The game: Patriots at Jets
The beer: Essex County Illume Pale Ale
The result: Win, 25–6
The method: NFL Game Pass
The headline: “Never hesitate to take a chump sucker down.” – Ice-T, “Ricochet”

The commentary: Say what you will about the playmaking abilities of JC Jackson and the Doublemint-potential of Devin McCourty but a bad throw is a bad throw and a ricochet is a ricochet. So far, Zach Wilson has proved incapable of playing on a green field but I’m sure he’ll come around. The Jets demonstrate a rich tradition of positive development at quarterback.

The game was never in doubt even as Mac Jones continued to play it safe, or play well safely, depending on your point of view. Hot local takes of “They’re waiting to unleash him against Brady!” are especially hilarious because there’s a good chance the Bucs will drop fifty on us next weekend. What happens then? Will the moment have been too big for Jones? Will Belichick and McDaniels have proven too cowardly to play for the win? Or: should the top priority following Super Bowl LIII have been to extend Brady through 2025 and eat the long-term risk? Well duh.

That’s not what happened, and it is looking like Jones was the right pick. He’s certainly better than Wilson right now and even Tua Tagovailoa, right? How about Jameis Winston? The Saints could win or lose by twenty this afternoon and we still wouldn’t know what to make of the dude. Avoid them in your variety of legal and legitimate knockout pools, folks.

The Osees (whose current spelling has won me over) rocked the Sinclair in Cambridge on Wednesday and I somehow scored tickets this time around after being sold-outed from the same venue for three goddamn years before the pandemic. Perseverance is an act scored by dual drummers.

Attending an indoor concert is not a citizen’s most responsible duty and I almost welcomed the decision to be made for me… minus, you know, a catastrophic spike in deaths. I trolled the Sinclair’s Facebook page for indications of “Yeah, no” that never surfaced—masks and proof of vaccination (check) or recent negative tests (just get vaccinated already) were deemed good enough and so the burden fell to me. Is this the right thing to do? Am I being selfish, especially with an elementary student in the house? A. gave her blessing and so I doubled up with a mildly uncomfortable KN95 and a regular cloth mask over that. Hey, there are worse things to do. Like spread COVID and/or die from it.

My friend and I caught the last couple of songs from opening act Mr. Elevator and it was good—weird—to be at a club show again. I’m a tired old woman, sure, but a handful of dates in recent years—L7 (twice), Quicksand, Ex Hex and Guided by Voices—means I’m not dead yet. Besides, it’s unfair to compare myself against the younger version who so often counted Smoots across the Charles River when venturing from the Middle East or TT’s back home to the Fens in the middle of the night. Talk about risk.

The Osees were fucking great. Anything might have been under these conditions, even the Bitchin Bajas, but it went beyond that. Volume, energy, lights, joy. Wow! (I dare you to look away from plural drummers and instantly regret our decision to skip King Crimson’s three earlier this month.) Check out this shit, courtesy of Setlist.fm and more or less accurate, despite the suspicion borne of dot-fm domains:

Quite a departure from the weird cooing sounds of that earlier Sinclair experience. This set was easy to recreate in MP3 format for Sonik Truth IV due to its portable (sorry, vinyl nerds), sortable (again: vinyl is stupid), untethered (no internet necessary), uncomplicated (own your music) nature. Still, it was a little too easy to assemble, in that everything exists and is readily available. Even on Spotify!

Alas, no yet-to-be-released material was included, no forthcoming LP highlight showcased. Maybe it was a deliberate decision to hold back, as with a rookie quarterback through two weeks, but maybe the band has put everything into touring (where, I understand, the actual money is made) and there isn’t anything new to showcase. Yet. I don’t expect them to concede 2021 to Ty Segall’s Harmonizer so graciously. But we’re running out of time, John.

Up next: I will not defame New Orleans. Cheers!