Month: May 2015 (Page 2 of 2)

Takes almost as hot as the weather here in central Indiana.[1]

A-Rod

Wow, the Yankees have made Alex Rodriguez a sympathetic figure, something that seemed impossible.

I love to hate A-Rod, but I also admire his comeback. It would have been easy after his last injury and suspension to just retire and disappear into the void. He could say goodbye to the media, to fans booing him at every at-bat, and to all the drama that has surrounded the last part of his career. I bet he could make a healthy sum if he wrote a book about his years in baseball, too.

But he sucked it up, worked hard to come back, showed up and not only won a spot in the Yankees lineup, but is likely their best player. The cynic will say he’s juicing, popping pills, or doing something else to fuel his hot start. And maybe he is. He certainly has a history of multiple offenses. But, like Barry Bonds, he was also a peerless player before he ever started putting outlawed substances into his body. Maybe this is one last burst of his pure athletic genius coming through.

For the Yankees to continue to grouse about his presence and to insist that they will not pay him the contractually-obligated bonus for passing Willie Mays on the all-time home run list is asinine. Right now, he’s the best story on one of the most surprising teams in the league. He’s driving attendance and the news cycle, for good reasons. He’s making people pay attention to the Yankees. Which is exactly what they wanted when they resigned him.

Shut the hell up and pay the man.

Steph Curry NBA MVP

I don’t know why I’m still surprised by things that Steph Curry does. He’s been amazing us for seven years now.

I think most of us expected him to, maybe, in the best possible case, be a spot shooter in the NBA. He was slight and didn’t appear to be a great athlete. Where Reggie Miller was 6’8’’, Curry checked in at just 6’3’’. No way does his effectiveness in college translate to the NBA, right?

He answered that question quickly, and has been getting better every season since. A perfect shot, that he needs just a millisecond to get off. Amazing dribbling. Astounding passing. When you put his skills with the other guys on the Golden State Warriors, you have one of the most entertaining teams to watch in the NBA.

Just as important, in a year when Kevin Durant was injured and surly, Steph gave us another completely likable NBA superstar. Unless he’s ripping your team’s heart out, of course.

Tom Brady

As I said when Deflategate first broke, whatever was done with the balls during the AFC championship game did not affect the outcome. The Patriots running roughshod over the Colts’ defensive line was as big as any passes Tom Brady completed that day.

I’m fascinated by the transition in the image of Brady, though. He began his career as the underdog hero, someone you could admire even as he was carving your team up. He grew into perhaps the most complete quarterback in the game, and one who always came up big in January.[2] Then he was a brand, or A Brand, complete with supermodel wife, obligatory appearances at ever big event, and cautiously guarded words any time a microphone was near.

Now, though, he’s turned into a first class villain. His petulant screaming at refs anytime he doesn’t like a call. His smugness on and off the field. And now, bending the rules to gain an advantage. I don’t think most people really care about whether the Patriots messed with the air pressure of their footballs. I do think a lot of people look at Brady, though, and think, “Why does he need to do that?”

So I used to admire Brady, and now I dislike him. And I used to hate A-Rod, but now I kind of like him.

What a world, what a world…

Late Breaking: ESPN Does Not Renew Bill Simmons’ Contract

Whoa! Their relationship had obviously been strained over the past couple years, especially surrounding Simmons’ vocal criticisms of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. But you figured they would find a way to make it work, right?

I rarely read Simmons’ columns anymore. I don’t watch movies or much TV, so his newer pop culture references are lost on me. And it got tiring reading through 5000 words that he had likely written before, just in slightly different form.

But the dude changed sports writing for the better. There are more voices now, is a more relaxed tone in general, and are better outlets for finding sports discussion. He (and Will Leitch when he started Deadspin) made sports writing fun and more like talking with your buddies over some beers than like reading the tired, old columnists who dominated most papers and national magazines. His early ESPN years were phenomenal. It was always exciting to see another one of his columns hit ESPN.com. Or see a link to the latest in your inbox from someone else who got to it first.

And while I overlooked his more recent writing, building Grantland was a fantastic accomplishment. There is no better source for quality sports writing – and pop culture writing – right now than Grantland. I hope it continues in the same spirit even without him as head.

Oh, and I bet he lands on his feet somewhere.

“Turn Around” – Mikal Cronin

In the style of Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn.”

Cronin’s new album, MC III, is one of my favorites of the year. As he did on his last album, he perfectly combines classic power pop with straight-ahead rock, and this time throws on some layers of strings to add a lushness to each song.

I am a wee bit distracted this week. We’ll get into it more soon, likely next week, but I made a semi-major purchase over the weekend. Which, of course, demands that I share a lot of words about the research that went into said purchase and how the purchase is working out. But that’s a few more days away.

In the meantime, a rare political post!

It’s the worst time of the year. That’s right, it’s candidate declaration season! Every couple days another person throws their hat into the ring for the process to determine who will face off in the presidential election next year. Although the Twitter/Instagram/Facebook announcement is becoming the cool way to declare, these cyber-announcements are quickly followed up with the traditional speech to the true believers that presents a pleasing photo opp for the evening news.

(Quick aside: I’m just not into politics the way I used to be. I find the way political matters are generally discussed in this country to be toxic. All of us – media, politicians, and general public – spend far too much time focused on who is winning the day, the news cycle, the week, etc. Deep, substantive discussions of policies, their implications, and seeking compromise that helps the most people gets pushed to the background. There’s plenty of in-depth material out there. But that isn’t sexy, so much more air time gets allotted to the lowest hanging fruit: who is insulting whom.

I think this is bad for the country. Political opponents are painted as evil, America-hating “others.” It’s not just that their politics are bad, but they are genuinely bad people that must be destroyed. People have been hating politicians since the first election. But the legitimacy of the democratic process is put into question by the pure hate we spew at folks with the wrong letter after their name. I have little interest getting worked up about the things I used to care deeply about when I know it will turn into some nasty, bloody battle that ends with me angry at people while others challenge my right to hold my views.

As I said, this is toxic. It drives a lot of people, me being the perfect example, out of the process. When we cede the political process to the nuts at all extremes, nothing good can come of it.

OK, not-so-quick aside. Sorry.)

The thing that fascinates me about this time of year is the amount of ego it takes to believe that you have the answers to the problems of our country.[1] I find this true of even politicians I’ve supported and voted for, not just those whose views are polar opposites of mine. That concept is utterly foreign to me. I have a hard time being the leader of a small group of people. I can’t imagine looking in the mirror and thinking, “Yep, I’m the guy to lead America forward for the next eight years!”

But the ones who really jump out at me are the folks who have never worked in government. The “Washington is a mess, and I can fix it!” crowd. The people whose only experience with government is lobbying for handouts or special benefits for their own businesses. Or who have held a position as far outside government as you can get.

You have to admire the figurative balls this takes.[2] If I, with no experience running a business or managing people, showed up at a stockholders meeting of, say, Apple, and insisted that I could run the company better than Tim Cook, I would be laughed out of the room, But in politics, because so many of us are alienated by every step of the process, a bunch of us actually believe that this is a reasonable argument. Candidate A has never held elective office, has never worked as part of an elected official’s executive team, but is going to magically step into the White House and somehow force the 535 members of Congress, the entire judicial branch, and every employee at every level of the Federal government to “work right,” whatever that means. Through sheer force of will and personality, this candidate is going to make the largest bureaucracy the world has ever known hum like a well-oiled machine.

When I’m listening to the news in the morning while I make breakfast and lunches and hear the latest candidate offer forceful declarations that they are just the man/woman to do all this, I have to chuckle and shake my head. I think all politicians are full of shit. The people who have never been a part of an elected government, though, are full of a very special kind of shit.

But I also give them credit. If you’re going to swing, might as well swing for the fences.

Station Eleven – Emily St. John Mandel
I ended March with a disappointing semi-apocalyptic novel, Black Moon. As I was finishing it, I got the notice from the library that my hold on Station Eleven had come in. It was much better.

Mandel goes to the Stephen King well to find the source of her apocalypse: a super flu that races around the world and quickly wipes out much of the population, leaving the few survivors to attempt to forge a new society with almost no modern technology.

She zigs and zags between the first days of the plague, 20 years later as survivors attempt to put society back together, and then some background of a few key characters from well before the super flu. She handles this quite nicely, with each jump in time either adding in key elements of back story or building on what the last flashback introduced.

I also loved the way the book rather casually built toward a dramatic encounter near the book’s end. There are two important meetings at the close, but one comes almost as a surprise as the other gets the bulk of the attention in the build-up. When she gets there, she rips the band-aid quickly, to perfect effect.

A False Spring – Pat Jordan
I’ve shared several of Jordan’s articles about baseball over the years. I was finally able to go back to the beginning of his writing. This is an accounting of his final years of high school and beginning of his professional baseball career, which took place in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Without much adornment Jordan lays out how naive he and his brother, who represented him in contract negotiations, were as they worked to get him a contract after high school. He shows, warts and all, how unprepared he was for life in small, minor league towns when he went off to play pro ball. And, in rather casual and shocking language, he shares how, while writing the book in the early 1970s, he discovered he had fathered a child in his first minor league summer.

Jordan entered professional baseball with great promise, but never harnessed his tremendous natural abilities. In the final portion he runs through his final, painful attempt to salvage the hype that came with the signing bonus he received in the summer of ’59.

At no point in the book does Jordan paint himself as a sympathetic character. Which is what makes this such a great read. He looks back, as a married father in his early 30s, on the over-paid, callow, insecure kid he had been and shares it all with the world.

The Increment – David Ignatius
RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES! Actually this was published in 2009, but it rings true even now. It centers on an Iranian nuclear scientist, who after becoming disillusioned with the path his country’s leaders have taken, approaches the CIA to share the secrets of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. As a CIA agent works to get the scientist out of the country for a meeting, he runs into pressure from the White House, which is eager to go to war with Iran, and the British, who have their long-term, secret plans to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program exposed.

This is a good, quick read with just the right amount of twists and turns and intrigue.

Stars And Strikes: Baseball and America in the Bicentennial Summer of ’76 – Dan Epstein
Equal parts sequel and deeper dive to his earlier Big Hair And Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging ‘70s, here Epstein focuses solely on the 1976 season. He holds to the familiar formula of each chapter covering a month, kicked off by a review of what was going on in the world, pop culture, and American society in general before buckling down to hit the high points of what happened in baseball that month.

He has tons of great material. The labor battles between players and owners in preparation for the first-ever free agent class. A presidential election. Mark Fidrych. The Olympics. The Bicentennial celebration. And the reemergence of the New York Yankees as a title contenders.

While enjoyable, the book also feels a little formulaic and rote. It lacks the charm of his first look back to the ‘70s.

Perfect Spy: The Incredible Double Life of Pham Xuan An, Time Magazine Reporter and Vietnamese Communist Agent – Larry Berman
Here’s a book I’ve wanted to read for years. In fact, I know I brought it home from the library once. But for whatever reason I never started it, nor did I give it another shot. Until now.

Like the title suggests, it is an incredible story. The Vietnamese communist party sent Pham Xuan An to the United States in the 1950s to study journalism, in the belief that would be the perfect cover for him to return home and spy on whatever western forces were mucking around in the country. During his time in America, he fell in love with the country, the people, and the American way of life. And though he did indeed spy for North Vietnam upon his return – his intelligence reports were vital in two of the most important battles of the war – he also was a friend to most Westerners.

While reporting for Reuters and Time magazine, he became known as the most connected man in Saigon. Reporters arriving in Vietnam for the first time were advised to gain an audience with An to learn how the country worked. He also worked to get western reporters freed from captivity, helped get medicine to people in prison, and was a great friend to many Americans. He always insisted he was more of a patriot to Vietnam, working to remove foreign troops from his country, than a Communist. However, during all this time, he was steadily sending intelligence back to Hanoi, or helping the communist government there understand what America’s, and South Vietnam’s, real appetite for war was.

It’s a fascinating story. Most Americans he worked with during the war were shocked to learn that he was in fact working for the North. Some felt he was a traitor who was directly responsible for the deaths of American troops. But many others, including members of the American intelligence and military communities, recalled him as a loyal and true friend, forgave him for his true allegiance, and bought his argument. “He was just a patriot trying to save his country, and I would do the same.”

No matter what the whole truth is, it’s a hell of a story.

Man oh man. May is here!

April freaking flew by, with the three girls playing different sports and locking up our calendar just about every afternoon or evening of the month.

Along the way it got seasonably warm, then we suddenly had a stretch of about 10 days with below-normal temps. But then, gloriously, last Friday the sun came out, the mercury raced well past 70 and has stayed there since. Some showers today are a brief respite before what is expected to be the longest continuous streak of days over 80 in May in over a decade here in Indy. The girls are all wearing shorts to school, the windows are open, and (knock on wood) there will be no more mornings where I have to turn the furnace on for 20 minutes to take the chill out of the house while everyone preps for the day.

Everything is turning green, the yard looks fantastic, almost all the trees have burst out with leaves.

All this is good. Winter wasn’t as bad as the past two, but that late shock in February and early March was a cruel reminder of our latitude. We deserve a nice, long, warm May to lead us into summer.

April 2015

• Waxahatchee – 65
• Courtney Barnett – 56
• Ryan Adams – 46
• Alabama Shakes – 34
• Crowded House – 32

Complete stats available at my Last.fm page

David Letterman is now in his final month hosting a late night talk show. Here is a fine Q&A with him from The New York Times.

David Letterman Reflects on 33 Years in Late-Night Television

After over a decade of blogging, I’m finally linking to something from Playboy. And it’s an article!

Anyway, you might want to view this page carefully. Of course, given what can be found on the Internet, Playboy seems awfully damn tame.

This is an excerpt from Tim Grierson’s new book biography of Public Enemy, focusing on the making of their epic third album, Fear Of A Black Planet. I was listening to that album nearly non-stop exactly 25 years ago.

SO MUCH TROUBLE: THE MAKING OF PUBLIC ENEMY’S FEAR OF A BLACK PLANET, 25 YEARS LATER

I’m sure the sports fans out there read about Cincinnati Reds manager Bryan Price’s epic rant a week ago. That brought up talk of the other great managerial rants over the years.

Tyler Kepner asked New York Yankees PA announcer Paul Olden about his role in launching Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda on his fantastic 1978 tirade. My favorite thing about Lasorda’s rant is how he casually says “See ya, Joe,” to someone else leaving the locker room as he winds down.

What About Those Three Kingman Homers? Oops

Athlon Sports asked a group of Big 12 reporters to rank their favorite cities to visit. A bit of a surprise that Fort Worth came in at #2.

Ranking the Big 12 College Towns

For several years, I was an early adopter of the latest, greatest Apple technology. Now, I’m perfectly happy with my two-year-old MacBook Air and have no plans to upgrade my iPhone 5 immediately when our contract expires next month. There are multiple reasons for that, but one is that I’ve learned to appreciate the capabilities in the things I already own rather than lust after something that is a little more powerful, or has some new technological advance.

Christopher Mims writes about hanging on to older gadgets, and explores some reasons why that is more common.

(Note: this is behind the Wall Street Journal’s paywall, but if you Instapaper it, it will save the entire thing.)

In Defense of Good-Enough Gadgets

Each year, as the air warms and we get closer to spending time in pools and lakes, I have to work off a few extra pounds gained during the cold days of winter. I have a few more than normal to shed this year, as my winter weight gain began a little earlier than usual thanks to the Royals playoff run.

I never go on any strict diets. I just try to eat a little smarter, trim portions, and make sure I take advantage of nice spring days by exercising outside often.

But these are some solid guidelines to follow no matter what your overall health status is.

Simple Rules for Healthy Eating

Lastly, the US Coast Guard shared some pictures they took last week during the lull between winter ice and summer algae in Lake Michigan. It’s pretty amazing that shipwrecks can be viewed clearly from the air. Especially since I generally believe Lake Michigan to be a pretty polluted body of water.

Lake Michigan Ship Wrecks

https://youtu.be/98AJUj-qxHI

“Once In A Lifetime” – Talking Heads
One of the oddest, and thus most memorable, videos from MTV’s earliest days.