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. open.spotify.com/playlist/… “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. open.spotify.com/playlist/… “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.
I’ve fallen behind again and I just started a book that’s going to take a week or so to get through, so some quick-ish book notes. Charlesgate Confidential - Scott Von Doviak A fun, pulpy novel that takes place over three different timelines in Boston, centered on an old building that has a complex (and haunted?) history. It begins with a mob heist and killing after World War II, jumps to a college student in 1986 who investigates the history of the building, and lands on a detective in 2014 who tries to tie a case he is working back to the weird cycle of past events.
A crazy few hours Tuesday night. Holy Shit, Pacers!!! I knew the Pacers were in trouble when I saw, about an hour before game two of the Eastern Conference semifinals, that Cleveland would be missing three starters. THREE. How did I know they were in trouble? Because any time the Pacers faced a situation like this in the regular season, they laid a huge egg, either losing to a bad team or having to work like crazy in the fourth quarter to avoid an embarrassing L.
A bunch of good reads to share. When I went to Washington D.C. with L’s class two years ago, one of the most impactful experiences was the several hours we spent in the National Museum of African American History and Culture. It was emotional, made me angry and proud to be an American at the same time, and should be a required stop on any DC visit. Naturally it is under fire because telling the truth about our past offends too many old, white people.
A week after prom and before four consecutive weeks where we will be very busy, it was a nice, boring, lazy weekend. Weather There’s no delicate way to say this: our weather was ass most of the weekend. It rained Friday night into Saturday, then off-and-on the rest of the weekend. The temps slowly dropped from the 70s into the 40s. Sunday was dark and dreary and misty and generally ugly.
As I shared many words about earlier this week, my switch to Apple Music means I’m pulling more songs from the past up into my daily soundtrack. Which means these playlists are going to start including more classics. Which was my intention back when I started them however many years ago. There will still be plenty of new music if that’s why you come to these posts. [open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0kTdfdU9VJepf2zcale0k6?si=1de6fba8557f4d1e) “Rock ’n’ Roll High School” - Ramones We are a week and change from having just one high schooler left in the house.
Movies, Shows, etc Court of Gold I mostly watched these on our flights too and from Florida. You know what you’re getting with shows like this. Highly edited game highlights. Interviews with the participants and analysts that are aimed at casual fans and thus not super insightful. But, man, the formula works. Last summer’s Olympic basketball tournament was electric and this captured that magic well. A September 5 A brisk, tense, and very well done dramatized look at how the ABC crew in Munich handled the day Palestinian terrorists took Israeli athletes hostage at the 1972 Olympics.
Good Lord that was a basketball game! The Pacers laid a big, fat egg early, taking nearly seven minutes to score their first six points, blew multiple chances to put the game away in the second half, then somehow managed to come back from being down seven with 40 seconds left in overtime to win game five of their series and send the Milwaukee Bucks home for the summer. Actually, there was no somehow about it.
As I wait out some morning storms before I head over the gym, it seems like the ideal moment to share (or at least start the post that shares) my latest music project. For months I’ve been thinking about writing a lengthy post about how I don’t upend my digital life as often as I used to. People close to me experienced this when I changed my email address, moved where I published our family pictures, or even adjusted where this site was located far too often.