D's Notebook

Month: December 2024 (Page 1 of 2)

Christmas Week Notes

December 30, 2024 /

We had a pretty good holiday week. Lots of good times and good food with family. The weather was mostly decent, dreary but unseasonably warm all week. There was some good basketball.

The only bummer was I caught cold #1 of the season last weekend and it wore me down several days. Christmas Day and the day after were when I felt the worst, which kind of sucked. Luckily on the scale of worst colds I’ve ever had, this was maybe a 5, so more annoying that truly debilitating. Adding insult to injury, between cold meds, congestion, and the occasional afternoon caffeine boost, my sleep schedule got all jacked up. Fortunately I don’t have much that I’m required to do in the mornings right now so it’ll work itself out. Just super annoying to have to crawl out of bed after tossing and turning for 90 minutes to read for another hour in an attempt to reset my brain.

Holiday Celebrations

Because of our schedule last week, we upset the biggest of our holiday traditions.

With our Denver family arriving Christmas Eve night, we decided to let our girls open their presents on Christmas Eve. The only catch was S had to work until 3:00 that day, and our Christmas Eve gathering began at 5:00. So the girls had “Christmas” at 4:00 Tuesday afternoon. A little weird but I don’t think the girls minded.

M and L both got new shoes and pants. M got perfume and a fancy purse. L got a makeup mirror and some of her favorite beauty products. C was the tech kid this year, receiving an electric vest, an electric blanket, a new speaker, and an Apple Watch. They all seemed pleased. But they got what they asked for, so it would be dumb if they weren’t happy.

Onto S’s sister’s house for our annual Christmas Eve gathering. This year there was a Mexican theme for the food, which you can never go wrong with. Feliz Navidad! After S was off to the airport to pick up her sister and family.

Christmas morning was kind of chill without presents. As usual we hosted brunch and the day-long gathering that followed. I believe we were around 23 for food, then a few left for other events and one sister-in-law joined later in the day. The kids played games and colored ornaments and there was plenty of general family hanging out.

Thursday was our nephew’s 15th birthday, so much of the family went to Top Golf to celebrate. That was mostly about the kids, as we had way too many people for our space and had to send some of the adults inside so we didn’t get yelled at. The kids had fun, which was all that mattered.

Friday evening was a mom’s night out, so three of my brothers-in-law and I managed the kids at our house. I had a huge box of Joe’s Barbecue from a friend in Kansas City that I shared. I think all the little kids loved the ribs, brisket, and burnt ends as much as the dads. There was a lot of kid-uncle wrestling and general mayhem without the moms around.

The weekend was more chill. Our guests made the rounds visiting some other family then flew back to Denver in the evening. Sunday we took it easy, straightening up a bit but are saving most of the cleaning and taking-down of decorations for next weekend. M had some friends over and L went to a gift exchange party.

We also mixed in some movies and watching sports in there as well.

Probably too many details, but I know a lot of you expect such a breakdown after a big week, even if you don’t know many, or even any, of the other participants in our holiday activities.

HS Hoops

A terrific weekend for the Irish. They played in a holiday tournament in eastern Indiana. I wouldn’t say it was the strongest field of all the various holiday tournaments that ran over the weekend, but there were a few other decent teams, including the host squad, who were undefeated and ranked #2 in 2A. And we opened against the #12 2A team.[1] Remember, we lost to the #9 2A team two weeks ago by 13, so just because we’re 3A doesn’t mean we were the pre-tourney favorites.

In Friday’s first game, we beat the #12 team by 11 in a sloppy game. Later that evening we beat a solid 1A team by 12. As we had company, I was not able to go, but the games were streamed and I watched most of them. It was funny to blow my eight-year-old niece’s mind by saying the names of the players. “Wait, you know their names? How?!?!”

Saturday I did drive over for the championship game against, as expected, the 15–0 host Knights. They had a very poor strength of schedule rating, but 15–0 is 15–0. And they were ranked ahead of the team that beat us, so they must be good, right?

Well…

We were up 16–11 after one period and seemed to be getting a nice rhythm going. A few minutes into the second quarter their big girl, who was their only hope on offense, got her second foul and had to sit. Next thing you knew it was halftime and we were up by 21. We just destroyed those girls, carving up their zone and absolutely shutting down their offense. It was fun to watch.

In the second half, NHS stayed in their sagging zone and our girls were actually patient for the first time maybe ever. Our first three possessions of the third quarter took nearly four minutes off the clock as we passed and cut and waited for the defense to come out before getting open drives to the rim.

I think NHS might have gotten the lead down to 17 once, or maybe just 18, but for most of the second half it was between 25–30. We ended up winning by 31. If I’m looking at the records right, it was CHS’ first holiday tournament championship since December 2016. Good times and made for a happy bus ride home!

A true bonus was that L was included in the travel squad. The girls that traveled bussed over Thursday evening and spent the night at a hotel since their first game Friday was in the morning. They bussed back to Indy that night, then over again for the championship game Saturday evening. L thought she was included because she would have been on the travel roster if she was healthy. I thought it was a reward for her going to every practice and being the loudest girl on the bench during her six week absence. Or it could have just been because they only took two JV players and had room for one more girl in the hotel rooms. Or maybe a combination of all that. Regardless, it was fun she got to travel with the team, sit on the bench, and be in the postgame celebration and pictures. Varsity is now 9–6 with a week off before their next game.

Colts

Jesus…

I think it’s time for big changes in this organization. Playing against the worst team in the NFL, the New York Giants, losers of nine-straight, the Colts looked uninterested and unprepared. They gave up more points than the Giants had scored in their previous three games combined. They gave up big play after big play, including a kickoff return for a touchdown immediately after halftime. The defense missed easy tackles. Jonathan Taylor racked up a lot of yards again, but also made a few more grievous errors you just don’t make if you’re a professional who cares about the result of the game. There was even controversy about Anthony Richardson despite him not playing. After the game it was revealed that the true nature of his back injury hadn’t been shared, which led to questions about whether he was as injured as the team suggested.

It seems like everyone on this team has checked out. It’s time to pull the plug and start over. Clean out the front office and coaching staff. Trade some pieces to try to move up and grab a quarterback again, or begin the tanking process to land a high pick in the 2026 draft. Nothing they are trying is working and there’s no need to stay on the current path.

I moved to Indy in Peyton Manning’s sixth season. That year they made the playoffs for what turned out to be the second time in a nine-year span they did not miss the post season. Following the bridge year between Manning and Andrew Luck, they made the playoffs three straight times, capping that run with a loss to New England in the AFC title game. It seemed like the Colts would always be great.

Then Luck got hurt for the first time and, well, you know what happened next.

Amazingly the franchise has reached the playoffs just twice in the last decade. That doesn’t seem possible in the modern NFL, where teams go from drafting in the top ten to making the playoffs constantly. Especially playing in the AFC South. There have only been two truly bad seasons in there, both four win campaigns. Even this year the Colts could end up with eight wins.

What was once one of the most well-run and successful franchises in the NFL is now thoroughly mediocre on the field and a mess off it. Yes, having an all-time great quarterback papers over a lot of issues. I’m not sure the franchise has had much of a plan since Luck’s sudden, surprise retirement, though. And you still hear his departure as an excuse when the front office is criticized. Luck hasn’t played since 2018. It might be time to move on and figure some shit out.

Pacers

Hey, the Pacers had a nice little run going, sweeping their West Coast trip before coming home and blowing a lead late against Oklahoma City. That was a bummer but OKC is one of the two, three best teams in the league.

Then they got destroyed by the Celtics Friday. Like Colts losing to the Giants bad.

Their reward was getting to stay in Boston and take another crack at the C’s Sunday.

Guess what? They somehow fixed all their issues and led Boston wire-to-wire for a solid win. Andrew Nembhard did not play Friday, he did play Sunday. I’m not sure he’s worth 46 points, but it worked Sunday.

  1. There were teams from all four clases in the bracket.  ↩

Favorite Songs of 2024

December 29, 2024 /

It’s taken a little longer than normal – I am almost certain this is the latest in the calendar year I’ve ever posted it – but at last I can reveal my 20 favorite songs of the year.

This year I’ve had the the least enthusiasm I can recall about the process.[1] Usually I’ll dive into the songs in mid-fall and slowly get obsessed with the list, or at least with certain songs on it. For a week or two these will be the only songs I listen to. I never caught that fever this year. The top 5–8 songs seemed locked in, in some order, but the rest just couldn’t get my juices flowing. At one point I thought about doing only a top 10, but eventually my interest revived enough to settle on 20 songs. Still, it feels like a year where there isn’t a ton of difference between songs 11 and 30-whatever.

I realize I’m not making the best pitch for you to devote time to reading my thoughts and reviewing these songs. I apologize and ensure you it will be worth your time. At least the listening part!

20 – “Glass” – Glom
I nearly bumped this song because it is freaking impossible to search for information on this band in general and song in particular. Every search engine wants to spit out lists of the greatest Glam bands of all time. Not what I was looking for. Fortunately for Glom, the song is so pretty and fun I couldn’t resist it.

19 – “Field Recordings” – Restorations
These guys show up every 4–6 years with another B+/A- album that carries the banner for great, listenable, straight-ahead rock music. They make the wait worth it each time.

18 – “In A Dream” – Trace Mountains
Maybe a little shared DNA between this track and a few The War on Drugs tracks that leverage an insistent, mechanical, Krautrock rhythm section to propel the song forward.

17 – “Blue Skies” – Finnoguns Wake
Every year-end list needs a certified ripper. Here is 2024’s.

16 – “Kiss Me (Kill Me)” – RINSE featuring Hatchie
If Hatchie puts out music, she makes the list. That’s one of the 157 rules that govern these annual collections. An interesting twist to this year’s entry, as she provides the vocals for her husband’s project.

In a year that had a ton of great fourth (fifth? sixth?) wave shoegaze songs, this one, which leans more dream pop than shoegaze, hit the hardest with me.

15 – “Philosophy” – Middle Kids
Hey, three straight Aussie acts!

As tends to happen these days, the two best songs of MK’s album Faith Crisis Pt 1 were released as advance singles in 2023 (“Highlands” was #6 on last year’s list). This was the highlight of the tracks that were new in ’24.

Also, I received a personal message from lead singer Hannah Joy as part of my Spotify Wrapped package for this year. Even though she didn’t address me by name, I know she recorded it just for me in appreciation for being an advocate for her band and one of their biggest listeners. So I’ve got that going for me. Which is nice.

14 – “The Howl” – Crowded House
The current CH lineup is 3/5 Kiwi, 1/5 Aussie, and 1/5 American. So our Down Under run continues. Kind of. What the heck is going on here?

Neil Finn’s music has gone adrift a bit over the last decade, at least to my fanboy ears. He still makes nice enough records, but they lack singles loaded with the perfect pop punch present in his greatest songs.

When he reconvened Crowded House for their latest album, he added his sons Liam and Elroy to the lineup on guitar and drums respectively. Liam wrote this track, and while the lyrics are a little more artsy and ambiguous than his dad’s – I’ve always thought Liam’s voice sounds like his dad’s but his music and lyrics land closer to his uncle Tim’s – he helps guide Pops back to the sonic pocket he spent so much of his career in.

13 – Slugger – SASAMI
SASAMI is one of the more interesting people making music these days, combining about as wide a range of influences as you can imagine, from Korean folk to singer-songwriter ballads to metal. Here she comes close to, but does not quite reach, Crying In The Club Songs By Robyn territory.

12 – “Tonight (Was A Long Time Ago)” – Jack White
One of THE musical highlights of 2024 was White’s surprise, No Name album. First given free to customers at his two stores who bought other albums, it was later made available to fans everywhere via a series of semi-cryptic clues online that lead to a free download site. A week later it landed on proper streaming services and in traditional record stores. White-heads like me spent a couple weeks blasting this return to the music that first made him famous: roaring, bluesy, raw, riffy-as-hell garage rock. It wasn’t a full recreation of the White Stripes sound, and Meg was not behind the drum kit, but it was pretty damn close.

11 – “Old Tape” – Lucius featuring Adam Granduciel
No official new music from The War on Drugs in 2024. And it may be some time before they get around to it, given their touring schedule for 2025.[2] Adam Granduciel did help out his pals Lucius with backing vocals and guitar on this lovely song about shutting down the voices of doubt in your head and forging ahead.

10 – “Superstar” – Hinds
Summer time. Car windows down. A pissed off driver, thanks to a crush revealing their true nature. A song comes on the radio and the driver starts singing along. They sing louder and louder. Soon they are shouting. Then the tears come. Now they are screaming. By the end of the song the driver is laughing, wiping the tears away, and realizing that despite hurt, they are better without that asshole in their lives.

9 – “Docket” – Blondshell featuring Bully
There are a million – million and one? – songs about music groupies. Not many of them have come from the perspective of a female artist. This one is more about the difficulty of keeping a relationship back home when you are a traveling musician than the random hookups on the road themselves.

Last year Bully made the list with help from Soccer Mommy. This year she lends guest vocals to a friend’s track, a true banger.

8 – “Sage” – Sun June
Via the Duck Assist AI tool on the Duck Duck Go search engine:

Burning sage, also known as smudging, is an ancient spiritual ritual that involves the burning of sage or other sacred herbs to purify a space, release negative energy, and promote healing.

We need a fuck-ton of sage in this country. And more songs as gorgeous as this one. The post-chorus/outro section is the most beautiful 90 seconds of music made this year.

This was the annual track that really grabbed me over the last two months and climbed from the bottom of the list to the top half.

7 – “Wildflowers” – Jim Nothing
Clean, pure, jangle pop that sounds like a warm spring day. You can draw a straight line from The Byrds to R.E.M. to this song. It made me about as happy as any song in the last quarter of the year, a period when I needed things to make me happy. Also, our second New Zealand act.

6 – “3 Sisters” – Waxahatchee
Katie Crutchfield has always had a presence. There’s a quality to her voice that defies pinning down and appeals to me despite its pronounced twang. On her latest album, Tiger’s Blood, she completed a transition that began with her last album. She sounds bigger, stronger, more confident than ever. She embraces her rural roots while keeping one toe firmly planted in the indie rock world. That comes across most clearly on a song like this, where the restraint she sings with makes her seem even more powerful than when she’s emoting with all her might. Tiger’s Blood was not my favorite album of the year (it was in the running,). But it likely was the best one I listened to all year.

Bonus points for the title. Not sure if any of my girls have heard this song, let alone enjoy it, but I like that it makes me think of them.

5 – “She’s Leaving You” – MJ Lenderman
Man, did the music critics love Lenderman’s album Manning Fireworks. It is at or near the top of every Best Of list I’ve read this month. I gave it a shot; it wasn’t for me. Too twangy and Appalachian for my tastes. This song, though? Incredible. Absolutely incredible.

BTW, Lenderman appeared on Waxahatchee’s album, and served as opening act for her tour.

4 – “Gift Horse” – IDLES
When I first heard this, especially the closing lines, I was pumped for another pointed, anti-establishment track from my favorite rabble rousing band of the moment. Then I read an interview with lead singer Joe Talbot in which he said it is about how grateful he is to be a father, how much he loves his daughter, and how he wanted to write “a beast of a tune” about her. That puts the final line in a total different context.

Fuck the King
He ain’t the King
She’s the King

Mission accomplished.

3 – “The Fences Of Stonehenge” – Wild Pink
John Ross has a gift for making hazy-yet-bright songs that hit me right in the core of what I love about music. Those big, layered, open chords on this track are pure magic.

2 – “Hawkmoon” – Hurray for the Riff Raff
A music critic at The Atlantic suggested that HFTRR’s album was the newest, great, American road trip album. That makes this the newest, great, American road trip song. A perfect, three-minute and forty-two second distillation of Alynda Segarra’s adventures as they navigated the artistic communities of New Orleans after running away from home in New York as a teen. This also contains my favorite lyric of the year:

I’m becoming the kind of girl they warned me about.

1 – “Wreckage” – Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam isn’t supposed to make new, great music anymore. Sure, they’ll put out a new album every 4–5–6 years that might include a couple decent songs. But those singles and the albums themselves generally fade from memory quickly. Their concerts are still incredible, but they had fallen into the Old Rock Band trap of being pulled in too many different directions and spending too little time together (and probably being too old) to create compelling new songs.

Until this year.

Producer Andrew Watt, who helped Eddie Vedder on his surprisingly great solo album two years ago, insisted the band record as they used to: in focused studio sessions playing live. Rather than spending months, or even years, making an album, Dark Matter was mostly assembled in a three-week stretch. The result was a tight, fierce, absolutely locked-in effort, their best album since at least 2006’s Pearl Jam, and possibly 1994’s Vitalogy.

This track was the clear standout. It does not compare, thematically, to some of PJ’s greatest songs. It’s about a relationship falling apart – standard old man rock stuff – rather than mentally ill homeless people, teens sent to mental hospitals against their will, school room suicides, serial killers, or how fame can overwhelm you. It is hopeful rather than hopeless. It is bright rather than dark. And the magnificent final 60 seconds? Maybe the most gorgeous 60 seconds in the entire PJ catalog. I listened to “Wreckage”” a million times this year and never got sick of it. For good reason it topped my Spotify Wrapped countdown. And this list.

  1. Somewhat similar to my lagging Christmas spirit. Maybe I need to look into those “booster” supplements Doug Flutie and Frank Thomas pimp on cable TV. “She’ll thank you, too!” Sorry, I know that’s gross. But still funny.  ↩
  2. They did drop another live album this year.  ↩

Weekend Notes

December 23, 2024 /

Christmas week has finally arrived! The countdown that begins sometime around October 1 in my mind is just about done.

Reading through old posts, I see I often updated you all on my state of holiday spirit. This has been a weird year for me. I’ve listened to less holiday music than anytime this century maybe? Don’t get me wrong, I’ve still listened to plenty, probably more than the average person. For the first time in ages, though, I don’t have a radio/speaker in the kitchen that has defaulted to holiday music every day since Thanksgiving. For some reason this year I’ve kept our kitchen music pointed elsewhere. And I haven’t listened to our local Christmas music station once.

I’m not sure why, either.

Weird for a guy who several times a year has a dream that he made it to Christmas day without listening to all his favorite songs.

I also haven’t watched as much Christmas TV as normal. In an average year I’ll watch parts of Elf and Christmas Vacation dozens of time. This year? All the way through each movie once (so far) and then a handful of other times checking in on them. I knocked out A Christmas Story and Die Hard over the weekend. E! is showing an Office Christmas marathon later today that I’ll catch. And I ran through some of my favorite SNL holiday sketches over the weekend.

Still, my spirit seems to be lagging a bit this year and I can’t isolate the cause. Maybe it is the daily reminders that he who shall not be named is already making noise that the next four years will be far worse than his first crack at fucking up the world. Maybe it’s because our kids are older and don’t get excited about the lead-up to the holiday anymore?

Here’s the best way to measure my Christmas spirit: despite understanding how a calendar works, Sunday morning was the first time it hit me that Christmas Eve is Tuesday. For some reason I thought it was Wednesday and I had two full days this week to get ready for our festivities. And I’m the one who does the family advent calendar every day. Yet somehow I was a day behind.

Anyway, today I was off early for a grocery run then hit Costco as soon as it opened. Pro tip: a lot of times during the holidays, Costco will open their doors a few minutes early. I walked in at 9:52 when they weren’t supposed to open until 10. I was out in 25 minutes, which has to be December record. I’ll have to make one more grocery run tomorrow to fill a few holes, grab another dessert, and load up on ice.

We have our first family gathering Tuesday evening. Our guests from Denver will arrive late tomorrow night. Christmas day we will host our annual brunch for about 25. We have plenty of other stuff planned for the week. As usual, you’ll get a full roundup next week.

Now some quick-ish words about the weekend.

CFP

Thanks to our weekend schedule and how the games turned out, I was only able to watch all of the Indiana-Notre Dame CFP game this weekend. The environment in South Bend was amazing; I don’t recall a regular season Notre Dame game seeming like that, although I’m far from an expert on the matter. Irish fans seemed extra fired up and there were just enough IU fans in the crowd to push things to another level. At least until the Irish ran away with the game. It would have been even cooler if the heavy snow that was falling about an hour west of South Bend and drifted to Notre Dame Stadium.

I agree with the snap judgement: not only is having first round games on campus a genius idea, but the quarterfinals really should be on campus as well. This is college sports, though, and things that make total sense rarely happen. Forget what’s best for the game or the fans, or that rewards nearly four months of excellence, the old bowl structure must have final say on where the playoff teams end up.

Of course there was immediate backlash about how IU didn’t deserve to be in the tournament. Which spilled over to SMU and Clemson Saturday. Strangely I didn’t hear nearly as much chatter about Tennessee not being worthy. Wonder why?

I think the big takeaway, if you have to make one based on four games in the first year of the new format, is that 12 teams is too many. The line for where the best team is college football is probably falls in the 5–6–7–8 area most years. That doesn’t mean we will always see blowouts in the first round. I do think they are more likely, though, than classic games.

Again, we shouldn’t burn down the system because of a single year. And also don’t lose three games if you want a shot.

Oh, speaking of how dumb college sports are, opening the transfer portal while there are still games being played might the the dumbest thing yet. College sports always finds a way to drain a little more out of the shallow end of the dumb pool.

HS Hoops

Big games Saturday for the Irish. They took on HCA, the Christian school from around the way. This is the team L and I went to scout a week ago when we watched her buddy play against them. She had shared her thoughts with her coaches, so I guess the result was a measure of her scouting abilities.

Varsity won by nine. The game was close in the first half then we led comfortably almost the entire second half, although we could never stretch it out to blow out territory. We watched HCA lose by nearly 30 a week ago. I think if we had played zone like BCHS did against them, we would have won by more. But we don’t play zone much and I think our coaches were worried since HCA has shooters.

JV got a nice, 17-point win. After the game L announced in the locker room that this was probably her last game to sit out. She said everyone screamed and yelled. Now fingers crossed she gets cleared in a week. JV is 9–3, 7–1 without her, so I joked that maybe they don’t want her back.

Varsity is 6–6. They have a tournament this coming weekend; JV is off until January 8.

KU Hoops

After a sluggish start the Jayhawks got their shit together in the second half and pounded Brown by 34. Not the 70 or 58 point wins the first two times these programs played. But still solid. Eight days until Big 12 play begins. More about the state of the team later.

Colts/Pacers

Both local teams get nice wins Sunday. I only saw part of the Colts game. Fortunately it was the good part.

And don’t look now but the Pacers have won four-straight and five-of-six after blasting Sacramento last night. I had to run to get L from a friends and in about eight minutes of game time the Pacers grew their lead from 12 to 29 at one point. They were cooking! The toughest part of this toughest stretch of the year is still to come, but the team is getting healthy and starting to play much better.

Rickey

The biggest news of the weekend was the death of Rickey Henderson, one of the greatest players in the history of Major League Baseball. He, Jim Rice, and George Brett were my holy trinity of favorite players when I was a kid. I’m pretty sure in my big box of baseball cards in the basement I have whole sheets of his cards in an album, the highest praise from me in the early Eighties.

There was this weird spot in our backyard where someone had let a fishing boat sit upside-down for years so grass didn’t grow, basically turning it into a dirt pit. I used it to practice diving back to first base, as if a pitcher was trying to pick me off, imagining I was Rickey.[1]

There genuinely was no one ever like Rickey with his combination of speed, power, and on-base ability. He along with Bo Jackson were the type of players you had to see to believe, and even then you didn’t fully trust your eyes. He ruffled all kinds of feathers amongst older fans, but for kids of my generation, he was about as cool as it got.

For years there were all kinds of crazy stories about his eccentricities. Later we learned that he was one of the kindest men in the game, someone who remembered where he came from and made sure to take care of those who made his life easier.

Mike Piazza shared this great story of how Rickey responded when voting on playoff shares one year:

“[He] was the most generous guy I ever played with, and whenever the discussion came around to what we should give one of the fringe people — whether it was a minor leaguer who came up for a few days or the parking lot attendant — Rickey would shout out “Full Share!” We’d argue for a while, and he’d say, “F— that! You can change somebody’s life.”

RIP to one of the greatest.

Not sure what the blog schedule will be for the rest of the week. My Favorite Songs list isn’t quite ready, so I may hold onto it until next week. I may share some links but otherwise this may be it for a few days. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all!

  1. Remember, I was a geeky, sports-obsessed, only child.  ↩

Friday Playlist, Part 2

December 20, 2024 /

For part two, the annual review of my favorite songs of the past 20 years. Remember there have been ties for #1 a few years, thus the extra tracks. Also don’t forget that these lists remain static once published. There are several songs I would replace with others if I re-evaluated their years today. Flags fly forever, and favorite songs of the year never die.

2004 – “Float On” – Modest Mouse
2005 – “Gone Missing” – Maximo Park
2006 – “Star Witness” – Neko Case
2007 – “Intervention” – Arcade Fire
2008 – “The Modern Leper” – Frightened Rabbit
2009 – “Whirring” – The Joy Formidable
2010 – “FootShooter” – Frightened Rabbit
2011 – “He Gets Me High” – Dum Dum Girls
2012 – “The House That Heaven Built” – Japandroids
2013 – “Holy” – Frightened Rabbit
2014 – “Red Eyes” – The War On Drugs
2015 – “California Nights” – Best Coast
2016 – “To Know You” – Wild Nothing
2017 – “Pain” / “Strangest Thing” – The War On Drugs
2018 – “Night Shift” – Lucy Dacus
2019 – “Weird Ways” – Strand of Oaks
2020 – “Can’t Do Much” – Waxahatchee
2021 – “Stacking Chairs” – Middle Kids
2022 – “the man himself” / “in the wake of your leave” – Gang of Youths
2023 – “The Window” – Ratboys

Friday Playlist, Part 1

December 20, 2024 /

As promised, two different playlists and two videos for the last Friday before Christmas.

We begin with the 11 songs that just missed making my Favorite Songs of 2024. That list isn’t completely done – I just moved a couple songs around before I started typing this – but the songs are locked in. Here are the remnants, presented in no particular order.

“If It’s Gone” – Good Looks
This band put out a great album and a terrific two-song EP. Pretty good year!

“Boombox” – Morgan Harper Jones
There is a slightly better song somewhat similar to this thematically that made my Favorite Songs list. No shame in landing between 21 and 31.

“Annihilation” – Wilco
One of my favorite Wilco songs in a decade or more.

“Come To The City (Live…Again)” – The War On Drugs
TWOD put out their second live album this year and were kind enough to include my favorite of their songs. There are better versions of this out there – the guitar in the third verse (“Rolling out for the one I love, and I been down by the sea…”) is too low – but this one is damn good.

“Room At The Top” – Eddie Vedder covering Tom Petty
Bad Monkey was a pretty good show. Having other artists cover Tom Petty for the soundtrack was a pretty good idea.

“The Last Words Of Sam Cooke” – Barry Adamson
What a concept to base a song on!

“No Good” – Christopher Owens
Wildest story about an artist’s life this year has to go to Owens. Look it up.

“Dead Plants” – better joy
Great song. And if it wasn’t sexist and I was 30 years younger, I would have a big crush on this band’s lead singer.

“Vanish” – Blueburst, Marty Wilson-Piper
OK, here’s where it started getting tough, so I guess these last three songs are numbers 21-23. Had I discovered this tune a little earlier in the year, it may have had enough steam to crack the top 20. Since the album actually came out in 2023, I guess that saves me some embarrassment.

“Mother Mary” – Late Bloomer
On January 19 I said this was the first song of 2024 to grab me and not let go. However, another song I shared a week earlier ended up sticking with me longer. You’ll read about it next week. I’m not 100% convinced this shouldn’t be in the top 20 with it.

“Favourite” – Fontaines D.C.
Man, was it tough to leave this one off the list. FDC changed their sound for the latest album. I didn’t always love it, but others did, as it has landed high on most Best Of lists. This song, though, I was perfectly fine with.

“I Would Die 4 U” – Prince & The Revolution
We end the greatest year in pop music history with another huge debut by the biggest artist of the year. In just its second week in the Hot 100, the latest Prince single was already at #32. This would become Prince’s fourth top 10 single from the Purple Rain soundtrack, but would stall out at #8 for a single week in February.

“Do They Know It’s Christmas” – Band Aid
It’s always a big deal in Britain what song is #1 at Christmas. Artists craft songs with that goal in mind and time their release to give them the best chance of achieving it.

Last week I watched a terrific new documentary about the making of “Do They Know It’s Christmas.” In it George Michael mentions how he had just recorded his own Christmas song, which he had expected to be Wham’s fourth-straight UK #1. But he realizes at the Band Aid sessions that “DTKIC” would keep “Last Christmas” from being the Christmas #1 for 1984. He was correct, although “Last Christmas” was #1 for Christmas 1985 thanks to a second release. Forty years later, you can’t NOT hear both of them during the holiday season. Feed the world.

Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 108

December 19, 2024 /

Chart Week: December 13, 1980
Song: “(Just Like) Starting Over” – John Lennon
Chart Position: #4, 7th week on the chart. Peaked at #1 for five weeks across December and January.

This entry is less about a specific song than an extraordinary moment in American Top 40 history. And an opportunity for me to revisit a lost piece of writing from my past.

One December night in the mid–2000s, I sat down and quickly typed out what I think is one of the best things I’ve ever written. It was too personal to share, though, so I stashed it in whatever notes/journaling app I was using at the time. Since I was a serial app hopper back in the day – trying out whatever the newest, latest, interesting program Mac Geeks were yapping about – I eventually lost that draft as I failed to save it while jumping from App A to App B. I’ve tried to re-create it a few times, but never captured the tone or emotion of that initial effort.

That essay was about the night/week John Lennon died and how I imagined my mom reacted to his death.

My memories of that night, December 8, 1980, are vague. I had likely been watching the Monday Night Football game between the New England Patriots and Miami Dolphins earlier in the evening. I know my mom was working late so I would have been staying at a sitter’s house, and the sitter’s husband always had MNF on while he drank 182 beers. However, my mom had picked me up and we were home, with me likely in bed, by the time Howard Cosell made his famous announcement of Lennon’s passing.

I definitely remember being at the mall the night after the shooting and hearing Lennon’s music coming out of every store instead of the usual holiday racket. I recall the coverage on the news of people gathering in Central Park to mourn his death, which didn’t make sense to me. I knew who the Beatles were – my parents had their “Blue Album” which they listened to a ton when I was little – but likely didn’t understand who Lennon was until that week. Why were all these people so sad about a singer dying?[1]

I have fuzzy mental images of my mom being sad that week, but that may be more my brain making it up than based on reality. Besides, she was down a lot that fall and winter, so no particular night of sadness would seem unusual.

She was going through one of the most difficult stages of her life at the time. We moved to Kansas City in July and a few weeks later she and my dad finally decided to divorce after being separated off-and-on for most of the previous two years. Their marriage officially ended four days after Lennon was killed. She struggled to find a job in KC, working 10–12 hour shifts at a mall jewelry store while she sent out resumes hoping to re-launch her marketing career. She had a nine-year-old kid who was kind of a pain in the ass, mostly because he was getting into trouble at school a lot after the move. She was deeply in debt, some of it leftover from college and some that she and my dad had racked up trying to stay afloat in the difficult late–70s economy. My mom was generally an optimistic person, but when I think of her during this period, I see her worn out, depressed, and sleeping a lot.

In that lost composition from nearly 20 years ago, I tried to get into her head and understand what she may have been feeling after she learned of Lennon’s passing. She had all this other shit she was dealing with and then a man who wrote and sang some of her favorite songs of her teenage and young adult years was murdered in cold blood. For her, like so many others her age, any idealism left from her college years was likely destroyed for good that night. The world must have seemed very bleak to her. I think I went to some dark places in my essay, which probably was the reason I kept it to myself.

I never got the chance to ask my mom about that week in December 1980. She died in 1998 and I didn’t really fall in love with the Beatles until a few years later, when high speed internet and file sharing allowed me to dive deeply into their catalog. By then my own recollections of the week of Lennon’s death had faded so they were barely distinguishable amongst all the other 1980 nostalgia in my head.[2]

I wish I still had those drafted words. Maybe it is fitting, though, that they were deleted from the hard drive that held them and my memories of it are hazy and imperfect, much like my memories of the week John Lennon died.

Now to that piece of American Top 40 history. Lennon’s death forced a change to the show that had never been done before, nor since, as far as I can tell. Although he was killed on a Monday night, the program for the week of December 13 had already been recorded and was being pressed and shipped to radio stations.[3] Following the shooting, Casey Kasem recorded a brief tribute to Lennon, recalling his career, how his life fell apart in the Seventies, how he retreated from the public eye to be with his family, and how he had recently released a new album.[4] Casey ended with a message to both Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon. It is a powerful moment that closed a terrible week for music fans.

The addendum was rushed to radio stations and most inserted it into the countdown before the number four song that week, Lennon’s comeback hit, “(Just Like) Starting Over.”

(Here is another video that has both the original and revised introductions. It also adds some unnecessary music so I did not embed it.)

It is impossible for me to evaluate “(Just Like) Starting Over,” or the other two singles from the Double Fantasy album – “Woman” and “Watching the Wheels” – dispassionately. I’m pretty sure I rate them all one-to-three points higher than I would had Lennon not been shot and killed as/before they were played on the radio. They will forever be weighed down by the knowledge that Lennon was murdered just as he was about to top the pop charts again. They will always remind me of what my mom was going through, as well.

“(Just Like) Starting Over” was a wonderful way for John Lennon to re-introduce himself to the public. It had a light, throwback vibe that recalled the early rock songs he fell in love with and inspired him to start making his own music. Lennon admitted that he was trying to sound like Elvis or Roy Orbison on some of his vocals. The track is about recommitting to a relationship, just as he was doing to his fans who had waited patiently for new music from him. There’s nothing edgy or experimental about it like much of his late era Beatles work, nor confrontational and caustic like some of his Seventies records. I think that’s the point. He had just turned 40. He was happy and healthy. He was rejoining the world after hiding at home for five years. There was nothing wrong with making solid pop music that didn’t have a huge message beyond remembering how much you love the person you’ve chosen to spend your life with. 8/10

  1. Fast forward nearly 40 years and I finally understood based on my reaction when Prince and Scott Hutchison died.  ↩
  2. Big 1980 memories include: The Winter Olympics/Miracle on Ice, moving to Kansas City, George Brett’s summer chasing .400 and the Royals making the World Series, The Empire Strikes Back, a new school with new friends and enemies. I generally remember that year being a good one because I was kind of oblivious to the bad stuff my mom was going through.  ↩
  3. Casey got the weekly charts from Billboard before they were officially published. There was some serious lag between airplay/sales and when you heard a song on AT40.  ↩
  4. Casey left out the boozing, heroin, and infidelity in his description of Lennon’s “Lost Weekend.”  ↩

Overheard At The Gym

December 17, 2024 /

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m dialing back the blogging a bit to close the year. I’ve been working on my Favorite Songs list. I’m hoping to squeeze out one more RFTS post before the year is over. And general end-of-the-year busyness is keeping me from sitting down at the keyboard too much.

That said, I had an encounter today I thought was interesting and worthy of a quick post.

I have all kinds of stories from the gym. There are a lot of older people at the one I frequent, so there is some interesting behavior from them, especially the old dudes. There’s a story I will not share that is one of the more disgusting things I’ve ever encountered in public. Trust me, you don’t want to know.

In the men’s locker room there is a little lounge area with a couple couches and a TV. I hear and see all kinds of interesting shit here on the days I wear layers and have to use a locker to store them while working out.

Today a couple old guys – well into their 70s I guess – were talking about investments. One guy, loud and a little obnoxious, was telling his buddy about the guy he uses to manage his money.

“He learned from Michael Milken, if you know who that is.”
“Yeah, that name sounds familiar but I can’t remember why I know it.”
“He basically invented high-risk/high-yield investing,” Loud Guy said before pausing for a long moment. “He did get a little carried away, though. In fact he went to prison for a little while because of it.”

OH SURE, I’m going to give ALL my money to a guy who apparently learned at the foot of a man who went to prison for securities fraud and insider trading.

Weekend Notes

December 16, 2024 /

A slightly quieter weekend. No sitting on the couch for 183 hours watching football. I actually got out of the house both days. Multiple times! Let’s review.

College Girls

I’ll share the biggest, best news up top: C got her acceptance letter from IU on Thursday. That’s the only school she’s really interested in, so I think she’s locked into being a Hoosier.[1] She’s pretty excited. Coincidentally she wore an IU shirt to school Thursday. It’s like she knew the letter was coming.

She found out a full month later than M did two years ago; apparently IU did rolling acceptances two years ago based on when you got your application in and switched to letting most early admission candidates know on the same set of days this year. We kind of wish they had waited another seven days so we can keep C focused for finals this week. Nothing to sap a kid’s motivation like telling her she’s been accepted to the college she wants to attend.

C and L have a review day today, three full days of finals, then a half day on Friday before they begin their holiday break.

M wrapped up her finals Thursday morning and was home by early afternoon. Seems like it was a good semester. Financial accounting was not her bag – is it anyone’s? – and that will be the first B on her college transcript. But she’s in marketing, not the CPA path, so surviving and advancing is the real goal with that class.

HS Hoops

We spent 3+ hours at CHS watching ball Saturday, so I’ll start with a review of last week’s three games.

Tuesday we traveled to ZHS, a big suburban school that tends to be good. Last year they beat us by 19 but we knew they are very young this year. We took advantage, winning by 20 in a game that was not that close. We hit shots, played good D, and made hustle plays. JV also won by 20. A good night.

Thursday we played a fellow Catholic school from the suburbs. We expected them to be trash. They were. Yet we only won by 20. A classic example of playing down to our competition’s level. Seriously, their varsity looked like a JV team, at least on offense. They were a scrappy team on defense but were just atrocious when trying to score. Each time we’d get the lead up to 20 or so, we’d go brain dead and let them cut 8–10 points off the deficit. JV also won easily.

The most exciting part of this night was driving to the game in an evening snow storm. There wasn’t much snow, but it was cold enough that the roads slicked-up quick. Throw in rush hour traffic and it took us 50 minutes to make what would normally have been a 20–22 minute trip. The only time we slipped or slid was pulling into the GCHS parking lot.

Finally, Saturday we took on undefeated #6 2A team EH. They went to Semistate the past two seasons but lost a ton of seniors from last year. We knew they have a truly great guard, but if we could contain her and limit the rest of the team, we’d have a good chance to win.

Until one of our two best players didn’t show up because she was sick. And we decided to let their best player go ahead and score 35. We had to put a JV girl on her for a couple stretches because of the missing player plus foul trouble. We kept digging holes and trying to climb out but let it get out of hand in the second half. The margin got over 15 points a couple times, we ended up losing by 13. JV won by 50. We were kind of incredulous that their varsity can be so good and JV so bad.

Roughly halfway through the season varsity is 5–6. JV is 9–2.

It is finals week so we don’t play again until Saturday.

Friday night L and I went to watch her middle school buddy play for our big rival school. Coincidentally they played the team we face this coming week, so it was a scouting trip, too. L proudly wore her CHS sweatshirt and left her coat in the car. I admired her confidence. There are tons of St P’s families at BCHS, so we got to see a lot of old friends.

Her buddy didn’t play much or very well, which was a bummer. L took mental notes on both teams to share with her coach.

We let her drop her crutches on Saturday. She’s not officially cleared but we also let her go over to the Y and shoot a little without her boot on Sunday afternoon. She said she lost her jump shot. I kept to myself that she didn’t have much of one before she got hurt.

There’s still some pain in her foot, but not like it was before the resting began. Two more weeks in the boot before she gets re-evaluated. Knock on wood, between some more rest, shoe inserts, and tape she’ll be cleared to play in our January 8 game, and then in the City Tournament the next week.

KU Hoops

Well that was better.

Bill Self compared North Carolina State to Missouri in terms of their physical abilities and style of play. I didn’t see much of that Saturday, although maybe it was a representation of the difference in playing at home vs on the road.

Naturally, most of the game took place at the same time as the CHS games, so I was following along and just made it home in time to see the final minutes, then watched the recording.

It is kind of crazy that KU has now beat NC State 13 straight times. That doesn’t seem possible in a non-conference matchup between two power conference teams.

Colts

I only saw the first half, as we went out to dinner Sunday evening. When we got home and I checked the highlights, I was pleased that I missed the second half. What a horrific effort that was! Jonathan Taylor fumbling a touchdown for a touchback for no reason. A completely idiotic trick play that turned into a pick-six for the Broncos. I remain in the You Have To Play Anthony Richardson camp. But days like yesterday make that a very tough place to be. He misses soooooo many throws, often the easiest ones, often badly. I’ve said it multiple times and I’ll say it again: even when he makes a good throw, there’s something about his ball that makes it very difficult to catch. I saw a couple in the first half yesterday that were relatively well-placed and for whatever reason the receivers just couldn’t bring them in. Maybe they’re surprised when the ball actually gets to them?

I don’t exactly have my finger on the pulse of the city, but I gather a lot of impatience with the direction of the franchise. 2023 seemed like a great year to be drafting a quarterback. In retrospect, the Colts may have been smarter to draft a non-QB a year ago, tank last season with a fill-in, and then grab a QB in this year’s draft. As with just about everything else they’ve done since Andrew Luck retired, the Colts managed to mess that up, though.

Pacers

On a bit of an upturn? They’ve looked better over the past week and won three-of-four. Their next nine games are brutal though – at Phoenix, at Sacramento, at Golden State, OKC at home, back-to-backs at Boston, Milwaukee at home, at Miami, and Phoenix at home. Is 3–6 a best-case scenario?

  1. Cincinnati is the only other school she applied to.  ↩

Friday Playlist

December 13, 2024 /

Doing things a little different the next couple weeks. Today I’m going to share some new, indie rock, Christmas-y tracks I’ve discovered this year. Next week will be a double playlist of both the songs that just missed my Favorite Songs of the Year list, and a review of the #1 songs of each year I’ve made those lists. Plus, bonus videos each week! You all have been very good this year and deserve a little something extra!

“A Little More Christmas” – Cheetah Cheetah Bison
Wonderful song.

“Kid On Christmas” – Madi Diaz
And so is this.

“Don’t Fuck With Christmas” – Bumblewasps
Always good advice.

“Driving Home for Christmas” – Middle Kids
It’s always a little weird to me when artists from the southern hemisphere sing about Christmas. I mean, this Chris Rea original has no mentions of snow or snowmen or any of that jazz, so it’s truly universal. But, still, messes with my head a little.

“December” – illuminati hotties covering Neck Deep
OK, not anywhere near a Christmas song. But the month is right. I had never heard the original before this morning. Neck Deep is a Welsh pop-punk band. I much prefer this version to theirs.

“The Belle of St. Mark” – Sheila E.
We are down to our last two AT40’s of 1984. No huge debuts in either week; technically any new songs would be ’85 hits anyway. So I’ll close out this series with two songs I love that were both from the same music “factory.” They were both the briefest of Top 40 hits right around the holidays, so I always think of this time of year when I hear them.

This week’s selection is my favorite Sheila E. song. Yes, I like this more than “The Glamorous Life.” Of course, like almost all of her music, it was written and produced by Prince. Who also played most of the instruments. Like you couldn’t guess that by hearing the album version a single time. This was the song’s first of three weeks at #34. This video is a terrific live performance.

“Last Christmas” – Wham!
Two of the most enduring modern, pop, Christmas songs ever recorded arrived during the Christmas season of 1984. Last week I read an article about this Wham classic. Here’s a little tidbit to blow your mind: Bing Crosby first recorded “White Christmas” in 1942. However, that original studio recording was damaged and Bing re-recorded it in 1947 (and then many other times). That 1947 version is the one we most often hear on the radio. So, in 1984, it was 37 years old. Which means we are farther away today from the recording of “Last Christmas” than “Last Christmas” was from the most commonly heard recording of “White Christmas.” Crazy, right?

I’ve never loved this song, but I admire its persistence in becoming an all time classic.

Reader’s Notebook, 12/11/24

December 11, 2024 /

A Spy Like Me – Kim Sherwood
The second installment in Sherwood’s planned 007 trilogy, it continues to tread ground that is very unlike anything ever written for the Bond franchise. James Bond himself remains absent (mostly), as the rest of the Double-Os attempt to unravel a network that finances terror attacks before it can strike again. They’re also searching for clues for Bond’s status and whereabouts. And seem to be getting killed off at a fairly concerning rate. Oh, and is there a double agent in their midst?

What sets Sherwood’s Bond work apart is how she plants them firmly in the modern age, beyond even where the Daniel Craig era pulled the movie franchise. I’m sure a lot of geezers get annoyed by all the wokeness – “How can there be gay spies?!?!” – but her characters fit our age, so those old fogies can piss off.

I still struggle with Sherwood’s writing style. It is also far different than the many other authors who have carried the series since Ian Fleming’s death. I keep arguing with myself on whether a Bond novel should have a certain core style, or if it is ok to break free of those restraints. Maybe the combination of her writing with a more edgy, modern flair and the very modern characters is too much for me? Maybe I’m an old fogey?!?!

I didn’t love this. But I’ll stick with Sherwood for one more book to see how her arc turns out. And maybe at the end it will all make sense to me.

A Christmas Story – Jean Shepherd
The 17th straight December I’ve sat down for a few hours to revist this classic. Still makes me laugh.

Brothers – Alex Van Halen
I got this after reading the New York Times article about it I linked to a few weeks back. I was intrigued by Alex’s seeming willingness to share more than the standard, aging-rocker bits about his life, career, and relationship with his late brother Eddie. This book was certainly frank, but I wouldn’t describe it as surprising.

Alex runs through the Van Halen brothers’ lives, from early childhood in Holland to moving to the US to discovering rock music and launching their band. He marches through Van Halen’s history up to when David Lee Roth left the band in 1985. Then he stops, jumping ahead to describe his life as a 70-year-old and his continued grief at the loss of his younger brother in 2020. There are lots of good tidbits from each section but, again, I think if you’ve read about the band or watched shows about them, you either know some of the stories or could guess at them.

I guess my point is the book is not gossipy at all. When he shares details that might shock people, they are often via quotes from already published works. So, again, a fan would be familiar with them. He talks about how he and Eddie fought constantly, but they also loved each other more than anyone else and always had each other’s backs. How he felt that his brother crumpled under the pressure of being labeled a “guitar genius.” How the entire band took things too far to the extremes at times. How DLR drove them all nuts nearly from the beginning. How disappointed he was when that initial incarnation of the band ended. There’s nothing super controversial in his words, though. He often defends DLR, saying his wackiness was the perfect counter to the VH brothers’ musical talent. That you need someone who loves the public eye and is ambitious if you want to be successful.

However, he barely mentions Michael Anthony. He does drop Sammy Hagar’s name a couple times, but only in the context of how the Red Rocker once opened for Van Halen and how, before they signed their first recording contract, their manager wanted to boot DLR for Hagar. There’s not a word about the Van Hagar years. Nor what came after that. Perhaps because his brother wasn’t as happy in these years, or Alex’s partying got out of hand and he eventually had to get sober to stay healthy and able to play.

As I said, much of the book is Alex’s reaction to quotes from others. He pulls lengthy passages from books by DLR, producer Ted Templeman, manager Noel Monk, and many interviews with Eddie and then shares his reaction to them. Sometimes he provides context, sometimes he argues, sometimes he supports. I found that manufactured dialog fun to read. Often when he disagreed with someone, Alex pointed out that he understood where the other person was coming from. I expected the book to be more combative, for some reason. Maybe Alex has mellowed as he aged. Or perhaps I’ve had the wrong view of him for 40-some years. I like this mature Alex, though. He’s old enough to know a lot of the things we fight about are kind of silly and there’s nothing productive by remaining upset about them years later.

Because of all those quotes/reactions, the book can come across as a little light. I still really enjoyed it. My biggest takeaway is how much Alex loved, and continues to love, his brother and how proud he is of what they created. And that Alex is probably a pretty good dude to hang out with.

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