I’m not the most outgoing person in the world. Particularly when it comes to strangers. I just don’t have that gene that makes it easy for me to talk to people I don’t know in non-social settings. I’m not the dude striking up a conversation with the guy next to me while we wait in line at the deli, or the mom sitting by me at a first sports practice for one of our kids.
open.spotify.com/user/224a… “Walkaway” - Weaves. I heard this song for the first time yesterday and immediately fell in love with it. I think I hear a little bit of Martha Davis, of The Motels, in the vocals. “On And On” - Curtis Harding. This song has been bouncing around for a bit, but Harding just released the album it is the lead single for last week. Similar to Leon Bridges, Harding takes us back to a classic era in soul music.
What a letdown. After all the craziness and joy of the first six games of the World Series, game seven was an absolute dud. It held some early promise. After the Astros scored two in the top of the first, the Dodgers seemed poised for their own first-inning rally, loading the bases before Lance McCullers Jr. wiggled out of the mess he made. Then Houston added three more runs in the second, chasing Yu Darvish, and the Dodgers again tried to rally, putting two on.
Well lookee there, it’s November, bitches. The baseball season ends tonight. SiriusXM will begin playing Christmas music at some point today. The slow trickle of holiday commercials will turn into a flood over the next few nights. All kicked off last night by Halloween, of course. It was a very different Halloween night for us compared to anytime in the past 13 years. The girls all went in different directions, and all without either S or I.
No where does recency bias rear its ugly head more than in sports. Whatever game we just watched always drowns out the games of the past. That acknowledged, last night’s/this morning’s game five of the World Series is surely one of the most entertaining games in the history of the game. I did not watch every pitch. I didn’t turn the game on until the girls went to bed, when the game had just entered the bottom of the second.
open.spotify.com/user/224a… “Wolf Lie Down” - The Fresh & Onlys. Man, I hate bands that hold their music back from streaming services. This song was released as a single back in June but F&O didn’t allow it to stream until recently. This kicks ass and is a perfect summer song. Oh well, at least we get to enjoy it now. “Emotion” - Curls. Christopher Owens once had a band named Curls. Then they broke up and he started a new band called Girls.
It’s been a pretty good World Series through two games. Rather than offering up random notes, I thought I’d share the four most interesting things about the series so far. Game one checking in at 2:28 was perhaps the greatest thing in sports this year. Seriously, I watched an entire World Series game - complete with game one extended introductions - and was in bed before 11:00 Eastern! Clayton Kershaw and Dallas Keuchel deserve a Nobel Prize for their efforts.
In an unreal upset, it appears that fall is finally here. Over the weekend the afternoon highs were still bumping up against 80, the sun was shining, and there was a lovely southern breeze. It felt more like the first week of September than mid-October. Which I was cool with. As much as I like fall, I much prefer summer. I’m down with wearing shorts and t-shirts up until Thanksgiving. Hell, S just went through the girls’ closets and rotated in all the fall clothes last Monday.
For the first time since way back in August we had no kid sports this weekend. That meant I got to fully immerse myself in televised sports. There was plenty of baseball, soccer, basketball, and football on our TV, along with a bonus dose of college basketball on my Twitter and email feeds. Some words about all that… Baseball Man, what an excellent ALCS. I only say that because the Houston Astros won.
A slightly different format this week. All because I took the girls to the library yesterday, as I always try to do on the first day of a school break. I want them loaded up with books and videos for even just a long weekend so that there’s no complaining about not having anything to do and being bored. I checked for some books on my list and saw that [Runnin’ With the Devil: A Backstage Pass to the Wild Times, Loud Rock, and the Down and Dirty Truth Behind the Making of Van Halen] was available, so I grabbed it.
The Outlaw Album - Daniel Woodrell It had been awhile since I read a Woodrell book, so I glanced at the library’s offerings and grabbed this. I didn’t know it was a short story collection and may have skipped it had I known. In fact, calling it a short story collection might be giving it too much credit. It feels more like Woodrell unloading his notebook of half-fleshed out ideas and packaging them for the benefit of his publisher.
A quick (and late) rundown on our weekend. Which had a little cray-cray in it. Saturday was a freaking perfect day. Low 80s, breezy. One of those mid-October days that you wish you could hang onto for the next five months. So of course we spent it blowing leaves at the lake house and then hauling the boat out for the winter. There was a wrinkle to our winter boat plans this year.
Men are idiots. I say that with shame as a man, and with fear as a father. I’m honestly not sure why people are shocked and surprised about the Harvey Weinstein news. We should be disgusted and horrified, but surprised? Hell naw. His years of sexual harassment and abuse of women going public is kind of like Louisville getting hammered for paying high school basketball players: you damn well know this isn’t some isolated case.
open.spotify.com/user/224a… “Dark On Us” - Lucas Oswald. A Shearwater member’s solo effort. Not too shabby. “Offa My Hands” - Jessica Lea Mayfield. Mayfield’s new album, Sorry Is Gone, is focused on an abusive relationship she recently escaped. She left the relationship with a broken shoulder following a physical encounter. Heavy stuff. And while the lyrics of this song are heavy as well, I do enjoy the little bit of whimsy she sings them with and the confident sway of the music behind her.
Some night Tuesday night. L was attending her first ever Pacers game - a preseason game against a team from Israel - with a buddy from school. Their family gets tickets from a family friend, so several times a year they get to sit on the floor, right next to the basket on the visitor’s end of the court. She was super excited. So that she was attired properly, I ran out to find her a Pacers shirt.
The photo of Carlton Fisk waving his home run fair in game six of the 1975 World Series is iconic. I had no idea there was such a deep story behind it and the man who captured those frames. Harry Cabluck not only caught Fisk dancing down the first base line. He also shot Franco Harris’ Immaculate Reception in 1972. And he was just behind John F. Kennedy’s car in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
The last big, kid sports weekend of the fall is in our rearview mirror. C ran at the City championships on Saturday. That’s where she ran the best race of her life a year ago to finish 6th in the 3rd/4th grade race. This year it was much warmer and very windy, so not ideal running conditions. But coming off the 5th/6th grade girls winning the biggest meet of the regular season three weeks ago, we were hoping they could add a City title.
So I kind of missed out on Tom Petty. I always loved “Refugee,” “You Got Lucky,” and his epic duet with Stevie Nicks, “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.” But when he really hit his stride, both artistically and commercially, in the mid/late 80s, I was off listening to other stuff. Hip hop and R&B. When I got to college I shifted to alt rock. All genres that stood in stark contrast to what Petty was doing.
Our contractor put the last touches on our guest bathroom renovation project last night. After eight weeks, we finally kicked the girls down the hall and have a bathroom to ourselves. Two toothbrushes! A clear countertop! No piles of ponytail holders scattered all over the place! Now if we can just keep them from ruining the new bathroom… We had hoped to be done several weeks back. But we had a big snafu with one custom-ordered piece that set us back three weeks.
The Force - Don Winslow. Winslow writes excellent epics anchored in the world of organized crime. In the past he’s focused on the drug trade, specifically the cartels of Mexico. Here he shifts much farther to the north to look at the life of Denny Malone, Manhattan’s toughest, best, and most powerful detective. Malone’s crew runs North Manhattan. Nothing happens in that part of the city without either his permission or his punishment.