Doomed

Great. SI has put Kansas City on their cover. The season is over. Nice run, Royals. 

Bye Dave

So you have to understand, I modeled my entire junior high persona after David Letterman. Back then I had to record Late Night on our VCR and watch it after school. It came on way too late for a seventh grader. Channel 4, at that time the NBC affiliate in Kansas City, shoved in Wheel of Fortune in between The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and Late Night with David Letterman. So Letterman didn't come on until midnight.

Letterman back then was bizarre and weird and edgy. His humor was even more caustic in those days. Being snarky and sarcastic seemed the perfect defense for a seventh grader who wasn't the fastest, tallest or best looking kid in class. So I loved Late Night. Watching that show made you feel like you were part of some inside joke told by cool weirdos.

Then Letterman got shafted out of the Tonight Show gig and watching him on CBS was like thumbing your nose at Jay Leno and the establishment Leno represented. I always thought Leno personified the dumbing down of America. He was a corporate stooge in my eyes.

I was a junior in college when Letterman moved to the Late Show. Things were definitely different at the Ed Sullivan Theater. He tried to broaden his appeal and some of his edginess softened. The Late Show was great but it rarely reached the bizarreness of Late Night. After I got a real job and a kid we only watched the Late Show during the summers and then only sporadically. It seemed to have grown a bit repetitive to me.

But I will miss Letterman. He's a part of my early adolescence. I adopted his demeanor and style of humor for many difficult years in the jungle of junior high and early high school. It is truly the end of an era for many of us who grew up watching him. Bye Dave.

Meadows

The Meadows Building on Central Expressway is one of my favorite buildings in Dallas. It's a mid-century classic. I imagine it's where Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce would office if Don Draper lived in Texas. 

Daze

For the first time in weeks I feel as though  I am finally coming out of a daze. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Family emergencies are settling down. My spring grad class is over with the required ten-page paper done and in the books. The school year is wrapping up, my seniors are already gone. I finally am beginning to exhale a bit easier.

Random thoughts:

Yesterday's biker gang shootout in Waco is disturbing on so many levels. So many of my friends belong to peaceful motorcycle groups that when I see large packs of bikers it does not cross my mind that they could be a criminal gang. I see bikers and I see guys just having fun on the road on cool rides. I had relegated biker gangs to old movies. Naively, I didn't even know biker gangs still were active. I feel terrible that groups of guys who now ride for fun will possibly be looked at in fear or concern as they roll down the freeway. I have been at that very shopping strip in Waco a couple of times. I've eaten at the next door Panera Bread with my family and gone to the Starbucks right by the Twin Peaks. That exit has always been a great place to stop when traveling between Austin and Dallas. Now, to see such violence at that same place is unsettling.

Royals still in first place.

Rain rain and more rain. Early Sunday morning we got another three inches according to my backyard rain gauge. Wish some of that rain would now head west to California. But it is nice to be out of the drought that has plagued our area for so long.

And oh yeah, Salman Rushdie mentioned me in a tweet!

Ball

The past month has been weird. Tons of rain, hospital stays and other out of the ordinary craziness. But one thing that's gone very well is J's baseball debut. After years of soccer he started baseball this spring. He got the game ball after his first game with a 2 for 3 performance. Then he topped that this past week going 3 for 3 with 3 runs and 4 RBI's. His coaches are great and his team full of great kids. The Southside Bombers have been a bright spot in a stressful few weeks.