I’ll Have Another.
Uncle Crappy
words. pictures. beer.
soul man.
I don’t think I saw the Blues Brothers movie in the theater when it was released in 1980, but I know I watched the hell out of it when it showed up on cable.
I am not exaggerating here. I was fascinated by the band, having seen its SNL appearances through the 1970s, and I loved the music, especially as an alternative to the disco that passed as the popular music of the day.
And when the movie showed up on HBO? I watched. Daily.
Seriously. In the first week it was released on cable, it fell into a rotation where it was on in the late afternoon nearly every day for two weeks. And I fell into a rotation of my own, turning it on when I got home from school and watching right up until it was time for dinner.
My father didn’t seem irritated to see me watching the Blues Brothers every night for a week, although I may recall an eyeroll or two. But I remember this distinctly: somewhere around the second week of my Blues Brothers binge, Dad told me to turn off the TV and follow him into the living room.
He sat me down on the couch while he knelt in front of the cabinet that held the stereo components and all of his records. He flipped through one stack and pulled out a red double LP. He put one of the vinyl discs on the turntable and gently dropped the needle at the start of the record.
He turned up the volume, set the album cover in my lap and said: “If you’re going to listen to this stuff, you should know where it comes from.”
And at impressive volume, I heard a by-then-familiar horn line. And I heard Otis Redding singing “I Can’t Turn You Lose,” the song that Belushi and Akroyd adpoted as their theme music.
I looked at the liner notes inside the album. And that’s when I found out that Donald “Duck” Dunn and Steve Cropper were real musicians with an unreal history. My father’s impromptu lesson was about Otis Redding and the band (Booker T and the MGs) that propelled him in the studio and on stage; that lesson also led me to Delaney and Bonnie, Wilson Pickett, Albert King and Sam and Dave, a lot to digest for a very white kid in a very white suburb.
My high-school friends will tell you that discovery — and the subsequent obsession — never really subsided; they got to hear plenty of Stax soul as we rode around Columbus in Turbo Pinto.
When Dunn died on Sunday, he was doing what he had always done. He was touring in Japan, playing the bass lines that held together the best soul records ever recorded. And whether you’re talking about his work in Memphis or as part of the Blues Brothers’ revival of the form, Dunn’s stamp is unmistakable.
And it will never be duplicated.
on your mark.
Not yet.
I know a ton of people who ran in the Pittsburgh Marathon last weekend — full, half, veterans and first-timers. And I’m proud of each and every single one of you. No matter what the time, you all killed it last week.
And let’s be honest: I’m also jealous as hell.
I was supposed to be among you last week, and it’s still irritating that I wasn’t. I think I made the right decision, vis-a-vis my ailing groin; but feeling smart didn’t help me much as I watched all of you running by my spot on the Seventh Street Bridge Sunday morning.
No worries, though. I’m coming back.
I’m approaching a week without pain in my pesky groin; I promised myself that as soon as I got through two weeks without so much as a twinge, I’d start running again. I’m not quite there yet, but I may bow to impatience and take a brisk walk in the next day or two, just to see how things are feeling. And if that goes well, I’ll start a walking/running mix.
And if we’re good with that, I have something else in mind.
As we’ve discussed before, I need a goal in order for the running thing to work. I had good schedule — with decent results, at least until I hurt myself — as I worked toward the Pittsburgh half; before I decided to run that one, I was kind of drifting — my runs were sporadic, and it was way too easy to talk myself out of getting out of bed in the morning and putting on my running shoes.
So how do I keep my motivation going? Easy — I run once race every month for the rest of the year.
I’ll take it easy to start, and give myself some time to get back into shape; I’m thinking a July start will be perfect. I even have a schedule in mind, although just a couple months are carved in stone at this point:
- July: TBD, yes. But having a t-shirt from the Whiskey Rebellion 5K in Canonsburg on the Fourth of July would be really cool. I think that would be a fun run, too. The July Fourth parade in Canonsburg is a big freaking deal, and as this race is a precursor to the parade, I think there would be a built-in audience.
- August: Again, to be determined. But I’m intrigued by the Brookline Breeze 5K on Aug. 11. This race is part of an annual community party, and I would hope to get some support — and perhaps some post-race beverages — from the Burghseyeview crew.
- September: This one is carved in stone, as in I’m already registered: The Great Race in Pittsburgh (Sept. 30). Watching all of yinz guys have fun in this one last year was the reason I started running last fall, and this race was my original goal. With that in mind, when Mrs. Crappy and I saw that discount registrations were available at the marathon expo, we signed up immediately. A nice bonus: the race takes place on a road-game weekend, so we don’t have to miss any football in Columbus.
- October: Next payday, I’ll register for the Columbus half marathon on Oct. 21. I’d still love to have Pittsburgh as my first half, but I’m not going to wait until next year to run one. Columbus in October is a perfect second choice. All I have to do it is pray that the Purdue game is a noon start. This will also be nice because I’ll have a built-in support team at the ready.
- November: I love the idea of running to make room for Thanksgiving dinner, and the proximity of the YMCA’s Turkey Trot 5K downtown makes this race a natural.
- December: As I found last year, there is a surprisingly large pool of December races to choose from; in the interest of symmetry, though, I’ll probably run the Jingle Bell 5K, just like I did for my first race ever in 2011.
Ambitious? Maybe. Stupid? Definitely. But once I get started again — and keep in mind this schedule is subject to change; I’m now very aware that injuries can make a mockery of plans like this in an instant — I know I’ll need goals and dates to keep going through the summer heat. And a schedule like this would be the perfect way to do that.
C’mon, groin. Get better quick.
thank you, sir.
It’s Kentucky Derby Day. And it’s time for me to make a pick for today’s race.
After conducting a thorough analysis of the horses, their bloodlines, the owners, the trainers, the jockeys, the odds and the expected weather at Churchill Downs today, I came up with exactly nothing.
But how can I not pick a horse named I’ll Have Another? Because I almost always will.
sloth.
If I have to swallow some down time, I’m sure as hell going to enjoy it.*
OK, I’m not going overboard — much — but I am going to try to worry slightly less about stuff until I’m ready to test the groin again.
(I’m also apparently going to enjoy writing about my groin. Groin. Groin. Groin. Who thought up that one?)
It wasn’t a conscious decision, but I sort of started last week, when I did my best to keep up with the first-ever Pittsburgh Craft Beer Week. That deserves a post of its own (or maybe two posts, one here and one on the work beer blog), but suffice to say: That was fun.
I also had a pretty good start this week. I made my favorite Groundhog/tailgating breakfast casserole for a little thing at Kim’s house on Saturday. And last night, I made this:
There’s a little back story here. I found this recipe on Pinterest months ago, when I was in the mood for A) pasta and B) something a little spicy. Naturally, I modified the original a little bit (subtract cilantro, add a couple cloves of minced garlic) and was pleased enough with the results that I re-pinned the recipe.
And then? Nothing happened.
And then? Holy crap.
About two months ago, someone — someone who has many, many more Pinterest followers than I do — re-pinned the recipe from my post. My modified recipe started getting some attention, enough that I used that as an opportunity to finally write about Pinterest in my tech column at work.
After a brief lull, the re-pinning has continued. You can trust me when I say it’s good, or you can believe the 878 people who have re-pinned it or the 144 people who have liked it as of Tuesday night.
I can’t speak for the experiences of more than 1,000 people, but I can tell you the recipe is simple, quick and freaking delicious.
And, in fitting with the fat guy theme of the week, totally appropriate.
*I love the eating and drinking, but the not running thing is an irritation, to be honest.
decision.
What I want to do next Sunday: Run the Pittsburgh Half Marathon.
What I will do instead: Not run the Pittsburgh Half Marathon.
What I’m doing is otherwise known as the Smart Option, but it’s definitely not the one I wanted to choose. After I completed my first 5K in December — and screwed around for about a month instead of running regularly — I knew I needed a reason to train. And by January, I knew that reason would be the half.
I was making great progress, and having a blast on a months’ worth of Saturday long runs with friends in North Park. But somewhere along the way, I pulled a muscle in my groin — and I didn’t really do anything about it. I went ahead and ran 8.5 miles a few Saturdays ago, and even though I complained about my nipples more, the groin hurt like a bitch afterwards; I also went ahead with a 10K in Florida, and my groin was not pleased with that either.
I’ve tried a few times since, hoping that some rest as I ticked off the days until the half would help.
It didn’t. The pain flared a few steps in each time, enough that it was a struggle to finish a mile. I even stopped recording the attempts on Daily Mile, because I didn’t want to turn my timeline into an endless stream of grumping, especially when most of my friends there will be running on Sunday.
I’ve thought about trying anyway, walking and jogging and somehow struggling through 13.1 miles. I could probably make it, but I’m not sure where that would leave me for the rest of the summer. There are other races, and other half marathons out there, and I don’t want to chance missing out on those because I’m nursing a six-month-old groin pull.
So I’m going with the Smart Option, a name I chose in hopes of making myself feel better about not running on Sunday. I’m going to sit out for a while, maybe with an eye on walking with the March of Dimes thing in late May before I start jogging again. If that goes well, I will ease back in. I think using a Couch to 10K app would be a good way to make sure I’m ready for the Great Race in September and whatever else comes along.
I am not happy about this. I’ve come to really enjoy running, and for me, its benefits are too numerous to list. I’m not going to stop, and I will run a half before 2012 is over. But this is discouraging. Depressing. Frustrating. I so wanted to do this, and do it now, this May, and here, in my the city that is solidly my home.
But I will do it, maybe on the Montour Trail, maybe in Columbus. That’s still the goal, and I will reach it this year.
If you’re running on Sunday, I hope you have a great morning on the streets of our city. I might wander over to the start, to get a feel for everything and to see as many of you as I can before you begin.
I’ll see you other places in a few weeks too. North Park. North Shore Trail. In Brighton Heights or Bellevue. I promise.
