Siftings
Aug
07
Craig’s Friday Countdown - Things To Take
The path to Empty Nesterville has a stop at U-Haul. Amanda’s senior college year includes an off campus apartment and we need a trailer to transport her growing collection of furniture and furnishings. Which gets me thinking about the most essential twenty things I’d take with me,...
Aug
03
Best Band At Lalapalooza?
I didn't see close to all of them, or even twenty percent of them. But Sturgill Simpson had, by far, the best band I saw. No synth, no fancy lighting or other tricks ... just an amazing quintet of musicians. Simpson's clear contribution is his writing but he can play too. Not that he needs to...
Aug
01
Stages
Don’t hate on someone’s groove. Sitting against an elm trunk enveloping the stage, I overhear a college student offering advice to a friend critiquing BADBADNOTGOOD. There’s three hundred thousand people and one hundred and thirty bands spread across three days and three hundred and nineteen...
Jul
31
Craig’s Friday Countdown - Lala Band Names
The Malin boys are back in the ancestral homeland for the weekend, at Lalapalooza. Not saying these are the twelve best bands, but am saying these are the dozen best band names at the fest.
12. Moon Taxi – Uber not yet available.
11. DJ Mustard – DJ Ketchup not allowed in Chicago.
10. The...
Jul
23
Craig’s Friday Countdown - Favorite Games
The Central versus North QCTimes article reads like a who’s who of kids I know from Davenport youth baseball. As the Wildcats head to State and the seniors we’ve played with over the years move on, a countdown of my favorite Davenport youth baseball games.
17 – 350 (or thereabouts). (tie) ...
Jul
21
Horizons
Wanna throw me a bucket? The question could indicate several things. Someone could be feeling ill. The roof could be leaking. The boat could be going down. It’s none of those. It’s our version of Ray Kinsella’s “wanna have a catch?”. Colin would like me to throw him some batting practice. ...
Jul
18
A Rumble In The Distance
Thunder shakes the blue dawn over Bettendorf. Nary a cloud in the sky, but the foundation of TouVelle Stadium shudders with the collective weight of the varsity Bulldogs. Cruel and unusual punishment may be unconstitutional, but it is also an effective training technique. After an hour in the...
Jul
16
Malin IV
The screen door slams. Mary’s dress waves. So begins Springsteen’s epic Born to Run. His third album, and maybe his last. The first two didn’t sell well, so Born to Run was his last chance. Last chances are as illusory as any other fabrication, but imagined doom does have a way of distilling...
Jul
15
Makers
The prison woodshop was my refuge. In creating something, I left the reality of incarceration behind. To build something - anything really - was to set aside a captive present for a liberated future. The projects weren’t much; an oak-handled shiv, a plywood nightstand for the bunk, a...
Jul
07
The Wee Small Moments
The last time it was raining this hard at Modern Woodmen Park, CNN was bearing down on Davenport. That was the morning of June 13, 2008. The local record for rainfall in four hours was being set, steepening the Mississippi River flood crest also bearing down on us. There was heroic work all...
