I have a very busy day, but still want to squeeze in some quick words about game one of the NBA Finals.
It started about how I expected: the Pacers were sped up and nervous and when they could get shots, were missing thoroughly makable ones. The Thunder were also nervy at the beginning, but their defense found its footing and began shutting down everything the Pacers wanted to do. At times it looked like a mismatched college game, where the Pacers had three guys standing 40 feet from the basket trying to figure out how to even begin the offense, let alone get decent looks.
After a slight lull, the music has really started to pile up again, so we are back to the thick and juicy playlists. [open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4sZDasp5hTKSaJdCR3kVSf?si=5942c3fa06f045d8)
“Celebrated Summer” - Hüsker Dü (Nods head.) Yeah, this is the good shit.
“Did I Say Too Much” - The Beaches Serious Song Of The Summer vibes here.
“Inland Ocean” - Matt Berninger With the NBA Finals featuring two teams from the middle part of the county, it seems like a no brainer to include this song.
The NBA Finals have arrived. I’ve been listening to podcasts previewing the series all week, and reading everything The Ringer has posted on the topic. Since I know most of you are 1) far busier than me and 2) don’t care as much about the result as I do, allow me to offer a summarization of all that content: the Pacers are a very good, super entertaining, resilient team that plays a style that is tough defend and absolutely deserves the full respect of every basketball fan and analyst.
John Siracusa is one of the most respected members of the Apple blogosphere. In these two pieces he lays the smack down on Tim Cook.
Apple Turnover Apple Turnaround
Another bonkers and amazing addition to the legacy of the Voyager project: thrusters that had been assumed unusable for over 20 years have been revived. I keep waiting to hear that the minuscule budget line that keeps this project has been X-ed out by you -know-who.
Taste: My Life Through Food - Stanley Tucci Coincidentally my hold on this came in just as his latest travel/food show premiered. It is equal parts autobiography and food diary of his entire life. He writes exactly as he speaks on his travel shows, which is either a good, comforting thing or annoying based on what you think of those shows. I read a review of his new show that complained about how into himself he is.
Holy shit, it happened! The Pacers are in the NBA Finals!
I gotta be honest, I was angry Friday morning. And worried. After the Pacers played like ass in New York Thursday it meant little to me that the series was coming back to Indy for game six. It seemed like the Knicks had figured out how to contain the Pacers offense with backcourt pressure, they were gaining confidence on offense, they were defying all the odds by staying healthy, and most infuriatingly the Knicks bench played better than the Pacers reserves on Thursday.
Movies, Shows, etc Confess, Fletch There’s a reason it took over 30 years to make the next Fletch film. No matter who filled the title role, no matter how talented they were, they would be compared to Chevy Chase at the absolute apex of his comedic powers. After years of rumors and starts and stops and so many rumored actors as Fletch, it finally happened. And somehow I totally missed it?
This came together surprisingly well for it being a short, busy week. It helps that we are in Summer Music season.
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“Constructive Summer” - The Hold Steady Always good advice to build something in the summer.
“Andromeda” - Preoccupations Not a bad song on the latest Preoccupations album.
“One Million” - Rocket Other than “Cherub Rock,” I was never a Smashing Pumpkins fan, so it’s kind of weird I enjoy so many new bands, like this one, that mimic their sound.
Continuing our look back at last weekend (and slightly beyond), let’s get into the sports.
PACERS!!!! Quite the swing of emotions, this Eastern Conference Finals series. Game one was the Pacers’ legendary comeback and overtime win.
Game two Friday was a Big Brother game for them, getting another win in Madison Square Garden by controlling the game from start-to-finish and keeping the Knicks at an arm’s length every time they made a run.
Another super busy weekend, not to mention some big news that lead in to the weekend. Because of that, I’ll probably split this into two posts, the second coming tomorrow.
Our school year officially ended on Friday with L’s last final. She just had one exam in her first period, so I called her out at 10:30. She had some girlfriends over in the afternoon and some young men joined them later on.
It’s the Friday before Memorial Day. That means it’s both time to break out the summer music and to play a song I always play this weekend. Two songs, actually.
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“Jack & Diane” - John Mellencamp Years ago, when we were still lake people, one of my better Facebook posts was something along the lines of “It’s not Memorial Day weekend until you’re drunk at the lake and you hear ‘Jack And Diane.
Normally on a day like this, after what happened at Madison Square Garden last night, I would have hopped out of bed early and banged out 25,000 words about the latest inexplicable Pacers, come-from-behind win.
Funny thing happened last night, though. If funny is a proper synonym for infuriating.
At 7:59 I set aside my small screen where I was watching YouTube vids and hit the power button on the remote to fire up the big screen for the game.
The long wait is over: the NBA Eastern Conference finals begin tonight. The Pacers have been sitting around for more than week as the Knicks closed out the Celtics and then the stupid NBA calendar got situated. Somehow the Western Conference finals started before the Eastern, even though the Thunder just finished their series against Denver on Sunday. Dumb.
Anyway, it’s finally here. This is a truly fascinating series and it’s been fun to hear the NBA podcasters I pay attention to twist themselves around trying to pick a winner.
We are in it.
Grad season has arrived. That and some other activities kept us very busy over the past few days. Let’s go day-by-day.
Friday We lucked out and just missed the bad storms that rolled through our area Friday evening. We had our fingers crossed a little extra harder than normal because we had two fridges full of catered food for our Saturday activities. We did get heavy rain and high winds.
I’m going to delay the weekend notes until tomorrow since we have a rather important event tonight. Fortunately I have two books that I need to share some thoughts about.
Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane! - David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker Truly one of the most fun books I’ve read in a long time. The three men behind the movie Airplane! come together for an oral history of both how their partnership started and the lengthy, arduous process to get their classic comedy made.
We’ve reached what may be the busiest 10–12 days of the year for our family. Thus I’m putting this together Thursday evening, which could lead us in some surprising directions.
[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3mT5nGMKrJ0eLbbX4mxa9z?si=33646f35c89c4398)
“Friday On My Mind” - Brògeal This seems like a good way to start. When writing about this band, Tom Breihan said, “They look and sound like the most Scottish motherfuckers you ever saw in your entire life…” which might be the greatest description of a band ever.
A few more links to pieces some of you may be interested in.
I love thinking about how this will delight some Star Wars geeks, and make others super angry.
The Phony Physics of Star Wars Are a Blast
Sadly I didn’t find this recent interview with Bob Mould until after I saw him last week.
What are your feelings right now about the state of the country?
Another wild few days in the NBA, on the court and off.
Pacers They did it again! Going back to Cleveland for game five Tuesday felt like a sure loss, even with all the Cavs’ injury woes. Take the L on the road, the final punch of the year from the proud-yet-battered #1 seed, and then close out the series at home on Thursday. It sure looked like that’s where things were headed as Cleveland built a 19-point lead early in the second quarter.
Well that was a fantastic weekend! Belated Happy Mothers Days to all the moms out there. I hope you had as good of weekends as we did.
Visitors Our good friends Dave and Maureen visited from KC over the weekend. The reason for their trip, other than hanging out at blog headquarters, was so Dave and I could watch Bob Mould play some rock ’n’ roll Saturday night. Maureen was nice enough to share her Mother’s Day weekend with us old men.
I feel like I’m settling into my new groove after the switch to Apple Music, finding a better balance between the old and new music. I think you’re going to like this week’s choices, which includes a couple special tracks.
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“Black Confetti” - Bob Mould Hey, I’m seeing Bob Mould tomorrow night! And my brother-in-music Dave V. is coming to town to join me! I’m very excited to see the legend in person…and Mr.