Chart Week: April 30, 1983
Song: “Back On The Chain Gang” – The Pretenders
Chart Position: #37, 21st week on the chart. Peaked at #5 for three weeks in March and April.
The Pretenders were on the verge of big things in 1982. They already had a #1 hit in the UK – 1979’s “Brass In Pocket,” which maxed out at #14 in the US – and were generally beloved by critics. They somehow managed to dip a toe in almost every genre of rock without being relegated to a single camp. They had roots in the London punk scene of the late Seventies, but weren’t punk. They were contemporaries of the first generation of post-punkers, New Wavers, and New Romantics, but didn’t fit squarely into any of those schools. They stood next early College Rock bands like R.E.M. but weren’t really college rock. They had a healthy dose of 1960s jangle pop to their sound, and could have fit into the Paisley Underground scene had they come up in LA. But they weren’t from LA. Nor were they true mainstream rockers.
That difficulty in pigeonholing them resulted in broad appeal that was ripe for capitalizing upon when they started making their third LP.
In mid–1982 the band, specifically lead singer and lyricist Chrissie Hynde and guitarist James Honeyman-Scott, began to hash out ideas for new songs. Hynde had one centered on finding a photo of her boyfriend, Kinks lead singer Ray Davies, and the feelings that came with it. The couple had a tumultuous romance, but Hynde was newly pregnant and hoped that would salvage their relationship. Yet she still thought back to how things were better when they had first met.
Hynde and Honeyman-Scott tinkered with the words and arrangement and knew they were onto something. They were excited about recording it with the rest of the band.
One problem. Pretenders bass player Pete Farndon had fallen deep into heroin addiction. He had turned irritable and quarrelsome towards his bandmates. Sensing that the upcoming recording sessions would be brutal and unproductive because of Farndon’s behavior, Honeyman-Scott laid down an ultimatum: either sack Farndon or he would leave.
On July 14, 1982 the band fired Farndon.
As upsetting as that was, something worse came hours later.
On July 16, Honeyman-Scott died of an accidental overdose.
In two days, half of the original Pretenders lineup was gone.
Most people would have retreated from the world to deal with the immense pain they were experiencing. Not Hynde. She leaned on her music.
On July 20, 1982, she and drummer Martin Chambers entered the AIR Studios in London and recorded “Back On The Chain Gang” with help from several friends, including Big Country’s Tony Butler on bass. What began as an ode to the early days of her romance with Davies turned into an elegy for Honeyman-Scott.
There is an immediate sense of melancholy in Hynde’s opening riff. I think it comes from the languid, contemplative tempo she plays at. You can feel the sadness that must have been overwhelming her at the time. Once I knew the full story behind the song, I always imagined her taking a long, deep breath before she hit the first chord, steeling herself against the emotions that were sure to swell up.
She adds to that mournful vibe with the “Oh oh oh ohs” that are sprinkled through the tune. Hynde is one of the great, badass, female rockers of all time. I wouldn’t say she was ever as vocally aggressive as her contemporary Joan Jett, but she was certainly as assertive. The restraint she used in “Back On The Chain Gang” was wonderful, conveying all the emotions she was going through without over doing it. The real genius of her performance is that it doesn’t sound as though it recorded less than a week after her band seemed to fall apart. It sounds like she is a year or two out, looking back on what happened, and trying to make sense of it all.
The song peaks with an emotional section where the bridge transitions into the final verse.
First, Hynde sings this:
But I’ll die as I stand here today knowing that deep in my heart
They’ll fall to ruin one day for making us part
Her restraint falls momentarily, with her voice breaking as she stretches out the final word.
Then there is that magical line in the next verse. After repeating “I found a picture of you,” she adds:
Those were the happiest days of my life
A truly heart-wrenching, soul-destroying choice of words. You don’t have to know about the state of her partnership with Davies, the health of her band, or the loss of one of her best friends to get all the feels from that line. The “Oh oh oh ohs” hit harder in the final verse, too.
When asked a few years later about how she could record music so soon after experiencing so much pain, Hynde responded, “What else were we going to do? Stay at home and be miserable, or go into the studio and do what we dig and be miserable?” That idea, jumping back into the grind when faced with calamity, was as much the theme of the song as celebrating Honeyman-Scott
Despite everything falling apart around her, Hynde got back on the chain gang. The result was the best song of her career. 9/10
As if all that weren’t enough, as the song was falling from its US chart peak, there was more terrible news. On April 13, Farndon was found dead after overdosing and drowning in a bathtub.
“Back On The Chain Gang” was released as a single in late 1982. Somewhat strangely, the album it was featured on, Learning to Crawl, was not released until early 1984. Included on that LP was another ode to Honeyman-Scott, “2000 Miles.” I wouldn’t say it is a holiday classic; it is far too depressing to get much radio airplay. Coldplay did a version in the early 2000s that revived it a bit. KT Tunstall’s slightly less sad version is in all my Spotify holiday playlists.
How about this amazing rendition of the song from the Covid days. Hynde was nearly 70 and still had it.
Some quick weekend notes. I’m going to try to really let the content flow this week. So be prepared either to read a lot or be disappointed if I only crank out a couple posts.
Home For The Summer
I went down to Cincinnati Friday morning to pack up M for the summer. She had called me Thursday night to let me know that in addition to being the day a lot of the dorm kids were leaving, UC was hosting two big graduation events Friday.
Urban campus + limited parking + people moving out of dorms + thousands of extra people on campus for graduation = ???
It ended up being not as bad as I feared. I thought I was going to have to park well away from her dorm and then we’d have to huff it several blocks to drag all her crap to the car. Right when I got to the front of her dorm, though, a police officer directed me to a spot right across the street. He even held traffic so I could spin around and pull in! The only downside was once we were done, we had to wait about 20 minutes for traffic to clear to get out of our spot. But at least we didn’t have to walk blocks.
Move-out was pretty easy. Her roommate had gone home the previous weekend, and I had taken a load of stuff home from L’s basketball games last week, so her room was fairly empty. Thursday night S suggested I take her Telluride so I had plenty of room to load everything. I scoffed at that, saying she didn’t realize how much cargo space the Model Y has. I admit there was a moment Friday when I wasn’t convinced we were going to squeeze everything in. But we managed.
We stopped for her last lunch in Ohio for four months then headed home.
She’s been submitting job applications online for several weeks without any bites. She was scheduled for jury duty starting today. When she called last night to get her status, she was cleared. So her task for this week is to complete some applications in person. S gave me instructions not to complete getting M a car until she’s got a job. I told her C has first dibs on the Mazda if we don’t have a fourth car when the Audi goes back, so hopefully that lights a fire under her ass. She already helped one of her aunts do some stuff, but she needs a real job.
She was the first of her high school friends to get home for the summer. A friend who goes to Pepperdine got home Saturday night. One who went to the College of Charleston arrived Sunday. The bulk of the kids who went to public schools will trickle in over the next 10 days.
Strangely, as we were waiting for traffic to clear Friday, I got notifications from CHS that both C and L had earned High Honors for the year. With a month of school left. Bizarre. Not sure if this was an error and was supposed to just cover the third quarter. The certificates in the emails clearly noted the entire academic year. We told them this doesn’t mean they can slack off for the last month.
Pacers
What a weekend!
Friday night’s game three could not have been more exciting. The Pacers jumped out to an early 19-point lead, hitting just about everything they shot. They were up 12 at the half before a 5–0 run extended that to back to 17. The Bucks methodically sliced into that margin, finally taking the lead late in the fourth quarter. Some back-and-forth, including a ridiculous Khris Middleton shot to send the game to overtime. Another crazy Middleton 3 with about five seconds left in OT tied it again. Then Tyrese Haliburton torched Patrick Beverly for the game-winning shot.
Sunday, no Dame Lillard, Beverly got injured early, and Bobby Portis was ejected in the first half. Yet the Bucks played their asses off and stayed in it until a couple huge Pacers runs after halftime broke the game open. Even then, the Bucks trimmed a 17-point lead to six at one point. Myles Turner might have played his two best games as a Pacer over the weekend to key the wins. And now the Pacers are one win away from advancing, with both Giannis’ and Dame’s status in doubt going forward.
HS Hoops
L didn’t have any games this weekend. But she did go to the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame induction ceremony with several of her teammates Saturday to watch their head coach get put into the hall. That was kind of cool. L and her teammates all snuck out after about 90 minutes as there were A LOT of speeches and they were more interested in doing silly high school girl stuff than listen to old people talk.
Weather
Man, it suddenly got really nice. We kicked the air on Sunday because it was warm and muggy. The forecast ahead looks great. We are opening the pool next Monday. I probably should have scheduled that a week earlier.
Let’s start with a fantastic Q&A with Jerry Seinfeld.
The great joy to me is: I’m making this up, but let me see if I can make it sound like it makes sense to me. That’s what comedy is to me. They know I’m lying from the first line, and they don’t care.
I found this summary of how and why Congress actually seemed to work like a functioning body for a few days recently really informative and interesting. Especially this section. Another reminder of how extreme gerrymandering hurts our political system far more than creating “safe” districts for the party in power.
…even as emotional hatred towards the other party (“affective polarization”) has skyrocketed, “ideological polarization” — the distance between Democratic and Republican voters on the issues — has barely grown.
Unlike in Congress, where ideological polarization has increased to the point that members of the two parties almost always vote in two distinct blobs (see above), a plurality of Americans still hold a mix of liberal and conservative views.
Your mileage may vary, but I geeked out over this insider look at one of the first in-car navigation systems. As impressive as our current technology is – our vehicle and phones are connecting to outer space to keep us on the correct route! – it is often more impressive to see how things were accomplished in less advanced times.
This piece focuses on how our mobile phones aren’t changing as much, year-to-year, as they used to and what that means for Apple’s business model. That’s true for all technology. Where you almost had to get a new laptop every two years not that long ago, now a good one will last you half a decade. Much of that is because way more of what we do is on the web rather than in apps, and the value of and need for highly-specced machines is much more limited.
As much as Apple would like us to think otherwise, this is where we are: iPhones are just phones. To most people — even to someone who spends all day selling them — they’re just a tool, and getting a new one feels like an inevitability, not an event. Something about as exciting as upgrading your washing machine.
I’ll admit that I’ve never been a KISS fan, even ironically. Yet I’m still flabbergasted they could sell their catalog for over $300 million in 2024. Can you really put their two or three songs that resonate with the general public into enough movies, shows, and ads, count on streaming revenue, and sell enough clothing to justify that outlay?
“Oh Shit” – The Libertines
One of the first songs I bought from the iTunes Music Store back in 2004 after I bought my first iPod was The Libertines “Can’t Stand Me Now.” They’re still making decent music.
“Like A Lesson” – Pillow Queens
I can never get it through my head that these ladies are all Irish. I hear 2010s Brooklyn way more than Dublin in their music.
“Party At Monster Lake” – Strand of Oaks
Timothy Showalter’s new album comes out in June. Based on the first two singles, it promises to be another wildly eclectic piece. I did not like the first offering, while this one is pretty good.
“The Lines” – From Indian Lakes
Finally someone takes the sound of the shoegaze resurgence in a different direction.
“I Can’t Escape Myself” – The Sound
Twitchy, unsettling postpunk from 1980. There’s a lot of Joy Division influence, which is a little strange as they were contemporaries.
“Waiting For Stevie” – Pearl Jam
There’s a segment of music fans who have been complaining since 1994 or 1995 about “Why can’t Pearl Jam just sound like their first two albums again?” Well, they finally did it. And they pulled it off.
Stone Gossard’s main riff sounds like an electrified version of his riff from “Black.” Eddie’s wail is in Hall of Fame form. Matt Cameron plays drums closer to Dave Abbruzzese’s style than he ever has. And Mike McCready pulls off a solo that recalls several of his most famous ones while still sounding new. It all comes together without seeming like either parody or as sad old men trying to recapture their youth. One of the best PJ songs of the new millennium.
The title? Yes, it’s that Stevie. Eddie and producer Andrew Watt created the bones for this song while they waited nearly seven hours for Stevie Wonder to arrive to track his harmonica part for the song “Try” on EV’s solo album.
“The Reflex” – Duran Duran
DD’s biggest song – it would spend two weeks at #1 – cracked the Top 40 in just its second week in the Hot 100. The band wanted this to be the lead single from the Seven And The Ragged Tiger album, but their record company thought the warbling vocals in the “Why don’t you use it?” section would turn fans off. Shows what record companies know. Also, the single was re-mixed by Niles Rogers, which helped.
Nearly two weeks into Tesla ownership, with two big drives under the hood; time for a status update.[1]
The transition has gone reasonably well. There are still moments when I struggle with one-pedal driving. One example is when cruising towards a right turn where I don’t have to stop, just slow and continue. I feel like I’m often either going into the turn too fast or braking too soon. Sometimes when I’m coasting to a stop I find myself going too fast and have to use the mechanical brake rather than rely on the regenerative brakes. Both things that should get easier the more I drive the Tesla. I also find myself thinking about driving rather than just driving, but I think that happens with any new car.
I drove the Model Y back-and-forth to Cincinnati both trips last weekend, using Full Self Driving briefly a couple times. I don’t think I’m comfortable enough with the car overall yet to let it rip, though, and cancelled it after a few minutes, switching over to traditional cruise control. Once FSD tried to change lanes when I wasn’t expecting it – in a totally safe situation – and it kind of freaked me out. I’m going back to Cincy this Friday to move M home for the summer and may give it more of a shot while I’m driving alone on I–74.
I used the self parking function once over the weekend, in a parking lot Sunday morning where there literally weren’t any cars for several hundred feet. Not exactly a tough problem to solve, but it is both impressive and unnerving to sit in the driver’s seat while the wheel turns itself and the car carefully, perfectly backs into a spot.
I also used FSD when L and I were coming home from practice last night. It had rained earlier in the day, so there was some moisture on the ground. When you engage FSD, the windshield wipers and high beams switch into automatic mode. Thus I was able to experience to two of the most common complaints people have about the current Tesla software: the wipers turned on despite it not raining and the high beams turned on too early and off too late. I knew about these flaws, so keep both on manual control under normal conditions. Engineering is hard.
What has been really strange is when I hop into one of our other cars. I took C’s car to fill it up with gas Monday night. I likely looked like I was brand new to driving the way I was jerking around, racing the engine or braking too hard. The obvious thing that worries me is forgetting that I don’t have regenerative brakes and not stepping on the brake pedal, but that hasn’t been an issue. Yet. Right now I’m parking the Audi outside, and when the lawn service comes I move into either S’s or C’s garage spot. I’ve been a little aggressive backing up a couple times, forgetting about its sensitivity. Luckily always with nothing behind me!
To be fair I always struggled going from any of my cars to any of the Grand Cherokees S drove because of their weird accelerator sensitivities.
After driving at higher speeds on the highway I found that the Tesla indeed allows more road noise in than the Audi. You have to turn the music up pretty high to cover it. And apparently the 2024 models are quieter than previous ones. I think it definitely rides rougher than the Audi when there are bumps in the road.
I thought I had one semi-major issue but think I resolved it last night.
Suddenly last weekend I was not comfortable at all in the driver’s seat. There was a constant pressure on my lower back, which caused strain in my middle back, and every few minutes I was fidgeting or adjusting the various seat controls to try to find a more pleasant position. I took a tape measure and took measurements for how my Audi seat was set up just to compare. After a few days I realized that the lower part of the Tesla seat, where the lumbar support is, seemed to be curved differently than any car I’ve had before. I kept messing with the lumbar support buttons but that didn’t seem to help.
Tuesday I tried placing a thin cushion between my upper back and the seat to plug that gap, and it seemed to help, taking some of the pressure off my mid-back.
Later I read up about Tesla seats and learned that the lumbar system is very finicky. I found several Reddit and message board posts about people who had the exact sensation I had: it almost felt like a basketball was pushing on the lower back. The support is comprised of two airbags that inflate based on different actions. When they deflate, they do so passively, and sometimes they don’t release all the air. The posts included a few tips for getting the bags to flatten that I tried, and I think they are now totally deflated. I usually don’t need much lumbar support, so I’m going to do my best to never touch those buttons again.
I still find the seats to be a little constricting. They need to have just a little more width in the upper bolsters.
Another minor complaint. Before I bought, I debated whether to go with the white or black interior. The white seems to really open up the car and looks futuristic. Surprisingly/allegedly it’s not that tough to keep clean. A consistent criticism, though, was how the strip of white trim on the dashboard causes a glare on the side mirrors than can make it tough to view traffic coming up on your left.
The white interior is more expensive so I went with black for purely budget reasons.
I’ve noticed that the wood trim piece that replaces that white strip in black interior models also causes a glare in the driver’s view of the side mirror. During the day at least, you have to really focus to see what’s behind you. Or just turn on your turn signal and look at the blind-spot camera.
I picked a very strange time to get a Tesla.
Two days after I brought mine home Tesla eliminated the inventory discounts that have been in place for over two years. Had we waited two days, we would have spent an additional $1800 over our three year lease. There were rumors that Tesla was going to shift to sub–1% financing rather than discounts. But, three days later, some of the discounts returned. This Tuesday, as the company was reporting its Q1 earnings, the full inventory discounts came back. In a 10-day stretch prices went up anywhere from $3000–5000 depending on model and then fell by the same amounts.
A sign of a well-run company.
We noticed that the sales people we dealt with on pick-up day seemed a little off. Or at least compared to when I had been in for test drives. I chalked it up to Saturdays being busy and them rushing around.
Also two days after I brought my Model Y home, Tesla announced big layoffs, potentially up to 20% of the company when they wrap up. Several sources reported that rumors of layoffs had been circulating through the company over the weekend. So I wondered if folks weren’t stressed because of Saturday deliveries but more because they weren’t sure they were going to have jobs on Monday. I hope the two who assisted me, who were both super nice and helpful, made it through.
I may have found a hack to get support people to stop harassing you when you call to cancel an account. I used the online chat feature to cancel my SiriusXM account. When they asked for a reason I told them I got a Tesla which doesn’t support SXM. The agent then tried to push me into staying subscribed via their app and offered to “get started setting that up for you!”
I declined, saying I had tried it over the weekend and found it dangerous to use when driving.
The agent quickly backed off, cancelled my account, and issued me a credit for the unused part of my subscription.
Next time a subscription service is dragging their feet to cancel, find a way to say that keeping it endangers your safety and see if they dial back the pressure.
I wasn’t lying. While you can certainly stream music from your phone via Bluetooth, there’s no radio-like way to switch channels on the app without digging through its interface. It used to be a lot easier to navigate, but at some point it was updated and lacks a clear listing of channels or favorites that can be selected quickly and safely while driving. I’ll miss SXM.
I did discover last night that there is indeed a traditional radio. I believe at some point Teslas did not include an AM/FM tuner. Not that I listen to radio very much, but I was able to follow to the Pacers game as L and I came home from her practice.[2] I need to take a closer look and see if it supports HD radio, and then if there are any cool, secondary channels in our area for the times when I’m bored with Spotify or podcasts.
A couple quirks with the phone key. Once it just stopped working, telling me to use the key card to start the vehicle. Not sure what happened but about an hour later the phone key worked just fine without me resetting it. Monday landscapers came to do our mulch. I parked next door at my gym’s lot so I could come-and-go freely. Both times I parked over there the car didn’t lock itself automatically as I walked away. It took me awhile but I finally realized the gym is close enough to our house to register as being at “home,” and thus not lock automatically.
Do you say “under the hood” for an EV since there’s just a frunk there and nothing mechanical? ↩
Hey! The Pacers won their first playoff game since 2018 Tuesday night! ↩
A super busy weekend, with plenty of time in the car.
Kid Hoops
L had her first, big, out-of-town tournament as a high schooler in Cincinnati. It was a three-day deal, and we had booked two nights in a hotel. Then we got the schedule which had our first game at 12:30 Friday and our second at 6:30 Saturday night. Our team agreed it was easier to drive back-and-forth than try to kill approximately 30 hours between games.
So we headed down Friday morning, played, ran to UC and had lunch with M and grabbed a bunch of her stuff to move home, and headed back to Indy. Saturday afternoon we returned to the Queen City, checked into our hotel, and got to the gym for two evening games.
The hoops were decent. We went 2–2, three of the games were very close, which made it fun.
We won our first game 50–9, starting the game on a 19–2 run. That was a far cry from our first travel tournament two years ago when we lost by approximately the same score.
Saturday we fell behind by 14 in the first half of our first game. We steadily worked our way back into the game and tied it with just under a minute left. But we gave up an and-one, couldn’t get a shot, and the game seemed to be over. I was talking to a dad next to me when we somehow picked off an entry pass, threw the ball ahead, and got an open-look from 3 to tie. It rimmed out and we lost by 3. Good game, though.
Our second game Saturday was against a team that beat the girls we beat Friday by four, so we figured we had this one in the bag. Jinx! We gave up a 9–0 run to start the game, and the girls kept trying to make the 6–8 point play to erase most of the deficit in one shot. We finally answered with a 7–0 run but were still down five at the half.
We started the second half much better and finally took the lead about four minutes in. We stretched that out to a seven-point margin and seemed to have the game in hand. Cue the 8–0 run by the other girls. Fortunately we rallied again and held on to win by four.
Then Sunday we had a single game. This was a “live” event for recruiting, so there was no bracket play. This one was good, too. It was against a team we beat by one in Indy while we were on spring break. We did our usual dig a hole early thing and played from behind all day. Never more than five points down, but each time we got it to one or two, we couldn’t get over the top. I believe we took the lead once briefly in the second half, but couldn’t stretch it out. We had it tied twice in the final 90 seconds but never had the ball with a chance to lead. We ended up losing by two.
Both the parents and kids agreed at our post-game meal that even though we lost two of them, we much prefer these close games. L told me she thinks it makes her better because she has to stay focused. And while it’s more tense, it is a lot more interesting to care about the result until the final buzzer.
L played decent. She didn’t score much, only eight total points for the weekend. She did have 13 rebounds and seven assists with just 3 turnovers. In that last game, especially, she was great moving the ball and playing defense. She got isolated in the post against a big girl on one possession and did a terrific job battling, making the girl pass out twice before she finally took a bad shot and L got the board. Her jumper still is a mess so she was reluctant to take any. In the last game she also had two beautiful drives she couldn’t finish, which would have helped in a two-point game. And her biggest mistake was in the last game when she got caught on a screen and bumped a 3-point shooter as she tried to fight through. That girl hit two of three free throws which, again, were kind of important. That was my one coaching point for the weekend: when you get caught on those screens, you have to let the shooter go because the refs will always call that foul when you try to block them from behind.
I took over reserving the team hotel rooms this year, in hopes of avoiding some of the bad places we got last year. This tournament is “stay to play,” meaning you are supposed to use the official travel site to book your rooms and do so only at hotels on the list. Even though we booked in February, all the decent hotels were taken, so I booked at a Quality Inn that seemed to be in a good area and got good reviews.
Well, it wasn’t as bad as the hotel we stayed at last year that literally had people doing crack near the dumpsters, but it wasn’t great either. I don’t think it had been renovated in 40 years. The entire place smelled like a combination of weed and Indian food. The girls found what they claimed to be a heroin needle outside. L said she heard people fighting in the hall in the middle of the night, which I somehow slept through despite not sleeping very well. For the after-game hang, we went to the much nicer hotel across the street where two teammates who booked late were staying.
So not great. But our room was clean and we only stayed one night. I have another iffy place lined up for our next trip to Louisville next month. Fingers crossed…
This whole Stay to Play thing is such a scam. I think the majority of the time they don’t really care where you stay, especially for a team at our level. But as travel organizer I didn’t want us to get denied entry because we couldn’t prove we’re in an approved hotel. And I wanted us to be less than 20 minutes from the buildings we are playing in plus stay for a reasonable rate since our families are spread across a fairly wide swath of the economic spectrum. Feels like you have to come up short in at least one of those three areas – quality of hotel, location, or price – to find a hotel at these big tournaments.
Prom
While I was doing the Good Dad thing and watching my youngest kid play basketball out-of-town, I was missing my middle kid’s prom night. Which I think qualifies as a Bad Dad thing, right? 😬
Fortunately things seemed to go fairly well here for C on her big night. She had a date who is just a friend, which ended up being a good thing because he acted like a bit of a douche from what I was told. There was some stress getting ready, which is almost required on prom night, right? But she recovered and it was like a 98% great night. Good weather, she avoided the assholes she wanted to avoid and most of her friends got through the night without drama.
When we were at lunch with M on Friday she said C had told her she just wanted it to all be over. That’s the sad thing about events like prom: there’s so much prep and pressure on the night that it can be hard for kids to relax and actually enjoy the evening because they are so wound up about 50 different things.
Pacers
Yeesh. After a week of hearing almost every national writer pick the Pacers to upset the Bucks, mostly due to Giannis being unavailable for at least the beginning of the series, the Pacers clearly were not ready for the big lights of the playoffs. It was like a five point game when I muted it when C came down to tell me her prom details. Next thing I knew the Bucks were up by 20 and Dame Lillard was hitting everything. That’s not the way to start a series at all. The Pacers looked like a team that hadn’t been in the playoffs in four years. The Bucks looked like a team that was laser-focused on erasing all the negativity and mediocrity of their regular season. It’s only one game of seven, but the Pacers at least needed to be competitive in game one.
Tyrese Haliburton continues to look like a shell of the player he was pre-injury. This might be the most destructive hamstring pull in NBA history. I believe the Pacers missed their first 14 3-pointers. We’ll see if Rick Carlisle can get this shit fixed for game two.
PJ
Hey, that new Pearl Jam album is, indeed, very good!
Randomly, this week is all men, or male-led groups.
“Wreckage” – Pearl Jam
It’s finally Pearl Jam day! The most excited I’ve been about a new PJ album since 2006? 2000? 1998? The early reviews for Dark Matter are mostly great. The first two singles were very good. Then they dropped this on Wednesday. In recent years I’ve flat out hated their Old Man Rocker Ballads that have taken up more and more space on their albums. This song, though? Tremendous! The last minute is one of the most glorious things PJ has ever done. A perfect song when you consider their age and how they’ve stumbled on the deep, sensitive ballads in recent years. Looking forward to listening to the album as many times as possible on my ride to Cincinnati and back today.
“99th Dream” – Swervedriver
Let’s keep it on the Nineties Bands Who Are Still Around station for one more song.
“Imouhar” – Mdoa Moctar
More first-class Saharan rock.
“Wish Me Away” – GIFT
I like the twitchy, postpunk/dance pop sound these kids are laying down.
“Lady Luck” – The Howlers
Surprised these lads are from London. This song sounds like shined-up, modernized 1990s Manchester.
“Vomit Candy” – Johnny Mafia
Either a great song title, or a terrible one, depending on your perspective. This band is French, which probably explains their choice and the public’s reaction to it.
“It’s My Life” – Talk Talk
One of the truly great songs of the Eighties that remains great today. I will rarely skip/turn away when it comes onto my music devices. Beginning a six-week run in the Top 40 this week in 1984, it never got higher than #31. America wasn’t ready. Maybe it was the video.
Chart Week: April 3, 1982
Song: “I’ve Never Been To Me” – Charlene
Chart Position: #32, 8th week on the chart. Peaked at #3 for three weeks in May/June.
Worst Song Ever. That’s a heavy crown to wear. Were I to sit down and figure out my least favorite songs of the Eighties, Charlene’s sole Top 40 hit would for sure be at the top of that list. Expanding that to all time, I think it would comfortably squeeze into the top five. I’m not alone. I came across two different Worst Songs of All Time lists, one ranked it at #3, the other at #4.
Charlene initially recorded “I’ve Never Been To Me” in 1976 for her debut, self-titled album. The LP didn’t sell, but was re-released in 1977 as Songs of Love. Included on that re-issue was a new version of “I’ve Never Been To Me” that scrapped the spoken word verse. It was pressed as a single, but barely dented the Hot 100, peaking at #97. Frustrated by her lack of success, Charlene quit the music business, moved to England, got married, and took a job in a candy store. As one does.
I do not get it, but something about the song resonated in the music community. Between 1976 and 1979 at least six other artists took a crack at it. There was even a version told from a man’s perspective. Not one of them reached the Top 40.
The Music Gods knew “I’ve Never Been To Me” sucked, and were doing all they could to prevent it from becoming a hit. However, one asshole in Florida torpedoed all their efforts.
Scott Shannon, a DJ at WRBQ in Tampa, began playing Charlene’s original version of the song in the spring of 1982. I’m guessing that Tampa was a pretty sleepy community at the time, because WRBQ’s listeners loved the song, requesting that it be played again-and-again. Shannon had previously worked for Motown. He reached out to Motown president Jay Lasker, letting him know of the record’s success and suggesting the label re-release it. Lasker had to track down Charlene in England to get her approval. She agreed, re-signed with Motown, the single was issued to radio stations, and by May it was sitting at #3 behind Rick Springfield’s “Don’t Talk To Strangers” and the monster #1 “Ebony and Ivory.”
I’m pretty sure I was as confused about why this song was a hit when I was 11 as I am at 52. It is preachy, self-loathing, judgmental, middle-of-the-road garbage. Charlene’s vocals are straight out of the Mary MacGregor/Debbie Boone school. I guarantee my grandmothers loved her.
The song is basically a rebuke of the sexual revolution and any assertion that women should be allowed the same freedoms in life that men enjoyed. The narrator relates a series of adventures and experiences but claims they were pointless because she ended up alone. And maybe she had some abortions? So the unfulfilled housewife listening at home while she complains about her life should realize it is in fact richer than our narrator’s. I’m not sure how that is supposed to inspire anyone other than the bitter, Phyllis Schlaflys of the world, who viewed any drift from traditional gender roles as a sign that godless communism had won.
The worst part of the song is the spoken-word verse. It genuinely might be the worst set of lyrics ever constructed.
Hey, you know what paradise is?
It’s a lie
Damn, coming in hot.
A fantasy we’ve created about people and places as we’d like them to be
I thought pop music was supposed to be about escape and fantasy. Songwriters Ron Miller and Kenneth Hirsch tried to blow all of that up with a healthy dose of Fuck You and Your Dreams.
But you know what the truth is?
It’s that little baby you’re holding.
Yeah, yeah, who doesn’t love babies. Low blow.
And it’s that man you fought with this morning.
The same one you’re going to make love with tonight.
Jesus, I can’t even…
I get that Miller and Hirsch were probably using this as a romantic device, saying that you can fight with your spouse in the morning, realize your relationship is stronger and more important than whatever caused the argument, and then bone in the evening. Within the context of the rest of the song, though, I hear it more as a statement of obligation, that part of a married woman’s duties are to sleep with her husband on his terms.
That’s truth. That’s love
And maybe you could talk me into this song being more about how life is messy, rarely the romantic fairy tale that little girls are told to expect. What matters are the little details, good and bad, of our daily lives. Not fancy vacations or expensive dinners. The rest of the song is so scathingly judgmental, though, that I can’t come around to that point of view.
That section has been bothering me for 42 years. Until this week, though, I did not realize there was a far worse line just a bit later in the song. I guess I never deciphered what Charlene sang just before the final chorus:
I spent my life exploring the subtle whoring that costs too much to be free
What in the actual fuck?!?!
I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that two men wrote this song.
Miller and Hirsch argue that because the narrator took the worldly path instead of the domestic one, any hopes for marriage and family have been dashed. Despite what sounds like some kick-ass travels and encounters, in their binary, either/or world, she is damaged goods that no man will be interested in and will live the rest of her life as a lonely, regretful spinster.
What does surprise me is that female vocalists would choose to sing these words. They straight-up call themselves whores, suggest every path they took was wrong, and that the only way to find true happiness is by becoming subservient homemakers like their mothers.
You know what else baffles me about this song? It was released by Motown. MOTOWN! The home of Diana Ross and Gladys Knight and Tammi Terrell and Mary Wells and Teena Marie and countless other badass lady singers. Women who were strong and independent. Women who sang about equality between races and genders. Women who didn’t shit on other women and the choices they made.
Maybe I’m a little cranky because of how truly atrocious this song is and thus judging it too harshly. For sure I’m considering it through a 2024 prism rather than a 1976 one. In the bicentennial year it was still a serious societal argument about if it was good for families if mom worked outside the home. I bet the majority of Americans at the time were against the idea of the liberated woman bringing home the bacon. They viewed ladies who chose not to have families as selfish, morally deficient fools destined to end up alone since they were shirking their biological responsibilities.
In 2024 it all seems so very primitive. But I was mostly raised by a single mom, married a super independent woman, and am raising three independent daughters. So what do I know about “truth”?
Not only did “I’ve Never Been To Me” go to #3 in the US, but it hit #1 in England and Ireland. In Australia it topped the chart for six fucking weeks!!! I might have to take back everything I love about the Australian music scene.
This is a terrible song. Lyrically. Musically. Vocally. Thematically. I get physically ill those one or two times a year I accidentally hear it during a 1982 countdown. If there was a tribunal at The Hague for Musical Crimes Against Humanity, this is the song against which all others would be judged. 1/10
I said there was some bigger news from the weekend. I wasn’t lying. Saturday I brought home a 2024 Tesla Model Y Long Range.
I’m pretty pumped about it so far. However, even with my two test drives and literally hours of watching videos about how to drive Teslas, I’m still deep in learning curve mode.
The purchase, or lease actually, happened pretty quickly after two months of research. And obviously a little quicker than I had expected. Prepare yourselves for a classic, lengthy, D’s Notebook breakdown of the process!
Thursday is S’s day off. We had an exciting day planned featuring a Costco run. The Tesla dealership is basically next door to our nearest Costco. I figured I would swing through the Tesla lot on the way, since S hasn’t been involved in this process at all. Well other than giving me a budget and approving my choice. I guess those are pretty important aspects. What I’m saying is she hadn’t gone a test drive or watched any videos with me, just knew I was neck-deep in research for the last eight weeks and would pretend to care when I was all fired up and dropped EV knowledge on her.
Thursday she beat me to the punch, though. “Can we drive by the Tesla place?” she asked as soon as we left our house.
Of course we can!
Our dealership stores a bunch of their inventory across the street in a dying mall’s parking lot. We drove up and down the four rows of cars stationed there, and I pointed out the differences between the models, the colors I was interested in, and what wheels I preferred. As a bonus, two big carrier trucks were parked with a bunch more cars to unload. It was also the first time I’ve seen a Cybertruck in person.
Ugly.
As.
Hell.
Anyway, we browsed for a few minutes, went to Costco, and then back home. S asked me how many cars in the configuration I wanted were available. I pulled up the inventory list and showed her. She thought about it for a minute then said, “Well, we probably need to get one this weekend because of our schedule the rest of the month, so go ahead and do it.”[1] I tried to play it cool, although I’m sure I looked like a kid on Christmas morning who sees some big boxes with his name on them.
Every blue Model Y LR with 19” wheels showed as being in transit. I called my sales lady and asked if she had an ETA on the cheapest one on the list.[2] “It’s actually on a truck between here and Chicago, so it will be here tomorrow and can be picked up Saturday.”
Perfect! I put down my $250 deposit to reserve it roughly 2.5 seconds later.
The buying process is kind of amazing with Tesla. You can do almost all of it on your phone.
I put down my deposit using ApplePay.
Then a series of tasks showed up on the Tesla app. I uploaded our drivers licenses and selfies to prove it was really us. I filled out the lease application. I received a lease agreement to sign less than 90 seconds later. Once I had insurance coverage, I uploaded a copy of our policy. All the disclosure nonsense? A series of opening PDFs, which automatically checks them as being reviewed. Not a single nudge to get clear coat protection or buy an extended warranty. Then I set an appointment for picking up the car.
Saturday we headed to the dealership after L’s games. When we walked into the store I got a notification to open the app and show the number displayed to a Tesla staff. They sent us to the corresponding spot in the parking lot with instructions on how to pair my phone to the car and the keycards, then to fill out the state registration paperwork that was in the front seat. S and I signed in all the proper places, did a quick check for dents, dings, and other imperfections, walked the paperwork back in, and we were free to go.
Literally about a minute of face-to-face interaction with another human being. I know some people – let’s call them freaks – enjoy the give-and-take of the car buying process. I am 100% down for this method.
S left in her car, I took a few minutes to get comfortable in my new one, then raced home. S and L jumped in for a quick ride around the neighborhood. Later in the evening we drove it up to S’s parents to give them a quick run up-and-down a busy road they live off of. Sunday L and I took it on the highway to basketball. C rode in it for the first time Monday night. It’s been hilarious to watch the reactions of everyone I’ve had as a passenger when I floor it. Their eyes always get really big and they either start laughing, cuss, or lulled into gasping silence by the speed.
My raggedy-ass Audi is now sitting in the driveway, waiting for M to come home to claim it for a couple weeks before it goes back to the dealer.[3]
I used a referral code from a friend so the Tesla came with Full Self Driving for free for three months. As with my second test drive, I’ve kicked it in a couple times, briefly. But I need to get more comfortable with the car in general before I think about using it for real. I’m driving back-and-forth to Cincinnati twice this weekend, so that could be an opportunity if there’s not too much traffic.
So far I’ve really enjoyed driving it. Being so technical, I feel like the learning curve is a lot steeper than a normal car. Had I not done so much research I would be much less comfortable, I’m sure. There are some frustrations, as with any car. For example, somehow I ended up with three driver’s profiles and couldn’t figure out how to get back to the one that was tied to my Tesla account, so had to start over from scratch. All the mirrors, side and rearview, are pretty small, which gives you a less expansive view than I’m used to. Balancing that, the blind spot cameras, which kick in when changing lanes, are high definition and give you an excellent view of what’s to either side.
The weirdest thing so far is backing up. I know that sounds weird, but here’s why. In a traditional, automatic car, you drop it into reverse, ease off the brake, and the car starts rolling. You can back out of a spot without ever touching the gas if you want to. Teslas are totally the opposite. Flip it to reverse, take your foot off the brake, and the car does not move. It won’t until you apply pressure to the accelerator. I’m so nervous about how much power it has that I use a very light foot and reluctantly crawl backwards. I know the power is regulated in reverse, yet I’m still super careful when giving it juice. I did give it a little too much foot backing out this morning and had a moment of panic. I’m sure I’ll get used to it soon and zip out of the garage and parking spots like I used to.
Another big frustration is how there is no camera or ultrasonic sensor on the front bumper. Since the hood curves down and I can’t see the front of the car, pulling into our garage is a bit dicey. My Audi had cameras and sensors. S’s Telluride has both. Neither her Grand Cherokee nor my Tahoe had forward cameras, but they both had robust sensors that told you exactly when to stop before hitting anything. The Tesla uses its other cameras to “map” what’s in front of you, but is very conservative in placing those objects. So it yells at me that I’m about to hit the wall when I still have a good two feet of space. I hung a thin string – but no tennis ball! – from the garage ceiling to mark the right spot because I do not trust the readings I get at all. Last night it was flashing “STOP!” at me when I still had a good 18” before I would have bumped anything.
OK, now one awesome thing: power in roundabouts and from full or partial stops. Hallelujah! Could not be more different than in my Audi. Saturday morning when we were going to basketball the Audi tried to kill us one last time by nearly stalling as we were pulling out of our street into the main one. Such strange behavior from an otherwise well-engineered car. When I went to the grocery store in Carmel Monday and traversed approximately 50 roundabouts, I never feared for my life and always had more power than I needed.
Ride quality? It seems pretty similar to the Audi to me. On good pavement it’s just fine. If you go through a bumpy patch you are going to feel it. It is most certainly not an elegant ride as you would expect from a higher end luxury car. L had an open gym at CHS Monday night and the Tesla took the speed bumps on campus much better than the Audi.
I really like not having to carry a key. Teslas come with two credit card sized keys, sort of like checking into a hotel. You pair those with your phone and as long as you have your phone with you, the car unlocks when you approach it, and locks when you walk away. You tuck a card into your wallet for backup. Most cars these days have proximity keys, so this isn’t a huge difference. I don’t have to carry a key fob in my pocket anymore. Our front door has a keyless lock, so I don’t have a house key, either. For the first time since I was like eight years old, I have zero keys in my pockets, which is kind of crazy. I like carrying as little crap as possible, so this is a huge bonus.
Since this was kind of a sudden purchase, I hadn’t ordered a home charging kit when I reserved the car. It’s kind of dumb they don’t just come with the car like they used to. Or that you can’t purchase one in the store and take it home the day you receive your new car. I put that order in Friday and it should be here Wednesday or Thursday.
C needed to make a pre-prom Target run Monday night so I ran her over and parked at the Supercharger there to grab some electrons while we went inside. Couldn’t have been easier. Got enough juice to keep me going until I can start home charging in a couple days. I will almost never use that Supercharger by our house, which is a bummer because it is rarely busy and has a Target, Starbucks, and Whole Foods in the same lot. Charging at home is cheaper and more efficient, so Superchargers will just be used on the rare occasions we take a car trip in the Tesla.
In a fun coincidence, the hotel I booked two months ago for our trip to Cincinnati this weekend has a grocery store with a Supercharger five minutes away. Our trip has gotten a little weird – more on that next week – so I’m not sure whether I’ll have to use it or not. All my future basketball trips will include trying to select a hotel with a Supercharger nearby.
Tesla is infamous for its rigorous cost cutting. That’s why the ultrasonic sensors were removed a couple years ago. That’s why they keep finding ways to make the interior more spare, shifting as many functions to the screen as possible. That also means Tesla owners, perhaps more than regular car owners, end up buying customized accessories to fill gaps in equipment. There are sites filled with nothing but Tesla accessories, from upgraded interior lighting to special phone mounts to whole RGB light kits that require removing pieces of trim to connect to the car’s electrical systems. There are even additional screens you can install where the traditional gauge dash would go that can be used to integrate CarPlay or display car information.
I’ve only bought a few. So far. I ordered all weather floor mats. My Audi came with them and I now much prefer how that style confines debris compared to the cheap-ish carpeted ones that come with the Tesla. I got a little tray for one of the center console storage areas so vital items don’t fall into the bottom of the fairly deep compartment.
Biggest of all, since I got the 19” wheels with the generic covers, I bought some third party wheel covers. This is quite the racket, and I spent hours researching them. Best I can tell, they are basically five or six kinds that are all exactly the same and likely made in the same facility. But one place will charge you $300 for a set, while another will be closer to $200. Then you can find them on AliExpress for like $90 if you can wait 3–6 weeks for them to show up. I got some on Amazon that had a coupon for $110. Paying as little as possible makes sense since I have no idea how they’ll hold up to being removed once per year to rotate the tires. Your mileage may vary on whether you like the blacked-out wheel look. I’m not always a fan, but I think these look way better than the “how little effort can we put into designing these” ugly ones that came on the car.
Finally, for now, I saw a brilliant bumper sticker on a car that was in for service at the dealer Saturday. I’m not a big bumper sticker guy, but I have ordered one that I will put on our garage storage closet where I slap stickers from places we’ve visited or products I’ve purchased.
Because fuck him.
As with the last time I went through this process, I’ll give a few updates as I get deeper into Tesla ownership. So this series, or at least its 2024 edition, isn’t quite done. Plus we’re about to buy a car for M so I can share some thoughts on buying a used car in the Internet age!
This weekend I’m going to Cincinnati for basketball. Next Friday M comes home for the summer. We don’t have to have four cars the minute she gets home, but as she has jury duty her first Monday home, it sure would be helpful. ↩
A reminder that there are limited options for Teslas, and vehicles get steady discounts as they move through the distribution pipeline. I had my eye on six cars scaled in a $2500 range, all exactly the same. ↩
I kid, it’s not raggedy ass at all. After a few days sitting outside, covered in pollen, it sure looks older than it actually is. ↩
A pretty solid weekend around our house. Enough went on that I will divide this into two parts. Smaller items in this post, a bigger post to come tomorrow.
After a crappy four days of rain and steadily decreasing temps, the weekend was gorgeous here in Indy. Sunday it got into the 80s for the first time this year. We took advantage by doing phase one of pool opening prep, power washing all the crap that had collected on the cover since last October. Actually pool opening isn’t until three weeks from today. S half-mentioned getting the patio furniture out yesterday, but I told her if we did that it would 100% snow sometime in the next three weeks so we decided to hold off a little longer.
Kid Hoops
L played in the same gym as a week ago, once again three games.
Saturday we played her middle school buddy’s team, a higher ranked team from her program. Her buddy and two other girls were missing, so they only had six. It didn’t look like that would matter at first as they got a quick 10–2 lead. We answered with our own 10–2 run to tie and trailed by just two at halftime. Midway through the second half we were up five. Our girls were playing really well on both ends. The other team was down to five girls as one girl rolled her ankle and missed a big chunk of the first half, although she returned in the second half.
We couldn’t hang on, though, and lost by four. Too many second-chance opportunities because we couldn’t grab any rebounds and way too many unforced turnovers.
An hour later we were back on the court against a team that didn’t look very good in warmups. Our girls came out focused and led 23–8 just before halftime. Then we started missing layups. After halftime we kept missing layups. Then we started missing jumpers. Then girls started taking bad shots as soon as they got the ball. Our coach, who isn’t a big yeller, was screaming at the girls to stop taking dumb shots.
Next thing you knew it was 23–21 six minutes into the second half before L hit a free throw to break the run. After one more basket by the other girls we ripped off a 10–0 stretch that put the game away.
That win kept us out of fourth place, which meant we had to go back at 9:05 Sunday instead of 8:00. In the bracket game we played a higher level team from the program we beat on Saturday. These girls also didn’t look like anything special in warmups. No super tall girls, or girls that looked super athletic, and they weren’t lighting it up as they shot.
But this team was one of the best coached teams I’ve ever seen. They ran a really good motion offense, but their goal was to get one of their big girls posted on a smaller defender, and then both of those girls could finish over either shoulder. Old school basketball! It was impressive. They were tough as hell, too, something our girls don’t always handle well. Their defense was perfect for AAU where refs let you get away with just about anything. Bob Huggins probably loves the defensive rules in summer ball.
It turned out to be a really good game. We trailed by six early, by seven later in the first half, before getting it to 19–17 at halftime.
Second half was the same story. We trailed by seven, came back to take a five point lead, trailed by five late, and then our only shooter hit four 3’s in the final 90 seconds to force overtime.
Overtime sucked. We didn’t score. L had two turnovers in the final minute. We lost by six.
At least that meant we got out of the gym to enjoy the beautiful day.
L was mixed for the weekend. She scored seven in the first game, hitting her first three shots before missing a couple when she got fouled and there was no call. She hit a free throw on an and-one. Otherwise she didn’t do much good or bad. In game two she was one of the girls who missed layups in our bad stretch. She grabbed four rebounds, which is good for her, but only scored three points. Then Sunday she just scored one point and had those two huge turnovers late.
The good news was she went 4–5 on free throws, and all five looked great, The main trainer at her weekly workouts adjusted L’s mechanics last week. It’s going to be a process to get those integrated but at least from the free throw line the changes seemed to be working.
We are off to Cincinnati Friday for a weekend of games.
Big Kid Props
We talked to M twice on Sunday. She called us after she had her final house meeting of the year for her sorority. They gave out awards and she won one of the Founders awards for her “positive attitude and impact on the house even as a freshman.” We laughed because she said they read the things that people said about the winners before they announced the winner’s names, and she had kind of tuned out whoever was talking when they got to her award. So she doesn’t remember what specific nice things they said about her. Hilarious! She was probably talking to whoever was sitting next to her.
Later she texted us and said she got selected to go to her sorority’s national office this summer to take part in a leadership conference. They pay for it, so we said she should absolutely do it. The only bummer is it is in St. Louis in July, so she’ll have to deal with that fun humidity in the Lou.
Masters
Between the PGA-LIV stupidity and my old-man arthritis that has kept me from playing golf for two years, I rarely watch golf anymore. I did catch a lot of the Masters over the weekend, still one of the best four days in sports.
Brilliant stuff from Scottie Scheffler. That dude is really fucking good. My guy Max Homa had his shots, but two bad holes Sunday ruined his chances.
Mostly it was fun to see weather really affect how the course played. Heavy winds all week made it damn near impossible to know where your ball would end up. That Scheffler ran away on the back nine Sunday was even more impressive as pretty much everyone close to him fell apart.
Masters week also meant it was time for the return of one of the best sports bits of the year.
The Pacers ended the regular season in style, blowing out the Hawks once again, winning 157–115. It was the second time this season the Pacers have set a new franchise scoring record, both times coming against the Hawks.
It’s back to the playoffs for the first time in four years, with the Milwaukee Bucks waiting. There’s some bad blood in the matchup from games back in December and January. There was the weird “Ballgame” confrontation. There was the Pacers knocking the Bucks out of the IST, and then winning again a couple weeks later. Malik Beasley went on record back then as wanting the Pacers in the playoffs so the Bucks could put them in their proper place.
Giannis Anteotkounmpo missed the end of the regular season and there’s no concrete word on his status for round one. That would be a pretty big bonus for the Pacers if he either can’t play or is limited. Tyrese Haliburton gets to go back to his hometown. Should be a great series.
A Boston-Denver Finals is the smart bet. The West, especially, is going to be a slog for whoever comes out of that conference.
College Hoops
Kentucky hiring Mark Pope was unexpected, but it may end up being genius. He’s a really good coach, runs a modern offense, and is much more laid back than John Calipari. Being a former UK player he’ll get a longer honeymoon than pretty much any other hire if there are early struggles. I would also expect him to moderate recruiting a little, focusing more on getting players who fit his system and maybe want to play in Lexington for a couple years rather than trying to get the five best freshmen he can get every year. To be sure UK will still have great recruiting classes. I think he knows that you win in college by having experience, and his offense works better with guys who have been in it more than three months.
I find the transfer portal, and the rumors surrounding it, exhausting. But I still pay attention because KU is in the market. I laughed out loud this morning when I saw that Colby Rogers, a former Wichita Sate player, had committed to Memphis. Yesterday a top-notch recruiting site said he was down to KU, Michigan, and Alabama. I’ve been trying to back off on the college hoops rumor monitoring because of situations exactly like this. No one really knows until the kid makes an announcement.
