Alright, is everybody ready?

“Since the football season ended I’ve needed an excuse to run off at the mouth, and forcing myself to comment on forty-eight songs seemed like a solution. Maybe next year, if I’m able to actually enjoy any music and/or write complete sentences with a son or daughter to worry about, I can try to control […]

Beer and football II — week thirteen

The game: Colts at Patriots The beer: Just Beer Moby D American Ale The result: Win, 31–24 The commentary: Like the Pittsburgh game, only the exact opposite, this one was nowhere near as close as the final score indicated. Brady, Welker and Gronkowski were doing every single thing against the Colts that they wanted to […]

Hit me!

The Patriots are my non-daughter-based obsession lately, and although they’re only really relevant for three hours a week there are so many blogs to read and so much media to listen to and watch that it’s almost a full-time job. Add in how long it takes to drink a giant beer and write another “our […]

Fatherhood: The Musical

We put up the Christmas tree on December 22. Weekends came and went and weeknights were dark, cold and white-washed enough that it was too much bother. I enjoy the holidays but could muster neither the enthusiasm to carry an unwieldy box (fake tree alert!) up the basement stairs nor the patience to arrange the […]

Nomar Day revisited

July 31, 2004. Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra is traded (indirectly) for shortstop Orlando Cabrera and first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz. It was the strangest thing—a large group of us had collected at our friend Hector’s (false name) suburban backyard to celebrate his thirtieth birthday party. The news rolled out fast, someone probably shouting from the […]

In defense of Impulse #AS-95, Edition I

“Be careful, this might make you believe in God.” – Me, after giving a CDR (!) of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme and Ascension to a friend for his birthday Coltrane released Ascension in 1966. I first heard it in the late nineties and finally bought it in 2003 or 2004. It continues to challenge […]

Beer and football — week sixteen

The game: Patriots at Bills The beer: Shipyard Blue Fin Stout The result: Win, 34–3 The commentary: Once again I rocked a Starbucks iced chai as a warm-up, obtained during a pre-storm errand scramble. And then the Blue Fin Stout. Mmm… as tasty and comfortable as December football against a Thurman Thomas-less Bills team. This […]

Killing a fool on a hill

Two nights ago I started writing a few paragraphs to append to what became yesterday’s playlist post. Eventually I realized it wouldn’t work unless it was shoehorned in as an extended parenthetical aside, something I had already done with a never-quite-satisfying Jefferson Airplane rant that has since been severely cut down. So this gets its […]