Because no two sports seasons are alike, every season seems weird.
This Big 12 basketball season is no different. The weirdness this year comes from Baylor winning in Lubbock and Lawrence the first week of the season, not stumbling elsewhere, and the league race seeming to be locked up early.
The math changed a little last night when KU was absolutely dominant in the final eight minutes to steal a win in Morgantown, a long-time house of horrors for the Jayhawks.
It’s been awhile since I wrote way too many words about something relatively personal. So strap yourselves in - or just skip this post if you’re not interested - for some old man news.
For the past few months I’ve been undergoing a series of tests to try to determine why I had two lengthy episodes of irregular heartbeat late last year.
The first episode was in October, the week that I was taking steroids and not sleeping because of my poison ivy.
While reading one of these books, I had a memory of a similar book I had read recently. I looked into my Books Read list and could not find a match. I went back to reading, but the memory stuck with me. Soon I was checking again, and then looking through my Reader’s Notebook entries for the past few months, but still could not find it. Sadly my library does not offer a history of books that I have checked out to reference.
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“Rock With You” - Michael Jackson Today was a late start day for CHS, and I have an appointment this morning, so no time for a full playlist.
Instead I share this wonderful video and a link to a new site fellow music junkies should absolutely bookmark.
Richard Challen is a music journalist who is a regular commentor on Tom Breihan’s The Number Ones series at Stereogum. Inspired by that series moving towards the 1980s - the latest entry was from June 1979 - Challen has started his own site, Spandex & Synths, where he will break down every song that charted in the 1980s.
McSweeney’s is a humor site. But, often, their posts cut to the heart of everyday matters.
Perhaps none has been as relevant to this site’s readership (or most of it) as this post. You will laugh, but you will also find truths in it.
16 SURPRISING WAYS TO INJURE YOURSELF WHEN YOU’RE OVER 40
Well crap. When I posted RFTS Vol. 37 last week I did so not realizing I had yet to post Vol. 36. So they are out of order. I apologize for the error.
Chart Week: January 30, 1988 Songs: “Push It,” Salt-N-Pepa; “Pump Up the Volume,” M/A/R/R/S Chart Positions: #26, 11th week on the chart. Peaked at #19 the week of February 20. #25, 10th week on the chart. Peaked at #13 for three weeks in February/March.
What a couple of days! We had back-to-back record high temperatures here in Indy. Sunday was the overtly nicer of the two: the sun was out and it felt like spring. Monday was actually four or five degrees warmer, but other than a quick peak of sun mid-morning, it was a very cloudy day and didn’t seem as warm as it actually was. Alas, in the hour since I dropped the girls at school we’ve dropped from 60 to 45 with another 10 or so degrees expected to bleed away by late afternoon.
Something different this week.
A few days back I had a sudden memory of a song I had not heard in years. It was just a snippet, but it stuck with me throughout the day. It wasn’t a famous song. It was by an artist I hadn’t thought of in nearly 20 years. When I checked Spotify, the song was out there, though. I listened to it, added it to my Liked Songs list, and moved on.
Chart Week: January 30, 1982 Song: “Waiting for a Girl Like You” - Foreigner Chart Position: #2, 17th week on the chart. Spent 10 weeks at #2.
Chart geeks like me love the little tidbits that give the history of the charts added context. Highest debut, most hits by one artist in the top ten, biggest drop from #1, etc. I love all that shit.
In late 1981 and early 1982, Foreigner became one of the unluckiest bands in the history of the chart.
Last week was a little out-of-the ordinary around our house. As I mentioned a couple times, we were on nephew duty all week.
One of my sisters-in-law was matched with another baby boy for adoption and had to go to Florida to pick him up. It was a last-minute deal, so while she hoped to only be down there a couple days, it took over a week to get all the paperwork in order so she could leave the state with her new son.
So where was I? I was enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon after joining friends for a birthday lunch for my wife. I was watching golf - the Farmer’s Insurance Open was extra interesting this year since the hotel we stayed at in San Diego last summer bordered the course - and scrolling through Twitter when the Tweets began hitting. There was that half hour or so between the first Tweet and when someone other than TMZ confirmed that Kobe Bryant had, in fact, died in a helicopter crash when I hoped it was some horrible error.
open.spotify.com/playlist/…
“Dance of the Clairvoyants” - Pearl Jam It’s been seven years since we’ve had a new Pearl Jam album. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Their last couple albums were uneven at best, teetering toward mid-life mediocrity at worst. A new album is set for a spring release, and we got the first single this week.
It’s different, which I think is a good sign. Instantly there were dozens of David Byrne GIFs posted in response, as this track has a definite Talking Heads vibe.
I started 2020 off with two excellent reads.
Midnight in Chernobyl - Adam Higginbotham This is, quite simply, one of the best works of non-fiction I’ve ever read. It is a highly detailed, yet brisk, accounting of the 1986 meltdown at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the then Soviet Union.
Higginbotham provides quick summaries of just about everything that led up to the disaster. A history of radiation and nuclear power.
I sure picked a good night not to watch the KU game.
Between having the nephew around, C having volleyball practice, and the early start time, I decided to record the KU-K-State game, follow the score, and watch it later if needed.
For most of the night that seemed like a good decision. After a slow start, the Jayhawks waxed Kansas State. We had just put the nephew to bed, L was wrapping up her night, and I looked forward to fast forwarding through the recording to watch the good parts.
It’s probably a good thing today is a holiday and most of my Kansas City friends are probably just now going to bed after celebrating the Chiefs’ AFC title overnight. I say that because I didn’t see much of either game yesterday, so I don’t have a ton to say.
I saw a decent chunk of the first half of the AFC game, although I was distracted during much of it.
open.spotify.com/playlist/…
“Cheap Regrets” - The Districts Looking through my Liked Songs playlist in Spotify and my iTunes library, I don’t know that I’ve ever listened to this band. Apparently this song is a departure from their usual sound. I really dig its blend of modern dance, classic disco, and indie rock.
“It Helped” - Yakima When I think of Scottish music, I generally have a particular sound in my head. While not all Scottish acts fit that sound, they often butt up against it.
Chart Week: January 15, 1983 Song: “Your Love Is Driving Me Crazy” - Sammy Hagar Chart Position: #27, 6th week on the chart. Peaked at #13 for two weeks in February/March.
One of the disappointments of the iHeart Radio Classic American Top 40 channel is that only so many of the old countdowns have been digitized and, thus, countdowns are often repeated. Sometimes I’ll hear the same one twice in a week or so.
I thoroughly enjoyed the CFP national championship game Monday night. Well, I enjoyed everything about it except a certain politician’s appearance before the game (I switched away just as L was yelling at me to get him off the screen) and how the game was an example of the biggest problem with college football today: four hours to play a game is ridiculous.
Anyway, the game itself was excellent. To remind you, my pick was LSU 31, Clemson 28.
What a weekend of sports! Hoops and football gave us plenty to discuss.
KU Hoops I guess Baylor had to win in Lawrence eventually, right? For a decade Scott Drew has been bringing ranked teams into Lawrence. Some years they kept it close until very late. A few years they probably should have won. But KU always made the plays in the last minute as the Bears wilted and left with yet another L.
Happy Friday. It is warm and rainy in Indiana, feeling more like April than January. I’m sure we’ll pay for this down the road.
open.spotify.com/playlist/…
“Texas Sun” - Khruangbin and Leon Bridges. What a lovely, interesting song, combining Khruangbin’s world music influences with Bridges’ old school soul sound. They have a four song EP set for release next month.
“Alien With a Sleep Mask On” - Ratboys. Oh hell yes, the first real banger of the year!
Time to share what I watched over the stretch from mid-November through New Year’s Eve. Although some holiday programming is included here, I’ve only included things that were new or unique to this year.
Pursuit of Happyness The first movie that S watched that I got pulled into during this stretch. I enjoyed this but, good God, it was sooooo freaking depressing. I like sad songs but movies that last two hours and are just constant downers are too much.
Time for a final 2019 wrap up, this time the books I read last year. To start quick summaries of the final four books I read in December.
Killing Floor - Lee Child I’ve seen the Jack Reacher books in airport bookstores, at grocery stores, and in other locations over the years that made me dismiss them as just another pulpy, low-brow series. Sometime this fall, though, I read in a rather respectable publication that Lee Child’s series was actually quite good.
My busy-ness, sickness, and laziness over break kept me from posting my thoughts about The Rise of Skywalker and Eddie Murphy hosting Saturday Night Live. Allow me to rectify…
Skywalker I saw The Rise of Skywalker the Sunday before Christmas with two of my brothers-in-law. I also saw The Force Awakens with them, and the local b-i-l of that duo saw The Last Jedi with me. So it was good company.
Before I get to the notes, a quick warning that if you still access this site via thebrannanblog.net address, that site name will be going away at the end of the month. Please update your bookmarks to reflect dsnotebook.me as the correct address.
We are back at it today. Well, kind of. M started at her normal time today, but they are going to their first semester classes for 20 minutes each then will be dismissed for the day at 11:15.
Wow, is it Friday already? Time to kick off the new year with some new tunes.
open.spotify.com/playlist/…
“All Is On My Side” - Sam Fender. Two weeks ago one of my brothers-in-music sent me a message saying that he was really craving some new War on Drugs music. Two days later this song dropped and I pointed out that his wish had been granted. Fender once again takes the TWOD sound and pops it up a bit.
Happy New Year, everyone!
We had our annual boring New Year’s Eve, with a twist. Although we stayed in, M had five friends over for the evening. As we were banishing them to the basement for the evening, S and I cleared out our liquor cabinet and beer fridge down there. It’s the first time we’ve ever done something like that. Although we were reasonably sure the items contained in each would not have been disturbed by M and her friends, we wanted to prevent anyone making a bad choice.
My January 1 stats are always wack, thanks to the flood of Christmas music I listen to each December. With it being a new year and new decade, I will adjust this time to show both my year/decade most listened to artists.
2019 Hatchie - 212 Middle Kids - 183 The War on Drugs - 177 Frightened Rabbit - 165 Prince - 154 Strand of Oaks - 150 Pete Yorn - 149 Sam Fender - 132 Bruce Springsteen - 127 Better Oblivion Community Center - 125 2010s Frightened Rabbit - 3024 The War on Drugs - 2316 Ryan Adams - 2137 Pearl Jam - 1583 The Clash - 1122 Radiohead - 880 The Beatles - 868 Wussy - 815 Crowded House - 814 Dum Dum Girls - 809 Complete stats available at my Last.
I love the turning of the calendar. A new year is an opportunity to look back on what you’ve experienced over the past 12 months while building anticipation for what is to come in the next 12. When the decade is rolling over, that just makes it more fun.
I have vivid memories of Christmas break 1979, watching various decade-end retrospectives on TV, hearing ads that pulled the arrival of the ‘80s into their copy, and getting very excited about the new year.
As my post yesterday said, we have closed out the family portion of our Christmas break. Here’s what we were up to over the last week.
Like every year, Christmas Eve was a day of manic getting ready. There was prepping as much food as possible for the brunch we were hosting the next day. That included detailed evaluations of what foods/beverages could spend a night in a cooler and what items needed to stay in the steady cool of the fridge.
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“The Week Between” - Jonathan Coulton and John Roderick Our house has cleared out. Folks departed last night and this afternoon and now we’ve hit the lull after all the frenzy of the Christmas season. Perfect for listening to this song.