dubbatrubba

Hola! I’ve been using Duolingo to learn Spanish. Or at least to try to learn Spanish. I’ve been at it for a bit. Or a bit longer than a bit. Am I anywhere close to fluent? No. (Or, as we say in Spanish… “no.”) But am I a lot better than I was before I started? Si! And am I a lot better off spending time on the Duolingo app instead of mindlessly scrolling through social media? Without a doubt!…

I’m not into motorsports of any sort. I blame that time in high school when my friends and I were doing our own late night time trials on my friend Jon’s younger sister’s moped. Complete a loop from his house – down the street, up a hill, another straightaway, then back down the hill. I was clearly on track for the fastest lap — at least in my head — until I wiped out in turn 4, going down the…

Here’s a quick overview of what I was up to late last week (some of which my faithful readers — all three of them — already know about): Thursday night: Jason Narducy house concert… at our house. Friday night: Seeing my son Gabriel’s band The Collies play at a bar in Mt. Lookout. Saturday during the day: working on a basement clean-up project. Saturday night: Maggie Rose/Molly Tuttle concert…

Here’s our living room this morning: But here’s what it was like last night: A rockin’ house concert, for our family and 25 other folks – some of whom were friends, but most of whom were just friendly strangers. That’s Jason Narducy playing to the crowd. He releases music as Split Single. He’s also the touring bassist for Superchunk, one of my favorite bands. Also bassist in the Bob Mould band…

Better late than never, I suppose. Good thing I didn’t have “stop procrastinating” on my resolution list. Although this great article from The Guardian that was published… well, the start of the year… is also giving all of us permission to ease off the self-improvement resolutions. The intro paragraph from Oliver Burkeman’s piece sums up the concept quite nicely: The older I get, the more…

At the end of March, I blogged about folks cashing in on the death and destruction happening in Iran. That sort of heartless profiteering from the prediction markets (namely Kalshi and Polymarket) has continued pretty much unabated. Those companies have become unregulated casinos in our pockets, with scary consequence. So much so that John Oliver devoted an episode of his Last Week Tonight show…

I spent a decent amount of time last week hootin’ and hollerin’ in the Hoosier State. with nary a Gene Hackman sighting. Live music is my game. This past Tuesday, I drove to Bloomington, Indiana to see Gladie, an indie rock band from Philadelphia. (And my new musical obsession.) (I also took my son and one of his roommates out to dinner before the show. It was “two-fer Tuesday.”) Then on…

Great advice from a recent edition of James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter: I’ll readily admit that I can be a Negative Nelly. (OK, I begrudgingly admit it – true to form.) A Debbie Downer. “It’ll never work.” “What will go wrong next?” “We’re screwed.” As Mr. Clear (great name, btw) points out, seeing the positive doesn’t involve putting on rose-colored glasses. It’s just – as Amy Krouse…

“Chad” (a.k.a. our 2008 Honda CR-V) recently hit a mileage milestone. 240,000 miles. And he’s not dead yet. Most of those miles were courtesy of previous owners. We got “Chad” (our kids named him… er, I mean, it) nearly 8 years ago. He already had clocked 181,000 by then. As “used” as used can be. But nearly 60K is certainly something to celebrate. That’s a lot of trips to high school for our…

Seth Godin knows what’s up: “Good work can be good without being popular.” Amen to that, Brother Seth! In keeping with the music reference that Seth made, I know dozens of bands who have created brilliant music but never got popular. There’s the famous Brian Eno quote about the Velvet Underground: “I was talking to Lou Reed the other day, and he said that the first Velvet Underground record…

This past Friday night, Milwaukee singer/songwriter Brett Newski played a free show in the lounge at the Southgate House in Newport, KY. The music was great, but the crowd could best be described as “sparse.” However, there was a woman in the audience who knew the lyrics to every song Brett sang. She was mouthing along (not, it should be noted, singing along) to every tune. So much so that Brett…

Batman & Robin are blasé compared to the real Dynamic Duo. It isn’t Batman & Robin, it’s Carol & Robin: I met them eons ago in college. They were a couple of years younger than our gang, but they became our pseudo kid sisters… mainly because two of their friends actually were kid sisters of two guys in our gang. At a small school like Xavier, it wasn’t long until all of us knew all of them and…

UConn and Michigan face off tonight for the NCAA D-1 Championship in men’s hoops. But in the NIL era, it’s really tough for alums to thump their chest if “their” team wins, because most of the players are just stopping by for “one shining moment” or two. Michigan’s starting five features only one player who was with the program last year. In fact, Nimari Burnett has been with the program for a…

By all accounts, the Iran “don’t call it a war” war has been a unmitigated disaster, an utter folly, a colossal mistake. Oh wait, not by ALL accounts. There are some bank accounts who have rated it a rousing success, based on their totally coincidental investments in oil and S&P500 futures, just minutes before a Trump tweet last Monday hinting at an end to the war. Hmm, who could’ve had such…

Sometimes, when you least expect it, where you least expect it, you find beauty. Like when you’re walking to work, and you see this: Yes, they’re fake flowers. Yes, they’re in a dumpster. But in a weird way, that makes the scene even more compelling. “One man’s trash” indeed! Beauty is everywhere – if you’re looking for it. And if we’re alive, we should be looking for it. Have a fresh…

This past Tuesday, I drove two-and-a-half hours to see a tribute band. It wasn’t Hells Belles (female AC/DC tribute band). It wasn’t Pink Talking Fish (tribute to Pink Floyd, Talking Heads, and Phish) It wasn’t the Hot Red Chili Peppers (tribute to the Red Hot Chili Peppers). It wasn’t Mini KISS (KISS tribute band of little people). It was less a tribute band, and more of a supergroup — with…

The Miami Redhawks men’s basketball team takes on Tennessee in the NCAA tourney this afternoon. A #11 seed vs. a #6 seed. Miami has already won – literally and figuratively. They won their “play-in” game Wednesday night in Dayton against SMU. I was there. It felt like a Miami home game with most of the crowd cheering for the school that’s a mere 46 miles from Dayton. But they’ve also already won…