2023 was, by all indicators, an incredibly horny year for pop music.
Maybe there was some kind of full moon or maybe this is the first time people are feeling more safe in public spaces post-COVID. But, goodness gracious, if you had a pop star making an album, they were- as the kids would say- DTF. Because of that, this year’s batch of songs feels like they need a cold shower. However, there is still plenty of good stuff here.
The year wasn’t all about sexy sexy time. There were also great songs about loss and heartache and anger. As always, there was tons of good music if you knew where to look for it.
Here are the 25 best songs of the past twelve months:
Up until late Monday afternoon I had no idea who the pictured people were… then I found out. Angels… Good Samaritans… call them what you will but they saved my life.
I was hiking in South Yuba River State Park by Hoyt’s Crossing near Nevada City, California. The river is gorgeous, but in spots very deep even in October. It’s cold but refreshing… until it’s not.
Note: This is a spoiler free review of Martin Scorsese’s newest film. I promise to not ruin the movie for you…but I am going to try to make you not want to see it.
The movie was slated to start at 6:30. 15 minutes of previews and other nonsense later, the movie finally started. After what felt like seven hours, I looked at my phone to see if it was almost over. It was 8pm. I still had over two hours ago. Weakness fell upon me. There was no escape. Just a vanity project. A vanity project that would never end.
The Bears are terrible. Odds are, if you are reading this, the Bears have been bad for most of your lifetime. With only brief respites of competency, any true Bears fan can point to a personal Mt. Rushmore of their least favorite member of this franchise. Alonzo Spellman. Todd Sauerbraun. Adam Shaheen. Shea McClellin. And that isn’t even to mention the absolute school bus fire that is the Bears quarterbacks. Moses Moreno, Steve Stenstrom, and David Fales come to mind, along with dozens of others.
I’d been hearing about it forever. Long before a single brick had been laid. No foundation. No down home decor. I was hearing about Pizza Ranch coming to Shorewood. Apparently a crowd pleaser among people who are easily pleased, they were slapping the pizza buffet right on the frontage road next to the highway, ,for everyone to see! Then nothing happened. And nothing continued to happen.
What felt like years passed before building commenced, and even then, the process was long and drawn out. I’d already lost interest by the time they announced the Grand Opening. I was drawn back in. How can you not be when you are a man of my girth? All You Can Eat pizza and fried chicken. That’s a damn fine time, to me. Damn fine.
Early reports were positive, but I decided to wait until a special day to go. I wanted to go on a holiday to get a real feel for the place, and I found my opportunity. I visited Pizza Ranch for the first time on the 30th anniversary of Nolan Ryan beating up Robin Ventura. What a glorious day!
Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria AKA Pablo Escobar, in case you were unaware, wasn’t merely Colombia’s drug trafficker, he was Colombia’s drug lord. When you’re a drug lord you have both time and money.
Theory with the relationship of time and money is such – you generally have, and should have, one or the other. When you have a lot of money, you probably don’t have a lot of time; when you have a lot of time, you generally do not have a lot of money. Trouble happens when you either have a lot – or a little – of both.
Pablo Escobar had a lot of both. The idle mind so to speak which is, according to the world’s most popular book thrusted upon millions, the devil’s workshop. And, to compound this dilemma, Pablo Escobar was a man who was constantly hiding in plain sight. Why? Again, drug lord. Lords, given time and money, can do what they want when they wish.
Therein lied his problem. When you have scads of money but can’t go anywhere since a better part of the world pretty much wants you eradicated, what do you do? You build a palatial estate. A given in my mind. But what do you fill it with? Things you would like to see but can’t. Pablo couldn’t travel without an army of muchachos, low flight pattern and a private landing strip. There’s only so far you can travel in that manner.
Fuck it, he may have claimed, you won’t let me see them in person, then they will come to see me. So, he brought four hippos to put in his own mini-zoo and let them have the run of his 7,000-acre estate, Hacienda Nápoles. He had other animals, but giraffes and camels are apparently easier to control.
A hippo is not even as controllable as Pablo Escobar and he was nowhere near being controllable. Nearly two decades of drugs, money, bribes, women, etcetera is a long run. Pablo, as a drug lord, eventually had his jig come up. No matter how many police and politicians you buy, the end will come sooner or later. For Pablo Escobar, it came with a self-designed “maximum” security prison built for him on property he owned through an agent. This, in a few years, took a turn once the people of Colombia found out the luxurious life he was leading continued in “prison.” They protested, he was scheduled to be sent to a harsher place, escaped via a bribed guard (naturally), then was gunned down in his Medellín hideout the day after his 44th birthday on December 2, 1993.
At this point you may be asking yourself, and you should, “wow what an insane life of crime and excess, but what of the lives of those 4 hippos?”
Did you hear about the Colombian who tried to cross the Magdalena River? Of course, you didn’t because I killed him. I’ll be here… well, forever.Continue reading “Escobar’s Hippos”→
He married my mother. She’s a God-fearing woman who has kept the gutsy farm girl in her for her entire life. She’s not one to shy away from anything… and apparently neither was Ernest John Cubbon.
Ernie and my mother met at church. She was the hottie with 2 young kids in tow in a failing marriage and he was the pastor/minister/reverend – I’ll stick with pastor purely for the alliteration. Being a Presbyterian pastor was his vocation for most of his working life after he finished his stint in the Air Force. He was the pastor at five different churches in his lifetime. Helping people became commonplace. Never mattered why or what they needed assistance for, or if they were monied or poor, Ernie was there.
Sometimes, a story is better than what actually happened. Here’s the start of my story…
On Friday, I was driving with my family to get a copy of our house key. My toddler was sleeping in his car seat after a fun morning at the zoo, and my wife and I were listening to the 90’s alternative playlist she had made for our vacation which had gotten cut short earlier in the week (full disclosure: this playlist also had on “The Hand That Feeds”, a song recorded in 2005 for Nine Inch Nails’ brilliant With Teeth; I was willing to let this transgression pass as the song is an absolute banger). As we drove to the Buikema’s Ace Hardware on 75th Street in Naperville, my wife (who grew up in the area) said, very non-chalantly, “I can’t remember if it is this Ace or the one on Washington St. that used to have the monkey.”
In 1976, I was a teenager and got my heart broken. Was it a girl? No. It was the Denver Nuggets. 1976 was the final year for the ABA. The NBA was going to take a few teams, the ABA was folding, the NBA was taking 4 teams from it and we all knew it before the season was even over. And yet here we were in the final ABA finals, Denver Nuggets vs. The New York Nets. David Thompson vs. Julius ‘Dr. J’ Erving.
But my love affair with the team and with basketball started way before 1976. I remember as a child going to the Denver Coliseum to watch the Rockets. Coach Stan Albeck had Byron Beck, Ralph Simpson, Julian Hammond and Larry Brown among others. They were fun to watch but didn’t go anywhere in the playoffs.
The Rockets had no choice but to change to a different name. The NBA had informed the ABA that if they were to absorb a few teams one of them would be the one on Denver. But the NBA said ‘ahem… Denver, we already have a Rockets team in Houston. Pick another name… and you won’t be shooting with that red, white and blue striped ball anymore either when you get here.” As such, the Nuggets were born in 1974, two years before the “merger” which wasn’t so much a merger than it was a takeover. The NBA absorbed the Nuggets, Nets, Indiana Pacers and San Antonio Spurs.
But that was the way it was for the Rockets, then the Nuggets… until 1976. No respect, but they didn’t earn it either. And here I was in 1976, a 14-year-old glued to the radio listening to Game 6 of the ABA final (it was not on TV until a delayed telecast much later). The Nuggets had them, they had Dr. J on the ropes. They were down 3 games to 2 and it was back at Nassau Coliseum for Game 6 and they were up. Starting the 4th quarter the Thompson-led Nuggets had the Nets by 14 points, so I went to sleep. Woke up to find out they lost 112 to 106. Series ended and just crushed me as the Nets won 4 games to 2.
They never got back to the finals. Oh, they made the Western Conference Finals.
Fancy Boys Club 