Category: Uncategorized (Page 1 of 362)

Friday Playlist

Several new songs by old artists this week. And some new songs by new artists. In other words, a normal week.

“In The Sun” – Blondie
We’ve had a little too much sun this week. It’s been miserable. This song makes me feel a little better about it.

“Breakaway” – Been Stellar
These kids keep cranking out good tracks.

“Modern Man” – MORN
Kick ass music from Wales!

“Move Now” – Marshall Crenshaw
One of my all-time favorite writers of pop songs is back with a new album of old tracks. From The Hellhole collects songs he released on vinyl for Record Store Day between 2012 and 2016 and then went out of print. Not up to his classics, but still good stuff here.

“Got To Have Love” – Pulp
As with The London Suede last week, Pulp is one of those bands that went away for a while then came back, sounding the same, and as good, as in their prime.

“Live Forever” – Sloan
These Canadian power pop legends are about to release the 14th album of their career. That’s a lot, even with the CAD-USD conversion rate.

“Crossing Fingers” – Rocket
Another Rocket jam filled with ‘90s nostalgic goodness.

“DEAD” – Sudan Archives
One of the most original and interesting songs I’ve heard this year.

“Just Like A Flower” – Winter
Winter said this captures the essence of daydreaming in her bedroom as a teen. I definitely hear that.

“You’re Pretty Good Looking (For A Girl)” – The White Stripes
The Stripes second album, De Stijl, was released 25 years and one week ago. It would be another 18 months or so before they exploded into the mainstream with tracks off White Blood Cells, but you could hear them working on getting to that point on this album. Here is side one, track one. Because you know Jack would prefer you to listen to it on vinyl.

Also, the album came out the same day as my 29th birthday party. An evening where, after dinner and many drinks a large group of friends went to The Levee in Kansas City to listen to Sonny Kenner. A show at which I ignored a lot of my friends to talk to a young lady who had just moved there from Indianapolis.

“Summertime Girls” – Y&T
I just read a book about hair metal. More about that next week. Y&T didn’t get a ton of space in it, but they were referenced, so perfect week to throw this one in as our summer bookender.

“Dr. Feelgood” – Mötley Crüe
While we’re on that subject, let’s end things with one of the best songs of that era.

Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 113

Chart Week: June 23, 1984
Song: “I’ll Wait” – Van Halen
Chart Position: #32, 11th week on the chart. Peaked at #13 for two weeks.

I made my three-hour drive to Lexington, KY last Saturday morning solo. As it was also my birthday weekend, I thought the best way to celebrate would be to listen to an American Top 40 from June, 1984. Believe it or not, I could recall exactly what I was doing 41 years ago! Almost to the minute, even!

This probably doesn’t surprise some of you.

On the morning of June 23, 1984, my Little League baseball team was scheduled to play a game. When we arrived at the field, our coach was already there, and he was pissed. The team we were supposed to play, the Rangers, had decided not to show up, gifting us a forfeit win. He was angry not because we all got up and got ready and showed up on a hot, humid morning for no reason, but rather because the Rangers were ducking us. We were battling them for first place and, apparently, their best pitcher was not available that morning. So the Ranger’s coach, who my coach did NOT get along with, decided to bail rather than have one of his weaker pitchers face us. Which seemed dumb. Why not at least try to beat us rather than hand us a win that could make the difference in which team got to bat last in the playoffs?

Keep in mind, we were all 12 and 13 year olds, playing mediocre youth ball in Kansas City. Not exactly high stakes stuff.

Anyway, we had an open diamond and our entire team was there, so our coach decided to put the time to good use. In full uniform, he worked us out harder than he ever had at a practice. He hit rockets at us for infield practice, had the outfielders sprinting to cut off line drives, and even sat behind home plate and had us try to steal bases as he fired balls to the second baseman. He knew word would get back to his nemesis that rather than sit in air conditioning like his team, we were toiling to get better.

Throughout the practice our coach cracked off-color jokes about the Rangers, and despite the intensity of the workout, we were laughing the entire time. He also let us pull out a boombox and play music. We heard a lot of songs from this countdown in those 90 minutes we spent practicing. When we walked off the field we were all sweaty and dirty like we had actually played a game, and in great moods, high-fiving each other as we headed our separate ways.

I have no idea if that morning had any impact, but a month later we beat the Rangers two games to one in the championship series. Oh, and we were the home team, although we scored the clinching run in the bottom of the fifth, not the bottom of the seventh. Take that, Rangers coach!

So this countdown was a bit of a mental time capsule.

This might blow your mind, but it ended up being a double time capsule.

WHAT?!?! DOUBLE TIME CAPSULE??? TELL US MORE, D!

This is one of the shows in my collection that was recorded straight off an American Top 40: The Eighties broadcast, commercials and all. It aired in June 2021 on a station in Maine. A station here in Indy was still playing AT40 at the time, and I bet they inserted a lot of the same commercials into the program. Ads for Cologuard and Home Depot, Geico and Progressive, plus the inevitable bad ads for local car dealerships.

There were also some ads unique to the moment. Several noted that various organizations or businesses were “getting back to normal.” A local junior college announced they would be returning to in-person classes in the fall, with a reopening ceremony scheduled for June 30. And there were government ads encouraging folks to get the Covid vaccines.

Wow, what a quaint idea: the government encouraging people to get a shot to keep them from getting sick. Somehow that seems like a long, long time ago.

The songs in this show got me thinking about the summer I was 13, and the commercials got me thinking about the summer we were coming out of Covid.

Naturally I loved all this. It’s probably a good thing I was by myself. And that I finished the show before L rode home with me on Sunday.

Lots of great, memorable songs this week. I’ve done the review of a full countdown from the summer of ’84 thing before, so I can’t go that direction. Instead, let’s focus on the second single from Van Halen’s 1984 album.

“I’ll Wait” was different from any other Van Halen song. Yes, it was heavily synthesizer-based, but Eddie had already shown his cards there on the #1 hit “Jump.” What really set the song apart from the rest of their catalog was that David Lee Roth did not write the lyrics on his own.

His original inspiration came from a magazine ad for Calvin Klein women’s underwear. Something about it struck him – I can make some guesses as to what – so he cut it out and taped it to his TV, where he could stare at the model while he wrote an ode to her.

Easy task for a legendary horndog like DLR, right? He kept getting stuck, though, spinning his wheels in his attempts to turn thoughts into coherent words while the rest of the band wrote and recorded most of the music he would sing over.

Hearing the bones of a potential hit, producer Ted Templeman called his pal Michael McDonald to help get Diamond Dave over the hump. They sat down and soon had a finished song.

Later McDonald said he made more money from his songwriting credit for “I’ll Wait” than he had made from the entire final Doobie Brothers album he helped to write. Who knows if that is true but he obviously got a good deal when he agreed to pinch hit for VH.

When I was 12/13, I was familiar with the idea of being a little obsessed by someone you saw on TV or in a magazine. But it was all pretty innocent, like “Gee, it sure would be nice to meet a pretty lady like that and have her be my girlfriend.” Mary Hart and Vanna White were high on that list.[1] I’m not sure I quite got some of the subtext in Roth and McDonald’s lyrics. At least not yet; that insight would come soon enough.

These days becoming fixated on a person you will probably never meet seems creepy. But Van Halen was never worried about that. Certainly not in 1984.

Where “Jump” was all poppy brightness, “I’ll Wait” has a much icier quality. Eddie’s synthesizers are still huge, almost as big as brother Alex’s drums, but they seem ominous, perhaps reflecting the weirdness of staring at a model in a magazine for too long. Eddie repeats the synth solo followed by guitar solo bit from “Jump,” as well. I think he does it better here.

However, there is something off about the song I never picked up on as a kid. It is all in Roth’s voice. Missing is the gigantic, Cock Rock swagger he was famous for. He was always the sexed-up life of the party, turning any room into a bash through sheer force of personality. Here he is subdued, perhaps in recognition that he will never meet the object of his desire? Has our fornicating superhero been tamed?

Who am I kidding? This was Van Halen and David Lee Roth. There was no great meaning to this song. If a woman turned him down, he’d find 20 more just like her and move on with his life. I’m overthinking things. Any flaws are purely because McDonald wrote a song that would have been terrific for anyone else, but didn’t quite match what was great about Van Halen. 7/10


  1. Vanna White turns 69 next February. Nice.  ↩

Wednesday Links

I’ve started following Denny Carter in recent weeks and enjoy his perspective on politics and the general state of the world. The sub-head of this piece is perfect: Being an asshole is a choice.

Free speech was meant to empower the powerless against the powerful, not to provide protection for society’s privileged members to hurl invective at the unprivileged and marginalized. The American right – and parts of the left – have twisted the idea of actual free speech into an unrecognizable mess that tells Americans they should have the right to say any insulting thing any time they want to anyone online or in real life. “It’s a free country, I can do what I want,” they say, just as I said as a young, stupid child.

Self Censorship Is Actually Good


Despite loving the Beatles, I found this list very funny. I guess there are tons of young people who think the Beatles are overrated, likely because they grew up on music that was influenced by or ripped off what the Beatles did first – or even music that ripped off those rip offs – and can’t appreciate the OGs.

  1. “The Fool On The Hill”
    What happens when a heartthrob boy band does a shitload of drugs and become hippies and start really trying to get creative? Poop on tape. I’m pretty sure this song has a kazoo solo in it. I’m also pretty sure this is what horses hear when they are killed.

The Top 10 Worst Beatles Songs


It was cool that America got to find out what a great coach Jenny Boucek is and what an interesting personal story she has during the NBA Finals.

Parenting and game plans: Inside Jenny Boucek’s extraordinary basketball journey to the Pacers


The Ringer is THE best place for NBA content these days. I’m not the only one who thinks so.

Simply put, The Ringer’s coverage came across as if it was created by people who have been following players like Haliburton since he was a draft prospect, whereas ESPN’s coverage did its best to force both the Thunder and the Pacers into predetermined morning debate show narratives.

Bill Simmons and The Ringer’s NBA Finals coverage was everything ESPN’s wasn’t


I haven’t watched any of these yet, but I 100% will be watching the Phineas and Ferb revival soon. Best kids show ever!

‘PHINEAS AND FERB’ STICKS TO WHAT WORKS IN A WELCOME RETURN


Another useful harnessing of the Internet’s power.

If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel – A tediously accurate map of the solar system

More Hoops Notes

A day later I still have a lot of Pacers thoughts. And I still need to catch you up on a very busy weekend. So this may turn into two posts, depending on how long I yap about the first topic.


Pacers Followup

I became a Pacers fan when we moved to Indy in 2003, but they have never been at the top of my sports fandom rankings.[1] Although they have climbed a lot over the past year! Still, when they lose I’m not as mad or upset as I am when KU loses, or when good Royals teams have lost. So I was a little surprised how emotional I was when Tyrese Haliburton went down Sunday. For the Pacers season to end like that was devastating. To get so close and then it end not just because the other team was better, but because your best player’s body failed him was a massive gut punch. I was kind of in shock when it happened, saying “Oh no,” over and over when he hit the crowd, hoping he would get up.

But it really hit me after the game was over. Seeing Haliburton on crutches, waiting for his teammates as they walked to the locker room was tough. We invest all this time and emotion into sports, and it becomes a huge part of our lives when a team goes on a run like this. I know Haliburton is a mega-millionaire, as are most of his teammates. And no one “deserves” a result in sports. But in those moments it feels grossly unfair.

That said, his injury made the actual loss easier to take. Although they fought hard, the second he went down, most of us knew the Pacers had no chance to win. It was sudden and resolute. A loss is a loss, but something about the drama being stripped away made it suck less. It shouldn’t matter but to me, at least, it did.

I found it funny in a morbid way that some people accused the Pacers of gamesmanship for the way they reported Haliburton’s calf injury after game five. Like they were exaggerating to throw the Thunder off. Add that to the list of weirdness in the conversation about Hali.

Big props to Rick Carlisle. I did not appreciate what a great coach he was until this year. He coached the Pacers when we first moved here and had one great team, and another that was poised to be great until it flamed out in epic fashion. At the time it felt like he was just doing what everyone else is the league did: play power basketball based on toughness and size and defensive excellence.

He won a title in Dallas, but that was a year when the playoff bracket opened up for a variety of reasons and riding one of the best players in the world going on an epic hot streak.

I was not super excited when the Pacers hired him for the second time in 2021. That was because I had no idea of the coaching journey he’s gone on through his career, always open to new ideas and perspectives, learning to match what he asked his teams to do to the talent they had. The past two years have been the culmination of that. A year ago the Pacers were this insane offensive team that couldn’t guard a high school roster. In time Carlisle made adjustments both in set and what he asked his players to do. To their credit, they bought in. Eventually, when the team got healthy this year, they settled into a withering style on both ends. In retrospect, as good as that system was for the regular season, it was perfectly suited for the postseason, where half the goal is just to wear down your opponent over seven games. Podcaster Zach Lowe said Monday that he spoke to a player who faced the Pacers this postseason who told him that the Pacers are an awful team to play against.

Carlisle also seems like a genuinely curious and empathetic human being. I’m sorry I didn’t appreciate him sooner.

Also deserving of credit are the players for buying into Carlisle’s system. It is based on constant motion, on pressuring all 94 feet, on fighting over screens rather than switching or going under. Basically killing yourself every minute you’re on the court. That only works if everyone buys in. It took some time – Pascal Siakam has admitted he had no idea how fast the Pacers played and how much he’d have to improve his fitness to fit in when they acquired him a year ago – but eventually that happened. In the process it unlocked players like Aaron Nesmith, TJ McConnell, and Obi Toppin, who had struggled to find their NBA footing. And it elevated Andrew Nembhard from role player to starter.

And props to Kevin Pritchard and Chad Buchanan for deciding to build around Haliburton’s unique skill set. A lot of front office’s are reluctant to buck trends or ask players to sacrifice for the greater good. For at least two seasons it has worked for the Pacers.

The Pacers made an interesting trade a week ago, swapping some draft picks with New Orleans. It was an odd time to make a deal, in the middle of the NBA Finals, but it was primarily viewed as an effort to unload picks this year when the Pacers are facing a salary crunch. It didn’t seem super important at the time but they also re-acquired their first round pick next year which had been traded around a few times. With Haliburton out for the coming year, suddenly that looks like a great move. I think the Pacers should still be decent next year, mostly because they play in the Eastern Conference. But swapping the #23 pick this year for one that could be in the teens next year seems smart. Hell, depending on other roster decisions and the health of other players, that could turn into a very nice pick/trade asset.

Ah what to do this summer. Myles Turner is a free agent. There are not a ton of teams that have the need nor salary cap space to sign him, which may reduce his value. The Pacers have said they would love to keep him, but to do so will push them into luxury tax territory for the first time in franchise history. He just turned 29 and seems to be declining just a little. With Hali missing next year, is it worth the cap hit to keep Turner around and hope he can still be as effective in two and three years as he enters his 30s? Tough decision. I think I would lean to letting him go, as emotionally painful as that might be to a guy who has spent his entire career in Indianapolis. But is a reduced Turner in ’26–27–28 better than trying to develop some young guy over that same span? Seven footers who can shoot the 3 don’t grow on trees.

That choice is tougher since the Pacers have no backup centers under contract. They lost their two opening day backups in the first 10 days of the season to achilles injuries, and playoff role players Thomas Bryant and Tony Bradley should be third options at best.

Do you move any other pieces to clear space to keep Turner? Bennedict Mathurin has two years left on his rookie contract. As much as his change-of-pace is perfect off the bench, I’m not sure he totally fits in with what the Pacers want to do when their starters are on the court. With Haliburton out, will Mathurin defer to players he probably thinks he’s better than? I like his potential but the fit has always bothered me. This could be a sell high moment for chemistry alone. Or maybe Carlisle relishes the chance to make adjustments that cater to Mathurin’s skill set.

The post-Finals discourse has been interesting. At least in the pods I listen to and the articles I’ve read, it’s been as much about how this Pacers team captured the attention of the NBA world as the Thunder winning and potentially kicking off a dynasty. Some of that was because of Hali’s injury, but it was also an appreciation of how ridiculous the Pacers were over the last two months.

I also think it’s funny that there is a lot of hate for the Thunder among hardcore NBA fans. How can you hate a team from a small market that just won their first NBA title? There are complaints about their playing style (the constant fouling on defense combined with the foul hunting on offense), their lack of interesting personalities, their whole “we do interviews together” bit, the way their front office has both stacked up tons of future drafts picks and lucked into some good players they may not have deserved, and the fact the franchise was stolen from Seattle. I say wait until they’ve won another title or two before you start hating them. Every franchise should want to be like the Thunder.


Kid Hoops

OK, L had a very busy week last week. Also a concerning and frustrating one.

Last Monday she had a PT appointment that went very well. Her activity got amped up and she got through the session without any pain. She was cleared to play up to 20 minutes per day for the coming week.

Wednesday night we were back at action in the local summer league. She played about five minutes in the first half against an experienced, tough team and held her own. Then she never came back in. I was keeping score so couldn’t see if she was having an issue, so I wondered if maybe the coach was saving the rest of her minutes for game two. After the game she said she was having intense pain in her foot and could barely walk.

Oh shit.

Fortunately the pain was on the opposite side of where her surgery was. She was wearing new shoes and I wondered if that was the cause, but she claimed they fit her fine. She managed to play a few minutes in game two but was still struggling. We also lost both games and the girls got a long “talking” to after the second one from their coach. I put talking in quotes because there was a lot of yelling.

Friday morning they got on a bus and drove down to Lexington, KY for a team camp at Transylvania University. Calling it a camp was a little silly: this was just an excuse to play up to eight games in three days. There were no skills sessions or anything.

I told her to let me know how things went Friday, but never heard anything. I didn’t know if that was good or bad.

I drove down Saturday morning and when I walked into the gym, she was on the court in their first game of the day. That seemed good. When I reached our other parents they said she had just scored on a nice layup. She had another one later.

After the game, though, she came up and was limping badly. Still opposite of where her surgery was. She was beside herself and eventually dissolved into tears. I told her again that I really thought this had more to do with her foot struggling with overloading because of rehab and her new shoes than anything serious. I also said if she was in that much pain she did not have to play, and would be happy to talk to her coach about it. I think that was part of her worry, talking to the coach.

They had three hours until their next game so she went back to the dorm to rest while us parents went downtown for lunch. I checked in on her an hour later and she said she would talk to her coach on her own. After she messaged me that the coach was nice about it and told her it’s more important to be healthy in the fall than now.

When I went back to the gym for game two, L looked much happier, like a weight had been lifted. She ended up sitting out the rest of the games over the weekend. We’re going to give the foot a few days to heal and then try going back to her old shoes to see if it is just a fit issue. She doesn’t have PT this week but when we go in next week we’ll see if her therapist has suggestions about getting everything to fit properly.

As for the team, they played really well. In fact they won the “tournament,” which was great given they were down to seven players after L sat out. If our best player, who wrecked her knee a week ago, had played I think we would have destroyed all the teams we played. None of them were very good. But it was a good chance for the girls to learn how to fill roles they haven’t filled before. A couple of L’s classmates who were not very good last year played really well over the weekend.

Sunday’s game were rather strange. The games Friday and Saturday were all 20 minute, running clock halves. Sunday’s first knock-out round had 16 minute running clock halves. And then the semifinals and finals were both “overtime” games: played with a five minute clock that stopped on dead balls. I’m not sure if this was to save the girls after already playing so much or because they needed to gym for something else at 1:00 PM.

We won our first OT game 4–1. Then the championship game 7–4, the other team hitting an uncontested 3 at the final buzzer.

Us parents thought this whole concept was a little silly, but our coach told us after it was actually great from her perspective. It gave her a chance to work on late-game stuff that’s often hard to replicate in practice. You can tell girls there are 2:00 left and you are down two, but there’s no real pressure there. These two OT games were pretty sloppy, partially because everyone was wiped out, but also because you could tell the girls felt that pressure of the clock.


Lexington

Just being down there one night, and watching a lot of basketball, I didn’t get to spend much time exploring Lexington. One of the other dads and I decided to watch the Independent League Lexington Legends play some baseball Saturday evening. We got into the stadium for $11, got a burger and beer for another $12, and enjoyed about four innings of mediocre baseball before we ducked out. Pitching at this level is suspect, and it was already 5–2 Legends when we took our seats in the third inning. When we left in the seventh, it was 15–4. Lots of bad defense, too. But it was a really nice night at the old ballpark.

Rupp Arena was only a half mile from the Transylvania campus and my plan was to walk over in one of the breaks. But it was approximately 999° all weekend, and I didn’t want to die of heat exhaustion in Kentucky. We drove by on our way out of town and it was as had been described to me many times: a massive, nondescript building on the outside that is attached to shopping and hotels. There is a large parking lot across the street that I was hoping I could pull into to at least take a quick picture. But even on a Sunday morning with no activities scheduled, the gates were down and I was going to have to pay to get in. I’m sure it’s nice on the inside. But it has zero character on the outside and is not in the middle of campus. Allen Fieldhouse it ain’t.


  1. I actually wrote nearly 1000 words on my history as a Pacers fan and decided none of you wanted/needed to read that.  ↩

Crushing

 

Sports can be unbelievably cruel sometimes. They can step up and make the worst possible thing happen in the worst possible time.

That’s how the Indiana Pacers’ dream run through the postseason ended last night. Not because the favored Oklahoma City Thunder dominated the third quarter to turn a close game into a comfortable win, clinching their first NBA title. That was just normal sports, not an unexpected result at all.

What was cruel was what Pacers fans had been fearing since the end of game two: Tyrese Haliburton’s achilles tendon rupturing as he attempted to drive past a defender midway through the first quarter. The Pacers were up 14–10, Hali accounting for nine of those points on three 3-pointers. Unlike the careful manner he played in game six, he looked fully engaged, fast, and intense, screaming at the crowd after his third 3 forced an OKC timeout. And then he was crumpled on the ground, hitting the court repeatedly with his fist as the Thunder ran the other way for a dunk. The Pacers’ title hopes were on the floor with him.[1]

Just like Dame Lillard and Jason Tatum earlier this postseason,[2] the cruelest of modern sports injuries seems to have taken Hali, too.[3] Not only did it cost him game seven, but most likely all of next season. We probably won’t see him in uniform again until October 2026.

Brutal. Unfair. Cruel. Sports.

(A quick aside about what a wild run the narrative around Haliburton has been the past year. First it was “Why is he on the Olympic team if he isn’t playing?” Then, “Why did he accept a spot on the Olympic team if he was injured?” And, “He’s ruined the Pacers season by selfishly playing in the Olympics rather than rehabbing.” By April he was the “Most Overrated” player in the game, based on a poll in which nine players voted for him. Then he was Mr Clutch Shot. Then he was “not a true superstar” because he didn’t score enough. Which became louder when the non-basketball focused national writers started paying attention, claiming he needed to do more when they had not watched the Pacers all year to see the Pacers were successful because Hali was far more likely to have a 19 point, 12 assist night than ever score 30. Then he was hurting his team by playing injured, only he had to play because it was the Finals. Exhausting. I only paid a little attention to all this, usually just getting what was included in the game broadcasts, but it reinforced my decision to ignore pretty much everything ESPN says about basketball when the ball isn’t in play. And sometimes ignoring the in-game commentary, too.)

Haliburton’s teammates honored both him and the collective character they’ve shown this entire postseason by not giving up. They fell behind by six then charged back to take the lead a couple times. They were somehow up one at halftime after a long 3 by Andrew Nembhard. Despite the bleakness of Hali’s injury, we were all wondering, “Could they pull off one more miracle?” Could they find a way to survive the OKC pressure for 24 minutes, find a way to manufacture and make shots, find a way to contain SGA and J-Dub and the Thunder role players?

No, they could not. But they sure tried.

The third quarter was a disaster. If not for another crazy TJ McConnell quarter the Pacers could have easily been down well over 20 points going into the final period. But too many turnovers, too much passive play, and, to give full credit, far too much OKC D overwhelmed the short-handed Pacers.

They kept fighting. The Thunder showed some nerves late, and after falling behind by 21, Indiana got it down to 10 points once, eventually losing by 12. Without Haliburton, though, and without anyone other than Bennedict Mathurin doing much on offense in the final period, there was never the feeling that they might steal the game and title.

The Thunder are worthy champions. They were the best team in the NBA this season. They have the best player. They probably would have won had Hali stayed on the court, even if he matched SGA shot-for-shot. It sucks the Pacers didn’t get that shot, though, because of the cruelty of sports.

Thus ends a hell of a ride, one that went back much further than just the last two months of playoff basketball. The Pacers, fighting injuries and rehabs, started the season 10–15 before winning five straight. Then they got blown out by OKC and Boston in back-to-back games after Christmas. The loss to the Celtics was by 37 points and the Pacers could not have seemed further away from the game’s elite. Two nights later they beat the Celtics by nine. That’s the moment I thought they might be finding themselves. A loss to Milwaukee on New Year’s Eve muted that a bit, but they followed that with six straight wins and were off, steadily climbing the Eastern Conference standings over the next three months. They wouldn’t lose consecutive games until early March, when they dropped three straight to bad teams, concerning for a team fighting for a playoff seed. Again they rebounded, going 15–4 over the last month of the regular season and checked in as the #4 seed in the East.

They weren’t just winning, though. They were winning CRAZY games. Scoring four points in 1.9 seconds. Coming from 12 down with a minute left. Every game seemed close – except when they hung 162 points on Washington – and the Pacers were always the team making the winning plays while their opponents cracked. I didn’t write about them much until April 14. Here’s what I said then:

In other words, I’m not sure if this team is quite as good as their record indicates. Or, on the other hand, maybe they’re a team that never gets down on themselves and are comfortable in difficult situations. Throw in the experience from last year’s conference finals run, and perhaps they are a super dangerous team?

I hedged my bets, but in retrospect super dangerous seems right.

In sports we too often focus on the end, and whether our teams win or not, the ring culture that LeBron James decried last week.[4] I did not give the Pacers much chance in this series. Then they stole game one, took game three, and were rolling in the third quarter of game four. They gave me hope and suddenly heartbreak was in play. It sure would have been great to take game seven down to the closing minutes and see which team buckled and which team’s culture and cohesiveness carried them to the title. But I can’t be too disappointed after the wonderful ride this team took the city on.

When the Royals won the World Series in 2015, I wrote that some champions remain anonymous, but that team would always be remembered for how they ran and caught everything and got key hits in the biggest moments and came back when their backs were against the wall. This year’s Pacers team did not win the title, but they also carved out an identity that will be recalled for years to come. They were the team that came together at the right time, that never let the odds faze them, that never withered when the pressure was the highest, that always thought they were the best team no matter who they were playing.

Pacers fans should be disappointed about Sunday night, but not about this season.


  1. They weren’t nearly as impactful, but in the past 15 years the Pacers have lost Hali, Victor Oladipo, and Paul George to terrible leg injuries.  ↩
  2. To be fair, the Pacers benefitted from these injuries, both directly and indirectly.  ↩
  3. Honestly shocked some idiot, like our current HHS Secretary for example, hasn’t suggested vaccines are responsible for all these achilles injuries.  ↩
  4. Is there a DUMBER opinion than LeBron complaining about players chasing rings? Irony is truly dead.  ↩

Three Down…

OMG OMG OMG!!!!

The Indiana Pacers are playing for the NBA championship Sunday night!

Thursday was a wonderful night of professional basketball. At least if you are a Pacers fan. They started out slow, missing like their first 100 shots, and trailed 10–2. From then on it really wasn’t much of a game. The Pacers destroyed the Thunder in pretty much every way. Their defense was suffocating. They were ferocious rebounders. Their offense was locked in. It was the proverbial snowball turning into an avalanche, and the best team in the NBA this season was powerless to stop it. The final margin of 17 points hides that the Pacers were up by 30 at the end of the third quarter, when OKC effectively threw in the towel, sitting their starters the entire fourth quarter. I’m not sure that has ever happened in the NBA Finals.

It was even more satisfying given every minute since game five ended was spent worrying about Tyrese Haliburton’s health. I was of the opinion that if he was not 100%, the Pacers had no chance. He was not 100%. The Thunder had no chance. Sports are weird.

What was great about this performance was that it embodied everything that the Pacers are about. Obi Toppin was the leading scorer with a modest 20 points, four of which came very late against the OKC scrubs. Pascal Siakam had 16 points, 13 rebounds. Andrew Nembhard scored 17. TJ Freaking McConnell, man. The reserve guard had a ridiculous 12 point, 9 rebound, six assist, four steal night. The Thunder know he’s coming and every game he does things they can’t handle. No one was incredible, but everyone pitched in. What is also crazy is that the Pacers had two long cold stretches. They could have easily led by 40 or more before the third quarter ended.

Haliburton played and was fine, scoring 14 points. He didn’t do anything spectacular. Well, other than this ridiculous pass to Pascal Siakam on the break just before halftime:

I yelled, too.

The huge lead allowed Hali to sit most of the second half. I’m not sure if we can count on him being fully healthy Sunday, but at least he should be available.

The series will be decided in Oklahoma City. This was a perfect final game of the season in Indianapolis, an extended celebration for a team that has brought this city a tremendous amount of excitement and pride during the postseason. It’s been fun for the national media to discover, or re-discover I guess, how great a venue Gainbridge Fieldhouse is. That place was rocking every minute of each of the three games it hosted over the past week.

Anything can happen in a game seven. Given how this series has swung, and how much it swung Thursday, it’s hard not to fear a hard correction back towards the Thunder. SGA might score 45. Jalen Williams might score 45. They BOTH might score 45. The Thunder may find their defensive mojo and keep the Pacers from getting into their offense before there are five seconds left to shoot. They might run Indiana out of the building, flipping the script from last night. But as I’ve been saying for two months, never count this team out.

All that matters is that the Pacers have a shot. Forty-eight minutes left on this wild ride that began back in March on a crazy Haliburton shot in a regular season game against Milwaukee. The crowd chanted “‘Cers in Seven!” as the clock ran out Thursday. That’s not as ridiculous as it sounded two weeks ago.

BTW, S and I watched outside on our porch, probably the first time we’ve ever watched a Pacers game there. They don’t play many games in June so we don’t get this opportunity often. C had a bunch of friends over and they were kind of loud in the basement, the weather was nice, so we decided to stick to the outside TV. Same spot I watched the Gold Medal game in last summer’s Olympics. Yes, I am hoping for good weather Sunday so I can watch outside again.

Friday Playlist

Summer is here (officially)! The time is right…

“Dancing In The Street” – Van Halen
A lot of people shit on it, but this is one of my all-time favorite summer songs.

“This Summer” – Sleigh Bells
This track comes from an album called Bunky Becky Birthday Boy. Hint, hint.

“Waawooweewaa” – OK Cool
We need more songs titled after things Borat said.

“Big Empty Heart” – Cardinals
NOT Ryan Adams former backing band, but rather another excellent group from Ireland.

“Incomprehensible” – Big Thief
The first Big Thief song I’ve liked for quite a while.

“drains” – mary in the junkyard
This UK band sure sounds a lot like Big Thief.

“Disintegrate” – The London Suede
Proper Suede music!

“Heaven Is A State Of Mind” – Pictureplane
This sounds straight out of a mid-Eighties movie that would replay endlessly on cable TV.

“Bitcoin Takes A Hit” – CVCHE
Totally not a scam.

“No Rain, No Flowers” – The Black Keys
The Keys are back. They sound less like Jack White each year. Speaking of Jack White…

“Archbishop Harold Holmes” – Jack White
John C. Reilly starring in a video for a Jack jam? Yes the hell please!

Great Eight Comedies

I’ve been busy trying to finish an amazing book and get some work outside done before storms roll through later. For today’s post I dug into my list of ideas and found this one, which has been sitting there since George Wendt died last month and news broke that there will be a Scrubs revival.

With minimal commentary, here are my favorite TV comedies of all time.

1) Cheers
A few years I went back and watched the early years and was amazed by how well they hold up. Same anytime I come across a clip. A perfect combination of high and low brow comedy.

2) Seinfeld
I used to say this didn’t hold up as well as Cheers because it was, often, so topical. Does “The Non Fat Yogurt” hit as hard now as it did at the time when it pretended to swing the NYC mayoral election? There is also the argument that Curb Your Enthusiasm takes away from Seinfeld’s brilliance. I’ve made that argument myself at times. What defeats that critique, though, is that I can flip on a Seinfeld episode and almost always get sucked in. I feel like Curb isn’t as satisfying in small bites.

3) The Office
There is no comedy I’ve watched more in the last decade. Which is weird because its original run ended in 2013. The first five seasons are so good I don’t mind that I’m not really interested in anything that came after them.

4) Arrested Development
The back half of this list is heavy with shows that were wildly popular amongst critics but rarely got good ratings. This is kind of the originator of that sub-genre.

5) Community
A lot of similarities between this and Arrested Development, in terms of how meta it was, how people who loved it REALLY loved it, etc. Also had a monkey named Annie’s Boobs.

6) Parks & Recreation
Take the bones of The Office, move it to Indiana, and make it 75% sweeter. I still maintain if Comedy Central showed reruns of P&R as often as The Office, it would be just as popular.

7) Scrubs
Where Bill Lawrence began his run of comedies with heart.

8) Curb Your Enthusiasm
Above I said that this is right there with its cousin, Seinfeld. As much as I enjoyed it, I think this is the least universal of the bunch. I know several people who either didn’t find it funny or were put off by it.

There are plenty of other shows I enjoyed, but if you were going to ship me off to an isolated location with only a hard drive that included my favorites for entertainment, these are the eight I would require.

A Bummer Of A Game Five

After a nearly two-month dream ride, the Pacers run might be over. It wasn’t just that they lost game five in Oklahoma City last night by 11, after trimming an 18-point deficit to two midway through the fourth quarter. It wasn’t just that they routinely threw the ball away. It wasn’t just that they missed open shots when they could hang on to the ball.

It was more that Tyrese Haliburton played most of the game hobbled by whatever lower leg injury he has been dealing with the past couple weeks. It was allegedly an issue late in game two, but in games three and four he showed no ill effects, at least none that were clearly visible on TV. But last night, after slipping and aggravating the injury early, he was never at full strength, and sat out a little longer than he normally would. Fortunately for the Pacers TJ McConnell might have played the best game of his life. That both wasn’t enough and isn’t likely to be repeatable, though.

Haliburton’s game is based on speed and changes of direction and jumping while knifing around defenders. If he is compromised in his ability to do that, the Pacers have no shot.

There is the hope that with two full rest days before game six he can rally and be close to full strength for that elimination contest.

My fear, though, was that each time he grabbed his calf we would see him crumple moments later after his achilles had given way. At this point there’s a part of me that hopes the Pacers get blown out early Thursday so he can sit without suffering a potentially devastating injury that would wipe him out for not just this series but all of next year, too. NBA players love to destroy their achilles in the playoffs. Ask Jason Tatum and Kevin Durant, among others.

Game five was a great, brief explainer of both of these teams to the casual fan. The Thunder are a remarkable collection of young talent. SGA is the current MVP and one of the three or four current best players on the planet. Jalen Williams is too good to be labeled as just a sidekick. Chet Holmgren, if he can stay healthy and get stronger, will likely be one of the 15 best players in the league soon. Yes, Oklahoma City might have three All-NBA caliber players. Then they have a nearly perfect supporting cast around those three. And they have like a billion draft picks in the coming years, so they are perfectly positioned to weather the eventual salary cap hell.[1]

The Thunder are very good, very young, and set up to be that way for a long time. You have to be careful declaring dynasties these days; a year ago at this time we thought there was a new Boston Celtics dynasty. If any team in sports is positioned to dominate for the coming future, though, it is OKC.

Then you have the Pacers who are also built around two remarkable, if slightly less exceptional players than SGA and Williams. There’s no one in the NBA quite like Haliburton. The same can kind of be said for Pascal Siakam. Those two are both in the top 25 players in the league. They also have a fantastic and near-perfectly suited roster built around them. Again, that collection of talent isn’t as exceptional as the Thunder’s, but they work in a way that makes them far better as a sum than you would expect.

The Pacers are also unfazed by falling behind, whether it is because they are playing dumb, out of control, etc or their opponent is just handing it to them. They keep doing their thing knowing eventually it will start working again and they’ll get back into the game. Last night the Pacers were terrible in the first half. Throwing the ball away constantly. Taking bad shots and missing easy ones. Yet the Thunder couldn’t put them away and in the third quarter the inevitable comeback began. They just didn’t have enough, either as a team or from their superstar, to pull off another miracle.

It’s funny how these series go. I didn’t think the Pacers had much of a chance when it began, knowing how good OKC was. Then Indiana stole game one and seemed to break the Thunder’s collective spirit in game three. Instead of admiring the Thunder I was learning to hate them, from SGA’s constant pushoffs and referee bailouts on touch fouls, to Lu Dort and Alex Caruso manhandling the Pacers in the middle of the court without ever getting called for it, to Holmgren’s constant whining and truly unfortunate aesthetics. This is what is supposed to happen in the NBA Finals: you end up despising the team you are rooting against. Had the Thunder won this thing easily I’m not sure I would have gotten there. But the Pacers made this a series, and if they don’t pull off a massive upset over the final two games, will honestly look back on it as one they let get away, not one where they were hopelessly overmatched.

I’m starting to get into eulogy territory and it’s too soon for that. Hopefully I can put it off one more game and save it for next week. Between Hali’s health and the Thunder starting to feel locked in, things don’t seem promising for Thursday. You just never know with these Pacers. Maybe they have one more amazing game left in them and can send the series back to Oklahoma where anything can happen in game seven.


  1. The Thunder were, in fact, one ping pong ball away from owning the #3 pick in this year’s draft. Kevin Pritchard has done a terrific job building the Pacers, but Sam Presti has done an all-time job turning the Thunder into the franchise with the best and longest path to sustained excellence in the league.  ↩

Weekend Notes

A full, fun weekend that had healthy doses of sadness and even a little fear.


KC Trip

As mentioned Friday, I headed back to Kansas City for the weekend to attend the memorial service for Jack N, the father of one of my closest friends. We’re at the age where these are happening more frequently, but no matter the circumstances they are never easy. It was a fine service and honored the deceased in a way I think he would have appreciated.

That was the reason for the trip. I obviously did more than just attend the memorial.

I flew in Friday afternoon, my buddy Dave picked me up, and we headed directly to Joe’s Kansas City Barbecue, where I knocked out a jumbo Z-Man, fries, and a frosty Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat. Joe’s never disappoints.

On our way to Dave’s house, which was my home base for the weekend, we stopped at a liquor store. I was thrilled that they still had some Boulevard Irish Ale not only in stock but in the cooler. Where it was once kind of easy to find in Indy before St. Patrick’s Day, it has disappeared in recent years. An unexpected bonus!

That evening Dave and his wife had plans, so I took my Irish Ale to John N’s house. Despite having just returned from an overseas trip and planning for his dad’s services the next day, he was gracious enough to invite me out not just to visit but so I could avoid having to watch the Pacers game in a bar. I figured KC drinking holes would lean heavily towards the Thunder.

Anyway, John and his family and I had a good conversation while watching a little of the Royals game and all of the Pacers game. More on that in a bit.

Dave let me borrow his car, a 2019 Audi Q5. Fitting the theme for the weekend, it was like being with an old friend! I found it interesting that despite being just two years older than my Q5, his drove very differently. I’m no mechanical expert but I think his engine was tuned slightly differently, making it feel smoother than mine had been. However, his media screen was not touch capable, so I drove myself a little crazy trying to tap the screen to have Siri read texts to me without any success. There’s your mini car post for the month.

Saturday morning Dave and Maureen took me to Gram & Dun for brunch. I ate what was, without a doubt, the best breakfast burrito I’ve ever had. It was amazing.

After the service and reception, our friends the Murrays hosted a small gathering, which eventually moved to Waldo Pizza for dinner. I’m almost positive I had not been to Waldo Pizza in 22 years, so that was excellent.

Saturday also just happened to be the 22nd anniversary of the day S and I got married in KC. It was kind of wild to be back there, sadly without her, when that day rolled around. I was pleased to hear the lady who guided us through our pre-marriage classes is still active, and our good friend Ann remains close with her. I was also glad that it wasn’t 102° like it was the day we got married.

Sunday morning Maureen, despite it being her birthday, made sure to send me off with a wonderful breakfast. I was on the mid-morning flight back home. When the weather is right, there may be no easier trip in the world than flying between Indianapolis and Kansas City. Two new airports that are super easy to navigate and don’t get super busy. I was door-to-door in exactly three-and-a-half hours. Had I driven, I wouldn’t have been to St. Louis yet in that time.

One other travel note, the Racing Louisville FC women’s soccer team was on both of my flights. Apparently there are no direct flights between the ‘Ville and KC, so they must have bussed up to Indy. They lost to the KC Current Saturday evening. I did not mention the result to the players who were next to me in the boarding line Sunday.

I know a lot of the people I saw this weekend are readers of this site. It was great to see you all, although sad it took a funeral to get me back there this summer.


Pacers

Man, the NBA Finals were on the Pacers racquet, to use a tennis term. Up 2–1 in the series and leading by 10 points late in the third period, with Obi Toppin going to the line for two free throws. I had a bad feeling when he missed both, which turned out to be a key moment in the Thunder coming back to even the series at two games.

I watched the entire game, as already noted, at the N’s house. And while I was paying attention, we were also catching up. So my attentions were, at best, split 50–50 all night. For example, the play when SGA pushed off, traveled, and then got an and-one that gave OKC the lead barely registered. Had I been watching that play at home in my normal seat, I would have been screaming and yelling, possibly punching things, and maybe had to take a walk outside. For sure I would not have been able to sleep after the game. I shared this with a non-KC friend and he said, “That might be the healthiest move: force yourself to watch games with people who will make you unfocused on the result and less stressed.” Only took me (almost) 54 years to figure that out!

You hate to say the series is completely over after how good three of the first four games have been, but the Pacers have certainly blown their advantage and put themselves in a tough spot. At least they get to come back home for game six regardless of what happens in Oklahoma tonight. Never count them out, but they are running out of chances.


HS Hoops

It was an open recruiting weekend for high school sports – there were a bunch of college softball coaches on my flight Sunday who had been in Kansas City for a big tournament – and CHS played four games in an annual event here in Indy. Friday they went 2–0, including waxing a team that beat them last year and has one of the best rising juniors in the state. She scored 30+ but our girls kept the rest of the team in check. L didn’t play much in the first game, but got in for most of the fourth quarter of game two. Her travel coach was there and sent me a picture of her inbounding the ball. I shared it with S and she noted that L’s legs are back to being the same size! She’s got her muscle back after the weeks of cast and boot.

Saturday S went to the games and sent me some good updates. That might have been the highlight of the weekend; I’m not sure she’s ever sent me updates before! L played a little more, and a little better in each game. She got to the rim and scored while faking a defender in one. In the other, she scored, got fouled, and swished the free throw.

They beat a good team in the morning game, and then played the team they lost to in sudden death overtime a week ago in game two. We were waxing them, up almost 20, when things got bad. Like seriously bad.

S sent me a message saying our best player had suffered a “devastating” knee injury, probably tearing her ACL. S said the girl was screaming, other players were looking away, and it was just a terrible situation all around. A little later she updated me that it seemed like she had actually dislocated her knee, and the on-site trainer had popped it back into place. OK, 😱🤮

Then another five minutes went by and S texted me that one of L’s best friends had just broken her finger and left the game.

Obviously our girls were a little shook by all this, and tried their hardest to blow all of that lead. L got a lot more minutes and admitted to me later she was not ready to handle the ball against pressure yet. Glad I missed all of that.

But our girls hung on to go 4–0 for the weekend.

We don’t have an update on our star. S was concerned that despite just being a dislocation she could have also torn ligaments as well. I guess we’ll find out soon. That’s a serious bummer for her and our team. And our other injured girl will have surgery on her finger and be out the rest of the summer. The girls have 10 games this week and just eight healthy players, one of whom is still rehabbing her dumb foot and not in full basketball shape yet.

I thought summer was supposed to be fun.

Oh, and L was up in the air trying to block a shot when she got sideswiped by a teammate and knocked to the floor. She has a massive bruise on her hip and actually got some whiplash when she hit the ground and her head snapped back, so her neck is super sore and tight.

It might be time to get her some golf clubs.


US Open

With the travel I did not watch as much of the US Open as I normally would. I was home in time to see the wild final three or four hours Sunday, which included a long weather delay, a moment late in the tournament when six guys were tied for the lead, some epic meltdowns and classic US Open destroying the best golfers in the world stuff, and then JJ Spaun rolling in a ridiculous 60-foot putt to ice his first major victory. Conditions had eliminated most of the best and best known golfers, but the final two hours were a lot of fun to watch.


Royals

They stink.

I’ve not written much about them this year. I’m not watching them as closely as I did the back half of last season, but I am tracking scores each night. There have been a lot of bad Royals teams over the years. This one may well be the most frustrating because they get good-to-great starting pitching almost every night and just cannot hit the ball. It doesn’t matter whether I check the score early or late, I’m almost certain the Royals will have no more than two runs, and most likely none. It’s really uncanny how poor they are at scoring. I guess this is balancing how great they were last year at getting runners in scoring position home.

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