The game: Broncos at Patriots Unscheduled bye
The beer: Simpler Times Lager
The knockout: Cowboys win, 37–34
The commentary: In other words, the coronavirus defeated hubris and covered the spread by a mile. Simpler times are fading fast.

Maybe the Pats and Titans should face off every week and pull in other teams (the Falcons?) as necessary, round-robin style. As if the networks wouldn’t prefer hyping “Revenge Bowl VI,” “Revenge Bowl VII,” etc. over subtracted intra-division Thursday Night Football games. It sounds like Cam Newton and maybe even Stephon Gilmore will play on Sunday, which makes total sense in a universe where Trump is re-elected for his eighth term as Süprēm Glæxnår. Here, though, is another story. Newton must legitimately be in the clear by now if the goddamn president is, but Gilmore and the rest? Perhaps I’m overcautious but this is how a sequel to The Stand starts out, and only because the Patriots are more relevant than Stephen King’s beloved Red Sox.

As suggested in week one, I’ve basically declared Thee Oh sees’ Protean Threat to be the creamy Biffy® of the year. It succeeds by default if the album weren’t so fucking awesome—how many of the thirteen tracks will make it through to late-stage cutdowns come May or June? Ten? Eleven? These are the problems I create for myself.

Who else competes? Shellac isn’t due for an album until next year at the (trending) earliest. Mudhoney’s even further out. Off! is among the missing. Investigation into King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard hasn’t satisfied—no small effort. So it’s Osees, Ty Segall, Ty Segall Side Project (x)—I await Fuzz III with relish—and no one else, and only the Osees are giving me something I can use. (Frequently, mind you. I listen to Protean Threat a lot.) But Segall? So far this year (and so far as I know), it’s been a “recently rediscovered” single recorded five years ago (“She’s a Beam” will make that playlist), his collection of Nilsson covers—good, especially for free, but a fakebook is a fakebook—and an OK Fungus II from Side Project (x) Wasted Shirt. Can the man’s illustrious productivity be called into question? Is that fair in 2020?

Funny about these Biffys® though… 1964 might be “as good a year as any to mark the beginning of the modern music age” or I might be full of shit. (Wouldn’t you know it, Google Photos reminds me that Chloe was face-planting again nine years ago today. We miss her so.) A Hard Day’s Night is so obviously the best, most complete pop album of that year—and the Beatles’ best overall, with zero throwaways—that “Fuck it” overwhelmed, which is fine, even with The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan nestled among its pre-purge peers in alphabetized bliss one room over. Hmm. Dylan, eh?

The reliable source of sources Wikipedia lists “Girl From the North Country,” “Bob Dylan’s Dream,” “Talkin’ World War III Blues” and genuine rabble-rouser “Masters of War” as having been recorded on the same April day in 1963—the emotional whiplash necessary to perform those last two within hours of each other is stunning. So, yeah, maybe we can push “modern music” back to 1963. What’s that? Dylan’s debut came out the year before? “Judas!” Fine, 1962 then, though that album is flawed.

Huh? Whazzat? You don’t say! Music existed before even then? And genres exist other than rock/pop/folk/blues? You’re obviously not paying attention—1965 is clearly represented by something called “jazz.” But sure, I get your point, ’62 is as random a genesis as ’64. Fine. Nineteen sixty. Two words, no hyphens. Roundness. And, unfortunately, no real mainstream contenders, for this is the soft singles-dominated era that the Beatles torpedoed.

Two-plus weeks from an election that will revive or snuff out our souls, I court the jazz-aficionado vote, the Black vote, the old-timer-used-record-store-owner vote, the 180-gram-vinyl-reissue-nerd vote with chalk. 1960: Miles Davis. 1961: John Coltrane. 1962: Charles Mingus. And Dylan, presumably Minnesota’s bluest homegrown citizen? I court his vote, too. “Is your money that good?” Check back next month.

In the spirit of redoing shit, what’s that extra row up top? “The knockout”? Remember talk of the glory and the heartache? Pull up a chair, old friend. One you’ll no longer have to share with other outcomes. Various (legitimate) online pools lack the executable data visualization and analysis that come with knowing and judging your small band of competitors but if (yes) the Pats and I can get past the Broncos on Sunday—or get with them at all—then I’ll see what can be done. “The graphic”? Perhaps. I do anticipate an eventual addition of “The television” once Survivor and Project Runway return—you know, assuming a twenty-first-century Trashcan Man doesn’t deliver finality should certain defeated incumbents refuse to concede. “My life for you!” That’s a Republican for you. That’s all of them, every one.

Up next: The continuing adventures of “Who the fuck knows” and waiting in line for Trader Joe’s beer. Cheers!