D's Notebook

Month: August 2023 (Page 2 of 2)

Weekend Notes

August 14, 2023 /

Lots of lasts and firsts over the past seven days. Let’s see if I can get through them all without getting too wordy or emotional.

First Week at CHS

L had her traditions orientation last Sunday evening and then a half-day schedule walk through on Wednesday before Cathedral began the school year on Thursday.

When we picked her up from the traditions orientation and asked how it went, her response was, “Fine. I have a new potential boyfriend.” Good grief. I believe she and this young man were up talking late into the evening the next night. A year ago this kid refused to wear contacts when she wasn’t playing basketball, had braces, and kept her hair pulled back at all times. Now she’s always in contacts, the braces are off and the teeth look good, and she is super proud of her curls. In fact when she got her schedule and saw that weight training is her first class of the day 3–4 days a week, so got upset because “my hair isn’t going to look good after weights.”

It was very odd for her and C to head off to CHS together without me being involved. I had a mental clock constantly ticking Thursday and Friday, making me think I had to be somewhere at a certain time. I imagine that clock will tick for a few weeks until my brain re-wires itself after 16 years of school year drop offs and pick ups. And right about the time I adjust, L will start basketball workouts either before or after school and I’ll start driving at least one way again.

Early last week M said to me, “You finally get to sleep in now!” I shook my head and said, “Uh, no I can’t!” and nodded at C, who started laughing. C is now the responsible sister for driving herself and her sister to school. She is also the hardest of our kids to wake up. Thus it will continue to be my job to make sure she gets out of bed. Since she parks in the junior lot, which is much more chaotic than the senior lot M parked in last year, she is leaving about 15 minutes earlier than they left last year.

Put all that together and I’ve been getting up in the 6:20–6:30 range through three days, compared to the 7:00 that was my standard wake time last year. Oh well. Allows me to knock out my blogging responsibilities sooner in the day. I’m sure all my friends who have had jobs their entire adult lives feel really bad for me not being able to sleep in every day.

You know what else is weird? This is the first time in nine years we don’t have any kickball practices/games when the new school year starts! Not sure what I’m going to do with myself with no games of any kind until mid-November.

Week of Lasts/Goodbyes

Lots of lasts for M over the past week. A week ago Sunday was her final time working on Sundays for her aunt who is a personal chef, a job she’s had for two years. C took over this weekend.

We had the in-laws over for dinner on Monday. M had a couple other dinners with either aunts or friends. Lots of friends dropped by to say goodbye, which meant plenty of tears. Friday her core group all stopped by to say goodbye together. We cracked up when her one friend, who is not emotional at all, came bouncing down the stairs with a smile on her face while the other four girls were all in tears.

Moving Day

Saturday was move-in day at UC. We rented a minivan, dropped all the seats, and filled it up, then had the back of S’s Jeep Cherokee full as well. Seemed like a lot of stuff to me. We also made C and L go with us. For the record I was against this, although they did help us get unloaded a little quicker than we could have done with just three people. After that they were just kind of in the way, but I guess it saved us having to do sister goodbyes at 7:30 AM.

It was raining in Indy when we left but we got ahead of the storms as we drove down. We were able to pull right up in front of M’s dorm and were almost completely unloaded before the rain hit Cincy. It was pretty gentle until after we had everything out of the cars and I had moved them to a parking garage, so none of us nor M’s stuff got soaked.

This was the early move-in day for people going through rush, who have other early commitments, or are local and just wanted to drop their stuff and go back home until the official move-in date. I can’t imagine what it will be like later this week when the bulk of the students show up. Seemed like there were a ton of people there already. Later in the day you couldn’t get anywhere close to M’s dorm and folks were hauling their stuff several blocks. So glad we were early and missed that.

You may recall M was not pleased when she got her dorm assignment. I told her to suck it up, living in a crappy dorm is part of being in college. But after seeing her room, I’m on her side. It’s not great. I swear it feels older and smaller than my old, small crappy dorm rooms from the early 90s. I’m not convinced it got a very good cleaning after its last occupants moved out. There are also very few electrical outlets, which seems weird for modern times. Hope the girls are careful with their extension cords.

You can see the basketball arena from her window, which is kind of cool. The Bearcats come to Lawrence this season, so KU may play there in the ’24–25 season, depending on how the new, new Big 12 schedule works out.

We arrived three hours before her roommate, so we had a chance to get M’s stuff in and organized on our own. We took off right after her roommate arrived so didn’t see first hand how they divided up the space. The pictures M sent us make it look like they got everything in and arranged ok. The roommate brought a rug, which might have been the best contribution of all.

Rush activities start Monday evening. I’m sure it’s going to be a stressful week for all those girls. I don’t know if M has any preferences. There is not a chapter for the house her mom was in at IU, so she can’t do the legacy thing. The greek system at UC is a little different than at your traditional state schools. Some houses don’t actually have physical houses, and others are quite a bit smaller than their sibling houses at IU or Purdue. I think at some houses you don’t move in until you are a junior. I don’t have my head around the details. I just hope she lands somewhere with good people that makes her happy. And I hope the next few days aren’t too rough on her. Classes begin on the 21st.

Between the rain, us being all sweaty and gross, and the emotions of saying goodbye, we didn’t take a single picture Saturday. I had to ask M to take a few so I have a record of her arrival at college. As of the time of this post, she hasn’t seen me any but promises to.

Oh yeah, the emotions. I wish someone would have warned me.

I kid. Everyone I know who has taken a kid to college warned me. I still wasn’t prepared for the wave that started to hit me while we were eating lunch, knowing that we would be leaving without her soon. Yikes. The goodbyes were hard and I was kind of a mess for a few hours afterward. Glad that L rode home with S, and C slept in the back of the van all the way home.

We’ve sent a kid off to college. Crazy.

Loaner

In addition to the minivan for the trip to Cincinnati, I am also driving a loaner from Audi again. The rear tailgate on my Q5 has failed for the third time, and it is taking a few days to get parts in.

The last time I got a loaner it was an A5, which was a lot of fun. How privileged of me was it to be disappointed when they gave me another Q5 this time? And the same trim level as mine? Mine has better (ventilated) seats but otherwise it is the same car, just newer and white. I did let M drive it Friday when she took me to pick up the minivan. I’ve never let her drive mine, so it was kind of a special treat before she went off to school.

Flory

Finally a big time Indiana recruit picks KU!

My Saturday sadness was balanced somewhat by the commitment of Kokomo’s Flory Bidunga to KU late in the evening. He is currently ranked as the #1 center and #5 player overall in his class. He is the highest-rated recruit to commit to the Jayhawks since Josh Jackson. By one measure he is behind only Jackson and Andrew Wiggins as the highest rated KU recruit ever. I would submit that there are at least three recruits who would be rated above him if modern recruiting rankings existed when they were seniors.[1]

I have been paying attention to him since last summer. He had just been in the US one year, and led his high school team to a surprising semi-state run in the state tournament as a sophomore. His summer team played Xavier Booker’s team, right after Xavier had been named the #1 player in his class. A local reporter was at the game and tweeted out updates. Bidunga just destroyed Booker that night. He had nine dunks and out-played the alleged best player in the country.

I didn’t expect KU to be in the mix – they never really have been with studs in Indiana – but I was hopeful.

Then this past spring there were rumors that Bidunga might reclassify and enroll at KU over the summer. Apparently he is tight with the Adidas folks and that promoted the rumors. Rumors he quickly quashed, insisting he was going to play his senior year and try to win a state championship.

However, KU seemed to be in the lead because of the Adidas connection. Until this July, when all the recruiting “experts” decided that Duke was his most likely destination.

When Flory announced he would be committing this week, there was another rush of predictions for Duke.

Until Friday when a bunch of those same experts flipped their predictions to Auburn. Which seemed…odd. But do you ever really know with teenagers and recruiting?

Then he picked KU, which made me wonder if people around him were intentionally giving bad intel to the recruiting gurus.

Just a good reminder that you should never read too much into these predictions. Bidunga was going to Duke, until he wasn’t. Mackenzie Mgbako was going to Kansas…until he picked Indiana. Don’t believe anything until you see the kid put on the hat.

As for Flory, he led his team to the state finals last year, where they lost to undefeated Ben Davis. He had 19 points, 11 rebounds, and five blocks in the title game. He holds the unofficial Indiana records for most dunks in a game, 11, and most consecutive field goals made, 32. He’s only 6’8”–6’9” so it’s not like he’s Joel Embiid or Udoka Azubuike. He is a ridiculous athlete who has very good post fundamentals and tries to dunk everything. He doesn’t register as a one-and-done player because of his size and the lack of variety to his game right now, but Bill Self did tell him he could be as good as Embiid so, again, you never know.

The big bonus is he seems like a great kid. He is always smiling. He always plays hard. An IU friend of mine who has seen him play a bunch texted me saying, “He is going to be awesome in Bill Self’s system.” A reporter asked Flory Saturday what he would like KU fans to know about him. His response was that he is a good person who treats people well, and it would be great if people knew that.

Love this kid already!

I may have to attend a Kokomo high school game or two this year. Hopefully they come down to Indy a few times.

  1. Raef LaFrentz, who was generally #1 or #2 in his class, Danny Manning, and Wilt Chamberlain.  ↩

Friday Playlist

August 11, 2023 /

A heads up for my loyal listeners that I’ve been working on a format change for these playlists. I’m hoping to unveil the newest, latest version next week. If it works as I hope, I think you’re going to enjoy it.

“Motorcade” – Peggy Sue
I love it when the algorithm spits out terrific songs I haven’t heard in a while. I would imagine I played this for you sometime in 2019/20 when it was first released.

“Table For Glasses” – Manchester Orchestra
MO is currently co-headlining a tour with Jimmy Eat World. To honor their tour mates, they offered up this cover of an old JEW track. Not sure what Jimmy Eat World fans think, but I love it, and think it is much better than the original.

“Air I Walk” – Zeus
This track is one-third The War on Drugs, one-third Springsteen, one-third Dire Straits. I dig.

“Dawned on Me” – Sunshine Convention
I was sure I had shared something by this band recently, but I can’t find the evidence. Uncertain if my old man brain or old man eyes are letting me down here. I apologize for waiting so long to share this tasty, fuzzy, power pop.

“Evicted” – Wilco
I’m in favor of new Wilco music when it sounds like this.

“Living For The City” – Stevie Wonder
Right after I posted last week’s playlist I saw that the previous day was the 50th anniversary of the release of Innervisions, one of Wonder’s greatest albums. One of the greatest albums albums of the Seventies. One of the greatest albums of any era. This may be the Stevie album that most connects to what Prince did a decade later, as he was responsible for nearly every sound you hear on every song. A reminder that Stevie’s run in the early ’70s was as good as any music run in the Rock era.

“Learn to Fly” – Foo Fighters
We are 24 hours away from taking M to Cincinnati to move her into her dorm. Wish us all luck. 😬

“spite” – Billy Nomates
A wonderfully odd video for one of the sassiest, kick-assiest songs of the summer.

Reader’s Notebook, 8/9/23

August 9, 2023 /

I’ve been on a decent reading run. A few blurbs about my most recent completions.


Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – Quentin Tarantino
This has been sitting in my cabinet for something like two years. I’m glad I finally got to it. This is not a straight novelization of the movie, but rather an expansion on its base. Lots of weird tangents about the history of Hollywood. Lots of backstory about the characters in the movie. And very little overlap with the actual story (as far as I can recall). In fact, the biggest scene in the movie is a mere blip in the book. It is pulpy, entertaining, and fun. Now I need to watch the movie again.


Sunset Empire – Josh Weiss
The second book in Weiss’ Morris Baker series. Once again we are in the late 1950s, Joseph McCarthy remains president, the Korean War continues to rage, and American’s civil liberties are even more trampled upon in the name of stopping Communism and whatever else raises McCarthy’s ire. This time Baker, now working as a PI, is asked to investigate three separate missing persons cases, all of which are, naturally and eventually, related. And all of which point back to the people taking away American’s rights. This was more of a pure detective novel than the first in the series, but there were still some good alternative history nuggets.


While Justice Sleeps – Stacey Abrams
Former Georgia state representative and gubernatorial candidate Abrams put together a pretty engaging legal thriller. It centers on a cranky and old Supreme Court justice who puts himself into a coma just before a major ruling is due. A ruling that he is THE swing vote for and has major ramifications for the sitting president. The justice places his care not in the hands of his estranged wife or son, but one of his clerks, to the shock of pretty much everyone. There are many layers of bad actors who want to control the justice’s health, and they all press down on Avery Keene as she struggles with her new responsibilities.

I don’t know if the legal side of this book stands up to scrutiny, and a few basics of the story seem far-fetched. But the story is full of twists and surprises that entertain. You really hate the bad characters, who do really bad things. Summer is almost over, but this is a great beach read that will quicken your pulse and keep you turning pages.


All the Sinners Bleed – S.A. Cosby
This was one of my favorite reads of the year. Cosby writes so well about race and America’s history with it. Here he intertwines that with a deeply disturbing mystery.

The book begins with a shooting in a school in a small town in Virginia. As the local sheriff and his deputies attempt to clear the scene, the assumed gunman exits the school and runs towards them. A white deputy shoots and kills the Black suspect, who had killed a white teacher inside the school. Left to unravel that is county sheriff Titus Crowne, a Black man who much of the county (I.e. most white folks) view with suspicion. Crowne also faces pressure from the Black churches that helped get him elected, as they assume since he’s a cop he will not hold his deputy accountable for his shot.

Pretty good bones for a story there. Cosby pushes beyond those basics.

The initial investigation of the shooting uncovers a ring of child abuse and murder that crosses racial lines. Soon bodies, old and new, are piling up all over the county, and Crowne struggles to find the killer and end the deaths. There is intense pressure from both the white and Black communities, often for very different reasons. A confrontation between them seems inevitable, regardless of what Crowne’s investigation finds. And that investigation keeps turning up even more disturbing acts that have taken place just beyond the public eye for decades.

Along the way Cosby writes about the lack of respect for Crowne, despite his education and FBI background. He faces constant challenges from every side of the community as they project their own prejudices and assumptions upon him. Cosby slices through the hypocrisy of the aggrieved, Southern White Male and the dishonesty of the “Heritage Not Hate” movement.

I raced through this book. It was compelling, frustrating, made me angry, and kept me engaged from start to finish. I had only read one of Cosby’s previous books. I need to go back and knock out his others.

Sports Notes

August 8, 2023 /

After just a week it’s already time for some more sports notes.

Big 12/Realignment

I neglected to include a section about college realignment in last week’s post as it seemed like the next domino was close to falling. I was expecting medium-sized news, like the Big 12 adding one-to-three more PAC schools to complete its expansion. Little did I know the general landscape was so tenuous that it would quickly feel like 2011 again.

First, the Big 12 added Colorado as expected. Which Big 12 fans went nuts about. A lot of people pointed out that CU isn’t all that great of a get. The Buffs haven’t been very good for about 20 years, and have been only marginally better than Kansas over the past decade. Sure, they have Coach Prime coming in, but I don’t know if many people outside himself and their AD think he’s going to turn them into the CU of the 1990s again. In hoops, they’ve been solid since Tad Boyle took over, but have only won two NCAA tournament games in his tenure.

What got Big 12 fans excited was that the Big 12 was adding again rather than subtracting members. It was a nice bonus that the new school was one of those that fled in the initial exodus a decade ago. Also nice that Boulder is one of the best road trips in any conference.

Then, a week later, Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah signed up for the Big 12. Or Big 16. Or whatever.

After over 10 years of being the conference that was constantly getting raided, the Big 12 actually seemed to be operating from a position of strength, now adding eight new schools over a couple years. And it, finally, seemed like a conference of true equals. Mostly similarly-sized schools, mostly public universities, all in the same ballpark in terms of athletic budgets and revenues. And everyone seems content, for now, that they are in the third most important conference that seems locked into its current structure for the time being. There’s no Texas throwing its considerable weight around and constantly whining when it doesn’t get its way. If the Big 10 decided they really wanted Kansas basketball, or a restructuring ACC went after West Virginia and UCF, it wouldn’t wreck the conference.

In the midst of all of that came the bigger earthquake: the Big 10 landed Oregon and Washington to grow to 18 schools. The PAC-whatever is dead, and the Big 10 has again raised the stakes in the arms war of realignment. Might the SEC try to match them, grabbing Florida State and Clemson? Would the Big 10 then swoop in for North Carolina and Duke to get to 20? Would the Big 12 follow by trying to snap up a couple stray ACC schools and/or UConn to get to 20 programs themselves?

I don’t think anyone really knows when this will end. For the moment, it’s nice that KU is in a semi-stable environment. Even if that stability may be illusory and temporary.

I’ve seen several people mention that eventually the most elite of the elite football programs are going to decide they don’t need to share their money and run off and make their own league and try to suck up as much for themselves as possible. Hopefully we have another 10 years or so of the new normal before we get to that point.

I just hope all this realignment nonsense stops some of the complaining in downtown Indy at the NCAA headquarters and from university administrators about players getting paid ruining college athletics. Amateurism has been dead in D1 sports for decades. The constant realignment churn of the past 15 years shows that the true powers that be in college sports care most about maximizing how much media revenue they can generate, not about any out-dated ideas of amateurism or about the rivalries and regionalism that make college sports special.

KU Hoops

I should have waited another week for my KU thoughts, too. I wrote that it seemed like the roster for the coming year had locked in, as rumors of adding an international player had faded. And then Australian Johnny Furphy, the kid who was generating the buzz in early July, surprised everyone by reclassifying back into the class of 2023 and committing to KU.

I’m a little suspicious about how much of an initial impact he will make. His highlight videos, while impressive, were often against smaller Australian or International competition. I’m not sure he’s going to be able to take two dribbles and smash on three defenders in the Big 12 as a freshman the way he did in his summer games.

He does have a very nice set of skills to work with. Bill Self called him a mix of Svi Mykhailiuk and Christian Braun. Which is kind of unfair on the kid, but also means if he can come close to that, he’s going to be a very nice, multi-year player for the Jayhawks. We’ll see. I think his biggest immediate contribution will be as another body on the roster, allow Zach Clemence to keep his redshirt status, and serve as a hedge in case Arterio Morris’ eligibility comes into jeopardy.

I watched most of KU’s three games in Puerto Rico over the weekend.[1] You can’t get too up or down about these summer games, and I won’t dive in too deep to my observations.

It was fun to see most of the new guys for the first time (Furphy has not yet joined the program). Hunter Dickinson and KJ Adams already have amazing chemistry. They are going to be a problem for the Big 12.

Elmarko Jackson and Morris looked worthy of the hype they arrive with and bring an athleticism KU hasn’t had on the perimeter in a long time. They, DaJuan Harris, and Kevin McCullar were absolutely killing guys they were guarding at times. Add in a legit shot blocker behind them and the KU defense has a chance to be as good as the 2020 team’s.

And if anyone can consistently hit 3’s – an evergreen concern with KU – this team could be un-guardable.

On the negative side, McCullar and Harris don’t look like they’ve been shooting the 8000 3’s a day I think they should be shooting. Although Harris did hit three deep ones and scored 23 points on Monday.

These were games in August against older competition with weird rules.[2] What it all means is just speculation.

One of the highlights of the trip was playing against former Oklahoma All-American and current Indiana Pacer Buddy Hield. He only played two quarters Saturday and three on Monday, but was a great match-up for McCullar and Harris. Both guys ripped him a few times. Monday he hit two ridiculous 3’s with one of those guys draped all over him to turn a two point deficit into a four point lead at the end of the third quarter.

Best of all, though, was when he came over and talked to the KU radio crew during the third quarter Saturday.

He spoke about his recruiting process, and how Self had told him if he came to KU he might not play right away. He said he respected that, since other coaches weren’t as honest with him, and understood it since “you never really know how kids are going to turn out.” But when asked if he ever lets Self know he made a mistake, he responded, “I don’t have to say anything. He knows.” Hilarious.

When asked about having to play against Kevin McCullar he said something like, “Yeah, he’s nice. He plays hard. He talks a lot of shit.”

Broadcaster Brian Hanni immediately jumped in, “I’m not sure we can say that on the radio.”

Buddy immediately looked chagrined and apologized, and did so again at the end of the segment, “Sorry about the curse word.” I was rolling. Buddy is the best.

Finally, when Bahamas made a little run and forced a KU timeout, he started yelling at Self, who was about 10 feet away, “We coming, Self! We coming!”

It was a pretty good five or so minutes of radio.

I found it odd that Washington Township native and North Central High School graduate Eric Gordon was playing for the Bahamas.[3] I mean I get it: his mom is from there so he is eligible according to how the rules are these days. What I didn’t get, though, was that he has played for the United States in international competition before. I thought you had to officially change citizenship to be able to swap teams. I guess I was wrong. Or no one really cares about a 30-something NBA role player.

The Bahamas has a stacked roster. There’s Buddy and Gordon, Klay Thompson and his brother will apparently play for them in next week’s Olympic qualifying tournament. Former Texas player Kai Jones is on the roster but did not play against KU. Most of the rest of their roster played D1 ball in the States. And then there’s former NBA #1 draft pick DeAndre Ayton. The Bahamas insisted he would play this weekend. He sat out Saturday’s game but told KU he would play on Monday. When Monday rolled around he worked out for an hour before the game then disappeared when the game began, strolling to the bench in street clothes and sunglasses midway through the first quarter.

How NBA guys handle these exhibitions is always strange. The games don’t mean anything to them, and with Olympic qualifying ahead, they are glorified scrimmages for them. Often their NBA teams will place minutes restrictions on them, and the Pacers seemed to do with Buddy.

Ayton being weird was no real surprise, though. I am not sad that the Suns matched the Pacers’ offer sheet for him a year ago.

I saw Buddy and Gordon have long moments with the KU coaches and players after each game. They would often tap the KU guys on the shoulder or side as they walked past during dead balls. I didn’t see a ton of interaction from Ayton, although Hunter Dickinson was notably bigger than him when they shook hands. If you know your college basketball recruiting history, you know that Ayton and KU once seemed like a sure thing, until Arizona and Nike beat what KU and Adidas were offering. Allegedly.

USWNT/World Cup

Well, it sure looks dumb to have all these ads with the US Women’s National Team members running in high volume during prime time when the team could only muster four goals in four games and lost their opening knock-out game.

I did not wake up to watch the loss to Sweden, which proved to be a wise decision.

I’ve chosen really poorly this tournament. Every game I’ve watched has been pretty boring. And then I’ll check a micoblogging social media site formerly represented by a blue bird and learn a game I did not watch was bananas.

Royals

Hey, they ran their winning streak up to seven games! Of course they’ve lost three-straight since then. Kind of crazy a team that hadn’t won three-consecutive contests all year turned their first winning streak into the franchise’s longest since 2017.

  1. Props to KU for coming up with a way, last minute, to show the games. The single cam on the sideline wasn’t perfect, but was better than a lot of high school single-cam streams I’ve watched.  ↩
  2. It was clear in the two Bahamas games that the refs were making calls late to keep the games close. KU got dinged in for a few bad calls in the game they won Saturday, and benefited from a couple terrible calls when they were losing Monday. Self seemed surprised by the calls, but perhaps international refs try to make the end of exhibitions more interesting, or give coaches a chance to practice more late game stuff.  ↩
  3. If you don’t know your Indy geography, and why would most of you, we live in Washington Township and North Central is one block from our house. Pretty far from the Bahamas.  ↩

Friday Playlist

August 4, 2023 /

“Dream Some More” – The High Water Marks
A bunch of schools around us went back to class this week, which is a tragedy. There should still be a month left of days wide open for listening to music like this.

“Outta Time” – Bethany Cosentino
Cosentino just released her first solo album which takes her sound in a very different direction from where it was in Best Coast, which is on indefinite hiatus. Down a very 1970s AM radio, country rock-ish path. The obvious comparison – mentioned in every review I read – is to Sheryl Crow. That seems apt. This is probably my favorite song on the album, and close to her Crow-iest. Certainly it should be in every playlist made for road trips for what bit of the summer remains.

“yes! yes! a thousand times yes!” – Home Is Where
Not sure I love this song, but it sure grabs your attention. To me it sounds straight out of 1995, like this is a band I would have seen at whatever the big music festival that was in Lawrence that year. I know we saw The Urge, Tripping Daisy, and the Reverend Horton Heat headlined. These kids fit right in with the vibe of that day.

“Begin Again” – The Mysterines.
If you look up pictures of this band – go head, I’ll wait – you would never guess that lead singer Lia Metcalfe sounds like this. She reminds me a little of the lead singer of The Pack a.d.

“Mind is Light” – Say Sue Me
Not all Korean music is K-Pop.

“condition of us” – La Force
A little more mellow than what I’ve heard from La Force before. I still like it.

“Girl” – Beck
I didn’t know until just now there’s a controversy about the lyrics of this song. I always thought he was singing about “my summer girl.” Seems that some people think he is singing “my sun-eyed girl,” while others insist it is “my cyanide girl.” Apparently his official lyrics have always read “my…girl.” Which fits Beck. I prefer my interpretation. Also, probably my favorite Beck song. Which isn’t saying much; I don’t love many of his songs.

“Last Day Of Our Acquaintance” – Sinéad O’Connor
Mercy! Singing about divorce, she combines beauty and absolute rage. Another one I discovered for the first time after Sinéad’s death and have listened to a ton over the past week. Not sure when this version is from, but it is an amazing performance. Her final three lines of the song, when she is basically screaming but still hits each note perfectly (the first comes at about the 4:20 mark), are astounding. There are a bunch of excellent versions of this on YouTube. Last night I spent nearly an hour watching one after another. Time well spent.

July Media

August 2, 2023 /

Periodic losses of power, some pool gatherings, and three weeks of travel basketball cut my list a little short last month.

Movies, Shows, etc

They Shall Not Grow Old
I’ve been waiting for this to hit a streaming service for a couple years. Peter Jackson took footage from World War I, colorized it, and overlaid it with interviews given by British veterans of that war to offer a limited view of what that conflict was like. It is amazing and brutal. While we have a few modern WWI movies that are hyper-realistic – 1918 and the updated All Quiet on the Western Front the best examples – there’s something about seeing real pictures and film that hit harder.

I also learned for the first time about the world these veterans came home to. I had never heard that much of the British public thought the soldiers had been away on a bit of a lark, and had no understanding of the things they witnessed and lived through. Nor how the British economy, which had adjusted to operate without millions of people who were off to war, struggled to find ways to integrate those workers upon their return.

A

The Clash: London Calling
I thought I had seen every documentary about the Clash, but this one was new to me. Not a lot of things in it I didn’t know, although I had never seen their appearance on the Tom Snyder show.

B+

Football’s Most Dangerous Rivalry
A fascinating, if dated, look at one of the most bitter and unique rivalries in any sport, Celtic-Rangers in Glasgow. I knew it was, basically, a Catholic vs Protestant rivalry. But I never knew its roots were deep in the same divide in Northern Ireland. Pregames at the pubs look like fun.

Glad this came with subtitles already added, because the Glasgow accent is damn near impossible to understand.

A-

Tour de France
I wrote about this here.

A

Community, season two
I went back and re-watched season one a year or two ago. Season two was the show’s peak, a nearly perfect run of episodes that were criminally under-watched on their initial run.

It’s fun going back and watching a show like this so long after its original air date. While The Office has become timeless, watching this definitely took me back to that moment in my life, when my kids were still young and a half-hour of good comedy was an escape from my parenting responsibilities.

A

Primo
The story of a high school junior in San Antonio and his life with his single mom, five crazy uncles, and new neighbor he is crazy about.

Shea Serrano, one of the funniest people alive, and Michael Shur, one of the best writers of TV comedy over the past 20 years, were the creative forces behind this. So it had to be good. And it was, but it was more sweet than funny. Which is fine, but I was hoping for belly laughs like Serrano’s writing often gives me.

B+

The Diplomat
Not what I expected at all. Keri Russell is a US diplomat pulled at the last moment from her dream assignment in Afghanistan to become the new ambassador to the United Kingdom. Which happens just as the Brits are the subject of an attack that could lead to World War III.

It starts off as pretty standard, if high quality, TV politics stuff. But it adds just a touch of camp to veer it towards Shonda Rhimes territory. And for the second time in her career, Russell is in the middle of a fascinating exploration of marriage on the small screen. Her relationship with her semi-estranged husband here has a lot of parallels to Elizabeth and Phillip Jennings in The Americans. The dynamic between Wylers is equally engaging and fascinating.

Entertaining but not too heavy, and split the difference nicely between my tastes and S’s (although I watched it first then recommended it to her). I’ll watch season two for sure.

A-

Shorts, YouTubes, etc

Michael McDonald Was EVERYWHERE In The 70s and 80s
The patron saint of Yacht Rock.

Ayo Edebiri Ate Props On Set Of ‘The Bear’ & Spills Celeb Crush
More The Bear content.

Why We’re So Obsessed With Costco
Always interesting to see how very successful businesses often do very simple things to separate themselves from their competition.

Renovating a canoe while running a marathon
Beau Miles bullshit!

I Applied HIGH VOLTAGE to Kids Toys!
This is SO AWESOME! And it gets better on each item.

Can a Lego Car Roll Downhill Forever?
More fun with toys and power. If M had gone to Purdue, she could have met a nice boy who can do engineering stuff like this.

Scott Hutchison Acoustic Pop-up at Boston Calling 2017
No idea why I had never watched this before.

Sports Notes

August 1, 2023 /

I’ve stacked up a lot of sports thoughts over the past several weeks. Let’s dive in and see how long it takes to get through them.

Tour de France

After watching the Netflix show Tour de France: Unchained in June, I was all-in for this year’s tour, even ponying up for Peacock for the month to watch.[1] It was like the good (bad) old days watching Lance Armstrong as I turned the race on first thing every morning and tracked the day’s progress.

This year’s race was awesome. Week one was incredible, with all kinds of cool attacks and finishes until Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar, combined winners of the last three Tours, took over. The duo battled across France and stayed within seconds of each other into the final week, until Vingegaard won a convincing victory in stage 16’s individual time trial. The next day he blew the race open in the Alps. What had been a nine second lead exploded to over seven minutes. It was a remarkable two days to earn a deserved second-straight Tour win.

I had a few sources for reading about each day’s stages, one of them The Guardian. Which, being The Guardian, threw aspersions towards any biker who performed particularly well. Vingegaard got the worst of it as he took over the race. Who knows if the speculation is accurate or not. His team noted how many times his blood was tested over the month, an argument we’ve heard before. I just found it interesting it was NEVER discussed on the TV broadcast.

It also drove me nuts that the announcers, the same main two guys as back in Lance’s prime, have the same quirks they had 20 years ago. They’re looking at the same footage we are watching, and somehow almost always misread biker’s body language. Multiple times they suggested someone was in great shape, only to get dropped moments later, or that someone was struggling only for them to surge away from their rivals. And they love to speculate, with like 80 kilometers to race, that some guy with a minute lead “surely has this stage won.” I blame Europeans and their strange ways of covering sports.

KU Hoops

I’ve never followed up on my May thoughts, after Hunter Dickinson committed. It’s been a busy summer.
Both Zuby Ejiofor and Ernest Udeh transferred out, which really, really sucked. I totally understand why they left, and that is the big downside to adding a massive transfer in like Dickinson. I wish Bill Self could have talked at least one of them into staying. Udeh ending up at TCU was a real bummer, but better than Kansas State, which was one of his other options.
Kevin McCullar decided to come back, which was huge.
Christian Braun’s brother transferred in, giving KU another body in the front court.
Zach Clemence, who had said he was transferring to UCSB, changed his mind and announced he was returning and would redshirt.
Incoming freshman Chris Johnson saw the roster crunch in the backcourt and decided to de-commit and go to Texas.
Then, after a couple weeks of summer school, fellow freshman Marcus Adams decided Lawrence was “too country” for him and bailed, burning his free transfer in the process, for Gonzaga.

Suddenly a super-deep roster was kind of thin. There were rumors KU might grab an international player who could come in and play this year, but those rumors have faded. There could still be a grad transfer to add, but it looks like KU might roll into the season with just nine eligible players, assuming Clemence sticks with redshirting. Self normally only plays 7–8, but all it takes is a couple tweaked ankles or the flu running through the locker room for the bench to get shallow real quick.

The Jayhawks go to Puerto Rico this week to play a few games, two of which are against the Bahamas national team and could include several NBA players. Just need no one to get hurt…[2]

Pacers

Man, the Pacers had a nice summer. They made smart draft picks to start. Then they signed Bruce Brown. During the NBA Finals I knew someone would overpay him after his great performance, and I was bummed when it was the Pacers.

However, while his contract was reported as two years, it is basically a one-year deal that the Pacers can get out of if he doesn’t perform this year, or re-sign him on better terms for each side next year if he has a good season. A savvy, win-win signing.

Then they traded for Obi Toppin, which seems like an awesome move. He was always forced to play out of position in New York, and seems like a perfect match for Tyrese Haliburton. The duo showed up at a local pro-am league last week and combined for approximately 800 alley-oops. Toppin has vibes of the classic guy who needs a change of scenery to finally capitalize on his potential. I don’t think he’s going to be a superstar, but he fits what the Pacers are trying to do.

They still need to massage the roster a bit, the young guys need to develop, and Haliburton and Myles Turned need to stay healthy. But they could be one of the most fun teams in the league next year, and should battle for a playoff spot.

Royals

Props to the R’s! They won their last three games of July, giving them their first three-game winning streak of the season. No one keeps the Royals from winning three consecutive games for four months!

Colts

The team didn’t even get to training camp before drama popped up. Jonathan Taylor was part of a group of running backs around the league who met virtually to discuss how their position gets screwed by the current collective bargaining agreement. Then he suddenly was placed on the PUP list when camp opened. Two days later he requested a trade. This from the guy who has been the epitome of how you want a player to behave, and kept insisting he wanted to play his entire career in Indy.

I totally get where he, and his fellow RBs are coming from. Only kickers are compensated less under the franchise tags since the NFL has decided that running backs are basically interchangeable and dispensable. But that’s an argument they need to aim at their own union, not at ownership that is following the agreed upon rules.[3] And I also understand Taylor’s specific fears. He was hurt last year and had off-season surgery designed to keep his ankle healthy. The Colts drafted a dual threat QB who is going to be given the keys to the offense soon enough, which will cut down on Taylor’s carries, yards, and touchdowns. If he doesn’t get his money now, he might not get it next off season.

The Colts don’t seem inclined to move him; I wonder if they’ll have the guts not to play him. Regardless of cause and odds of resolution, it’s not a great way to begin the season. Especially when his prime backup broke his arm in practice on Monday.

Oh, and I read this morning that the Colts have dropped hints that Taylor also hurt his back over the summer working out on his own, a claim Taylor angrily denied. We’ve moved beyond ugly and are pushing irreparable.

USWNT/World Cup

Ooof. I was not up at 3:00 AM today to watch the US women’s national team’s final group stage game against Portugal. Pretty glad I did not set an alarm. The outcome could have been worse, but not much. A team that has looked sluggish through their first two games failed to score and had to rely on Portugal hitting the post in stoppage time to advance to the knockout stage.

Head coach Vlatko Andonovski has faced a lot of criticism for how he’s constructed the team and how they played in the run-up to the tournament. I haven’t watched enough nor know enough about high-level soccer tactics to be able to critique his choices. At some point, though, the most talented team in the world, filled with both veterans who own two World Cup titles and some of the brightest young stars in the world, have to take responsibility for their play. Even if Andonovski has made terrible tactical choices, they should be good enough to overcome his errors.

I guess the only good thing about the team’s subpar performance is that so few Americans can watch it because of the time difference.

  1. Strangely convenient how our free access to Peacock thanks to being Xfinity customers expired the day before the race began.  ↩
  2. Jinx. You read it here first.  ↩
  3. Note is, as it may be a first: me siding with ownership over labor.  ↩
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