R's: Stuff And Nonsense

In the bad old days, I would think the Royals were cursed. How else to explain getting off to a hot start - they’re currently tied for the second-best record in the bigs - yet still looking up at Detroit? The baseball gods hate the Royals, right? But these aren’t the bad old days. This is the brave new world where every roster move Dayton Moore makes works out, every in-game decision that Ned Yost makes turns to gold, and the team gets clutch hits from the bottom of its lineup late in games to pull out wins.

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⦿ Monday Links

Again links are shared on Monday this week. But for a great reason. I had to get through the incredible oral history of the making of Airplane! before I could post. I’m pretty sure that Airplane! was the first grown-up movie I was ever allowed to see at a theater. And aside from the adult language, drug references, and sexual content, the comedy is largely aimed at nine-year-olds, making me the perfect age to see it.

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Friday Vid(s)

Two classic Crowded House appearances from Letterman’s show this week. youtu.be/zyhDEE6bi… “Now We’re Getting Somewhere” Performed in 1987. Album one, side one, track three. In the heart of one of the all-time great opening stretches of any debut album. youtu.be/Y9oP8jfhO… “Locked Out” From 1994. Most famous for its inclusion on the Reality Bites soundtrack. Funny to see the difference between the original Late Night band and the first CBS version.

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Spring Sports

Several years back, as we were chasing likely just two toddlers around the yard, one set of our neighbors told us to enjoy those days. Because, they said, it wouldn’t be too long before our lives became this, and the husband pointed from our driveway, to the street, back to the driveway, back to the street. “You’ll be coming and going non-stop to practices, games, school programs.” They have two boys who are two years apart, both out of college now.

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⦿ Monday Links

Monday links this time around. Salon has kicked off a series of interviews with former “Saturday Night Live” cast members. The first participant is Nora Dunn, who had a strong run with a rather controversial end during that fantastic late 80s period. Nora Dunn: “SNL is a traumatic experience. It’s something you have to survive” I trust I’ll be sharing more of these as the series continues. I know several of you have seen this already, as it popped up several times on my Facebook feed, but it’s an excellent reminder that not everything you read on the Internet is true.

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Friday Vid

youtu.be/ZNJOUIA_r… “Under A Rock” - Waxahatchee Two weeks after Courtney Barnett dropped the first great album of the year, Katie Crutchfield drops one that is almost as good. I’ve been a fan of Crutchfield since Waxahatchee’s last album, and I love her mash-up of mid–90s college rock with a healthy dose of the more recent indie sound. Say a mid-point between bands like Throwing Muses and Belly from back in the day, and Barnett, Cat Power, and Sharon Van Etten.

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The New Babysitting Rules

Allow me to admit something that may seem obvious to other parents out there, but which surprised me and may make you laugh at / mock me. As I’ve mentioned many times over the years, child care has never been an issue for us. S. comes from a large family, many of whom have lived near us, and thus we’ve pretty much always had access to free-to-cheap and readily available sitters on the rare occasions when we actually go out and engage in adult social activities.

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Lesser Of Two Evils. Maybe.

On balance, it was a pretty solid Final Four for those of us who had no true allegiance to any of the schools represented. Yes, it sucks that Duke and Coach K won their fifth title last night. Especially given a couple awfully suspicious calls that went their way late. It wasn’t as bad as the ’01 Final Four game against Maryland, when pretty much every non-Duke fan watching believed that all three referees were doing all they could to help Duke win.

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Baseball Links

As promised, a whole mess of baseball links in honor of Opening Day. Let’s go to the oldest piece first. The Deadspin Stacks reprinted Robert Ward’s legendary article about Reggie Jackson published in Sport[1] magazine in 1977. It, in many ways, defined how Reggie was perceived for the rest of his career. Not unfairly, I should add. Be sure to read the epilogue Ward added for the reprint. The Day A Shit-Talking Reggie Jackson Tore Apart The Yankees

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Opening Day!

Today, we wake up. Baseball begins again in Kansas City, which means we stop dreaming about the unbelievable run of last October, wondering if Alex Gordon could have scored or waking from nightmares about Madison Bumgarner. Now, all of that is truly part of the past. We have new games to watch! Which is kind of a shame. Because I just don’t think last year was the beginning of some great run for the Royals.

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No Thanks

My girls go to school approximately 11 miles away from Lucas Oil Stadium. When I picked them up about an hour ago,[1] that is the closest I’ll get to downtown Indy this weekend. I’ve already dealt with a downtown swarming with Kentucky fans once this year. No need to do it again when A) there are going to be approximately 8 million of them clogging the streets this time and B) their team is on the verge of history.

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Friday Vid(s)

Not one, not two, but three videos this week! The first two were ones I meant to share before we took off on spring break two weeks ago. Alas, that final Thursday was entirely too busy and I wasn’t able to queue them up. The first one seems appropriate for the Final Four weekend. youtu.be/571BuZeeQ… “Dunked On” - Froggy Fresh & Money Maker Mike Here is a classic example of what my friends and I could have done if we had the technology about 25–30 years ago.

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March Books

Three months into the year, 15 books completed. My meager math skills tell me that puts me on pace for 60 books this year. I imagine that pace will slow a bit. March was a bit of a mixed bag. A couple books I really enjoyed. A couple duds. And one re-read from way back. The Flamethrowers - Rachel Kushner This book was, perhaps, a little too artsy for me.

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⦿ Tuesday Links

My Instapaper queue is currently like a cheap toilet: so full that it is overflowing. Wait, that’s a terrible analogy. How about this: by failing to get a links post out before spring break, and then continuing to add items to Instapaper during the break, I have a ridiculous number of articles to share. So I’m going to bundle all the baseball items together in another post, and throw everything else into this one.

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Spring Break

I forget if I warned my loyal readers that I would be disappearing for over a week as we traveled south for spring break. Facebook friends know the deal, and hopefully the rest of you figured it out on your own. We are back, safe, tanned, and not entirely well-rested. I dropped the girls back at school about an hour ago and S. is off for a couple meetings. So I suppose I should get back in the swing of things, too, and share some details of our trip.

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Picks To Pick Against

We’re on the verge of that panic state that precedes any big trip. We’ve had clothes laid out since the weekend. We have about 38 lists with things we need to buy, pack, and take care of before we depart Friday morning. I’m also writing a baseball preview for my paper, L. has a playdate scheduled for this afternoon, and there are still many errands to run. Which means I best put down some NCAA picks before I forget and one of my Final Four picks has already been ousted.

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He Knows The Deal

Straight up, I did not like Maurice Clarett back when he played for Ohio State. Part of it was just that I don’t like Ohio State and I hated their coach at the time, Jim Tressel. There were always rumors about him off-the-field, too. Rumors that seemed to be proven true with some legal issues after he left college that resulted in him landing in prison. However, since he went to prison, he has taken hold of and turned around his life dramatically.

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Not My Favorite Bracket

Next Sunday I’m going to be walking on a beach, swimming in a pool, and otherwise enjoying the Florida sun on day two of our week on Captiva Island. God forbid there is rain or it suddenly gets cool and I’m forced to watch basketball all day. Because I think my plan next weekend is going to be to soak in the much-needed warmth of Florida[0] and not spend much time watching the first weekend of the NCAA tournament.

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Season's End

Great seasons often come to an end early in March. Teams that cruised through the regular season run into injuries, over-confidence, or just better opponents and walk off the court for the final time with an L next to their name. That happened to M.’s volleyball team last night. After winning their first nine matches, including the first two of the tournament, they dropped a 3-game match in the quarterfinals last night, losing 15–11 in game three.

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Friday Vid

youtu.be/5AQQ9xw0K… “The One I Love” - Big Country Odds are if you mention the band Big Country to most people in our generation, they immediately and only think of one song. Which makes sense, as other than that classic, Big Country was never huge in America. But they had a couple other smaller hits here in the States, including this gorgeous track from their 1993 album The Buffalo Skinners, which hit #34 on the mainstream rock chart and #17 on the modern rock chart.

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