he injured in game three, Rick Carlisle had no choice. And Nembhard delivered. It was a season-saving performance.

Siakam was, again, great. Hali took some time to get going, but dished out over 10 assists and cracked the Knicks defense in the closing run. Thomas Bryant, who had been benched earlier, hit the first three 3’s he took.

Hey, big props to Carlisle. He made terrific adjustments during the series, both in scheme and personnel. More importantly, after the Pacers traded for Haliburton during the ’22-’23 season, he focused on building around Hali’s skills first, embracing the chaos that the point guard’s unorthodox style lends itself to. That produced an incredibly fun team on the offense, but one that also rarely put in any effort on the defensive end. Winning 140–138 is fun during the regular season but not a recipe for advancing deep into the playoffs. Only they did last year, benefiting from injuries to opponents in the first two rounds before Haliburton himself was injured and the Celtics swept the Pacers out of the conference finals.

I’m not sure how he did it, but somehow this year Carlisle turned them into a better-than-average defensive team. The offense wasn’t quite as efficient, but the improvement on the other end made them a better team, a tougher team to match up with, and better suited to win in the postseason.

Carlisle also deserves series credit for trusting his players to fill their roles. I hadn’t really noticed this until a national writer mentioned it, but Carlisle is fine with mistakes, as long as they are made with maximum effort and within the team concept. Sometimes it drives me crazy when TJ McConnell overdrives, like he did often this series as the Knicks refused to collapse on him with help, or when Bennedict Mathurin forgets he has teammates and goes one-on-one. Carlisle is fine with that because he knows giving players the opportunity to fail, again within the system, means they will play with confidence and be effective more often than not. McConnell might turn it over a couple times, but that is made up for when he finally gets the defense to overcommit and three teammates are open or he gets a wide-open layup when help does not come. Mathurin can be maddening when his ego makes him ignore/forget that he has four teammates on the court with him. But he’s the best “get the fuck out of my way I’m scoring no matter what” player on the team, and sometimes they need that in the moments the starters are resting.

I kept waiting for an injury or two to destroy the Knicks. Other than Karl-Anthony Towns acting like his knee had just blown apart every time he fell down, they somehow got through the series unscathed. Thank goodness the series didn’t go to a seventh game, because the Pacers were the team that seemed injury-struck. Nesmith was never 100% after his injury. I don’t know how effective he would have been in game seven. Walker might have done something very bad to his ankle Saturday. Tony Bradley, who went from unknown bench player to logging serious minutes early in the series, suffered an injury in game five that opened the door for Bryant to play again. Even with those injuries, the Pacers still played 11 guys before they cleared the bench late. Again, that’s all from the trust Carlisle has in his guys and the depth that Kevin Pritchard and Chad Buchanan built.

And now the Pacers are on to the NBA Finals for the second time in franchise history and the first time in 25 years.[2] As with last year’s run to the conference finals, there will be some critics who claim the Pacers had an easy road to the Finals. Dame Lillard crashed out of the Bucks series. Cleveland was battling several injuries in the second round. And the Knicks knocked out defending champs Boston before the Pacers had to play them.

That talk was valid last year, but is nonsense this year. The Bucks were a mess before Dame got hurt. Yes, Cleveland had injuries, but the Pacers took the #1 seed to the woodshed in the games the Cavs were 100%. And the Knicks were up on the Celtics 2–1 and leading by 9 points in game four when Jason Tatum blew out his achilles. They were winning that series whether he stayed healthy or not. The Pacers got a few breaks along the way, as every team that wins three series does. There’s no doubting, though, that they were the best team in the Eastern Conference over the last six weeks. Which is all that matters.

Now it’s on to the Finals, where we have two fun-to-watch, built via drafts and smart trades teams from the Heartland. Prepare for grousing by the coastal elites and casual fans about how Indy vs OKC is boring. Those people who focus on geography will miss that these are two of the most entertaining teams in the league, and if the exact same rosters were located in Boston and LA, folks would be salivating over this matchup.

I’ve been cautiously optimistic through every round so far, but it is tough to stretch that confidence to the next series. Oklahoma City is the best and deepest team in the league. They have this year’s MVP. They are the best defensive team in the league and a matchup nightmare for the Pacers. To me the only hope for Indiana is if Shai Gilgeous-Alexander were to get injured, something you can never rule out when playing Indiana in the playoffs,[3] or if the Thunder crack under the pressure. As good as they are, this is the first year they had advanced to even the conference finals with this roster, so this is as new to them as the Pacers.

My heart tells me OKC in six, but my mind says the Thunder will take care of the Pacers fairly easily in five. Like I said two weeks ago, if the Pacers can steal one of the first two games, they have a chance…

I stayed up late to watch all the postgame coverage on TNT. It sure was refreshing for a network to hang around for well over an hour after the final buzzer, showing all the on-court activities, interviewing players on the court and then on the TNT set, and letting the Pacers fans who hung around all that time to celebrate on camera.

It was, of course, a strange and surreal postgame show, being the final edition ever of Inside the NBA on TNT, a nearly 30-year-old institution..

If you don’t follow sports and/or sports media, this was strange because Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Shaq, and Charles Barkley, along with most of their support crew, are taking their show to ESPN next year. They’ll even be in the same studio. Why are people noting the switch if the only thing that will be different is what channel you select to watch them? The fear by people who love the show, and clearly the cast as well, is that ESPN will find a way to destroy the best show in sports TV. I loved Shaq throwing down the gauntlet warning ESPN that they were not coming to fuck around. I wish I had any confidence that ESPN won’t mess up a perfect show pretty quickly.

And can someone please hire Kevin Harlan? I’m sure it will get done; it would be insane not to. Perhaps there is already something in place but he and/or ESPN or Amazon wanted to wait until his Turner obligations were complete before announcing it.

On the other end of the court, Mikal Bridges was also allowed to mug Haliburton constantly. It wasn’t aesthetically pleasing basketball, but at least it was called evenly, I guess. ↩
S and I started dating the week after the Pacers lost to the Lakers. ↩
I am NOT wishing an injury on him. ↩

May Media

Sun, 01 Jun 2025 09:26:22 -0400

Movies, Shows, etc

Confess, Fletch There’s a reason it took over 30 years to make the next Fletch film. No matter who filled the title role, no matter how talented they were, they would be compared to Chevy Chase at the absolute apex of his comedic powers. After years of rumors and starts and stops and so many rumored actors as Fletch, it finally happened. And somehow I totally missed it? I had no memory of this coming out three years ago, so was surprised to see it when scrolling around. And it went about as I expected.

Jon Hamm is great, has all kinds of comedic chops. But he’s not Chevy, or at least he’s not 1984/5 Chevy. I laughed, but not nearly as hard as I would if I rewatched the original Fletch immediately after. I wondered if I would have reacted differently/more strongly if the name Fletch wasn’t involved, and it was just a comedy with no baggage. Maybe being 53 instead of 13 made a big difference in how I viewed it? I think it might still have been a little too subtle. I skimmed a few reviews after watching and the one criticism that stuck out to me was that this movie needed to be sillier and closer in tone to the original. I agree.

Anyway, this wasn’t a bad film at all. I enjoyed it. I laughed. I liked some of the repeating jokes (“Five stars!”). The cast was generally quite good (John Slattery and Jon Hamm together again!). There was a callback to the climax of the original film that was nice. I wanted it to be more, though.

Alas, as this movie didn’t do much business, the plan for another Hamm-led entry in the series has been scrapped. Maybe in another 30 years some other actor will take on the role, and by then we’ll be far enough removed from the original that it will work better.

American Psycho One of my favorite movies of this era, a wicked satire on the Wall Street culture of the late Eighties. It forever changed how I think about Phil Collins/Genesis, Huey Lewis and the News, and Whitney Houston. Also wild to see Christian Bale strolling through the dark streets of New York in an overcoat when a few years later he would do a similar walk in Batman’s cape. Shame so many of the young people chose to meme the hell out of this movie without understanding what it was truly about.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol I had never watched any of these other than the very first one. I think mostly because the series really got rolling in the years I thought Tom Cruise was a total nutter and I didn’t have a ton of interest in his work. Figured I would give them a shot, starting with this one, which is where the online reviews say the series got good. Agreed, this was pretty solid. Funny that Leá Seydoux was a villain here and a few years later James Bond’s lover. I didn’t get around to watching the rest before our Paramount + sub expired, but some of them are on Prime so I’ll get to them at some point.

B+

Airplane! My first complete re-watch in who knows how long, after reading the oral history of the film. Still as funny as ever. So many subtle jokes in between all the big laughs.

30 Rock, season 2 The show really hit its stride this season, only to be shortened because of a writer’s strike. It’s interesting to read back on the history of the show, and how the critics were crazy about it while the ratings were never there. Even being a part of NBC’s comedy night. Somehow this was one of the least watched shows on TV. America is dumb.

A-

Tucci In Italy Thank goodness someone gave Stanley Tucci some money to continue his culinary travels through his ancestral homeland. If you’ve ever been to Italy, this show will make you want to go back.

Shorts, YouTubes, etc

Will Ferrell Takes The Colbert Questionert Not the locked-in, late night Ferrell of 10–15 years ago, but still fun.

Why did Communist Vietnam invade Communist Cambodia? Because people are people?

Why Nobody Uses Boats Between the Hawaiian Islands Interesting question which seems like a no-brainer to us mainlanders until you see there are some serious reasons why before you even get to the economics of it.

Meet Henry, the world’s oldest crocodile I did some more reading about Henry after watching this. He’s sired around 10,000 offspring with six different partners. It’s good to be king.

Cheers | Every Time Norm Peterson Enters the Bar RIP to George Wendt.

Jon Hamm Replies To Fans Online | Actually Me Hi-larious!

The world’s oldest river has a big problem As much as I enjoy Beau Miles’ usual bullshit, when he is serious his videos are very well done and quite moving.

Roberto Baggio | FIFA World Cup Goals Hell yeah! I can still hear Bob Ley’s call of the goal against Bulgaria as he worked his way through the defense: “Roberto Baggio. Roberto Baggio! ROBERTO BAGGIO!!!!!”

The Loneliest Flight in The World Stuff like this kind of freaks me out. We put A LOT of trust in our technology.

The Untold Story of Jordan’s Pre-Game Bar Adventure Yikes!

Why wasn’t Portugal Conquered by Spain? Added to my Portugal file in advance of next year.

Christian Bale Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters | GQ Legend.

Why Lawrence of Arabia Still Looks Like a Billion Bucks A little too technical at times but still interesting.

The Patagonia You Don’t See Gorgeous. But the title is kind of a lie, since he clearly took a cruise ship to these areas “you don’t see.” Dummy.

Inside the Arnett, OK tornado - May 18, 2025 This is wild, and apparently now a thing. I immediately found other videos where drones were flown into twisters.

Worst bomb: Eddie Murphy, Norm Macdonald, John Oliver, and Jerry Seinfeld A lot of good moments in here.

Vaer Presents North Shore Lifeguards Association – A Story of Purpose and Protection I’m fine with commercials that are this cool.

The Most Naughty Innuendos Of All Time | This Morning Gino’s Most Iconic Moments Ever | This Morning So apparently British morning TV is way better than ours. I might watch the Today Show again if it was like this. The sausage in the hole bit is amazing.

Incredible Hiking in the Canadian Rockies Finding a Hidden Gem in the Middle of Nowhere My standard comment that it sure would be cool to live like this.

How We Made the Best Adventure Travel Show on the Internet | Huckberry’s DIRT Origin Story Cool inside baseball details.

Exploring NOMOS - finally! Adding this to the long list of watches I will never be able to afford but can still lust after.

Caine’s Arcade What a wonderful, heart-warming, soul-filling video. Obviously it is 13 years old, because nice things like this don’t happen anymore.

Car Content

The Zeekr 007 GT Is A Cool Electric Wagon I Wish We Got In The USA The American auto industry will never go away. It’s too important in too many ways. And no matter who is president we will be more interested in protective tarrifs than incentivizing American companies via the same kinds of subsidies the Chinese used to build their industry. But its influence in the rest of the world is rapidly waning because of vehicles like this. GM and Ford are going to be niche manufacturers before we know it.

You could wait for the Rivian R3X or… This was intriguing until I saw how little legroom there is in the backseat.

Everything I Love & Hate About Our New Rivian R1S After Driving It 1,000 Miles Home Still #1 on my list for my next vehicle, but in addition to getting the R2 onto roads next year, Rivian really needs to solve their service problem if they want to become legit players.

Photography

The Magic of Spring in the Columbia River Gorge Travel Photography in the Columbia River Gorge // Fuji X-T5 Photography Report: Key West, Florida with the Mamiya 7ii TTArtisan AF 27mm f2.8 vs Fujifilm 27mm f2.8 WR I Took My Leica M11-P to Italy for a Week Shooting a New Film Stock on the Bronica SQ & Contax T2 It makes photography easier, instantly. one camera. no plan. in London From Lisbon to Nazare | Fuji X100VI Cinematic The Fujifilm X half is Just Plain FUN! Fujifilm Colors | Are You Getting the Most Out of Your Camera? How to use the 50mm like the masters, and why? Film Photography in the San Juan Islands

Friday Playlist

Fri, 30 May 2025 07:40:05 -0400

This came together surprisingly well for it being a short, busy week. It helps that we are in Summer Music season.

[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0ra5DjXARpQDidVsgr9sdm?si=f8daf02bc15c4f88)

“Constructive Summer” - The Hold Steady Always good advice to build something in the summer.

“Andromeda” - Preoccupations Not a bad song on the latest Preoccupations album.

“One Million” - Rocket Other than “Cherub Rock,” I was never a Smashing Pumpkins fan, so it’s kind of weird I enjoy so many new bands, like this one, that mimic their sound. A lot of it has to do with the lead singer not being Billy Corgan. These kids will actually open up for the Pumpkins on their upcoming tour.

“Chemicals” - Split System Good, old-fashioned, Aussie punk rock.

“Pacemaker” - Georgie & Joe Am I hearing the early 90s in this jam?

“The Line” - Trace Mountains As much as I like it when Trace Mountains leans into War on Drugs adjacent sounds, I also enjoy when they make music that sounds different and stands on its own.

“Get Out My Face AKA Bad Kitty” - Garbage I liked Garbage’s first comeback a lot. This one lacks the energy and urgency of their best work. Still worth sharing.

“Summertime Is Coming” - Paul Banks No lies told here.

[youtu.be/_c5ln9wP0...](https://youtu.be/_c5ln9wP0TA?si=BOHdU09CR6VQuNo3)

“Fall Down” - Toad The Wet Sprocket This week’s Alternative Number Ones entry. A nice change-of-pace by TTWS from the songs that first made them stars. Funny to read through their history and realize although they broke out right as the Alternative Music Revolution was beginning, their early, mellower singles were much bigger hits on the mainstream chart than the alternative one.

Weekend Notes, Part 2: Sports

Wed, 28 May 2025 11:08:16 -0400

Continuing our look back at last weekend (and slightly beyond), let’s get into the sports.

PACERS!!!!

Quite the swing of emotions, this Eastern Conference Finals series.

Game one was the Pacers’ legendary comeback and overtime win.

Game two Friday was a Big Brother game for them, getting another win in Madison Square Garden by controlling the game from start-to-finish and keeping the Knicks at an arm’s length every time they made a run.

Sunday’s game three seemed to be the perfect cap on one of the great sports days in Indianapolis history. Coming a few hours after the Indy 500, the Pacers were red-hot to start. Late in the second quarter Tyrese Haliburton flipped a wonderful pass backwards over a defender that Obi Toppin caught one-handed and threw down. On the next possession Haliburton hit a long 3. Then he got a steal and breakaway dunk to put the Pacers up by 20.

Gainbridge was deafening. The Knicks were reeling. The series was over.

Only the Pacers got sloppy, the Knicks found something with their bench unit, and slowly whittled the margin until they took the lead midway through the fourth quarter and never gave it up. Indiana went from being on the verge of the NBA Finals to facing some serious questions and pressure in the span of about 75 minutes.

Worse than the loss was the lower leg injury Aaron Nesmith suffered late in the first half. He came back and played some second half minutes, but for a guy who missed 35 games with a similar injury earlier this year and is the Pacers most effective defender on Jalen Brunson, it was super worrisome.

I think it’s a measure of how engaged I am with this team that I couldn’t sleep after Sunday’s collapse. Normally only KU basketball can have that effect on me.

Which took us to last night’s game four. It was playing out like a combination of games two and three, the Pacers again getting out early and controlling the game. Their leads weren’t quite as big as they had been Sunday and the Knicks runs sooner. New York tied the game just before halftime but a 14–0 Pacers run that bridged halftime gave them control that they never relinquished.

There were some dicey moments late. The Pacers seemed to go braindead a couple times on offense, by either being passive and one-dimensional or just plain sloppy and throwing the ball away. The Knicks never completely took advantage, though. It went down to the final minute until Toppin splashed a 3 as the shot clock expired with 46 seconds left to clinch it.

The Pacers are a game away from the NBA Finals.

Nesmith played and was again brilliant on defense. He really may be the most important player on the roster in this series, as no one else can guard Brunson as well as he can. Brunson was nearly perfect when matched with any other defender, hitting every shot and getting to the free throw line often. When matched with Nesmith, though, he was a mess. The dirty secret of this series is that the Knicks have played their best ball of the series when Brunson sits. I think it’s because the ball moves so much more and better when he’s not dominating it. Also he has been truly horrific on defense and whoever replaces him can at least pretend to guard someone.

Bennedict Mathurin finally had a positive game after looking overmatched and unplayable through the first three games. He scored 20 points in the fewest minutes played of any player in playoff game in NBA history. He still had some shaky moments and I worry that he’s going to get ejected because he thinks he needs to respond to every cheap shot Brunson and Josh Hart level on Haliburton. The Pacers wouldn’t have won without him Tuesday.

Pascal Siakam was, again, brilliant, hunting mismatches and punishing them when he found them.

And Hali, of course, was spectacular. In 38 minutes he scored 32 points, had 12 rebounds, 15 assists, 4 steals and ZERO turnovers. It’s one thing to have a line like that in the regular season, which he often does. But to do it against an intense, physical team like the Knicks in late May? That was one of the greatest playoff games in Pacers history.

Now it’s back to New York for game five. Logic would suggest that the Knicks get their shit together, ride the emotion of the home crowd, and grab that one, sending the series back to Indy. However, they seemed a little broken late Tuesday. Karl-Anthony Towns was grabbing his knee after every play. But he’s such a weird dude I don’t know what to make of that. We might hear today he’s out for the series or he may play with zero limp Thursday and continue to torch the Pacers D. Seriously, if one of your best players can barely walk and it’s a 10 point game in the final minute, how do you not sit him down? That makes me think he’s picked up the embellishment gene from his Villanova grad teammates.

Brunson is actually taking heat from Knicks fans he’s been so bad on D. Something tells me he’s going to be even more physical Thursday, and will get away with it since the game is in New York.

I think these teams are very close, but as I said a week ago, the Pacers are the more coherent team. They can plug their holes easier. When they get locked in their style is more punishing than the Knicks. They have three chances to win one game to end the series. I don’t think they are going to need all three.

Jacque?!?!?

I’ve been deep in the message board rumor mongering about how KU is filling out their roster for next year since the Jayhawks’ season came to an inglorious end back in March. Last week was a tough week, losing two big recruits that KU seemed to, at one point or another, have the inside track on. Recruiting in the NIL era is a different beast.

Along with those roster rumors was the bombshell that Bill Self was talking to KU legend Jacque Vaughn about joining his staff as an assistant. Rumors that were confirmed last week when Vaughn was officially hired.

That news brought all kinds of mixed emotions and thoughts. On the one hand JV is young (but not super young) and could sprinkle some life into a coaching staff that is filled with guys in their 60s who have been together for ages. He has been a head coach in the NBA twice, and while the results weren’t great, he comes from the San Antonio coaching tree which is the best in the pro game. He coached some difficult players in New Jersey and they always seemed to like playing for him even if the wins didn’t come often enough. With the college game getting more like the NBA every day, his addition could help update Self’s offense for the modern era. And, hell, he’s one of the most beloved KU players of all time. Both an on-the-court All American and an Academic All American, the engine that ran one of the great KU squads of all time. If you polled KU fans of what team that didn’t win a national title they loved the most, that 1997 team would almost certainly top the list.[1]

There was some weirdness to the rumors, though. There was chatter that Self was being forced to bring in a young assistant with KU ties by big money donors. I have no idea if this was true or not, but the talk was out there. I don’t love the thought of Self being told he won’t get the money he wants for his roster unless he hires an assistant donors approve of.

What I worried about more was how, if you’ve been an NBA coach twice, you settle in as an assistant at the college level? Even if you’re joining the staff of one of the greatest coaches of his era at your alma mater, there are some strange optics there.

There was immediate speculation that Vaughn would join as a dreaded “coach-in-waiting,” which would fit the persistent rumors that Self has told people close to him he will only coach one or two more seasons. If that’s the case, it makes sense to give JV the chance to come in, learn the college game, especially recruiting, with a buffer of being an assistant for a year or two before he formally takes over.

These coach-in-waiting deals can get messy, though, if not handled right. Especially if Self isn’t 100% sure of his plan. The last thing you want to do is have the greatest coach in program history leave on bad terms because you forced his successor into the mix too early. What if their styles, either basketball or personality, don’t mesh? Or what if Self has indeed told AD Travis Goff he will retire next spring, but is reinvigorated by a young, exciting team and changes his mind?

I also worry about deciding who your next coach is without a formal, open interview process. Maybe Vaughn is the best person to be the next KU coach. I hate not seeing if there’s someone better “outside the family” available when Self does retire, though.

As far as we know, there is no formal language in Vaughn’s contract stating he will be the next KU coach. Assuming he and Self are on the same page, I think this is a good opportunity for him to test the college game and see if that is where he wants to spend the next part of his career. Maybe he does it for a year and realizes he hates recruiting, or the difference in talent and commitment between college kids and NBA pros is too great, or in the NIL era it is too easy to get out-bid on a recruit you’ve spent two years cultivating and Vaughn decides he’d rather go work in an NBA front office. Better, I suppose, for him to figure that out while sitting to Bill Self’s left than bringing him in after after Self retires and realizing then that his heart and skills aren’t fit for the college game.

That said, come on, if Self retires in the next couple years, JV will absolutely get the job next if he wants it. You don’t bring someone with his background in and then hire someone else.

I have no idea if JV will be a good college coach or not. I kind of hate the coach-in-waiting concept. But if you’re going to take that path, I think he’s as good a candidate as anyone. He’s smart. He knows ball. Has had success and failure in life, so arrives humbled. He loves KU. My hope is that everyone involved has open minds, are clearly communicating, and if it doesn’t work it fails because he’s a bad fit, he decides the job isn’t for him, etc and not because of a power struggle or whatever between him and Self. I’m pretty sure they both want what is best for KU and the long-term health of the program. I would bet that’s the reason it took nearly two weeks to get the deal done as they hammered out those secondary details that may not get written into a contract.

Jim Irsay

Slightly lost in the Pacers fever was the death of Colts owner Jim Irsay last Wednesday. While his death was sudden and unexpected, with him you could never say it was a surprise. Irsay battled a lot of demons and had a couple public brushes with death in recent years.[2] He has genuinely looked awful when appearing in public for nearly a decade. I’ve not seen a formal cause of death released, but, honestly, nothing would surprise me.

To his credit, he was open about his issues with substance abuse and mental illness. He is given much of the credit for the NFL’s public campaign to de-stigmatize mental health issues. He kept the team in Indianapolis even when the LA market was wide open and begging for a new franchise. He did a lot of good things with his money.

He was also kind of a kook, in both the best and worst ways. We don’t need to get into any more of that. All humans are complex.

I had to roll my eyes at the stories of his career that were bandied about last week. “From ballboy to team owner!” His fucking dad owned the team when he was a “ballboy.” It’s not like he rode his bike to old Municipal Stadium in Baltimore and lined up with other kids from the area to help out on gamedays.

His kids will take the franchise over now. There are plenty of examples of that going sideways in other cities. But the Colts haven’t exactly been a model franchise for the past decade. Erratic is probably the kindest way to describe Irsay’s stewardship. Perhaps the team will be steadier now, whether his kids have the football knowledge he possessed or not.

Fever

Hey, guess what? There’s already an exhausting, manufactured controversy that involves Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and race. It only took two games into the new WNBA season for all the disingenuous commentators to crawl out from under their rocks and start lobbing takes. My favorites are all these anti-woke talking heads who whined when Colin Kaepernick took a knee to protest Black people being killed. “KEEP POLITICS OUT OF SPORTS!!!11!!!” they shouted. That “outrage” at their sports being polluted by “angry” Black men has been cultivated into a new branch of the media that is focused on exactly what they complained about: injecting politics into every aspect of sports. You know the people and the forums, and they never miss an opportunity to blame a loss or failure on wokeness, DEI, and all the familiar right wing hits instead of a player just sucking or a team not being good enough. According to them, Clark is now the most discriminated against player in professional sports. I try to avoid these fools, but their nonsense inevitably infects the rest of sports talk and I eventually read their idiocy.

Clark is now injured and will miss at least a couple weeks. That’s bad for the Fever but maybe it will calm down the rhetoric. At least until she comes back and a Black player has the nerve to foul her, which will get the dog whistlers whistling again.

1986 and 2003 would also get a lot of votes. ↩
Or at least became public. News only trickled out well after they happened. ↩

Weekend Notes, Part 1

Tue, 27 May 2025 13:28:39 -0400

Another super busy weekend, not to mention some big news that lead in to the weekend. Because of that, I’ll probably split this into two posts, the second coming tomorrow.

Our school year officially ended on Friday with L’s last final. She just had one exam in her first period, so I called her out at 10:30. She had some girlfriends over in the afternoon and some young men joined them later on. They swam, ate pizza, hung out around the fire pit, and an encouragingly large number of them kept coming inside to check on the Pacers game. Good kids.

Most of our weekend was dominating by preparing for C’s graduation party, which we were hosting on Memorial Day. She was sharing the gathering with two of her friends, so S was doing a lot of coordination with the other moms to make sure all the food and drink was covered. My job was to clean the house and make sure the pool, which had been temperamental last week, was in good shape for L’s group to swim on Friday and then just to look pretty for Monday. Oh, and we squeezed in an afternoon of swimming for all the local nephews on Saturday. I’m pleased to say with a big assist from my pool guy, the water was clear and ready-to-go all weekend. Who knew a six ounce squirt of the right chemical could totally clear up 25,000 gallons of water?

Grad Party

As soon as the bridal shower we hosted a week ago wrapped, we started eyeing the forecast for Memorial Day. It was a roller coaster. One day it would say low 60s and rain, the next clear and 70. And so on. By Friday it had steadied to at least be dry, if cloudy, and in the upper 60s. Then we woke Monday morning to a perfect day. Not many clouds. It pushed into the low 70s. Other than some periodic breezes that played havoc with the picture boards and flower vases on each table, we had zero weather complaints. It could have been pouring like at M’s combined party two years ago. Or 90 and everyone fighting for shade. Today dawned much cooler with clouds and occasional sprinkles. We timed it right.

My sister-in-law the chef provided most of the food and it was incredible, as always.

As far as we know all the kids got along and there weren’t any hurt feelings, misunderstandings, etc. There was a rumor that a girl C does not get along with might show up, as she is friendly with one of the other graduates. When they heard this, both M and L said they were going to kick her ass if she showed up. Which is pretty funny because neither of them have ever been in a fight. It sure would have made for an interesting story! Fortunately this girl was smart enough to stay away. I think she knew the real person she needed to fear was S, who definitely holds grudges against people who cause her kids pain.

With two other grad families here, it was weird to see total strangers casually stroll into our backyard.

Anyway, it was a good day. C’s core group hung out and swam for a couple hours after the party before clearing out. S and I got most of the stuff outside broken down and the inside cleaned up before 9:00. It made for a long day. It was worth it.

With that our family is done, directly, with grad season activities. It started way back in March, prepping for spring break, the stress of that week in Florida, then prom, finals week, C’s last days on campus, graduation weekend, and now her party. We still have plenty of parties on our calendar for the next month, but those will be as guests dropping it to say hello, share a card, and then escape.

Indy 500

Sunday was, of course, race day here in Indy. We did what all Indy residents who don’t go to the race do: watched the local news all morning to follow the goings-on at the track, the traffic trying to get to the Speedway, and the radar to make sure any rain stayed away. All morning the weather people noted that while there was a lot of rain in Illinois, they expected it to fade by the time it reached Indy. Ooops.

For some reason they put the drivers in their cars and then had them sit in them doing nothing for nearly 45 minutes because light showers had passed over part of the track and they wanted to make sure the surface was dry before starting. Somehow with 350,000 people crammed into the facility they couldn’t tell it was raining and let the drivers chill somewhere other than their cramped cockpits while it passed.

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, the race sold out early, so for only the sixth time ever IMS waived the local TV blackout. It happened last year thanks to severe storms that delayed the race for hours, but this was the first time the race had been shown live, at its traditional time, in nearly a decade. I do kind of miss the Indy tradition of listening to the radio broadcast, but it is fun to watch live and not have to wait for the evening replay.

This was also the first time Fox showed the race. As you would expected, they thoroughly Fox-ed it up. At C’s party I talked to our neighbor, who went to the race for 67 straight years before finally calling it quits last year. I was glad as someone who watches exactly one race a year that my complaints matched his.

We couldn’t understand why they were talking to pace car driver Michael Strahan live while he was trying to lead the cars out to begin the race. It was clearly a distraction as the guy in the passenger seat kept giving him hand motions encouraging Strahan to go faster. Never mind that the pace car’s whole job is to, you know, get the cars up to race speed. Talking to him was more important in Fox’s eyes.

OK, they’re paying Tom Brady a bazillion dollars to be an announcer. So I get why they had to shoehorn him into coverage. But people here HATE Tom Brady. Tone deaf much? And while they had Peyton Manning do a voice over for a feature, he never appeared. What a stupid miss.

Noted race fans and Indianapolis legends Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriquez called the drivers to their cars. Utterly baffling.

Worse were the misses during the race. Multiple times something big would happen and Fox would completely miss it. Ryan Hunter-Reay was leading the race when he pitted. The cameras cut away to show action on the track, as you do, and like a minute later they showed Hunter-Reay still in the pits, apparently stalled out. As soon as his pitstop lasted more than 10 seconds they should have been back on him.

The biggest miss of the day, though, was missing the fucking end of the race. As Alex Palou and Marcus Ericsson came out of turn four and raced to the finish, the cameras cut away to show a car half a lap back crashed into the wall. Now, this was important as it forced the yellow caution flag to come out, freezing the cars in position. But while showing this crumpled car in the back stretch, Palou crossed the line for the biggest win of his career. And Fox didn’t show it. As the cherry on top, once they switched back to live and showed Palou in his victory lap and celebration, they never went back and showed what caused the wreck that forced the race to end under caution or explained why a wreck on the opposite side of the track forced the lead cars to finish under yellow.

Fox has covered Nascar for years, so they understand how to broadcast auto racing. But if a dummy like me, who again watches one race a year, can pick out all these errors, I would imagine most real race fans were like my neighbor and disgusted with how the race was presented to them.

Fox is always going to Fox.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 23 May 2025 07:41:46 -0400

It’s the Friday before Memorial Day. That means it’s both time to break out the summer music and to play a song I always play this weekend. Two songs, actually.

open.spotify.com/playlist/…

“Jack & Diane” - John Mellencamp Years ago, when we were still lake people, one of my better Facebook posts was something along the lines of “It’s not Memorial Day weekend until you’re drunk at the lake and you hear ‘Jack And Diane.’” We don’t have a lake house anymore. I don’t really get drunk, either. But we can still listen to Mellencamp to kick off the biggest weekend of the year in Indy.

“Sober” - Elbow Speaking of not drinking…I’ve been hot and cold on Elbow over the years, but have been enjoying their most recent music.

“What’s Fair” - Blondshell When Sabrina Teitelbaum first hit the scene she took a lot of heat for capitalizing on her father’s status and wealth to establish her career. With album #2 out, there’s no doubt she’s a legit talent.

“Radio Armageddon/What Rock Is” - Chuck D Mistachuck is back! I listened to his new album last week. It’s solid, especially when considering that he is 64 years old. But so much of it, from his voice to the production to the arrangement of the songs, comes off as a B-minus version of his classic work in Public Enemy. These are the first two tracks on the album. They give you an idea of what most of the rest of the album sounds like.

“Metal” - The Beths The Beths’ music almost always makes me happy.

“Bird On A Swing” - Cory Hanson A dramatic shift in tone and sound from his last project, which was jammed full of Eighties-esque shredded solos.

“My Friend Dario” - Vitalic It’s race weekend. Vroom vroom.

youtu.be/xgrQQLdyY…

“My City Of Ruins” - Bruce Springsteen Live in Manchester, May 14, 2025

I attempted to include this in the playlist above, but for some reason it’s not showing up. Seems fishy to me. If you’ve been following the news this week, you know why this is here.

youtu.be/Kr0tTbTbm…

“Summertime” - DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince DRUMS PLEASE!!!!

OMG In MSG

Thu, 22 May 2025 08:16:53 -0400

Normally on a day like this, after what happened at Madison Square Garden last night, I would have hopped out of bed early and banged out 25,000 words about the latest inexplicable Pacers, come-from-behind win.

Funny thing happened last night, though. If funny is a proper synonym for infuriating.

At 7:59 I set aside my small screen where I was watching YouTube vids and hit the power button on the remote to fire up the big screen for the game. The TV began it’s warmup process and just as the screen came to life, our power went out.

There were no storms at the time. We didn’t hear the sound of a transformer blowing somewhere near us. Nor someone using a chainsaw that had possibly sent a tree towards a power line as happened last month two houses down the block.[1]

So I waited a few minutes in case it was one of the temporary outages that we sometimes experience.

No dice.

By the time I dug out my little radio, the Pacers were up by six early.

I checked our power company’s website but it did not show any outages in our area. I refreshed it a couple times without any updates, so went to the page where you report outages. Naturally it was not working. Our power company is truly the worst when it comes to customer relations. If there’s one page on a utility’s website that should never go down, it is their Report An Outage page!

So I called. The nice lady who eventually answered said there had been reports from 15 others in our area, they couldn’t identify what the cause was yet, but that a crew was on the way to investigate. By the time we got off the phone the outage map showed 48 people in our little area were without power. There weren’t any other large outages in the city, so I hoped that meant a quick resolution. By halftime, at least.

All I could do was wait and listen to the game on the radio. Which was what I did for the next three-and-a-half hours. Thus I missed much of the experience.

The Pacers hung with the Knicks until the fourth quarter, when they decided to stop playing defense and gave up a huge run despite Jalen Brunson sitting on the bench with five fouls. I was about to turn the radio off and go to bed late in the fourth quarter with the Pacers down 14. Time to get ready for game two.

Then Aaron Nesmith hit a 3. And another. And another. And another. Meanwhile the Knicks were missing shots, both from the field and the free throw line, and turning the ball over. When Nesmith hit his fifth 3 of the quarter it was suddenly a two-point game. The teams exchanged some free throws as the Pacers slowly ran out f time.

As I said last month, though, never count the Pacers out.

youtu.be/YHE5rgJfH…

This was not nearly as cool on the radio, as I didn’t see Tyrese Haliburton’s frantic retreat to the arc, the insanely high carom of his shot off the rim, the ball falling through the net, nor the wild celebration. The Pacers radio guys went momentarily crazy but quickly saw that Haliburton’s toe was on the line and that the game would be going to overtime.

As tends to happen in these situations, the team that ended regulation on the run and had the miracle finish kept the momentum and the Pacers stole game one. Thank goodness for Haliburton, as it would have been tough to come back from giving the Reggie Miller choke sign to the crowd and then losing the game.

This is the third time the Pacers have done this in this year’s playoffs, coming from at least seven points down in the final 50 seconds of regulation.

I tried to tell you people about how this team never gets rattled or gives up. Maybe you’ll start listening to me now.

(Edit: It was terribly fun to follow Pacers bloggers and listen to the radio announcers as they tried to talk themselves into the comeback after Nesmith’s third 3. So many variations of “Is this really going to happen again?” which got progressively louder as the deficit got smaller.)

Three wins to the Finals.

Oh, and the power came back on just after 4:00 AM. First I noticed that our bathroom light was on. Then I heard our TV downstairs, blasting whatever TNT shows at that ungodly hour. Now I have a fun morning ahead of clearing our two fridges of all the perishables and making a trip to the grocery store to replace them.[2] In the midst of the outage I was doing research on whole-home generators. If we assume L is going to get a fat academic scholarship in two years, we might be able to make it work…

During game one of the Milwaukee series. Maybe I should want the power to go off when the Pacers play. ↩
I got a text from our cable company while typing this, at 8:06 AM, that our service had been restored at 4:26 AM. Gee, thanks for that. ↩

Pacers-Knicks

Wed, 21 May 2025 12:43:27 -0400

The long wait is over: the NBA Eastern Conference finals begin tonight. The Pacers have been sitting around for more than week as the Knicks closed out the Celtics and then the stupid NBA calendar got situated. Somehow the Western Conference finals started before the Eastern, even though the Thunder just finished their series against Denver on Sunday. Dumb.

Anyway, it’s finally here. This is a truly fascinating series and it’s been fun to hear the NBA podcasters I pay attention to twist themselves around trying to pick a winner. While most seem to land on Knicks in seven, they still have a hard time getting there.

For most reasons you have to throw out last year’s Pacers triumph in seven games in the semifinals. The Knicks were mega-banged up in that series and were literally falling apart by that final blowout. They’ve added Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges, and Mitchell Robinson is finally healthy. Meanwhile the Pacers are basically the same team, with Pascal Siakam having an entire season in Indy and Andrew Nembhard turning into a starter in his second NBA season. Bennedict Mathurin was out last year because of injury and is the only big change in Indiana’s main rotation.

Despite the roster changes I think the Pacers did take away a lot from winning last year. They won a game seven on the road, at the time the most anticipated basketball game in New York City in a generation. Although they were swept by the Celtics in the conference finals, they easily could have won three of those games. In the NBA there is often a stair-stepped process for teams to win a championship. The Pacers took a couple of those steps last year.

The stylistic matchup is terrific. Both teams try to wear down their opponents, but in very different ways. The Pacers are always forcing tempo, running on offense and pressing on defense. The Knicks are trying to batter you on both ends, the fouling-est team that never gets called for it on defense and then Jalen Brunson punishing people at the end of the shot clock on offense. Both teams’ strengths line up exactly with their opponents’ weaknesses. The Pacers are deep, athletic, and can really shoot it, but are small and basically don’t worry about offensive rebounding. The Knicks are thin, injury-prone, but have an ideal, modern, non-scoring big in Robinson, who is a shot-blocking fool and rebounding machine. To me he might be the key to the entire series, as the Pacers don’t have anyone who can match him. Both teams are built around point guards who are end-of-game wizards.

I think the Knicks are too reliant on Brunson. So I probably just jinxed them into Towns and Bridges having huge series. I think the Pacers do a much better job of always having another player step up, not just game-to-game but moment-to-moment. So now Siakam and Myles Turner are going to be dominated by Mitchell, Towns, and OG Anunoby.

The Pacers might shoot and run the Knicks out of the series. Josh Hart might get away with 1000 fouls on defense (then bitch on every dead ball about the calls he’s not getting) and take Tyrese Haliburton, Nembhard, and/or Aaron Nesmith out of what they want to do. We know Brunson is going to fall down 100 times a game, then lie there like he got shot, and draw fouls when he didn’t get touched.[1]

Yes, I’m already getting worked up about the refs and the Knicks. Just like last year when Turner is going to get called for two absolute garbage illegal screens in crunch time while Hart never comes close to fouling out.

This is a tough one.

If the Pacers can steal a win in one of the first games in New York, I say they win in six. If not, Knicks in seven. It’s going to be nerve wracking no matter who wins and in how many games.

There currently is not a more infuriating star in the league than Brunson. By all accounts a very good guy. Gets soooo much out of his body and skills. You have to admire him. But there is not a better player in the league right now at drawing phantom fouls, acting like he just had a season-ending injury then hitting a step-back 3 moments later, and all the sly stuff he does on offense like grabbing defender’s arms or jerseys then pushing off that he NEVER gets called for. ↩

Long Weekend Notes

Tue, 20 May 2025 08:48:16 -0400

We are in it.

Grad season has arrived. That and some other activities kept us very busy over the past few days. Let’s go day-by-day.

Friday

We lucked out and just missed the bad storms that rolled through our area Friday evening. We had our fingers crossed a little extra harder than normal because we had two fridges full of catered food for our Saturday activities. We did get heavy rain and high winds. But the power stayed on, thankfully.

The worst storms in Indiana passed about an hour south of us, including a tornado that was on the ground for about an hour. It was the first time in a while I’ve spent several hours watching severe storm coverage on TV, something that always gets the Kansan in me fired up. Foreshadowing!

We actually had two rounds of storms so I was able to pump the water off our pool between them. We have so much pollen in the air right now that the water after round one looked more like pea soup than rain water. Disgusting.

I was about to head to bed a little after 11:00 when I noticed the sky to the east lighting up. I checked the radar but there was nothing on it. The lightning kept getting more intense and, five minutes later, there was a massive red blob on the radar. Thankfully it was moving away from us. The storms were supposed to be over but there was so much energy left in the environment that this one blew up out of nowhere. Spring in the Midwest.

Saturday

Big day. First off, it was C’s 19th birthday. In classic middle child fashion, it fell on a day when we had to focus on something else. She celebrated by getting up pretty early (for her) to hustle down to the Southside of Indy for the grad party of one of her best friends.

The something else was hosting a bridal shower for our old neighbors, whose oldest daughter is getting married in August. Their youngest daughter leaves for six weeks in England next week and mom and dad will both left the country for a week on Monday, so this was the one weekend that worked. C was a good sport about it, plus they brought her a special cake.

M had “moved” into her new Cincinnati apartment for the summer on Thursday. I put “moved” in quotes because she just took a few things as the girl she’s subleasing from left all her furniture. She drove home Saturday morning as she is a bridesmaid in the wedding and was going to help run the game portion of the shower.

We had about 50 people over and spent all morning and early afternoon prepping for them. While the storms passing took the heat and humidity with them - it was downright nasty Thursday and Friday afternoons - they did leave strong winds in their wake. We had a big canopy over the tables and had to ratchet it down with six buckets full of water to keep it from blowing away. The entire day was a challenge to secure items so they wouldn’t get tossed, flipped, or otherwise ejected from their proper spot.

The shower itself went well, at least from our perspective. It was also a nice practice run for us since we are hosting a graduation party for C and two friends on Memorial Day. We now know we need to make a sign for the driveway so people don’t try to park in our yard or block our narrow street and instead use the parking lot at the YMCA next door. Like the invitation clearly stated but which no one seemed to read.

Sunday

To start the day, I went over to the Y with L to rebound for her first true shooting session in over three months. She’s been shooting a little, mostly form shooting, but was just cleared to shoot jump shots last week. Her form was crap and she got winded quickly, but I liked that when she made shots, they were ripping through the net. This was a nice milestone almost exactly 90 days after her surgery.

Our big event of this day came in the evening: C’s baccalaureate mass. Parking was a mess, as always. The CHS gym was crowded, muggy, and uncomfortable. Also as always. And the mass was too long. Again, as always.

One of the speakers noted that this class arrived on campus during the second year of Covid. At their orientation mass, they sat on the football field, socially distanced from each other, with masks on. Sunday we were crowded into a gym together again.

After Mass we took the girls to Portillo’s - C’s choice for her belated birthday dinner - then came home for delayed birthday cake.

I was about to go to bed when I saw a blurb about a tornado near where one of my college buddies lives in Texas. I fired up the YouTube weather geek network and found instead of the Texas storm - he was fine - they were focused on a massive, angry storm that was barreling towards the part of Kansas where I was born and my grandparents lived. So I spent the next hour watching storm trackers and storm chasers as a big tornado roared across fields and, eventually, a small, unincorporated town.

Monday

Graduation day!

L and I kicked it off by going to an early PT session. She was officially cleared to begin some light jogging, working up to actual running next week. Still a couple more milestones to pass but getting back on the court is a little closer every day.

Graduation was, for the first time I believe, held at a new suburban events center. M’s two years ago was outdoors on the CHS baseball field, on a sunny, warm day. Weather didn’t matter Monday since we were indoors. But it was a perfectly pleasant evening. And the venue was nice, with ample parking and plenty of room inside for families.

The ceremony was pretty much like every graduation ceremony. A little long but still checking in just under two hours. So glad we sent our girls to a school where classes are under 300 kids.[1] The big suburban districts around us often have classes of 1000 kids or more. Even chopping them into two graduation nights makes for a long evening of listening to names.

Afterwards we had C’s grandparents over for cake. She opened her first grade time capsule that was sealed up 11 years ago. The highlight was finding her Daisy Scout vest in it. A picture of her and her friends in their vests from first grade had just hit my Time Hop yesterday.

M had to jump in her car and make a late drive back to Cincy as she starts her summer internship this morning.

On top of all that, over the weekend I watched a decent amount of Indy 500 qualifying - which had some real drama this year[2] - a little of the PGA, plenty of the NBA playoffs and the Royals-Cardinals series. Also in there I managed to let the pool chemistry get bad and I’m fighting to get the water clear again in time for L to have friends over Friday and so it looks decent for our grad party next week. I hate the first couple weeks of each pool season. It seems like something always goes wrong and I’m in a battle with something in the water.

M’s class was 250-ish, C’s 275, L’s started right at 300, which is as big as CHS will let them get. ↩
As a bonus news dropped Friday that the race will be sold out and, in a rare occurrence, will be shown live on TV in Indiana. ↩

Reader's Notebook, 5/19/25

Mon, 19 May 2025 12:04:17 -0400

I’m going to delay the weekend notes until tomorrow since we have a rather important event tonight. Fortunately I have two books that I need to share some thoughts about.

Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane! - David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker Truly one of the most fun books I’ve read in a long time. The three men behind the movie Airplane! come together for an oral history of both how their partnership started and the lengthy, arduous process to get their classic comedy made. There are plenty of insights from other people, both from the cast and within the entertainment industry. I laughed almost as much reading this as I would had I been watching the movie, something I’m about to do again for the first time in ages.

My favorite piece of trivia that was new to me: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s part was originally written for Pete Rose. But as the film was being shot during the baseball season, Rose was unavailable and they had to scramble for a replacement. I can’t imagine Rose would have been anywhere near as shocking and funny as Kareem.

Also, fuck Pete Rose. For many, many reasons.

Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live - Susan Morrison After waiting for months my hold on the newest Lorne Michaels biography finally came in. I’m not sure if this was essential, especially since I just read one of the great Saturday Night Live accountings earlier this year. But I heard Morrison on Bill Simmons’ podcast around the time her book came out and the access she got made it seem essential to an old SNL-head like me.

As a biography of a person rather than show, it obviously has a different focus. We learn all about Michaels’ upbringing in Toronto and the early days of his career in Canada and the US before he began SNL. We see how he developed his comedic point of view, both from absorbing the works of others and through his various failures early in his career.

In the SNL years, like so many other books that follow the show’s history, the earlier years get more attention than the later ones. Many anecdotes I’ve read multiple times before appear here. It was interesting, though, to see what ones Morrison highlighted or put into different contexts than past writers have done. There are plenty of quotes from many of the most famous performers in the show’s history. Big surprise that Chevy Chase’s reputation as an ass is confirmed for the millionth time.

We’ve always heard of Michaels’ various personality traits that have a profound effect on the show and its cast members. He can be cold and distant, cruel and direct, inscrutable and maddening. He encourages and supports people in their weakest moments and then ignores them when they triumph. He is a name dropper of the first order, and casually mentions his friendships with some of the most famous people in the world and vacations at some of the most exclusive parts of the world like everyone else, including new cast members with a couple hundred dollars to their names, has the same experiences. He’s kind of a weird dude.

Morrison gets at where all that comes from. The final portrait isn’t necessarily all that flattering. You can admire the institution he created while thinking he could have done some things differently over the past 50 years. I feel like that’s something that has taken me over 50 years to figure out for myself: you can like someone’s work while also thinking that they are kind of a dick.

Friday Playlist

Fri, 16 May 2025 06:58:32 -0400

We’ve reached what may be the busiest 10–12 days of the year for our family. Thus I’m putting this together Thursday evening, which could lead us in some surprising directions.

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“Friday On My Mind” - Brògeal This seems like a good way to start. When writing about this band, Tom Breihan said, “They look and sound like the most Scottish motherfuckers you ever saw in your entire life…” which might be the greatest description of a band ever.

“Better Than You” - Briston Maroney A standard, solid Maroney jam.

“My Love Will Bring You Home” - Allo Darlin’ This band was responsible for the wonderful “Capricornia,” my 13th favorite song of 2012. Their last album was 11 years ago. They broke up nine years ago. But they are back together, and seem to have locked right back into that joyful yet also melancholy sound of their first go-round.

“I Broke My World” - Alien Boy I dig this band’s fuzzy, garagey sound. While putting together their latest album they said they listened to a lot of 90s music, including Smashing Pumpkins and Third Eye Blind. I can hear both of those bands in this track.

“Come Alive” - Phantogram I’m not sure if I ever listened to Phantogram’s latest album, which came out seven months ago. But each time a hear a song from it, I like it.

“Sports Gun” - Lawn I was almost positive this band featured the lead singer of Parquet Courts. It is not him. I think I like this band’s sound better than PC’s. They seem less snotty and more fun. Better guitars, too.

“Bitch Heart” - Frankie Cosmos A fun song about how we are in a constant battle between comfort and cutting loose.

“Solid” - Cut Copy I feel like I used to like this band, but even digging through the old iTunes library on my network drive doesn’t show that I had any of their songs. Memory is weird sometimes.

“Sister Jack” - Spoon This week’s anniversary album is Spoon’s Gimme Fiction, released 20 years ago. I have vivid memories of listening to it on my iPod in the basement of our old house while trying to nap while S would do things with Baby M upstairs. Here’s Stereogum’s anniversary writeup. One of my top 5 Spoon songs.

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“Go Your Own Way” - Fleetwood Mac Nope, not including this because Will Ferrell sings it in his current commercial. Rather, it is here because of a delightful development in our house. L has been getting into vinyl recently. She has albums from a few of her favorite current artists like Frank Ocean, SZA, and Leon Bridges. A few weeks ago she came home with Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, which made me raise my eyebrows. A few days ago she said they are now her favorite band. I told her she should go find one of several documentaries about the making of that album so she could learn about what a mess the group was at the time. “I’ve watched a couple of them already,” was her response. I told her the Seventies were a wild time. I think she wants to read and/or watch Daisy Jones & the Six now, knowing it was loosely based on Mac. Surprising all around!

Thursday Links

Thu, 15 May 2025 08:38:20 -0400

A few more links to pieces some of you may be interested in.

I love thinking about how this will delight some Star Wars geeks, and make others super angry.

The Phony Physics of Star Wars Are a Blast

Sadly I didn’t find this recent interview with Bob Mould until after I saw him last week.

What are your feelings right now about the state of the country? It’s the end of an era, this great experiment we put together. I don’t know how we get out of this. I’m 64. I’ve seen a lot. Nothing like this. I don’t even know where to start. Every single person, whether you stand up against the MAGA movement or whether you’re part of it, you’re going to feel it, unless you’re in the very tippity, tippity top of the one percent or maybe the top two percent of income earners in America.

‘THIS IS WAR’: BOB MOULD ON AGING INDIE, HIS MUSIC’S LEGACY, AND WHERE THE U.S. GOES FROM HERE

The headline for this piece is hardly an original thought - I’ve had it many times over the past nine-ish years - but there’s never a bad time for giving Carl Hiaasen some attention and props. So many of his books are similar - if still enjoyable - that I haven’t read a new one in years. I’ve added his most recent to my list.

Yet even the most detestable characters are more complicated than they appear at first glance: Hiaasen aims to create, as he once put it, villains whom “people don’t want to shoot right away.”

We’re All Living In A Carl Hiaasen Novel

Perhaps this should be a launching point for a longer piece by me, but I figured it’s better just to link to the article and share a couple thoughts about Myles Turner. It’s hard to believe he’s been in Indy so long. His career has been odd, as mentioned in the piece. But a funny thing happens when a player hangs around long enough: they become beloved. That he’s in the center of the success of the current edition of the Pacers is as satisfying as it is surprising.

Myles Turner made me cry: On his decade-long journey with the Indiana Pacers

Fantastic news! Although this begs the question as to why NBC even exists anymore if they are going to hide this on Peacock.

Amy Poehler, Mike Schur Reunite for Peacock Comedy ‘Dig’

I feel seen.

THIS FIVE-HUNDRED-WORD BUMPER STICKER ON MY TESLA EXPLAINS WHY I’M NOT A BAD PERSON

NBA Notes

Wed, 14 May 2025 10:42:46 -0400

Another wild few days in the NBA, on the court and off.

Pacers

They did it again! Going back to Cleveland for game five Tuesday felt like a sure loss, even with all the Cavs’ injury woes. Take the L on the road, the final punch of the year from the proud-yet-battered #1 seed, and then close out the series at home on Thursday.

It sure looked like that’s where things were headed as Cleveland built a 19-point lead early in the second quarter. Just like game two, the Pacers were missing open shots before the Cavaliers ratcheted up their defense to get Indiana away from what they wanted to do and then started hitting shots of their own.

The turnaround was quicker this time.

The lead was down to four at halftime and after Cleveland scored four-straight points to start the third quarter, Rick Carlisle called a quick timeout. Here came the big run, and the Pacers were leading by 12 with under a minute to play in the period. There were some rallies in the fourth quarter - the Cavs got it down to one point twice - but once again the Pacers always had an answer. Myles Turner hit a corner 3 with 23 seconds left to clinch the win and the Cavs’ dream season was suddenly over.

There was a very telling moment early in the third quarter. The Cavs were up eight when Donovan Mitchell picked off a bad Andrew Nembhard pass. There was nobody ahead of Mitchell and the Cleveland crowd was roaring in anticipation of a powerful dunk. Only Mitchell chopped his steps and timidly tried to lay the ball up, which Turner came flying in to block away. We knew Mitchell was playing with a bum ankle but he couldn’t even elevate for a breakaway dunk. After that play I knew the Pacers would win.

Mitchell did have to sit out a few minutes to get his ankle looked at, but still scored 35 points, including a couple huge 3s late in the game that gave the Cavs hope. But he also missed three-straight free throws during that run which could have cut the Pacers’ lead to three with just under 2:00 left. That dude is amazing and never stops, but his body let him down.

Darius Garland also could barely walk at times, it seemed, although Kenny Atkinson was reluctant to remove him since the Cavs’ bench was mostly ass in this series. It’s a testament to how good Cleveland was this year that they were still in this game until the end.

But, as many national observers have finally started to notice, the Pacers were simply the better team. They are a nightmare matchup for other guard heavy teams thanks to the relentless pressure they put on the ball and withering pace they try to sustain on offense. As I said a week or two ago they are a well-constructed squad where all the parts fit together nearly perfectly. And they seem to never get rattled by the moment.

Also, poor Cleveland.

It is now on to the conference finals for the second-straight season. And, most likely, there will be a surprise opponent waiting for them there. Because…

Tatum/Celtics-Knicks

I’m not a Celtics fan but it was terrible watching Jason Tatum blow out his achilles Monday night. He seems like a very good dude, in one of the best players in the world, and is never injured. Until now. He was playing one of the most complete games of his life. And then a teammate threw a bad pass that Tatum had to lunge for, only he crumpled to the ground as his achilles gave out.

The Celtics had already screwed that game, and the series, up. But any hopes of a comeback in that game or the series were gone when Tatum left the court. And now the future of the Celtics is very much in doubt. Tatum will likely miss an entire season. They face a massive salary crunch. A team that was built to contend over a 5–6 year period might need a total revamp by the time Tatum is healthy again. Time moves quickly in the NBA.

The real story from this series, though, is how the Knicks have thoroughly taken it to the Celtics. The Celtics have led by double digits in every game in the series, yet find themselves down 3–1. The Knicks were a regular season disappointment, but have found something the last couple weeks (although they barely survived Detroit in round one) and are on the verge of making this a truly special year. They’ve been lucky with injuries so far. As a Pacers fan I’m hope the reverse devil magic that seems to waylay Pacers opponents strikes the Knicks. And I would love it if the refs would not allow the Knicks to play a style closer to football than basketball, although we know that’s not going to happen based on how the playoffs overall have been officiated.

Side note about that: way back when L was in third grade and I was helping to coach her team, we had a girl who would put her arms around whoever she was guarding and give her loose hugs to stay close to her. We kept having to tell her you can’t hug the girl you are guarding. I keep thinking of that kid as I watch the playoffs this year. Superstars who are off-the-ball get completely wrapped up so they can’t move. When they try to break out, defenders will grab jerseys, waistbands, and arms, and I haven’t seen a single whistle for it. Then the Knicks take that to another level and do this to players who have the ball. I don’t get it. Prepare for a lot of complaints about that from me once the conference finals begin.

Draft Lottery

As big as the Tatum news was, the biggest NBA news of the week came earlier that evening when the Dallas Mavericks somehow won the NBA Draft Lottery despite having less that 2% odds to grab the #1 pick. Outrageous!

San Antonio grabbed the second pick, Philadelphia the third. All the truly bad teams - Washington, Charlotte, Utah, New Orleans, Brooklyn - got screwed. The Mavericks, who made the play-in tournament and would have been comfortably in the bottom of the playoffs had Kyrie Irving not blow out his achilles, leaped all those teams and get to take Cooper Flagg.

I was of the opinion that this was a massive fail by the Hoops Gods, rewarding Dallas GM Niko Harrison for his insane trade of Luka Doncic earlier this year. Others pointed out perhaps the Hoops Gods did this as a gift to Dallas fans for watching their homegrown superstar be traded away.

I’m not sure which is correct, I just know Dallas picking first is stupid.

Of course there were immediate jokes that Harrison would try to trade the pick to the Lakers to get Luka back. Or he would make some other dumb trade or pick rather than just plug Flagg in next to Anthony Davis, Klay Thompson, and eventually Kyrie Irving. I don’t think he’s dumb enough to screw this gift up, though.

Meanwhile the Spurs, who were doing just fine until Victor Wembanyama got hurt, now have a massive opportunity to either plug another young star in next to him, or flip that pick to bring in a veteran star (Giannis?). And the Sixers, who had one of the most disgusting seasons in NBA history, are gifted their fifth top three pick in 11 years, which doesn’t seem right.[1]

I’m not big into conspiracy theories about the draft. As Zach Lowe pointed out, it’s hard to believe 29 other owners would stand by and let the commissioner rig it so one of their competitors were able to get a specific player. This sure seems odd, bordering on fishy, though.

The actual process for deciding who picks where is fascinating and weird. The first four picks are determined by selecting four ping pong balls for each pick, with teams given a selection of the possible combinations. Philadelphia was one ping pong ball away from completely losing their first round pick, but ended up landing at #3. ↩

Weekend Notes

Mon, 12 May 2025 10:21:47 -0400

Well that was a fantastic weekend! Belated Happy Mothers Days to all the moms out there. I hope you had as good of weekends as we did.

Visitors

Our good friends Dave and Maureen visited from KC over the weekend. The reason for their trip, other than hanging out at blog headquarters, was so Dave and I could watch Bob Mould play some rock ’n’ roll Saturday night. Maureen was nice enough to share her Mother’s Day weekend with us old men. I’m comfortable speaking for us all in saying that we had a terrific time together.

Friday evening we took them to Harry & Izzy’s for shrimp cocktail and steak/fish. I tried to get us into St. Elmo’s downtown, but with it being Grand Prix weekend they were already totally booked when I checked a few weeks back. H&I gets you 90% of the St. E’s experience, and as it is 10 minutes from our house, a little easier to get to. The shrimp never disappoints. As I get older I can tolerate the horseradish a little less. Sigh.

Saturday we did brunch at one of our favorite spots then did a tour of the city, including getting out to walk around/have a beer on funky Mass Ave. Maureen is an IU alum so she spent some time in Indy back in the day and was familiar with the bones of the city, although a lot has changed since she returned to Missouri in 1993.

Saturday night Dave and I went to the show with another local buddy. More on that in a moment. The wives drank wine, watched a movie, and chatted. You should not be surprised that two short, opinionated, Irish women got along famously. We should get them to run for office.

For Mother’s Day, Dave and I whipped up a spread for the ladies (and our girls) that was well received. Then we enjoyed the gorgeous weather by sitting outside for their final few hours in town.

All-in-all a terrific visit. Our many mutual friends who read this should be excited to know that the ladies came up with all kinds of fun plans for when we all are empty nesters in a few years.[1]

Bob Mould

Wow I’ve never been to a show quite like what the 65-year-old punk/indie rock legend put on Saturday.

It was at the Hi-Fi, a very small club in the quirky Fountain Square area just south of downtown. Capacity is 500 people and it’s honestly not much bigger than our swimming pool. The place was jam-packed with people who, from the looks of it, mostly went waaaaay back with Bob. Dave and I were some of the youngest people there.

What made the show unique is how Bob and his band played. They took the stage, he said a few words of greeting, and then ripped into the songs and never really stopped. Six-straight songs without a break of any kind. Then a quick swig of water and right back to it. About an hour into the show he paused for about 30 seconds to thank the opening band then introduce his bassist and drummer, then into the next song. I believe one other time he made a few quick comments but other than that, zero banter, and generally straight from one song to the next. For an hour and 25 minutes or so. With nary a ballad in the setlist. Just an absolute blowtorch of a show. Bob is a large man in his mid–60s. But he is up there shouting and screaming and playing insanely loud guitar without interruption. There wasn’t even an encore. Just 27 songs with maybe two or three collected minutes of breaks between. Super impressive. And super entertaining.

Despite our hopes that as it was the next-to-last stop on the tour he might throw a few surprises at us (Sugar songs!), he stuck to the rigid list he’s been playing all tour. The only minor disappointment on the night.

Last Day of School

Friday was C’s final day of normal high school classes. She has to go back tomorrow to take one test but otherwise is done. I was a little surprised she wasn’t more excited when she got home Friday afternoon. Over the course of the weekend I realized I think she’s a little emotional about the moment. Not that she loved high school all that much, but rather the weight of everything that is happening is coming down on her. And as our sensitive, anxious, ADHD kid, that means she’s not jumping for joy at being done with CHS.

L has one more week of regular classes and then finals next week before she is done. C’s graduation is a week from today then her party will be on Memorial Day. You are all welcome to join us!

Pool

The pool is open. The water warmed up the quickest it’s ever gotten to a reasonable temperature, reaching 80 early Sunday morning after starting in the low 60s. That’s what some good, bright, May sunshine will do for you. Some of the nephews came over and swam Sunday afternoon. The water was getting cloudy Sunday evening so I’m already in the early struggles of getting the chemistry to a good baseline.

New Pope

Hey, we got a Pope from Chicago! I’m pleased that he’s already on record basically calling our vice president a liar. Although he better watch out; Pope Francis didn’t survive 24 hours after meeting with J.D.

Just like when Francis was elected, M was the first person to let me know the process was complete. She came running down Thursday afternoon and yelled, “There’s a new pope!” I guess she’s my go-to source for pope news.

Pacers

I missed most of Friday’s game three as we were out eating with the V’s. By the time we got home the Pacers were down around 20, and while I guess they made a run to cut it to seven at one point, Dave and I decided to watch the end of the Royals walk-off win instead. Good choice.

And then came Sunday’s game four.

When I was 12 or 13, I went to the old NAIA tournament in Kansas City.[2] The night we went was in the quarter- or maybe semi-finals, and Ft. Hays State, where my parents went to school, was playing. The Tigers were an NAIA power at the time, winning back-to-back titles in 1984–85, and a ton of folks had made the four-hour drive to KC for the tournament. They filled most of Kemper Arena that night. Anyway, I vividly recall a guy wearing a shirt with the old, iron-on letters that said “Ft. Hays Basketball Is Orgasmic.” I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant but still found it to be very funny.

That might be the best way to describe Sunday night’s game four. Or at least the second quarter. And just for Pacers fans, obviously. That was one of the most thorough ass-whoopings I’ve seen in an NBA playoff game. Although the Pacers kind of did the same thing to the Knicks last year in game seven at MSG.

The Pacers were clearly the best team from the start. A bigger deal Sunday since the Cavaliers began the game with all their normal starters on the court. Indiana led by 15 at the end of the first quarter. Early in the second quarter Bennedict Mathurin got ejected for “striking De’Andre Hunter in the sternum with a closed fist.” It was some typical bullshit all around: Mathurin for taking the swipe, which was far closer to a love tap than a punch, Hunter for somehow not also getting tossed for responding with way more force than Mathurin used in his initial “punch,” and the refs for looking at the replay for five minutes and somehow coming to that conclusion.

Anyway, it was a dicey moment. Would the Pacers be able to hang on without one of their most important bench players?

They only outscored the Cavs 42–16 in that quarter, so I guess they weathered the storm. I’m not sure what the right nature analogy is, but it was either a tornado, hurricane, avalanche or tidal wave that blew Cleveland off the court. It was breathtaking. Or even orgasmic if you’re into that kind of thing.

I normally get somewhere from antsy to upset when a team continues to press when they get up by 20–25 points. At least at L’s games. But the Pacers were pressing up 40 late in the second quarter and I loved every second of it. They ripped the hearts and souls out of the Cavs in that quarter, and at the risk of jinxing the final series outcome, I don’t see any way Cleveland can recover. The Pacers are the better, more cohesive team right now. Donovan Mitchell sat out the second half with an ankle injury. Darius Garland played but is clearly still hobbled.[3] Crazy things can happen in sports so you don’t want to get ahead of yourself. But the craziness in this series seems to be that the #1 seed in the East will get run out of the playoffs in round two.

Also, Cleveland remains a cursed sports city. One of the best regular season teams in league history and they’ve been decimated by injuries and bad luck for the past week. Folks in northeast Ohio probably saw this coming.

There are a lot of you, including D&M, who are reaching that point this year. Two more years for us. ↩
I know there is still an NAIA tournament, but this was back when a lot of schools that are currently in NCAA D2 were still NAIA programs and you would see some genuinely good ball with a fair amount of players who would reach the NBA. ↩
Props to him for falling down, completely on his own, when he tried to cut on his bad toe, rolling into T.J. McConnell, and somehow drawing a foul on McConnell despite traveling and initiating the contact. The refs have not done a great job in this series. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 09 May 2025 06:37:43 -0400

I feel like I’m settling into my new groove after the switch to Apple Music, finding a better balance between the old and new music. I think you’re going to like this week’s choices, which includes a couple special tracks.

open.spotify.com/playlist/…

“Black Confetti” - Bob Mould Hey, I’m seeing Bob Mould tomorrow night! And my brother-in-music Dave V. is coming to town to join me! I’m very excited to see the legend in person…and Mr. Mould, too.

It is a slight downer that Mould seems to be playing pretty much the same 27 songs each night, and there isn’t a single Sugar song in the setlist. I’m sure he has a reason, but as much as I admire his Hüsker Dü work and enjoy his 30-some years of solo efforts, I think he hit his peak in his Sugar days. A minor complaint, though. And, who knows, maybe he’ll throw caution to the wind and mix things up for us good folk in Indy. I bet it’s still going to be freaking awesome and I won’t be able to hear for a week after.

“Tyrants” - Sam Fender Another example of an artist releasing a pretty good song not too long after releasing a pretty good album. In this case, “Tyrants” goes back a few years and Fender has played it live many times, but this is its first studio recording, released for Record Store Day ’25.

“Running of the Bulls” - Le Pain Funny how a name and a sound can fool you into thinking a band is from somewhere far from where they actually hail from. This sister act is from LA, but they sure seem French to me. Until the guitars explode at the end, then they seem very LA.

“Neverender” - Justice with Tame Impala Well this group is French. Or at least Justice is. Kevin “Tame Impala” Parker is from Australia. Hey, you got your French electro pop in my Aussie psych rock!

“Real Good Dream” - Acid Dad Good, spring-ish, synth pop.

“Your Little Hoodrat Friend” - The Hold Steady We’ve reached the anniversary portion of this week’s playlist. THS’ legendary Separation Sunday just celebrated its 20th anniversary. This song blew me away the first time I heard it, and still does every time I play it to this day. Tom Breihan wrote a predictably great accounting of the album. She’s been callin’ me again…

“Listen Like Thieves” - INXS And Listen Like Thieves just turned 40. “What You Need” was the bigger hit, but this is my favorite song not only off that album, but maybe from the band’s entire discography. This is a new remix from the 40th anniversary re-issue which is out today.

“May Ninth” - Khruangbin And guess what today is?

youtu.be/lM7H0ooV_…

“Brimful of Asha” - Cornershop Remember when these guys had a tiny moment? Most of you probably just responded “No.” It was such a short moment it was easy to miss. A remixed version of this track went to #1 in the UK but was a minor blip here, making it to #16 on the Modern Rock chart. Great song, though. And cool video.

Reader's Notebook, 5/8/25

Thu, 08 May 2025 08:43:58 -0400

I’ve fallen behind again and I just started a book that’s going to take a week or so to get through, so some quick-ish book notes.

Charlesgate Confidential - Scott Von Doviak A fun, pulpy novel that takes place over three different timelines in Boston, centered on an old building that has a complex (and haunted?) history. It begins with a mob heist and killing after World War II, jumps to a college student in 1986 who investigates the history of the building, and lands on a detective in 2014 who tries to tie a case he is working back to the weird cycle of past events. Like most novels of this type, multiple threads tie the three stories together.

The Book Censor’s Library - Bothayna Al-Essa My first effort at a novel that made this year’s Tournament of Books. It takes places in a mystery country in a mystery time (the book was translated from Arabic, so my brain kept putting it in the Middle East, but an author’s note saying it could be placed anywhere) where the government has taken strong control of people’s lives. Books are heavily censored, and anything that will raise readers’ pulse rates - sex, religion, democracy - is removed from circulation.

One censor is introduced to classic works like Zorba The Greek and Alice In Wonderland by a superior and begins questioning why people aren’t allowed to read whatever they want. Soon he is sneaking books that were slated for destruction to a secret storage area where they are being hoarded for preservation.

There are obvious connections to books like 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, and Al-Essa directly references those. While these stories can always serve as warnings about the unchecked power of government, no matter who is in charge, they seem extra significant now when books are being pulled off the shelves of public and school libraries because of complains by parents who fear exposing their kids to different perspectives will turn them into mindless, godless woke-bots.

A Place Of My Own - Michael Pollan Sometimes I read weird books. In this case, a rather lengthy one about a writer building a shed for him to do his work in. But it’s more than that. Pollan gets deep into all kinds of theory and history of design, architecture, and human shelter in general. I can’t say it was all super engaging and there weren’t some sections about theory that I either skimmed or read with glazed eyes and did not retain much from.

That said, I’ve been fascinated with the idea of a workshop, “he-shed,” or similar spaces for some time. It’s not that I need a space to get away from it all. We have a big house and I spend a lot of the day/week in it alone. I can do pretty much whatever I want wherever I want. And when S is home at night, I often default to watching movies, shows, etc on my iPad sitting on one couch while she sits on the loveseat on her own screen rather than go watch stuff on the big screen downstairs. Not that we’re all lovey-dovey, but I just like being near her in the few hours she is home and awake.

But there is some primal desire I can’t beat down for a space of my own. I’m not into tools, mechanical projects, etc, so there’s no need to convert part of our garage into a workshop, or to carve out a section of our unfinished basement for “D’s projects.” I love the idea of what Pollan did, though, building a little structure that would be dedicated to writing, reading, etc. But 1) I don’t make any money from my writing and don’t really have prospects to at the moment, 2) we did build a big structure in the backyard five years ago, aka our pool house, 3) I have about 18 different places in the house where I can go and write, read, etc. and 4) we are in the process of subtracting kids from the house so we are gaining space rather than searching for areas to call our own. M’s room could become my writer’s nook.

Still, the concept appeals. And it was cool to follow Pollan making it happen with the assistance of a friendly architect and helpful carpenter who guided him through the process.

Wild Night

Wed, 07 May 2025 09:53:36 -0400

A crazy few hours Tuesday night.

Holy Shit, Pacers!!!

I knew the Pacers were in trouble when I saw, about an hour before game two of the Eastern Conference semifinals, that Cleveland would be missing three starters. THREE. How did I know they were in trouble? Because any time the Pacers faced a situation like this in the regular season, they laid a huge egg, either losing to a bad team or having to work like crazy in the fourth quarter to avoid an embarrassing L. In fact, there are multiple memes in the Pacers-verse about how the team plays like champions against good teams, and ass against bad/injury riddled teams. Just last month, as the regular season wound down, Indiana played the Cavs who were resting all their starters after locking up the top seed. Those replacement Cavs gave the Pacers starters everything they had for about ¾ of the game before the Pacers finally eeked out the win.

While the nation might have expected an easy Pacers win, I knew better.

So most of the game was no surprise. The shots that were falling in game one for Indiana kept bricking off. Cleveland played inspired, especially on the defensive end, and Donovan Mitchell was wearing his Superman cape. The Pacers trailed by 20 multiple times. By 14 going into the fourth quarter. As much as I wanted to expect a late-game rush like last month, the playoffs are a different animal and Cleveland was playing like their season was on the line while the Pacers just couldn’t find the right gears.

The margin was seven with under 50 seconds left. Five with 27 seconds left. Three with 12 seconds left. Two with 1.1 seconds left. And the Pacers won.

In that stretch Aaron Nesmith had a SICK follow dunk off a Pascal Siakam missed free throw.

youtube.com/shorts/KP…

Then he drew an offensive foul from Mitchell.[1] Tyrese Haliburton went to the line down three with 12 seconds left and swished the first. Then I’m pretty sure he missed the second on purpose, wiggled through traffic to grab the loose ball, and drained a step-back 3 to win the game.

youtube.com/shorts/Kg…

There was screaming and yelling all over Indy, including in our living room, when the ball ripped through the net.

2–0 out of nowhere and who knows what the Cavs’ health, physical and mental, will be going forward. Mitchell took a beating, some of it self-imposed because of how he plays, and was hobbled late in the game.

I found this insane stat in ESPN’s story this morning:

Since 1997–98, playoff teams have won only three of 1,643 games when trailing by at least seven points in the final minute of the fourth quarter or overtime, according to ESPN research.
The Pacers have accounted for two of the wins in this postseason.

If the Pacers win this series, Haliburton’s 3 and Nesmith’s dunk will go down in franchise lore, shots that are shown in montages for decades.

At this point you have to at least consider the possibility that the Pacers are on some charmed run. And the Celtics seem a little banged up and blew their game one against New York. The NBA doesn’t usually have Cinderellas but maybe…

Of course now the Cavs will probably win games three and four in Indy and turn it into a best-of-three series.

High Speed Chase

I was about to wrap up things and head to bed Tuesday night when I heard loud car sounds. We live just off a very busy street and while it was after 11:00, we do get the occasional fool who takes advantage of the lighter traffic to rip down the road.

But this was different. There seemed to be a lot of engines racing. And then I noticed a lot of police sirens. I looked out our front door and saw five police cars fly by. We get emergency vehicles up-and-down that street all day but I’d never seen cops driving this fast. They were going so fast I heard their engines before the sirens.

Seconds later our power flickered, which seemed really weird. It flickered twice more in the next minute or so, and I thought I heard a transformer blowing somewhere.

Then two more cops flew by. And then two more.

C, the only other person awake, texted me saying “So many cops!”

And then more cops raced down the street, followed by a fire truck.

This continued for a while. In total, at least 20 police cars passed our house in about a 10 minute stretch.

I finally came to my senses and launched a police scanner app to try to get an idea for what was going on.

From what I could gather, a high-speed chase started at least two suburbs away, continued through Carmel, and then cut through our part of northern Indy. Three or four blocks from our house the car being chased crashed, taking out a power line in the process. We were lucky; about 300 people lost power for several hours but ours just blinked those three times.

Most excitingly, it seemed like driver of the car had fled the crash on foot and cops were setting up a perimeter to nab him. The Indy Metro Police network pulls in calls from all over the city, so it was very hard to follow as calls about a shooting on the east side, a fight in a parking lot downtown, and a couple welfare checks in other parts of the city slipped between the calls from the officers working the chase. I was able to hear cars checking in from various intersections in our area where they had posted up. There was a momentary thrill when one cop radioed in the intersection right outside our house, although I think the feed was delayed and he had already moved closer to the action. I could also hear cops from different cities involved in the chase coordinating their search. It sounded like they had the guy pinned down, or at least had an idea where he was and were using both a dog and drone to get a better view.

Eventually the calls dwindled and it was midnight and I had to get up early so I checked out. Naturally I can’t find a thing about it on any local TV station’s new page or on the paper’s site. I had to take L to PT and then school this morning. On my way back I drove through the neighborhood where the search was and couldn’t find any evidence of a wreck, damage to a power line, or remnants of police activity. Disappointing.

In our nearly seven years here we’ve now had a murder half a mile away that we could hear the shots from, a crazy person having a brief armed stand-off with cops a half mile the opposite way, a homeless person die while sleeping outside the grocery store around the corner, some idiot empty a clip on their handgun in the street two doors down, and now a high speed chase. I’m not sure if that’s going to be a selling point when it comes time for us to downsize but it makes for interesting evenings.

Truth: Nesmith probably should have been called for a violation for stepping over the 3-point line before Siakam shot the ball. But Mitchell should have been called for a flagrant foul instead of a common foul. So even? ↩

Tuesday Links

Tue, 06 May 2025 09:09:02 -0400

A bunch of good reads to share.

When I went to Washington D.C. with L’s class two years ago, one of the most impactful experiences was the several hours we spent in the National Museum of African American History and Culture. It was emotional, made me angry and proud to be an American at the same time, and should be a required stop on any DC visit. Naturally it is under fire because telling the truth about our past offends too many old, white people.

This nation’s history exists inside this museum. Attempting to strip the institution of the stories that tell the truth about who we have been is an attempt to perpetuate a lie about who we are.

What It Means To Tell The Truth About America

This is an amazing piece in general, attempting to both quantify the Vietnam War and then put those numbers into context. This passage really struck me, though. It very much sums up Trump’s America, where you never admit you made a mistake so you never take responsibility for how your actions impact others (emphasis in pull quote is mine).

The US has given $750 million for the cleanup effort, which seems like a large sum until you realize that the country spent $352 billion ($2.2 trillion after inflation) on the war effort. Earlier this year, the Trump administration ~suspended funding~ for bomb removal in Vietnam. Given the size of the issue, and how much progress has been made in five decades, it’s difficult to imagine a bomb-free Vietnam in the next 500 years — unless the current pace is significantly accelerated.

For Scale

This is a good companion piece.

How Photography From the Vietnam War Changed America

Sammy Hagar loves talking about himself and Van Halen. It’s always entertaining. Here he theorizes on why Eddie Van Halen stopped making new music late in his life.

So, that’s why he stopped writing, I think, because he just ran out. Shit, how much do you need? How much can you squeeze out of the dude? He gave his blood, brother.

SAMMY HAGAR TO ALEX VAN HALEN: ‘JUST LEAVE ME ALONE. I’LL LEAVE YOU ALONE’

Steven Hyden with his latest list. I feel like there are some stretches, but as a member of the CD generation, there are also a lot of entries here that pretty much everyone my age owned at some point. I loved this line, too.

There have been 15 (!) Aerosmith greatest hits albums in all, an incredible statistic considering there are (I’m being generous because I actually like Aerosmith) about 15 genuinely good Aerosmith tunes.

The Most ‘CD Album’ Albums Ever, Ranked

I watched the latest Fletch movie over the weekend, a movie I either did not know or had forgotten existed until I scrolled past it looking for something else. So I did some digging, and here are two of the better pieces I came across about the decades-long efforts to make the next entry in the series.

The Lost Roles of the Unproduced Fletch Reboot Forget the steak sandwich, the 30-year journey to the Confess, Fletch trailer is over

WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK?!?!?!

He felt the most dramatic way to raise awareness of the issue was to allow himself to be bit, repeatedly…To date, he estimates he’s willingly been bit some 200 times by all manner of venomous snakes — black mambas, taipans, cobras, kraits and many others.

He let snakes bite him some 200 times to create a better snakebite antivenom

Interesting Bluesky thread about the production cycle, and costs, for Nikes, and how tariffs might affect them.

derek guy (@dieworkwear.bsky.social)

Weekend Notes

Mon, 05 May 2025 11:58:11 -0400

A week after prom and before four consecutive weeks where we will be very busy, it was a nice, boring, lazy weekend.

Weather

There’s no delicate way to say this: our weather was ass most of the weekend. It rained Friday night into Saturday, then off-and-on the rest of the weekend. The temps slowly dropped from the 70s into the 40s. Sunday was dark and dreary and misty and generally ugly. It felt more like January in Portland, not Indianapolis the first weekend of May.

Fortunately spring will come drifting back over the next couple days. Our landscaping guys are due here this week to clean everything up and lay new mulch. And the pool guys will be here Friday to get it started up for the season. Spring is undefeated, folks.[1] That crappy weather meant we didn’t do a whole hell of a lot over the weekend. So more notes about sports than anything else. With one exception…

Moving Back

Thursday S and I drove down to Cincinnati to move M out of her sorority house. It was kind of an interesting trip.

We knew we would be driving into rain, but had no idea we’d spend about 20 minutes driving through a series of near-severe storms with torrential rains. The second round was the worst. Visibility was basically down to zero on the interstate, which is always fun. Even with folks using their hazard lights we were basically crawling, hoping we didn’t hit someone or run off the road. Then I came up on some fool who refused to put their hazards on. We were still in the midst of the storm when a few other fools went blowing past us at normal speeds while the rest of us were maybe going 25 MPH.

We made it to campus safely and had to dodge graduation traffic to find a parking space. Then we had to hustle to get our cars full of M’s stuff before the storms rolled into Cincy. We were parked roughly a block from her house, down a rather large hill. So there was a lot of running up the hill, then walking back down it and its multiple sets of old, concrete steps with arms full of crap. If you know our oldest daughter, it won’t be a surprise that she was moving much slower than we wanted her too, then being overly dramatic about how hard she was working.

Thankfully we got the cars loaded and her checked out of her house just before the rain hit. We went to one of her favorite spots just off campus for her final UC lunch of the academic year. Luckily the storms were going around the city, so it was just a steady rain we waited out while eating. We made it back home in normal time and filled up our bonus room with everything we moved back for the next two weeks before she returns to Cincy for her summer internship. Luckily we won’t have to move everything back right away. She’s sub-leasing from a friend who left all her furniture, so will mostly take clothes for the summer. Now in August, when she moves into the apartment she’ll have the next two years, we will need to rent a truck to get all her furniture down. I’m sure that will be a real joy. And we get to move C to Bloomington at about the same time. Are there people you can pay to do this for you?

Anyway, good to have M home for a few weeks. Her grades aren’t official yet but she’s pretty sure she got straight A’s again this semester. She’s halfway done with college! Actually more because the fall semester of her senior year she will likely be doing a co-op and not taking any classes.

Pacers

DAMN, that’s how you start a series!

The Pacers went into Cleveland, built up a big first half lead, weathered a bunch of Cavaliers runs, and ended up winning by nine after making some huge plays on both ends late.

Now, Cleveland was without Darius Garland, who was a late scratch because of a lingering injury. The Pacers shot the lights out and the Cavs had one of their worst 3-point nights of the year.

But 1–0 and stealing home court advantage is all the matters.

Another game that showed what a great combination of talent this squad is. People who don’t see them every night have a hard time getting it. They’re not an NBA title contender. But they are a team that can steal any seven game series because they know who they are and never get rattled. Tyrese Haliburton was absolute ass on defense much of the night, then somehow forced two huge stops late. Always a wild ride with him.

Local TV broadcasts of games ends when the conferences semifinals begin, so I was forced to watch the TNT feed. Which was fine. Mega props to Greg Anthony for saying, when the Pacers challenged an offensive foul on Myles Turner late in the game, “I like the challenge but I don’t think they are going to win it.” I forgot what wild stuff he says sometimes since he was in announcer purgatory for a few years.

Also, a broader NBA observation, I LOVE how NBA series between evenly matched teams swing. I haven’t watched a ton of ball outside Pacers games, little bits and pieces of each series, but am still deep into The Ringer’s NBA pods, so I hear the breakdowns after each game. It is so fun how team A will win a game comfortably, the series seems under their control, and two nights later team B has made some huge adjustments and are right back in it. The Clippers really should have won their series against Denver. Detroit probably should have upset the Knicks. The Rockets-Warriors series was crazy. I think Pacers-Cavs is headed down that same path, with two of the best offenses in the league taking turns dropping 15–3 runs on each other for another 4–6 games. It’s a league where coaches can scheme around anything but it often comes down to which team gets the hottest from behind the 3-point arc.

Fever

It’s opening week for the WNBA. ESPN showed the Fever’s final exhibition game Sunday, a matchup with the Brazilian national team in Iowa City. You can’t take too much away from the game since this was far from Brazil’s full Olympic squad - one of their best players in yesterday’s lineup is an 18-year-old who will be a freshman at South Carolina this fall - but it was cool to see all the new Fever players. They’ve added a ton of size, but it is athletic, rangy, perimeter size rather than more post players to backup Aliyah Boston. DeWanna Bonner seems like the perfect Den Mom for a mostly very young team, and was a delightful in-game interview. Loathe as I am to give a Missouri alum credit, Sophie Cunningham adds a level of toughness and versatility that was missing last year. And she might have the most “don’t look at it when your wife and kids are around” Instagram account in the league. Not that I looked.

Caitlin Clark missed Friday’s exhibition game with a minor leg injury, and played limited minutes Sunday, but her range looked deeper than a year ago and the experienced players the Fever brought in already understand how to run to spots where she will get them the ball. Kelsey Mitchell will get a little overlooked because of the new talent, but she looked to still be the steady scoring threat who is an ideal partner for Clark. Lexie Hull’s 3-point shot still looks locked in after whatever mechanical adjustment she made in the middle of last season.

As an added bonus, second round draft pick Makayla Timpson might be an absolute steal. I’m not sure if she will be a huge contributor this season. But with so many of the league’s rosters in flux because of the CBA expiring after this season, having a player with her skills on her salary could be massive in the Fever building a team that contends for years to come.

Racing

I actually watched parts of two car races Sunday. That’s how annoying the weather was and how limited the TV offerings were in the afternoon. It is May, I guess.

I watched the back halves of both the Indy Car Grand Prix race in Alabama and then the F1 race in Miami. It was hilarious how, since both races were won by large margins, each broadcast focused on “races within the race” further back in the pack. The F1 broadcast was almost exclusively about the two Ferrari cars and the bickering involved in their team trying to figure out if they should pass each other or not. Such weird drama.

Hey, we actually watched multiple horse races Saturday, keeping the NBC coverage of the Kentucky Derby on for hours, so this might have been the most “watching cars/animals chase each other around a track” weekend of my life!

I just checked my notes and it appears that summer, fall, and winter are also undefeated. Wild if true. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 02 May 2025 08:17:21 -0400

As I shared many words about earlier this week, my switch to Apple Music means I’m pulling more songs from the past up into my daily soundtrack. Which means these playlists are going to start including more classics. Which was my intention back when I started them however many years ago. There will still be plenty of new music if that’s why you come to these posts.

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“Rock ’n’ Roll High School” - Ramones We are a week and change from having just one high schooler left in the house.

“Somebody New” - Tunde Adebimpe I said I was looking forward to his album, then didn’t get around to listening to it when it came out. And now this is the best of the singles released from it, each sounding a little different.

“Every” - Swanpalace An interesting supergroup of sorts, built around two artists most of us have never heard of along with Jim Eno, a founding member and long-time drummer of Spoon. This has a terrific, late Seventies sound. To my ears it bumps right up next to Cheap Trick.

“There’s A Part I Can’t Get Back” - Sunflower Bean A truly harrowing, yet beautiful, song about how grooming steals innocence from its victims.

“Outside” - Jawdropped A hint of grunge in this jangle rock makes it stand out nicely.

“Cutting Room Floor” - Gordi These last four songs all fit into some kind of musical Venn diagram I’m too lazy to clearly delineate. But Gordi sounds a lot like Christine McVie on this track, so it would pull in some Fleetwood Mac angle I guess.

“Month of May” - Arcade Fire The most important month of the year in Indianapolis is here. Also, AF has new music out but I did not dig their lead single so I’ll stick with this more time-appropriate oldie.

“Dead Souls” - Joy Division I know I just shared a JD song a couple weeks back, but I heard this one yesterday and had to slap it into the playlist.

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“Rock the Bells” - LL Cool J Talk about mission statements! Back in the days of vinyl/cassettes, sometimes the first track on side two was as important as the first on side one. This was Side Two, Track One on not only LL’s first album, but the first full length album ever released by Def Jam. Dropping Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Prince’s names seemed outrageously ambitious at the time. But James Todd Smith knew where he and the label were headed.

Not sure why a new video was released for this two months ago but I like it.

April Media

Thu, 01 May 2025 07:39:05 -0400

Movies, Shows, etc

Court of Gold I mostly watched these on our flights too and from Florida. You know what you’re getting with shows like this. Highly edited game highlights. Interviews with the participants and analysts that are aimed at casual fans and thus not super insightful. But, man, the formula works. Last summer’s Olympic basketball tournament was electric and this captured that magic well.

September 5 A brisk, tense, and very well done dramatized look at how the ABC crew in Munich handled the day Palestinian terrorists took Israeli athletes hostage at the 1972 Olympics. One of those period piece movies that will make our kids shake their heads at how primitive technology was when their parents were kids.

The Last Stop In Yuma County A quirky, creepy film about a bank robbery and subsequent hostage stand off going wildly wrong. The story is just a little thin, thus it felt like there are a lot of stretched out moments to get the movie to its 90 minute run time.

Dunkirk Second time watching this? Still a magnificent combination of story, pacing, visuals, and soundtrack.

1917 Another second viewing of an excellent, modern war movie. All wars are hell, but World War I was a particularly nasty hell.

High Fidelity A top five movie about music and loving music.

Almost Famous While I’ve watched High Fidelity many times, I believe I had only seen Almost Famous once, when it first came out in the theaters. Yowsa. So many people hold it in such high esteem it’s crazy I had not re-watched it for 25 years. I forgot how brilliant so many scenes are. So many terrific performances. It hits a different, slightly less relatable side of being a music lover from High Fidelity, but no less impactful.

30 Rock, season one After starting this in March I knocked out the second two-thirds of season one in April. As good as it was from the very beginning, it got even better as the season progressed. I’ve started season two, but just barely into it, making it a May entry.

Pearl Jam - 2003–06–22 Noblesville, IN I’ve noted before how amazing modern, fan-shot concert videos are. Smartphones shoot incredible video. Modern editing software allows you to piece together videos from dozens of devices seamlessly and then sync it perfectly to the soundboard recording.

This is a less advanced effort, and it shows. The audio and video are slightly out of sync. And I think this was just someone with a big lens standing at the top of the lawn section at what is now called Ruoff Music Center, shooting the video screens rather than the stage. Which was still pretty incredible for the time. Thanks to the official bootleg audio it sounds awesome.

This show was five days after I moved to Indiana, and I did not try to attend because it had been kind of a busy week. Also stark is how Eddie had not yet become the showman he is today. He seems a little angry and drunk at this show.

Shorts, YouTubes, etc

Bullitt | The Car Chase | Full Scene | Warner Classics This might still be the greatest on-screen car chase ever. No CGI or camera trickery here.

Quick-witted Craig Ferguson I don’t know that I ever watched Ferguson’s show live. But if you look around at all at YouTube, there are dozens of compilation pieces like this where he’s flirting with extremely attractive and well dressed female guests. Tough job.

From Takeoff To Landing: The Fascinating World Of Aviation | BBC Earth Science This needed to be a longer show. In fact, maybe it was and these were bits taken from that show(s).

Utah Is on a Mission From the Basketball Gods | Home & Away Weaponizing the Mormon Church to turn BYU into a basketball power is a wild and unexpected result of the NIL era. Good to know there’s a strong culture of hoops in Utah already.

Martin Scorsese Breaks Down His Most Iconic Films | GQ Terrific.

Michael Fassbender Breaks Down His Career, from ‘Inglourious Basterds’ to ‘X-Men’ For some reason these Vanity Fair projects aren’t as interesting as the GQ ones. Which seems dumb since it’s the exact same concept.

We Answer YOUR Travel Questions | Best Shoes, Packing Tips & More! Even though our next big trip is a year away, I’ve already started diving into the YT travel vid rabbit hole again.

20 Things You Didn’t Know About High Fidelity Good stuff, but a Brit mispronouncing dozens of American English words drove me nuts.

Why Anyone Lives On The Falkland Islands (And Why You Can’t) People live in weird places.

Travelling America With One Rule: Eat Only At Diners Beau Miles bullshit.

A moment 29 years ago changed everything Not the usual bullshit, but rather a Beau Miles origin story. Very well done.

How a Traded-In Apple iPhone Gets Refurbished Relevant as April was new phone month for me.

Proper Honest Tech Stephen Robles Speaking of my new phone, I spent a lot of time watching videos about the latest generation of iPhones and how to harness their powers, the best cases, etc. These were two channels I kept going back to.

Seth and Paul Rudd Go Day Drinking Hilarious.

Exploring California’s Highway 39 - Closed For Over 40 Years This would be more interesting if there were abandoned businesses and homes along this stretch of road. Still some gorgeous views.

There Will Never Be Another Anthony Bourdain No shit.

New Series | Tucci in Italy | National Geographic Tucci’s show is very different than Bourdain’s, but his are no less compelling. Glad to see someone new is paying him to continue exploring Italy after CNN stupidly cancelled Searching For Italy.

why do some things just look so good? Let some South African kid teach you about aesthetics.

The War On Drugs: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert I busted this out for the first time in a couple years. I maintain this might be the best sound ever in one of these pieces. Whoever mic-ed up that studio and produced the sound deserved an award.

Landings at San Diego Int Airport Nov 23, 2012 Not sure whether I’ve seen this before or not. Five hours of flight activity compressed into 30 seconds.

Ice Cream Sandwiches | How It’s Made Mmmmm, ice cream sandwich season is here!

I built a Tiny Office to be more Productive On one hand, I think this is super cool and brilliant. On the other, it’s kind of insane. I also wish I had stumbled into some career where you could make a living just doing videos like this that allowed you to fill up a workspace with the latest tech, hundreds of cool notebooks, etc.

James Bond & The Omega Seamaster - The Untold Story I’m a sucker for a Bond-Omega vid.

Shipwrecks Depth Comparison I know I’ve seen some exercise like this before, but they are always cool to watch.

Why didn’t the US nuke Tokyo? Great question.

Charley Steiner Outtakes Including Kerry Wood I miss the days when Sportscenter had anchors with true gravitas instead of people either trying to become comedians or others who just want to spout non-stop nonsense in hopes of at least one take going viral for 24 hours.

How Apple INVENTED the Laptop as we know it Fascinating progression.

Into the Wild - 7 Days in the Sahara Desert Ah, to have the freedom to jump in a Land Rover and just drive all over the planet.

10 Things David Harbour Can’t Live Without For some reason I expected cooler, more original stuff from him.

Bill Hader Does Van Halen Something about Hader’s real voice makes his impressions even better, like it’s a surprise they came from him.

Inside This Entrepreneur & Former Pro Surfer’s Coastal New Jersey Home | Huckberry Homes A little weird to be so intentional at how you decorate your home when you don’t see it as a long term residence.

One of the Most Beautiful Drives in America Glad these guys have a new adventure to share.

Car Content

Nearly Two Months Wait To Get Rivian Service! Racing 60,000 Mile Warranty Expiration Austin Rivian Space Has Free Charging, Rooftop Terrace, Trail Access & More! Polestar 1: The Most Interesting Car in the World The Lucid Gravity Is The Most Exciting EV Of 2025! Full Tour Of This Grand Touring Production Model Three Years & 26,000 Miles in the Lucid Air Grand Touring | This Is What It’s Like to Live With Lucid Air | The Final Drive

Photography

The Problem With Digital Cameras… My Favorite Camera: Fujifilm X-T3 A day of Street Photography in Porto l Fujifilm X-T4 l Film Emulation The Trip of a Lifetime: Two Weeks in Norway with my Dad This camera is phenomenal. Lofoten Islands 🇳🇴 with one lens A Photographic Day in the Life with my OM System OM–3 + Nikon Coolpix P310 40mm is Everyone’s new Favorite Focal Length Travel Photography in New York City // Fuji X-T5 Spring on the Oregon Coast - A Solo Roadtrip

Podcasts

The Zach Lowe Show He’s back! After being fired last fall because ESPN chose to pay their loudmouths and didn’t value their best actual analysts, Lowe landed at The Ringer this month. In addition to his own show, he’s been on Bill Simmons’ a couple times as the NBA postseason began. Great to have him back. Shame on ESPN for not letting him keep his original pod name, The Lowe Post. He came up with it but somehow it’s their property, even though they didn’t want to employ him. Corporate America sucks.

Never Count Them Out

Wed, 30 Apr 2025 13:50:53 -0400

Good Lord that was a basketball game!

The Pacers laid a big, fat egg early, taking nearly seven minutes to score their first six points, blew multiple chances to put the game away in the second half, then somehow managed to come back from being down seven with 40 seconds left in overtime to win game five of their series and send the Milwaukee Bucks home for the summer.

Actually, there was no somehow about it. As I wrote a few weeks back, the Pacers have been doing this for the past three months, often against Milwaukee: improbably winning games that seemed lost with outrageous play in the closing seconds.

Tuesday it was Tyrese Haliburton getting two steals and a defensive rebound and scoring six-straight points in the closing minute of regulation to send the game to overtime. He then hit a 3 to open OT to stretch his run to nine-straight. However, he missed his next four 3’s, while the Bucks, specifically Gary Trent Jr., hit four straight 3’s to go up 117–111.

Trent was incredible. His shots were barely touching the net. Two were shots he barely had in his hands before launching as the shot clock expired. This should have been one of the great days of his career, and the launching point for someone to give him a shitload of money this summer.

However…

With 29 seconds left and up four points, Trent threw a terrible pass that turned into a Haliburton and-one layup. Seconds later, AJ Green threw a pass to an unguarded Trent as the Pacers tried to trap and get another steal or foul. The pass sailed directly to Trent…then through his hands and out-of-bounds. The Pacers had 10 seconds to go for the win. Which Haliburton clinched by blowing by Giannis and laying the ball in with one second left.

Reggie Miller stuff.

I felt kind of bad for Trent. Then I remembered he’s a Dukie so fuck him.

And then things got really interesting.

After time expired, for some insane reason Haliburton’s dad ran on the court and began taunting Giannis, who initially looked confused then stepped to the old man. They were separated, cooler heads seemed to prevail, and both teams went through the postgame interactions normal after a tense, physical series. Only when Giannis met Bennedict Mathurin, events took another turn. There’s been no word on who said what and who said it first, but soon Giannis was gripping Mathurin tight to his own body, not letting him leave and speaking directly into his ear. Soon players and coaches were pulling the duo apart, but this led to other players yapping and shoving. Amazingly, Bobby Portis Jr, the most belligerent of the Bucks anytime these teams play, seemed pretty chill and was slapping hands with Pacers. And then Giannis and Old Man Haliburton went at it again, with Giannis putting his forehead directly on Haliburton’s as they “chatted.” Kevin Porter Jr. was losing his shit at midcourt, which nearly caused another ruckus.

Eventually everyone calmed down. Mathurin was basically drug to the locker room. James Johnson, the most feared player in the NBA, approached Giannis pleasantly and got an earful about Mr. Haliburton’s actions. Somehow all this happened while NBA TV was interviewing Tyrese so he never got involved in it and was surprised when he got to the locker room and was told about his dad’s actions.

Ironically, while all this was going on Metta Sandiford-Artest, FKA Ron Artest, was sitting courtside taking it all in, looking serene as could be. Thankfully events didn’t spiral they was they did when Artest lost his mind in Detroit 21 years ago.

What a truly dumb moment. A terrific win, one that will be recalled for decades around here, got sullied by a player’s father inserting himself where he did not belong. Mr. Haliburton has always seemed a little thirsty for attention. It might be time to make his ass watch from a suite or outside the arena if he can’t keep it in his seat. I’m not sure what he thought he would accomplish by infuriating a much younger man who is 6’11”, 245 lbs. and all muscle.

I don’t think Giannis was completely innocent here. As noted on Bill Simmons’ pod this morning, he’s had a few postgame run-ins with opponents in the past. Like so many superstars, he is wildly competitive and sometimes lets that get away from him in defeat. But he absolutely won the post-game press conference, which made the Pacers look even worse.

What is important is the Pacers, despite a rough start, closed the Bucks out and can now take a few days to relax before they face #1 seed Cleveland. I don’t think that’s a terrible matchup for the Pacers, as long as they remain focused. Which is always a crapshoot with these guys. They can throw waves of defenders at Cleveland’s guards. They can go small against Cleveland’s bigs. Most of all, they know exactly who they are, how they need to play to maximize their skills, and have been deeper in the playoffs more recently than the Cavs. Cleveland should absolutely be favored. But the Pacers aren’t some sacrificial opponent they can run right through before likely meeting the Celtics in the conference finals.

A New (Old) Musical Home

Tue, 29 Apr 2025 13:39:46 -0400

As I wait out some morning storms before I head over the gym, it seems like the ideal moment to share (or at least start the post that shares) my latest music project.

For months I’ve been thinking about writing a lengthy post about how I don’t upend my digital life as often as I used to. People close to me experienced this when I changed my email address, moved where I published our family pictures, or even adjusted where this site was located far too often. A pain in the ass to you, I knew. But, dammit, I needed to try all the cool digital toys that were available!

This nomadic quality was more apparent if you were to look over my shoulder and see how I interacted with my Macs on a daily basis. I’d switch text editing apps each time a new one dropped. Digital junkdrawer apps came and went even more frequently. A new browser drops? Of course I’m going to import all my bookmarks and give it a shot. And so on. If there was a buzzy new app, I was going to give it a shot, no matter the headaches it caused through moving files around and changing workflows.

I’m not sure exactly when, but at some point I stopped doing this. Or at least slowed it way down. This site has looked the same for, what, 5–6–7 years now? I did switch hosts at one point because of access issues with a previous provider, but I don’t think any of you noticed that unless you tried to check in right when I was moving things around. And I’ve been parked at this URL since right around when we moved into this house, I believe.

Same for the apps I use on a daily basis. I’ll occasionally try something new that I read a review of. But, more often than not, I go back to the ones I’ve been using for years.

Is this all because I’m getting old and don’t like change? Or don’t have the patience to deal with all the extra baggage that comes with switching around constantly? Or have apps largely coalesced around a common set of design language and functions so one really is like the other, compared to back when I ran multiple different podcatching apps that did very different things?

I think we can blame the rise of the iPhone/iOS for some of this as well. I want to be able to accomplish the same tasks the same ways on different devices. It’s harder to switch around when testing something on the Mac breaks how I do things on my phone.

There’s your standard, long-ass introduction to my actual point: for the past two weeks I’ve been testing Apple Music with the goal of switching to it from Spotify.

Big news!

I’m not sure when I first started using Spotify. Somewhere in the range of 10–11 years ago, I guess. Rdio was the first streaming service I used, and to this day nothing has matched its community discovery aspect. When it started to circle the drain, I tried Apple Music. I was deep in the Apple world already and all my old iTunes files would seamlessly blend in.

The only real problem with Apple Music at the time was that it totally sucked. I would listen to a playlist on my iPhone then the next time I used my Mac, there would be two versions of that playlist. Then go back to the iPhone and a third would pop up. I was never really sure why this happened, but it was infuriating.

After a few months of this I bailed for Spotify and never looked back. Spotify, to use an Apple phrase, just worked. And for several years they seemed to have a better selection of music than Apple.

I’ve had no qualms with how Spotify worked since then, although I do have issues with some of their business practices. There were things I wish it did better, but for the most part it did its job.

Every so often I get an offer for a free month of Apple Music. Several times I’ve spent about 10 minutes dicking around on AM before deciding it was too much work to jump. Plus our girls all love Spotify and I couldn’t convince them that their playlists could be copied over to AM easily.

So what changed? Last month I got a new iPhone. With it came the normal offers for free Apple services. The one that grabbed my attention was the Apple One service. I already paid for a higher iCloud storage tier. What attracted me was the access to Apple News+, which would get me behind the paywall of several good magazines and newspapers. I pay for Apple Arcade a few times a year for the girls, and that would roll into it, as well. We would have constant access to Apple TV+ instead of buying it only when shows we like are new. Plus my iCloud storage would take another jump up. Apple Music would be an easy swap for Spotify as part of this process.

I crunched the numbers and once the free trial was over, while I would be paying Apple quite a bit more, the value proposition aspect worked.

Thus I signed up for the free trial and spent an entire weekend getting all my Spotify songs and playlists into Apple Music.[1]

The first thing that struck me was how much AM is still built on the old iTunes architecture. Most notably you can rate songs and make smart playlists based off of all kinds of user selected options. That’s how I interacted with my library the first 12–13 years of the digital music era. It felt like being home again.

At the same time it pissed me off my music geek brain that I had spent so long on Spotify. That was over a decade of play counts, ratings, and other data that was just lost since Spotify didn’t track any of. At least publicly. Suddenly the nearly 4000 songs in my library were all brand new.[2] It’s going to take a few weeks/months to get each track played a few times so the smart playlists can start doing their magic.

For all the annoyance that comes with that process, that is exactly why I think I’m going to stick with Apple Music. Because Spotify lacks those two key features, I find older music gets lost in the shuffle. Literally. Unless I’m listening to an album, I almost always listen in shuffle mode. Because I can’t tease out songs that are old and haven’t been played for a while via smart playlists, or force it to select songs I like the most, it seems to focus on the newer tracks I’m listening to more often. Which makes sense, but also takes away some of the magic that iTunes had by always inserting cool old songs in the midst of new ones.

There have been growing pains. In Spotify adding a song to a playlist does not automatically put it into your library. For example, I kept all my Christmas music in distinct playlists that are hidden away 11 months of the year without adding them to my Liked Songs. So I never get random holiday tunes included when I am shuffling. In Apple Music, tracks are either in your library or not. On the Mac I can uncheck all those holiday songs and they get skipped over. But to the cloud they are still in my library. So listening on my phone, iPad, or in the car can bring those unwelcome surprises of songs meant for December.

It was also enraging that I had to download a separate app to control Apple Music across devices. If I am playing Spotify on my Mac, I can open their app on my phone, see what is playing, control the song, volume, and which speaker the audio is going to natively. I had to do a ton of research, download a separate app, then jump through a bunch of hoops with my Apple account before I could mimic that in Apple Music.

I also had to dive deep into some settings in all that mucking about to get play counts to track across devices. That probably seems dumb to 99.9% of you. My Smart Playlists rely heavily on play count information, so not being able to track those across different devices hampers their effectiveness.

You really would expect that Apple Music would be the service that worked seamlessly across devices and Spotify be the one that took the extra work to build this system.

The Tesla AM app is also a little wonky. Certainly less reliable than Spotify. Both have their quirks in connecting to the network, but Apple Music is more likely to get stuck in a loop where it only loads a few songs and loops back to the first rather than continuing to work through the playlist/library.[3]

The past two weeks I’ve been trying to remember how I organized my music all those years ago in the iTunes era. What were my favorite smart playlists? How did I rate songs? And so on. The goal is to create a Daily playlist that splits the difference between the newest music in my library and older tracks. I think I have the rules adjusted close to how I had them 15 years ago, but, again, I’m going to need to work through my library a few times to make sure they are where I want them to be. Songs I haven’t heard in ages that are indeed popping up, which is good. Hopefully the benefits like that outweigh the annoyances where Apple Music does not match Spotify.

How will this affect you, my loyal readers/listeners? Hopefully not at all. Other than reading this blog post. The girls have talked me into letting them stay on Spotify. Which means I am paying for two music streaming services. The benefit to you is that I can continue to share my Friday Playlists from Spotify, something that is not possible in Apple Music. I’ll build them in AM over the course of the week. Then on Friday mornings I’ll launch Spotify, quickly pull those songs together and insert that playlist into Wordpress as I’ve been doing for years.

I used Playlisty for Apple Music. It takes some manual effort, but pulls all your Spotify songs and playlists across to AM. There were a few times it picked the wrong version of a song, but otherwise a great utility. ↩
I was also able to trim a lot of duplicates that were hiding in Spotify, plus some songs I’m not into anymore. All told, I’m about 400 lighter than I was two weeks ago. ↩
Coincidentally, Tesla just dropped their big, spring software update. Included in it was an update to the Apple Music app that allows it to shuffle through playlists that have more than 100 songs in them. I’m not sure why that was still a limitation in 2025. ↩

Prom Weekend Notes

Mon, 28 Apr 2025 09:41:19 -0400

Another very busy weekend for us, mostly revolving around C’s senior prom.

We kicked off the weekend by going across the street to watch the #1 high school volleyball team in the state, FHS, play our local squad. “What a weird way to spend a Friday night,” you might say to yourself. True, true. We have good friends with a senior on FHS and we’ve been meaning to see him play for a couple years. We couldn’t turn down a chance when he was literally across the street.

After a sluggish opening set in which they had to come from behind to win, FHS trounced the school our property taxes support in the next two sets for an easy win.

NFL Draft

You all know I hate the NFL draft. So many words wasted setting up and breaking down an event when Sure Things routinely bust, and No Names routinely become All Pros. It’s all a crapshoot, but we break it down in more detail than we do the policies of people running for office. “Maybe if we focused more attention on…”

The Colts did ok. They got their tight end in Tyler Warren. Will any of the quarterbacks be good enough to get him the ball, and will the offensive line, which they didn’t do much to improve, be able to protect whoever is taking the snaps?

There was another big story from the draft. But since I didn’t watch a minute of it, I can’t really get into the lunacy of how this story was treated by people inside the NFL media and, bizarrely, by the most attention hungry near 80 year old in the world.

I think the whole Shedeur Sanders thing is weird because I listened to exactly two podcast segments previewing the draft and in both of them there was a clear indication that he was slipping, for whatever reason. One previewer flat out said he would not be a first round pick. And once Sanders didn’t go early, I think there were a lot of teams that might have admired his skill and potential but had no interest in bringing all the drama that would come with picking him into their quarterback room. Especially since, at that point, he’s probably starting as QB3. All I know is he didn’t look that good against KU and neither of the two DBs who basically shut down the CU passing attack, two short passes that turned into long gains excepted, didn’t get picked. Where’s the outrage in that, I ask you????

Prom

OK, onto the biggie.

I missed the fun of C’s junior prom as I was in Cincinnati with L for basketball. Which is where I would have been again this year had L not had surgery. Or, more likely, I would have spent part of the weekend in Cincy but been back in Indy Saturday evening. I’m not sure I would have survived missing two prom nights in a row.[1] Anyway, I was indeed here this year.

On balance it was a good night. C went with a buddy, as did most of the folks in her group of 11. We hosted them before prom for pictures and food, put them on a bus for the event downtown, then had them dropped here afterward. After changing they went to a big post-prom party about a mile from our house. I collected the girls from the bash at 1:45. All of them were able to walk on their own and other than being VERY chatty in the seven minute ride home, seemed no worse for the wear. One of the girls even noted how we had a “fun” conversation when I was driving them around Siesta Key a few weeks ago. I appreciated the self awareness and humor.

Picking up from the party was a scene, man. It was in a very fancy neighborhood. One P. Manning used to live a couple blocks from the host’s home when he was still a Colt. When I pulled onto their narrow street, there were cars parked unevenly on each side. It’s basically a one-lane road, so this made it extremely stressful driving through. In the dark. With drunk kids stumbling around. There was one gap that I could not have had more than a couple inches on each side as I squeezed S’s Telluride through it. I made it. Somehow.

So I’m almost to the house, C knows I’m coming and is supposed to be rounding up the girls spending the night at our house, and I see this kid on the side of the street. He looks at me and kind of waves his arms to get me to stop. I come to a halt, roll down the passenger window, and he leans in:

“Hey Mr. B. Do you want me to go get C for you?”

It was the younger brother of one of M’s best friends. I thought that was hilarious. It was pitch dark, I was driving my wife’s car, and he somehow identified me. Apparently he does not drink, which could have been a factor. I texted his dad Sunday morning to both pass along my thanks and tell him how impressed I was.

I think I got C and her crew right in time. Big packs of kids were wandering the streets. Car alarms were going off. Kids were parked up on very nice lawns. I guess there had been a late flood of students who were not invited and had just been turned out. We didn’t hear about the cops coming, but it would not have surprised me if they showed up shortly after we left.

The kids had great weather for pictures. The prom itself was apparently pretty fun. C’s group all got along, which given they are all a little flakey/squirrelly, was a minor upset. Last year her date, again just a friend, acted like an asshole to her all night. This year she and her date seemed to get along fine.

Just two bummers on the day. Like last year, she had a meltdown when getting her hair done earlier in the day. I didn’t have to experience either episode directly, just had to be the target of S venting after. We agreed that at some point we are going to suggest that when she’s ready, C should elope rather than go through all the stress of a wedding day. If getting her hair done to hang out with friends for a few hours cranks up her anxiety, I can’t imagine what prepping for a wedding will do to her.

The second bummer was Sunday morning, when I came downstairs, I found the large box of Jimmy John’s that had been leftover from the pre-prom part of the night had been taken out of the fridge by the girls and left on the counter all night. There was about $60 of sandwiches in there, and I planned on getting into them on Sunday. I wasn’t willing to play the food poison lottery so, not without anger, tossed the box into our trash dumpster.

I guess the important thing is we survived prom weekend and C, other than being totally wiped out Sunday, seemed happy with how things went.

Another item, and a big one, checked off of her senior year list.

Pacers

When we got back from volleyball Friday the Pacers-Bucks game had just gone to halftime, with the ‘Cers leading by 10.[2] They hit the first shot of the second half to go up a dozen and then the bottom fell out. Horrible shots, terrible passes, curious coaching decisions, Bennedict Mathurin losing his mind momentarily when the game was still close. Tyrese Haliburton letting his home state crowd get in his head. OK, Giannis and Gary Trent, Jr. were going off. Trent hit nine 3’s. NINE. But the Pacers had the game in control and totally fell apart all on their own. Still, up 2–1 in the series.

That set up a pivotal game last night. Which I did not watch, for three reasons. 1) I was operating on about four hours of sleep. 2) I had to get up extra early Monday to take L to PT. Most importantly, 3) Tip off was at 9:30 PM Eastern. WTF????

Apparently I didn’t miss much. Dame Lillard blew out his achilles early. When he went down, so did the Bucks’ chances, as the Pacers played terrific ball for another easy win.

Three-one with the series coming back to Indy and Dame done for the series. Both sad and indicative of the world we live in that the first 20 minutes of Bill Simmons’ podcast Monday morning were about where Giannis plays next year.

L also had a game the night of M’s junior prom, but it was in town so we did pictures and stuff and then hustled over to watch hoops. Not sure how we avoided a conflict M’s senior year. ↩
I’m not sure who decided this ‘Cers thing needed to happen, but I hate it, and only used it here so I could bitch about it. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 08:04:44 -0400

A slight change-of-pace this week. I’ve been working on a new music project this week that has slowed down my processing of the new songs considerably. (I’ll share more about that project next week.) Plus a couple of these songs/bands are tough to Google, so I wasn’t able to find out much about them. As a result, a slightly more lean playlist than we’ve had recently. We should get back in the regular flow for the first playlist of May.

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“Full of the Joys of Spring” - The Sundries What a joyous week this was, at least in terms of the weather and feeling like spring, etc. Bright, warm, sunny days. The grass is thick as hell after all our recent rains. All the trees, plants, and flowers are budded and bloomed and otherwise looking healthy after the retreat of winter. I’m regretting not opening the pool sooner. Next weekend the lows are going to be in the 30’s°, a good reminder that I did NOT open the pool yet because I didn’t want to pay like we were heating the house in January to get the pool to a reasonable temperature.

“Loline” - The Bats The Bats have been together, without changing their lineup, for 43 years. Which is amazing. They sound like a band that came up a long time ago, and I mean that in the best way. Here they sing about a popular bike from their homeland of New Zealand.

“Come Down” - Reb Fountain Where The Bats 100% sound like a band from New Zealand, this singer sounds more like she’s from the UK and influenced by the trip-hop acts of the Nineties. She is, though, a Kiwi, too. And that’s about all I can find about her.

“It’s Your Funeral” - Ultra Lights Another band that is hard to Google. I would have guessed they were the next, snotty, kind of arty, New York garage band, in the line of The Strokes and Parquet Courts. But they are from Atlanta. Which is wild.

“At Zero” - Dream, Ivory I’ve been kicking this song around for a few weeks, never sure whether I should include it or not. Luckily for this brother act, I kept it around long enough to run into a week light on music so I had to finally use it.

“In This Mess” - Say Sue Me I just included a SSM track last week. But when they drop a song this good immediately after, there is no waiting period before I share it. Holy shit, the guitars!

“Give It Up” - 8mm Long-time music followers will remember this from the early days of my podcast. I’m not sure if I first played this in 2005 or 2006. I do remember it came on the advice of a brother-in-music I’ve lost touch with, and our shared joke was this song was so sultry that we felt like we needed to confess something to our wives after listening to it.

8mm actually has some new music out. Their new song is ok, but doesn’t stand up to this classic.

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“Take A Walk” - Neil Finn & Friends I missed honoring the greatest concert series ever earlier this month while we were on break. With two other New Zealand acts in this week’s PL, seems like the perfect moment to rectify that oversight.

Pacers-Bucks Notes

Wed, 23 Apr 2025 13:08:52 -0400

A few thoughts about game two of the Pacers-Bucks series last night.

Once again the Pacers jumped out to a big, early lead. Not as much of an ass-kicking as in game one, but there was never any doubt who the better team was. And that was with Dame Lillard coming back. He actually played remarkably well in the first half, then clearly suffered a bit from his long layoff in the second half. The Bucks have so many holes, though, that his presence did not mask many of them.

The Pacers were rolling when, suddenly, the shots stopped falling in the third quarter. This was not because of anything the Bucks were doing. These were WIIIIIIIIDE open shots the Pacers just kept missing. They could have easily pushed the margin out over 20 and put the game to bed before the fourth quarter began.

Milwaukee did step up their defensive pressure eventually, and that did have an impact. The Pacers went stagnant on offense. The ball stopped moving and every possession turned into a slog of back-down, one-on-one nonsense resulting in forced, off-balance shots as the shot clock wound down. The Bucks made a couple runs thanks to this, even getting the margin down to just two points inside two minutes to play. The Pacers answered with consecutive 3’s sandwiched around a defensive stop and escaped with a 2–0 lead in the series.

The good news if you are Milwaukee is you found some things on defense Tuesday. You played well on offense most of the night. I still think they have too many holes, and the Pacers too many advantages, for that to swing the series. But I also don’t think this is an easy sweep for Indiana as it might seem after the first two games.

The bad news for Milwaukee, ironically, is that aside from the opening minutes, they played really well. Bobby Portis was draining 3’s. Giannis was doing Giannis things. Dame, as mentioned, looked solid and you assume will get better over the course of the series, although there is no telling how his body will react after spending weeks on blood thinners and not playing. Despite all that the Pacers still won, and only a 13–0 run late made it look competitive.

The road games are going to be harder than the first two, for sure. You figure Giannis has at least one GO OFF game in him this series that the Pacers won’t be able to do a thing about. But watching last night, I really appreciated how good this team is. They aren’t NBA title contenders, unless the Cavaliers and Celtics have multiple starters get injured in the coming weeks. But they are a damn solid team that is deep, can shoot, is pretty athletic, has gotten much better defensively, rebound better than a year ago, and play at a pace that is deadly to older teams without depth like the Bucks.

It’s hard to be in the middle in the NBA. For a decade the Pacers were on the wrong side of that middle, never getting those two really good players you need to challenge the best teams in the conference, but also never bad enough to get a franchise-altering talent. Even when they snuck into the high lottery, their reward was Bennedict Mathurin, a player I really like, but who is not THE guy you build around.

This is the perfect team for Indiana. They play hard. They are fun to watch. They win more than they lose. If you don’t have a true title contender, this is the kind of team you want.

There were two different double-technical foul moments Tuesday, and a ton of yapping back and forth. I was almost disappointed when Kevin Porter Jr. slapped hands with Thomas Bryant and apologized after earning a flagrant foul for tripping Bryant on a break. These teams have hated each other for over a year. There will be a genuine dust-up before this series is over. And I can’t wait for it.

While watching S asked me who my favorite Pacer was. I had a hard time answering. Haliburton should be obvious answer. He’s the guy who elevated the franchise after a decade of treading water. He was voted as the Most Overrated Player in the league in The Athletic this week. I’m convinced that is only because he talks so much trash. But it’s not fun trash, or menacing trash, the kinds that earn the respect of your opponent. It’s the always hiding behind a teammate trash. It’s the backing away during a timeout trash. It’s the deadball trash then acting surprised when the opponent takes offense. I’m fine with yapping, but his act can get tiresome.

As I said, I really like Mathurin. I think he’s a lower budget Anthony Edwards. Not as explosive or as purely talented as Ant, but a similar game and attitude. There’s an immaturity to his game (and Ant’s, coincidentally) that gives me pause. And I also wonder if he’s going to be the player that gets moved out as the front office has to deal with a salary/roster crunch this summer.

Pascal Siakam has such an interesting game, all weird angles and awkward lunges, and I admire it but I can’t say he’s my favorite.

Myles Turner has been on the Pacers longer than anyone else, and seems reenergized this year. But I still hold it against him for picking Texas over KU out of high school.

Andrew Nembhard and Aaron Nesmith both play their asses off, and keep getting better. But they are kind of quiet and anonymous and not the kind of players you get drawn to as favorites.

TJ McConnell is so much fun to watch. He should not be a good NBA player, but wills himself to it every night. But I’ve never been an “adopt the little guy” guy when it comes to picking my favorite player.

Obi Toppin is the best in-game dunker in the NBA, and has turned himself into a decent shooter. But can you really pick a bench player who sometimes disappears just because he has jaw-dropping dunks once a week?

I told S the obvious answer is Johnny Furphy. Jokingly, of course. I think Furph has a bright future, but he needs to be a rotation guy for my Jayhawk love to win out.

After all that the answer is that I don’t have a true favorite Pacer. And despite all those caveats and disclaimers, it’s more about this being a balanced team where everyone is a part of the team’s success than the positives and negatives of any particular player.

Easter Weekend Notes

Mon, 21 Apr 2025 12:33:45 -0400

As it is Easter Monday, our holiday weekend continues. Or at least it does for C and L, who have the day off. Might as well keep to the normal blog schedule, though. Let’s run through the days rather than individual events.

Friday

A lot of work and errands to get ready for the holiday weekend. L had a PT session. M and her boyfriend arrived from Cincinnati late afternoon. I made a pretty kickass mess of grilled steak, chicken, and restaurant-style beans for Chipotle-like bowls for dinner.

Saturday

We awoke around 5:30 AM to the sound of roaring winds and loud thunder. I looked at my phone and it just said severe thunderstorm warning so I put my head back down. We probably should have moved to the basement. I don’t know what the official winds were in our area, but they reached nearly 90 MPH at the airport. It was insanely loud, followed by rain pummeling our west facing windows. About 15 minutes later we heard that deep, low hum you hate to hear in storms that was followed by the sky lighting up with greens and blues. A transformer was popping off somewhere near our house. I nervously watched our night light and smoke detector indicator, but both just blinked then stayed on. We avoided the outage! I went back to sleep.

Fast forward a few hours. We’re finishing up our morning routines and ready to get to work on more Easter prep. A couple houses there was a crew working with chainsaws to cut up a tree that had snapped in the storm. A firetruck had gone that direction a little earlier so we assumed there was a live line, too. We heard a loud crack and then our power cut out. We’re guessing as they were taking down the tree, the line that leads to our house got snagged and broke. The joys of living in old Indianapolis where all the power lines are still above ground and pass through dozens of mature trees to reach each house.

We ended up being without power for just over five hours. At least it was a cool, cloudy, if slightly muggy day. And at least we were picking up the food for Sunday late in the afternoon and it wasn’t already in the fridge, with the clock ticking on whether it would spoil.

In the midst of the power outage was game one of the Pacers-Bucks series. I went old school and pulled out a radio and listened to most of it that way. The Pacers beat that ass for the first 30+ minutes. Gainbridge was roaring.[1] When our power came back on and I was able to watch was the exact moment they decided to blow a healthy chunk of their 28 point lead. They held on to get the comfortable win. Like Milwaukee did in game one last year. And now Dame Lillard might be coming back at some point in the series? Better get game two tomorrow.

We took the girls plus one out for a hibachi dinner. We normally go to this little hole-in-the-wall local spot that is very good and pretty quick. This time we tried Benihana, which we had never been to before, because we had a gift certificate. Meh. MUCH more expensive than the local spot, much slower, and the food wasn’t as good. It made us appreciate our local spot, which has all kinds of quirks, even more.

Joining us at our table was a trio that were dressed for their prom. They were sweating it a bit because despite being seated at 6:30, our chef didn’t start cooking for us until about 7:30. S was closer to them and got more of the story but I think they were able to eat and get out in plenty of time to make it before their entrance window closed, although they had to hustle through their meal.

Anyway, it was a pretty dorky looking dude and two pretty cute girls. We think they were all going as friends, but I wanted to give him props for overachieving. Times two even!

Easter Sunday

We had been stressing all week because we were expecting to have a larger group than our already large holiday gatherings, and the forecast was not looking promising. More rain was expected, right around our noon start for Easter dinner. The young ones were expecting an Easter egg hunt, too. We weren’t sure how that was going to work if we had to do it in the house. The aunts sent A LOT of eggs for the girls to hide. We have a big house, but I’m not sure we had enough hiding spots for them all.

Thankfully it ended up being a nearly perfect day. Some people ate outside. We had pulled all the outdoor furniture out of storage Saturday and were able to use it. Hell, if the pool was ready kids could have jumped in. The egg hunt came off without a hitch, outside as was ideal. This wasn’t good but one of S’s siblings came down with a stomach bug so his family stayed away, which made us a little less crowded.

After all the prep and stress it ended up being a nice day all around. The final guests filtered out around 4:00, M and her boyfriend headed back to Cincy shortly after, and our house was quiet again. Sometimes that’s the best part of the holiday gatherings, the chance to exhale and relax.

Monday

L and I had to get up early today as she had a 7:30 PT appointment today. News had just broke that Pope Francis had died. That reminded me of when he was elected in March 2013 and that news broke just as I was picking the girls up from school. As the white smoke was blowing in Rome, we had a sudden snow squall in Indy, which seemed appropriate. And then M came running out of school yelling “There’s a new pope! We don’t know who it is but there’s a new one! It’s eight o’clock in Rome!” Right after we got back from PT she texted the whole family to let us know Francis had died. Some things never change.

As for PT, it is going well. Her therapist is impressed with where L started and how she’s progressed through three sessions. She was supposed to ease out of the boot last week, but as she only went to school one day that plan kind of got blown up. At the session Friday her therapist told her it was fine to officially ditch it. After nearly six months in a boot or cast at school, she’s finally back to two shoes again. Thursday was the first time since November she wore khakis to school.

The radio play-by-play guy referred to Gainbridge as “the world’s greatest basketball arena.” Gainbridge is a great place to watch a game, but doesn’t Madison Square Garden have a version of this saying locked down? And there are probably 10, 20, 30 college arenas that are better than any NBA arena. Come on, man. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 18 Apr 2025 07:21:51 -0400

I have an absolutely loaded Friday as we prepare for weekend guests and our extra-large family gathering for Easter on Sunday. Because of that I’m starting this Thursday evening, and I’m not really sure where it’s going to take me after this odd week. Let’s find out together!

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“April Skies” - The Jesus and Mary Chain They’re going to be dark and stormy for the next couple days, at least here in Indy.

“The Feeling Is Gone” - The Horrors Man, this could be straight off of Depeche Mode’s 1990 classic Violator. And I do not hate that at all.

“Vacation” - Say Sue Me featuring Kim Hanjoo First the Koreans took over the pop world. Now they’re aiming for indie rock? I give them credit: ain’t nothing wrong with this jam.

“Lean Into The Wind” - Doves I don’t pretend to understand how the music industry works these days. For example, Doves just released a new album about six weeks ago. Now they’ve released a new song that wasn’t on that LP. Officially, it was a Record Store Day release. Although it landed on Spotify, etc at the same time. Which is fine. Often these leftover tracks didn’t make the album for a reason. In this case, though, I do not understand why this wasn’t on Constellations For The Lonely. It is very good, as good as any track on the full album. Thank goodness we get to hear it!

“Every Time I Hear” - Sharp Pins Gorgeous jangle pop from Chicago.

“God Knows” - Tunde Adebimpe The former TV On The Radio frontman’s solo debut is shaping up to be a real dandy.

“Good Friday” - Cowboy Junkies “Easter” - Strand of Oaks May the Easter Bunny be good to you all.

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“Transmission” - Joy Division This week, or maybe next, marks the 20th anniversary of my old music podcast. This was the first song played on the first show, which I referred to as transmissions. Good times. Ian Curtis was something else.

Health and Fitness Updates

Thu, 17 Apr 2025 09:40:39 -0400

A double-barreled discussion of health topics, one about a kid, one about me.

A Hospital Visit

My week got thrown off its already adjusted trajectory by spending four hours in the emergency department with L yesterday.[1] She’s fine but it was a stressful morning.

Her stomach started hurting badly Sunday. She was also hot, sweaty, and looked like hell. She had gone out to dinner with friends the night before and we wondered if she got some bad chicken. Despite hours of feeling terrible, she never got sick, though. We figured she’d sleep it off and be fine Monday.

But Monday she felt worse, so she stayed home.

Same Tuesday.

This was all horrible nausea, severe cramping at times, and the thought of eating anything made it all worse. She struggled to choke down a piece of toast, small bowl of cereal, or yogurt. That’s the worst feeling, when you need to get something in your belly but the mere thought makes you want to hurl. But, again, never had any abnormal GI activity.

She woke up in the middle of the night Tuesday/Wednesday in pain again, so S gave her some stomach meds along with a big pain killer so she could sleep. When she woke up, nothing was better. I was pushing her to go to school so she didn’t get too far behind, but found her with her head on the kitchen table crying. L does not like to miss school, so I knew it had to be bad if she couldn’t get herself together to avoid missing a third-straight day. I checked in with Dr. Mom, who said it was time to take L into the hospital to get checked.

Once there they ran blood work, did a CT scan, and, thankfully, everything came back normal. No appendix issues. No signs of blockages, growths, etc anywhere in her lower abdomen.

Unfortunately for her, by the time we got to the hospital her pain had receded quite a bit, so she didn’t get to receive one of those sweet, IV pain killers like S got years ago when she had severe food poisoning. Unfortunately for our checkbooks the pain also receded enough where she was starting to feel normal.

We were all relieved that it doesn’t appear anything bigger is going on with her. Maybe it was indeed something she ate, or perhaps a stomach bug that never fully blew up and caused her to puke it out.

After we left she wanted to get lunch, and ate it normally, which was the first time she had done that since Saturday night. She ate a regular dinner, too. This morning she said her stomach still feels weird, but the nausea had finally passed. Hopefully she can get through today and then has four days off for Easter to get back to 100%.

Scary but reassuring in the end.

Going to the ED at 9:00 AM on a Wednesday is probably one of the best times to go. But L did get to encounter some interesting folks.

There was a “Sassy Black Lady” running the security entrance, who snapped at anyone who avoided the not-super-obvious metal detector you were supposed to walk through before registering.

There was a woman in a wheelchair loudly sharing that she was there because of a sore on her foot, she wasn’t sure if it was a bedsore or a boil or what.

There was a cute little kid, probably two, walking around staring at everyone, and also coughing on them. We heard her screaming in her room later.

There was an older gentleman there with his wife who had the obligatory “horrible, old person ringtone” that was cranked beyond an acceptable limit which he let ring for 20 seconds while he slowly tried to find his phone, looked to see who was calling, and then commented on them to his wife before finally answering. Then he had a loud conversation with them, although at least he didn’t have them on speaker.

And then a dude came in who was either mental, on drugs, or perhaps both. Or, more likely, he may have been mental and NOT on the drugs he was supposed to be on. He paced nervously, then would sit, then jump up and pace around again. He kept sniffing and grunting loudly. I believe it was his mother who was with him and periodically she would snap at him to sit down and be quiet. The old lady sitting near us told her husband, not very quietly, that this kid made her nervous.

Thankfully we got called back pretty quickly, but this still had to be an eye opener for sheltered L.

Fitness Update

Y’all know that going to the gym is part of my daily routine. It is as much a mental health exercise as a physical one. Especially in winter, I could easily sit inside all day. Forcing myself to walk the two minutes across the street to the Y no matter what the weather is has helped me fight off my usual winter blues. Although I weigh a few pounds more than I’d like, those consistent workouts keep that from being closer to 10–15 extra lbs.

Anyway, I don’t really track my workouts. I have a little pocket notebook I take with me in which I jot down my strength training routine, but I never look at it once I’m back at home.

One of the first days of this year, I came across a post in which someone shared a little bubble dot calendar in which you could keep track of any habit, really, over the new year. I thought that was a cool visual reminder/tracker/reinforcer and printed one off. I figured I would brag on myself and share my progress through the first quarter of the year.

The colors don’t show well here, but the legend is that blue indicates strength training, red cardio at the gym (or in the pool once we get to summer), and black is either walks or other vigorous activities. “Vigorous activities” was basically my way of giving myself credit for breaking a good sweat on the days I had to shovel snow for more than 20 minutes. I reserve the right to include other intense yardwork that burns calories as the year progresses. You’ll also note three days with circles around the dots. Those are days that I did both a cardio exercise of some kind and then went out and threw snow around.

Bottom line is I worked out 73% of the first 90 days of 2025, which is pretty good. Allow me to apply those extra workouts to offset the days off, and I’m a little better than that. Having this visual reminder on my desk was a motivator on those days I was feeling lazy and didn’t want to bundle up and face the cold.

The only hangups have been a new, stupid, old man pain, this time in each foot, that has slowed be a bit for the last month or so. That stretch when I worked out once in five days in February came when I could barely put weight on one foot. Pretty sure it is a combination of arthritis and old shoes on the treadmill that knocked me out. I should note I was just walking on the treadmill, not running. But I did have the incline cranked way up. I guess my feet can’t handle steep inclines for extended periods anymore. Traveling for spring break knocked out a couple days, but I made sure to get a morning walk on the beach in during most of our time in Florida.

So 73% is my target to beat in Q2. I’ve already missed a couple days this month because of being busier than expected. Like when I have to take my kid to the ED. Hey, the pool opens in three weeks and that will open a new option for burning some calories while protecting my delicate joints.

It’s never too late to start tracking your healthy habits, thus here’s a link to the sheet. Apparently this person publishes a new one year each if you want to save it and come back when 2026 begins.

The girls get this Friday and next Monday off for Easter, so that throws everything off to begin with. Catholic schools, man. ↩

Tuesday Links

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 08:24:16 -0400

Given that our government is run by a fool who should be on some serious ADHD meds, it is nearly impossible to follow what is going on in Washington as it wildly careens from one insane policy to another every 6–12 hours. Thus, a couple of the articles I’m linking to below were out-of-date almost as soon as they were published. That doesn’t mean they aren’t still worth reading, though.

These are crazy times. Thus, it seems totally appropriate that one of the best breakdowns of our country’s ludicrous new trade policy comes from a writer whose primary focus is sports.

When I go to the store and buy something, I incur a trade deficit with the store, but most of the time I don’t feel like I got ripped off. The store got my money, I got something I wanted, everybody wins. But Trump—and this may be a window into how he himself does business—seems to see every buyer as a mark and every seller as a con artist. If we’re buying more from them than they are from us, we must be the suckers, and if we’re the suckers, we need to do whatever we can to reverse the imbalance and resume our rightful place as the alpha grifters of the world.

Four Totally Logical, Sensible, Legit Explanations for Trump’s Tariff Plan

This is a more serious look at why “Bringing Manufacturing Back to America!” is far more difficult than any politician will ever admit.

A ‘US-Made iPhone’ Is Pure Fantasy

There needs to be a Things Are Generally Fucked Up chart in here, too.

30 Charts That Show How Covid Changed Everything

Now for something completely different, it’s not every day I link to The Curling News. You know it’s going to be a doozy when I do.

This is, hands down, the worst thing I ever seen or heard of in my 42 years in this sport.
As a result, it’s the nightmare scenario: a player or players in the year 2025 who are deciding to blatantly cheat, and break the rules, because they think they can get away with it.

OK, maybe that’s not so different from what’s going on in the rest of the world after all.

China Caught Cheating in Curling

I’ve never been a huge Air Jordan guy, I haven’t owned a pair of true Jordans since the originals,[1] but for some reason I always read articles ranking the various editions. For the record, I would rank them 3, 4, 1, and don’t care after that.

Air Jordan power rankings: Which shoe is tops as the brand celebrates 40 years?

I know several of my friends are like me, and will have a kid traveling in Europe sometime over the next 12 months. This isn’t super useful for communicating, but is a fun tool to see how words change as you cross borders.

European word translator

I do currently own a pair of Russell Westbrook’s Jordan One Take 4’s that I got on sale for like $75 a year ago to wear as my AAU dad kicks. Russ still wears them sometimes. But they are not actually Air Jordans. ↩

Weekend Notes

Mon, 14 Apr 2025 10:24:45 -0400

A pretty chill weekend, at least for me. We knocked out a bunch of yard stuff over the past few days. I installed some new exterior lighting with a huge assist from a friend. S and I ripped out some dead plants and replaced them with new ones. Our lawn crew came for the first time on Friday. If not for all the washed-out mulch from the storms of two weeks ago, our front yard would look like a million dollars. Saturday I pulled out the pressure washer and blasted six months of crap off of the pool cover. We won’t open the pool for another three weeks, but at least that collected layer of dirt, tree debris, pollen, worms, etc is gone.

In other words, my friends, we are deep into spring. Last week was unseasonably cool and this week was predicted to be the same. Then, magically, every day’s forecast got nudged a few degrees higher yesterday. It won’t be as warm as friends and family in Kansas City and Denver have been experiencing, but I also won’t be wearing a coat to the gym in the morning.[1]

On to the other stuff we should cover.

The Masters

RORY!!!!!!

Fucking finally!!! In typical Rory fashion, it was not easy. Or, rather, for two-plus days it was very easy and then the last two hours threw everything about the Rory McIlroy experience at us. Wait, let me correct myself. Two holes into Sunday’s final round I was ready to turn it off as he had already blown his lead and trailed Bryson DeChambeau.

I’m glad I stayed tuned. That might have been the best Masters Sunday ever. You had a popular star racing to a historic win, only to fall apart, get it back together, fall apart again, and figure it out in the tournament’s biggest moment. You had multiple people making runs. The last two hours were engrossing, exhausting, and exhilarating.

A four-shot lead and the tournament was seemingly over as Rory stepped to his third shot on the 13th. Which he proceeded to, inexplicably, shank into the water. That was a mistake I would make. There is no way a PGA golfer with a three-shot lead on the back nine of a major should ever make.

Over the next five-plus holes he added another horrific approach shot and missed four short, makable putts. Make any of those putts and he wins in regulation. He also threw in two of the best shots of his entire career, hell two of the best shots you’ll ever see on the back nine of a major, and had either of them been hit at simply an A level rather than A+, could have cost him the tournament.

Thursday Rory trailed Justin Rose by seven strokes at the end of play. Sunday when Rory got to –14 Rose was seven shots behind him. Then Rose began a miraculous run through the last nine holes, briefly taking the lead, capped by a 30-foot bomb on 18 to get to –11. When is where Rory finished when he pulled his par put to win ever-so-slightly.

It seems especially cruel to begin a playoff on the 18th hole. Especially in this case, where Rory had just gagged the tournament away when all he had to do was finish the hole in four shots. He looked shellshocked. I would have been shaking uncontrollably, barely able to grip the club. Instead he piped his drive into the perfect spot, then answered a terrific Rose approach with an even better one, his ball trickling to three feet. This time he nailed the putt and 11 years of chasing golf’s Grand Slam was over. Fourteen years after a meltdown on the back nine cost him a chance to win the Masters as a 21-year-old, he had finally grabbed his green jacket.

That was one of the realest moments of celebration and relief you will ever see.

I, like so many people, love Rory because he has a wonderful game when he’s on, as good as anyone who has ever played. But, like Phil Mickleson, he has these remarkable breakdowns in the biggest moments. Phil’s were generally because of hubris and stupidity. Rory’s seemed more relatable because they were often inexplicable or maybe mental? Any one who has ever tried to play golf understands that kind of failure more than Phil’s.

I also love Rory because he is one of the most thoughtful, honest, emotionally available athletes in any sport. He has been the conscious of the sport over the past five years as so many of his contemporaries have taken the Saudi money and fled the PGA. Notably to some of us, he also approaches life in general from a different perspective than 90–95% of other pro golfers. I wouldn’t say he’s a bleeding heart liberal, but he’s called out politicians like our current president for their hate and lack of empathy.[2] He does not fall into that convenient conservatism so many golfers adopt because they hate taxes or just grew up around the privileged at country clubs and can’t see any other perspective. Rory’s parents were working class. He grew up playing on muni courses. He, for the most part, seems to have never forgotten that.

Good for Rory for (finally) grabbing the Masters jacket he’s been chasing for so long. And thank goodness he did. I’m not sure he could have recovered had Rose won the playoff. Now, maybe, he goes on a run where those mental blocks that have plagued him fade and he wins a whole mess of majors over the next few years and ends up right where we thought he would he when he won four before he was 25.

Oh, as always, one of the great things about Masters week is Chris Vernon’s updates on Thursday and Friday. These never get old.

youtu.be/UsZ8BjEjR…

Pacers

Some end to the season for the Pacers. Thursday they had to rally to beat the Cavaliers B-team. In doing so they clinched the #4 spot in the Eastern Conference. Sunday their own mostly B-team came from 21 down to again beat the scrub Cavs in double overtime and clinch the franchise’s first 50-win season since 2013–14. Since mid-December, when they were floundering a bit, the Pacers are 39–17, the 4th best record in the NBA over that span.

Not really significant, but Johnny Furphy scored 17 and 15 in the final two games of the season. He was expected to be a full-time G-Leaguer this year. Thanks to a lot of injuries early, he got more minutes than expected and ended up playing more NBA games than G-League ones. It’s fun to hear the Pacers TV guys get fired up every time he enters a game. Oh, and he murdered Goga Bitadze Friday.

youtu.be/e4sZFOxj3…

It’s been a weird second half of the season. Over the last 4–6 weeks the Pacers have had a ton of bizarre wins. There was a stretch in March where almost every game involved some crazy comeback or insane shots in the closing seconds.

In other words, I’m not sure if this team is quite as good as their record indicates. Or, on the other hand, maybe they’re a team that never gets down on themselves and are comfortable in difficult situations. Throw in the experience from last year’s conference finals run, and perhaps they are a super dangerous team?

They get a quick test. For the second straight year, they open with Milwaukee. Last year it was a 3–6 matchup, the Bucks owning home court. But Giannis did not play and Dame Lillard got injured during the series. This year Giannis is healthy (for now) but Dame is (likely) out for the playoffs. The Bucks are also less deep and a year older than a year ago. And a potential game seven would be in Indy. The fun part is these teams hate each other, so it should be an intense, physical series.

For all the flukiness, the Pacers also finally seem healthy and have their rotation locked in. Pacers in seven. I hope.

PT

L started physical therapy on Friday. If you’ve ever been to PT, you know these initial visits are filled with questions, tests, taking baseline measurements, etc. before you finally do some work. L’s therapist was impressed with the condition of her foot. In one measure, it was actually more flexible than her right foot, which the therapist attributed to tracing the alphabet with her toes since having her cast removed. The clearest difference was in the strength between the two, which we knew. When L had her cast removed she almost screamed at how skinny her left leg had gotten. I told her some of that was just from compression, not necessarily muscle loss. But she does have some work to do to get her strength back on that side.

She will begin weaning herself out of the boot this week, starting the day in a shoe then switching back to the boot after a few hours. The therapist didn’t make any promises, but when she heard CHS begins summer workouts in June, she acted like that might be a reasonable goal to be fully active for. That’s eight weeks away, which would be sixteen weeks after surgery, so right on schedule.

The best news is L’s only pain was in the incision line while doing her PT, nothing inside the foot where the bone was removed and tendon re-attached. She was sore Saturday, but otherwise seemed ok. We went out and shot some non-jumping shots for about 20 minutes.

So she’s on the right path.

It was both nice and a bummer to get a message from her AAU coach Saturday saying how much he missed her, both on and off the court. His daughter texted L directly and said the same thing. Their team had a rough weekend, although they had to play with a few replacement players thanks to spring breaks. Not that L is the best player on the team. But she is definitely a glue girl both during games and when the team is hanging out that they are missing. I think that was a little ego boost for L. It’s good to be missed.

Mom’s Day

S drove down to Cincinnati Saturday for M’s sorority mom’s day. It was a pretty low key and nice day. S got to meet some of M’s friends. And her boyfriend. Who she is bringing home next weekend for Easter. Oh boy…

Last Monday and Tuesday the windchill was in the 20’s on my walks across the street, requiring me to fully bundle up in multiple layers with a hat and gloves. This morning I wore a hoodie but just had shorts on my lower half. ↩
He’s also met with our current president, which he’s taken some heat for. While he’s no supporter, he’s also never let his disagreements get in the way of honoring the office. I guess. That was during the 2017–21 term; I believe Rory has kept his distance this year. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 11 Apr 2025 08:26:52 -0400

Yowza! Take a week off and not only does the music pile up, but there are also a couple large events to recognize. So this week’s list is EXTRA large for your listening pleasure. And that’s even with me probably cutting a song or two from my working list as I finalize what I share.

open.spotify.com/playlist/…

“catch these fists” - Wet Leg LOOK WHO’S BACK!!! WATCH OUT, FOOLS!!!

“NW1” - Mên An Tol Whoo, this song cooks! I assumed based on the band name they were somehow Scandinavian, or maybe Icelandic. Turns out they are just some British lads, and took their name from a small stone formation in Cornwall. Call it a JV Stonehenge.

“Rodeo” - Momma I’ve already shared a couple songs from Momma’s latest album, which officially came out while we were breaking. The album got terrific reviews so I gave it a spin this week and this was the other song that really stuck out to me.

“Holly” - Jolie Laide It’s been driving me crazy for a couple weeks what other band these folks sound like. There was a song a few years back that had a very similar vibe to this, including a man and woman responding to each other’s lines, the film noir-ish music, etc. It also had a lot of whistling where this does not. Anyone else remember that song?

“The Wolf” - Witch Post Is it wrong to put two man-woman songs back-to-back?

“Backseat Banton” - Bartees Strange Not sure how I missed including this over the past two months. It was just about to drop out of my current music playlist, so I’m glad I caught the error in time.

“Stay” - Sea Lemon Exactly the kind of dream pop I love the most.

“Lowdown (part 1)” - Michael Kiwanuka If this hasn’t already been used to soundtrack moments in TV shows and movies, it surely will be soon.

“A Man Needs A Vocation” - Craig Finn Finn’s album Always Been also came out while we were away. I’ve been listening to it all week. The addition of members of The War on Drugs as his backing band refresh his sound wonderfully. Several of the songs sound 100% like TWOD songs everywhere but in his vocals. This is one of the best examples. The opening keyboards. The drums. The chiming acoustic guitars that carry the song, and the little electric guitar flourishes throughout. This easily could have been on the last Drugs album.

“Rain In The River” - Bruce Springsteen Well now! Like Prince, Springsteen has a large vault of unreleased music. Unlike Prince, he periodically taps into it, brushing up songs that have lain fallow for decades and letting the public hear them. The biggest new music news of the past week was the announcement of The Boss’ Tracks II, a package that will include 83 songs spanning seven full length albums, containing first recorded between 193 and 2018. Most of it comes from the 1990s, a decade when he stepped back from the public eye but was still apparently working quite hard. Also included is his legendary 1983 Garage Sessions work, during which he worked alone on many of the songs that became the hits of Born in the USA after he took them to the E. Street Band.

This song comes a compilation of E. Street Band-styled songs recorded at various points during the quarter century scope of the entire boxed set.

[embed]youtu.be/TU3-lS_Gr…

“Dreaming” - Blondie Ugh. Blondie drummer Clem Burke died this week. He had been sick for some time but hid his cancer diagnosis, so his passing came as a shock even to many close to him.

Blondie was always mostly about Debbie Harry. Burke’s driving beats held the whole operation together, though.

Blondie’s peak was less than four years long. Despite that they had a huge impact on music and culture, one that still influences bands trying to figure out what direction they want to go. You can argue about which Blondie single is the best. They had four number ones, which are good places to start. I’ve long leaned towards “Dreaming” though. I think some of that is because while those chart topping hits went different directions - disco, Euro-disco, Dancehall, and rap - “Dreaming” was a perfect New Wave song, the genre the band helped bring to the mainstream. Harry softened her New York hardness a bit, making it feel more like an updated, Sixties girl band tune.[1] And then there were Burke’s drums, an absolutely jaw-dropping performance. I did not know until this week that the drums you hear were his first take at the track, and he wasn’t taking it all that seriously, thus played busier and with more abandon than he normally would. Harry and Chris Stein loved how they sounded and kept them for the final mix of the song. Amazing. And RIP.

This track is, obviously, a live performance played over the recorded track. But watch Burke just beat the shit out of his kit.

Also, like this week’s RFTS post, it has an AMAZING set of opening lines. ↩

Reader's Notebook 4/10/25

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 08:36:32 -0400

I read two-and-a-half books while on break. I admit I had to go back and read a summary of one of them. That’s what happens when you read most of it in small doses on the beach, I guess.

The Seventh Floor - David McCloskey The latest entry from the former CIA analyst and host of The Rest Is Classified podcast. This time, operations against a Russian target run into constant obstacles because of a Russian mole deep within the CIA’s leadership. The search for and capture of said agent are both good fun.

Thrilling Cities - Ian Fleming This is a collection of travel essays that Ian Fleming wrote for London’s The Sunday Times based on trips he took in 1959 and 1960, first published in book form in 1963. Some of it is fascinating, notably how unique it was to travel around the world on a jet plane at the time, and how very different that experience was. Some of it is cringey: Fleming was, infamously, a bit of a racist and could easily judge the people he met on his travels based on the color of their skin, ethnicity, or where they were born. Some of it is very funny. At times he opens with a pretty racist statement, then subverts it and makes himself look silly in the process. He had a sharp eye for what made cities unique, and was not afraid to explore them deep into the night to discover all they had to offer.

These essays are purely entertainment value at this point. Despite the racism and out-of-datedness, it is fun to read about how much the world has changed and how exotic cities that were a day-long plane ride away felt in 1960.

Ballistic - Mark Greaney

Zero Option - W.E.B. Griffin Last fall I came across Steve Donoghue’s year end lists of favorite books of various genres. I added several of them to my always growing To Read list, especially from his list of best thrillers. Both of these were entries on that list. Given that he focuses on “real” literature, I’m kind of surprised he is so into books where people mostly blow shit (and other people) up.

Ballistic is an entry in Greaney’s Gray Man series, which I started earlier this year. It’s not dissimilar to the opener. The Gray Man faces seeming insurmountable odds as he takes on a Mexican drug cartel nearly singlehandedly, yet somehow wins. I enjoyed it, but have to admit I can only read so many books like this. Especially when by the same author and with the same protagonist, so this will probably be the last Gray Man book I read.

Zero Option is like a modern Bond book, in that Peter Kirsanow picked up Griffin’s “Men At War” series following his death in 2019. In this case, a German plot to kill Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin at the Tehran Conference in 1943. The story switches between the Germans, a team of Americans, and a Soviet agent, who are all aimed at the same point in time with very different agendas.

This book seemed like it was written more for teenagers. It was silly and uneven, and spent far too much time building up to the events in Tehran without accomplishing much along the way. A part of me wondered if it had been translated from another language as some of the dialogue pretty dumb. Oh well, this was mostly read on the beach so better to waste time on it rather than something more meaty.

Everybody Knows - Jordan Harper The second Harper book I’ve read, and this was just about as satisfying as the first (She Rides Shotgun).

In this case, an associate at a PR firm that specializes in sanitizing/killing stories about terrible things famous people do gets pulled into a classic LA Noir murder mystery that winds itself through the richest people in the town. She is assisted by an old flame, a retired cop who works in the same realm, investigating icky stories and finding ways to use them for/against people in the limelight. They dive into the world of childhood stars, controlling agents, and the sick predilections of the wealthy. It is disturbing but very well written and entertaining.

Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 111

Wed, 09 Apr 2025 11:41:16 -0400

Chart Week: April 4, 1981 Song: “Take It On The Run” - REO Speedwagon Chart Position: #27, third week on the chart. Peaked at #5 for two weeks in May/June.

What makes a song great? There are like a million different things we could talk about when breaking that question down. I respect you and don’t want to type up a post that long. So let’s focus on one specific attribute: a powerful set of opening lyrics. Like these, for example:

Heard it from a friend who, Heard it from a friend who, Heard it from another you’d been messin’ around

What a fantastic opening stanza! You’ve grabbed the listener’s attention and given them an idea of what’s to come by addressing a universal topic: being cheated on.

I begin with that not to dive into an exploration of songs about stepping out, or to answer the broader societal question of “Why Do People Cheat?” Rather, I start there because “Take It On The Run” is as much about miscommunication, rumors, and the tendency for humans to gossip as the actual (and alleged) cheating Kevin Cronin was singing about.

Those themes can apply to any relationship, not just romantic ones. Friendships. Business partnerships. How you get along with your neighbors. Hell, it can explain why a band that has been making music for nearly 60 years suddenly falls apart. More specifically to our discussion, it is why REO Speedwagon was in the music news last week.

When you think of REO Speedwagon, you probably think of lead singer Kevin Cronin’s voice and Gary Richrath’s guitar first. Richrath, who wrote “Take It On The Run,” left the band in 1989 and died in 2015. His soaring solos were a staple of the REO sound.

Cronin first joined the band in 1972, five years after REO formed, and was fired a year later. He rejoined in 1976 and was the lead singer through their glory days, a stretch that included nine top 20 hits, two of which topped the Billboard pop chart. I wouldn’t call his voice legendary, but it was a great fit for the words he and his bandmates wrote, always conveying the proper emotional timbre.

He remained the face of the band until last year, when he was fired for a second time, in this case because of the dreaded “irreconcilable differences” with bass player Bruce Hall. It seems that they argued about touring; Cronin wanted to keep the band on the road while Hall was done with that part of the business. I’m not sure how Cronin was the one to get fired over that conflict. Seems like you kick out the guy who does not want to continue doing what rock bands are supposed to do. And Cronin, who was in the band longer than Hall, should have had ultimate veto power, right? However, Hall was able to rally the other members of the band to vote out their front man after 48 years.

This conflict resurfaced last week when Cronin posted an angry statement saying he was “deeply disturbed” that he had not been invited to an event this June where most of the other surviving members of REO’s various eras will come together for a show in their hometown of Champaign, IL. Further, he claims that the organizers of the event not only failed to include him, but also specifically picked a date when his new outfit, The Kevin Cronin Band,[1] is scheduled to play a show with Styx in Bend, OR. Jeez.

These squabbles within bands that decide to fall apart in their Medicare years always make me laugh. What else are these jokers going to do at this point other than play music together? I doubt they’re living the high life like in their primes, but it must pay the bills. I know 40, 50, 60 years of baggage can be a lot. You’ve put up with it for this long, though. Get over it, play your tunes for 90 minutes four nights a week, and keep cashing those checks.

Like those broken relationships the band was singing about in 1981, most of this strife is likely based on an inability to communicate directly and relying on the telephone game of words being passed from person to person to person and losing their true meaning along the way. Even guys in their 70s can still act like dumb teenagers sometimes.

I LOVE “Keep On Loving You,” REO Speedwagon’s monster hit that topped American Top 40 two weeks before this show. I’ve written about it many times on this site.[2] You know what? “Take It On The Run” might be a better song. It’s just a little punchier, the guitar work a little more muscular, and a little more traditional in its structure which spools out its drama a little longer. That opening (and closing) sequence is wonderful. Richrath’s guitar work is epic. And even if the protagonist’s anger and accusations are based on misperceptions and half-truths, you can’t deny the bitterness in Cronin’s delivery.

In these two songs, REO, arguably, perfected the massive, power ballad and created a structure pretty much every rock band would follow for the next, what, decade? Two decades? Forever?

REO Speedwagon was one of the biggest bands of their era. Like many acts that fell into their sphere - Journey, Styx, Boston, Kansas, etc. - they often took grief from critics for being too commercial, overly produced, and writing what were basically 20 versions of the same song. That may all be true. When they got everything right, though, they wrote some classics. 8/10

Some of my younger readers might say, “Wow, a band had two big hits in a matter of months with two songs about being unfaithful? That’s kind of wild!” Well, my friends, wait until you hear the name of the album those songs were from: Hi Infidelity. Honest to God. People loved to sing about and listen to songs related to cheating in 1981.

While listening to this countdown, I thought about how I would have reacted if you told me back in 1981 that REO Speedwagon would still be playing music in 2025.[3] Cronin was 30 when “Take It On The Run” was released, which seemed ancient to nine-year-old me. To still be rocking when they were older than my grandparents? Crazy talk!

The Rolling Stones were four months away from releasing their Tattoo You album. That LP and the associated massive tour combined to turn them into rock’s first eternal act. The Stones certainly took a different path from the State Fair/casino circuit so many Seventies and Eighties acts, including REO, eventually landed on. However, until the Stones had that second explosively successful stage in their career while in their 40s, I don’t think anyone, even the artists themselves, viewed playing and recording rock music as something you could do your entire life.

Also, while I was walking to the locker room at the gym Monday, I heard “Take It On The Run” blasting out of the spin studio. I’m not the only one that still likes it!

youtu.be/OCy4QdfjO…

Imaginative name, Kev! ↩
Feel free to search the site archives to track those posts down. ↩
Or 2024 I guess. ↩

Hoops Chat

Tue, 08 Apr 2025 11:14:18 -0400

A lot of hoops thoughts to work through as the college season has come to a very entertaining end.

Women’s Tourney

Man, UConn roared through the tournament like they were all mad the program hadn’t won a title in nearly a decade. Their performance in the Final Four was as dominant as I can remember any team, men or women, having over the final two games of the season. They eviscerated UCLA and South Carolina with a gorgeous, flowing, democratic brand of basketball. Try to take away one player and two others were waiting to kill you.

L is a big Paige Bueckers fan. In fact, she wrote her high school entrance essay about Bueckers and how she showed perseverance overcoming her injuries. I’ve shared before how it’s really hard to get L to sit down and watch full basketball games. Well Friday and Sunday, she sat next to me and watched every minute of the two UConn games.[1] I was pleased that she, apparently, watches a lot of highlights, because she knew every player and what they run on offense and defense. I was happy for Paige, I was happy for L since she wanted Paige to win, and I was happy that I was able to sit, watch, and enjoy a couple games with my hoopster daughter.

Bueckers was obviously the headline story, but, man, Huskies freshman Sarah Strong was so impressive. Not quite as flashy as Juju Watkins, but she has just about everything in her game. In the void of Watkins being out part/most/all of next year rehabbing her knee, Strong should become the face of the college game.

I literally laughed out loud when I saw a Fox News headline that Bueckers’ apparent lack of popularity outside hoops-heads (I guess?) is because of her race. So they’re just going to ignore the last two years, or the fact that the most popular WNBA player ever and one of the most popular athletes in the world at the moment is another white, Midwesterner? Now maybe the article was more nuanced, or it went directly political and got into how Bueckers is far more outspoken about things that get the Fox News crowd riled up than Caitlin Clark has ever been. But I didn’t read that shit, so can’t be certain.

Geno Auriemma has always annoyed me. I think it’s just his east coast arrogance. He seems to have mellowed a bit in recent years. I don’t know if it was the (super) relative lack of success for the program over the past decade, age, or something else, but he actually seemed kind of likable this weekend. Although I guess he kind of made an ass of himself in the press conference after the title game. Hopefully Paige yelled at him.

L asked if I thought he would retire now. I think it’s hard to do that when you have a player like Strong returning, along with Azzi Fudd and others. And I’m sure he has another stud freshman or two who will join them. Why quit when the program is still loaded?

The women’s Final Four was in Tampa. Although we flew in and out of the Sarasota airport, it was still filled with UConn folks coming in for the weekend when we left on Friday.

Chomp Chomp

Not much about Monday’s men’s title game was pleasing to the eye. Houston’s defense is remarkable, but it completely sucks the life out of the game. Worse, their offense is kind of terrible, mostly designed to throw the ball off the backboard and grab offensive rebounds while hoping LJ Cryer or Emanuel Sharp hit the occasional 3 between all the bricks. I was trying to remember a team with this combo of attributes making it this far. Virginia and Villanova were both intense defensive minded teams that sometimes struggled to score. But both teams were also focused on playing deliberately on offense, and had a couple guys you did not want to let get open looks. The classic Georgetown teams jumped out at me, but they had a hall of famer in the low post so I’m not sure that’s an exact match for Houston, either. Ironically Georgetown’s one title game win in their three chances was against Houston in 1984.

Florida’s defense was not much worse, creating an absolute slog of a game. Worse, the officials had no idea how to manage the physicality and clearly let it get away from them a couple times. Hell, the entire second half was a mess of too many calls followed by no calls followed by terrible calls to try to quell the near-violence. Slamming the ball on the ground in anger is 100% worthy of a technical, but I’m not sure how J’Wan Roberts throwing his hands in the air and screaming after every single call/no call is not also a “demonstrative act.”

All that made for a disjointed, ill-tempered, uncomfortable game to watch. I was glad I had no strong interest in who won.

Well, that’s not true. The Gators winning made me some money. I won one pool, tied for first in another. Sadly I got those in the wrong order. The pool I won shares the money amongst the top four. The one I tied in gives all the money to the winner, and I lost the tie breaker in that one. That tie breaker was extra annoying because the guy I lost to had KU in the Elite 8. I feel like I should win over him based on that alone.

Oh well. Second time in four years I’ve won a pool. And this year was with me being absolutely terrible on day one. Of course it’s also because I picked four number one seeds to get to the Final Four. But I’m on record as having wanted to pick against one of them, just not finding a team below them I trusted to pull the upset. So at least my cop-out was an informed one.

As some of my readers know, I finished second in my fantasy draft, trailing my buddy Nez in Lee’s Summit by 16 points. If only Clemson hadn’t lost in the first round…

I feel a little bad for Kelvin Sampson. He’s truly a great coach who has been unfairly maligned because he sent too many texts to recruits. Well, he did it twice at two different schools, so he deserves some shit for not learning from his mistakes. But that sure seems quaint in the NIL era. Anyway, he might be the current best example of a “culture” coach. You know what you’re getting from one of his Houston teams. Shame he and his son couldn’t come up with better plays to run on the Cougars’ last two possessions. Four turnovers in the last 2:00 nearly matched KU’s meltdown against Arkansas.

Houston might have the two combined most painful championship game losses ever. Not sure 1983 will ever be topped, especially given the talent on that team. But not even getting a shot off on the last two possessions Monday will smart for years.

Still props to them for one of the greatest comebacks in Final Four history Saturday night against Duke. That was thoroughly enjoyable. It never seemed possible until suddenly it was. That was the second biggest choke by a team from North Carolina in the Final Four this decade.

I had not watched Florida at all until the past couple weeks. When they were rolling, they were incredible. Such a great combination of parts. Waves of athletic bigs. Athletic wings. Shooters everywhere. And although he was largely held in check last night, Walter Clayton Jr. is like a low-rent Steph Curry, never afraid of taking a shot from anywhere on the court and, more often than not, nailing them.

Lots of buzz in the KU community that Todd Golden is the favorite to come to Lawrence when Bill Self retires. Golden has some baggage, to say the least. And now that he’s won a title in Gainesville he may not feel the need to jump to a traditional power. He has proven, though, that he understands modern basketball and how to build a team to compete. As soon as this time next year KU AD Travis Goff could have a big decision to make about whether the allegations against Golden are enough to prevent him from being considered to replace Self. Again, all rumors, but apparently Goff has zero interest in Chris Beard when the time comes because of his legal issues a couple years back. Seems like Golden should be disqualified if Beard is.

Jayhawk Talk

What a wild two weeks for KU.

First they lost almost every player who could return from this year’s team, worst of all Flory Bidunga. There had been rumblings for weeks, and you just kind of expect it these days anyway. I was still super bummed when Flory jumped. There were even rumors that Bryson Tiller, who was on campus this spring and will be a freshman next fall, might not stick around. There was a full-on panic as we realized we barely had enough players to fill out a roster, and worry that Darryn Peterson might decide to take his talents elsewhere.

The tide started to turn over the weekend. Self nabbed a couple transfers from the portal, both athletic wings. Then Bidunga announced he was returning to Lawrence. That news broke Sunday in the middle of a family conversation. Which I interrupted by throwing my hands in the air and yelling “FLORY IS BACK!!!!” My family made fun of me.

Flory’s time in the portal was fascinating, and telling of the state of college ball at the moment. There were immediate rumors that Auburn, his second choice a year ago, was offereing $3 million a year, which seemed insane. If that was true, I would happily let Flory walk. I love him and his potential, but he ain’t worth three million bucks.[2] Then there was word of back-and-forth between KU and Flory’s “team,” with Self even flying to Indiana to meet with them a week ago. Suddenly Saturday night, when all signs pointed towards Flory going to Auburn, the tide seemed to shift and there were strong rumors he would stay a Jayhawk. I guess until the revenue sharing model gets instituted, this is how college hoops will be. Even if you’re happy with where you are and your role, you jump in the portal to basically renegotiate your deal with your current school. I want players to get paid, but I’m pretty sure this is an awful way to do it. It hurts all sides. I haven’t read enough about the upcoming House settlement to understand if it will solve this problem, make it worse, or keep it as it.

Anyway, Flory’s back!

(My winning pool entry was titled Bidungapalooza. I sweated that name for a week but it worked out all around.)

There’s still work to do. I would like another big guard who can start. There has to be another big to play either next to or behind Flory. Even then, I worry that too much is being expected of Peterson, who will be the most talented player to arrive in Lawrence since Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid showed up in 2013. You know what, though? KU will NOT be picked preseason #1, nor picked to win the Big 12. There is always pressure at KU, but it will be dialed back a few notches next year, which should be good for everyone from the coaches to players to fans.

She also plays for the AAU program run by UConn sophomore Ashlynn Shade’s parents. ↩
Message board rumors Sunday were that he’s getting $1.3M from KU this year, slightly better than Auburn’s final, true offer. ↩

Spring Break 2025

Mon, 07 Apr 2025 16:25:37 -0400

Home after a nearly perfect week in Siesta Key, FL for C’s senior spring break. This might have been the easiest spring break we’ve ever had. In nearly every way you can assess it, things went as well, or even better, as we could have hoped for.

We were on one of the B Team breaks for C’s class. The largest group trip was to a resort in Cancun. After doing the huge, overseas, resort trip two years ago with M’s class, C was not interested in all the drama that came with it. Plus she’s less social than M, so did not feel the need to be in the midst of the big gathering.[1]

There were somewhere between 40–50 of her classmates in Siesta, roughly 30 of those in our loose group that stayed in a series of resorts and condos that were all clustered together in the center of the Key. Three of C’s friends stayed with us. Or, rather, we had two rooms at the Sarasota Surf and Racquet Club, one for S, L, and I, and the other for C and her friends. I have to admit this arrangement made me nervous in the weeks leading up to the trip. C’s room was not only separate from ours, but in a completely different building.

C and her roommates did great. As far as we know, there weren’t any incidents, they didn’t annoy any of their neighbors, and no one got arrested. Seems like a success.

There was one bummer for the week, but it wasn’t related to C or her friends. L was all fired up that she would be running around close to normal since she was in a walking boot rather than a cast. Her first night trying to hang with friends quashed those thoughts. Turns out when you don’t put any weight on your foot for five weeks, you aren’t immediately able to walk normally again. Plus strolling around in an aircast is not comfortable at all, at least at first. She was too slow and sore and ended up coming home early upset because she couldn’t keep up with the group. She largely spent the rest of the week with us. I felt sorry for her but she kept insisting she was fine, and told us her perfect break is getting up early, reading all day, and then going to bed early. I think some of that was deflecting, but it is true she’s not really into the party scene yet. Fortunately one of her best friends from middle school who goes to Bishop Chatard was just down the beach and insisted L come out with her a couple nights.

That was an interesting aspect of our week. While there was a decent number of Cathedral families there, Siesta Key is where Chatard’s seniors almost all come each year, staying right in same area we were. There wasn’t a ton of interaction among the seniors that we saw, but the younger kids were definitely crossing lines. And we saw tons of St P’s families.

Speaking of St P’s, early in the week I saw this older dude, shaved head, sitting near us without his shirt on, showing off his impressive tattoos. I pointed him out to L and said “Hey, that looks like Mr. H!” the principal at St P’s the first four or five years we had kids there. There were always rumors that he had a bunch of tattoos from when he lived in Japan, and that he always wore long sleeved shirts so the kids didn’t see them. Making this comparison funnier was that the dude was vaping.

Well, next day we got a text from another St P’s/CHS parent that said “OMG! I just saw Mr. H on the beach and he was vaping!” It was him!

Turned out he was staying in our complex with one of his kids and some grandkids. He walked around all week without a shirt on and we caught him vaping any time the little ones weren’t around. Later someone said he stays there every year. Kind of crazy to pick a spring break spot where you know tons of families from the school you used to run always go. Especially since we didn’t see him interact with a single person outside his family.

The weather was nearly perfect all week. It only rained once, and that was a downpour Saturday night just after we returned from dinner. Otherwise hot, sunny, and breezy every day. Just what you want from spring break.

Most nights we ended up hosting a dinner in our room for C, her roommates, and then any friends who were tagging along. There was a Taco Tuesday dinner on the beach for most of the CHS families at the complex next door.

Our only big outing was Wednesday when most of the CHS crew went on a sunset cruise together. Here’s where there was an obvious difference between C’s trip and M’s. In the Dominican Republic two years ago, kids were getting WASTED on the afternoon booze cruise. The drinking age there is 18, and the kids were openly killing rum punch as soon as the bartender handed it to them. S had to help a couple kids out who were in really bad shape.

But in Florida the kids obviously couldn’t drink openly, and you weren’t allowed to bring anything onto the boat. We did end up buying C and her roommates a round of daiquiris, as did most of the other parents. A bartender told us they hadn’t sold this many daiquiris in weeks, which made all us parents laugh out loud. There was a line of parents buying 4–5 drinks each and no questioning about where they were going. Our kids all behaved. Only a few of them had more than one drink, but several got on the boat with quite a few in them from the beach. But there were no incidents.

Late in the two hour cruise S, L and I were downstairs where it was less crowded. C came down to check in and got a text from a friend upstairs that the bartenders were carding kids. S ran up to check and it turned out they were just taking the drinks from kids who couldn’t produce an ID. Again, hilarious. They sold drinks and made tips for 90 minutes and then in the last half hour made kids dump them out before we got back to the dock. Fair enough.

C had a drink and wasn’t being very careful about hiding it. The downstairs bartender came over and asked for her ID. Again, when C couldn’t show her one, the bartender politely took the drink and that was that. Seems like they were chill because the kids were being chill.

The last time we went to Siesta Key the police were pretty hardcore on the beach. We know a couple Indy kids who got arrested that year. We only saw one group of kids get hassled last week, and those were idiot sophomores from the other Catholic school who had a case of beer sitting in the midst of their circle in broad daylight. The deputies hassled them for a while, then took the beer and told the kids to disperse. As far as we know no kids were arrested in our little area all week.

The travel part of the week was about as easy as you could imagine this time of year. We flew out of Indy in the afternoon and there were no lines. I had to wait less than five minutes to pick up our rental in Sarasota. We also had an afternoon return flight. When I walked by the rental counter after turning in our van, there were lines similar to our visit three years ago, when people were stuck waiting for hours and we eventually bailed and ordered an Uber. There was literally no one in front of us to drop bags or in the TSA Pre line. Our flight was delayed 15 minutes, but we ended up landing right on time. I’m a little nervous that this means our next trip will be plagued with issues.

We missed some big weather at home. Wednesday there were tornado warnings in Indy. After our sunset cruise we had the girls back to our room for an evening snack and many of them were either getting texts or calls from their parents back home, who were all in their basements. That was followed by massive rain, which continued into the weekend. We ended up getting over 6” of rain in our part of town over four days. No issues at our house. The sump pump kept pumping and if the power went off, it was only briefly. Just some limbs down in the yard to throw into the trash dumpster. Everything is super green, though, and trees and plants are starting to bud/flower.

So pretty awesome we are going to have hard freezes the next two nights.

One of the best things about the week is that we got to spend time with the parents of one of M’s best friends, who we hung with in the Dominican two years ago. Their middle daughter and C are casual friends, so we don’t get to see them as much as we did with the older sisters. We tried to avoid what was going on in the world while we were relaxing, but they have the same perspective on things as we do, and also have three daughters, so the dad and I especially spent a lot of time talking about the state of things and what it means for our girls as they become adults. The dad also drives a Rivian, so we talked about cool cars, too. It’s a shame their third daughter is two years younger than L and we won’t get to travel with them again in their senior years.

We always enjoy going to Publix when in Florida. We did make three trips there over the course of the week. That was even with ordering some stuff ahead of time, that we picked up on our way to the resort Friday, and having an Instacart order from Costco get delivered that night as well. That all went fairly well. Some of the fruit and vegetables were crap, a big reason I’m usually fine going to the store on my own. All our bread was also moldy in about a day. We figured they take the stuff off the shelf that’s about to expire and save it for delivery orders.

We didn’t spend a ton of time in the car, but did have to run girls somewhere, pick up food, etc each day. On our drive from the airport we found a cool, old school hip hop and R&B station. It played almost exclusively songs from the ‘90s. We kept it glued to that station and enjoyed it throughout the week. Despite spending just a little time in the car, we managed to hear “Poison,” “Hey Ya!” and “Don’t Walk Away” four times each. Not that I’m complaining.

So we survived the middle kid’s spring break. She and her friends lean to the Good Kid side of the spectrum, but you never know when you go away, there are lots of kids around, and alcohol is involved. We are thankful they all respected us and their parents enough to keep the nonsense to a minimum.

The seniors have just five weeks of classes left, with two shorter weeks in there because of Easter. Prom, National Honor Society, graduation activities, and grad party season are all right around the corner. The next two-plus months are going to be busy, but fly by quickly.

Since Covid our spring breaks have been: Anna Maria, Siesta Key, Punta Caña, Anna Maria, Siesta Key. We are NOT going to the DR again next year, but will likely be out of the country. ↩

Friday Playlist

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 07:12:27 -0400

Nothing special about this playlist in advance of our spring break. Although it is chock full of great tunes. No playlist next week, as that is our fly home day. Hope everyone has a great week.

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"Bonnet Of Pins" - Matt Berninger
Oh my! Often when lead singers of bands release solo projects, they use them as opportunities to explore new ground different than where their band normally treads. Not so here. This sounds almost exactly like The National. It isn't just his voice or lyrics, either. The music is right in the pocket of a great National song.

"Something In The Air" - Lauren Mayberry
Along those same lines, this isn't too far removed from CHVRCHES music.

"Chrome Dipped" - CIVIC
A slight tweak to their sound, but no less enjoyably heavy than their earlier, 70's Aussie punk influenced songs.

"What Do I Know" - Deep Sea Diver
This was the first song that band leader Jessica Dobson engineered on her own. Rather than go back and fix what didn't work, she kept many of the first takes of the various instruments. I dig the raw, live feel that gives this track.

"LA Runaway" - The Horrors
How many songs have been written about runaways in (or to) LA? Most by bands who wore spandex and had super teased hair, I bet. The concept works just fine with modern post-punk, too.

"Richardson" - Shura featuring Cassandra Jenkins
A gorgeous song with some lazy, summer day vibes.

"Relationships" - HAIM
Speaking of summer…the Haim sisters have a knack for making tunes that are perfect for the warmest days of the year, which are right around the corner, you know.

"A Few More Years" - Wings of Desire
I've been trying to figure out who this band reminds me of for a couple weeks. I keep drifting towards saying it is Ballboy, a Scottish band with a very particular sound. And there are definitely similarities between them, but it feels like some other band I can't recall is a better match. Let me know if you figure it out.

[youtu.be/DYOfrGWQU...](https://youtu.be/DYOfrGWQU_0?si=TWc2bULrU21v5Cz2)

"Drive That Fast" - Kitchens of Distinction
It's been nearly four years since I last shared this 1991 classic, which is far too long.

March Media

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 21:26:24 -0400

A little earlier than normal so it doesn’t sit in the Drafts folder until we return from spring break.

Movies, Shows, etc

The Agency Tuuuuuurific! I had read/heard raves for this and was waiting until S needed to get her next Taylor Sheridan fix on Paramount+ so I could watch it. It lived up to the hype. Now, there are some issues with the story, which got a little broad at times. But that’s a minor complaint. Tense, generally well written, good acting performances. Most of all, though, it is shot like a movie, more cinematic in visual presentation than most other spy shows out there. And the soundtrack was incredible. This felt like what Michael Mann always wanted to make, but often fell short off on the script side. And the big twist at the end worked in making me look forward to season two.

The Neighbors’ Window I wasn’t sure which section to put this in. I watched it on YouTube, but since it won an Oscar it seemed right to elevate it. A wonderful piece of filmmaking. You can do a lot in 20 minutes if you want to.

Exploring New Zealand’s Wild Flavors, Māori Culture & Volcanic Hot Spring Cooking | DIRT I’m also elevating this in status as they require a true commitment to watch now. New Zealand looks beyond spectacular.

The Hunt For Red October Still holds up.

Lioness, season one I took a chance on this as I had heard very mixed views on it from others. There are some big problems with the season. Midway through I was contemplating bailing as it was veering towards similar dumb territory as the Jack Ryan series. I wouldn’t say it totally saved itself but I did finish and didn’t feel like I wasted my time. Some of the dialogue though, yech. I lost track of how many times I knew exactly what a character would say. Like to the word. Nicole Kidman’s performance was kind of terrible. And her husband? One of the worst characters I can recall in a series like this. Debating whether to watch season two, as it got better reviews, but was also reviewed by a lot fewer critics.

B-

30 Rock, season one While I’ve not watched them as much lately, reruns of The Office and Seinfeld are staples of my normal, casual TV time. If Parks & Recreation aired more often, I would gobble that up as well. I’ve rewatched Arrested Development, parts of Community and Scrubs. The one classic 21st Century (I know Seinfeld doesn’t fit that timeline) comedy I’ve never rewatched? Tina Fey’s classic. So this is super fun because of all those shows, it’s the one I remember the least well. I’m still in the midst of season one, but so far, so great!

Shorts, YouTubes, etc

How Tower Cranes Build Themselves Obviously this works, but it sure doesn’t seem like it should.

Link Sar: The Last Great Unclimbed Mountain On one hand, I’m fascinated by these climbs. On the other, when they look down from the tops of 3000 foot drop offs, I have trouble watching.

Robert De Niro Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters Here’s one of the biggest ones of these you can get. And it is surprisingly great. De Niro isn’t always the most forthcoming or comfortable talking about himself, but he was terrific here.

John Cusack Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters This is whack because there is no section about Sixteen Candles.

Why wasn’t France a part of the Holy Roman Empire? Why was the Netherlands banned from selling Luxembourg? Why did Europe obey the Monroe Doctrine? I love this series. Good content and the subtle humor in the animations is terrific.

Inside This Home Builder’s Desert Hideaway in Far West Texas | Huckberry Homes These never disappoint.

How an Architect Optimized a 400-Square-Foot Manhattan Apartment | Architectural Digest My last apartment in Kansas City was about 400 square feet, so it was fun to watch this and imagine what could have been done with that space other than throwing a futon and a computer desk into it.

Up Close with Polar Bears - Sony FX6 Short Film - Churchill Manitoba Super cool footage of polar bears followed by an interesting description of how it was made.

The Last Observers Charming piece about another old school occupation that is being replaced by technology.

Cafe hopping in Lisbon, Portugal | best coffee & hidden gems Living in Lisbon, Portugal | Typical day as digital nomads, life update + coffee, food & fun M is going to spend the spring ’26 semester in Lisbon, so I started seeking out some Portugal content on YouTube. I think she will enjoy these millennials way more than I did. I stopped watching their stuff, but started a new playlist of other Portugal content I’m sharing with M and will watch on my own next fall.

Not the Typical Golden Route: 10-Day Winter Itinerary with My Family in Japan Canadians in Japan, eh?

Every “I’ve Made A Huuuge Mistake” - Arrested Development Can never watch too many AD clips.

The Heatwave Continues, Ireland 1976 Hilarious.

Creating Saturday Night Live: Cue Cards Quite the process.

Your Spring Wardrobe, Simplified | Answering Your Spring Style Questions For 2025 | Ask Huckberry Not all this fits my aesthetic, but I always appreciate their seasonal updates.

Alec Baldwin’s Impressions Of “The Godfather” Cast Shame he’s a total kook, but I do admire the man’s talent.

55 Greatest James Bond One-Liners Solid.

MUSCAT: OMAN’S ANTI-DUBAI CAPITAL CITY Funny, I watched this randomly and suddenly I was getting suggestions for other vids about Oman daily. The algorithm is never shy about forcing you down a rabbit hole.

Matthew McConaughey’s Funniest Impressions How had I never seen Matt Damon do this until now? Uncanny!

Top 20 Songs You Didn’t Know Were Written by Prince I was prepared to slam this list, but there were actually seven songs on it I had no idea Prince was responsible for. Now, I had never heard any of them before. But I thought it might be 20 obvious ones.

Car Content

I Drive The Hyundai IONIQ 9 For The First Time! Full Tour & Initial Road Test Experience Hyundai IONIQ 9 EV Road Trip To North Korea! Ugly car, but glad Hyundai/Kia are pushing their EV offerings forward.

Rivian R2 vs NEW Model Y I’ve Been Hard On Rivian Recently But Now Is The Best Time To Get One How Rivian R2 Will DOMINATE RIVIAN CEO ⚡️ RJ Scaringe on the electric future and unifying vision | Interview @ SXSW The Rivian R3 Is Getting Closer & Here’s What I Want To See Make It To Production What We Learned After Testing a Rivian R1T for 40,000 Miles Only 25 months until I can get an R2. This space may just turn into a Rivian-stan section between now and then.

Photography

5 Tips for Photographers with No Time Travel Photography on the Oregon Coast in Winter // Fuji X-T5 Travel Photography at Home in Seattle // Fuji X-T5 Travel Photography in Vancouver // Fuji X-T5 OUR LAST DAY ON THE OREGON COAST 5 Photos Show How The Ukraine War Changed My Minimal Street & Travel Photography Setup for 2025 A Plea to all Camera Brands… What I Learned Traveling With ONLY The Fujifilm 27mm 50mm Street Photography: Lisbon (POV)

Podcasts

Real Ones I’ve dialed back my NBA pods, mostly because ESPN fired Zach Lowe last fall ending his twice-weekly show. But I still cycle through as many of The Ringer’s NBA pods as I can each week. This is, by far, the best. Howard Beck is a fantastic NBA writer and surprisingly funny when the other two get him ranting about something. Former NBA player Raja Bell is an AMAZING podcaster. Like outrageously good. Some folks don’t like Logan Murdock’s act, but I do, especially when he and Raja go back and forth. If you only have an hour to listen to folks talk about the NBA each week, this is the one you should pick.

Freedom!

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 12:14:30 -0400

A quick kid update.

L had her cast taken off this morning. Everything looked great. No swelling, no pain. The doctor said the incision and tendon anchor in her foot all seemed fine. When he had her rotate her foot inward, an action that triggered her pain pre-surgery, she could do so without limitation or pain.

She will be in a boot for the next six weeks and can finally put weight on it again. He wants her to keep the crutches handy for now, but she can transition away from them as she feels comfortable. She can take the boot off and get in the pool next week if she wants.

Biggest of all, she can take normal showers again! For the past five weeks she’s had to put a waterproof covering over her cast, then sit on a stool and be assisted by S to clean up. And, of course, her left leg hasn’t been cleaned since the morning of her surgery. When the cast came off today, she made a face from the odor. Not sure how the nurse kept a straight face. I ignored her invitation to come over and take a whiff.[1]

She’ll begin physical therapy soon after we return from spring break. There will be at least six weeks of that. The doc said that assuming she progresses as he expects, she’ll be able to start non-contact activities in early June.

The kid has been through a lot the last five months. With a few understandable meltdowns excepted, she’s done terrific dealing with it all. Better things are ahead, fingers crossed.

Also, Monday was the CHS basketball banquet. It’s a pretty chill affair. The team and families gather at school and there is cake and cookies, a slide show from the season, and the coaches talk. There were also awards, three selected by coaches, two voted on by players. Last year L won the Rising Irish award as best underclassman, selected by the coaches. Monday she won the Team Choice award for being a great teammate and leader, respecting coaches/referees/opponents, and for upholding Holy Cross values. Basically normal L stuff. Her teammates voted on this one, so I thought it was great that they recognized how she did her best to still be part of the team even when she was unable to play.

I am obviously hoping that she can return to form and be a contributing player next season. But stuff like this, which reflects more who she is as a person than an athlete, makes me prouder than anything she does on the court.

Classes were dismissed early today because of a water main break. First thing she did was get in the tub to thoroughly scrub that leg. ↩

Wednesday Links

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 16:14:52 -0400

Steven Hyden has a new megalist out, this one his favorite 100 indie rock albums of the last 25 years. Once I started reading, I couldn’t stop, spending over an hour working through it while building a playlist based upon it to listen to over spring break.

The Best Indie Rock Albums Of The 21st Century, Ranked

I’m not a vinyl-head by any measure, but I try to stay up on music news and trends. Yet I was surprised to read about this business in Kansas that is helping to keep high-end vinyl records a viable product.

“What I’m all about,” he said, “is saving the world from bad sound.”

The Wizard of Vinyl is in Kansas

The Office turned 20 this week. Two pieces that honor that occasion.

‘The Office’ Turns 20: An Oral History of Season 1 From the Writers Who Shaped It The Office’s 25 Best Cold Opens

Baseball starts for real tomorrow. I enjoyed this essay about keeping score.

…Sims does much of his own tracking, creating his primary reference materials as the events themselves occur. It’s a triangle of action: he watches it, he marks it down, and he talks about it. See, write, talk, see, write, talk. One corner of the triangle informs the other as the space between them gains texture. The past informs the present.

You Gotta Keep Score: Broadcaster Dave Sims on His Scoring Method

Another fantastic story about the legacy of Bob Uecker.

“He made everything better. Whether it was with his knowledge or his wit, his storytelling, just his voice, all of it. That was his gift, and he shared it with the world.

Bob Uecker’s Voice Lives On

I would be lying if I didn’t admit I wish this was a real thing and not a joke.

Steal My Tesla

Speaking of the current state of our country, this is a good site to check often to cut through the bullshit, half-truths, and straight up lies that dominate our news cycle. It calls out fools from all perspectives that spout nonsense. But one camp, for obvious reasons, gets called out far more often.

FactCheck.org

For a less neutral accounting of our descent into tyranny, bookmark this list.

LEST WE FORGET THE HORRORS: AN UNENDING CATALOG OF TRUMP’S CRUELTIES, COLLUSIONS, CORRUPTIONS, AND CRIMES

Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 110

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 11:33:41 -0400

Chart Week: March 24, 1984 Song: “Eat It” - ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic Chart Position: #18, 3rd week on the chart. Peaked at #11 the week of April 14.

It’s been a while, and for that I offer my endless apologies. I still listen to at least part of an AT40 show every weekend. Over the past couple months I’ve started several drafts for new RFTS entries. However, each time I’ve lost enthusiasm while doing research and have let them die on the digital vine.[1] To be honest, today’s selection isn’t one I would have normally been interested in. But I was getting antsy about not updating the series, plus spring break is next week and the site will be on hiatus. It worked out that there is an interesting aspect of this song that relates to the greatest musical rivalry of the Eighties and made it worth writing about.

I never really got ‘Weird Al’. I admired his cleverness and ability to make such coherent parodies of other great songs. There is true craft to that. I also respected his total commitment to the bit that included mimicking the visuals - including clothing, dancing, and videos - of the original artists. His songs were always a little too goofy for me, though. Maybe it was because I never listened to Dr. Demento to develop the part of my musical brain that would connect with them.

Yankovic began making parodies in the late 1970s without any chart success. I remember hearing his 1983 singles “Ricky,” (Toni Basil’s “Mickey”) and “I Love Rocky Road” (Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock ’n’ Roll”), but neither cracked the Top 40.

His break came when he took on Michael Jackson’s mega-smash “Beat It.” I’ve written several times about the power of Jackson’s name in 1983–84. “Eat It” might be the biggest and best example of MJ’s influence. In only its third week in the Hot 100, the record was already at #18, and was the biggest climber in this countdown. Michael’s help could only take this song so far, as it stalled out at #11 a month later.

Although parody is protected under American copyright law, Yankovic always asked artists for their permission before recording his versions of their originals. For the most part he received clearance. That was true in this case; “Eat It” only existed because of Michael’s blessing.

“Michael Jackson wasn’t just cool about my parody of ‘Beat It,’” Yankovic told Billboard magazine, “but he also loved my version of ‘Bad,’ which was ‘Fat.’ He even let me use the actual ‘Bad’ subway set for the ‘Fat’ video. He was very supportive, which was huge with opening the doors with other artists. Because if Michael Jackson signed on, you couldn’t really say no.”

Well, one person said no.

Weird Al asked Prince at least four times for permission to cover one of his songs. Each time the Purple One declined. Al had an idea for “Let’s Go Crazy” based on The Beverly Hillbillies. For “1999,” he wanted to sing about dialing a 1–800 number that ended with the digits 1999. None of his pitches swayed Prince. Or, more likely, Prince just didn’t have a sense of humor about his own music. Maybe Al should have asked to do a straight cover rather than parody, as Prince loved for other people to sing the words he wrote. Or maybe if Al had been an attractive, ethnically ambiguous woman Prince would have signed off.

I’m not sure it sways their battle in any way, but score one for Michael over Prince here.

“Eat It” went to #1 in Australia, which is amazing. It has sold over 500,000 copies in the US. It was Yankovic’s biggest American hit until “White & Nerdy” hit #9 in 2006.

As I said, “Eat It” never did much for me, and still doesn’t. The video is funny, but I’m never going to seek the song out. I know a lot of other people like it a lot more than I do. So I’m genuinely sorry if this grade disappoints you. 5/10

Speaking of Michael Jackson, also on this week’s chart, “Thriller” checked in at #11 on its way down after peaking at #4. And Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me,” which featured Jackson on background vocals, began its three-week stay at #2.

youtu.be/bqZVihpOA…

Real talk? I’m also verrrrrry satisfied with my most recent entry back in January. That was some good music writing. I’m still waiting for someone from Rolling Stone to give me a call. ↩

Weekend Notes

Mon, 24 Mar 2025 10:41:28 -0400

A weekend mostly filled with basketball, the last time I’ll say that until late next fall.

Jayhawk Talk

What an appropriate ending.

KU had a three-point lead over Arkansas Thursday with just over 3:00 remaining in the game. In the following 90 or so seconds: AJ Storr forced a bad shot early in the shot clock, missing. This came after a time out. As usual with Storr, Bill Self threw up his hands in disgust/disappointment after the play.

After an Arkansas miss, KJ Adams grabbed the rebound, turned to head up court, and crumbled to the ground, losing the ball. After another Arkansas miss, Hunter Dickinson threw a pass literally to no one. It might be the worst pass I’ve ever seen a third team All American make. Arkansas turned it into a layup that cut the lead to one.

Then DaJuan Harris tried to enter a bounce pass to Dickinson. Two pet peeves before we get to the result. For some reason this team insisted on throwing bounce passes into Dickinson all season, despite the fact he is 7’2” and not flexible or mobile. Then, Dickinson was posted up outside the lane rather than inside the paint. Despite being a massive human being, he rarely buried people deep into the restricted area.

Anyway, Arkansas already had two defenders on Hunter, and one easily slipped around him to intercept the ball.

And that, my friends, was pretty much the game. In the final 3:00+, KU turned the ball over five times. The game was right there to win with one or two decent passes or smarter shots. Instead, it was Arkansas who made the big plays late and ended the game on a 15–5 run. They went on to upset #2 St. John’s Saturday and are now one of THE stories of the tournament.

As infuriating as that long sequence was, it was probably an apt ending for a team that was a poor match in too many ways to ever to find a comfortable center. Every player had at least one major flaw. Several of them had a whole bag of flaws. Throw them together and there was never a strength on either end of the court that they could consistently play to. While in the moment what anger I could conjure up - and I have to admit if not for those last three minutes, I would have had zero anger about this loss - was aimed mostly at Harris and Dickinson, as I’ve said before this all falls on Self.

He coached a hell of a game. Switching to a zone against a young team with suspect shooters when the Jayhawks couldn’t stay in front of the Arkansas guards and wings changed the game. I completely believe that had KU made one more bucket to get the lead to 5 or 6, they would have won. Arkansas was flailing and frustrated. Other than Adams’ turnover, which was a result of him apparently blowing out his achilles, KU’s last miscues were more on their actions than anything the defense did to force them.

Like I said a week or two back, I was ready for this season and this mini era to be over. This team never earned any strong affection from me. They were too flawed, too mercurial, too emotionally flat. I’m not going to look back on a single moment this season and think, “That was awesome,” or dig through YouTube highlights late some night.

Of course, when you get what you want, sometimes the reality that follows is scarier. KU needs a big influx of talent to put around Darryn Peterson, Elmarko Jackson, and (please, Hoops Gods, please), Flory Bidunga. You would hope that Peterson would be a huge selling point, especially for shooters who can capitalize from him driving the lane and drawing defenders. But Self and his staff are batting around .200 in the portal the past four years. They need to hit a home run this spring, finding guys who can get to the hoop, fit in with the talent already in Lawrence, and, most importantly, mesh with Self.

And, you know what? Self might need to dial it back a touch with the transfers. They are going to fuck up, they will come in with bad habits, they will chafe at being corrected. Self doesn’t need to meet them halfway, necessarily. But relaxing a little so guys can figure out where they fit in and gain confidence in the process could go a long way for them actually having a clue what to do when conference and NCAA play rolls around. Maybe roll with their mistakes in November and December so they are fully integrated in February and March.

Self was once the king of spring, always finding ways to plug holes in his roster with leftovers and cast-offs. That mojo has gotten tarnished in the portal era. He needs to rediscover it and not miss on anyone he signs in the next couple months.

There have also been rumors that at least one assistant coach will not be back next year. We all know that Self is in the final years of his career, so he’s not going to add a young dude(s). I say bring Danny Manning back for one more run, turn him loose with Bidunga all summer, and watch Flory blossom in the fall.

Swings And Misses

It was hard not to watch players who could have been Jayhawks this year perform for other teams.

Zuby Ejiofor was fantastic in St. John’s loss to Arkansas on Saturday.

KU just missed getting Liam McNeely in his first recruitment, then there were rumors that Self passed on him after he de-committed from Indiana last spring, opting to focus on transfers. His size and shooting were exactly what KU was missing.

Riley Kugel was the first commit Self got last spring, but had academic issues that kept him from getting into KU. Mississippi State accepted him, and he scored 11 in a loss to Baylor. He didn’t have a great season, but he possessed a size and athleticism that was lacking among KU’s wings.

Labaron Philon had signed with KU, but the sides mutually agreed to part last spring. He struggled in Alabama’s two tournament games, but has so much talent his name is popping up in the lottery range in some mock drafts.

KU was a finalist for Derik Queen, although with Dickinson already on campus and Bidunga already committed, odds were never high he was going to be a Jayhawk. Still, one of his last visits was to KU so there was a chance. Hard to see where minutes would have come for him and Bidunga if they were both on the same team with two seniors also in the frontcourt.

Sports are full of What Ifs, especially after disappointing seasons. And they are generally dumb because you never know, right? Maybe McNeely blows out his knee if he comes to KU, or Philon never gets off the bench and is into the portal this week. But maybe McNeely is the perfect compliment to Dickinson by pulling the defense out to the perimeter, or Kugel has moments where he can’t be guarded and creates space for Zeke Mayo as the defense tries to pinch off his drives.

General Tourney Talk

This was, for the most part, a garbage-ass first week. Especially the first couple days, most games turned into blowouts early, or had 10-point margins going into the final TV timeout with no drama in getting to the end.

Sunday rewarded viewers for sticking with it. UConn battled Florida to the closing seconds, in what was the game of the tournament for about five hours. I have zero love for UConn, but that team plays its ass off, and Florida needed everything they had to get by the Huskies.

Later Sunday evening Colorado State and Maryland took that drama to a different level. In what was a great, back-and-forth game to begin with, CSU took the lead on a 3-pointer with just under four seconds to play. Then Derik Queen banked in a runner at the buzzer to give the Terps the win. Amazing finish to an amazing game.

Colorado State, man. They’ve put guys into the NBA in recent years, have a couple high transfers playing for other teams. And they were still one of the most fun teams to watch this weekend. If Nique Clifford had any eligibility left he would be getting a big bag from a Power 5 school. I hope he gets drafted and a chance to play at the next level. That’s a good ass program.

I loved Stan Van Gundy screaming about teams who insist on throwing bounce passes to big men. Maybe Self should bring him in as a special consultant. Or should have brought him in this year.

The Sunday schedule always sucks. Three games with exclusive windows to start the day, and Duke is always in one of these games. Then five games crammed into the evening, with one always starting super late. Seems like there’s a better way to stagger games and not have them lasting until midnight Eastern.

Every March there’s a batch of commercials that drive dedicated watchers of the tournament crazy. I DON’T FUCKING UNDERSTAND WHY GEICO BROUGHT BACK THE ‘LITTLE PIGGY WHO CRIED WHEEEE ALL THE WAY HOME’ COMMERCIAL. It is one of the worst ads ever made, forcing me to either mute or switch the channel the moment it comes on. Geico has tons of clever, funny ads. Why would they bring this one back and throw it in high rotation during the NCAA tournament?

I hate pretty much every Buffalo Wild Wings ad, too. The giant, doofus buffalo pisses me off.

I do like the Justin Bateman - Will Arnett ads for State Farm.

There sure are a lot of insurance ads, aren’t there?

My brackets stink. I have 11 of the Sweet 16 but did so poorly on day one I don’t think I can get into the money even if the rest of my picks work out. I’m 22/58 in one pool, 22/46 in another. At least I’m consistent.

I vaulted into first place in my player pool, and have six of eight players remaining. That lead is tight, though, so I need my players to keep winning and racking up the points.

Sports are dumb, by the way.

Weekend Visitor

M flew back to Cincinnati, a much easier journey than her trip down, Friday evening after a good week on Anna Maria island. She drove home Saturday for her first visit home since Christmas. It was good to see her. We took her out for sushi Saturday, she requested chicken white chili Sunday. The crappy, wet, chilly weather was perfect for a final round of chili for the season. She has five weeks of classes left.

And now we have four days until we fly to Florida for our week in the sun.

NCAA Picks

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 12:01:43 -0400

I hate my picks.

That’s how I’ll sum up this year’s NCAA tournament. Which seems perfect for a college basketball season I have mostly hated.

Spoiled KU fan, I know.

As hard as I tried not to, I ended up going with all four #1 seeds to reach the Final Four. Which is an idiotic way to fill your bracket since it has happened exactly one time.[1]

Some people think Auburn is creaky and vulnerable based on their late-season lull. I see a team that was focused on one thing - winning it all - getting complacent late. Some people are screaming the “It’s March, that’s Tom Izzo time!” nonsense but I still don’t think Michigan State is Final Four good. Auburn is, frankly, more Michigan State than Michigan State is this year.

Houston has some injury issues, but if J’wan Roberts can survive this weekend, I think the Cougars roll into San Antonio.

Duke? Come on. They just blitzed the ACC tournament without Cooper Flagg in the last two games, and he’s coming back. Although the ACC kind of stunk, so we should maybe tamp the excitement down a notch or two. And they got the easiest, by far, route to the Final Four. As usual.

I really wanted to pick St. John’s out of the West. In fact at first I did. But I think Florida is the best team in the country, and as fearsome as the Johnnies are on defense, they can’t shoot, which will kill you in 2025. Seriously, a KU-SJU game Saturday could be an all-time brickfest.

I found it hard to pick upsets, too. I have BYU in the Elite 8, for some reason. I could also see them losing their opening game and blowing up my bracket.

I have Clemson and Illinois in the Sweet 16 in the Midwest, but those only require mild upsets. Otherwise my Sweet 16 is pretty chalky.

Yuck.

As for my Jayhawks, they should beat Arkansas tonight. Doesn’t mean they will, but they should. The Hogs will be missing their leading scorer and rebounder, but I believe he didn’t play in the exhibition game between these two teams, either. Freshman sensation Boogie Fland returns, but he’s missed two full months of action with a serious hand injury. He’s probably still fast enough, rust and all, to cook DaJuan Harris. But will he have the ball/finishing skills to match his performance back in October? The Hogs will be quicker on the perimeter, and have a mobile big man that can put Hunter Dickinson in bad spots.

But I think the Jayhawks will come together for two hours and dispatch the Razorbacks. KU 75, Arkansas 70.

That will bring Zuby Ejiofor and the Johnnies on Saturday. Like Arkansas, St. John will be much more athletic at every position than the Jayhawks. There is also that defense, the best in the country, which isn’t exactly an ideal opponent for a team that has clicked offensively only a handful of times across 33 games. This is not the KU team to pull the upset.

However, I did take Ejiofor in my player draft. It would somehow be appropriate if he played like ass and KU knocked off SJU.

Nah, the Hoops Gods are more about punishing my real team for whatever reason than my fantasy team. St. John’s 83, KU 70.

Florida over Houston in the championship game.

That was a pretty good Final Four, with a fantastic ending. ↩

Early NCAA Thoughts

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 11:34:40 -0400

Here we are, NCAA tournament time. The time of some of my favorite, non-family of course, moments of my life. And also some of my least favorite. I suppose that’s the good thing about KU’s relative mediocrity this year: if I genuinely have no expectations, there is only opportunity for good memories this week. I expect them to shit the bed, so anything other than that will be a pleasant surprise.

The Jayhawks didn’t do a thing in the Big 12 tournament to change how I think about them. Moments of brain-dead play, often from the most experienced players, against Colorado. Then the Arizona game was the exact opposite of when the teams played a week before in Lawrence. Instead of the Jayhawks controlling the game and the Wildcats making constant runs, even briefly taking the lead in the second half, this time it was Arizona in front and KU rallying. KU made the big plays late in Lawrence; Arizona was clutch in KC. Two pretty even teams playing two pretty even games over six days. Not that long ago this was a game that KU 100% would have won in Kansas City. This year’s team is on a different, worse, level, though.

Crazy that the Arizona game was the first time KU had worn blue in the Big 12 tournament since the 2008 championship game. And even then they only wore blue because of losing the regular season game vs Texas, and thus the tiebreaker when determining who the home team was for the regular season co-champs. This has been a truly glorious era of KU hoops, and this was just another bitter reminder of how the last two years have brought all that to a screeching stop.

As for this coming week, playing Arkansas might be the ideal draw for this team. But not for the reasons you think. The Razorbacks blew out the preseason #1 Jayhawks in an exhibition game back in October in John Calipari’s first game in Fayetteville. Hunter Dickinson didn’t play, and KU clearly didn’t run anything serious on offense. But that game pointed out flaws early, like the lack of shooting and athleticism, that were masked in early wins over Michigan State and Duke. Arkansas has their own issues between injuries and inconsistencies and perhaps some general weird vibes in the program. But losing to them, likely because the Hogs are more athletic and can exploit KU’s deficiencies, would be a perfect bookend to the year. I’m already fearing DaJuan Harris going 2–11 from 3 as Calipari happily leaves him wide open to shoot all night.

But beating them sure would be fun, and I think KU is the better team if focused. Do they have one good game in them?

Should the Jayhawks survive the Hogs another near-perfect storyline opponent likely awaits in St. John’s. I say perfect because that game will shine a bright light on the choices Self made two springs ago. He sacrificed freshmen Ernest Udeh and Zuby Ejiofor for Hunter Dickinson. I contend that was a decent gamble. He had Kevin McCullar coming back, Dickinson was an All American big, and you build around those two established players instead of two raw, rising sophomore bigs.

Udeh has struggled with inconsistency at TCU, although I contend he would have developed better had he stayed at KU.

Ejiofor, however, has been a true revelation this year. His offensive stats aren’t as good as Dickinson’s (17.6 ppg, 10.0 rpg vs 14.6/8.0) but he’s been red hot late in the season. Zuby shoots better from the field and is a better defender. He is a perfect match for Rick Pitino’s style and his teammates, where Hunter is clearly not a good match for the talent around him.[1] None of us know for sure if Hunter is a good teammate or not, but there always seems to be some cloud over the team that might lead back to him. Zuby seems like a guy everyone would love to play with.

Who knows, Hunter may dominate Zuby if the teams play on Saturday. And that may not matter as St. John’s is genuinely the better team. I’m kind of laughing at the thought of KU’s guards facing the Johnnies’ pressure. We have dinner plans Friday and I considered moving them to Saturday so I could avoid the KU game. Then again, it may be a cathartic end to this mini-run and worth my time even if it is ugly.

I’m sure there are some KU fans talking themselves into things finally clicking and the team making a run. I can’t do that. Even in this team’s best wins this season - Duke, Michigan State, Iowa State, Arizona - the team has never been fully locked in. When it doesn’t happen over four-plus months, it’s not suddenly going to happen when the tournament begins. A shame.

Please, never rank KU #1 in the preseason again.

As for the broader tournament, I’m really struggling to come up with interesting picks. It feels like the top 4–6 teams are CLEARLY the best teams in the country. I watched more of the SEC tournament last weekend than any other, and kind of fell in love with one seeds Auburn and Florida, and two seed Tennessee.[2] Those three teams are all loaded with talent and athletes and shooters and can guard. But each also has these awful lulls because they get out of control or play too fast or can’t create in the halfcourt or take ten terrible shots in a row. Then I look to try to find an upset over them and think of how bad Michigan State looked when they lost to KU in November, or how many injuries Iowa State is fighting, or how young Texas Tech is, etc.

I love Houston, but that team also seems to be lacking something that I can’t put my finger on. Maybe because they are a true program team, totally bought into their coach’s philosophies rather than loaded with obvious talent? Which probably means they’re going to race through the bracket with ease.

Naturally Duke got the easiest draw of any of the #1 seeds. Amazing how often that happens. Maybe Cooper Flagg will re-tweak his ankle this weekend and that will doom their efforts to get out of the east. I think that’s something America can get behind in this divided age.[3]

At the moment I lean towards picking all four #1 seeds, which is dumb. I feel like Florida might be the most talented roster in the country, but St. John’s is the most complete #2 seed. Naturally they are together. If KU wasn’t the #7 seed I would complain more about how the west is, by far, the stoutest region. But it doesn’t matter to us.

I’m going to sit on this a couple more days and offer my picks on Thursday.

Bill Self’s fault, not his. ↩
Side note, why did ESPN used C+C Music Factory’s “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” so prominently in their coverage? The song is 34 years old. It was perfect for the 1991 tournament. A year which, coincidentally, Kansas and Arkansas played. But in 2025 seems weird to use it almost every commercial break. ↩
You know that you know who is pulling for Duke. ↩

Weekend Notes

Mon, 17 Mar 2025 10:25:23 -0400

As I said Friday, last week was a very odd one around here, at least in terms of our daily schedules.

Monday was a normal day, although one third of L’s classmates were gone on their retreat. She did go in late after getting her stitches removed and new cast put on.

Tuesday had the same schedule, although this was her day to go on retreat. As it involved A LOT of walking, we excused her and she stayed home. We got in a good 30-minute, seated shooting session before the winds kicked up in the afternoon. Trying to lock that upper body form in.

Wednesday was SAT day for juniors. Seniors were excused, so C was home. Freshmen and sophomores had “unity days,” so L did dumb stuff with her classmates all day. They went in 20 minutes late and got out 75 minutes early. I guess that’s enough to count it as a full school day even if they weren’t actually in class.

Thursday? Normal day for all four grades!

Then Friday, for some reason, was the Indy St. Patrick’s Day parade.[1] Which CHS always takes the day off for so the band and several teams and student groups can march in it. Despite being a gorgeous day, C wasn’t interested in going to watch. And L wanted nothing to do with crutching around in the crowds.

Back to a normal, five-day week this week. However, after that, the next five weeks include one off for spring break and three four-day weeks. Weird times. A lot of days off when we’re paying tuition, too.

Last week was the most glorious weather week you could imagine, especially for this time of year. Every day it at least touched 70, Friday it rubbed up against 80. While it was breezy, the sun was out each day, making it feel more like late April. L spent her day home trying to get some sun. I certainly got some over the five days. Shorts and t-shirts every day.

I wrapped up the last of our late winter yard work. All the hydrangeas have been trimmed back, all the ornamental grasses cut down to the earth, any other stragglers cleaned up so the growing season can begin.

Then our first thunderstorms of the year Friday night/Saturday morning. I guess we had a severe thunderstorm warning sometime around 3:00 AM. The thunder certainly woke me up. There were even three tornadoes in southern Indiana. Then rain off-and-on Saturday and Sunday as the temperatures dropped. It actually spit snow several times yesterday.

This week will be your March typical rollercoaster. It is 26° as I type this Monday morning. It will be in the 70s tomorrow, then barely 40° on Thursday. Good times.

Kid Hoops

This weekend was the kickoff of travel ball season. There is always a huge event here in Indy that is normally spread across several venues in the suburb of Westfield. I think all the high school teams are confined to the Pacers Athletic Center, so L and I were able to go watch her team play twice as well as all of her CHS teammates, plus girls she’s played with in the past now on other teams. We spent five hours up there Saturday evening watching games. I had to tell the story of what was up with the cast on her foot at least 10 times.

Her coach let her sit on the bench during games. There are five new girls this year and it was funny to watch the ones she’s played with in the past kind of shuffle the new additions to the side so they could sit by L at the end of the bench when they came out of the game. She did a good job cheering and help coach.

Her team went 1–1 Saturday, then lost in the knockout round Sunday. It seemed like all the new girls fit in, from a basketball perspective. They all understand how to play as a team. Hopefully the coach can get them some gym time so they develop some chemistry. We’ll probably go watch them again, but I’m not going to spend $40+ every week so I can sit and watch my daughter sit on the bench in a cast. L might even go on a road trip with one of her best friends on the team and her mom.

Spring Breaker

M flew down to Florida yesterday for a week in the sun. It was quite a process to get there.

She and her friends boarded their plane on time in Cincinnati, then had to get back off a few minutes later. Airspace in Florida had basically been shut down because of a line of heavy storms moving through the state. After an hour or so they re-boarded, sat on the ground for a bit, then finally departed.

Once in the air, there was some adjustment of route but eventually they made it to Sarasota. She texted us and told us that no planes were being allowed to take off, leaving all the gates full. They were going to have to sit and wait until flights were either cleared to start taking off again, they were cancelled and planes moved from gates, or the storms passed so they could wheel out a portable jetway.

They sat for an hour until the storms fell apart and were finally able to deplane via the portable stairs. Stressful and aggravating but at least they made it. M said some friends were on a different flight that made it into Florida airspace before turning around and flying back to Cincy because there was no where to land safely. That would be awful. Not sure if those girls made it in later in the evening or are scrambling for a flight today. Looking at M’s flight route, it appears they may have been contemplating doing the same turn around, but luckily found a gap in the storms to get into Sarasota.

Hopefully the rest of her week is less stressful than the flight down.

I’ll get to college hoops tomorrow.

Turned out to be a great decision, though, as it was 30–35° warmer Friday than today. ↩

Reader's Notebook, 3/11/25

Tue, 11 Mar 2025 12:03:48 -0400

I just read a remarkable book that demands its own post.

The Real Hoosiers - Jack McCallum McCallum, the longtime NBA writer for Sports Illustrated, dove into the history of the Indianapolis Crispus Attucks high school basketball teams of the mid–1950s, when Oscar Robertson starred there. Famously, Attucks lost to Milan in the first game of the State Finals in 1954. Milan beat Muncie Central that night for the championship. Their tournament run inspired the movie Hoosiers.[1]

The next two seasons, Attucks lost just a single game on their way to back-to-back state championships.

McCallum begins the book exploring that famous 1954 tournament, pointing out how many elements of the movie were only loosely based on fact, and showing how the historical record has been colored both by the movie and by misperceptions based on the movie. He spoke to Bobby Plump, the Milan star who hit the game winning shot in the championship game and upon who the character Jimmy Chitwood was somewhat based. Plump is a terrific interview and has never been shy about pointing out some of the inconsistencies of both the movie and how people consider those real teams.

The title has a double meaning, though. It’s not just about correcting some of the story about 1954, showing how Attucks was as big of an underdog story as Milan in some ways and that the Tigers upheld many of the hoary principles of Hoosier basketball as well as the rural, white teams did. It is also about examining what Indiana was like in the 1950s, particularly in how African Americans were treated. I had never heard this description before, but McCallum says that Indiana was/is sometimes called the “northern-most southern state, or southern-most northern state,” because of its record of race relations. In diving into that history, McCallum shows us that the “real Hoosiers” were people who were not only reluctant to give African Americans their inalienable rights as US citizens, but even deep into the 20th Century these same “Real Hoosiers” were working hard to keep laws on the books that were insanely racist. As McCallum sadly points out, some behaviors which were common 70 years ago and seem hopelessly retrograde are becoming common again today.[2]

Attucks was built to be the only Indianapolis high school open to Black students, ending what had been integrated schools in the city. It was constructed - and still stands - on the old west side of downtown, an area sometimes called Frog City or Frog Island, that was known for its extreme poverty and lack of basic services. Until the land was cleared for a massive building project in the late 1940s, and continues to today, there were regular outbreaks of cholera and more occasional ones of malaria in this part of town. Guess what demographic group was overwhelmingly forced into this area?

As the city began to clear out Frog Island, the Black families of the area were forced to move elsewhere.[3] But Attucks was still the only high school that their kids could attend. Of course, while the city promised a bussing service for these kids, the money was never allocated for it. Oscar Robertson, for one example, had to walk 24 blocks to school each day despite there being several public schools between his family’s new home and Attucks.[4]

I had never realized this, but McCallum points out how much of the physical history of Black people in Indianapolis has been wiped away. There is no 18th and Vine area, as in Kansas City, where the historical contributions of the Black community are celebrated. Any monuments to African Americans in Indy are scattered around town, just as the people they honor were forced to scatter.

Attucks was one of the few things Black Indianapolis residents could rally around. McCallum both begins and ends the book with a long list of Attucks graduates who went on to do great things, often as the first African Americans to penetrate a particular field. And for a few years in the 1950s, thanks to being home of one of the greatest players to ever step on a court, the Flying Tigers basketball team put Attucks on the map for the entire state.

The 1955 team was the first Indianapolis school to ever win the state championship. Remember, this was in the old, single class system. It only took 44 years for the biggest city in the state to conquer the tournament, which seems crazy. It was also the first all-Black team to win a state championship anywhere in the US.

And the 1956 team was the first Indiana team to ever go undefeated.[5] Ray Crowe, the Attucks coach, was a remarkable man who taught his players both to play basketball better than anyone else and how to comport themselves in a way that wouldn’t cause the team trouble given the era they played in. This book just came out last year, but McCallum was still able to talk to a large number of players on that team, teachers and administrators at the school, and several prominent players who faced the Tigers.

He did not speak with Robertson, who declined his requests. The Big O is a complex, sometimes difficult man, and he still holds a lot of painful memories of his time at Attucks. He was far ahead of his time, a huge guard that the offense ran through but who could also defend every spot on the court and still be the best rebounder. He was LeBron James 50 years before LeBron. Oscar also was arguably the most important player in leading NBA players to gain the right to free agency and control their own careers. He did this before Curt Flood sacrificed his career to challenge Major League Baseball’s reserve clause. For some reason, despite being a much better player, Robertson doesn’t get celebrated for this the way Flood does. Perhaps it is because Robertson was so good that the NBA couldn’t blackball him, thus his career didn’t end when he stood up for players’ rights.

Robertson’s history with the city and state remains strained. He is very much like Michael Jordan in that he never forgets or forgives a slight. He has bitter memories of how Attucks was treated after they won their first championship, which he believes was much more reserved compared to how the general public had celebrated Milan a year earlier. Several of his teammates say his memories aren’t accurate of what actually happened, and the newspaper record from the time shows that some of the things Robertson complained about were based on choices made within the Attucks/Black communities, not things that were forced upon them by the racist city council or governor.

It is hard to blame him, though, given the environment and age he grew up in. Because of all of this, while his name is still held in high esteem here, it always pops up a little later than you would expect when Hoosiers talk about great, local players. Some of that is because he left the state for Cincinnati when he went to college, shunning a recruiting pitch from IU, and stayed in Cincy after retiring from the NBA. When his name does come up, though, no one forgets what a unique and dominating player he was.

McCallum’s story is equal parts delightful, illuminating, engrossing, and maddening. Despite understanding our collective history, it is still depressing and deflating to know that the pre-Civil Rights era really wasn’t that long ago. My father-in-law is two years younger than Robertson, going to high school just a couple miles from Attucks. They are both in their mid–80s, but still, are alive and can speak to that era. And in many states, including northern states like Indiana, it was deep into the 1970s before real change came about. And, of course, our issues with race in this country never really go away, and in fact are being used more-and-more to inflame parts of the population and keep us divided.

Sports don’t solve these problems. But they can give people hope, something to ignore the realities they face daily for a little while, and create a shared pride for a community. That is exactly what Crispus Attucks did for African Americans in Indianapolis in the 1950s.

The tournament format back in the single days was Sectionals, Regionals (two games), Semi-State (two games), and then the State Finals (two games). This year there were 400+ schools divided into four classes. In the ‘50s, there were over 700 schools playing in a single bracket. Milan had to win nine games, three times playing day-night doubleheaders, to capture their state title. Teams now have to win six or seven, with only Semi-State being a two game day, depending on the size of their sectional and whether they get a first round bye. ↩
The Indianapolis News newspaper had a section called “News of Colored Folk” in the 1950s. Seriously. ↩
Today that area is the home of the IU-Methodist medical campus and the university complex formerly known as IUPUI. ↩
A totally different situation, obviously, but around the same time my father-in-law hitchhiked home each day from old Cathedral downtown to his Broad Ripple area, a roughly five mile trek. Drivers were willing to pick up white, Catholic kids and get them home from school safely. I doubt many of the Attucks kids had that same opportunity. ↩
South Bend Central became the second undefeated champion a year later, when they beat an Attucks team that still made the finals after Robertson’s graduation. Attucks would win another championship in 1959. In 1986 it was converted into a middle school, then given a second life as a high school beginning in 2006. The Tigers won the 3A state title in 2017. Last week they knocked off #1 Cathedral in sectionals and now have the second-best odds to win the 3A title. ↩

Weekend Notes

Mon, 10 Mar 2025 12:10:45 -0400

I had a busy morning, so will blow through a few items from another rather laid-back weekend.

Jayhawk Talk

Saturday’s regular season finale with Arizona summed up the season for KU.

Nice start, only to fell apart when Hunter Dickinson went to the bench. Another solid run in the last 6–7 minutes of the first half on the verge of going up 16, only to give up a seven-point swing in the final minute to destroy their momentum.

Then, in the second half, letting Arizona tie the game, stretching another nice lead out, then falling behind, and finally playing great in the last three minutes to win.

All about wild mood swings, but at least they finally won a game against a good team by being the better side in the closing minutes.

Dickinson was spectacular. KJ Adams’ energy early carried the team. His lob dunk that put KU up by 7 late was the loudest I’ve yelled all year.[1] And Zeke Mayo found his mojo again.

I’m not going to get too excited about this game, thinking they’ve fixed their issues and are now dangerous in the NCAA tournament. I’m just glad they figured it out and gave fans a fun game against a name opponent for the first time since November. More on that next week. A nice win to a frustrating regular season.

By the way, it drove me INSANE that ESPN said multiple times that this was the eighth straight year KU wore red uniforms on senior night. I was 1000% sure that was wrong, not because I remember every year clearly,[2] but because I DID clearly recall the crazy Texas game in 2022, a game that I knew KU wore white for.

So I spent the first three timeouts of the game digging back through the six senior night games since this “tradition” allegedly began. KU indeed wore red in 2018. But then they wore white in 2019 and 2020. Red returned in 2021. White, as noted, in 2022. Then red the past two years. So, rather than an eight year streak, it was only three, and then five of eight.

Yet another sign of the dumbing down of ESPN. This is basic shit.

I was also a little bummed that the Lawrence Journal-World finally slapped a paywall on their KU coverage. I’ve been reading their coverage since I was a student. It was a big deal to get an apartment and be able to have the city paper delivered, staying up on all the latest KU news that the campus paper didn’t report. I’ve been following their online coverage since whenever they first started posting on the web. Once upon a time I would have gladly paid for their coverage. But, like so much of print media, it has gotten dramatically worse in recent years. Where once a minimum of three writers covered each KU game, now it is one guy doing it all. And he’s a young dude who tries hard but isn’t all that great at his job.

Worse, with just one writer at games, the old “notebook” stories that were a staple of postgame coverage have disappeared. Every sports fan knows the glory of the notebook pieces, a collection of blurbs no where important or deep enough for entire stories, but of high interest to the serious fan. These were the tidbits that insane people like me loved to digest. Hell, I (eventually) named this website after that concept!

In recent years the LJW started putting video of KU press conferences on YouTube. I’ve found watching those are often more illuminating than one writer boiling them down to their basics. So the only thing I really garnered from them was looking at their photo galleries. A lot of their pictures have enhanced my posts over the years. I guess I’ll have to search harder for those going forward.

HS Hoops

This was sectional weekend on the boys side of basketball. To honor the occasion, I read a fantastic book about a key moment in Indiana high school basketball history. I’ll get to that later this week or next.

The biggest upset in the state came in 3A, where #1 Cathedral lost in Friday’s semifinals to their in-city rivals Crispus Attucks. It just so happened the book I read was about Attucks as well. Apparently the Irish were up 11 going into the fourth quarter and totally fell apart to lose by six. L was not super upset; she was glad the girls went further than the boys.

Big 10 Tournament

L was not at that game Friday. Instead she went with some friends and sat in a suite at the Big 10 tournament to watch the night games, which included eventual tournament champs UCLA.

She’s a big fan of USC’s JuJu Watkins, so was disappointed the Trojans had played during the afternoon session. She asked me if she could buy a shirt, and suggested it would be a tournament shirt. Then she arrived home with a nice, pretty expensive USC shirt. When the Trojans blew a 13 point lead and lost to UCLA in Sunday’s championship game, I told her she had to burn the shirt. Those are the rules.

Super dumb that UCLA and USC traveled to Indianapolis to play for their conference championship. Can we fast forward 5–10 years when we go to two conferences with multiple, regional divisions and return some sanity to the games?

Weather

This winter has sucked. And by that I mean it’s been pretty normal, which is mostly cold and dreary. A few really cold weeks but mostly just two months of temps in the 20s and 30s.

That finally broke on Sunday. It was only 60, but the sun was so warm it felt at least 10 degrees warmer. L actually got a little pink from sitting outside. The coming week will be in the 60s and 70s. Mother Nature surely has some tricks up her sleeves for the next eight weeks, but we’re getting close, people, to shorts and t-shirts weather. Hang in there.

Kid Notes

We’re approaching the final countdown for C’s senior year. She’s trying to find a prom dress, which is turning out to be harder than last year for some reason. We just bought her senior ad for the yearbook. We’re finalizing plans for which of her friends will be hanging out with us on spring break at the end of the month. And we’re trying to figure out grad party plans. I believe she has eight weeks of classes left.

M accepted the offer for a summer internship in Cincinnati. She’ll be working for a company that makes a variety of products, mostly in the hardware/construction space. It’s a marketing position but I’m guessing she’s going to have to learn way more about hardware than she knows now. And it pays pretty well, which is a bonus. She’ll be home for two weeks in early May then head back to Cincy. Timing worked out perfectly and she was able to claim a sublease at a friend’s apartment before another girl could.

L had her second post-op visit this morning. They cut off her first cast, removed her stitches, then re-casted her. Everything looked good and she’s not feeling any pain. Seventeen days in this cast and then she’ll switch to a boot.

We took advantage of the nice weather Sunday and did a seated shooting workout. She got about 180 shots up from various distances and rim-heights. She threw in some ball handling drills, as much as she could do around her chair.

Later, during dinner, C asked me what happened when KU was ahead 79–72. She had heard my screams from two floors above and looked at the score to see what happened. A couple of my KU buddies and I have a long-time saying of “WAKE THE KIDS!!!” when we are yelling during an evening game. We haven’t had too many of those moments this year. It was nice to have one. Also a reminder that C was my one kid who was awake and aware of what was going on when I was losing my mind during the 2022 national championship game. ↩
You damn well know once upon a time I could remember that kind of shit, though. ↩

Reader's Notebook, 3/6/25

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 14:35:01 -0400

Beirut Station - Paul Vidich I’ve read a couple of Vidich’s books and was luke warm on both, so had largely written his work off. His spy stories seemed reserved, dry, and emotionally complex in a way that I did not connect with. But I heard him on a podcast where his personality seemed the opposite of that, and read some good press for this book, so decided it was worth the shot.

I’m glad I didn’t give up on him.

The earlier books I read were both set during the early days of the Cold War, and I think that threat of nuclear apocalypse affected their tone. Here he sets his story in Beirut during the Israeli bombing campaign against Hezbollah in 2006. A joint US-Israeli group is working to assassinate a Hezbollah leader, but a young CIA agent calls off a near perfect shot at him when she sees that his young son is in the car with him. She is then tasked with finding a new way to target him, leveraging her relationship with his kids as their teacher. As a Lebanese-American she constantly feels unsure of where she belongs and who truly trusts her. She’s surrounded by representatives from various sides who have their own dueling interests. Soon she is in the midst of a battle between Hezbollah, Israel, and the US, never certain if any of them are interested in keeping her alive.

This book had some common elements to Vidich’s earlier ones. It was dark and complicated at times. The drama is carried more by internal strife and ruptured relationships than by raging gun battles. And we get deep inside his protagonist’s head. So perhaps it was just the more modern setting that helped me connect with it better. Maybe it was focusing on a modern woman that allowed him to add some heft to the story that was lacking in his severe, closed-off 1950s Cold War men.

Whatever it was, I really liked this book.

Saturday Night - Doug Hill & Jeff Weingrad I’ve read James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales’ Live From New York oral history of Saturday Night Live that came out in 2015. Twice it was so good. There is also a new book about Lorne Michaels out that I am on the waitlist for.

But I had never read this book, originally published in 1985, about the early years of the show. I had heard about it often, but I believe it was out of print for several years. Fortunately my library not only had it, but had an ebook edition. I put it on hold the week of SNL50 and it came in this week.

This book is pretty exhaustive, most notably about the lead up to season one and then the first five seasons of the show, aka the first Michaels era. It does cover the disastrous 1980–81 season, then Dick Ebersol taking over and letting the considerable talents of Eddie Murphy carry it into the mid–80s. These next two eras get brushed over relatively quickly. And it ends with Michaels set to take over for the 1985–86 season.

There are tons of great stories in here. If you’re an SNL head you’ll know a lot of them, but as the original cast first took the air over 50 years ago, many of them have faded. Almost none of the stars or producers come out looking great. Everyone had their own ego and personality issues, which were often exacerbated by drug use. Really it was a reminder that TV stars are just like us, in that they have flaws and hangups and having fame and fortune doesn’t make those disappear. Especially in the pressure cooker of live television.

Also, this book answered some of my questions about the accuracy of the movie Saturday Night. There were clearly a lot of moments from throughout season one, and even beyond, that were rolled into that story about the show’s first night for effect.

Wednesday Links

Wed, 05 Mar 2025 11:33:27 -0400

Heavy on James Bond content today, as there was some major news regarding the series’ future along with two other tidbits that haven’t received nearly as much attention.

First, Amazon threw another billion dollars at Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli to take over full control of the Bond series. Broccoli especially has not been thrilled with what she believes Amazon’s plans for the series are - she assumes they will milk it for content the way Disney has mined the Star Wars brand and dilute its quality and value - which has prevented any progress in either selecting Daniel Craig’s successor or even developing a script for the next 007 film.

James Bond’s long-serving producers give control to Amazon

I also think it’s strange that after initially making all the Bond films available on Prime Video following Amazon’s aquisition of MGM, almost all of them have disappeared. I’m not sure if that had something to do with this battle, but perhaps they begin to cycle through Prime again.

One internet author takes the obvious, hilarious swing at what an Amazon Bond script might look like.

Exclusive: Amazon’s new James Bond script

An Austrian developer is challenging the trademark of the James Bond name in Europe that could lead to businesses being able to slap it on just about any product.

James Bond in battle to keep hold of 007 super spy’s name

Finally, the UK and European copyrights on Ian Fleming’s original works are about to expire, which could lead to some very interesting possibilities.

Licence to kill: could a James Bond horror emerge when book copyrights expire?

Here’s an assessment of Jon Krakaeur’s battle with a YouTube troll I linked to a week or so back.

Also, as the internet demonstrates over and over again, we just love picking a villain, then doubling down on the choice until we’ve transformed them into an absurd caricature of wickedness. Whatever need this impulse serves, it’s never a desire to know the truth.

Climbing Mt. YouTube

Finally, a fun internet list. I’ve seen about 30% of these.

The 100 Greatest TV Performances of the 21st Century

Jayhawk Talk: Checking Out

Tue, 04 Mar 2025 17:36:25 -0400

What a stupid, unserious team.

That was one of my biggest thoughts after KU lost to Texas Tech Saturday.

There’s no shame in losing to Tech; they are a hell of a team and now have wins at KU, at Houston, at K-State, and at BYU. They are very much like Iowa State in that they have a terrific coach who recruited players that fit his style of play and have the mentality he wanted, so they blend seamlessly. Hell, they reminded me of those classic Villanova teams in that they always play at their own pace and never seem rattled by the moment.

It was the final three minutes that pushed me over the edge, though. After trailing by 14, KU came all the way back to tie the game twice and eventually take a one-point lead. Naturally they gave up another open 3 - Tech had open looks all day from beyond the arc - immediately after that effectively won the game for the Red Raiders. On that three, DaJuan Harris and KJ Adams, both seniors with a combined nine years of college experience, stood there and watched as the shot was taken, one or both of them having made the wrong decision on a switch. The two best defenders on the team failed to cover a shooter in the closing minutes. 🤦‍♂️

It got worse from there. Zeke Mayo had three brutal turnovers. Once he failed to catch an easy pass that hit him in the hands, and watched helplessly as the ball careened out of bounds. Harris threw a pass to where he expected a player to be. Although that player, likely a wing who was supposed to come off a Hunter Dickinson screen, was not there, and Dickinson had already cut away. The pass sailed into the stands without being touched. And would you believe that Dickinson missed a couple shots right at the rim when it was a single possession game?

Yet somehow KU had a chance, but Bill Self did not use his last remaining time out in the closing minute to help a team that was clearly out of sorts settle down and set something up to extend the game. There was a part of me that genuinely thought Self had given up on this team when he didn’t call the time out. They had fucked everything up for 90 seconds, perhaps he believed stopping the clock and drawing up a play was a pointless exercise. It was bizarre.

Anyway, again a team filled with experienced players fell apart when they faced some adversity. Meanwhile Tech had a sophomore and freshman who made some of the biggest plays of the game.

This was probably the maddest I’ve been at a KU team in a long, long time. So mad that I saw no reason to stay up and watch them surely get blown out at Houston last night.

They did lose to the Cougars, but they kept it close all night, apparently playing some of their best defense of the year. However, they gave up about a million offensive rebounds to UH, Dickinson and Mayo combined for 13 turnovers and 11 missed shots, and neither Harris nor Rylan Griffen did much to impact the game on offense. All that would have made me toss and turn for hours had I watched.[1]

I’m done trying to diagnose the cause for this team’s issues. But something that had been subtly bugging me for weeks finally jumped out at me on Saturday.

With a couple exceptions, Self’s teams have never been great outside shooting squads. This year was supposed to address that, but it hasn’t worked out that way.

While the lazy analyst says that Self’s teams are focused on playing through a big man, in fact his best offenses have always been built around creating easy shots at the rim for everyone.

Take the 2020 team, which was ranked #1 in the country when Covid struck and the tournament was cancelled. That team had maybe one reliable shooter in Isaiah Moss, and he had struggled to acclimate all season after transferring in (sound familiar?). Ochai Agbaji was capable of shooting from outside, but not very reliable at that point. Devon Doston and Marcus Garrett were even more suspect.

But that team destroyed people because the entire offense was built around getting Udoka Azubuike dunks and lobs, and Dotson, Garrett, and Agbaji open lanes to drive.

Same for the 2012 team that lost in the national championship game. Its best shooter was a walk-on who came off the bench, with three upper classmen who could hit a 3 but you wouldn’t want to bet your mortgage on them making a shot to win a game. That offense was all about getting Thomas Robinson and Jeff Withey the ball inside, with Tyshawn Taylor, Elijah Johnson, and Travis Releford attacking the lane from the perimeter.

Even the 2024 national championship team, despite starting three NBA players, was built more in attacking the rim from angles than beating teams from outside.

Saturday KU had stretches in the second half where they played some gorgeous basketball. Guys were cutting, the ball was zipping around the perimeter, dribble handoffs were exchanged. The weird thing was that it rarely produced those open drives. It was 25–30 seconds of beauty, and then someone who is not a good driver putting their head down and getting into trouble. Griffen tried hard to make something happen a few times, but he’s not explosive enough to get by the defense or beat bigger defenders at the rim. Harris misses two shots for every one he makes inside. Mayo turned it over too often. Adams played his ass off Saturday, one of the best games he’s ever had. But for all of his explosiveness, he’s a two-footed jumper who either needs a clear lane or a lob to finish. He can’t drive, jump off one foot, and still get to the rim.

The staple of the Bill Self offense, the open look at the rim, has disappeared. And I don’t really understand why. For years he was able to scheme around personnel deficiencies to ensure his guards always got layups and his bigs buried people in the low block. This team can’t do that for more than a couple of possessions.

Even if we somehow pull it together and beat Arizona this weekend, and/or win a couple games in Kansas City, that’s not enough to fix the many issues with this team. I’m just ready for this season to be over with. KU should join the SEC because right now I’m way more interested in spring football than how this dumpster fire is going to wrap up its season.

Coincidentally, as I continue to review blog posts that are 20 years old, Sunday I read my entry from March 1, 2005, in which I detailed how I had stopped watching college hoops for a week to try to settle down. Times change but people don’t. ↩

Weekend Notes

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 16:42:16 -0400

A kid-focused notes post to kick off this week. I’ll save the sad, angry, frustrated hoops thoughts for tomorrow.

Foot Girl

L continues her healing process after surgery. Actually, things are going great. She went back to school last Monday and other than leaving early one afternoon because her splint was causing her pain, survived the week. She tried the knee scooter one day, but it was also rubbing against the splint so she decided to crutch around instead. She stopped taking her potent pain meds early last week. I think she made it through the weekend without any Tylenol. So that side of things has gone well.

As for that splint pain, we think her swelling had basically disappeared, which was causing the splint to move and rub against her incision. Which is obviously pretty tender. That pain was getting worse than her surgical pain, so I took her in Friday to get it checked. I figured they would just put a new splint on. They indeed took the post-op splint off, giving us a good look at her foot. No irritation on the incision from the rubbing. Way less swelling and discoloration than I expected. I thought her foot would look like mine when I tore my ankle up and my entire leg was a horrific combination of purples, yellows, and greens for a couple weeks. She just had a tiny bit of yellow around the incision.

However, rather than re-splinting her, they went ahead and put a cast on. When the PA said that was the plan, L gave me an excited look thinking the entire process was going to be pushed forward. Sadly, that’s not the case. She’ll still go in next Monday to have this cast removed, the stitches taken out, and then get a new cast that will stay on for three more weeks. The important thing is with her pain under control and her foot looking pretty good, she seems to be healing as expected.

I had never seen a cast put on before. That is a fascinating process. And way simpler than I expected.

The new bummer is that L is very itchy under the cast. Every time she complains I remind her that at least she isn’t in a splint that is rubbing the incision.

Some friends picked her up Friday and they went out to dinner, then all came back to our house after. The girls decided they wanted ice cream so L drove them, her first time driving since surgery. I was a little nervous about that, but with five passengers at least she had support if she fell or needed help getting in-and-out. I’m not sure I ever clearly identified it, but the surgery was on her left foot so actual driving isn’t an issue.

Retreat Girl

C was on her senior retreat last week. Each senior class is divided into five different groups that go to a retreat center for three days over the course of the year. They leave after school Tuesday and return Friday evening. CHS students aren’t required to go, but are highly encouraged to attend. Afterward, there are always kids who say they really didn’t want to go but ended up enjoying it.

There is obviously a religious component. But it is as much about figuring out who you are and how you interact with others as you prepare to go off to college. The organizers try to mix up friend groups across the retreats, and then put people in small groups with people they don’t know very well. There are lots of long talks where people reveal things they have never talked about at school. I think it gets pretty intense and emotional. It definitely creates some bonds that, if not quite friendships, at least get kids interacting with classmates they had no previous relationships with.

This retreat also had way more boys, since football and soccer players can’t go in the fall. S C was one of 14 girls on this trip. One of those girls was an old buddy from St P’s that C hadn’t really had much of a relationship with in high school. Apparently they got along well, which is cool since that girl and her family are staying near us over spring break. It was cool to see all the Instagram posts from the kids once they got home.

Anyway, C seemed to have a great time. She’s been through some stuff the last four years, a lot of it I’ve never shared here and likely never will. She opened up about some of that to her small group, which I think is a good thing. When she was relating her health history, mostly about her weird-ass back that is missing parts, one of her small group members looked at her and said, “Damn! You’re an alien!” which made everyone laugh. She also really bonded with several of the teachers who were there as group leaders and guides. She tends to be very quiet at school, and I think it was an ego boost to have teachers tell her how much they enjoyed really getting to know her.

Of course one of the bonuses of retreat is that the kids come home grateful for what their parents have done for them. Our kids are usually pretty thankful and express that to us. It does make you think you did something right as a parent when they reiterate that rather than come home with a list of things we did wrong as we were raising them.

We had several long talks Friday and Saturday. I told her I was no where near mature enough to share with others as she did, nor as empathetic as she is when I was her age. To be fair, I also hadn’t been through as much as she has. And she’s been through A LOT less than some of the kids she spent the week with. She has multiple friends who have already had parents die, and there were at least three kids in the big group of 45 that have had a siblings die. Which is utterly tragic.

When I was a senior my parents had been divorced for eight years, but that didn’t really bother me. We went through a few years where my mom had almost no money and we came close to moving back in with her parents. But I didn’t realize that until years later. And my stepdad had just survived his first round of cancer, but I was an idiot and thought there was no chance he would die even when the first doctor he went to gave him six months to live. Throw social media nonsense in, and today’s kids have been through exponentially more than I ever went through as a high schooler.

Interviewing Girl

I mentioned last week that M was working hard on finding an internship for the summer but not having much luck. This past week she had four interviews, two of them second rounders.

Thursday she got her first offer. It’s with a home construction group in Cincinnati as a marketing intern. She called us as soon as she found out and was very excited. I believe they gave her seven days to make a decision.

Friday she had a second interview for a position in Dayton, which she isn’t crazy about but apparently she has impressed the people there. Then she had an interview with an ad agency here in Indy. She hasn’t told us if she would hold out for the Indy job if she thought she might get it. I’m also not sure if it pays, where the one in Cincy does. I guess she has a couple days to figure all that out.

So good news, although it might mean that she just spends a couple weeks here before she heads back to Cincy for most of the summer. And we have to find her a place to live for a couple months.

I also don’t believe that I’ve shared a change in her plans for this time next year. Originally she was going to spend the spring ’26 semester in Verona, Italy. Then she heard something like nine other girls in her sorority were going to do that same program. She really didn’t want to go to another country and have to spend time with that many girls from her house. After talking to the study abroad folks about her options, they recommended programs in Ireland, Spain, and Portugal. It’s not official yet as the paperwork is still working through the system, but she will most likely do the Lisbon program. Just one of her good friends will be going, too.

So our spring break in a year may well be a trip to see her. Which would be incredible. I’m already re-discovering the various YouTube travel advice channels I was obsessed with before our trip to Italy two years ago.

February Media

Sun, 02 Mar 2025 10:20:34 -0400

Movies, Shows, etc

Groundhog Day Every year I think, “Hey, I should watch this again!” when February 2 rolls around. Then it either isn’t available on a free service, or I missed when it would air on cable. This year I finally did it! Probably the first time I’ve seen it all the way through since the mid–90s. I forgot how dark it gets for a long stretch. The final quarter feels very 90s, but, hey, that was the time.

A-

Beastie Boys (ASPCA Benefit Live Show) @ The Hiro Ballroom Oct. 4, 2006 AMAZING performance brought to my attention by Brother in Music E$.

Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant Powerful film about the bond people form during combat. And a reminder how fucked up everything about our war in Afghanistan was after the initial satisfaction of driving the Taliban from power.

B+

Spy Ops This Netflix series about various intelligence service operations fell oddly flat with me. I’m not sure exactly what was missing, but something felt off about the entire thing.

B-

GoldenEye I was browsing the DVDs at the library and found this. It’s been a few years since I’ve watched it. Once again it confirms that the Daniel Craig era kind of ruined most of the old Bond films.

Saturday Night I watched this the night before the SNL 50 anniversary show. I really enjoyed its look at the 90 minutes before the first SNL broadcast in 1975. I haven’t read up on how much of it was accurate, but it was an enjoyable look inside how close they cut it with pretty much everything that first night.

A-

SNL 50 I wrote about this here.

Ferrari I remember hearing, when this was first released, how it wasn’t what you expected it to be. That was certainly true. I understood exactly what Michael Mann was going for in this film. I’m not sure I understand his reasoning behind that, though. I was never sure that Adam Driver was speaking with an Italian accent, either. It seemed to drift into some kind of strange Italian-Eastern European mishmash. Penelope Cruz was terrific, though.

North By Northwest Somehow I had never seen this, considered one of the greatest spy movies ever, even if it isn’t standard spy movie fare. It has that snappy dialogue common of its era, and also some scenes that stretch out far longer than they would if written and filmed today. Have I ever watched a Cary Grant film before? I’m not sure. He was fantastic, never taking himself too seriously. Eva Saint Marie? Yowsa! Although I did the math and she and Grant were nearly 20 years apart in age when they made this movie, which is a little cringey, if typical of Hollywood. An absolutely wild ending was the only thing that made this film feel super dated.

B+

Meru This has been on my list for years and I honestly thought I had watched it, just not noted it. But when I started it to confirm, it was indeed new to me. The usual harrowing mountain climbing movie, complete with multiple brushes with death and a truly remarkable final ascent.

A-

No Reservations I ran across a blurb how the old Anthony Bourdain shows were the perfect anecdote to both the state of the world, and state of TV these days. It noted how No Reservations was available on Prime Video. So I knocked out the first three episodes of season one over a couple nights, with the plan to slowly work through the series as I had time over the coming months. When I went to watch episode four, they had mostly disappeared from Prime. Which was weird, as this was in the middle of the month, not at the beginning or end, when shows usually drop off. Alas, it will show up again at some point and I’ll work through it then. Even with AB not fully locked into the persona nor the show into its eventual format, it was indeed a wonderful reminder of how great this was.

Homeland Over the years several friends asked if I watched this show, as it seemed right up my alley. My answer was always no because we never had Showtime during the show’s initial run, and I wasn’t sure what platform it was on in more recent years. I was also daunted by there being eight seasons or whatever. But I recently saw it was on Hulu, and read that, really, only the first two seasons are essential, so I jumped in.

Terrific show. There is a little clunkiness in the middle episodes, but generally it started hot and stayed there. And the final three episodes are nuts, in the best possible way. I’ll definitely be watching season two and then go from there.

Pearl Jam - Chicago - Wrigley Field Night 2 - 2024/08/31 I watched night one last month, made sense to watch night 2 this month.

Pearl Jam - Self Pollution Radio 01/08/1995 - Full Broadcast I skimmed through this, listening only to the PJ songs. What a time.

A-

Shorts, YouTubes, etc

WarGames (1983): 20 Things You Never Knew! Probably the least interesting and informative of these I’ve watched, but there are still some good nuggets in it.

Will Ferrell Breaking People on SNL for 5 Minutes Straight Shouldn’t the Jimmy Fallon ones not count, since he broke in every sketch he was ever in?

Matt Damon Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters George Clooney Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters Samuel L. Jackson Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters I can’t get enough of these. I also just wait for YouTube to spit them out at me rather than seek new ones. That makes it kind of fun to see who pops up and when they hit my feed.

Matt Damon & Casey Affleck Curse Like True Bostonians Not as much cussing as the title promised.

U.S. Deploys Socially Awkward Men Along Border To Deter Migrants | Onion News Network Genius!

Inside Daniel Craig’s Iconic James Bond Watch Collection “Things I Would Steal” for $400, Ken.

Watch Shopping With Marc From Long Island Watch: Building The Best Collection Restoration of an Omega Flightmaster - Crazy Transformation Restoration of a Rusty Omega Seamaster Professional watch - Severe Water Damage Yeah, so I added a new watch to my collection this month, thus tweaked my algorithm with a bunch of watch vids. These restoration ones are oddly soothing and fascinating.

Why the South China Sea is a time bomb Just one of many reasons…

F*ck your wallet, go travel. Good advice. I wish I would have taken it in my 20s.

100 Days of Solo Travel in 3 Minutes Again, to be young, unencumbered, and motivated…

How This New York Times Bestselling Author Perfected His Daily Morning Routine I may start following this plan to see if it elevates my blog readership.

Driving the World’s Longest Road: Our Epic Journey Begins Alaska to the Yukon: The Most Breathtaking Views on Top of the World Highway I tried this series but after two episodes I just wasn’t into it that much.

We Landed in the SECRET World of Bhutan Then you have this video about one of the most isolated countries in the world and the host could not be cheesier, which kind of ruined it for me.

I used 1950s technology for a week Fun concept but this guy is 35% too goofy for my tastes.

Indianapolis, Indiana | John McGivern’s Main Streets A look at my favorite part of Indy, Mass Ave.

I drove my lifted porsche 1500km through New Zealand More travel than car related, and it’s not an EV, so this goes into this section.

Fighter Jet Low Level in Norway 4K Film this for IMAX and name your price, I will pay it.

THE LAST CRUISE IRAQ - F14 VIDEO One of the odder, while also delightfully dated, jet videos I’ve come across.

Top 30 90s Rock Songs You Forgot Were Awesome Top 30 Cheesiest One Hit Wonders of the 1990s There are a few interesting/odd choices in these, but still probably several songs that you haven’t heard in years and will send you to the streamer of your choice to revisit in full.

We Put DIRT Host Josh Rosen in the Huckberry Hot Seat | Ask Huckberry The next DIRT location is revealed here, if you’re into that kind of thing.

Why There’s a Straight Line Through Scotland Why are so many countries called Guinea? Why the Dutch always say what they mean Fun with maps!

Pro Designer Turns an Abandoned NYC Loft into His Dream Apartment | Architectural Digest This is gorgeous and all, but tell me what the budget was.

Building an official “Stealth” Apple IIgs Geek powers being used for good.

Miracle on Ice Highlights Never a bad time to re-watch this, which is now 45 years old!

Car Content

I Spent 10 Days In China Testing Electric Cars! Here’s What Happened Onvo L60 Is The First Serious Tesla Model Y Competitor I’ve Driven First Chinese EV Road Trip! Quick NIO Drive From Hefei To Hongzhou Ultra Luxury NIO ET9 First Look & Full Tour! The Next Chapter Of Chinese EV Engineering Shanghai To Beijing EV Road Trip! Fast Charging & Battery Swapping Through China In The NIO ET7 The Out of Spec crew traveled to China to see what the EV landscape is like there. In short, it’s pretty amazing. Thanks to a variety of reasons, the US pissed away its clear lead in the battery race over the past few years. And thanks to a different variety of reasons, Chinese car manufacturers have leapt ahead of pretty much every US manufacturer other than Tesla. Now they are making amazing cars that are cheaper than anything built in the US and pushing the battery side of the equation forward faster than we are. Naturally tarriffs, rather than innovation and government support, are the answer. 🤦‍♂️

Rivian Gen 2 Refresh - It’s the Little Things OK, I like their trajectory. We just need to get the R2 manufacturing lines cranking, iron out the first gen issues, and have them available and affordable in the spring of 2027.

Tesla’s Monitor Everything—Including You The future of all autos, sadly.

Photography

Sony vs Leica vs Hasselblad Photos Corky Lee’s quest for “photographic justice” Roots & Ranches My weird love for the Fujifilm XT3 (not buying the Fuji XT5, for now) What’s the BEST focal length? 28mm? 35mm? 50mm? 50mm Prime Lens ONLY Challenge: What I Discovered

Podcasts

The Rest Is Classified Former BBC security reporter Gordon Corera and former CIA agent and current author of terrific spy books David McCloskey dive into famous stories from the history of espionage. Like its sister pod, The Rest Is History, it is equal parts informative and entertaining. There isn’t a specific website for the show, but you can easily find it on the platform of your choice.

Reader's Notebook, 2/27/25

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 11:32:18 -0400

Alias Emma - Ava Glass To start, a crackling British spy caper.

Emma, a young agent in a secret department within the British secret service, is tasked with guiding the adult son of a former Russian agent to safety before a Russian death squad can liquidate him. The catch is the Russians have tapped into London’s security network and are able to track many of Emma’s movements. And they may have placed an agent at the top of the security service, preventing her from calling for help. This leads to a thrilling chase through the tunnels and underground rivers of the city. Naturally, when all seems lost things work out.

What I especially enjoyed about this book was how British it was. Not in the almost impenetrable way Mick Herron writes his Slow Horses series. But rather how it does not attempt to be an American thriller in any way. Emma doesn’t have a gun, nor do any of her fellow agents. When she does kill a Russian agent who attacked her, she is worried about what the man she is trying to protect will think of her. American spies never show remorse or self-consciousness about killing bad guys!

I also appreciated how Glass put little moments of sexual tension into the story, but never lets them boil over. It reminded me of the movie Out of Sight a little, and how there was that underlying tension between George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez, but they never acted on it. Sometimes that is sexier than letting the characters give into their attraction to each other.

American Kingpin - Nick Bilton I missed some things in the years I was concentrating on raising my kids, driving them around, coaching their teams, etc. It didn’t help that all that coincided with when I began paying far less attention to whatever the biggest news stories of the day were. Thus, somehow, I totally missed the whole Silk Road thing. I never knew a thing about it when it was an active presence on the Dark Web. I didn’t know a thing about the arrest and trial of its creator, Ross Ulbricht. Hell, I didn’t know that our current president had just pardoned Ulbricht a few days before I read a blurb about this book and checked it out.

So I was not prepared for what a wild ride the book would be. As always, you grain-of-salt parts of Bilton’s writing. But if even a fraction of what he writes is close to what really happened, this is an insane story. His brisk writing style turns it into a page-turner that feels more like a novel than an accounting of a criminal empire. The tedious, methodical way the Silk Road empire was investigated and then pulled apart by law enforcement was fascinating.

One thing that struck me about the book was how many characters, both Ulbricht and the people in various government agencies who chased and eventually caught him, hated authority. Agents in Homeland Security, the DEA, and the FBI all ignored their bosses’ commands because they didn’t feel like anyone should have authority over their actions. Ulbricht’s entire motivation was to advance his hyper-libertarian view that all drugs should be legal and the government had no right to tell people what they can and cannot put into their bodies.

What becomes obvious is that all of these people also rarely take responsibility for their actions. The law enforcement agents are seeking to protect Americans and bring a criminal to justice. Ulbricht is just helping people get the things they have a natural right to. The ends always justify the means with these people, and any harm that comes to others is regrettable, but not something they spend much time worrying about or feel responsible for. Free will and all that.

At its height, massive amounts of illegal drugs were delivered to people all over the world thanks to the Silk Road. There’s no telling how many overdoses were caused by it. How much crime was committed to pay for the drugs. How much other damage was done by people who used these drugs. Ulbricht was, indirectly, one of the biggest drug dealers in the world. Again, he received a presidential pardon about a month ago. In doing so, our Great Leader called the legitimate law enforcement agents who brought Ulbricht down “scum.” Remember all of that the next time he either rails against drug kingpins in other countries, yells about illegal drugs pouring into our country, or acts like he supports the police.

Creation Lake - Rachel Kushner I had given up on Kushner books. I’ve read two of her previous novels. I enjoyed, but did not love, one; the other I found a bit tedious. This was on many Best Of lists last year, then I saw it recommended by two other people I trust, so I decided to give it a shot.

I’m regretting that decision.

This wasn’t terrible. The core story is about a disgraced former Federal agent who freelances for whoever will pay her to infiltrate protest groups. A different take on corporate espionage. In this case, she assimilates into a commune in rural France with a different mission: pushing them to turn their protest into an attack on a government minister her employers - who are never identified - want neutralized.

That all is kind of cool. What is less cool is how roughly half of the story is this agent reading through emails of the spiritual head of this agrarian rights group. Much of that dives back into the origins of man, where Homo Sapiens separated from Neanderthals, they from Homo Erectus, and so on. I may have that order wrong, but you get what I’m saying. There’s lots of stuff about caves and fossils and what not. Not the most engaging reading material.

The point of all that is to establish the group’s ideology, and the protagonist’s discovery that she models her life around similar principals. I just found it all, again, dull. My complaint about Kushner’s The Flamethrowers was that it was too artsy. This book gets into that same territory. Maybe I’m just not cut out for artsy novels.

Weekend Notes

Mon, 24 Feb 2025 12:46:57 -0400

As I mentioned in Friday’s Playlist, last week was a very odd one in our house.

Monday was a school holiday. Tuesday the girls got up and went to school, then C called me as soon as they arrived saying she had thrown up in the parking lot. So back home she came. She puked again that night, so she was home again on Wednesday.

Wednesday was also L’s surgery day. We left the house at 7:35 and were back home around noon to begin the process of managing pain. No real issues there; she’s pretty tough and doesn’t complain much. She’s been keeping her foot elevated and wiggling her toes, as instructed. Two weeks from today she’ll switch from a splint to a cast.

Thursday is S’s day off, so she was home to help with L. C finally went back to school.

Friday was an eLearning day to prepare the CHS campus for the big annual fundraiser Saturday. L was doing just fine in the morning and we were discussing whether we would drive down to the semi-state game Saturday morning. After lunch and her round of meds, she started feeling bad. Eventually she spent about two hours throwing up. Curses! I have to tell you, I was impressed with how she was able to keep her leg elevated and still puke into a bowl. By the evening she stopped vomiting but still felt terrible. I told her we would just watch the game from home as she did not want to start feeling bad two hours from home and be stuck in the back of the car another two hours if we had to turn around.

Saturday morning we watched the game - more on that in a bit - and shortly after she had another round of throwing up. Some of her travel teammates planned on visiting but postponed for obvious reasons. She felt better in the afternoon so had her first shower on her new shower stool while wearing her waterproof cast cover. I assume that went well; I was not involved.

Finally Sunday she felt better and kept food down. Her travel coach and his daughter stopped in briefly. I told her it was lucky it took her two days to process whatever C had given her. I was super worried she would wake up sick Wednesday, we would have to postpone surgery, and that would mess our timeline up.

This morning both girls felt 100%, at least in their stomachs. L’s foot pain is manageable. Her doctor told her she didn’t have to rush back to school, but she’s too tightly wound to miss any more class. I think the getting around is going to be a big pain, as unlike when she was in a boot in December, she can’t put any weight on her left foot. We insisted she take her scooter, which she kind of hates, to give her more support and safety, especially in the hallways between classes.

Oh, and C leaves on her senior retreat tomorrow and will be gone until Friday afternoon. So I’ll be carting L to-and-from school.

Maybe we’ll have a full, normal week of classes for both girls next week.

End of the Road

Semi-state did not go as we hoped. CHS fell behind Roncalli early, climbed out of a couple holes, and tied the game at 21 early in the second quarter with a 9–0 run. Next thing you knew, RHS had ripped off 15 straight points and the game was basically over. I believe we got as close as 8 or 9 once, and they pushed it out as high as 21 points. The final was 72–54. Ouch.

Biggest factor in the game was RHS hitting their first seven 3s. That will win you a lot of games. Twice we hit 3’s and they immediately answered. They shoot a lot of 3’s normally, but pretty sure they hadn’t hit seven-straight before Saturday. We didn’t help ourselves in that 15–0 run by missing three layups and four free throws. But, still, RHS was the better team so not sure that made a difference.

It was hard to gauge things by streaming the game but the officiating didn’t help, either. The fouls in the first quarter were 6–0 against us. Which seems kind of dumb as RHS was playing more physical than we were. One of our starters was called for a touch foul 20 seconds into the game. Naturally, if you know her, she committed a clear and very dumb foul 30 seconds later and had to sit until the third quarter. Our best inside player had a similar experience. She got called for a touch foul in the first two minutes, then crashed into a girl a minute later and had to sit. Poor officiating + bad IQ = trouble.

As if to even things out, the refs called the first four fouls of the second quarter on RHS. That’s when we made our run to tie it. After that the fouls didn’t matter since RHS couldn’t miss and we couldn’t hit.

We heard one of our parents got ejected at halftime for being all over the refs, but as I wasn’t there and only got tidbits of the story, can’t really share details. Not surprised this parent got tossed, though. They have a history.

As happens this time of year to every team but the eventual champion, it was a very disappointing end to a fun couple weeks. We were double City champions (JV and varsity), beat our arch rivals twice in three weeks, and then won our first sectional in 20 years, followed by the first regional in 24 years. Adding a semi-state would have been tough; Roncalli lost to the #1 team in 3A by 13 in the semi-state championship game Saturday night. It would have been fun to have had that opportunity, though.

If you’ve paid attention to these posts, you know I’ve quoted the computer rankings often. Those rankings were locked after sectionals two weeks ago. The four state championship games this Saturday are, according to the computer, #3 vs #5 in 4A, #1 vs #3 in 3A, #1 vs #4 in 2A, and #1 vs #2 in 1A. Seems like the computer is pretty accurate.

We played two of the remaining eight teams, losing to one of the 3A contenders and beating the #1 1A team.

Jayhawk Talk

A nice bounce-back win vs Oklahoma State Saturday. The Jayhawks became the first team, I didn’t track if it was P4 only or any D1 school, to lose a game by 30+ and then win by 30+ in their next outing. At least they’re making history, I guess! Funny how much better the team looks when they can knock down outside shots.

Two very good things from Saturday. Flory Bidunga had 16 rebounds in 21 minutes. I remain on record that he will be the best rebounder of the Bill Self era if he returns for another year.

Second, Diggy Coit got going, hitting three straight 3’s to blow the game open in the first half. I think most people forget he was a very late signing and did not go through summer as part of the program. Throw in his size and Self’s traditional reluctance to give transfers much leeway, and he started waaaay behind everyone else. It seems like he’s finally getting comfortable with his role. The CBS guys claimed Self said Diggy is the most vocal leader on the team. Which is kind of concerning since our team is mostly 4th, 5th, and 6th year guys. But it bodes well for next year. I’m sure Diggy will start some games, but he seems like an ideal 6th man who can come off the bench, hit some 3’s and steady the team in minutes when Darryn Peterson, Elmarko Jackson, or whoever else fills one of the starting backcourt slots needs to sit.

Tonight we get to experience one of the true joys of the far-flung conference: an 11:00 PM Eastern tip in Boulder. I am NOT staying up to watch this game. Hope it works out better than when I went to bed instead of watching the BYU game last week.

College Girl

M spent the weekend in Toronto, Canada. I guess it’s a thing for fraternities at schools east of here to go to the Toronto area for their formals. I believe the key is the lower drinking age. That was the plan for her boyfriend’s frat. So they got on a bus at 8AM Friday and spent 12 hours driving north. Then 12 hours returning yesterday. That sure sounds awful to me. I remember going on a date party where we got on a bus in Columbia and headed to St. Louis, less than two hours away. That was both a very fun bus ride and a terrible one. College kids + lots of drinking = well, you know.

My comment to S was that you better not break up with your partner halfway through the bus ride. Or if you’re just going as friends, as a couple of M’s sorority sisters did, not realize three hours into the ride north that the dude you’re going with is kind of a douche.

I guess the formal was fun, and M said Toronto was very cool.

She has been struggling to find a summer internship, sending resumes out since the fall with no bites. She finally had one for a job in Cincinnati last week, then drove to Dayton for another. And this week she has a phone interview with an advertising firm here in Indy. It is run by a CHS grad, and a former neighbor of ours is rather high up there. I think she wants to stay in Cincy for the summer, but would be perfectly fine with the Indy one. If both those fall through, or nothing else pops up, she’ll take the Dayton one if she has to. I just hope she gets an offer.