Wednesday, August 20, 2025
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.
Tuesday, August 19, 2025
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?
Monday, August 18, 2025
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.
Friday, August 15, 2025
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.
Thursday, August 14, 2025
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.
Wednesday, August 13, 2025
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.
Tuesday, August 12, 2025
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.
Monday, August 11, 2025
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.
Friday, August 8, 2025
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.
Thursday, August 7, 2025
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.
Wednesday, August 6, 2025
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.
Tuesday, August 5, 2025
Movies, Shows, etc Arrested Development, season one I figured “Why not watch this again?” the week of July 4th. Never disappoints. A 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.
Monday, August 4, 2025
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.
Friday, August 1, 2025
Another big, eclectic mix of music this week. [open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/50aIgpY3rbMCVTaKnjpU0V?si=3f8a7e3addea46c2) “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.
Thursday, July 31, 2025
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.
Wednesday, July 30, 2025
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.
Monday, July 28, 2025
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.
Friday, July 25, 2025
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. [open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/35X5UYCMtCeOZsTTLDDBv3?si=8ba6894dbcc7486e) “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.
Wednesday, July 23, 2025
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.
Tuesday, July 22, 2025
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.
Monday, July 21, 2025
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.
Friday, July 18, 2025
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.
Thursday, July 17, 2025
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.
Tuesday, July 15, 2025
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.
Monday, July 14, 2025
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.
Friday, July 11, 2025
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.
Thursday, July 10, 2025
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.
Sunday, July 6, 2025
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.
Thursday, July 3, 2025
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.
Wednesday, July 2, 2025
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.