It’s one of my favorite music days of the year! For the seventh time, I present my Independence Day playlist! As a reminder, these aren’t necessarily patriotic songs, nor ones that have anything to do with this holiday, other than their titles. The first edition back in 2019 included 11 songs. With one addition this year - can you find it? - we are up to 22 songs. It’s not really made for backyard parties, but more for the getting ready before the crowd comes moments, when things are a little quieter and you are more reflective.
My Documents - Kevin Nguyen Books like this can be unsettling. It is about a fictional moment in modern America, but through the worst kind of serendipity, lines up with real events we are seeing on the news these days.
The book follows an extended Vietnamese-American family that crosses several generations, specifically a set of cousins. One set of the cousins have a Vietnamese mother and appear Asian. The other have a white mother and have a less pronounced, more racially ambiguous appearance.
Movies, Shows, etc NBA Playoffs A+, until Hali blew out his achilles. Your Friends and Neighbors I think I have this complaint about all but the best modern, streaming dramedies: there were the wrong number of episodes. Some shows go on two episodes too long, others have two too few. It’s a tough needle to thread. I felt like this show had, maybe, 1.5 too many entires. So close but the middle part became a little too trashy, modern soap-ish and could have been trimmed.
We had a very slow, uneventful weekend, which leaves this space open to discuss how S and I spent Thursday and Friday evenings: binging season four of The Bear.
If you want the TLDR version: I liked it. Although it had some flaws and inconsistencies and did not match the first two seasons, it was a nice rebound from the uneven and divisive season three.
Most importantly, it felt like there was momentum throughout the season, augmented visually by Uncle Jimmy’s countdown clock, reminding the restaurant’s crew when he would pull financial support and begin exploring options to unload the property.
Several new songs by old artists this week. And some new songs by new artists. In other words, a normal week.
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“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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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.
Summer is here (officially)! The time is right…
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“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.
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.
Cheers A few years I went back and watched the early years and was amazed by how well they hold up.
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.
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.
Well this has turned into quite a significant playlist. We lost two absolute musical giants over the past week. I found an incredible live performance from an artist we lost nearly 30 years ago. I am also headed back to Kansas City for the weekend, so I have to throw something from the (old) KC scene in there. And then I still continue to have tons of new music that’s worth sharing.
A full evening of basketball with some big moments worth sharing.
Pacers WOW! Up 2–1 on the massive favorites thanks to two amazing quarters. Oklahoma City was the better team for two periods Wednesday, the first and third. Sadly for them, the Pacers were even better in the second and fourth and now lead the NBA Finals.
I only saw the second half - more on that momentarily - but that was a fantastic game.
Chart Week: June 5, 1976 Song: “Love Really Hurts Without You” - Billy Ocean
Chart Position: #36, 10th week on the chart. Peaked at #22 for two weeks in May.
It’s always fun to be surprised when listening to old American Top 40’s. As I worked my way through this countdown, and glanced ahead at the list of songs on Top 40 Weekly, I did a double take when I saw Billy Ocean’s name.
Pacers Well, the Thunder showed up Sunday evening. As has been routine in these playoffs, the Pacers missed a ton of open looks early as they fell behind. The difference in game two was that I don’t think it would have mattered. OKC was absolutely locked in from the beginning and once they took the lead on a 10–0 run the result was never in doubt. The 42–21 run in the second quarter was too much for the Pacers Devil Magic to overcome.
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.