After months of having more than enough songs in the queue for these posts, the tide of new music might finally have slowed a bit. Have no worries, I still have plenty of songs for you. It is just taking a tad more work to put this week’s playlist together. Which I, of course, do not mind.
open.spotify.com/playlist/…
“Summer’s Over” - Jordana, TV Girl One weekend left.
“Hallelujah” - Bad Moves There is always a debate on whether rock music and politics go together, and then how much politics you can inject into a song before it puts people off.
College football is finally here! With it comes what is the most anticipated and also oddest season for the Kansas Jayhawks in my life.
Anticipated because a program that won nine games last year enters week one with 20 of 22 starters who are either seniors or redshirt juniors, a level of experience this program has probably never had before.
Biggest of all is the return of quarterback Jalon Daniels. When he’s been healthy at KU he’s been amazing.
As hinted at in yesterday’s post, I got to do something insanely awesome Monday night that I’ve been waiting a long time for. Even with a short night of sleep, I’m still a little keyed up from it this morning. If you choose to proceed, prepare yourself for an overly detailed accounting of my evening watching Pearl Jam play live rock ’n’ roll music.
One of the funny things about me is that for as big a fan of music as I am - and I think the archives of this blog are testament to that - I’ve not been to tons of concerts in my life.
This weekend seemed pretty chill to me. There were enough things going on to justify a blog post, though. Let’s see how many words I can stretch this alleged slow weekend into.
Friday Night Lights High school football started in Indiana last week. In a shocking upset, it was a perfectly pleasant night. That will change this week, though. That wasn’t the only upset of the night. Number 10 Cathedral pounded #1 and defending 6A state champs Ben Davis 24–6.
A little smaller selection this week, as I’ve had two music projects that have been sucking up my listening time this week.
open.spotify.com/playlist/…
“London Calling” - The Clash Joe Strummer was born 72 years ago this week. At first, I accidentally added the entire London Calling album to this playlist. For a second I thought about making that the entire PL for the week. There are worse ways to spend an hour.
I am now four months and over 5000 miles into Telsa ownership, err, leasership? Blog rules dictate that an update is in order.
I don’t think I have anything super profound to say. For the most part, I love the car and EV life. I would say it has been a 90–95% positive experience, with mostly small things annoying me. At the same point in my Audi lease, I bet I would have said the same thing.
I probably should have shared these first three links last week, when we were all still gripped by Olympic fever.
Ranking Every Summer Olympic Sport Based on How Terrible It Would Be for the Average Person
The Winners and Losers of the 2024 Paris Olympics
Merci, Paris: We needed these Olympics
As I continue my re-watch of The Americans, I was horrified by an ad shown within a season three episode, which took place in 1983, for Love’s Baby Soft.
An Unexpected Trip What started as a boring, uneventful weekend ending up being surprisingly fun. S worked full time all weekend, filling in for a hospitalist who is on maternity leave. She had like 1000 babies to see,[1] so was at the hospital until 5:00 Saturday, nearly as long Sunday. Because of that and the girls being tired after their first full week of school, we just sat around and did nothing on Saturday.
open.spotify.com/playlist/…
“Archbishop Harold Holmes” - Jack White What an idiot I am! White dropped his No Name album on streaming services two weeks ago, and I listened to it a ton after we got home from vacation. Then, somehow, I forgot to include a track in last week’s playlist. Again, idiot. This track is soooo White Stripes-y, with his spitfire vocals straddling a line between dark & menacing and hilarious & nonsensical.
Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic - Jason Turbow
My brother in books David V handed me a copy of this on my visit to Kansas City in June. It took me some time to work through my stack of virtual books to crack it open, and once I did, I realized I had read it before, back in 2017. Looking back, I loved it so much then that I read it in two days.
Catching up on some family stuff from the past few weeks.
Back to Campus The biggest event was moving M back to school on Sunday. In every way it was so much easier than moving her into the dorm a year ago. She’s living in the sorority house this year. She and three other girls share a little quad on the third floor. They have their own rooms with a shared bathroom and little storage hall which has a door to the main hallway.
Strap in for a good, old fashioned, mega post about the Olympics!
In a week filled with amazing events and results, it would be impossible for me to not start with Saturday’s men’s basketball gold medal game. The first quarter was nearly perfect, a breathless, back-and-forth, up-and-down, punch-and-counter punch 10 minutes. The US seized control early in the second quarter and never really lost it, although the French made several valiant runs.
A week off means we stick with the extra-stuffed playlists. I don’t hear any complaints.
open.spotify.com/playlist/…
“Summer In The Park Pt. 1” - East Coast Connection Early August used to mean you got focused on how to maximize the last few weeks of summer. Not these days, when most of the country goes back to school well before Labor Day. There are still a few folks enjoying summer in the park, though.
City in Ruins - Don Winslow The final entry in Winslow’s Dan Ryan trilogy. Like the first two, it moves briskly. Also like the first two, that briskness makes it feel only partially formed. It was an interesting writing exercise, especially when compared to his Mexican cartel trilogy, cutting the story to the bone and eliminating anything that didn’t swiftly move the plot forward. It probably took me six or seven combined days to read this trilogy, about the same effort to read one of his cartel books.
Tradition requires me to share some Olympic thoughts. I debated waiting until the games ended and publishing one, extra-stuffed post. But the games move so fast that things that struck me in week one are bound to get over-written by events of week two. Hell, the notes I’m about to share may already be fuzzy in everyone’s memories.
Guarantee I’ve said this before, but Rugby sevens is awesome. I still have no idea what the rules are, but when a game last less than 30 minutes, do you really need to know the rules?
Our week in Florida wasn’t perfect, Mother Nature saw to that. But it was pretty good.
For the first time in eight or nine years, we drove for a vacation in the south. It was 11.5 hours, door-to-door, and traffic was not terrible on either trip. A lot of travelers, to be sure, but nothing like spring break volume.
We stayed in Inlet Beach, one of the 30A communities, with our old neighbors.
No playlist next week, so I’ll see if I can cram a few extra songs into this one.
open.spotify.com/playlist/…
“Florida” - Modest Mouse We will depart early Sunday for a week in the Florida panhandle. This is the only song overtly about Florida in my collection, thus its inclusion. Thursday was also M’s birthday. Famously, I was listening to “Float On” when S’s water broke, so I always think of Modest Mouse this time of year.
Posting this early as we head off to Florida for vacation this weekend.
Movies, Shows, etc Tour de France A good first two weeks became a rather boring final week as Tadej Pogacar destroyed the field for an easy win. Luckily, that last week was when I barely watched, between travel basketball and the British Open. As always, the Peacock production of the French images was laughably bad at times.
Belated notes after a morning of driver’s ed, some cleaning up after our travels, and starting to prep for our next trip.
Kid Hoops Five months of travel ball came to an end this weekend in Louisville. L’s team went 2–2, losing both of their bracket games. It was a very weird weekend. Like last week, the courts were filled with teams from all over the country. We saw teams from Georgia, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Texas, Virginia, California, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, West Virginia, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Alabama, Oklahoma, Iowa, New Jersey, and Nebraska.
Another long-ish collection this week. I doubt any of you mind that much.
open.spotify.com/playlist/…
“Summer Nights” - Hazel English Nothing better.
“Chicago” - Japandroids Tuesday I listened to Japandroids' classic Celebration Rock all-the-way-through for the first time this summer. So, so good. For the first time, I realized at least one of my kids is right at the age that album’s songs are all about, which was a little strange for me.