D's Notebook

Month: September 2024 (Page 1 of 2)

Weekend Notes

September 30, 2024 /

Another weekend in the books. This one had some familiar elements, yet was still quite different than other recent weekends.

Helene

The biggest event of the weekend was the remnants of Hurricane Helene kind of ruining our weekend. That’s overstating things. Other people had far worse weekends than we did because of the weather. But it was cloudy, breezy, and muggy at best all weekend. Off-and-on drizzle all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And then about five hours of pretty intense rain and wind Friday evening as the biggest waves from the storm blew through between 5:00 and 10:00 PM.

We were very lucky. Our power blinked a few times Friday night, but never fully went out. Which is a miracle given that the line that feeds our house runs through dozens of old trees that are growing into/against it. I was sure at least part of the line had pulled loose at one point, as we kept getting little waves of partial outages. But we made it through. Lots of people around us lost their power for much longer than a few seconds.

We desperately needed the rain, so that was welcome. TV said we were somewhere between an inch and inch-and-a-half of rain for the storm. Normally when we get any significant rain our sump pit in the basement will make lots of noise as it fills and the pump ejects the collected water. It had been so dry here none of the rain made it to the pit and our basement remained eerily quiet.

Driving and walking around Saturday and Sunday there were tons of big trees and limbs down in our part of the city. Lots of power crews working to repair lines. We just had one small branch come down in our yard, along with lots of leaves. Again, very lucky.

We have friends who were not so fortunate.

Parents of one of S’s best friends live on Anna Maria island. We spent our first day of spring break this year at their house while we were waiting for our rental to open. Friday night they had water waist-deep inside their house. Our friend lost contact with them overnight, and she was freaking out. Fortunately cell service came back up Friday morning and they were safe. However, they likely lost everything they own inside the house.

S also found video of the place in Siesta Key where we are going for spring break this coming year. It took a lot of water damage. It is a high rise, so we are hoping our rooms aren’t on the first floor and got through without any damage.

She also has an old friend in Asheville, NC which is apparently in terrible shape because of flooding. S sent her a text and got a response, but no real word on how they are doing.

High School Football

Cathedral picked a great week to have a bye. I’m sure the coaches weren’t thrilled to have a hole in their schedule, but they were able to avoid having to deal with the weather.

Most games here Friday were postponed to Saturday. But some foolish schools decided to play. The worst of the storm was going through right during game times Friday. At their peak, the winds were gusting to around 70 MPH. Oddly there was no lightning associated with the storm, so most games that started just kept on going through the worst of it. A couple games kicked off then stopped when the power went out.

Although the Irish were off, I did have football plans for the night. Our friend Coach H was bringing his team to play NC, the school across the street from us. That game was moved to Saturday morning, so I walked over and watched with Mrs. H. Poor NC entered on a 32-game losing streak. Coach H’s guys did their job and easily extended that streak to 33 games. It was fun to catch up with Mrs. Coach.

The Jayhawks

As the season continues to go down the toilet, I can step back a bit and react from a distance. Noticing things like it’s interesting how you can be mad about one thing during a game, then afterwards realize you should be mad about something else completely.

During the loss to TCU Saturday, most KU fans were steaming about a series of replay reviews and calls/no-calls that went against KU. All were very close, but in the heat of the moment they all seemed horribly wrong.

After the game, though, it was clear KU didn’t lose that game because of the refs. They lost, mostly, because on three massive plays, they missed a total of 187 tackles. They let what is basically a fullback run a punt back over 80 yards for a touchdown. They had the TCU QB dead in the backfield only to let him slip away and complete a pass that not only secured a massive first down, but turned into another score when tackles were missed on the back half of the play.

Offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes is taking most of the ire of KU fans because his offense seems unimaginative and predictable while former OC Andy Kotelnicki took his super-fun offense to Penn State and is doing amazing things. And Grimes deserves that ire. His offense is dumb and his play calling at times infuriating. Not giving the ball to the best running back in school history one time when you have first and goal inside the five is just stupid.

But the defensive coaches need to take their share of the blame. They haven’t figured out a way to either get consistent pressure on the quarterback or cover receivers downfield. There are far too many big holes for receivers to get open and run freely. On top of that, this team tackles terribly. It’s like they don’t practice it.

Last year’s defense often played bend-but-don’t-break football. This year they break early and often. They had three take-aways Saturday, and should have had at least one more. And still gave up 38 points.

Honestly, I think you can summarize this year compared to last like this: last year, KU got nearly every break. This year, the Jayhawks are getting none. Watching games, you always expect something to go wrong. I think the players feel that, too. Which means things can get rougher as they lose faith. You know what I always say about KU football and things getting worse…

Colts

Hey the Colts with an impressive win, dropping 27 on the allegedly fearsome Pittsburgh defense. Twenty of those points coming after Anthony Richardson, shockingly, left the game with an injury. Old man Joe Flacco can still fling it. The defense was incredible early and made a couple huge plays late to hold off the rallying Steelers.

Again, I refuse to judge Richardson until the end of the year. But, man, he threw a couple more just incredible balls in the first two drives of the game. Then he got destroyed on two different QB runs and had to leave the game. Will Levis was the other option for the Colts to draft a year ago, and he looks like a disaster at this point, so I think AR was the right choice. It feels like he’s always, always, always going to be a massive risk-reward player, though. He’s got some Joel Embiid in him where even when he does the right thing, he manages to get some total freak injury. But, again, I’m not judging him yet.

Oh, would you be surprised that there were a series of incredibly inconsistent calls by the refs in this game? They both helped and hurt the Colts. Between this and the KU game, I’m about done with football refs. Looking forward to basketball refs ruining my life in about a month.

Royals

The Kansas City Royals are in the playoffs! One year after losing 106 games. What a turnaround, and totally unexpected. I would have been thrilled if they got close to .500 this year. If not for a bad September, the R’s would have been well over 90 wins in 2024.

That stumble to the finish doesn’t exactly inspire confidence for the Wild Card series with Baltimore. But the playoffs are all about pitching and the Royals have three solid starters, when they are on, plus the bullpen has been terrific for the last month or so. If they can just find a way to string together some hits again they have every chance to advance. A Royals-Yankees divisional series would be fun for us old folks.

I expect these playoffs to be much less stressful for me than the Royals’ runs in 2014 and 2015. I’m less invested now, the games move quicker, I drink less than I did a decade ago, and I have lower expectations. I still need to add sunflower seeds to my shopping list so I can recreate some of the magic from those two Octobers.

Friday Playlist

September 27, 2024 /

We are bracing for the remnants of Helene in Indiana this morning. It is already raining and windy. By this afternoon heavy rain and gusts over 50 MPH are expected. Should make high school football interesting. CHS picked a good week to not have a game scheduled.

“Pop Seeds” – The Jesus and Mary Chain
More completely enjoyable music from the Reid brothers.

“whirling sad” – Mo Dotti
LA shoegaze FTW.

“Sometimes, I Swear” – The Vaccines
File this one under Songs That Came Out A Year Ago That I Just Now Found. Hate when that happens.

“Somewhere” – Mates of State
Kori Gardner’s and Jason Hammel’s first new music in nine years. I don’t think they have lived in Lawrence, KS in a long time, but that’s where they started, so I’ll always claim them as LFK locals.

“Wildflowers” – Jim Nothing
Oh man, so much wonderfulness wrapped up in one song. Equal parts Eighties, indie jangle and classic Down Under pop vibes. Nothing is from New Zealand, so there has to be some Neil Finn DNA in there somewhere, too.

“The Great Divide” – Wussy
It’s been six years since we got new music from Wussy. During that gap guitarist John Erhardt died. They will make up for that absence by releasing a full-length album, Cincinnati, Ohio, and two EPs on the same day in November. This was a late addition to the album. Thank goodness they discovered this little piece of magic, which draws a lot from Erhardt’s death, floating in the studio air.

“Rain” – The Cult
You should have known something like this was coming given the forecast.

“Habits” – Gary Clark, Jr.
I debated whether to include this. It’s a terrific song, for sure. But at over nine minutes, I would imagine it sets some kind of record for length of song in these playlists. And there are several other really good songs on Clark’s new album. There’s something extra special about this one, though, that demanded I select it.

“I Feel For You” – Chaka Khan
Back to the timeless, mega hits of Eighty-Four! One of the most fun and unique songs of that fantastic year. It is also part of Prince’s takeover of the pop charts for a solid chunk of the decade. First written for Patrice Rushen (along with “I Wanna Be Your Lover”), she turned it down, so Prince recorded it for his self-titled, 1979 album. Chaka Khan got a hold of it a few years later, added rapping from early hip-hop icon Melle Mel, harmonica and sampled vocals from Stevie Wonder, and took it to #3. Melle Mel’s repetition of Chaka’s name at the beginning was not planned. Producer Arif Mardin accidentally hit a button while mixing the song that caused the stutter. He liked the way it sounded and kept it on the final mix. You can argue that was the element that made the track unforgettable.

Three songs kept it from reaching #1: Wham’s “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go,” which was #1 for two weeks and #2 for another week, then Hall & Oates’ “Out of Touch” which was #1 in Chaka’s third week at #3. The other song? Prince’s “Purple Rain,” in one of its two weeks at #2. Because of the weird chart rules at the time, despite peaking in late 1984, “I Feel For You” was officially one of the five biggest songs of 1985. It cracked the Top 40 this week at #38.

Fever End Of The Road

September 26, 2024 /

The first year of the Indiana Fever’s Caitlin Clark era came to an end Wednesday night in an 87–81 loss to Connecticut in the first round of the WNBA playoffs. The Fever had an early lead then fell behind by double-digits multiple times, the last time midway through the fourth quarter, before mounting a furious rally and taking the lead with two minutes to play. Three consecutive Sun 3’s ended the hopes of getting the series back to Indianapolis for a decisive third game.

The game was a microcosm of the entire season. The Fever looked brilliant at times; totally helpless against an older, more experienced foe at others. There were possessions when the Fever struggled to get on the same page, the offense bogging down when the wrong player got the ball and no one moved to help them. However, during the run when they grabbed the lead, they were locked in, making passes before teammates began their cuts and the ball getting to the ideal spot at the ideal instant. For a team with almost no bench depth that required Clark and Kelsey Mitchell to play every minute of a brutally tough game, the Fever did pretty damn good to push the game to its closing seconds.

The other thing from this game that made it a good summation of the entire season: the building was packed, and it felt like half the crowd was cheering for the Fever. It was more like a high school tournament game on a neutral court than a professional playoff game played on one team’s home court over 800 miles away from the road team’s arena.

And there was Caitlin’s performance. She swished her first two long 3’s of the game. She made a few amazing passes. She also had a number of shots fall short during a stretch in the second half when she looked completely gassed. While she had just three turnovers, those were all because she got a little sloppy with the ball. A couple other probable turnovers deflected off the defense and went out of bounds. Teammates couldn’t finish when she set them up perfectly. She bickered with Sun players, the refs, and even the fans. Again, it all summed up her first year in the league.

I don’t think you can give her rookie year anything but an A. She led the league in assists and finished in the top 10 in scoring. Even people who were bullish on her transition to the pro game wouldn’t have expected 19+ points and over eight assists a game. There were rocky moments throughout the season, but she got better as she got more comfortable with both the pro game and her teammates. She handled all that came with being the new face of the league wonderfully. Holly Rowe interviewed her after the first quarter last night, a quarter in which she had jawed with both DeWanna Bonner and the refs, and she smiled and laughed when Rowe called her “spicy.” She’s been great with the media all year, which can’t be easy. The Fever had the highest home and road attendance numbers in the league, and blew away every TV rating number.

Her season was not perfect. She often plays with too much of an attitude. One local writer, appearing on a national podcast, said she plays “like an asshole.” Which he loved, for the record. I thought that was a solid way to label her: I bet she wears everyone out over the course of the game. She came very close to earning a one-game suspension for earning too many technical fouls during the regular season. Honestly she probably deserved that seventh T many times and was fortunate that refs walked away from her. I think she’s too negative when things don’t go her way. She flops a lot on hard contact while she hammers people on the other end. She’s not the first player to do any of that.

My biggest critiques, though, are about her game, and things that will get better the longer she plays. She needs to tighten up her handle a little, as she was picked clean too often by defenders like Connecticut’s Dijonai Carrington. She was never a great defender in college, often playing free safety rather than directly guarding people. She needs to improve her D both to help her teammates and avoid some of the cheap fouls she gets because she’s slow to a spot. She had a tendency to check out momentarily when she was pissed at the refs or herself, forcing her teammates to cover for her. She’ll get stronger which will help every aspect of her game. She just ended a 12-month cycle of nearly non-stop play. She claims she has no plans to either play overseas or in either of the 3-on–3 options available over the next few months, which hopefully means both rest and a chance to work on her body and game outside the rigors of the normal practice-play-repeat cycle of the season.

I have no idea how WNBA free agency and roster building works. Kelsey Mitchell is a free agent and the Fever absolutely need to bring her back. She was a perfect compliment to Clark in the backcourt, a cool, steady counter to Clark’s more fiery game. They also have to find someone who can play both guard spots off the bench, giving Clark and Mitchell the opportunity to sit down without the team falling apart in their absence. Aliyah Boston needs help on the boards, as giving up offensive rebounds was often the biggest factor in their losses and defensive rebounding fueled their attacking game.

There were some other negative aspects to the season, but those came from the outside. Commentators and fans who insisted on making the season a binary Caitlin vs Angel Reese competition until Reese suffered a season-ending injury. The people who used Clark’s presence as a platform to project their own political arguments without considering if she felt the same or asking for her support.

After Wednesday’s game, Sun player Alyssa Thomas called out Fever fans for racist comments on social media. Now, I live in a deeply red state, so I have no doubt a lot of what she was referencing indeed came from people here in Indiana. I’m betting, though, most of them came from people who probably rarely, if ever, watched a WNBA game before this year, have zero interest in the league aside from Clark, and view her as their opening to take shots at people within the league who say things and live their lives the commentators don’t like. The WNBA is filled with intelligent, vocal women who stand up for causes they believe in. A lot of those women are Black. A solid chunk of them are gay. Many of them lean to the political left. What better way to own the woke libs than to tell these people to shut up and dribble while supporting the woman they assume to be white, Christian, conservative savior from Iowa now playing in Indiana?

Of course, other than liking a Taylor Swift post, Clark hasn’t made a peep about politics. She may not care about politics, one of those athletes far more consumed with the game than anything else. Or she may be aware that she has a unique platform and doesn’t want to offend anyone. Or maybe she does have strong feelings one way or the other, but was just overwhelmed by all she had to deal with this year and decided she wasn’t ready to step out onto any political limbs. Look what liking a post did. Can you imagine if she actually expressed an opinion?[1]

That really should be a different post and I’ve already wasted too much time on it.

The big takeaway is that this was a terrific first season in Indiana for Clark. She and the team got much better from May-to-September. Two seasons ago the Fever won five games. This year they won 20. I can’t tell you the last time I willingly watched a WNBA game before this season. I probably watched 30–35 of the Fever’s games this year. I’m excited about the future of the team. Hopefully I find an affordable way to get L and I to a game next season.

  1. I have zero idea what her politics are, but one local blogger pointed that that just as conservatives can assume she’s with them because she’s a white girl from Iowa, there is plenty in her background that suggests she could be liberal. Again, until she actually tells us, we don’t know, and it’s dumb to think we know.  ↩

Wednesday Links

September 25, 2024 /

A year ago Will Ferrell made an unannounced and odd appearance at a Wal-Mart on the southside of Indy. Word came that it was part of a project he was working on. That project hits Netflix this week, and tells the story of a road trip he took with his fellow SNL alum Harper Steele after Steele’s transition. This is an interview with them about that project.

Also, just to paint the picture, you were dressed as Sherlock Holmes. Ferrell: That was a bad choice, too. [Laughs.]

Change Can Be Beautiful. Just Ask Will and Harper

Do kids get excited about catalogs anymore? Probably not because they don’t really exist as they did when we were kids, right? No Sears or Toys ‘R Us catalogs to flip through endlessly as you made and re-made your Christmas list. I’m not sure if we ever got a Radio Shack catalog, but I know I came across them occasionally in my geeky youth days and imagined building a workshop full of weird electronic gadgets and parts. This site allows you to go back in time and review RS mailers from 1939 to 2011.

Radio Shack Catalogs

A fun look back at how wild old Tigers Stadium in Detroit was.

In a column that ran on May 31, 1980, he accompanied a bleacher regular to a nearby drug store before the start of that day’s game. Puscas took notes as the man purchased a flat pint of rum and used athletic tape to secure this to the underside of his stomach. “When the guards at the stadium frisk you,” the man explained, “they never touch your belly below the belt. They’d better not.”

The Zoo Is Closed

I loved this passage from Dash Lewis’ Pitchfork review of The War on Drugs’ new live album. It describes my favorite performance of theirs far better than I ever have. I will now go listen to it 18 times in a row…

The most surprising inclusion on LIVE DRUGS AGAIN is “Come To The City,” a Drughead favorite from 2011’s ~Slave Ambient~. On the album, Granduciel sounds as though he’s singing from the eye of a hurricane, a buzzing cloud of overlapping chords threatening to consume him whole. Live, the band plays like a slowly darkening sky, adding a new layer every few bars until it becomes a colossal, undulating mass…It’s a near-perfect distillation of the cosmic, psychedelic Americana that the War on Drugs has been honing for the past 15 years.

Live Drugs Again

Heroes.

Cards Against Humanity Sues Elon Musk For 15 Million Dollars

Weekend Notes

September 23, 2024 /

Another full-ish weekend, with most of our attention focused on the corrupt and disgraceful arena of sports. Sports suck.

Family

Let’s flip our normal order, though, and kick it off with family chat. M came home for the weekend. It was her first visit of the semester and nice to have her in the house for about 48 hours. She had no plans and mostly chilled on our couch while doing homework or taking naps. I told her to let me know if she was missing any specific meals and I would make them for dinner, but she never got around to picking something and/or we had other things going on, so she didn’t get any good home cooking. Which is kind of a bummer. That was always a highlight of trips home for me. This was also her first time coming-and-leaving on her own. When she left Sunday afternoon, S noted how it was nice that one of us wouldn’t spend the next five hours driving to Cincinnati, helping her get settled, then coming right back. Indeed.

Her classes are going well. Much harder than freshman year, since she’s in the business school now, but she’s working through it. Crazily, she showed me how she has her next two-and-a-half years completely planned out. Thanks to all the hours she took with her from high school, she can both spend a semester abroad and then do a co-op without taking any classes another semester and still graduate on time. We are also about to sign a lease for where she will live the next two years. Seems like she just started college and now we are about to lock up her housing up to graduation.

C had a quiet weekend, until she got sick Sunday night. She is home with me today. Fun.

L had a tryout for next year’s travel ball team yesterday. We think she’ll end up on the same team, or at least with the same coach and the same core players, she has been on. So this was more a required show your face type thing. She is really hoping that her old coach is allowed to keep the team together, because she didn’t feel very good yesterday either, and didn’t think she played very well.

High School Football

One reason we couldn’t do anything special for dinner for M Friday was that it was CHS’ homecoming, and the girls basketball team had a tailgate. S and I went and ate pizza and hung out with the girls and other parents for about 90 minutes. We came home after to hang with M. It was hot, the game was at Butler so our season passes didn’t work, and we knew it would be a blowout – CHS beat the school across the street from our house 53–13 – so we didn’t see any reason to stay.

That proved to be even smarter when our first rain in two weeks rolled in midway through the second half. There was lightning, of course, and the game got halted for about an hour. L was there with friends and they left to get ice cream then hang out at a friend’s house.

Jayhawks

This is why, as a KU fan, I should never, ever, ever have expectations when football season rolls around. In 44 years of being a KU fan, conditions have been right to have serious hopes, I’m talking potential conference championship game rather than just go to a bowl game, exactly twice in my life. Both times those expectations got blown out of the water before the season was even halfway finished.

This time it was allowing West Virginia to score 15 points in about 3:30 of game time in the fourth quarter. The defense was terrible, our two alleged all-conference cornerbacks getting roasted all day while the line couldn’t tackle anyone. Jalon Daniels struggled. Shocker. The play calling was odd, again. Yet the Jayhawks were up 11 with under 5:00 to play on the road, after a two-hour weather delay no less. Then they blew it.

While there was plenty to be mad about, and this game pretty much ruined my entire day since it took over five hours to complete and then I was pissed for the remainder of the night, all the attention goes to a couple coaching decisions. First, taking a delay of game penalty right before the weather delay and turning a 4th and 2 into 4th and 7 was idiotic. Especially when our punter hadn’t exactly been kicking the shit out of the ball. Then running to the short-side on the biggest play of the day, when a first down might ice the game, was criminal. As one West Virginia writer pointed out:

Kansas for the last hour: Succeeds for chunks of yards every time they run a speed option.
Kansas on the biggest 3rd down of the game: Let’s try something else.

Maddening.

Jalon missed some more throws that suggested to me he’s compensating for injury/weakness in his body. But the coaching staff had an entire summer to game plan around that, and apparently didn’t. Then they make dumb calls in the game’s biggest moments.

Just like the only other time I had big expectations going into the season – 2009 – this season has quickly gone to shit. Now, the Illinois loss doesn’t look so bad after they won at Nebraska this week. And the remaining schedule is still relatively weak. Given how KU’s best players – aside from Devin Neal and Daniel Hishaw – and coaching staff have performed through the first four games, I don’t have much confidence things will improve. And next year we will roll out a team filled with freshmen and sophomores who haven’t played much…

Again, with Kansas football, it can, and almost always will, get worse. Can’t wait to see what this week brings.

Other College Games

Well, it’s started. All the weird, new conference games that a year ago would have been awesome non-con games. USC traveling to Michigan, for a tremendous game that went down to the final seconds. Tennessee going into Norman and slapping Oklahoma around, which was cathartic to this Big 12 fan. The games were good, but the vides were odd.

I read this weekend how UEFA adjusted how they schedule the Champions League this year, requiring the best teams to play more games against other strong teams. It is starting to feel like college football should do something like that. Just get rid of conferences and throw all the names into buckets based on preseason rankings, and try to make balanced schedules from that.

Here’s a wild bonus idea: Keep the schedules geographically logical, too. Nah, that’s crazy talk. Why would we want schools to play most of their games against rivals from neighboring states?

Colts

Hey, at least the Colts won! Not that they looked good doing it and didn’t try to give the game back to Chicago like three times.

Quarterbacks

Jalon Daniels has seven interceptions. Anthony Richardson has six. I’m falling out of love with the forward pass.

Fever

Like a lot of Indianapolis, at 3:00 eastern I switched from the ugly Colts game over to watch the Fever open their playoff series with the Connecticut Sun. That went well for one quarter, then it turned into a rout. The Sun kept big defenders on Caitlin Clark and made her life hell. CC and Kelsey Mitchell combining to shoot 4–23 from 3 did not help. We’ll see if they can regroup and adjust for game two and get the series back for the finale in Indy. The Sun have handled the Fever pretty easily all season, but it would be cool to steal game two and have the deciding game back here.

Royals

Man, you think KU had a bad week, go check out what the Royals did. Six straight losses. At home. A 13–1 collective shellacking to the Giants over the weekend. Now somehow tied with Detroit, DETROIT, for the second/third Wild Card spots with Minnesota just a game back, and Seattle a game behind the Twins. Detroit closes the season with three against the pitiful White Sox, so they have effectively locked up one of those two spots.

A week ago the Royals had a five-game cushion over the seventh place spot, with a 99% chance of making the postseason. This morning that percentage has dropped to 69% (per Fangraphs). If Minnesota wasn’t nearly as cold as the Royals those odds would be even lower.

Maybe the bats will wake up this week. Or the pitching will do enough to get the R’s to the playoffs and then the bats will wake up. Sure doesn’t look promising this morning.

Weather

Mother Nature finally flipped the switch Sunday and our heat wave broke. Rain moved in midday Sunday, with heavier showers in the evening, and the temps have dropped 10–15 degrees from where they had been. The forecast has highs in the mid-upper 70s with cool nights. Just about perfect.

We put the Halloween decorations out Saturday. The holidays are getting close.

Friday Playlist

September 20, 2024 /

It’s been a good week or two and my new music folder is getting filled up again, making it more difficult to pick what to share than to scare up enough songs to share. It helps we have an anniversary song, an old song that is new to me, a new version of an old song, and a calendar song all in this week’s PL.

“September” – Earth, Wind & Fire
It’s that time of year, y’all!

“BLACK DOG / WHITE HOUSE” – BIG SPECIAL
ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME!!!! Despite being about deep depression and all that comes with it, this is a pretty cool song.

“Crystals” – Sea Lemon featuring Benjamin Gibbard
A near-perfect modern shoegaze track, and Gibbard’s contribution surprisingly excellent.

“Hard to Accept” – Trace Mountains
“Eating the Whole Egg” – Wild Pink
These two The War on Drugs adjacent bands continue to impress with advance tracks from their new albums. Each of these hits a different side of the TWOD sound here. Trace Mountains release their album next Friday, Wild Pink the week after that. Good fall music.

“NEW MOON (DARK PHASE)” – Duran Duran
Again with the CAPS. While making their upcoming album, DD messed around with this classic, adjusting it to fit the sound of their new music. I’m not sure if I like it that much – “New Moon on Monday” is my favorite of their songs – but when the second chorus hits, I admit it does get me interested. Andy Taylor, who is no longer officially part of the group, contributed to this track. I don’t know if that means they used something he played on the original or he actually re-recorded something for them.

“Alligator” – Of Monsters and Men
I heard this sometime this week on The Bridge and was bummed to learn that it is five years old, and not a new song that they will be playing a lot.

“Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)” – Arcade Fire
Twenty years ago this week AF released their debut album Funeral. When I listed my ten most influential albums during Covid, it was on there. It was the first album of the MP3 Blog era that I discovered via the new wave of music websites. There are better songs on the disk. But this was the one that appeared on pretty much every music site that fall. When you would scroll through sites like The MP3 Machine, that aggregated what dozens/hundreds of blogs were posting, this showed up over-and-over. It took me a while to get into it, but eventually it clicked with me and led me to getting Funeral later in 2004.

“Strut” – Sheena Easton
I’ve been reluctant to include any ’84 videos from songs I’ve written about in RFTS. But this week the pickings were a little slim and this became my default selection. At #40, on its way to #7. I looked ahead, and starting next week through the end of the year, pretty much every week has some amazing choices. There are a couple weeks where I may have to double-up because there are three legendary songs in the bottom ten. Our late summer lull is over!

Reader’s Notebook, 9/19/24

September 19, 2024 /

Trust Her – Flynn Berry
Three years ago I read Berry’s A Northern Spy, about an unaffiliated Northern Irish woman, Tessa, who gets pulled into the conflict between the IRA and British authorities because of her sister.

In this follow up, set a few years later, the siblings are settled in Dublin where they have carved out new lives with new identities. Until the IRA finds Tessa and threatens her family unless she attempts to turn the British agent she worked for when she was still in the North.

Much of the book progresses without much happening, just the slow building of pressure on Tessa. I wondered if Berry was making a statement more about the stresses people involved in the conflict lived with rather than writing a more straight-forward thriller. Then she threw a couple twists into the final fifth or so of the book that picked up the pace and gave it a more traditional feel.

I guess that ending was needed. After finishing I wondered if a book with a messier, open ending would have been more effective. I liked the idea of nothing ever truly being resolved during The Troubles. Each kidnapping and bombing and death led to another, then another. Each time the situation around you calmed down, there was sure to be some retaliatory act that would ratchet events back up again.

Eye of the Needle – Ken Follett
I remember seeing this book a lot as a kid, but never read it until now, after finding it on a list of best espionage novels ever written. After finishing it, hard to believe I put it off so long.

Set during World War II, it is the twin tale of a German spy embedded in Britain and the agents tasked with tracking him down. The chase picks up steam in the weeks before D-Day, when the spy discovers the true location of the Allied landing and attempts to get photographic evidence back to his superiors in Germany. There’s a rather unlikely but entertaining climax to his efforts in which a regular citizen is responsible for his failure. The entire plot is a bit by-the-numbers, but it is always entertaining, and ultimately works.

As the book was written in 1978 and set in the 1940s, I wondered if it would feel a bit off in tone. With the exception of a couple brief passages, which I think were reflective of how people would have talked during the war, I was surprised that the book did not feel out-of-date or fashion at all.

World Within A Song – Jeff Tweedy

Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back) – Jeff Tweedy
I’ve been a casual fan of Wilco, with occasional moments of greater interest, for a little over 20 years. I am most fond of the music they made from 1999 to 2004; hot-and-cold with them at other times.

When we had friends over a few weeks ago, I talked books with one guest. He asked if I had ever read any of Jeff Tweedy’s books. When I said no, he said he bet I would enjoy them, no matter how much I listened to Wilco’s music. He had just read World Within A Song and suggested I start there.

So I did, and read it in two days. And immediately got Tweedy’s proper memoir and read it in two days. Dude can write more than a good song.

World Within A Song is a list of both songs that have influenced him, for better or worse, over his life and little snippets of observations about touring or life. It was not what I was expecting. He is all over the place in his song choices. He writes about music from artists like The Minutemen, The Clash, Bob Dylan, The Replacements, etc that he loves and influenced what he wrote. He also includes tracks from artists like Leo Sayer and Judy Garland that bring back memories of his parents. And traditional stuff like “The Star Spangled Banner” and “Happy Birthday,” songs we have all heard a million times in our lives that he kind of hates.

Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back) is a straight autobiography, beginning with his childhood. He covers his discovery of music both as a listener and artist; his days in Uncle Tupelo and how he and Jay Farrar grew apart; the formation of Wilco, the addition and later firing of Jay Bennett from that band, and Wilco eventually leaving the major label world; his opioid addiction and recovery; how he met his wife, her cancer battles, and how they started a family; the deaths of his parents; and his fights with the recording industry. Pretty much everything. You always question how honest and accurate books like these truly are, but this seems like a warts-and-all accounting. I’m not sure if Farrar, Bennett’s family, or some of the other people Tweedy had conflicts with would agree with everything. But a book like this can only have one perspective.

What made me read these both in four days is that Tweedy is a terrific writer. Funny, eloquent, and open. He shares some pretty horrific, cruel stuff he did in his years as an addict without much filter. He doesn’t mince many words when he discusses his conflicts with Farrar and Bennett. You don’t necessarily admire him for every step he’s taken in his career, but you understand the bigger context they came in. He also gets deep into how he makes music and how that has changed over his career. Wilco has taken many hard left turns over their 30-years together. The songs covered in World Within A Song and events in Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back) help those diversions make a lot more sense.

Wednesday Links

September 18, 2024 /

Today’s first selection is a must-read for any fan of Prince, music in general, or celebrity in America. It is a deep examination of Ezra Edelman’s attempt to make a massive, nine-hour documentary about Prince’s life and death, and how changes in ownership of Prince’s estate may keep anyone from ever seeing it.

I understand Prince’s family wanting to protect his image. I think they are way off base, though, in believing that letting the world see this film would result in the interest in his music disappearing. The film would just confirm what I think most people already knew/suspected about his life and behavior. Hell, in his own auto-biographical movie, the one that made him a mega-star, he confirmed a lot of this. Oh well. Hopefully, eventually there will be a resolution and the public will be able to see the entire doc, not some watered-down version that his estate tears the most interesting and human bits out of.

“How can you tell the truth about someone who, when you’re talking to people, they all had different things to say?” Edelman told me. “How can you tell the truth about someone who never told the truth about himself?”

The Prince We Never Knew

As mentioned some time back in a Friday Playlist, the upcoming Japandroids album will be their final act as a duo, bringing to an end one of the more uncommon arcs in recent rock history.

Ian Cohen got a very rare, extended visit with the band and breaks down the band’s history, how sobriety and distance made it difficult to continue as an act, and why there will be no tour for the final album.

At this point, it dawns on me that the Japandroids album covers are unwittingly telling the story of the band in real time. From the fraternal embrace on Post-Nothing, they grow increasingly distant but still shoulder-to-shoulder. On the Fate & Alcohol shot, Prowse is slightly blurred and further in the background. Painful and possibly unintentional as this symbolism is, it’s still hard to overlook.

The Boys Are Leaving Town: The Final Days Of Japandroids

The Onion will always Onion.

“Oh wow. I thought Brittany Mahomes was joking when she said she’d see me again soon.”

Horrified Taylor Swift Realizes Football Happens Every Year

This post was going to be exclusively music related links until I saw this bit of breaking Voyager 1 news this morning. Our little scientific miracle chugs on.

47-year-old Voyager 1 spacecraft just fired up thrusters it hasn’t used in decades

Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 103

September 17, 2024 /

Chart Week: September 7, 1985
Song: “Cry” – Godley & Creme
Chart Position: #24, 8th week on the chart. Peaked at #16 the week of October 5.

Every decade is filled with unlikely hits. In the Eighties, the best way to force your way into the Top 40 was by making a video that was unique and memorable.

That’s how Englishmen Godley & Creme earned their only hit as a duo in the US.

Kevin Godley and Lol Creme[1] first met in the late 1950s and began making music together almost immediately. They were partners in several groups, eventually landing in 10cc. They were part of the 10cc roster when that band had its biggest American single, the 1975 dreamy masterpiece “I’m Not In Love,” which peaked at #2 on the Hot 100.

The duo left 10cc in 1976 to work on their own. They managed to churn out a couple minor UK hits but had no luck in America. However, as Casey shared during this countdown, Godley & Creme weren’t limited to just making records.

Beginning in 1977, they experimented with video to supplement their music. Turned out the lads had some skills crafting images for the small screen. Soon they were making videos for other artists. Notable G&C works included Duran Duran’s “Girls On Film” and “A View To A Kill;” Asia’s “Heat of the Moment” and “Only Time Will Tell;” Elton John’s “Kiss the Bride;” and Artists Against Apartheid’s “Sun City.”[2]

They were most famous for three other pieces.

In 1983 they directed the wild video for Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit.” Without that video, there was no way white, suburban kids like me would have ever heard a Herbie Hancock song without having a really cool uncle.[3] Later that year, the stark, art-house cinema influenced piece for The Police’s mega-smash “Every Breath You Take” was also a G&C joint.[4] The partners earned a stack of awards for those two projects. Casey described to their work as “unusual, complex videos.” I like that. He was calling them artsy, but doing so in a way that wouldn’t put regular folks off.

Then, in 1985, came the video for their single “Cry.”

In that piece, Godley & Creme used the relatively new technique of morphing – the dissolving of one image into another – to blend the faces of various people singing “Cry.” It was a startling effect that helped it stand out from the other videos on MTV at the time, and I’m 100% sure it was almost solely responsible for the song’s success.

Godley said the track’s basic lyrics led them to selecting the visuals for the video.

“It occurred to us that the song itself is a kind of song that anyone can sing,” Godley told Songfacts. “So, we thought, why not do just that? Find a load of interesting faces, including ourselves of course, get them in the studio and get them to lip sync to the song and see what happens, which is precisely what we did.”

A few years later John Landis used the same effect, with a bigger budget and more advanced, digital processing, in the short film for Michael Jackson’s “Black Or White.”

I say the single was successful because of the video. That does not mean that the song itself isn’t good. Musically, it has a cool, sensual swagger countered by dark, ominous undertones. It could easily be the score to a Cinemax movie about a private detective who gets involved with the woman he’s supposed to be investigating, only for things to get really messy. I’m thinking she turns up dead, he’s framed for it, and has to prove it was her ex or something along those lines. You know what else it sounds perfect for? Soundtracking a key, dramatic scene in an episode of Miami Vice. Oh, hey, guess what? That’s exactly what happened!

Godley’s vocals are also layered in significance. If you don’t listen to his words, you might think he was trying to seduce someone through his casual tone. The lyrics, though, are far more bitter than his voice suggests. The words aren’t Shakespearean, but they are exceptionally effective. The listener knows someone has done damage to him. The vocal outro, featuring Godley’s processed, freaked-out, falsetto screams, borders on melodramatic yet serves as the perfect ending statement. It is the only part of the music that has the same impact as the video. Just like that ex-lover who gets under your skin, so too does this song. 7/10

In a huge coincidence, M. Ward just released a cover of “Cry” on his new album.

  1. Lol. LOL.  ↩

  2. There were two other songs in this week’s countdown that featured videos produced and/or directed by Godley & Creme: Sting’s “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free,” and Howard Jones’ “Life In One Day.”  ↩

  3. I did have a couple cool uncles, but they got me into artists like Boston, Loverboy, Journey, and Hall & Oates. Not exactly earth-shattering stuff.  ↩

  4. Billboard’s #1 song of 1983. I think it probably would have done just fine without the video, although it was nearly as inescapable on MTV as the song was on the radio.  ↩

Weekend Notes

September 16, 2024 /

As has become standard so far this fall, Friday night was jam-packed with sports action from the couch. Things were ratcheted up a notch this weekend, as KU was playing, meaning I couldn’t casually watch tennis, baseball, or basketball while listening to high school football. No, this week I would be yelling at the TV while listening to the radio. Sadly, more yelling than I expected. For the most part that worked out ok, although there were moments that big things were happening in each game at the same time and it was tough to keep track of what was going on where. It was also very confusing for S, who was facing away from the TV and didn’t always understand what was causing my outburst when the radio announcers were fairly quiet.

There was plenty of dumbness over the weekend, with some cool stuff sprinkled in. Let’s get to it.

HS Football

On the radio was Cathedral’s visit to arch rival Bishop Chatard, ranked either #1 or #2 in 4A, depending on the poll. CHS had won eight of the last ten in the series, but last year was one of those losses in the weird, split game that started on Friday (and CHS led 21–0 early) then ended with BC making a comeback Saturday morning after the game was halted because of a power outage Friday.

No worries this year. CHS jumped out 14–0 and never let up, winning 30–7. It could/should have been an even bigger win. The Irish had three touchdowns, including a 66-yard pass, called back because of penalties. Two of those turned into 10 points anyway. The kicker missed a makable field goal, then put what would have been a school-record 51-yard field goal off the crossbar at the halftime horn. Still, always satisfying to beat the rival, especially for the girls who have friends there. L went to the JV game on Saturday, another W for the Irish.

The CHS radio guys were hilarious. Both analysts played for the Irish, one graduating about 20 years ago, the other over 50 years ago. They were a little fired up for the rivalry game. They thought each penalty that wiped out a TD was garbage. They show more uncalled holds than usual. By the fourth quarter they were screaming at the refs from the press box. And this was in a game their team was winning! I was entertained.

KU

Welp, so much for all the big plans for this year.

I would have written a lot more about this game had I taken a crack at it Friday. Some seriously dumb coaching decisions. Any hopes that Jeff Grimes would step right in for Andy Kotelnicki have been dashed. I mean, how you don’t give Devin Neal, who averaged almost six yards a carry on the night and is averaging nine yards a carry for the season, the ball on second and two and instead throw a pass that has not worked all night when another touchdown likely wins the game is beyond me. The KU offense, which would get all kinds of run on football Twitter the past couple years for how innovative and fun it was, is now boring and can’t adjust. Hiring Grimes is the first big mistake of Lance Leipold’s time in Lawrence. I feel like he could have grabbed some OC from a Texas high school and got better results.

Aside from one exceptionally dumb play by the defense that could have ended the game – the fumble they kicked around for 30 seconds before UNLV fell on it – they were, mostly, amazing. Especially the front seven, which was not expected to be a strength. Two weeks in a row they’ve controlled the game and been let down by the offense/coaches.

Losing a contest that, after the game, the analytics gave the Jayhawks an 83% chance to win seems dumb even for a program with as much dumbness in its history as KU has. Something about the entire team seems off. The last two years it seemed more like a Mangino-era team that rarely did things to beat themselves. Through three games they seem sloppier and less disciplined than the past two years. That is true from the coaches through the players. Not what I expected from a head coach wound as tight as Leipold.

The headline has to be Jalon Daniels, though. Clearly he’s compromised. Whether it is physical, mental, a matter of meshing with Grimes, or some combination of those three, it’s not working. Bad throw after bad throw. Terrible decisions. Seeming confused rather than playing with the joy he used to take the field with. Maybe he can be fixed/salvaged/cajoled into better football, but it needs to happen quick if that is a genuine possibility.

There was a lot of call on Twitter to bring in Cole Ballard. Friday didn’t seem like the time to do that. If things go sideways in Morgantown this week, it might be time to give JD a break.

You would have thought it was a KU basketball loss for how long the angry, post-game texts flew around after this one.

Technically, a lot of the big goals for this season are still possible. They could still make the Big 12 championship game if the offense gets fixed in the next, gulp, five days. At this point I’m more worried about finding five more wins and going to another crappy bowl than any of that. After blowing two winnable games, I don’t have a lot of confidence those W’s are on the remaining schedule. Playing the Big 12 home games at Arrowhead always had a measure of risk. If this team falls apart and no one is there – aside from the entire state of Iowa when the Clones come to town – it will make this season seem even worse. Remember, with Kansas football, things can always get worse.

We all know timeouts in college are too long. But KU called a timeout with under 2:00 to play in the game Friday just to stop the clock. It was a standard, FOUR MINUTE time out. Just fucking terrible. Even in the NFL, which will cram as many ads into a game as they can, they limit those late game TOs to 30 seconds or a minute.

College Football

I didn’t watch much ball on Saturday as I found few of the games compelling. The game I watched most was Cincinnati-Miami. M made the 45 minute trip to Oxford to hang out with friends but did not have a ticket. She did get to go to a party with one of her best friends and said she had a great time and enjoyed all Oxford has to offer. Nice win for her Bearcats.

The Victory Bell rivalry is tied for the oldest non-conference rivalry in the country, but this was the last game scheduled to be played on campus, and the 2026 game at the Bengals’ stadium is the last one currently scheduled. When I talked to M on Sunday I tried to explain why – UC wants the games at the Bengals’ field instead of having to go to Oxford, Miami wanted to hang onto those home games, joining the Big 12 changed UC’s scheduling priorities, etc – but she thought most of those reasons were dumb. I’m with her.

S and I went out for an early dinner and got to see part of Notre Dame’s destruction of Purdue. I guess the Irish got re-focused after the Northern Illinois loss.

Colts

So the Colts might be a bad team. A really bad team. GM Chris Ballard insisted the defense would be solid this year, especially against the run. Then the Colts gave up over 250 yards rushing in the first half against a team starting a backup QB that was only going to pass if he had to. Seems dumb not to load up the box and force him to pass. And that was before two defensive linemen got hurt. I refuse to hold Anthony Richardson’s dumbness against him until next year. But something about his passes seems hard to catch, because his receivers dropped a ton of balls that hit their hands. Weird. Those drops make his poor decision making on other passes hurt even worse. And still the Colts had a chance until the final gun. They were fortunate the final score wasn’t more indicative how big a beat down this was.

The Cowboys, Lions, and Ravens all lost at home. The Niners lost. Aside from the Chiefs, who nearly lost at home, do you trust a single team in this league? I’m starting to think the uneven play is a function of teams barely playing starters in the preseason and the added week to the regular season making teams/players more cautious in how they handle injuries. But that’s crazy talk, right?

Twitter During Games

It is funny to look back on your feed at how people react to specific plays. When KU ran that stupid screen pass on second and two in the fourth quarter? People were pissed. And remained pissed well after the game ended. Same in the Colts game. There was a rather curious play call on a third down – something that happened several times during the game – and Colts Twitter, to the extent I follow it, blew up. My favorite was one of our young, local weather ladies getting involved. “What was that play call????” It shows how far we’ve come as a society where it’s not a surprise at all when a young woman has a football take, and it’s 100% legit.

Royals

The R’s took two of three in Pittsburgh, and really should have swept the woeful Pirates. Five games up for the final Wild Card spot with 12 games left. A better record over the last 10 games than both the team ahead of them and behind them in the WC race. 97% playoff odds. A clinched winning season. All summer I’ve been waiting for them to fall apart. It would really suck if they finally did it during this closing stretch.

Fever

Another Friday-Sunday weekend for the Fever. Friday they lost their second game in three nights to Las Vegas, this one much more competitive than the first. I checked on that game periodically but there was too much else going on for me to really follow it.

Sunday they closed their home schedule against Dallas. For some reason the game was only on locally on some third-tier station. One that, even on cable, looked piped in on some terrible, over-the-air antenna. The picture was all fuzzy and blurry. It was like trying to watch European soccer in the 1980s. Pretty sure this wouldn’t happen to the Pacers.

Anyway, for the third time this season the Fever and Wings played a tremendously exciting game, with the Fever winning by one, although Dallas hit an unguarded 3 at the buzzer. These teams tend to not play defense against each other, so it is back-and-forth, up-and-down the entire game. That win clinched sixth place for the Fever, and also guaranteed them at least a .500 season. Twenty wins two years after winning five. Not bad. Caitlin had a career-high 35 points Sunday, and broke the WNBA single season assist record Friday.[1] She also collected her sixth technical foul of the year Friday. Her teammates were keeping her away from the refs Sunday so she doesn’t get magic #7, which brings a one-game suspension with it. Maybe just stop complaining.

Weather

Still hot and dry here. I’ve been watering the grass a couple times a week for about a month. Despite that, our lawn got pretty crunchy over the past few days. We were hoping the hurricane remnants would bring us some rain last week, but that fizzled out in southern Indiana. No rain in the forecast, every day in the upper 80s. At least the pool is still open, and staying warm on its own.

  1. The WNBA schedule expanded to 40 games last year, so a lot of season records have been falling. They may add another four games next year, so throw out your record books.  ↩
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