• Reader’s Notebook, 2/11/25

    Once again I am behind on these, so let’s get caught up with my last four reads. The Miracle of St. Anthony – Adrian Wojnarowski What a book! Future NBA scoops guru Woj spent the 2004–04 season embedded with the basketball team at St. Anthony High School of Jersey City. The program was famously coached by Bob Hurley for 45…

  • Weekend Notes

    Well, one big topic to get to, and not the one most of the rest of the world is discussing today, so I’ll blow through the first two subjects quickly. Jayhawk Talk More stupidity. This team seemed to quit in the second half against K-State. Afterward, Bill Self said his players showed poor effort in practice Friday. This entire team…

  • Friday Playlist

    We stay knee-deep in the new music another week. “Prisoner of Beauty” – The Limiñanas, Bobby Gillespie I can find almost no information about this song or band, which is from the far south of France. So all I can say about it is that it 100% sounds like it should have been in some gritty film during the mid-90s…

  • More Hoops Talk: I Am A Fraud

    Me, in Monday’s post: I’m not sure if I have a worse feeling about tonight’s KU game or Tuesday’s CHS one. Shows what I know about ball. Jayhawk Talk Well, that was much, much better. Arguably KU’s best, wire-to-wire, performance of the year, jumping on Iowa State early and never letting up. The offense was humming, moving the ball quickly…

  • Monday Hoops Notes

    Yeesh. Quite a weekend for basketball stuff, so I guess that will be my focus today. Let’s get the worst of it out of the way first. Feel free to skip; it ain’t brief. Jayhawk Talk I’ll begin by saying I’ve never been happier to have missed watching a KU game live than I was Saturday. Yet I was still…

  • January Media

    Movies, Shows, etc Rebel Ridge Movies like this are hard for me to watch these days. The moments of injustice seem far too real and common in the real world. That said, this was a good, old fashioned action flick. Not too complicated. Amazingly, despite a lot of gunplay, there’s not a ton of bloodshed nor are there any deaths…

  • Friday Playlist

    No sign that the current pace of new music will slacken any time soon, which means I will continue to have the pleasure of providing music to soundtrack a good chunk of your Fridays for the foreseeable future. “People Of Substance” – Craig Finn DAD ROCK ALERT!!!!! Craig Finn has new music out! And it is produced by Adam Granduciel!…

  • Favorite Things

    More basketball stupidity, at both the high school and college levels, yesterday that I prefer to avoid for now. So, I’m launching a new series that promises to be randomly occasional: a few words about some of the favorite things in my life at the moment. Olukai Kekaha Boots It is a little weird that a Hawaiian company, famous for…

  • Weekend Notes

    A lot of hoops to get through. Not looking forward to some of it, though… HS Hoops Two games for CHS last week. Wednesday we traveled south to take on Center Grove, ranked #7 in 4A. After our city championship, we had snuck back into the media rankings at #11 in 3A. Varsity lost by 17. We were down seven…

  • Friday Playlist

    “Giving Up” – Michigander This sounds super happy, which was how I wanted to start this week’s playlist. Then you evaluate the lyrics and see it’s not happy after all. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere. “Jealousy” – Phantogram While we need happy songs at the moment, I’m also down with ones that sound good and pissed off. “Wants Needs”…