My goodness, I am so far behind in sharing my recent completed reads. I imagine a few of these will be crappier than normal since I’ve put them off so long. A Spy In The Struggle - Aya de León I’ve been working through a list of good, recent espionage novels that this and the next book both were on. The list featured books that take a non-traditional view of espionage.
A busy Monday kept me from getting this out yesterday, but allow me to share some brief sports notes from the weekend. Friday we took the entire family to the 5A #1 Cathedral matchup with arch rival and defending 3A state champs BCHS. Well, L rode with S and I and then ran off with her friends the entire game. And M and C both rode to the game with friends.
I think you’re going to like this group of songs, but I bet you enjoy my essay about this week’s video more. It’s not often I dive into my romantic past here, so prepare to laugh at/mock me. open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Long Way” - Eddie Vedder WHOA! When I heard Eddie had a solo album coming out I was not enthused. His first solo album was all folkish songs played on ukulele. Not necessarily my bag.
This has to be the latest in the school year I’ve ever gone before sharing a kid sports update. Good reason for that: we only have one kid playing any sports at the moment! I should be writing a wrap-up of L’s kickball regular season. Her final game was supposed to be yesterday. “So,” attentive readers may be wondering, “does that mean her team is going back to the City playoffs?
It was the first weekend jam-packed with sports in a long time. Good thing we had a fourish-day weekend to squeeze it all in![^1] Friday night I took C and three friends to the Cathedral football game (M was also there with her own friend group). The 2–0, class 5A #1 Irish played a perennial 6A power from up north that has fallen off a bit in the past couple seasons.
Movies and Shows Patriot “John Lakeman,” his professional name, is dealing with a lot of stuff. He’s trying to sway an election in Iran to prevent the country from gaining nuclear weapons. He’s attempting to pose as an expert in industrial piping as his cover, something he is woefully unprepared for. His boss at the piping firm hates him. Just about every one of his coworkers is on his ass for one thing or another.
It’s the last weekend of the summer of 2021. My new music folder seems a bit light at the moment, so we’re going to get a little nutty this week. I hope you find the nuttiness pleasing to your ears. open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Red Hill Mining Town” - U2 Through hands of steel And heart of stone Our labor day Has come and gone Not about our American Labor Day, but still seems appropriate for the weekend.
Tom Breihan passed a notable milestone this week in his The Number Ones series: he finished the 1980s. Most days I just glance at the comments. But Monday, as Phil Collins’ “Another Day in Paradise” closed out the decade, I read deep into them, enjoying commenters’ various picks of favorites, most hated, most overlooked, etc tracks. I don’t participate in the comments section, so I’ll share some of my picks here.
August 2021 Pearl Jam - 51 The War on Drugs - 32 Alien Boys - 27 The Rolling Stones - 25 Torres - 25 Complete stats available at my Last.fm page.
We’ll do some links today since I can’t seem to get my latest Reader’s Notebook entry finished, nor come to any thoughts worth sharing on other subjects. Guess I haven’t posted any links in a few weeks because the first is a few weeks old. Hell, it was old when I talked about it with friends in KC two weeks ago. My bad. The intro to this piece made me laugh out loud, because it is very true.
This episode...hmmm. I thought about it a lot between my two viewings, the first on Saturday morning, the second Sunday evening. The idea kept occurring to me that every season has a lull episode, one where not much happens but the pieces are all getting sorted into the right places to build towards bigger developments in the future. That made a lot more sense back in the day when a full season included 20+ episodes and you had to work in some breaks.
We’ve reached the point in the year when it starts to hit you how deep into the calendar we are. I’m only 4-5 weeks away from starting to give early attention to my favorite songs of the year list. Yeesh. open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Undone” - The Shivas I know I had heard of this Portland band in the past, but can’t say that I recall any of their songs. This one is treeeeemendous!
I took a little heat from a few friends during our Kansas City trip for why the hell I’m not doing breakdowns of Ted Lasso as I did for ER back in the day. Sadly those ER breakdowns were all in my pre-blog life, and lost forever when I left my former employer in 2004. I wonder if they’re still stored on some old backup in their servers somewhere… I’ve never thought of going all-in on a show like that again.
A wedding took us back to Kansas City for a very quick trip over the weekend.[1] I think most of my regular readers were at the wedding, so most importantly it was great to see you all! The wedding was wonderful and the reception everything we hoped it would be. It was a terrific night with nearly all of my closest KC friends dancing together for three or four hours. This wedding was originally supposed to take place nearly a year-and-a-half ago, but was wiped out by the first weekend of national lockdown.
By the time you read this post and begin listening to this week’s tracks, S and I will be on the road, headed west towards Kansas City and a weekend wedding. To honor that occasion, these songs are inspired by the collection of music the bride-to-be gave her DJ. Plus one song required any time I go to KC. open.spotify.com/playlist/…
I believe it was right as the Olympics were beginning that the first rumors surfaced that Oklahoma and Texas might leave the Big 12 for the SEC. My immediate reaction was, “No way. Texas isn’t leaving all the Longhorn Network money on the table so they can lose to Alabama every year.” Within three days we knew that not only were the rumors true, but the move was pretty much a done deal after at least six months of secret negotiations.
Chart Week: August 1, 1981 Song: “Don’t Want to Wait Anymore” - The Tubes Chart Position: #37, 7th week on the chart. Peaked at #35 for two weeks. The Tubes will collect residual checks until they die for one song: “She’s a Beauty,” their #10 smash from the summer of 1983. It is an absolute classic of its era; any list of best songs of the 1980s would be incomplete without it.
First day of the new school year with all three girls in class, which I guess makes this the first day of “fall” for me. Seems like I should get into a better groove about posting here than I did most of the summer. I have a few works in progress, but I think I need to do a better job of translating thoughts in my head to text on the screen.
Time to share some more things I’ve been reading on screens of various sizes. The Vaccine Cards Are the Wrong Size In the grand scheme of things, this is not a big deal, as author Amanda Mull admits. But it sure is annoying. And signs of a bigger issue. The inconvenient paper vestige that vaccinated Americans now carry of that experience is an exasperating reminder not of the shots themselves, but of all the other missed opportunities our government has had to ease the pandemic’s many predictable problems.
open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Surrender” - Gold Star A lot of influences bubbling up in this track. I hear some Springsteen, but as if filtered through others who have used The Boss' music as a guide over the years. There’s also a stark, story-telling feel that reminds me of some early The War on Drugs stuff. I most definitely dig. “Day I Did Nothing” - Waves of Dread Not what I think of when I think of music from Newcastle, but it works.