Tag: links (Page 4 of 24)

A few things for you to read.

The already messed-up world of professional golf got even crazier last week when Patrick Reed filed a bizarre lawsuit against the Golf Channel and GC personality Brandel Chamblee. Attorney (and golfer) Will Bardwell had this terrific, and hilarious, breakdown of the case’s merits.

Patrick Reed’s Libel Case Is A House Built On Sand

This is straight-up weird. Thank goodness this bug didn’t crash planes or send nuclear power plants into meltdowns.

Janet Jackson had the power to crash laptop computers

From The Ringer’s Cringe Comedy Week, this piece about one of the most notorious episodes of The Office. I’m one of those people who struggles to watch this episode because it is so close to the edge. But if I’m in the right mood it makes me laugh a lot.

“If there’s any malice in Michael Scott, I think that story doesn’t work…”

Dashed Dreams, Empty Promises, and Laptop Batteries

I read plenty of Better Call Saul reactions and wrap-ups last week. I think Ben Lindbergh’s was the best of the bunch.

No Show Earned Its Ending More Than ‘Better Call Saul’

This interview with Rhea Seehorn was great, too.

Kim Wexler’s Curtain Call Better Call Saul’s Rhea Seehorn reflects on six seasons spent getting inside ‘an extremely inscrutable character.’

Finally, it’s never too early to Christmas shop, and I bet there’s a Gen Xer on your list that would enjoy these.

Beastie Boys ReAction Figures

M and I are off to visit Purdue so it seems like a great day to share some more interesting reads.

I don’t know a thing about cricket, and I’m guessing most of you don’t, either. That doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate the ridiculousness of this story.

“I have never seen a scam like this. These guys just cleared a patch of land deep inside a village and began playing a match and beaming it on YouTube to make money through gambling. Even the local villagers were not aware of this. We know very little about the Russians who were putting bets on this game,” Mr Rathod said.

India: How a fake ‘IPL’ cricket league ran for Russian punters

I enjoyed this Q&A with Jack White. This quote stuck out to me:

I’ve often felt sorry for people who have hit songs that they’re forced to play in that exact same way for their entire lives or entire careers. There’s definitely some goodness in there. But I always feel from the sidelines like, Oh, that’s too bad. You can’t play around with that or people get their hearts broken because you’re messing with a good thing.

I find that’s true with certain artists: I would riot if Neil Finn, say, completely changed “Don’t Dream It’s Over.” But for artists like White, who I expect experimentation from, if he totally ripped one of his classics apart and put it back together in a new way, I would be cool with it.

Jack White on the Most Stubborn and Prophetic Music of His Career

I think it is safe to say that Journey occupies a very different space in the music world than Jack White does. Journey is the epitome of corporate rock where White has built his entire career on challenging the norms of the music business.

Journey was my favorite band in the early 1980s. I still hung onto some love for their music until the summer of 1992, when Pearl Jam, Nirvana, etc totally rocked my world and had me turning my back on much of the music I grew up on. I never really fell back in love with Journey, although I have grown to appreciate their rockers again.

With that background, I find this piece a little cruel or, as my girls would say, extra. But it’s still a fun read.

They’re probably not the most earnest rock band of all time — there are plenty of contenders for that title — but their combination of sincerity and emphaticness was emblematic of a rock era ruled by dudes with no chill. No wonder the music video for “Separate Ways” is so spectacularly, awkwardly awful.

Journey Mastered the Art of Uncool with “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)”

Gary Smith is on the short list for greatest magazine writers ever. I read his work for years without finally registering his byline. Once I knew who he was, I was certain whatever piece I was about to read would be amazing.

This profile looks at his career and what he’s done since leaving Sports Illustrated. This passage is as good an explanation as any for why SI and other sports media that our generation grew up on no longer matter.

As the magazine industry shrunk and the athlete’s pulpit grew, the calculus inverted. The magazine needs the athlete now, not the other way around. “So, the shadows get shut down and the person controls the whole thing. It’s a step of trust no longer necessary for celebrities to take. So why take it?”

No Typo: Gary Smith Teaches Mindfulness to Elementary School Kids These Days

A few links I’ve come across in the past few days that are worth sharing.

First, the New York Times wrote about one of M’s classmates. That’s right, THE NEW YORK TIMES! I never guessed Booker would rise as high in the national rankings as he has (#2 in one list, #4 in another) when I stood next to him at freshman orientation nearly three years ago.

This piece is less about Booker the player than about the path he and his family have chosen. A course that includes playing for a summer team with no shoe company affiliation and remaining at Cathedral for four years rather than transferring to a prep school. It took awhile, but with his explosion over the past four months, their choices seem to be paying off.

A Prized Recruit Shows the Shoe Circuit Is Not the Only Path

(Pro tip: if you have a public library card, I bet you can get access to the NYT for free. Check your library’s website. That’s how I read NYT articles I’m interested in.)

From The Guardian, an interesting piece about tracking what we listen to, watch, and read. I’ll admit I often get paralyzed looking at my lists of things I want to consume, and some pressure to make sure my monthly Media posts are filled with interesting entries.

Despite the positives of this – that we are motivated to make space for things we enjoy – it doesn’t exactly feel in the spirit of great art to be gamifying it in this way. And the flip side of those gratifying “Watched” lists is their ominous (and guilt-inducing) “To watch” opposite numbers. What ought to be an enticing smörgåsbord of future entertainment begins to look like an impossible mountain to climb.

‘It’s dopamine’: why we love to track our watching and reading habits

I read a John Darnielle novel awhile back. I’ve never been a huge Mountain Goats fan, although I like some of their songs. But I knew Darnielle was an “interesting” guy.

This piece confirms that.

“If you, every day, choose to be a little petty; if you, every day, deny somebody a little help that you could give at no real cost to yourself, you are going to become a much worse person than the guy who murdered somebody one time. By the time you’re 50, you’re going to be an unpleasant person to be around.”

The Mountain Goats Are Choosing a More Radical World

(Tuesday morning someone I follow mentioned that the Goats’ new songs are bangers. I checked them out and I must agree. Take a listen for yourself here.

I just can’t seem to get on a regular schedule for sharing fun things I run across in my internet travels. So I’ve decided to scrap the periodic link-heavy posts and move towards sharing interesting pieces individually, as I run across them. That means more content for you, dear readers!

Let’s kick it off with this wonderful profile of Creed Bratton. In recent years I’ve learned plenty about his life. I don’t think I knew anything about his “real” life until well after The Office ended its run on NBC. As I’ve learned more about his life, it’s fun to watch reruns and see how many aspects of his character come out of his true experiences.

He’s lived three lives, had five names. At least. He’s most well-known, of course, for playing the seedy, scheming octogenarian, with whom he shares a name, on the American version of the television show The Office. He turned a non-speaking background role into a cult-favorite character on one of the most successful comedies of all time, but that’s not the story. So much came before that.

Creed Bratton Has a Story to Tell

I thinned out my Instapaper queue quite a bit over spring break. Which means I’m way past due in sharing some of my favorites (along with a few I’ve added in the past week).

First, a couple pieces about the situation in Ukraine. As with any fast-moving current event, these are already a little out-of-date. I think they are still compelling reads.

20 Days in Mariupol: The Team That Documented City’s Agony
The Last Cell Tower in Mariupol

There is a greater-than-zero chance that the war in Ukraine could lead us down a path that we haven’t had to consider in over 30 years: the use of nuclear weapons.

Here is a story I’ve never heard before from the Cuban Missile Crisis, and how the Soviet’s plan to send a probe to Mars was temporarily sidetracked so a missile aimed at New York City could be put on alert.

“I received the order to open an envelope that has been stored in a special safe and to act in accordance with its contents,” Kirillov told Chertok confidentially. “According to the order, I must immediately prepare the duty combat missile at the engineering facility and mate the warhead located in a special depot, roll the missile out to the launch site, position it, test it, fuel it, aim it, and wait for a special launch command.”

That time when Soviet rocket scientists nearly nuked New York City

Two summers ago, during a Reds-Royals game in Kansas City, Reds broadcaster Thom Brennaman uttered a gay slur that viewers heard. I missed that, but about an hour later I heard his bizarre apology and exit from the broadcast (bizarre because he called a Nick Castellanos home run in the midst of his apology, a moment that launched a million memes).

This article, from Out Sports, examines the path that Brennaman has taken since then and the debate, within both the broadcast and gay communities, on whether Brennaman deserves another chance on air.

With all that, Brennaman knows that mostly straight male decision-makers may never give him an opportunity to work in major sports broadcasting again. He says he hasn’t engaged in all of this work to prove himself to them.

Instead, he’s done it to undo the harm he now realizes he caused the LGBTQ community with his language that fateful night.

Who is the real Thom Brennaman, and does he deserve a second chance?

This is a fascinating look at the world of MBS, Mohammed Bin Salman, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia and man most believe responsible for the death of Saudi-American journalist Jamal Khashoggi. It’s one of the best pieces of international affairs writing I’ve read in some time.

Absolute Power

I don’t know that this song necessarily “defined the ‘80s,” but it was pretty damn big. And I didn’t realize how much it has stuck around. A terrific read about a Gen X classic.

‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’ Defined the 1980s. And Then It Wouldn’t Let Go

The Crocodile Hunter debuted 25 years ago this year. That seems crazy. An oral history of its development and early days.

Photography and Camera Operator, Steve Elkins The Crocodile Hunter:John [Stainton] was coming to visit L.A. and said, “Would you mind looking at this video? There’s this crazy guy in Australia who goes out and captures crocodiles and relocates them.

Crikey! The wet, wild first season of The Crocodile Hunter

Finally, my wife found this to be very funny.

QUIZ: Is He Cute or Is He Just Tall and White?

2 – Your friends would probably describe him as:
a.) Charming, interesting, and funny
b.) Good at reaching the good cereal on the top shelf in your kitchen

As we come out of the age of Omicron and brace for whatever is next, this is a good reminder of how far we’ve come, and how quickly, in combating Covid–19.

If Covid vaccines had taken as long as the mumps vaccine to develop, the world would have had to face the Delta and Omicron waves with the vast majority of people on the planet armor-less against the virus that causes Covid.

“The previous fastest vaccine ever developed … would just be entering into the clinic now. And we’ve delivered 11 billion doses,” Hatchett noted. “That’s how much we’ve moved the needle.”

Why Covid–19 vaccines are a freaking miracle

Sometimes it takes awhile, but eventually the Internet asks all the good questions.

Norm’s tab, unlike Norm himself, isn’t a solid, unchanging, sedentary thing. Instead, it’s much more like the amount of beer Norm has in his glass. Sometimes it’s full, sometimes it’s empty and sometimes the set decorators make a continuity error and it changes without explanation.

How Much Was Norm’s Tab on Cheers?

I read a handful of pieces about Peter Jackson’s Get Back after I watched the series in December, but saved this lengthy piece until President’s Day weekend. It is worth the effort.

Art involves a kind of conjuring trick in which the artist conceals her false starts, her procrastination, her self-doubts, her confusion, behind the finished article. The Beatles did so well at effacing their efforts that we are suspicious they actually had to make any, which is why the words “magic” and “genius” get used so much around them…In Get Back, we are allowed into The Beatles’ process. We see the mess; we live the boredom. We watch them struggle, and somehow it doesn’t diminish the magic at all.

The Banality of Genius: Notes on Peter Jackson’s Get Back

I’ve never been to Montreal but know that winters there can be brutal. I had heard before how much of the city center (or centre) is built on a system of tunnels so you can navigate it on foot without ever stepping outside. I had never heard, though, of its snow removal system, which is designed to get the city functioning normally again incredibly quickly after a major snowstorm.

Déneigement Montreal

Finally, no matter what streaming service(s) you use, I’m sure they all frustrate/disappoint you somehow with their clunky, sometimes hostile, user interfaces. Apple geek John Siracusa pays out his wishlist for the minimum that these apps should offer us to improve their ease of use for the consumer.

An Unsolicited Streaming App Spec

As usual, this collection of links has been sitting in my queue for far too long. The two holiday-related pieces, though, were both published in the New Year, so they aren’t as old as they seem.

Every Winter Olympic Event, Ranked by How Terrified I’d Be to Participate in It

Has fighting the massive time difference for the third-straight Olympiad got you down? This might spice up your Winter Olympics viewing a little bit.

HBO Max Announces A Christmas Story Sequel with Original Ralphie Actor

This is kind of interesting. Peter Billingsley will play an adult Ralphie Parker who returns to his childhood home in the 1970s to, in a very Clark Griswold manner, give his kids the kind of Christmas he had growing up.

Two problems. 1) A Christmas Story was so great because it was based on Jean Shepherd’s writings. Will they be able to capture the spirit that was unique to Shepherd’s work? 2) They are filming it in Hungary, which is concerning. I’m sure the Hungarian people are nice, but their government, specifically their leader, is pretty whack.

The Case for Keeping Up Your Christmas Tree Until March

You all know how I am about keeping anything related to Christmas contained in a very specific window. So I would never go this route. But maybe some day, if I am lucky enough to get very old and very eccentric, I might become one of these people.

Coincidentally I got my hair cut the day before I read this article, and my stylist told me she takes her lights and decorations down, but leaves her tree up for months. I never knew that was a thing.

Listen, I’m not some sort of holiday weirdo…It’s about finding ways to make it through the winter doldrums.

How the Movie ‘WarGames’ Inspired Reagan’s Cybersecurity Policies

This begins with a story about how clueless Ronald Reagan was about technology. It turns into a fascinating connection between Hollywood and our defense policy.

The funny thing is, back when the screenwriters ofWarGames were writing the movie, they consulted a computer scientist named Willis Ware who had designed some of the systems at NORAD, and for years, Willis Ware had been warning the Department of Defense that computer intrusion was an issue, but they ignored him. Then, it gets back to the DoD indirectly through Reagan, because he watched WarGames. They then made a new policy to address what this guy had been talking about for years. So it turned out that making a Hollywood movie was a more potent way of escalating the issue.

A college football legend tells his side of one of the most hilarious/infamous recruiting stories ever.

So that’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but, straight from the horse’s mouth. Is that such a scandal? That the best player for one of the best teams in the country got a nice car? I don’t think so. I think I deserved that car—and a lot more than that.

Eric Dickerson Finally Tells the Truth About That Gold Trans Am

The need for police reform is real, for many reasons. That doesn’t mean totally defunding the police and turning our cities into a modern version of the Wild West, where people seek justice on their own. No, it means we need to have an honest, open discussion about what the role of the police should be in our society, how police forces should be funded and equipped, and how we can repair the relationship between police and the people they are supposed to serve and protect. In all neighborhoods, not just minority areas.

This amazing piece of journalism is a perfect example of a local police department run amok.

Police in this tiny Alabama town suck drivers into legal ‘black hole’

Two explorers skied across the Arctic ice cap. They ran into some issues. This story is bananas. It is cool that there are still people out doing stuff like this.

The untold story of the boldest polar expedition of modern times

Gerrymandering and redistricting has been in the news a lot lately. The Washington Post had fun with some rather oddly designed congressional districts. I live just a mile or two away from one of these.

Play mini golf on a course made of unusual congressional districts

A few good reads to jumpstart your short week.

These are pretty funny. Although are we sure Pearl Jam is a sad dad band? I do shake my head at the word “crypto,” though, so they may be onto something.

What Your Favorite Sad Dad Band Says About You

Kevin Clark’s summary of the CFP National Title game was terrific. I loved this section, in particular, about Kelee Ringo’s pick-six that iced the game and title for Georgia.

You can go to a lot of games but you rarely get a moment like this. The type of moment that will not just be remembered—there are all sorts of memorable moments in title games—but a moment whose image will be painted on the side of random sports bars. Fans will look up the play on YouTube when there’s nothing to do after they’ve had two beers. People will get tattoos of the play and it won’t be considered that weird. Thatsort of play.

Sports are full of wonderfully ridiculous moments like this. I really didn’t care who won but was swept up in the moment, letting out a yell as Ringo raced up the field.

Every sports fan has moments like this. Most of the time they happen in games that aren’t for a championship of any kind. So they don’t get forgotten – most of us lunatics can talk about way too many random moments from 35-year-old Big 8 games – but they certainly have a pretty niche audience.

But for a moment like that to happen on the game’s biggest stage is pretty special. Georgia fans are going to talk about it forever, even ones not old enough to remember it. And the rest of us will, too. I’m lucky that I have one of those moments in my personal sports history. Slightly different context, but still a play that will never be forgotten.

A really good piece about the impact that John Madden had. I love the stuff about how he changed the way football was broadcast.

Madden’s genius was how he taught football. Those booms, that unbuttoned aura of regular guy-dom—all of that was an invitation. It made Madden’s classroom feel like a safe place, where you’d get a little smarter and the professor would never act like he was smarter than you.

The Genius of John Madden

When we visited Nashville in October, Jason Isbell was in the midst of his annual residency at the Ryman Auditorium. HIs band’s gear was on stage when we took our tour. This piece came out of that time. I don’t always love Isbell’s music, but I greatly admire his point-of-view and his efforts to make change.

Jason Isbell Is Tired Of Country’s Love Affair With White Nostalgia

I never had a Stretch Armstrong, but I played with my share back in the 1970’s. This hits right in my Gen X heart.

An Oral History of Stretch Armstrong’s Delightful Destructibility