1. I've been staying in the house almost all the time since we returned from Eugene, enjoying books, basketball games, and some stuff on television.
Today, however, I ventured out a bit. I revved up the Sube and blasted out to Ed's house where we piled into his pickup and rocketed out to Rose Lake to visit Carol Lee and Jake.
Jake is recovering well from a procedure he done on his foot. It was good to see him in high spirits and that his mobility is improving. Carol Lee served us some very delicious coffee cake and I enjoyed a cup of coffee with it, making this fun visit even sweeter.
2. I'm starting to think I should just refer to Thursday as Blissday, especially when 8:00 p.m. rolls around. Blissday at 8:00 is when I tune in online to Eugene's KEPW-FM (kepw.org) to listen to Daniel McKay's hour long Bob Dylan radio show, Hard Rain & Slow Trains: Bob Dylan + Fellow Travelers. I would love this show even if I didn't know Daniel, but it's especially sweet to listen to my LCC fellow English teacher share his encyclopedic knowledge about and illuminating insights into Bob Dylan's life and music and I'm eager to find out each week what Daniel will center his next show around.
Tonight, I was a blank slate ready to have my slate filled with new information and insights. Until tonight, I'd barely heard of Bob Dylan's 2003 movie, directed by Larry Charles, Masked and Anonymous. But, for an hour, Daniel McKay conducted what I experienced as an hour long seminar on the movie, its music, and on yet another unpredictable passage in the life of Bob Dylan, what Rolling Stone describes as his "Slapstick" period. If you'd like to learn more about this, just do an internet search -- Dylan slapstick will get you there. (If you do a Dylan Jerry Lewis search, you'll come upon a video of Martin Short doing an impression of Jerry Lewis singing Bob Dylan on SCTV. It's beyond surreal.) Daniel played audio tape of the interview Rolling Stone did with Larry Charles about Dylan's "Slapstick" period and how the movie Masked and Anonymous came about. It was a fascinating hour.
At 9:00, Jeff Harrison came on the air at KEPW-FM and did his show, Deadish. Originally, in preparation for the Zero show scheduled for this Saturday at WOW Hall, Jeff was going to focus a lot on Zero's music. The show, however, has been postponed until July, so, instead, Jeff honored a request from Amy at Eugene's Pandita (a taqueria with a twist) at 11th and Mill to play some Jerry Garcia tunes.
And, Lordy, did Jeff ever beautifully honor Amy's request.
I'm not expert enough in the Garcia-verse to tell the difference between his Garcia/Saunders project and his work fronting Legion of Mary, but I don't care! I love those Garcia projects from nearly fifty years ago and Jeff played a string of awesome tracks, including covers of Bob Dylan songs. The cover of "Visions of Johanna" melted me.
Jeff's second hour featured the Grateful Dead's 02/03/1978 show in Madison, WI. That night, the Dead ended the second set with a long and transporting jam that started with "Eyes of the World", segued into "Playing in the Band" followed by "The Wheel" and returned and closed with "Playing in the Band". This jam transported me, nearly took me out of my body. It's hard to explain. I'd say it's like something or other but, for me, jams like this are unlike anything else.
All I can say is that Daniel and Jeff's shows made this evening blissful for me and I can hardly wait to hear what they'll play next week.
3. On another level of hunkered down enjoyment, before the radio shows, I watched UCLA and Arizona play an intense basketball game. Arizona blitzed UCLA in the first half. Their offense flowed beautifully and UCLA had few answers. In the second half, after what I'm sure were some stern word from Coach Mick Cronin, UCLA tightened its defense and steadily played themselves back into this game. Arizona, however, ultimately held their ground, never let UCLA tie the game or take a lead, and the Wildcats triumphed, 76-66.
When longtime Zag assistant Tommy Lloyd accepted the head coaching job at Arizona after the end of the 2020-21 season, it wasn't long before Oumar Ballo decided to transfer to Arizona from Gonzaga and play for Lloyd.
I think Ballo made the right move. Drew Timme decided to come back for another season and the Zags landed prize recruit Chet Holmgren. Those two would be starters and would be getting a ton of playing time and if Ballo was thinking he might see more minutes at Arizona, I think he was right. (I have no idea what Tommy Lloyd might have said to him to help him make his decision.)
Ballo is a huge guy, listed at 7 feet tall, weighing 260 pounds.
Since coming to Arizona, Ballo has reshaped his body and his body has matured. He looks much less like a kid and more and more like an adult. He looks sleeker, seems more agile, and is more active on both ends of the court than I remember him being at Gonzaga.
He doesn't start at Arizona, but tonight Oumar Ballo played 25 minutes off the bench. He didn't score much, but he snared 8 rebounds and blocked 4 shots and fired up Bill Walton who kept calling him something like "The King of Mali". But, Walton's loquacious hyperbole aside, Ballo's strength and length gave UCLA a lot of problems tonight. Before tonight, I hadn't see Ballo play so many minutes in an Arizona game. I thought that if the Wildcats can continue to effectively rotate Christian Koloko, Azuolas Tubelis, and Oumar Ballo as their inside players, giving them time to rest and freeing each of them to play aggressively, they are going to be a tough team for other squads to contend with in the paint.
I flipped on the Oregon/Colorado game, but, at 8:00, I was so deeply engrossed in the Slapstick period of Bob Dylan's career and so absorbed in what Daniel had to say about Masked and Anonymous that I don't have a firm grasp of the details of the Ducks' victory. I know the final score was 66-51. I know that Oregon won its first game ever in Boulder. I know that Oregon's win made me very happy.
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