It is the last day of Christmas vacation in our house. It might hit 50 for the third-straight day, but no one seems real interested in getting outside and doing something. Probably has something to do with me telling everyone their rooms need to be cleaned up before anything else gets done today, and no one is moving all that quickly to start cleaning. C does have a volleyball practice in a bit, but other than that looks like one, final, lazy day to wrap up two-plus weeks of them.
Is it Friday already? Time for the first playlist of the year, then! open.spotify.com/user/224a… “Blue” - Thyla. This is kind of a perfect January song. Lyrically, it is dark and depressing, the singer complaining constantly about being “blue, blue, blue, blue, bluuuuuueeee.” Yet the music is driving and powerful as if it is pushing her through those January blues to the warmer months beyond. “I Wonder” - Mike Krol featuring Allison Crutchfield.
A new Big 12 basketball season has begun. In a very strange first night of the year, there were three road wins. The only team to win at home? The Mighty Jayhawks of Kansas. When the balls were first rolled out back in November, consensus was KU would have no problem rolling to their 15th-straight Big 12 title. Kansas State and West Virginia might challenge a little, but KU was supposed to be just too good to be caught.
Happy New Year! Hope your celebrations were safe, happy, and the headaches/stomaches that resulted have passed. Our New Year’s Eve went well. The Pacers game was good. Well, other than spending 15 minutes to travel three blocks right before our parking garage. Not sure what the hell was going on but traffic was a nightmare. The Pacers won by 8, the girls seemed to enjoy it, and our seats were decent.
The always interesting final music stats post of the year. This year’s - or last year’s more properly - December numbers are even more out of whack than in the past thanks to our addition of the Sonos speaker to our household. In fact, December threw off the entire year’s numbers. December 2018 Bing Crosby - 210 Frank Sinatra - 103 Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings - 66 Ella Fitzgerald - 64 Darlene Love - 45 So I subtract the Holiday tunes and my wife’s music and we’re left with some odd numbers for an odd year.
Here we are, another calendar year about to end. 2018 was a wacky, wild year for us. There were a ton of kid sports: volleyball, basketball, kickball, cross country, soccer, cheer. There was our first family trip beyond the US borders for spring break in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. There was our first family visit to the ER, when C had a mystery issue in June that, thankfully, has never recurred.
After a busy week, things are finally slowing down enough to share some details from our Christmas celebrations. My in-laws came in from Florida last Wednesday. This is their second Christmas since going to Florida full-time, so Saturday my mother-in-law and the girls had their second annual baking day. They baked three kinds of cookies and a coffee cake for Christmas morning. S and I escaped to the gym and ran some errands, but it seems like fun was had.
Chart Week: December 22, 1984 Song: “The Belle of St. Mark” - Sheila E. Chart Position: #34, 9th week on the chart. Peaked at #34 for three weeks over December and January. One last 1984 countdown to close out the year. And, holy crap, what a countdown it was! The summer of ’84 gets all the glory, but this week was pretty spectacular, too. “Like A Virgin,” “Out of Touch,” “Cool It Now,” “We Belong,” and “I Feel For You” in the Top 10.
Christmas vacation has begun. The girls had early dismissal yesterday and are now home for two-plus weeks of holiday bliss. Or hiding in their rooms staring at their devices. Christmas in 2018… As a self-anointed connoisseur of holiday music, I thought I would share some of my favorite songs that aren’t jam-packed into every other Christmas playlist you may have been subjected to over the last month. Most of these are songs that never get played on the radio.
’Tis the season for quick reads. So some blurbs about a few (mostly) slim pieces I’ve rolled through recently. Being Santa Claus - Sal Lizard with Jonathan Lane A memoir by a Christmas season Santa who does everything from standard mall Santa gigs, to private events at homes, to visiting sick kids in the hospital. It’s pretty saccharine, but Santa really shouldn’t be edgy and controversial, right? The Reservoir Tapes - Jon McGregor I read this not knowing it was a companion piece to a previous, larger novel by McGregor, Reservoir 13.
After about six weeks of hard work, here they are: my 22 favorite songs of 2018. Yeah, 22. Got a problem with that? I didn’t think so. Honorable Mention “Notes On a Life Not Quite Led” - Mastersystem This was my hardest song to decide whether or not to include. For several months it was on the running list I keep throughout the year. Then I dropped it late in the summer when I stopped listening to all Scott Hutchison’s music.
Before I drop my favorite songs of the year on you, a few moments for my annual State of Music address. 2018 was tough. Regular readers know the biggest reason why I say this: the May suicide of Frightened Rabbit frontman Scott Hutchison. I was pretty emotional about Prince’s death, and felt a little strange because of that. I figured that was a one-time effect. But Scott’s death floored me, and in some ways I’ve still not recovered.
As your kids get older there are dozens of trade offs as you leave old annoyances behind but also lose moments of joy that are unique to younger ages. Sadly the Christmas spirit is pretty much gone among our girls this year. Yeah, L still has some moments where she’s down. She’s the only kid who has wanted to sit down and watch Christmas shows with me. She was listening to Christmas music before Thanksgiving, although she has not listened to much since then.
OK, wanted to slide one more thing in for the week. This delightful video of how crabs exchange shells should make your day. youtu.be/f1dnocPQX…
I’m all set to unleash my Favorite Songs of 2018 list on the world early next week. As was a tradition on my old podcast, I’ll offer up this appetizer: a playlist of my #1 song of each year going back to 2004. I always offer the disclaimer that I do not update these lists. A few of these songs would likely not be #1 anymore if I went back and re-evaluated each year.
I’m in the midst of my annual re-reading of Jean Shepherd’s A Christmas Story. If I’m not mistaken, this is the 10th-straight December I’ve reviewed the collection of short stories that much of the movie was based on. Every year I think, “I should go back and listen to some of Shepherd’s radio shows or read a biography of him.” Sometime this past year I actually took a look at the one biography there is of Shepherd.
A couple Christmas entertainment links to share this morning. I had been kicking around the idea of writing about my least favorite Christmas songs. Alexandra Petri decided to take that to a whole other level and rank 100 Christmas songs. A few of these I’ve never heard of and I think she leaves out a few that get played a lot on your local holiday music station. But I dig her point of view.
Man am I excited to finally be writing this post. Yep, after six long, painful, frustrating, maddening, inexplicable months, we finally freaking sold our old house! We closed on Friday, so it’s really real this time. “Wait, what?” I can hear some of you asking. “I thought you sold it already?!?” Nope. Astute readers should recall that we thought we had a deal the day we moved into this home, but it fell through over some complete bullshit and we had to go back on the market.
open.spotify.com/user/224a… “Hire” - Girlpool. I don’t know much about this band. This song made Steven Hyden’s November Mixtape, and he says they make lots of perfect songs, so I may need to check them out. This track has a heavy Elliott Smith vibe to it. “It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You) - The 1975. I’m not sure that there’s a more polarizing band out there right now than The 1975.
Although we’ve been in the new house nearly six months now, and I’ve read over 20 books over that span, I don’t know that I have a favorite reading spot. Or at least I didn’t until about a week ago. We have a sunroom that had been my spot, but it’s also just off the kitchen and you can hear the TV from there, so while very comfortable and well lit, it doesn’t always have the privacy I want when I’m really diving into a book.