Travel basketball came to a disappointing end for L over the weekend. Her team lost in the semifinals to a squad they had beaten twice this year. That team went on to win the championship by four points. So it was right there for our girls and they blew it. Saturday’s pool games were two very different contests. In the first we played a team we beat by 10 two weeks ago.
open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Birthdays” - Craig Finn Hey, I had a birthday this week! Coincidentally this is the best song from Craig Finn’s latest solo album. “I Was Neon” - Julia Jacklin The first single off JJ’s up-coming album was solid. This one cooks. “Wait ‘Til the Morning” - Frightened Rabbit Spotify suggested this, a bonus track from the final FR album, a few weeks back. When the disk came out I didn’t think much of the extras.
Chart Week: June 20, 1981 Song: “Angel of the Morning” - Juice Newton Chart Position: #38, 18th week on the chart. Peaked at #4 for four weeks in May. Juice Newton was a classic Right Artist at the Right Time success. Although she came up in the world of folk music, by the early 1980s she had slid into a country-rock hybrid that was well suited to the moment. As we’ve discussed before, there was that little window in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s when many country artists were able to have mainstream, pop success.
Following up on yesterday’s posts, here are a couple articles related to Top Gun. First, Michael Baumann dives into the details and comes up with his best guess for what county is the target of the movie’s main mission. This is important journalism here. But like Maverick, Rooster, Hangman, and their buddies, I was given a mission. My editors came to me, the idiot who six months ago wrote a long column about how Russia was no longer the technothriller enemy it used to be, confident that I could identify the anonymous villain in Top Gun: Maverick.
It’s damn hard to make a good sequel. Think of how many absolutely ass ones have polluted our cinema and entertainment room screens. So when one hits all the right notes, it feels like a triumph. And when you do it nearly 40 years after the original, you’ve really pulled off a miracle. I took C and L to see Top Gun: Maverick last week. We all loved it. I think C liked it the most, and it was her second time seeing it!
A long post about a long few days. Thirteen months into my Audi lease I was in great shape, milage-wise, about 1000 miles lower than where I should be. I pretty much wiped out that deficit over the past few days. Thursday M and I drove to Cincinnati to take her first college campus visits. We toured the University of Cincinnati and Xavier. UC is a popular spot for Indy-area students as it offers nearly in-state tuition to most Indiana grads.
A little different playlist this week, as about the time this posts, L and I will be on our way to Knoxville for a weekend of hoops. So here are a bunch of songs about the Volunteer State (and one summer song). open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Tennessee” - Arrested Development I think I shared this last fall when we went to Nashville. But as the greatest song ever about Tennessee, I must include it again.
Two concerts in a week! Both at new venues (to me)! Quite a run! Last night was a little extra special. Not only did we go see The Lumineers, one of S’s favorite bands, but we took all three girls with us. It was the first official show for C and L, although they had seen Blues Traveler at Symphony on the Prairie years ago. C barely remembers that and L doesn’t at all, plus they had no idea who Blues Traveler was, so I think this counts as their first real concert.
Allow Me To Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution - Elie Mystal “Our Constitution is not good.” Thus begins a book that should infuriate anyone who reads it. Conservatives brave enough to take it on will be enraged by Mystal’s destruction of our most sacred document. Liberals will be maddened by how our entire republic was built upon a system designed to exclude and exploit anyone who wasn’t a wealthy, white, male landowner, and how each time we’ve tried to restructure the Constitution so that it truly speaks for all Americans, those efforts have constantly been subverted, ignored, or reversed by conservatives.
I mentioned last week that L was finally looking healthy again. She had claimed her tailbone was healed from her recess injury last month, but I think she was still feeling some pain there. And her knees were a mess in May, but seemed better last weekend. This weekend she seemed as healthy as she’s been in months, and that showed in her play. Her team went 3–1, losing in the semifinals of their tournament to the best (going into) seventh grade team from their program, which was playing up a division.
Last Wednesday night I went to my first concert in four-and-a-half years. Just as I did at that last show in December 2017, I went to see The War on Drugs. With S and the same friends we went to that Dec ’17 show with. This was a rather momentous night for me, though, as it was the first concert I’ve been to in Indy that was not in Broad Ripple.
open.spotify.com/playlist/… “You Gave Me the Key” - Julie Doiron A bright, sassy, fun song. Perfect for summer! “She Still Leads Me On” - The London Suede The London Suede had one great song in the ’90s (“The Drowners”), a lot of hype, and not much else. At least here in the US. So this brand new song from them floored me. I never would have expected them to make a song this good 30 years after their brief moment of international success.
KU Hoops I still need to do an NIL post, and now that things finally seem to have calmed down a little on that front, I’ll move that up in the mental queue. KU’s roster appears to be locked in for next year, so a few thoughts on how that has shaken out. In general I think the transfer portal is a good thing, as it gives players more control of their careers.
Chart Week: May 24, 1980 Song: “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2” - Pink Floyd Chart Position: #17, 19th week on the chart. Peaked at #1 for four weeks in March/April. Each week Casey would read letters from his listeners, generally either Long Distance Dedications or general music questions that his crack staff of researchers would answer. Occasionally he would get a letter regarding a song that was in the countdown.
Nothing but hoops and parties for us this weekend. L’s basketball team was supposed to have the week off before their final push of the season. They got invited to play in a tournament at the last minute. Because of our schedules, she could only play in the Saturday games, which worked out just fine. In game one we were down by nine at halftime. The other team didn’t seem more talented than us.
open.spotify.com/playlist/… “When They Come For Me” - Spielbergs When this dropped a couple weeks back, one of my Brothers in Music sent me a message that said, “Shit is hot.” My response: “Shit is indeed hot.” Still laugh about when we coached soccer together and wanted our team to take the field to Spielbergs' “We Are All Going To Die." That would have been dope, if overkill for a bunch of third and fourth graders.
Movies, Series, Shows Ozark, season four, part two Ozark found its groove in season three and maintained that into the first half of season four. S4, E8, which kicked off the last half of the final season, was one of the best hours in the series’ total run. And then things kind of fell apart. That tension I loved so much from the first half of the season drifted away. It seemed like there was a lot of killing the clock to get to the end.
:07 Seconds or Less - Jack McCallum The “season inside” schtick is one of the most satisfying sports book tropes available to writers. A reporter embeds with an athlete, team, or even entire sport for a year and relates the inside dope on their experiences after-the-fact. Unless the subject is super boring, the result is usually a compelling read. I’ve had this book on my list since it came out back in 2006.
May 2022 Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - 66 Frightened Rabbit - 49 Hatchie - 31 Pink Floyd - 26 Spice - 23 Complete stats available at my Last.fm page.
The first weekend of the summer is in the books. We were busy. M and C finished classes on Thursday. Unless there’s a surprise coming we don’t know about, they both had really good semesters with just one B between them and a handful of A+’s. And now M is a senior. Yikes! I took C to finally get her driver’s permit on Friday. She wrapped up the written portion of driver’s ed over a month ago, but, for a variety of reasons, we never made it into the BMV.