youtu.be/cIy2wyEV0…
“The Weekend” - Modern Baseball
I was conflicted about what to share this week. Should I throw a scary song out at you? It’s somewhat traditional that I post “Thriller” the week of Halloween. Or at least I’ve done that three times. On the other hand, should I go back to last year’s October theme and share something from 1985? But since I haven’t done that yet this month, would that be bad luck to suddenly harken back to the last time the Royals won the World Series?
Once again, I’m left wondering what to write about a baseball game.
How about this, for starters: Game Six of the ALCS was the craziest, most dramatic, and best baseball game I’ve ever watched my team play in. Keep in mind, I did not watch last year’s Wild Card game but rather listened to it. While we all know that game is the pinnacle in the history of the Kansas City Royals, Friday night’s pennant clinching win is right up there with it.
youtu.be/7MDWtSf_A…
“In My Eyes” - Best Coast
Normally in October, I’m starting the think about my Best Of lists for the current year. Reviewing albums from early in the year I may have forgotten about, digging out singles that I only listened to a few times and demand more consideration, and then shuffling all my favorites around in various orders so that, in about six weeks, I can publish my definitive lists for the year.
Over the weekend we had a conversation with the girls about pet peeves. We took turns sharing what some of our biggest ones were, which ended up being pretty funny. S. and I made most of ours about things the girls do that make us crazy. And the girls each chose ones that had to do with their sisters.
The clip below from John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight would have been perfect had I decided to share a few of my real pet peeves with the girls.
The Royals host the Blue Jays in game one of the ALCS tonight. Just like we expected, right?
Well, maybe for most of the past two months. But last weekend, when the Royals trailed Houston 2–1 and Toronto trailed Texas 2–0 in their respective division series, an all-Texas AL final looked much more likely.
But the two best teams in the AL righted their ships, made big comebacks, and now we’ve got the series that has had a slow fuse burning on it since the teams last met in early August.
youtu.be/mPsXHrwcU…
“What Is Life” - George Harrison
When I opened Apple Music today to scan the new releases, I noticed that George Harrison’s music is now available to stream. Which is weird because within just the last week or so I heard one of his songs on SiriusXM and wondered if his solo work had ever been cleared for streaming. As I recalled, only a song or two that appeared on soundtracks or compilations had been available in the past.
Warning: you might want to put some space between you and whatever screen you’re reading these on. For they are extremely hot sports takes![1]
I must be getting old. I actually kind of enjoyed the Chicago Cubs clinching their NLDS against St. Louis yesterday. In fact, I found it pretty damn cool.
I say that’s a sign of age because I’ve long hated the Cubs. I didn’t hate them for their “Lovable Loser” fans, or because there are tons of Cubs fans around Indy, or even because they broke my heart when I was little.
This time I got to watch.
Fifty-four weeks ago, when the Royals made their insane comeback against Oakland in the Wild Card game, we were in the final hours of our Time Without Cable.[1] Thus I was huddled up with my computer and a bluetooth speaker, listening to the Royals radio broadcast deep into the night.
Yesterday, I got to watch most of the Fox TV broadcast. I did have to listen to a couple innings as I picked the girls up from school.
youtu.be/4Eo84jDIM…
“Leave A Trace” - CHVRCHES
One of the big music surprises of 2013, on multiple levels, were CHVRCHES. Their opening single, “The Mother We Share,” came out of nowhere and was an utter delight. Still, it felt like a bit of a novelty, unlikely to be followed by anything else as engaging. The second surprise came with the release of their first full-length album, The Bones Of What You Believe.
What a difference a year makes. This time last year, the Royals had just come off their epic - no EPIC - win over Oakland in the Wild Card series and were headed to Anaheim to take on the Angels, who had the best record in the American League. Would there be an emotional hangover from the Wild Card win? Could the Royals pitching staff silence the Angels bats? Could the Royals get on base enough to make their speed a factor?
I believe I’ve mentioned a time or two (or three) that I spent nearly a month wading through a beast of a book. Now I have to write about said beast. Cripes. The good news (for me at least) is that despite the time spent on that book, I remain at book-a-week pace for the year.
The Woman Who Lost Her Soul - Bob Shacochis Well, what to write about this book?
Last weekend, for the first time since mid-August, we had no cross country meets, no soccer games, no out-of-town guests, no trips to the lake planned. It was nice to have an easy, early fall weekend to sit around and decompress a bit.
Well, we did have one big thing on the calendar: L. turned seven on Saturday!
Thanks to the way the calendar fell, she had an extended birthday. Friday she got to take cupcakes in to school.
youtu.be/NyDIOlkp_…
“Laced” - DMA’s
A rather goofy video, that really isn’t worth watching, for a pretty spectacular song. In fact, just hide this window while the song is playing and enjoy the sounds.
DMA’s take a little Arctic Monkeys, some Oasis, and a heavy dose of classic Australian jangle-pop, and end up with some often gorgeous, if derivative, music.
I’ve kicked this around for nearly two weeks, so I suppose it’s time to finally convert the thoughts into text. I would not call this an album review proper, but rather a few musings about Ryan Adams’ cover of Taylor Swift’s 1989.
Ryan Adams is no stranger to covering other people’s music. His set lists are peppered with songs from other artists. He recorded one of the greatest covers of all time, a song so good even the man who wrote it affirmed that it now belongs to Adams.
(As I prefer to focus on the many positives, I’ll save my thoughts on the Royals’ September and prospects for October until next week.)
I had a bit of a rough weekend. Some stomach issues. A couple late nights and early mornings. Mid-day naps to counter those. Everything felt a bit off. And I guess it all started Thursday night, when the Royals clinched their first division title since 1985.
In reverse order of age this time, your periodic Kid Sports Update.
L., and her whole soccer team, rebounded nicely from their rough first week. Playing against teams that have not been full of second graders like their first opponent, they’ve won two-straight games in shutouts. She scored three goals last week and two yesterday.
Most impressively, her team is playing pretty, team soccer. Most of the kids are learning how to pass out of traffic and then run to space.
Time to finish clearing out the Links To Share queue.
Kicking things off, two posts about Kansas City. First, The Midwestival traveled to KC for an epic weekend of eating and seeing the sites. Kansas City has really evolved over the past 10–15 years.
Kansas City: The Paris of the Plains
As a bit of a counter-point, Robert Trussell wrote about how Kansas City’s downtown was once a wasteland of blowing garbage and dark streets when the workday crowd cleared out.
Two videos that have nothing to do with each other this week.
youtu.be/IxkJHX7uk…
“No Myth” - Michael Penn
It’s National One Hit Wonder day! What actually constitutes a one-hit wonder can often be a little murky. Does it mean cracking the Billboard Top 40? Or does it mean songs that get into our pop culture memories regardless of chart position?
Regardless, this is one of my favorites. Just a perfect pop song, and one that everyone seemed to love my freshman year of college.
So I’m obviously way behind on sharing interesting links with all ya’ll. Thus, I’m breaking them up a bit to clear out the queue. This edition focuses on the great Joe Posnanski.
Boy did I love this one. In My Favorite Year (Redux), Joe went through the entire sports calendar of 1986 and broke down, month-by-month, why it is his favorite sports year ever. That was indeed a pretty good year, even if my teams were different than his at the time.
I’m loving a lot of things right now, pop culturally. I took a long bike ride this morning and mentally wrote at least 10,000 words about the new Ryan Adams album. We’ll see if I can make something coherent out of those thoughts to share here. I just finished an amazing, if flawed, book that took me nearly a month to get through. I also finally started watching Veep, which is fantastic.
A super-busy start to the week. I’m attempting to wrap up the four basketball previews I’m writing. I was minutes away from submitting one earlier this morning when I realized I worked off two different files yesterday rather than putting all my updates into my final draft. So I spent two stressful hours today combing through to find what belonged in the final draft, what did not, and then rewriting the whole thing.
youtu.be/N1Hs2AQwD…
“Major Tom” - Peter Schilling
I have a bad habit of loading up our DVR with shows that I either take months to watch, or eventually delete without ever viewing them. Even for a show like The Americans, that I absolutely adore, I was a month behind. I still have the entire first season of Better Call Saul to begin.[1] I have countless Anthony Bourdain shows tucked away. And I believe I still have a couple episodes of Louie in there somewhere.
With the late holiday, our kid fall sports calendars are a little odd this year. Kickball always starts just after school begins and runs for only three weeks. And soccer did not start until after Labor Day. But as of Sunday, we finally have all three girls on the fields each week.
Kickball It’s been a fantastic season for M’s team. Last night they wrapped up a perfect regular season with their fifth run-ruled win in seven games.
Mondays are perfect days for Hot Sports Takes!
Colts Yeesh. Once Rex Ryan took the Bills head coaching job, this officially became the dreaded tough road opener against a team with a great defense and something to prove. Which is an actual NFL game description. A loss wasn’t out of the question, but getting worked over, totally owned, and blown out was unexpected. I only saw the first quarter because of soccer so can’t make any broad assessments.
Yes! It is that time of year: time for fearless football predictions!
I admit up front that my predictions are even more half-assed than normal this year. That’s because my regular disdain for preseason football was combined with the Royals leading the division this year. So I’ve been able to spend even less time than normal avoiding NFL news as I’ve been fully immersed in all things Royal. More than likely there have been half-a-dozen season ending injuries I know nothing about that will affect some of the teams I’m picking to do good things.
Many errands and household chores got crammed into Tuesday, so a belated look back at the final weekend of the summer. It was very good, but also kind of crappy.
The good parts were:
The girls getting a four-day weekend. It was nice to sleep in a bit Friday before all our other activities for the weekend. Our KC friends the B’s were in town, staying with local pals the H’s.
Music for the last weekend of summer.
youtu.be/qh4nVj8g4…
“The Boys Of Summer” - Don Henley
Say what you want about Henley, and there’s plenty of negative things to say about the guy, but this is a great song. Even if he’s not really singing about the end of summer, its place in pop culture is as an end of summer song.
“Don’t look back, you can never look back…”
youtu.be/n9ENhIyV4…
A bit of a slower, more relaxed reading month in August. Part of that is simply because I’m roughly halfway through a fairly massive novel that locked down the last couple weeks of the month. But still on book-a-week pace for the year overall.
100 Things Royals Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die - Matt Fulks My step-dad brought me this book, which was a fun little thing to flip through between innings while watching games.
As I mentioned in last week’s Friday Links, I watched Real Genius a week ago. Then, this past Sunday, I watched Fletch. As with Real Genius, it had been a long, long time since I had watched Fletch, a movie which has to be in my top five most-watched non-Christmas movies of all time list.[1]
So A), yes I’m on a bit of a classic 80s movie run. Sunday nights seem to be the most convenient to watch them right now, since the Royals generally play during the afternoon on Sundays.