D's Notebook

Month: January 2020 (Page 2 of 2)

CFP Championship Game Notes

January 14, 2020 /

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. I genuinely thought LSU was better, but I do not like Clemson, mostly because I think their coach is a gigantic douche. Then again I think that of most football coaches, so he’s not unique. He just seems extra douchey. And I might think Ed Orgeron is a douche in a few years, but for now he’s one of the most entertaining coaches around. Plus I always feel like LSU is kind of everyone’s second-favorite team. And that’s mostly because of their fans and the culture around the program and of region. But they also tend to be a fun team to watch, which as a neutral is always important.

Five minutes into the game I texted a friend that I wanted to change my pick. Clemson’s defense looked absolutely ferocious in the early going. Their offense wasn’t doing much, yet, but I didn’t see how Yellow Tigers’ could solve the Orange Tigers’ defense. Clemson 10–0 felt right.

Then LSU got on the board, the home crowd got cranked up, and I settled back into my pick.

Then Clemson went up 10 and I started to doubt myself again. How could I pick against Clemson, a team that hadn’t lost in two seasons and had playmakers all over the field?

Then LSU had an absolutely monster second quarter and took an 11-point lead into halftime. Yep, just like I expected. And maybe a little more so!

Then an LSU three-and-out to start the second half followed by an easy Clemson drive for a touchdown and two-point conversion. Uh-oh…

But, finally, LSU asserted themselves as the most dominant team in the game they were all season. It was a legendary performance filled with jaw-dropping plays in front of a highly partisan and hyped crowd. That was just fun to watch.

It always feels weird to immediately assess performances in a historical context. Because of that, I want to pump the brakes a little on how high we place Joe Burrow’s performance both last night and this season. I also get cynical when the big media machine gets behind a story and wants to elevate it to a near mythical standard. Sometimes the people presented to us as heroes are actually gigantic dicks, you know? But, man, Burrow’s performance was pretty freaking good! And for now his story checks every box that makes it immensely satisfying.

Burrow’s senior year will certainly go down as one of the greatest ever. It’s just harder how to rank him as a college quarterback when he did this for one year.

His numbers are complicated by the fact that Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence has one more year of college ball left. I think his goal every waking minute for the next year will be to avenge the only loss of his college career and break every record Burrow set along the way. I would not bet against him doing exactly that.

Anyway, it was a hell of a game to watch between two fantastic teams and a fine finish to the college football season.

One of my friends I was texting during the game is a big Penn State fan. He also enjoys a little trash talk. So, after the reveal of the eleven greatest players in college football history, I quickly let him that the list had one more Kansas – KANSAS FOOTBALL! – player than Penn State players.

Love, love, love that Gale Sayers still gets some props. I’m obviously way too young to have ever seen him play live. But guys from the KC and Chicago areas who watched him play in his prime talk about him as if he was the most amazing thing they’ve ever seen.


Now, of course, there are problems with that list. Big problems. College football is barely the same sport it was when Gale and Roger Staubach were playing, let alone when Barry Sanders was playing. These lists are impossible and will always be fatally flawed. I will just celebrate that a Jayhawk made this list.

Weekend Sports Notes

January 13, 2020 /

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.

So Baylor was due. Odds, regression, etc aside, that was a damn impressive performance on Saturday. Just as it looked like KU might pull away in the first half Baylor dropped a big ass hammer and put a 22–4 run on the Jayhawks to close the first half. KU never got closer than five in the second half and the Bears walked away with a 12-point win that felt more like a 20-point margin.

Baylor did everything well Saturday. Shut down KU’s offense. Made great adjustments on offense. Hit contested shots. Really it was the perfect game. Which is the only good thing about the game for the rest of the Big 12. Surely Baylor can’t be that good every night, right? The thing is, though, even when they’re not that good on offense, they remain elite defensively. They just won in Lubbock and Lawrence back-to-back, which effectively gives them a two game margin on everyone before you factor in actual records. The Big 12 title race runs through Waco for the next two months.

For KU, a lot to be concerned about. None bigger than Devon Dotson’s health. Officially he has a hip-pointer. Who knows if that’s true. All that really matters is that KU began the 2019–20 academic year with three point guards in the program. One is sitting out the year as a partial qualifier and can’t do anything to help until next November. The other kid went through a week of fall conditioning, quickly decided KU wasn’t the place for him, and left the program. So now they’re left with a banged up Dotson and then 6’5” guys who can play emergency point. Not the ideal way to climb back into the Big 12 race.[1]

Aside from Dotson, the next biggest concern is how poor this team moves the ball. Entry passes are thrown off the backboard, out of bounds, or directly to the defender. Simple passes on the perimeter are put in the wrong spot, either preventing an immediate shot from an open shooter or putting the receiver in a tough position if they want to make a quick move.

I’m not worried about the shooting because that is what KU is. One night they’re going to shoot 60% from three, the next around 20%. That was something that should have been addressed in the offseason. There’s not much you can do about it in the heart of the schedule. It’s destined to cost them in March, but I worry more about losing because they turn the ball over 25 times than going 3–27 from behind the arc.

Clemson Beats UNC

I only throw this in because Baylor breaking their 0–16 streak in Lawrence was quickly topped when Clemson got an overtime win in Chapel Hill, breaking a 95-year, 0–59 losing streak. Carolina is always great. Clemson only occasionally has good teams. You can talk yourself into that streak. But, still, it’s basketball. Weird things happen. Especially in the modern era with the three-point shot. But it still took Clemson erasing a 10-point deficit in the final 2:00 and then overtime to get it done.

Some of the sting was taken off KU’s loss as I laughed at Roy Williams saying he should be fired for losing the game and it’s the worst thing that’s happened in his career. He’s such a putz.

OK, on to football…

NFL Playoffs

The Saturday games weren’t super interesting. Well, Tennessee continuing their run is a big deal, but we were out at a dinner for most of the game so I missed whatever happened in the first three quarters that set up the win. The real action was Sunday.

That Chiefs game. Good Lord! I turned the game on late, just in time to see Houston’s first TD pass. Then I got a call and was away from the TV for about 15 minutes. When I walked back into the living room it was 21–0 and I was thinking, “What the hell?” and “Chiefs will always Chief.” And I was honestly, for the first time in my life, feeling back for Chiefs fans. To lose this way would be a special kind of humiliation for a franchise that has found a million ways to torture its fans in my life.

Then the two fateful calls that changed the game. How on earth do you kick the field goal on fourth an inches early in the second quarter? 28–0 means the game is over, I don’t care what happened the rest of the game. The crowd was already booing the Chiefs, they were already dropping balls left and right. That stadium was about to get really ugly. Give the ball to Deshaun Watson and ask him to get less than a foot, then score two plays later to blow out whatever hope was left in Arrowhead. The decision looks even dumber when Bill O’Brien said after the game that he thought they needed 50 points to win. THEN YOU DON’T LEAVE POINTS ON THE FIELD YOU IDIOT.

Worse was the fake punt from their own 31 after the Chiefs had finally scored. That’s just asinine and reckless. At that point I texted some friends and said the final score would be 56–24 Chiefs. I wasn’t far off.

Despite all the stupidity on the Texans sideline – and I would fire O’Brien today if I owned the team – it was still a damn impressive comeback for the Chiefs. Once they scored 21 points in three minutes you got the feeling it was over. But, still, they completely shut down Houston for all but one possession and were nearly perfect on offense. Now that they’ve had their “Oh shit!” game, I am putting the Chiefs down as a lock to win the Super Bowl.

The nightcap was just a damn good game. Green Bay getting a nice lead, Russell Wilson doing Russell Wilson things to turn it into a ballgame, and Aaron Rodgers throwing an absolutely perfect ball on third down to ice the game. The only game of the weekend that was in doubt until the final moments, and one that kept me glued to the TV the entire time.

NFL Hall of Fame

So rolling that huge man out during the halftime shows on CBS and FOX to inform Bill Cowher and Jimmy Johnson that they had been elected to the NFL Hall of Fame was kind of cool. I did have to ask myself, “Wait, Jimmy’s not in the Hall of Fame already?” And I do have some quibbles on Cowher getting in. A very good coach? Absolutely! But an all-timer? Hmmm… Then again, the NFL Hall of Fame has always felt a little more open than the baseball HOF. Which is fine; big, inclusive halls are great. But I think Hall of Fames should be reserved for coaches who either won a shitload of championships or somehow revolutionized the game. For all his accomplishments, I don’t think Cowher reaches either standard.

CFP Championship

LSU 31, Clemson 28

  1. My biggest KU recruiting complaint is how Bill Self has such a hard time getting point guards. You would think they would look at his last Illinois team, the 2008 KU national championship team, and the Frank Mason/Devonté Graham teams and flock to the program. For all the “Self runs high-low” talk, when he gets guards he gives them the ball. Yet he is always scrambling to get guys to run the offense for some reason.  ↩

Friday Playlist

January 10, 2020 /

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.

“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! One music critic I follow has been dropping hints about an amazing album he can’t wait to talk about soon. He also Tweeted the moment this single dropped, and there’s been a lot of buzz about the upcoming Ratboys album, so I’m starting to wonder if that’s going to be the first big album of 2020.

“Pantomima” – Greg Dulli.
When Dulli, the lead singer of the Afghan Whigs, announced he had a solo album slated for this year, I was not all the interested. His/their output has always been wildly erratic, ebbing between legendary albums and songs and work I thought was flat out awful. But, surprisingly, this single is pretty solid, so I’m officially intrigued by the album.

“Heartbeats” – The Knife
“Heartbeats” – Jose Gonzalez
I’ve heard both of these songs in the past couple days, each for the first time in ages. The original goes all the way back to 2003, and was one of the early hits of the “Blog Music” era. The Knife’s Swedish compatriot Gonzalez covered the song that same year on his debut album, although he didn’t release it as a single until 2006. It goes down as one of the great covers of the decade, a thoroughly wonderful and unique take on a throughly wonderful and unique original. Both songs came at the point when music was becoming inescapably divided, with hip hop influenced acts dominating the pop charts while all the other sub-genres went off into their own spaces. It’s a shame, because both of these songs deserved much more love.

“She Will Have Her Way” – Neil Finn & Friends.
My absolute bucket list, time machine concert would not be going back to see Pearl Jam in 1992 or The Clash at the Bonds Theater in New York in 1981, but rather the Neil Finn & Friends “7 Worlds Collide” series in Aukland, NZ in April 2001. That was back when Finn was one of my very favorite artists and a few of my other favorites – Eddie Vedder, Johnny Marr, and two members of Radiohead most notably – joined him for a week of shows in Finn’s homeland. I wore out the album and concert video that resulted from the shows in my pre-kid 2000s. It’s been awhile since I’ve listened to/watched them but this popped up yesterday and, moments later, I was listening to the entire album. It remains an utter delight nearly 20 years later. Here Neil and his pals offer an absolutely delightful take on one of his best solo songs.

What I’m Watching: Holiday Season 2019

January 9, 2020 /

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. B

Knight Before Christmas
Ugh. S started watching this one morning when it was snowing and I was feeling too lazy to move off the couch. It’s was pretty much a Netflix-ified version of a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie. Goofy and safely romantic. Not all that good, at parts straight-up dumb, but not terrible, either. C

Cheers, seasons 3–5
Every October or November I think to myself, “I should really watch all of season five of Cheers rather than just watching the “Thanksgiving Orphans” episode. And every year I don’t do it. This year, though, was different!

In mid-October I picked up where I had left off in watching every Cheers episode a few months back, early in season three. Doing some quick math, I found if I watched two episodes each day, I would land on “Thanksgiving Orphans” the night before Thanksgiving. Challenge accepted!

Man were these good. All three seasons are super strong, even allowing for the changes in cast. Nicholas Colasanto was in poor health for much of season three. He missed several episodes and eventually died before filming ended. As the season was shot out of order, Coach would disappear then reappear, which was a little strange. His death was awkwardly addressed in the open of season four, when Woody Boyd, a friend of coach’s, shows up looking for him. Sam tells Woody that Coach had passed and that’s that.

Season three is filled with the Diane-Frasier romance, ending with her leaving him at the altar. Season four is a little unsteady as they attempted to work Woody into the cast, but ends on a strong note with Sam in a relationship with a local politician. The finale ends with him calling someone on the phone and proposing. Ah, the good old days of the summer-long cliff hanger! Of course, as the opening scene of season five reveals, it was Diane rather than the politician and we’re off on the most intense of Sam’s on-again, off-again romance. The couple set off on a season-long battle about whether they would actually get married or not. Woody comes into his own in season five, getting some of the biggest laughs.

Really everything came into its own in season five. The writers were locked in. The cast was confident and settled. After saturating the screen with bitterness in season four, Fraser becomes a reliably hilarious character in season five. And the show was an official hit, meaning the studio audience laughed a little louder and longer at jokes, which makes them work better.

Season five is my favorite of the Diane era. It is filled with wonderful episodes. Obviously, “Thanksgiving Orphans,” is one of my favorite pieces of TV ever. Even after 30 years, “Dinner at Eight-ish” made me laugh until I cried. And there is a long list of others that I would put on a Must Watch list.

I’m taking a break from the show for awhile but eventually will pick back up with season six.
Season three, A-; season four, B+; season five, A+.

Jack Ryan, season one.
I forget how many of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan books I read, but I was really into the series in the late 80s and early 90s. The Hunt for Red October was one of the great action movies of its era, between a smart script, Sean Connery, and a young Alec Baldwin as the perfect Ryan. Harrison Ford seemed too old to be Ryan when he took over the franchise, but Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger were both solid. When Ben Affleck and Chris Pine took over the role, I didn’t bother watching. I had a hard time getting my head around John Krasinski as Ryan for the Amazon series a couple years back – he will forever be Jim Halpert to me – and put off watching it until now.

I thought he tackled the role nicely. He’s probably a touch too old for where they have Ryan in his life, but he pulls it off well. I don’t know that I totally buy him as a former Marine, but he also didn’t look completely out of place in the action sequences. He shined in those moments when a little Halpert came through, especially in the scenes with his romantic partner, Dr. Cathy Mueller.

As for the story, like so many streaming series, it seemed overly compressed to get it into an eight episode window. I guess some folks like being able to binge it quickly, but I would prefer 2–4 more episodes to tease things out, add more depth, etc. The supporting cast was very good. You can’t go wrong with Wendell Pierce. Ali Suliman and and Dina Shihabi were excellent. And I’m a big fan of Abbie Cornish (Dr. Mueller). I think it’s hilarious that she’s a rapper back home in Australia. I also laughed at how she couldn’t pronounce the word “helicopter” in an American accent

Overall a solid first season. I’ve heard season two is better. B+

Dolemite is My Name
The first project of Eddie Murphy’s new relationship with Netflix was quite good. It was funny, although not filled with non-stop laughs. It was surprisingly sweet. And knowing it was based on true events – surely brushed up and sanitized for the times – added some heft to the story. Right in Eddie’s wheelhouse. Oh, and Wesley Snipes is RIDICULOUS! B+

Office Christmas Party
This was part of AMC’s Best Christmas Ever movie series. I caught a few minutes one night after Elf or Christmas Vacation, laughed, checked the cable guide and set the DVR to record its next airing. That was a solid choice. This is a truly dumb and kind of awful movie. But it also had enough big laughs to keep me watching. C- on quality but B+ on enjoyment.

I Think You Should Leave
I had read about this Netflix sketch series a couple times over the last month and watched it in the week between holidays. Some sketches are crazy funny. Some are filled with so much awkward humor that didn’t connect with me that I was looking forward to them being done. Tim Robinson is a different dude. B-

Die Hard
For years I’ve been saying, “I should really watch Die Hard over Christmas. Then I never did it.[1] I finally got to it this year, albeit the weekend after Christmas. I don’t think I had watched Die Hard in 20–25 years? Which is crazy as it was the single best “watching a movie in a theater” experience of my life, and I rewatched it routinely through the 90s. It holds up pretty damn well. I bought it, so it will go into the December movie rotation. Not sure if the girls will get to watch it anytime soon, though. A+

Spies in Disguise
Two Will Smith vehicles in six weeks! L and I went to the theater to see this over her break. We both really enjoyed it. Funny, clever, smart but accessible for kids. Just about everything you can ask from an animated movie aimed at tweens. A-

Stepbrothers
Believe it or not I had never seen this all the way through. Last summer I read an oral history of its making and have been meaning to sit down and watch it ever since.[2] On New Year’s Eve, with M in the basement with her friends, C at a friend’s house, S watching a movie on her laptop, and L playing Xbox, I decided that was the time to do it. It worked out perfect as I started it at about 10:20 so I finished it about ten minutes to midnight.

Since there were youths around, I watched on my iPad with headphones on. Most of the time I was sitting next to L while she played Madden. She got a little frustrated with me for laughing so much, so hard.

I liked it, but my reaction was similar to how I feel about The Big Lebowski: it was funny and I enjoyed it, but I don’t necessarily see it as an all-time classic. Not even sure it’s among my top 4–5 Will Farrell movies. But perhaps, as with Lebowski, it takes repeated viewings to really fall in love with it. A-

  1. I sense a trend!  ↩
  2. BTW, oral histories of movies when the main actors don’t participate kind of suck.  ↩

Reader’s Notebook, 1/8/20

January 8, 2020 /

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. I made a note to check them out.

This was the very first Jack Reacher novel. It is violent, ridiculous, and mostly beyond belief. I probably would have loved it when I was in my teens or 20s.

That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the book, because I did. A lot. The story is good, even with so many “Yeah, that could never actually happen,” moments. Unlike some folks, I don’t get off on revenge violence, which the book is filled with.

Where Child got me was in how he makes Reacher unlike other, similar literary bad asses. Reacher has a conscious, he has regrets, he evaluates his actions and feels remorse.

I don’t really have a problem with action novels or movies. I more have a problem with people who celebrate their impossible heroes as the apex of the modern alpha male. Child giving his main character a depth unlike so many leads in the genre will have me checking out some of the other books in the series.

A Christmas Story – Jean Shepherd
My annual read of the short stories the classic movie was based on. My girls laugh at how I read it every year. As with the movie, I nearly have it memorized and chuckle in advance of my favorite lines. This year M watched the movie with me and I tried to explain the differences between book and film. She didn’t seem as excited about them as I was, but she still sat with me for over an hour sharing the experience, something we don’t do often these days.

10:04 – Ben Lerner
I read this as I wait for my hold Lerner’s acclaimed 2019 novel, The Topeka School, to come in.

This is a wacky little novel. It is largely autobiographical. Or at least broad swaths of the story are based on Lerner’s life. At its center is an author who was raised in Topeka but lives in New York City, who has sold a novel based on a story he had published in The New Yorker. That short story is included in the book, and is in fact a short story that Lerner had published in The New Yorker. Also inserted into the text are poems and some visual art. In structure alone, the book feels very modern in its desire to throw off the traditional boundaries of what a novel is.

As for the story itself, there are many long, absolutely brilliant sections. Beyond the parts of Lerner’s life that move the plot forward, he explores situations when perception did not match reality. There is a woman who fakes a major illness to her partner. There is the cultural memory of people seeing the Challenger disaster live when very few people were watching the only network that showed the event in real time. There was Ronald Reagan’s memorable speech after the disaster, which famously quoted two lines from a poem, two lines that were in fact cribbed from two other poems. The idea that the moon landings were faked. How various fertility techniques blur the definition on who truly is a parent. How one of the most popular dinosaurs ever – the brontosaurus – never actually existed. About a woman active in Arab political causes who discovers the Lebanese man who raised her is not her father, and thus she is not Arab. And the narrator’s book itself, which is built upon fabricated correspondence between authors.

I enjoyed how Lerner challenged those contrasts between perception and reality and now I’m even more excited to read The Topeka School.

The Enemy – Lee Child
I needed one more, easy read to keep me occupied as Christmas approached and passed. I randomly picked up this Jack Reacher novel after learning that there is no proper order in the series.

This one goes back in time to when Reacher was an MP in the Army. As 1989 ends, he is abruptly transferred from Panama, where the US was in the process of invading and hunting down Manuel Noriega, to a base in North Carolina. On New Year’s Eve, a general is found dead in a hotel near a strip club and Reacher is assigned to investigate. The general’s death becomes one of several suspicious deaths, there are high-ranking officials who get in Reacher’s way, and the investigation is full of twists, turns, surprises, betrayals, etc etc etc. Another fine, quick read.

I really enjoyed the new decade angle, as it kind of mirrored where we were transitioning from ’19 to ’20. Also, it taking place during my freshman year of college brought back a lot of memories about what I was doing then, and what my expectations were for the 1990s.

OK, with that I finished the year with 52 books read, right on my book-a-week pace I like to brag about. I believe there was only one graphic novel this year, but I did read two books that L was reading for her book club, so there was some fluff. Still, solid work.

My favorites? Here are a few.
Sting-Ray Afternoons – Steve Rushin
Beastie Boys Book – Michael Diamond and Adam Horowitz
Tornado Weather – Deborah E. Kennedy
Black Leopard Red Wolf – Marlon James
The Municipalists – Seth Fried
Empty Planet – Darrel Bricker and John Ibbitson
The Nickel Boys – Colson Whitehead
Fleishman Is In Trouble – Taffy Brodesser-Akner
Prince and the Purple Rain Era Studio Sessions, 1983 and 1984 – Duane Tudahl
Daisy Jones & The Six – Taylor Jenkins Reid

Two Throw Backs

January 7, 2020 /

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.

I entered the theater with fairly low expectations. I had read zero reviews, but I had seen several headlines that were, at best, lukewarm. A couple were rather scathing. I remember one, from a prominent national newspaper, called it the worst Star Wars movie ever. Yikes. Fortunately I had seen enough positive Twitter buzz from sources I trust that I took my seat hoping for the best.

Also, I watched both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi the previous week to get my mind right for where the story was and where most thought it was headed going into episode nine.

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that I’m far from a Star Wars expert. I was excited about the new trilogy but I haven’t dug into them the way I did with episodes four through six when I was a kid.

So…

I thought most of the action scenes were terrific. They were exciting, quickened the pulse, and had lots of explosions, which is an underrated aspect of the Star Wars saga.

The story? Well, I had a lot of issues with the story.

My biggest issue is how much of this movie, and in fact the entire final trilogy, was just a rehashing of the same broad storylines that the original trilogy used. Seriously, one more final battle where a ragtag collection of rebel forces are facing off against an evil empire that has planet-killing weapons? Haven’t we done this four times already, if not more?

I did not like how Rey was identified as a Palpatine. Say what you will about Rian Johnson’s episode eight, but offering the idea that bloodlines didn’t matter and anyone could be an important cog in the Force was one of the most exciting ideas ever introduced into the saga. But she ends up being just another part of a royal family. Some were excited about this, especially after all the teasing about who her parents were. I found it disappointing.

This showed a trend in the final trilogy: there were a lot of moments when it felt like Johnson and JJ Abrams were fighting with each other. The series certainly would have benefitted from having someone above the directors laying down a consistent viewpoint for them to follow, rather than allowing them to jerk the storyline back-and-forth.

Most of that doesn’t bother me too much. What I did have a problem with, though, was the line in The Rise of Skywalker when Abrams had characters diss perhaps the most stunning scene in the entire saga: when Laura Dern’s Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo turns her ship toward the First Order’s command ship and jumps to hyperspace, destroying both ships in the process in The Last Jedi. The moment of silence in the movie’s soundtrack that allowed you to hear the gasps in the audience was a truly amazing cinematic moment. Seriously, that scene was up there in my favorite experiences in a movie theater. And Abrams decided to shit all over it because it was Johnson’s. Lame.

There were not great moments of surprise, either. Perhaps I was just too cynical coming in, but each time there was a twist, I knew it would twist back quickly. I knew there was no way Abrams was going to kill Chewbacca midway through the film, so those seconds of emotion when Rey thought she had caused his death didn’t register with me: I knew the Wookie would be back. And he was. Almost embarrassingly soon.

While I was watching, I was surprised at how much screen time Leia got. I was also impressed with the CGI work as she looked pretty lifelike. Only after did I learn that those were scenes that Carry Fisher had shot before her death that they used. I guess I’m cool with that. Interesting how they shoehorned that dialog in.

Kylo Ren was the most fascinating character in the new trilogy. I don’t know that I was pleased with his story arc. Again, it was pretty predictable where he would end up. I did enjoy the path to get him there. Any scene with Kylo and Rey was about as good as the trilogy got.[1] I’m glad they had several scenes together. I don’t know that they needed to kiss. Bringing Harrison Ford in for the scene when Kylo/Ren is debating what to do seemed like an apology from Abrams for killing him off in The Force Awakens. It also felt a little cheap.

But, man, Kylo’s ending. I just don’t know if I can get on board with it. It seemed a little flat for the character that will be most remembered from this set of movies. Worse, it again aped Return of the Jedi. When Darth Vader turned and helped Luke defeat the Emperor, his reward was death. Same for Kylo. So I guess the point is redemption does not equal salvation? That’s going to really help the next time an evil emperor pops up!

You’d think Disney would have pushed Kylo surviving so they could continue his story somewhere else. Although, if Adam Driver isn’t interested in carrying the role further, I’m not interested.

Star Wars analysis has always been over-thought. In reality the movies are pretty simple stories about good vs evil. That presents both problems and freedoms to filmmakers. For all the flack Johnson took for The Last Jedi, at least he took risks and challenged his viewers. If you strip Finn and Rose’s weird “find the codebreaker” arc away, episode eight was pretty good.

The Rise of Skywalker, on the other hand, felt cautious and unambitious. No way would Disney have allowed for anything that wasn’t a satisfying, bow-tying end to the Skywalker saga. But it was absolutely possible to challenge the audience in the process of reaching that final point. Instead we got constant callbacks to the five movies that came before.

That’s not to say it was a bad movie. I will call it an entertaining if deeply flawed film. Instead of leaving the theater either exhilarated or satisfied at the end of the Skywalker storyline, I left with a bland feeling of, “Well, that’s over.” There was no deep emotion, only slight disappointment. Then again, the expectations that were first set in 1977 were likely impossible to reach. Especially now that I’m middle aged and cynical, rather than barely into grade school, wide-eyed, and impressionable.

The first time I saw Star Wars I refused to talk afterward, shaking my head when my mom asked about it. The following day I sat on my front porch in a daze, my world rocked by what I had seen the night before. Two weeks ago I left the theater, talked it over for a few minutes with my brothers-in-law, then went home, got into bed, and fell asleep. I wish something about this movie had moved me enough that I had tossed and turned for a few hours, reliving my favorite scenes.

I listened to part of a pretty nerdy podcast in which a panel discussed the movie. Most of them, while they had problems with the movie, liked it a lot more than I did. Worth noting that most of them have seen the movie multiple times.

I have a couple friends who are really into Star Wars and they liked it more than I did as well.

Based on that feedback, I think it’s safe to say that if you are a true believer, there are enough strong elements that reveal themselves upon repeated viewings that can help you get by the troublesome parts.

If you are a casual viewer, like me, however, I think it’s much harder to get beyond those many issues.

Eddie

Eddie Murphy’s turn as host of Saturday Night Live, on the other hand, was a thoroughly enjoyable 90 minutes. With one notable exception, the show was pretty perfect.

Leading in, I kept reading discussions of what classic characters Eddie needed to bring back. At first I was bothered by that. Eddie is returning to stand up and making comedies, why shouldn’t he have the freedom to bring new characters to the show? But then I realized that all those classic characters were the result of him spending hours at 30 Rock creating them with his fellow writers and performers. It was too much to ask for him to carry a 90-minute program with a bevy of new bits.

I guess I was worried that modern takes on Mr. Robinson, Gumby, etc would come off as poor facsimiles of his 1980s performances. That’s happened with some other hosts who came back after years away. I figured it would be impossible to match peak Velvet Jones, and bringing them back would just disappoint a 48-year-old who was very excited to see arguably the biggest star of his childhood return to his old stomping grounds.

Thankfully those were needless fears. Yes, Mr. Robinson, Velvet Jones, and Buckwheat were all probably B+ renditions. But that was still pretty damn good. Gumby, on the other hand, was out-freaking-standing. That was the one moment in the show when Eddie brought back the “anything can happen” vibe from his 1980s work.

There was more to Eddie’s performance than his old characters. His monologue was solid. I get what he was doing by bringing Dave Chapelle, Chris Rock, Tracy Morgan, and Keenan Thompson on stage. And there were some good lines in that part. But I was hungering for some straight Eddie standup. He did give us the one line about Bill Cosby which was both devastating and hilarious. I wanted five minutes of that!

The Holiday Baking Championship skit was solid, especially since we watch that show. Eddie as the Elf in the 11:55 skit was ok. While neither skit was especially memorable, they still had that classic Eddie energy, if slightly toned down to reflect his age. I don’t know that anyone in the show’s history, not Will Ferrell or John Belushi, had that energy that Eddie brought back in the day. You could see the glimmer in his eye that that energy was still there, and he was thrilled to be letting it out again.

I had two problems with the show. The first had to do with the modern structure of SNL. What was once a tight cast of repertory and featured players is now a bloated cast that takes several minutes to introduce in the show’s open. Skits seemed overly big in order to squeeze in as many faces as possible. In Eddie’s prime the show was really about him first and foremost. I guarantee pretty much everyone who watched this episode tuned in to see Eddie. This was a week when they should have dialed everyone else back a little more.

Secondly, and this is not a unique opinion, but I have no idea why Lorne Michaels and the writers feel obligated to do a Democratic debate sketch every episode. They epitomize the bloated nature of the show and lose their effectiveness when they run them out week after week. Eddie Fucking Murphy is hosting for the first time in over 30 years and you’re going to open the show with five minutes that don’t include him? A total waste.

Oh, I have another problem: HOW DOES BUCKWHEAT JUST SHOW UP AND PERFORM WHEN HE’S BEEN DEAD FOR 36 YEARS?!?!!? Have you seen the footage? Let’s take a look…[2]

Those quibbles aside, a very pleasing return to SNL by Eddie. 1983 me would have approved.

  1. When he snatched her necklace when they were “ForceTiming” I thought of Aqib Talib snatching Michael Crabtree’s necklace during a game.  ↩
  2. For some reason NBC does not have the original sketch up. They do have the following week’s skit when Buckwheat’s assassin, John David Stutts, was arrested and then murdered.  ↩

Weekend Notes

January 6, 2020 /

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. Which is kind of weird. They start the second semester with a normal schedule tomorrow.

St. P’s traditionally goes back to school on Tuesday. This year they’ve made today an eLearning day. As of 10:00 AM L has most of her work done. I’m still trying to get C out of bed.

So I guess Christmas break really ends tomorrow.

Some weekend for sports! I was sickish on the couch much of the weekend – the cold I have prevented me from sleeping much either Friday or Saturday nights – so I got to see plenty of football. I don’t have a great NFL memory, but that had to be one of the wackiest weekends in playoff history. Every game was competitive. Every game had a couple crazy-ass plays that set Twitter alight. Two overtime games and the likely end of the Patriots dynasty. Pretty solid work.

I watched most of the second half of the Buffalo-Houston game. When I turned it on, the Bills were up 16–0. As I caught up on Twitter I agreed with the universal thought of “Classic Houston in the playoffs!” But then Classic Buffalo in the playoffs said, “Not so fast!” The last 2:00 or so of regulation were some of the worst yet most entertaining football I’ve ever seen. I was so glad I was not a fan of either team because that was heart-attack inducing stuff. DeShaun Watson’s scramble and completion in overtime will be the signature play of these playoffs…until Lamar Jackson or Patrick Mahomes top it when they get a chance this weekend.

I knew New England really wasn’t very good, but I still gave Tennessee no chance to win. A mediocre team from the AFC South going to Foxborough in January? No way. Good AFC South teams routinely get annihilated by the Patriots in the playoffs. But Derrick Henry was a freaking beast, the Pats offense was painfully pedestrian, and a shocking upset was the result. I don’t know what was more satisfying: Bill Belichick getting pissed when Mike Vrabel used a quirk in the rules – that Belichick himself used earlier this year – to burn a bunch of clock in the fourth quarter, or Tom Brady throwing a pick-six to seal the game. That they both happened is a gift to any fan whose team has been abused by the Patriots over the years.

I laughed at all the Boston media types who got all defensive about the Pats dynasty after the game. Listen, the Pats are, arguably, the greatest dynasty in sports history. They’ve done it in a league that sucks teams toward parity and away from continued dominance. They’ve managed to keep their franchise QB healthy for all but one year of his career. They’ve been coached by arguably the greatest coach in the sport’s history. And all that means non-Pats fans are going to delight in the apparent end of their run of excellence. That’s what sports are about: rooting for and against teams. Celebrate what the last 20 years have been like, but don’t get huffy when the rest of us celebrate its end.

I figured the Vikings-Saints game would be a rout. Had I done Super Bowl picks, I would have picked New Orleans to come out of the NFC. I thought they were the most complete team on both sides of the ball in the conference. Plus the Vikings were just too flawed to go to the Super Dome and pull off the upset.

Once again I prove that I know nothing about football. Just a delightful fourth quarter and overtime for us neutrals. With no dog in the fight I could both argue the non-call on the game-winning touchdown was a terrible miss and delight that New Orleans was again getting absolutely screwed by the refs at home.

With the Saints out of the way, the Seahawks became my NFC pick. I mentioned this to a buddy and he said, “Now watch the Eagles beat them.” I didn’t think the Eagles had a chance, home field or not, and when they lost Carson Wentz – who of course got hurt! – I was confident in my pick. This DK Metcalf kid is amazing! I don’t play fantasy and I don’t know that I had seen more than a few minutes of a Seattle game all year, so he was a revelation. It was very sobering, however, to learn that his dad, who had a long NFL career, is seven years younger than me. I mean, holy shit!

With the Wild Card games out of the way, I’ll lock in these picks for the next two weekends:

Kansas City over Houston
Baltimore over Tennessee

Seattle over Green Bay
San Francisco over Minnesota

Kansas City over Baltimore
Seattle over San Francisco

That’s right, Chiefs fans, for the first time in my life I’ve picked the Chiefs to go to the Super Bowl. Consider them jinxed.

I missed the first half of the Bills-Texans game watching the KU-West Virginia game. No one expected much from WVU this year, and even after they got off to a great start no one was sure if they were legit. That changed when the beat up on Ohio State a week ago.

Still, you figure a young Mountaineers team coming into Allen Fieldhouse for their conference opener would not be much of a contest. Naturally WVU totally controlled the first half, leading by 10 much of the half until a late KU run cut it to six. Oscar Tshibwe was un-guardable and the WVU defense totally took KU out of its game. I’ll admit I was nervous, even knowing the history of this series.

Fortunately Bill Self is pretty good at the halftime shit, he made some lineup and strategic tweaks, and KU got the win. Not quite as dramatic as the classic KU-WVU games but a decent start to the Big 12 season.

I watched several hours of the Sentry Tournament of Champions Sunday night. Even with relatively warm temps here in Indiana, it is always fun to watch prime time golf from Hawaii in January. We’ve been kicking around the idea of visiting the islands so I was paying extra attention to all the shots of the blue surf neighboring the green Kapalua Plantation course. I was hoping Gary Woodland would claw back into things but he never got it going yesterday. That left me rooting against the biggest villain in golf right now, Patrick Reed.

If you don’t follow golf – most of you fall into this category – Reed has a long history of, well, issues. He’s a complex character. In December he was caught improving his lie in a bunker, an act most people call cheating. He claimed the camera angle was bad and he had not, in fact, brushed a large quantity of sand back on two practice swings. He taunted Australian fans at the President’s Cup. Then his caddy attacked a fan during the event. Since it is golf, though, he has not been punished for his actions. In fact, the PGA Tour and its media sycophants have gone out of their way to brush all this aside and only discuss these acts in terms of how unfortunate it is that Reed has “had to go through all of this.” In the “Woke Golf” circles I follow, Reed has become public enemy #1. So it’s kind of cool that he’s a legitimately fantastic golfer, because he makes otherwise boring tournaments interesting and entertaining.

Anyway, I was pulling big time for either Justin Thomas or Xander Schauffele to hold off Reed. Thomas seemed to be in control, leading by two, until he bogeyed 16 and then dumped his approach into the penalty area on 18. Schauffele had two putts to win the tournament…and three-putted. That left a three-way playoff between Reed, Schauffele, and Thomas. The playoff started at 10:00 eastern and I was pretty well cooked after two sleepless nights, so I went to bed. That was a good call as the playoff lasted three holes before Thomas got the win. As long as Reed didn’t win, I was good with the result.

Friday Playlist

January 3, 2020 /

Wow, is it Friday already? Time to kick off the new year with some new tunes.

“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. I love it.

“One Last Embrace” – Eliza Shaddad. The music gods sometimes look out for me. Shaddad always slips through the cracks at all the music sites I follow. For the second straight year I’ve run across a random site that clued me into the fact that Shaddad had dropped a new song. This is another winner from her, and I’m looking forward to her next album. So I don’t miss her new stuff I’ve finally started following her on Twitter.

“Fading Out” – Wintersleep. These dudes landed on my Favorites of 2019 list with their cover of Frightened Rabbit’s “The Twist.” It’s been awhile since they’ve released new music of their own, but they have a new album slated for the spring and have released two solid tracks from it.

“City of Lakes” – Matt Mays. The same brother-in-music mentioned above hipped me to Matt Mays and my life is better for it. This track is from his 2003 self-titled album. That’s the great thing about music: you can be really into it the way I am and still miss a ton of great stuff. But there’s always the chance to go back and find it later.

“Love Missile F1–11” – Sigue Sigue Sputnik. The 1980s were a glorious time.

The New Year

January 2, 2020 /

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. We didn’t say a word to M about it, other than pointing out that we had stocked the fridge with soft drinks for her and her friends to enjoy.

I heard from two other friends who had to make similar adjustments within their homes as their kids hosted people for New Year’s. Parenthood is fun.

C went to a friend’s house for the night. Which left L stuck with us and M’s crew. She didn’t really mind. We played some Madden. At one point in the evening she was watching videos on her iPad, S was watching a TV show on her laptop, and I was watching a movie on my iPad. We were the perfect representation of the modern, connected family I guess. It made me chuckle.

Normally New Year’s Day is when we take all the Christmas decorations down. A couple of the girls whined about the short holiday season and asked if we could keep everything up. We decided to put off taking the indoor decorations down until the weekend but we did take advantage of the fairly warm day to get all the outside lights taken down and stored away.

I watched a fair amount of football yesterday. The Rose Bowl was sure entertaining.

The only bummer of the New Year is that M and I are fighting colds. She’s coughing like a 60-year smoker. The cold is all in my head and I feel like my ears are stuffed with cotton. I’ve taken long naps each of the past three days, which sounds fun, but they’ve been the kind of naps where you wake up feeling worse than you did when you fell asleep. Better this week than last, I guess.

I hope all you of you had happy and safe New Year’s celebrations as well.

Stats

January 1, 2020 /

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.fm page

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