Month: May 2017 (Page 2 of 2)

“The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness” – The National. The first single off the next National album is a shot out of the dark. So many of their songs are slow, brooding, builders. Here they get right to the point. Which confuses me. I’m used to it taking a long time to get into their albums; it took me a full six months to fully connect with 2013’s Trouble Will Find Me. Will this one require as much work to grasp?

“Manion” – The Courtneys. The Courtneys have a new album out. I gave it a spin last week and after it finished, Spotify dug into their back catalog for me. This song, from 2013, is my favorite of all their songs, old and new.

“Want You Back” – HAIM. After the teaser video for “Right Now” a couple weeks back, we get the first official single from the sisters Haim. I’m telling you, it’s going to be their summer.

“call the police” – LCD Soundsystem. A lot of people lost their shit when LCD announced they were reforming and recording new music. I was always, at best, a casual fan. Their music drifted just a little too far into electronic, art pop for my tastes. But, damn, do I like this song!

“The Underside of Power” – Algiers. Man this is a strong song, the first off of Algiers’ second album. I love the sub-genre name that has been applied to them: industrial gospel. After listening to this song a couple times, I can’t think of a better way to describe their unique sound.

I came across this piece on Twitter and really enjoyed it.

Gone The Way Of The Zambezi Zinger

The Zambezi Zinger was awesome. It didn’t have huge drops, didn’t loop, didn’t go insanely fast. But all those turns and the consistent speed through the ride were tons of fun. I kind of forgot that you didn’t even strap into the cars. You just sat 2–3 deep and that kept you from flying out.

There used to be a terrible video from the old Zinger on YouTube. I couldn’t find it, but did find a new, high quality one from the Zinger’s new home in Colombia. I’d fly there right now just to ride it again!

Part one of the spring kid sports roundup will focus on the kickball girls.

First up is C, who is playing in her third season, and on a team mixed with 3rd and 4th graders. They’ve had a really good season, sitting 5–1 and tied for first with a game to play. They won their first three games easily, and then got destroyed in their fourth game. Adding insult to defeat, one girl on the other team kicked a ball that hopped a low stone wall, rolled into the street, and got hit by a car. You wouldn’t think a kickball getting hit by a car would sound like a gun firing, but it did. Worse, it was our ball. I really should have billed the other school $12.

They rebounded nicely and won their next game easily. They’ve been fighting rain for the last two weeks, and the forecast for their final regular season game tomorrow does not look promising.

They’re tied with both the team they lost to, and another team that they beat but which beat the team that beat them. So if all three teams finish 6–1, there’s going to be some kind of wacky playoff to figure out which team goes to the city title game.

C has had a really good year. She’s kicking the ball well, uses her speed a lot, and does a great job playing both pitcher and suicide.[1] She’s had two multiple home run games. Twice she’s made all three of an inning on defense. In my totally unbiased opinion, she’s one of the top 2–3 players in her grade at St. P’s. She just needs to do a little better with her decision making on defense, and keep her toe down to drive the ball instead of occasionally popping it up. Pop ups are outs when you get to 5th grade. If she can keep the ball on a line, that girl can run for days while the defense chases it.

M’s team is in an interesting spot. At a lot of schools, including St. P’s, sixth graders often do not play in the spring. But since this class finished second at city last fall, their best player rallied the class and made sure they had enough for a team this season to take one more run at the championship. We think this is the first time St. P’s has ever fielded an all sixth grade team in the spring.

For the most part, they’ve been killing teams. That should be offered with an asterisk, because most of the teams they’ve beaten are heavy with fifth graders. A couple teams even pulled up third and fourth graders to fill their rosters. Their games generally follow a pattern: score a bunch of runs in the first two innings and then back off until we hit the mercy rule inning limit.

They were 6–0 going into last night’s game against their nemesis, St. B’s. St. B’s beat them at city last fall, and is the only school that has beaten this class more once. But St. B’s came into the game with a loss, so we figured this wasn’t the same group of girls they had lost to 26–1 in the championship game in September.

Sure enough, the team they played was mostly fifth graders. But since it is St. B’s, they were still really good fifth graders. Our girls jumped out early, but St. B’s stayed without shouting distance all night. It was never close, but St. B’s was always a big inning away from getting right back in it. For the first time all year, we had to play the full seven innings. A burst in the sixth inning made it a comfortable 26–7 win. Our girls were excited to beat St. B’s, but were also aware that they weren’t playing their match in age or talent.

So our girls are on to City for the third time in four seasons! We’re pretty sure we know who we’re playing. Our fifth grade team played the likely opponents during the season, and their coach said they have a bunch of good kickers, but aren’t as good on defense as our sixth graders are. And our girls catch just about everything. Looks like sometime next week we’ll see if the old Defense Wins Championships theory holds in 5th–6th grade kickball.

M has had a solid year. She’s kicking better than she ever has. She’s gotten the ball into the outfield a couple times. She still looks to tap the ball and use her speed to get on if the situation allows it. She’s also played some at suicide and has thrown out a couple girls at first from the third-base line. As always, though, she loves being on a team more than anything. She’s one of the loudest kids in the lineup when it comes to cheering for her teammates.

Oh, one other highlight from the season. One night at M’s game, the umpire didn’t show up. Later we learned he looked at the schedule wrong and went to St. P’s instead of the school we were playing at. While the home team was on the phone with the CYO office trying to track the ump down, M’s coach came over to me and said, “You’re my ump if he doesn’t show up.”

Oh fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuudge… Only I didn’t say fudge.

Five minutes later the home coach said CYO told her to grab some parents and play without an official ump. She called her athletic director and asked him to come back, but we would start the game with just me in the field. Perfect day to wear my purple St. P’s shirt! Yeah, this was going to be super uncomfortable. Even more so after M starting jumping around saying, “MY DAD IS GOING TO BE UMP! MY DAD IS GOING TO BE UMP!” She’s such a jackass. I told her to shut up or I was going to call her out every time she kicked.

Fortunately the girls took all the pressure off of me early. They scored 20 in the top half of the first, then got the home team 1–2–3 in the bottom half. From there we coasted through the minimum number of innings until the mercy rule kicked in. The only call I think I missed came in the top of the first. Our best kicker did her usual thing, kicking the ball all the way across the parking lot. I watched the girl in front of her touch third, but then looked to see where the ball was while the kicker passed third. Immediately the home parents started yelling, “SHE MISSED THIRD! SHE MISSED THIRD! TAG THE BASE!”

Oh shit. I wasn’t watching when she passed third. I had no idea if she touched or not.

Luckily the home team took me off the hook. Instead of throwing the ball to third, they gave it to the pitcher, who stepped inside the circle. In kickball that not only makes the ball dead, but ends any chance for appeal. The home coach even said that to her parents so they understood the rule. Which I thought was really nice, because I was about to piss myself at screwing up a call when it was only 3–0 in the first.

The funniest thing about that is that when I’m keeping score, we always stand right behind third base. And I always watch to make sure girls touch third. If one of our girls misses, I quietly tell them to make sure they touch the base when they come check in with us. But the night I’m umpiring, I miss it.

It was pretty nerve racking to be out there though. It would be one thing if I did it every week. But another to get pulled in at the last minute, and when your daughter is playing. I was just thrilled the result was never in question and I couldn’t screw that up for one team or the other. The other guy never showed up. I wonder if, after we went up 20–0, they called him and told him not to bother.

I made a quick trip to Menard’s yesterday morning. I was inside for maybe 10 minutes, and in that time the car I parked nose-to-nose to did not move. However, while I was inside, someone did decided to jam a shopping cart between my vehicle and the one opposite mine. They didn’t do any damage to either car. But I did get super annoyed. The cart corral was about 15 feet away, and some person not only couldn’t be bothered to walk that far on a beautiful spring morning, but they also decided to put their cart where it was touching two other vehicles.

Making that weirder was, on my last visit to Menard’s, I was about to pull into a parking spot when someone literally walked in front of me, shoved their cart into the space I was attempting to use, and then left. I was not parked next to the corral, or in fact anywhere near it.

What.
The.
Fuck?

People, man. They’re the worst.

Anyway, yesterday I was reminded of an article I saw linked on Friday, so I looked it up. Sadly it’s more social science-y in its explanation that I would like, but apparently there are deep reasons why folks refuse to return their shopping carts to the proper location.

Why Don’t People Return Their Shopping Carts?

As far as I’m concerned, there are only three explanations for why someone does not return their cart.

1) They have a small child(ren). I get this. I still think it’s manageable – I did it for many years – but sometimes it’s especially difficult. More so if the weather is bad.
2) The person is physically constricted in some way from doing it on their own. Of course, if they get their cart around the store and to their car on their own, they should be able to make it to the cart corral. But I’ll at least entertain this option.
3) They’re an asshole.

And I think we can all agree #3 covers about 92% of the people who leave their carts in the lot.

A couple kind of heavy songs in this week’s list along with a healthy dose of Ryan Adams.

“Headless Pin Up Girl” – Chemtrails. Written just as lead singer Mia Lust was coming out as Transgendered, this is all about the meaning of identity.

“Burn Blue” – Flasher. Hazy but not quite shoegazey.

“I’m Not” – Daddy Issues. A driving, moody track about sexual abuse. Just the thing to give you a lift on a Friday, huh?

“Please Help Me” – Ryan Adams. DRA released 17 B-sides from his Prisoner sessions last Friday. Some feel half-formed and definite works-in-progress. But a handful kick ass, including this one which feels like Johnny Marr doing late 70s, countrified, AM Radio pop.

“Rain” – The Beatles. We’ve received over 8” of rain in the past seven days, and it’s still raining. Please make it stop.

https://youtu.be/cJ3FcORJons

“Outbound Train” – Ryan Adams. Big week for Adams. He released the B-sides collection last Friday. He had a couple well-received shows in New York. He was on Colbert Monday. And on Corden Wednesday. In the two TV performances, I love how he changes up the sound of both songs from their album versions. Here he takes a song that has a very Tunnel of Love feel, cranks up the guitars a bit and turns it into something Bryan Adams could have done. On the Corden track, he took a shiny, open-chorded beauty and dials it back just a hair, then replaces a harmonica solo with a terrific, extended guitar solo. He’s good at music.

A Gentleman in Moscow – Amor Towles
As I point often, I amuse myself with my To Read list. I’ll read a blurb about a book somewhere, or see it on a Best Of list, or get a recommendation from a friend, and just throw it on my list and then forget why the book received acclaim. Which is kind of fun, because that makes each book a mystery when I finally get to them.

Here is a classic example. It was on numerous Best of 2016 lists so I jotted it down. I heard some more buzz for it, put my name on the waiting list at the library, and was finally able to tackle it a couple weeks back. I opened it thinking it was a modern spy novel, akin to something Jason Matthews might write, for example.

Boy was I wrong.

Rather, this is a delightful, utterly charming, and brilliant account of Russian aristocrat Count Alexander Rostov, recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt. A true Gentleman, as men of a certain upbringing would aspire to become.

The book begins in 1922, in the early years after the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Rostov is facing trial and is damn near close to being sent in front of a firing squad because of his connections to the former Tsarist regime. He receives a reprieve, though, when it is pointed out that he penned a poem before the revolution that was used as a rallying point for those opposed to the old order. Suspicions remain, though, so while he escapes with his life, he becomes a “former person,” a man without an official identity sentenced to house arrest in the swanky Moscow hotel he has lived in for years. Worse, he’s removed from his sumptuous suite and confined to a tiny room in the hotel’s belfry.

Does Rostov collapse in the face of this massive change to his life? No, a gentleman does not give up! A gentleman carries on as best as he can. Rostov continues to live life as he did before, just within the hotel’s walls. He dines fabulously. He has conversations. He visits the barber every Wednesday at noon. He befriends a nine-year-old girl who is fascinated by him. They go on adventures through the hotel as he teaches her about life outside the hotel. He falls into an affair with one of the most glamorous movie stars in all of Russia.

Time passes. The Count takes a job in the hotel’s restaurant. The girl grows, and eventually leaves the hotel. World War II comes and goes. The girl returns, now an adult with a daughter of her own. Her husband has been taken to a camp in Siberia. She asks the Count to watch her daughter so she can find her husband and return with him to Moscow. It will only be a few weeks, she insists. A few weeks turns out to be forever, as she never returns. The Count now has a “daughter” of his own. After some rough early days, they settle into life together. She is a bit of a musical prodigy, and becomes one of the most celebrated young pianists in Moscow. Although the Count can’t travel across the street to watch her performances, he still takes great pride in her success.

As the story moves to the 1950s, the Count makes the acquaintance of two Americans who spend time in the hotel. Both turn out to have connections with the US intelligence agencies. Eventually, the Count is asked if he might share information about life in Soviet Russia with his American friends. He declines, saying he still loves his country even if he does not love its current government.

From there springs a truly glorious final act, in which the Count buys freedom for his daughter while finding a different kind of freedom for himself. Wrapping up complex stories is difficult, but the end of this book is absolutely, completely, totally perfect.

Towles is a wonderful writer. As I said, this is a charming book. It’s easy to poke fun at Count Rostov, with his 19th century aristocratic ways. He comes off as a bit of a dandy quite often. He clings to tradition, even in the face of a changing society, not solely out of stubbornness or advancing age, but because that’s what a gentleman does. But there’s a core morality to him that is admirable.

I’ve read several very good books this year. I’m pretty sure this is the best of them.

Odd Man Out – Matt McCarthy.
I roared through this book, knocking it out in one day. It’s a fun, funny, and illuminating look at the life of baseball players in the lowest level of professional play – the rookie A leagues – told from the perspective of McCarthy, a 21st round pick by the Anaheim Angels in 2002. McCarthy was not the standard issue baseball player. His parents were both academics. He graduated from Yale and is now a physician. Thus he occupied an odd, singular place in the locker room of his rookie league team in Provo, Utah. While he easily fit into the racial split in the locker room – whites and Hispanics did not mix – his education and worldview differed sharply from many of his teammates, who were southern and less educated than McCarthy.

He details the general dumbness that results from young, physically gifted men being paid to play a sport, from guys making a couple hundred bucks a week to the guys who signed for hundreds of thousands of dollars. The sexual and racial humor. The constant poking fun at the Mormons who dominate Provo and their many cultural restrictions. The shocking divisions between the American and Latin players. The selfishness that comes from guys all trying to do whatever they can to make it to the next level, often at the expense of team success.

I loved it, mostly because it seems to be a pretty uncompromising look at what goes on in baseball. McCarthy certainly does his best to come off in a good light, but he often seems like as big of a dumbass as the teammates he criticizes.

And then I read about the controversies that arose after the book was published. Several episodes he details, which he claims he recorded into his journals immediately after they happened, have been alleged to not have been possible because of the timing of roster moves, the schedule, etc. Other episodes have been challenged by his former teammates and manager.

Whether all that matters isn’t really important. This isn’t a historical text that will be used to educate future generations. It’s an insider look at baseball played by 19–22 year olds. Even if all the details or anecdotes aren’t 100% true, I think they probably tell a reasonably accurate story of what goes on in minor league baseball.

So yesterday was a fun day: I got to experience the joys of having my first colonoscopy. Yep, big time fun it was.

A few of you have already been through this rite of passage. For those who haven’t, fear not; this is not going to be a highly detailed account of what went down at the endoscopy center.

The reason I was going in a little early (white folks don’t generally need to get scoped before 50 if they don’t have a family history) is that I’ve been having some weird stomach issues for the past year and a half. The symptoms have changed over time, and often didn’t seem related to each other. But they’ve persisted long enough that I went in to see my regular doc and ask for her thoughts. She couldn’t think of any obvious causes or explanations for my issues, and thus sent me off for a scope to get a look inside. I was all for it. Most of you know it was colon cancer that killed my stepfather and I have no reservations about getting tested early.

The results were a mixed bag, but in the best possible way. Unfortunately the scope didn’t show anything in the area of my abdomen where I’ve been having pain. Which is both frustrating and encouraging. It could just be a diet issue, or I may need to do some other tests if the pain continues. They did find and remove a polyp the doc said could have become problematic down the road. So that’s good.

Colonoscopies are one of those procedures that we all seem to dread. I’m guessing they used to be a lot different than they are now. I was knocked out and a roughly five-hour stretch of Monday afternoon is a complete blank to me. There was no pain after. I slept for over nine hours last night and woke feeling crazy refreshed. I would say I still feel a little off today, but more from a combination of lingering effects of the sedatives and low blood sugar than from the procedure itself.

It was the prep that is tough, though. And even that wasn’t as bad as some suggested it would be. The hardest part for me was not eating any real food for 36 hours before the procedure. I’m not a good hungry person and I was getting pretty grumpy before I began the Gatorade and Mirolax cocktail part of the prep Sunday evening. I didn’t get much sleep Sunday as the Mirolax did its work. But, still, it wasn’t that big of a deal.

I had only been knocked out once before, when I was 18 and got my wisdom teeth removed. I have moments of semi-clear memories from after the procedure yesterday, but most of it is a complete fog. Apparently I told S the same story about one of the nurses living in the same neighborhood as several of our friends from St. P’s three different times. When I mentioned it again at dinner last night, even the girls laughed because S had told them I was repeating myself.

(Yeah, the girls laughed and laughed when I told them what I was going in for. “They’re putting a camera where?!?!”)

And then there was just a tiny bit of awkwardness because I met the doc doing the procedure at a social event a couple years ago. He had been enjoying the vodka at that event. I’m glad to say he was clearly sober yesterday. We have some mutual friends, and he and his wife have a lake house on the same lake as ours. We may get together over the summer when our mutual friends come to the lake. I sense an opportunity to compliment him on his boat/house/lake toys that I’ve now helped pay for.

Anyway, it’s all done now. I’m glad the results were good but wish I had a better idea of what was going on in my belly. For those of you who get to wait a few more years before you get scoped, I say don’t sweat it. If you follow the guidelines they give you ahead of time, it’s a piece of cake. And you’ll get to take a really good nap after!

Saturday was an official Big Day for the family. It was L’s First Communion day, a day we’ve all been looking forward to for two years, since C’s First Communion. Do we just love First Communions so much that we couldn’t wait for the next one? Nope, that’s not it. Rather, we’ve been laughing for two years over the prospect of L wearing a formal dress for the first time in her life. If you know the kid, you know that idea is loaded with comedy.

Now L herself was not as excited about the whole dress thing as much as the rest of us were. When the school year began, and we got the dates for the various preparations that go into First Reconciliation and First Communion, we could sense some nervousness in her. I think once she did ask the question, “Do I really have to wear a dress?” We told her that, yes, she did have to wear a dress. But it was just for a couple hours and then she would be done with it. And we promised she could pick out some cool shoes to go with the dress. Unlike her sisters, who were both very excited about wearing high heels for the first time, L took it another way completely.

After several weeks of looking around online, she picked out some fancy, glammed up, white high tops. Once they arrived, she relaxed considerably regarding the dress.

That was the lead up to Saturday. The actual day went just fine, other than all the rain we had before, during, and after the ceremony. She looked fantastic in her dress and didn’t fidget too much. She was the star of her classmates when we arrived at church and everyone got a look at both her in a dress and her shoes. One of her friends took a similar route, wearing some regular white Chuck Taylors.

L had the first reading in the ceremony and handled that with aplomb. Dad the non-Catholic didn’t embarrass the family as we approached for the Catholics to take Communion. Although, just like with L’s sisters, the candle I held extinguished itself before we returned to our pew. You all know I’m not much for religion or belief in a supreme being, but I have to admit it’s a little spooky that’s happened all three times!

Afterward we gathered at our home for a large meal with family, and repeated it with the leftovers and our neighbors later in the evening. L didn’t realize some folks get you gifts for First Communion so she was thrilled she got some cash and other cool things. She had just spent her last $7 on baseball cards, so I may have to restrain her from spending all her First Communion loot on cards, too.

So another big milestone is checked off for one of our girls. And we flip the calendar to May which leaves just four weeks of the school year left. Amazing. Oh, and L headed to school today in her white high tops.

April 2017

• Pearl Jam – 126
• Ryan Adams – 97
• The Beatles – 88
• Crowded House – 32
• Prince – 30

Complete stats available at my Last.fm page