We'll go a little long this week as I attempt to clean out the queue a bit after missing a week.
[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0kNTguupxFGGSKkuqvElAy?si=f32dd0515a834d4d)
"The Lightning I/II" - Arcade Fire
Damn, I really should have included these two weeks ago when they first came out, but I forgot to drop them into my working list for the Friday PLs. The good thing is in the two weeks since, I'm move convinced these are great and a sign that those of us that loved early Arcade Fire but not so much their more recent stuff are going to dig their next album.
You might have heard that the Kansas Jayhawks won the NCAA men’s basketball championship on Monday. I didn’t want to let the occasion pass without sharing some, well a lot, of thoughts. These should be super disjointed as they were assembled in various moments and in different stages of sobriety.
I will the answer the question I got from several people first: no, I did not turn the game off.
Fewer entries this month as college basketball and spring break sucked up a lot of my time.
Shows and Movies Don’t Look Up Reviews for this were so mixed, with some people loving it and others straight-up hating it. I was finally encouraged to watch by two different friends who told me they really enjoyed it. It’s certainly not high cinema, and there is nothing subtle about it. But overall I think it was well done, and we, honestly, aren’t too many steps away from it actually happening.
Once again…WHAT A GOD DAMN GAME!!!
So many mood swings. So much frustration at halftime. So much yelling in the second half. So much happiness when that last North Carolina shot grazed the front of the rim and fell short.
I honestly don’t know how my family didn’t come check on me after I nearly blew the roof off our house yelling during that sequence, with about ten minutes left, when Remy Martin hit a corner three to give KU it’s first lead of the second half, DaJuan Harris forced a turnover, and then Jalen Wilson converted an and-one to put KU up six.
Events have lined up so that it makes the most sense to combine what should have been two posts into one today. I’ll try to be as brief as I can to both get it out and make it readable.
Spring Break ’22 Spring Break in Siesta Key, FL was largely a success. The weather was mostly good-to-great. We had the pleasure of spending time with a few sets of good friends.
What a god damn game! (Excuse the blasphemy.)
KU never makes it easy in the Elite 8. It’s a hard-ass game in a killer tournament where one bad performance can wreck a season of excellence. For every Kansas-Duke in 2018 and KU-UNC in 2012 - wide-open, flowing games where the teams exchange big shot after big shot until one finally flinches - you have way more games like Kansas-Villanova 2016, which was a disgusting rock fight that was physically draining to watch.
A slightly larger playlist this week, as my pool of songs to share has grown and there will likely be no list next week as I enjoy my spring break. Bad weather in Siesta Key could always change that.
open.spotify.com/playlist/…
“Heavy Heart” - Bartees Strange Strange’s debut album was terrific and showed great promise. This first peek at what most assume will be his second album shows incredible growth. Strange is officially one of the most exciting voices in modern music.
Ahhhh, Sweet 16 week. I’ve always said this is the best week of the tournament for the real hoops fan. Provided your team is in it, of course. The frenzy of the first weekend has been thinned out and we can get down to some real, serious hoops. There’s always an interesting story or three for the national media to latch onto. And there are usually a couple “I HAVE to watch that game!
It’s been awhile since I’ve had a run-in with a local freak, for lack of a better term. You know them: the random, semi-crazy appearing/acting people who engage you in conversation without an invitation.
My favorite such encounter was sometime in the mid–90s at a Dillons in Lawrence, KS with one of that city’s most notable weirdos. I was attempting to buy some anti-perspirant and this man sidled up to me, grabbed a container of Speed Stick or whatever, and started mumbling some nonsense that had to do with being a pawn in the desires of big business, or something along those lines.
Damascus Station - David McCloskey I believe this is my third espionage novel written by a former CIA employee in recent months. And it was, by far, the best of that bunch.
Set in, wait for it, Damascus, Syria, it is the story of an American CIA officer who recruits a member of the Syrian intelligence service and gets pulled into the truly bizarre world of the Syrian government. Oh, he’s an attractive man, she’s an attractive woman, and they become far more than agent and handler.
Jayhawk Talk It happened! It finally happened! A highly seeded KU team played a less talented team in the round of 32, saw that team go nuts from behind the 3-point line, and still managed to gut out a win and advance to the Sweet 16. The Creighton game was not a lot of fun to watch, at least as a KU fan. Ochai Agbaji suddenly can’t shoot, seems to be forcing bad shots, and plays soft/lazy on defense.
A playlist filled with, mostly, heavier tracks this week.
open.spotify.com/playlist/…
“Angelica” - Wet Leg A little change in sound on this latest track from Buzz Band Wet Leg. There’s some Missing Persons in the DNA of this song. And some grungy guitars that aren’t quite Shoegaze but certainly owe something to that movement.
“Rockstar” - Momma Speaking of crunchy, ’90s guitars, this track is overflowing with them. These ladies are opening for Wet Leg on part of their upcoming US tour.
It’s finally here: the first normal NCAA tournament in three years! It’s also supposed to be well into the 70s here in Indy today, so it might be the most perfect day ever.
I did not do a ton of research in preparation for making NCAA picks. I listened to a couple podcasts that had sections on picks, and I skimmed a few articles. But no deep-dives.
So I guess picks first followed by some KU talk?
I watched a ton of hoops this weekend. The most in ages. Especially on Saturday, when I barely left the couch. Two of our nephews stopped by and one of them, the nearly six-year-old, asked C, “Why is Uncle D always watching basketballsports?” Basketballsports. One word. Made me laugh. You picked the wrong weekend to get any attention from Uncle D, buddy.
Some notes on what I watched.
Jayhawk Talk WHOOOOOHOOOOOO!
Haven’t been as deep into the new music the last couple weeks, so this didn’t come together as quickly or smoothly as usual. I’ll adjust my listening habits for next week.
open.spotify.com/playlist/…
“Something” - Hater Some solid, noir-ish indie rock from Sweden. I keep wanting to say this has a mid-90s feeling to it, but I’m not sure that’s right or not. I realized the other day that my ability to distinguish between musical eras isn’t as sharp as it used to be.
As we come out of the age of Omicron and brace for whatever is next, this is a good reminder of how far we’ve come, and how quickly, in combating Covid–19.
If Covid vaccines had taken as long as the mumps vaccine to develop, the world would have had to face the Delta and Omicron waves with the vast majority of people on the planet armor-less against the virus that causes Covid.
Spring? That first weekend each year when the weather turns warm is always a delight. Living in the Midwest you know there will be plenty of wild weather swings before spring completely arrives. Yet even in a year like this when winter wasn’t all that bad, these weekends are welcome. Saturday it was in the mid–70s here, breaking a daily high temperature record. I did some yard work to prep for the growing season and sat in the sun reading a book for about an hour.
March is here! The days are getting a little longer, brighter, and warmer. Spring break is three weeks away. We’ve had a few geese in our yard already, the onslaught to come. The City of Indianapolis is fixing potholes! Baseball is about to start.
And KU fans are freaking out.
My experience with the Jayhawks this week was tempered by not being able to see much of Tuesday’s TCU game in Ft.
Flipping the script this week, putting the video up top so my album review can land at the bottom of the post.
youtu.be/u2dVuzzTW…
“Seventeen Going Under” - Camp Cope covering Sam Fender I love everything about this. Including lead singer Georgia Maq’s Frightened Rabbit tattoo on her left bicep.
open.spotify.com/playlist/…
“Old White Church” - Arthur Dodge & The Horsefeathers Most of this week’s Spotify playlist will be old songs. This one is from 1997, by a forgotten band from Lawrence, KS.
Shows and Movies Ozark, season four, part one Throughout Ozark’s run, I’ve been unable to keep from comparing it to Breaking Bad. I know I’m not the only one. And I’ve often felt that Ozark did not quite reach the same level as BB. Partially because BB came first, partially because there isn’t a single character in Ozark that you are rooting for. In the first seven episodes of season four, the show finally bridges much of that gap.
Anthem - Noah Hawley Hawley can spin a story. Here he takes a little bit of everything going on in the world today and mixes it together: Covid, our former president, climate change, toxic discourse on social media, the Insurrection, and even Joe Rogan. He whips that up into the biggest possible mess. There is a total breakdown of society and what amounts to a second American Civil War. Then he throws in a very Stephen King angle: sending a bunch of kids on a quest in the midst of this.
February 2022
Eddie Vedder - 124 Gang of Youths - 93 Something for Kate - 40 Phantastic Ferniture - 27 The Beatles - 26 Complete stats available at my Last.fm page.
Jayhawk Talk A large game in Waco Saturday. KU looked fantastic for the first 15 minutes against Baylor, then, other than a brief spurt in the second half, pretty pedestrian. I was as low-key about this game as any late-season, Big 12 contender matchup in years. I listen to three different KU-focused podcasts and all of them insisted last week that Baylor was a great matchup for KU. I think that was putting too much into the teams’ first matchup, which was as dominant as KU has looked all year.
open.spotify.com/playlist/…
“A Real Thing” - The Beths This lovely track from New Zealand sets up a run of poppier tracks that make up the bulk of this week’s PL.
“Bad Love” - Dehd In the write-ups for this song, I saw it compared to the blog rock of the ’00s. I certainly hear that, but I also hear a nice dollop of ’60s-influenced pop.
“Kissing Lessons” - Lucy Dacus More good shit from Ms.
One last breather before the biggest and toughest stretch of the year, via a good, old-fashioned thumping of Kansas State.
I’m not sure why K-State decided to force the tempo Tuesday night. They damn near beat KU a month ago playing their normal style of ball. Why they thought they could come to Lawrence and win a track meet is baffling, and perhaps the final nail in Bruce Webber’s coaching coffin.
Chart Week: February 16, 1980 Song: “We Don’t Talk Anymore” - Cliff Richard Chart Position: #32, 18th week on the chart. Peaked at #7 for two weeks in January.
I’m guessing most, if not all, of my readers have no memory of Cliff Richard.
That’s kind of crazy, because he was one of the most popular singers in the world for a long, long time. He’s sold over 250 million records around the world in his prolific career.
Jayhawk Talk Ah, the trip to Morgantown, where so many good/great KU teams have gone and dropped total turds. It didn’t matter that this year’s WVU team is kind of bad and sitting in 10th place in the Big 12: this game should have frightened KU fans because of our past experiences there. (You could tell this West Virginia team kind of sucks by the way Bob Huggins coached. That was as docile as I’ve ever seen him.
open.spotify.com/playlist/…
“Invincible” - Eddie Vedder I included EV’s “Brother the Cloud” in last week’s playlist. That was also the release day of Ed’s solo album Earthing. Shortly after posting that PL, I virtually spun the album for the first time. And I almost haven’t stopped since. As with the first two singles, I was blown away by how unexpectedly great the album is. There are a few Pearl Jam-y tracks, but it is more indebted to Ed’s childhood love of pop and is filled with references to his musical heroes.
Jayhawk Talk Two more wins, one entirely too stressful, the other had too much sloppiness but 15 of the better minutes of the year to balance. Saturday against Oklahoma, KU looked slow and uninterested for much of the game. Like they saw the line was KU –10.5 and figured they would just walk onto the court and the game would be over.
They got their shit together in time to turn it into a comfortable win…until they started missing free throws and turning the ball over.