Chart Week: April 17, 1982 Songs: “Stars On 45 III (A Tribute To Stevie Wonder) (Medley)” – Stars On 45, “Pop Goes the Movies (Part 1) (Medley)” – Meco. Chart Positions: #38, 4th week on the chart. Peaked at #28 for two weeks in May. #35, 10th week on the chart. Peaked at #35 for two weeks. First off, elephant in the room: damn there are a lot of parenthesis in these two titles!
I’ve been working on this post for literally two months. It isn’t groundbreaking, super important, or one that I think my readers will finish and say, “Damn! That was some good blogging!” It’s just a post about hobbies and how my interests change over time. The problem is I keep turning it into a lengthy philosophical rumination about how/why we select our pastimes instead of getting to the point and sharing a bit of news.
A weekend of transition in various ways. Kid Hoops Back to tournament action for L and her travel teammates. Her ankle is still recovering from the sprain she suffered over a month ago. In our games Saturday that showed. She seemed sluggish and a step slow. We lost the first game by 18 to a very good team. They were long, athletic, took and hit 3’s, and were just a tough all-around matchup.
open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Let’s Hang Out Forever” - The High Water Marks This was a great song to soundtrack the past week, as it felt more like summer than spring. “Want To Know” - Free Range Country or Not entry of the week. “Wrapped in Gold” - World News This could be from 1985 just as easily as it could be from 2010. Yet it’s brand new. “Cicada” - Fucked Up Oh man, this a great song!
Africa Is Not A Country - Dipo Faloyin Those of you who read these posts should know I’m perpetually behind, and even after nearly 20 years I’m still not smart enough to jot down my thoughts about a book shortly after finishing it. So the first entry in each post is usually going to be about four weeks old and my thoughts about it murky. That’s the case with this, a very good book written by a native African raised in London about how the rest of the world views his ancestral continent.
A pretty good Easter weekend in our house. Family Weekend As happens when your kids are in Catholic schools, it was an extra-long weekend. CHS had a four-day weekend, while St P’s had early dismissal Friday and were out for Easter Monday. Throw in C being home sick and L having her annual school service day on Thursday and it was even longer. C has the “Punta Plague,” as M is calling it.
open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Anti-Curse” - boygenius The supergroup released their first full-length album last week. It’s very good, or at least the high points are. I love how it’s a combination of songs where each singer takes the lead and songs that are collaborations with all three taking turns. Here Julien Baker is up front. Critic Steven Hyden liked this song so much he said Baker should put out an album filled entirely with songs influenced by the grunge era.
Let’s wrap up the college basketball season. Jayhawk Talk Bill Self finally appeared before the media on Wednesday, his first interaction with the press since before his heart episode nearly a month ago. He looked and sounded great. In his recorded interviews with Greg Gurley during the NCAA tournament he always seemed half a step slow, either verbally, mentally, or both. Naturally this led to rumors that he had suffered a stroke.
As mentioned awhile back, I have a few of these in various stages of development. With the college basketball season complete, seems like a good day to dust off this one. This idea comes from a KU-centric podcast I listen to regularly. During the holidays they had a segment where they selected an elite program they would choose to be a fan of if KU was not an option. This came on the heels of Indiana’s visit to Lawrence in December.
A long week in the Dominican Republic to celebrate M’s senior class spring break. Not only did we take the whole family, one of C’s best friends came along with us. There was some drama, a few travel difficulties, but overall it was a pretty good seven days. Location We stayed at the Hard Rock Resort in Punta Cana. I never got an official headcount but around 70 kids from M’s class were there.
Slow month between lots of basketball early in March, watching one show exclusively for a week, and then spring break. Movies, Shows, etc From Paseo To Pembroke: Kansas City’s Golden Era I had heard of this but didn’t realize it was on YouTube until KC buddy Newman sent it my way. A great look at the golden age of Kansas City high school basketball, from 1988 to 1998. I was at a few of the games featured.
I decided to go with a Thursday Playlist after noting the date. We are off very early tomorrow for a week in the Dominican Republic with roughly a third of M’s graduating class. Two other local high schools will also have large contingents at our resort, so it’s going to be Indy in the Tropics, I guess. Knock on wood all travel goes well and there’s minimal drama amongst the kids (both ours and the larger group).
It’s been a busy week. Our spring break begins on Friday and there is much to be done to prepare. Lots of errands, laundry, organizing, taking kids to appointments, prepping the house, etc. Much of my free time has also been taken up by trying to finish a show I’ve been watching that will disappear from Hulu next week. It may well pop up somewhere else - Netflix, Prime, etc - on April 1, but I didn’t want to risk not finishing it.
Not a good weekend of basketball. Nope, not good at all. Jayhawk Talk Well, I feared playing Arkansas from the moment the brackets came out a week ago. Long, athletic, fearless, a little crazy. They resembled Texas and TCU, teams that gave KU three of their worst losses this year. Saturday afternoon I began to gain confidence. KU was more experienced and had been tested all year. Arkansas dropped just about every big game on their schedule.
open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Get Out of My House” - Miya Folick Folick described this song as an exorcism. Which makes it a perfect metaphor for the last weekend of winter, a time for throwing out all the unnecessary things that have collected over the past little while. “Tell Me To Go” - John-Allison Weiss This track is over three years old, but also appears on Weiss' new album. It reminds me of the bedroom pop from 20 years ago.
The appetizer of the First Four is complete. Now it’s time for the real deal. NCAA thoughts. Jayhawk Talk I’m not sure how to feel about this team. Kevin McCullar and Gradey Dick both say their back issues are fine. Can we trust them? Might they be fine against Howard today and flare back up Saturday in the second round? For a team that is not very deep, those alone are massive questions.
In Patagonia - Bruce Chatwin Chatwin’s work was the inspiration for so many other travel writers I’ve read over the years, so this piece has always been in the back of my mind. If you’ve ever purchased a Moleskine notebook and bothered to read the insert that came inside, you know that Chatwin documented his trips in notebooks similar to them. I mention the notebook angle because that’s very much how this book reads: like a series of brushed-up notebook entries made while traveling through the South American region of Patagonia in the mid–70s.
As you might expect, I have a lot of words about basketball today. HS Hoops A quick note about HS ball. Cathedral’s run as defending state champs came to an end in the regional round of this year’s tournament, losing to #1 Ben Davis by 10. The Irish did have the lead at halftime. I had to run L over to a friend’s and when I got home they trailed going into the fourth.
open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Not Strong Enough” - boygenius This is what I’m talking about! The first set of songs from the upcoming boygenius album each featured a different lead singer. On this one, Phoebe, Julien, and Lucy all take turns. The result is wonderful. “Crusher” - Taleen Kali You know a retro-head like me is going to enjoy the hell out of a song like this that is loaded with post-punk goodness.
I haven’t run across as many pieces lately that struck me as sharable. So this entry spans over a month of collection. Thus the first is a little out-of-date, and I’m guessing many of you who would be interested in it have already read it. Wright Thompson is a modern Gary Smith: everything he writes is completely compelling. Especially when he has such an interesting subject. This is an amazing look at Joe Montana and the person he has become.