We’re a month into Fall and, at least near me, the weather doesn’t look like Fall. 73 degrees, according to my vehicle’s thermometer; 70 according to my computer. One of the two is correct, but it’s nevertheless sunny and delightful outside. Thus explaining the fact that I am (1) inside and (2) putting together this newsletter.

I normally pen these on Friday — sometimes on Thursday if I’m feeling especially antsy — and actually enjoy the last-minute rush of finishing an issue.

In any event, a couple of the pieces grabbed me much earlier in the week and so half of this issue was finished by Tuesday. Huh?

Anyway, today’s Saturday, so…how about another edition of What I’m Watching, Reading, Listening to, and Rediscovering…a/k/a The Saturday List. (After, of course, the Button.)

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Watching: Norm: The Tale of Norm Macdonald

It’s a rare occasion when something that parts of the internet calls a “must-watch” program turns out to be a must-watch program. Norm: The Tale of Norm Macdonald is such a documentary. (I watched it in one sitting on Tuesday.)

What’s different about this film, produced by Judd Apatow, is how all of the narration comes from Norm Macdonald himself. The footage is from the usual places: his Saturday Night Live “Weekend Update” stints, his appearances on Late Show with David Letterman, and his own podcast; it’s sprinkled with enough home-movie footage and interviews that you had the sense Apatow was one of the small circle of people who knew that Norm’s cancer was terminal. (Norm died September 14, 2021 at the age of 61.) Watch the trailer here, then head over to Netflix to watch the whole thing.

Reading: The Thomas Sowell Reader

Released in 2011, Thomas Sowell shares a series of essays in one book; and it’s a pretty good snapshot of how one of the greatest thinkers in American history…thinks.

He was already an elder statesman when this was released; today he’s still around and sharing thoughts and appearing on podcast interviews, but not as often because he’s 96 Years Old!

The Thomas Sowell Reader includes essays on things like Race and Ethnicity, Political Issues, and Economic Issues; Sowell is conservative but wants, as he writes on the book jacket, to “reduce the likelihood that readers will misunderstand what I have said on many controversial issues over the years.”

Listening to: Three Songs in the Running for Dave’s Song of the Year — Blonde Redhead, The New Pornographers, Morrissey

First, here’s the Blonde Redhead tune that dropped a couple months back. It’s called “Blood Spilled” and it’s excellent.

The New Pornographers are back and this song, which dropped earlier this year, continues to stay in heavy rotation on SiriusXMU. It, too, is excellent.

A couple of my online friends have seen Morrissey in concert over the past couple weeks and I’m darn jealous. I’ve spun through the new album, Make-up Is a Lie, and keep coming back to this tune: “Kerching Kerching.” It stopped me in my tracks, the video is amazing, and it’s already in the running for Dave’s Song of the Year. Please enjoy.

Rediscovering: M*A*S*H (The Movie); and RIP Tom Skerritt

When news broke on Thursday that Tom Skerritt had died at the age of 93, lots of people talked about his roles in Top Gun, or Picket Fences, or Alien.

Don’t forget he was in M*A*S*H, the movie. Watch the actual film — you can rent it on most of the platforms, it’s worth a few bucks — and check out the trailer here. (Skerritt gets third billing, right behind Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould.)

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Finally: A Documentary Film About The Tomb of St. Peter…Featuring Two Really Familiar Faces

As a “Boomerang Catholic” — I grew up in the faith, switched to United Methodist in my 20s, and returned a year ago — I’ve been paying more attention to the intersection of Catholicism and pop culture; the addition of an American Pope to the mix has been something to behold for me. (Sister Bernadette told us in 5th Grade that we’d never have an American Pope.)

So I found this to be all sorts of cool: Pope Leo XIV makes an appearance in a film called Petros Eni; the documentary is narrated by Chris Pratt.

The actual film will drop in February, in time for Lent — you can read a write-up on the EWTN website — and, for now, we just have the trailer. Here it is:

On that uplifting note, try to have a new experience of some sort this week: go sit alone at the bar, or maybe waltz into a store you’ve never been in. Smile at a stranger for no reason. Take a walk outside. Things like that.

See you next week!

Dave

Also, we’re here for the 50th Straight Edition of The Saturday List. Wow. thanks for being along for the ride.

Let’ dive in — after the button, of course — and take a look at What I’m Watching, Reading, Listening to, and Rediscovering this week.

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Watching: A Breakdown of the Manchester City Scandal with Ben Harris

Ben Harris is a UK political consultant and football (soccer) enthusiast who joined me on The Vandy Program to talk about one of the biggest scandals in sports/finance history: Manchester City and its financial malfeasance. The club was found guilty on 114 of the 115 charges, and Ben breaks that down for us in a pretty interesting conversation.

Note that we talked about when we’ll know the punishment, and Ben said it’s later this calendar year; however, one report online has guesstimated it might happen as early as Monday, October 19. Stay tuned.

Reading: Brainwaves and the Psychology of Buying a Car

A few weeks back, I reacted to what seems like a constant barrage of those “Here’s How to Win at Substack!” posts with a question: who has something interesting that’s under-the-radar and that we can recommend? Tomas Heligr-Pyke answered the call, and he’s in Australia and has a really good breakdown on buying a car.

Brainwaves

Car Salesmen, CRMs, and the Fine Art of Not Feeling Like Prey

I had needed a new car for quite a while…

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4 months ago · 1 like · 1 comment · Tomas Heligr-Pyke

AND he talks here about Australia’s AI-driven…supermarkets? (There’s… Kmart in Australia? WHAT?)

Brainwaves

Every Customer a Suspect: Inside Australia’s AI-Powered Supermarkets

So I was talking to a friend the other day about something that, honestly, should be old news by now: supermarkets and big-box retailers quietly turning into data-harvesting surveillance machines…

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a year ago · 4 likes · 1 comment · Tomas Heligr-Pyke

You can subscribe for free to the Sub. It’s good.

Listening to: Tokyo Police Club

While they broke up a couple years back, Tokyo Police Club remains one of those dynamite, fun, high-energy bands. Yes, they used an online band name generator to pick their name.

Here, the Canadian act makes its network television debut on The Late Show with David Letterman, in April 2007. (Get a load of fellow Canuck Paul Shafer leading the CBS Orchestra on the tambourine as TPC closes out the song.)

“Nature of the Experiment” was one single off the band’s debut, an EP called A Lesson in Crime. Here, off that disc, my favorite song of theirs, “Be Good.”

(Note: “Be Good” didn’t chart anywhere, not even in Canada, as a single.)

Off of their follow up, Elephant Shell, here’s “Tesselate.”

And a really inventive concept from the band was Ten Songs, Ten Years, Ten Days, where they covered…well, ten different songs, from ten different years, and they did one song per day over a span of…get this…TEN DAYS.

One of my all-time favorites, “Little Sister,” from Queens of the Stone Age, receives the Tokyo Police Club treatment, with an assist from guitar guru Orianthi.

Finally, here’s the band’s keyboardist, Graham Wright, with a solo tune called “Them’s the Rules.” (He can play the guitar, too.)

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Rediscovering: Office Space

Stephen Root. The always underrated Ron Livingston. Jennifer Aniston. And written by Mike Judge.

The movie Office Space used to be a staple — SEE WHAT I DID THERE — on weekend television, back when you had channels that showed things at certain times, not when you could start shows whenever. Now? Get off my lawn.

Also I found the DVD of this around the house and…why not?

Finally: The Dennis Green Rant

Twenty years ago yesterday, October 16, 2006, Dennis Green was not happy after his Arizona Cardinals lost to the Chicago Bears.

May your weekend, and week ahead, be what you thought it would.

Dave

Hello there! We’re just a couple of weeks into Fall and here’s hoping the Fall weather near you is to your liking. (Likely not the case in the Gulf of Mexico, though, so here’s hoping those in the path of Hurricane Isaias can stay safe and dry.)

Let’s kick off the weekend in high style, then, with What I’m Watching, Reading, Listening to, and Rediscovering This Week…the 49th straight edition follows, right after the button.

Watching: Jack and Will from Fallow Roast a Chicken (And Some Other Videos from the Pair)

It’s a restaurant! It’s a YouTube channel! It’s Fallow!

I reached out to a buddy who’s a chef and said “hey, do you know about these guys?” The response? “I watch these cats all the time!” Well, my chef friend is not alone: nearly 2.5 Million people are subscribed; and this particular roast chicken video, which was posted on Thursday, now has nearly 750,000 views.

Jack Croft and Will Murray are masters of the craft and unafraid of experimentation. Plus, they’re funny and their chemistry is great. Some of the videos are one of them working solo, and others are the pair playing off each other. Here’s a handy guide to who’s who.

Here’s the roast chicken video, where they test the methods of Michelin-starred chefs to develop their own recipe.

Want pan sauces? You’ve got ‘em!

And we’ll close out this section with the pair making… British Classics.

Reading: The Tenth Parallel by Eliza Griswold

With a subtitle of Dispatches from the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam, The Tenth Parallel by Eliza Griswold remains a fascinating look at a part of the world that seems to somehow be part of quite a few major conflicts over time.

Published in 2010, The Tenth Parallel was Griswold’s second book; she would go on to write other books and one of them, Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America, would win the Pulitzer Prize in 2019.

It’s a wide-ranging and often rather crazy book; travels with Franklin Graham and visits to huts dot the journey through parts of the world, like Ethiopia and Sudan, where people don’t seem to think very highly of each other. It’s almost always about religions and how these religions underpin people’s way of life.

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Listening to: Alternative Music from France — M83 and Phoenix

You’ve heard their songs on the radio, as both have had breakout hits. And you might remember their music playing at least a small role in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

But you may not have realized that both of these acts are from France: M83 and Phoenix.

First up, M83, which was formed as a duo in 2001 in Antibes. Anthony Gonzalez and Nicholas Fromageau were the original members; Gonzalez remains and is the primary songwriter, lead vocalist, and the voice you hear on the group’s breakout hit: “Midnight City.”

The song, off the album Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, peaked at Number 7 on the Billboard US Rock chart. The video is just…excellent. (And this song was used to accompany the French delegation when they entered the stadium in 2024.)

You can find a continuation of the video story in the song “Reunion,” which reached Number 40 on the US Rock chart in 2011.

From the same album, their song “Outro” is a little dreamy, and a fan-produced unofficial video of the song has outpaced the official version by nearly a 3-to-1 margin. Both follow below.

As for Phoenix, their appearance at the 2024 Olympics was much less subtle: the Closing Ceremony pretty much turned into a Phoenix concert.

Lead singer Thomas Mars has the kindof panache you want in a lead singer — he’s also married to director Sofia Coppola — and there’s evidence in this 2009 live performance of their breakout hit, “1901.” The band’s network television debut was on The Late Show with David Letterman and I think even Dave was surprised to hear where they were from AND to watch them deliver a mic-drop-worthy performance.

“1901” hit Number 3 on the US Rock chart, and another song from the same album — Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix — made it to Number 5. Here’s “Lisztomania.”

And, why not a fun NPR Tiny Desk concert? They do both above songs and a couple others.

Rediscovering: Big Daddy Kane on NPR Tiny Desk

There’s a reason this performance keeps coming up when someone mentions NPR’s Tiny Desk. Big Daddy Kane delivered.

Finally: Mike Ditka, Chicago Legend, Dead at Age 86

He was a little more than a week from his 87th Birthday. Known as both “Iron Mike” and “Da Coach,” he became legendary for bringing the Chicago Bears their first title of the Super Bowl era. And he was a Hall of Famer as a tight end.

Here’s “Iron Mike” visiting David Letterman. RIP.

It’s been one of those weeks, so here’s to Iron Mike, and to you. Thanks for joining us and we’ll see you next week at this time.

Dave

Time to dive in…to what I’m Watching, Reading, Listening to, and Rediscovering as we kick off what is going to be a pretty busy October. Right?

Right. First, the button:

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Watching: I Interview Andrew Donaldson on The Vandy Program

I remarked at the outset of this discussion that it was really interesting that “The party of small government wants to get involved in governing college sports.” It’s a lot more nuanced than that, as “friend of the program” Andrew Donaldson tells me in this interview. Worth a watch if you care about college sports; and it’s possible that we’re both against this particular piece of legislation.

Reading: A Brief History of Postal Abbreviations

One of my fun emails comes daily from History Facts. And, earlier this week, they greeted me with this…fact: Ohio’s postal abbreviation used to be…”O.”

O. Really?

So many interesting factoids in this brief article, including this piece:

(If you’re curious about Canadian postal codes — they waited until the 1990s to move to a two-letter system — you can read about them here: Canadian postal codes.)

Finally, I’m reminded of a Jeopardy! clue from ages ago, in a category that was probably called “Postal Abbrev.,” that was something along the lines of: “‘HI MA, PA OK?’ is a sentence that uses these four states’ postal abbreviations.” The answer, of course, was “What are Hawaii, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Oklahoma?”

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Listening to: Angine de Poitrine — Wait, Canadian Math Rock?

Angine de Poitrine has been all sorts of huge in 2026; the music falls into the category of Math Rock and maybe the visual subcategory of “What The Heck did I just Watch?”

Let’s start with a video that explains what they’re doing, from Rick Beato.

“They’re playing microtonal music…look at the frets, they’re small…tones in between half steps.”

Next, here’s a live performance of a song called “Zugzegk” from The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

Finally — and why not? — the entire viral performance from KEXP. (19 million views and counting.)

Rediscovering: Richard Cheese

Uh…He’s a lounge singer. He covers some rock songs… Richard Cheese is a piece of work, for sure. Here’s System of a Down’s “Chop Suey.”

Here’s Richard doing “Gin And Juice” and that’s a Snoop Dogg cover.

Finally: Ten Years Ago, Vin Scully Said Goodbye

Such a heartwarming farewell from Vin Scully, who stepped away from the microphone on October 2, 2016. Vin passed away August 2, 2022, at the age of 94.

And, until next week, I bid thee farewell…thanks for reading The Saturday List.

Dave

Anyway, let’s get to it: Here’s what I’m Watching, Reading, Listening to, and Rediscovering this week. (First, though, the Button. Tell a friend, subscribe for free, and keep the mojo going. Or something.)

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Watching: Gleason

We’re at the 20-year anniversary of one of the most memorable moments in NFL history: September 25, 2006, Steve Gleason blocking a punt in the Superdome.

Well, this was not just any blocked punt: It was the first game for the New Orleans Saints in the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina. In a building that had served as a shelter for thousands displaced by the storm; a building that hadn’t hosted a football game in more than a year.

We’ll let this story unfold in two parts: first, the buildup, and the blocked punt itself. That’s the first video, a series called Rewinder by a YouTube channel called Secret Base.

Our second video follows the man behind the blocked punt: Steve Gleason. Gleason would become a hero in New Orleans, and still continues to be treated like one; when he announced his ALS diagnosis in 2011, New Orleans rallied around him. For the next five years, his decision to fight through the disease for as long as possible would be documented on film.

Gleason tells that story. (Available on Amazon Prime.)

Steve Gleason remains an inspiration at the age of 49; still battling ALS to this day.

Reading: The Press Break by Kyle Kensing

I’ve been subscribing to this for a little while now, and it’s always a fun read.

Kyle Kensing writes about sports but does so in a way that is up my alley: college sports, and sometimes obscure little history lessons thrown in.

Press Break

Greatest Days in College Football History: Jan. 1, 1951

When Texas meets Tennessee on Sept. 26, it marks just the fourth meeting ever between the programs and first since 1969. All three previous encounters occurred between 1951 and 1969, and were matchups in the Cotton Bowl Classic…

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a month ago · Kyle Kensing

What makes this current edition of the newsletter interesting is that it lines up rather nicely with the weekend’s big college football matchup: Texas vs. Tennessee. And there’s other fun stuff there, too; the Texas vs. Tennessee Cotton Bowl matchup might have paved the way for an eventual College Football Playoff. It just…took a while. January 1, 1951 was one of the first steps in that progression.

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Listening to: Run The Jewels

Imagine my surprise when I went through the Excel spreadsheet where I track everything on this newsletter and I did a search for Run The Jewels and it came up…BLANK?

Must. Rectify.

Maybe one of the best rap duos…ever? Killer Mike and El-P bring their “A Game” to every engagement; the pair’s chemistry is off the charts.

Let’s start with an NPR Tiny Desk Concert, this was in support of RTJ3, which I consider to be one of the Ten Best Rap Albums ever produced.

(Also, this entire “Listening to” section is…NSFW.)

My personal favorite from RTJ3 is this song, featuring Danny Brown, called “Hey Kids (Bumaye).”

Enjoy this line:

I’m the man, bitch

Got big ideas

Got plans to rob

Every Rothschild livin’

And Bill Gates

And the ghost of Jobs.

“Call Ticketron” is a bunch of fun.

And, from a collaboration with DJ Shadow, here’s the band’s most-popular YouTube video to date: “Nobody Speak.”

Rediscovering: A Really Weird Animated Soviet Propaganda Film from 1924

Great find from the folks at OpenCulture. Apparently, fighting Capitalism on Earth wasn’t enough for the Soviets; in this film, they went…TO MARS…to defeat Capitalism.

Finally: The Killers and Pet Shop Boys performing ‘Always on my Mind’

Why…not? The Killers revisited the Willie Nelson tune that Pet Shop Boys covered in the 1980s.

Make it a great weekend, and a great week ahead!

Dave

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It’s still Summer…for a couple more days. (I just checked and, where I am, 7:05 p.m. on Tuesday, September 22, is the end of the line for Summer 2026.) So why not end with a flourish? Let’s go: here’s what I’m Watching, Reading, Listening to, and Rediscovering this week.

Watching: Widow’s Bay

This sort of thing does happen to me with respect to Matthew Rhys shows: I’m either late to the party or busy with other stuff or otherwise occupied, so I miss the original excitement. Then, his show wins Emmy awards and I am forced to pay attention.

It happened with The Americans — which I’ve written about on these pages when we first started this newsletter (August 2, 2025) — which I consider to be the greatest American television drama ever; and, now that Rhys and his acting cohorts Kate O’Flynn and Stephen Root have all won Emmys, it’s high time I start watching the show.

So I have decided to start watching. No spoilers please. Here’s the trailer.

Also some super-clever marketing from the show via Google; if you search for Widow’s Bay you end up with this.

Reading: Does Your College Football Team Get ROI from its Payroll?

Let’s go back in time to January 2020. The “Before Times” in so many ways. For instance, Joe Burrow was capping off his Heisman Trophy-winning season with 6 Touchdowns in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game. Here, revisit that game. We’ll wait a couple minutes.

Where am I going with this? Well, many people — I am among those people; I bandwagoned with LSU football years ago, pre-Brian Kelly, definitely pre-Lane Kiffin; so this was one of the best seasons ever for me to watch football — maintain that LSU had the greatest college football team ever assembled in 2019. I will go a step farther: LSU had The Last Great COLLEGE Football Team we’ll ever see.

The floodgates opened with (1) Name, Image, and Likeness money allowing for payers to be paid for the use of their…well…name, image, or likeness; (2) the ubiquitous Transfer Portal — players coming and going as they please — meaning it’s possible for a player to play for multiple teams over a “college” career; (3) COVID, which shortened the 2020 season and got players to ask for, and receive, more than the usual five years — that used to be four years of eligibility, but those days changed, too — because the NCAA had long abandoned any sense of amateurism; and (4) an extremely loose definition of NIL (item 1 above) and some really open checkbooks from schools and their boosters.

The Athletic, to which I subscribe, decided to study the numbers behind this new era of college football. Money talks. Your team has to pay to win games.

Here’s a gift link to their article; you can dive as deeply as you’d like into your team, its payroll — SIX YEARS AGO, THAT WAS AN ABSURD THOUGHT — and whether or not your squad’s payroll has paid off.

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Listening to: LCD Soundsystem

Here’s another thing I was late to the party with. LCD Soundsystem dates back to 2002 and I can’t believe I haven’t yet written about the band on these pages.

Here are a few bangers from their discography; all of these are live performances because the live performances are pretty cool.

A live performance from Late Show with David Letterman in 2005 (!) of one of the band’s most-popular songs, “Daft Punk Is Playing at My House.”

Here’s another live performance: this one’s of the song “Dance Yrself Clean” and it’s recorded from a show in Madison Square Garden.

Finally, here’s “All My Friends,” a song from 2007 that the band performed in 2024 at Glastonbury in the UK. It’s James Murphy, the band’s frontman, in his element.

Rediscovering: The Strange History of Burger Chef

Researching this week’s newsletter has been…interesting. I’ve gone from “Whatever happened to Burger Chef?” to “Wait, Burger Chef was in Mad Men?” to “OMG those murders??? WHAT???”

Video 1 gives you the background. It’s not TOTALLY AI, but has the sound of a Wikipedia page brought to life — Here’s the Burger Chef Wikipedia page, in case you’d rather just read the brand’s history — and a few really good throwback images.

Video 2 is a clip of Peggy on Mad Men pitching the brand. Just under 4 minutes; this Midwestern kid wonders if the Mad Men moment might have been the first introduction the rest of the world had to the chain.

Video 3 tells the story of the Burger Chef Murders, 1978.

The chain was sold to the parent company of Hardee’s in 1982 and most of the remaining stores were converted into Hardee’s restaurants shortly thereafter.

Finally: Billy Parisi Makes a ‘Chopped Cheese’

Since you might be hungry after reading about Burger Chef — and since yesterday was National Cheeseburger Day — let’s enjoy a twist on the sandwich: all the elements of a cheeseburger, but perfected by the New York City bodega into something called a Chopped Cheese.

Make it an amazing weekend, and a great week ahead. Thanks, as always, for reading.

Dave

As I write this, America and the world are commemorating the 25th Anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Much will continue to be said in the days and weeks to come about this anniversary, where we are as a nation…and where we’re headed.

My goal today is to…well, move on, keep things positive, and talk about lots of other things. In other words, after a day of reflection on Friday, the mission here is a fun diversion on Saturday. Here goes, what I’m Watching, Reading, Listening to, and Rediscovering this week.

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Watching: The Latest Edition of The Vandy Program — My Interview with PR Pro David Eckstein

I’ve had many chats with David Eckstein over the years; we first met doing fintech PR in the late 2010s and have kept in touch. He was on The Vandy Program earlier in the year, but this repeat appearance was all about the intersection of Sports and PR.

SPECIFICALLY, what about some of these “unforced errors” that are committed by big sports brands like the Los Angeles Clippers, or LSU — really, though, Lane Kiffin — or The University of Michigan. (That last one might be the fault of the Big Ten Conference; an outfit that forgot how to count in the early 90s and ceased to be a geographic league when they added west coast teams.)

It was a really good chat. Link to the video below, like and subscribe and all that fun stuff.

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Reading: The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White

Show of hands: when were YOU asked to read this? For me: Junior Year of High School. Colloquially known just as Strunk and White by those of us who have, at one point or another, written for a living, William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White provided a classic with their The Elements of Style.

What’s most interesting to me about this book, which you can pick up for a few bucks at the above link, is that Strunk wrote the first edition in 1918 (!) and White — yes, THAT E.B. White, he wrote Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web — edited it and republished it in 1959 (!!).

How’s this for an example of style: one excerpt about using concrete language.

Listening to: Mitski

I just dig her and her work. That’s all. If you haven’t heard of Mitski here’s a quick primer.

Newer stuff: “If I Leave.” (Definitely on my 2026 Top Ten List.)

But wait, hasn’t she been aroud a little while? Yes. In fact, here’s one of her older tunes: “Washing Machine Heart.” 180 Million views and counting.

And finally, here’s “My Love Mine All Mine.”

We could all use a little more Mitski.

Rediscovering: A Really Bad Rendition of The National Anthem

This is Fergie at the 2018 NBA All-Star Game.

(Of course, when my daughter showed me this, I had to counter with… “Oh yeah?” See the following.)

Finally: Toby Keith, ‘Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue’

Nothing better to listen to right about now, IMHO. On September 12, 2001, we were all Americans, one people, together, looking to stamp out evil and preserve our way of life. Will we ever get back to that kind of America?

Here’s to you, dear reader. Thanks for checking out The Saturday List.

Dave

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Wait, It’s September Already?

Yes, that’s right. Blink and Summer will be over. But not just yet, as we have three more Summer Saturdays to explore.

Let’s get to it…here’s what I’m Watching, Reading, Listening to, and Rediscovering this week. (After the Subscribe button…would love to have you on board and it’s totally free.)

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Watching: Never Too Small (A Channel About Small Living Spaces)

Okay, I mentioned a couple of weeks back that I’m semi-obsessed with the content from Living Big in a Tiny House — the YouTube channel that lives up to its name — and so I can thank/blame the YT algorithm for delivering this recommendation: Never Too Small.

If Living Big… is a testament to independent places that are mostly nature-adjacent, then Never Too Small brings you a much different take: how to live if you are in a big city and have to shoehorn all your stuff into a really small apartment space.

(Also, and bear with me here, there’s a little bit of a “hey, we’re architects” angle to these stories, and/or an “access to capital” thing that makes these places work.)

For starters, take a look at this chap, a New Zealand architect who converted a garage — which his charming Kiwi accent calls a “GARE-ij” — into an apartment that needs to be seen to be believed.

This next one is in Milan, and is a much-smaller space than the New Zealand one above. Ultra-chic; and it helps that the designer has also worked designing hotel experiences, so some of the little touches are really fun. (TV cart on wheels that serves as a room divider?)

Finally, this one is in Lisbon and…the courtyard? Oh. My. Goodness. The transformation must be seen to be believed.

Never Too Small has its own print magazine, and you can subscribe at this link.

Reading: ‘Semisesquicentennial Frustration,’ An Essay from John Puccio

This was excellent. John Puccio has been a friend for more than 20 years, and his writing on his Substack — called Sailing to Byzantium — goes deep into American History.

In this particular place, John spends time researching just where in the town of Chatham, New Jersey — John’s former hometown — General George Washington may have visited a family that suffered a brutal Revolutionary War loss in their family.

You can read more at this link below. I loved this article, as it channeled my own inner Ken Burns.

Sailing to Byzantium

Semiquincentennial Frustration

As part of my December essay Semiquincentenial Fever, I told the story of Hannah Ogden Caldwell, who became a martyr for the cause of American independence after being killed by a British soldier in 1780. Her death was a tragedy that reverberated throughout New Jersey…

Read more

2 months ago · 1 like · 1 comment · John Puccio 🔅

Listening to: Two Recent Song Obsessions…from Wednesday and Ladytron

I’ve got a buddy from school named Ken and we like to send music recommendations back and forth. He sent me a song from the band Wednesday and I had to share it here; in part because he found it, sent it to me, and then…like magic…I seem to hear it everywhere. (Bonus points for the 12:5 aspect ratio in this video.)

I responded with this: a live KEXP performance by the band Ladytron that I cannot get out of my head.

Please enjoy, especially lead singer Helen Marnie’s IDGAF energy, and her glorious gray hair. We Stan.

Rediscovering: NBC’s ‘Get High on Yourself Week’

It was a September 1981 NBC experiment, of sorts; it also may have been part of a Hollywood producer named Robert Evans fulfilling his public service requirement after a cocaine possession charge.

Much has been said this past week about Ryan Reynolds remarking that the 80s traumatized him; this video may be part of the reason why.

Finally: My Interview with ‘Handy Ginger Gal’ on The Vandy Program

Yeah, this was big fun: what happens when a couple decides to decamp from Canada — think COLD WINTERS — and move to Costa Rica? Ginger spills the details.

Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend, y’all!

Dave

What struck me about this death and the aftermath is how Dolly was so uniquely American that we may never see the likes of her again.

To wit: President Trump ordered flags at half-staff for a week and pretty much everyone immediately complied; the LGBTQ community considers her an icon; Fox News went for (by my estimate) three straight hours of coverage of the breaking news of her death without stopping for commercial; Nashville wept; Dolly’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was subsequently covered in flowers; the phrase “universally beloved” was uttered probably a million times.

I’d be a moron if I didn’t make this an All Dolly edition of The Saturday List.

Reminder: please subscribe, as it’s free and helps the algorithm and my ego. Button below.

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Now, onto what Dolly-related content I’m Watching, Reading, Listening to, and Rediscovering this week, the 43rd Straight Saturday — 53rd edition overall — that we present The Saturday List.

Watching: Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square

This was Dolly’s last film. Released on Netflix in 2020, Christmas on the Square tapped into the Hallmark Christmas Movie zeitgeist, with just enough camp. And, as we channel Saturday Night Live’s Stefon, this film had everything:

• Dolly as an angel (that tracks!)

• Treat Williams (RIP) AND Christine Baranski

• Jenifer Lewis

• Choreography by Debbie Allen!

Come on, we could all use a little Christmas in August. Right?

NOTE: She won an Emmy for Outstanding Television Movie for this film.

Reading: The Dolly Parton Wikipedia Entry

I mean, there’s a whole lot jam-packed into her 80 years.

Dolly was the closest thing we will have to American royalty. And just look at the photo Wikipedia used.

Listening to: “He’s Alive,” sung by Dolly Parton

It’s a Gospel song and nobody performed it like Dolly in 1989.

Rediscovering: Dolly — Her Variety Show — with Kermit the Frog

I was surprised that The Muppet Show never had Dolly as guest host.

But, Dolly had her own variety show, in 1987, and she performed with Kermit the Frog. Why not?

Finally: My Favorite Dolly Parton Song (And It Isn’t One of The Two Most-Popular Ones)

Dolly Parton gave us more than a lifetime full of music; I gotta be honest that not even “Jolene” or “I Will Always Love You” brings back the memories that this song does.

“Here You Come Again” transplants me to the 1970s. The title track off her 1977 album, it got to #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart — her first mainstream hit, and, other than “9 to 5,” the only Dolly song to even make the Top 10 — and of course was certified Platinum and all of those things.

It would be her 6th song to reach the top of the Country charts.

Back before MTV, when artists regularly crossed over and back, Dolly was an original who could, actually, do it all.

Thanks, Dolly. Rest easy.

I’ll see y’all next week. Be good to each other.

Dave

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Howdy! It’s been a week of travel for me — more on that below — but now that I’m back on terra firma, it’s time to share what I’m currently consuming in various media genres. OR, what I’m Watching, Reading, Listening to, and Rediscovering this week.

Here’s that Subscribe button, though. Happy to have you on board, a subscription is free, tell a friend, etc., etc.

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Watching: My Wide-Ranging Interview with John Ziegler

This was quite fun. John Ziegler has been an online friend for a couple years now, and, earlier this year, I interviewed him about Penn State’s Jerry Sandusky scandal. (He may know more about all the nuances of that incident than anyone else; Here’s a link to that full interview: The Vandy Program Interviews John Ziegler.)

This time, though, we talked about some of the other things going on in the sports world and the world at large. Including…

• The WNBA

• College Football Then and Now (Hint: It’s Worse Now)

• COVID: Lockdowns, Anthony Fauci, etc.

• The Political Landscape going into 2028

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Reading: Read The Paper — A Substack from Randy DeCleene

Full Disclosure: I’ve known Randy DeCleene since we were both youths in Mishawaka, Indiana. After reconnecting online maybe a dozen years ago, we’ve shared a few Zoom calls in the past few years.

He has relaunched his Substack called Read The Paper and you can subscribe for free below.

The idea is this: if you are of a certain age — Randy and I are both Generation-X, if you haven’t yet surmised that fact — you likely have some sort of memory of reading an actual physical newspaper. Randy digs up newspapers from throughout the country and shares those papers from important historical dates.

READ THE PAPER

Old newspapers. We read and write about them.

By Randy DeCleene

I was reminded on Friday that August 21, 1959 was the date that Hawaii became America’s 50th State. Why not take a look at what the Honolulu Advertiser had to say on that momentous day?

READ THE PAPER

RTP Weekday: August 21, 1959 🗞️

Today, READ THE PAPER goes back exactly 67 years to the day to look at the newly minted state of Hawaii. The headline and story in The Honolulu Advertiser on August 21, 1959, was not big in size, but was significant in placement…

Read more

2 months ago · 1 like · 1 comment · Randy DeCleene

Excerpt:

“The front page editorial almost read like a poem —

• “Today — Aug 21, 1959 — is the day toward which these past emotional, excitement laden months have been leading.”

• “Today — at 10 a.m. Hawaiian time — President Eisenhower will sign the proclamation of Statehood.”✍️

• “Today — after 40 years of struggle — Hawaii will end its 60 years as a territory and become forever the 50th State.”

• “This is a day for Thanksgiving, for ceremony, for rejoicing — and for resolution.”

• “It is a day to rejoice that at last we have attained full status in the union, that at last we are masters of our own affairs, that at last we have voting representation in the Congress of the United States.”

• “…that we shall be a living example for the nation and the world of the spirit of Aloha.”

It’s a really fun read. I invite you to check it out.

Listening to: The Works of Ken Nordine

He had one of those voices that was unmistakable. You may remember hearing Amoco commercials in the 1990s — these were ubiquitous in Chicagoland and the Midwest — or, maybe even further back, in the 1970s, in ads for Levi’s.

Here are a couple of those ads.

Ken Nordine was one of a kind, as a voice-over artist, actor, and musician. He died in 2019 at the age of 98.

It’s that musician thing that really got my attention in the mid-90s.

So here’s Ken’s breakthrough 1957 album, called Word Jazz. Backed by The Fred Katz Group, Ken narrates a series of stories and the band backs him up. It’s an absolute hoot.

Rediscovering: One Crazy Sales Letter from 1995

Context: in the early 1990s, I was the Sports Information Director at Chicago State University. Yes, as I predominantly White guy working at a predominantly Black school on Chicago’s South Side, I could write a book.

The concept of the “sales letter” may appear to be the oeuvre of folks like Frank Kern or Alex Hormozi, but the tale is as old as time; or at least from the 1990s. Sales letters need to set the scene, tell you what is going on, give the details, and, finally, give you a call to action.

With all due respect to Jay Cranford — and props to his business for, according to my search, still being active today! — this letter is all over the map. There’s a reason I kept it after 31-plus years.

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Finally: A Song…That Was Played 75 Million Times on YouTube…That I Just Heard For the First Time This Week!

I’ll admit two things about my musical tastes: (1) They have always been eclectic and (2) Sometimes something will slip through the cracks.

Case in point: The band Gossip and their song “Heavy Cross.”

Turns out, this BANGER of a single was so popular in 2009 (!) that it made it to #8 on the Billboard US Dance chart. And the band, fronted by Beth Ditto, worked with Rick Rubin (!) on the album this was from, Music for Men.

Thanks to SiriusXMU and specifically Jenny Eliscu for the earworm. I’m late to the party, but at least I’m…at the party.

Have a wonderful weekend, a phenomenal week ahead, and pick up the phone and call someone you haven’t chatted with in a while, will ya?

Dave

We’re in the back nine of Summer, somewhere near the 11th hole — that’s if my math is correct — and why not finish strong? Here’s what I’m Watching, Reading, Listening to, and Rediscovering this week. First, though, the Subscribe button…

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Watching: Living Big in a Tiny House

I have a new obsession: seeing how “the other half lives,” provided that other half is into minimalism. In other words, the “tiny house” movement is all sorts of cool — and works with a variety of lifestyles, from those who want to go green to those who are just looking to downsize to those who need to go off the grid — and nobody seems to have tapped into the zeitgeist as well as Bryce Langston, host of Living Big in a Tiny House.

As a show host and interviewer, Bryce does an outstanding job; even the small quirks like beginning each show with a discussion outside the property, followed by his asking permission to “take a look inside” before the host invites him in. It’s a fun way to spend 20 minutes. I’ll share three videos below.

First up, a Canadian couple in Auckland, New Zealand stretches the definition of “tiny” just a bit; most tiny homes are on top of trailers — so they’re like mobile homes — and this one has three units on top of three trailers. Still, fun to watch.

Beyond the typical “tiny house,” this next design — in New South Wales, Australia — was small-ish, but a “shed house;” and the couple that put it all together has that eclectic vibe that will get you thinking pretty creatively. (The ceiling? Recycled chicken coop.)

Finally, we’re on Australia’s West Coast, in Perth, and…Oh. My. Goodness. Talk about maximizing a small space.

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Reading: The Revenge of Geography by Robert D. Kaplan

One of my Twitter mutuals — y’all can call it X if you want, but it’ll always be Twitter to me — decided to recommend this book earlier this week and I rushed to purchase it.

So far, it has not disappointed. The author of The Revenge of Geography, Robert D. Kaplan, has an amazingly prolific background; I lost track of how many books he has written.

Tom Sauer’s tweet above sums up the book’s premise quite well: “Physical geography impacts people, nations, wars, and history far more than most people are willing to admit.”

Listening to: Some Really Cool Instrumental Songs

We’re gonna go in chronological order here, with three songs that are…well…from three completely different genres.

First up, 1978. Giorgio Moroder was dubbed “The Father of Disco,” and this song was part of the soundtrack to the movie Midnight Express; it also happened to figure promiently in Notre Dame football highlights for what seemed like every Fall weekend on the coaches show between 1978 and maybe 1984.

Next up, The XX, with “Intro.” The band formed in 2005, released this song in 2010, and can best be described as an eclectic electronic outfit. (Yes, there’s a little background “ah” and “oh” stuff happening. Still, mostly instrumental.)

Finally, Sound City was a Dave Grohl documentary project in 2013. Grohl (on drums) got together with Josh Homme (on bass) and Trent Reznor (keyboards) for a song called “Mantra;” The instrumental version of this song was so well-cemented as awesome in my mind that I refused to listen to the other version, with vocals, that followed it. Nor will I share that here. Find it on your own time.

(Here’s a screenshot of the sound engineer, at the 5:10 mark of the video, who cannot believe his good fortune.)

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Rediscovering: Newhart, S7, E14, ‘The Nice Man Cometh’

An absolute classic. Bob Newhart gets one of his best friends, Don Rickles, to guest star as Don Prince, an aging TV host who used to have a hit show called It’s Always Moishe. When the bosses at the TV station see the response to Don insulting Bob’s character, they want more.

This 1989 episode, from the penultimate season of Newhart, also includes Ed McMahon as a special guest star.

Peak late-80s sitcom excellence.

Finally: Why Not? Here’s One Last Tiny House…But It’s A Grain Silo!

Couldn’t pass up the opportunity to share this one: a farm in Australia (also in New South Wales) that took a grain silo and reconfigured it as an AirBNB.

Make it a great weekend, and a great week ahead. See you next Saturday!

Dave

Hello there! It’s Saturday, August 8; that means time for what I’m Watching, Reading, Listening to, and Rediscovering this week. 40 straight weeks we’ve brought you this post. First up, the big button…then we’ll dive in.

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Watching: Jury Duty

This goes back a few years, but wow was this something to experience. And, it seemed like it came out of nowhere and was kinda close to a monoculture moment. Maybe.

In any event, if you haven’t seen Jury Duty, imagine a situation where everyone is in on a joke but you, and you don’t know you’re the mark, but…you roll with it because everyone else does.

It’s one of those things that needs to be seen to be believed and still seems impossible to pull off.

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Reading: O. Henry (Well, Some of His Works)

Born William Sidney Porter in 1862 in Greensboro, North Carolina, O. Henry established himself as one of the best authors of short stories in American history.

To tell you about how prolific O. Henry was, on the American Literature website — where you can read quite a few of O. Henry’s works — it’s claimed that he wrote nearly 300 stories. But, at the promotional page for this Amazon book, The Best Short Stories of O. Henry, the blurb says that number is more like 600.

(Sure, everyone loves The Gift of the Magi, but, trust me on this, there’s a whole lot more from this unique writer’s perspective of late 19th- and early 20th-Century Americana.)

Listening to: Wu-Tang Clan x Led Zeppelin

Must be heard to be believed; also NSFW and nothing to…mess with.

Rediscovering: The History of Gatorade

Of course we all know that it’s called “Gatorade” because it was invented at the University of Florida and their teams are the Gators. Right?

But there’s a heck of a lot more to it.

Here’s a video from the Science History Institute.

Finally: Khurangbin, “Time (You and I)”

This video is just pure fun.

We’ll see you next week. Don’t forget to share with a friend, using the button below. Have a great weekend, and a great week ahead!

Dave

Hello, and welcome to…August? Yes, Father Time is unbeaten, and we’re 7 months down in 2026.

So why not sit down and enjoy what I’m Watching, Reading, Listening to, and Rediscovering this week? Plus the Finally kicker-meets-closing note thing.

Watching: Predictable with Stu Burguiere — A YouTube Channel AND Substack Page Devoted to Prediction Markets (?)

Ads for prediction markets are seemingly everywhere; Kalshi has gone from something that sounds like a yogurt brand to a household name.

So of course there’s a YouTube channel AND website devoted to the ins and outs of these markets and how to watch them to (1) spot trends in politics and sports and (2) potentially profit.

It’s that second part that should give folks pause, and I like the approach of this show, Predictable with Stu Burguiere. A long-time producer for Glenn Beck, Stu Burguiere has gone “All-in” on prediction markets, but has a boatload of caveats that you can hear in this episode. (The show lives on Substack and here’s his subscription page.)

PREDICTABLE

Founded by Stu Burguiere, PREDICTABLE is a daily lens on the news through prediction markets.

By Stu Burguiere

This particular episode? Well, a good snapshot of what is going on with politics these days, with primaries coming up next week in Michigan and Tennessee; and a cautionary tale about what can happen when the bots get it wrong (from a baseball game that was first thought to be over the over/under, then was actually correctly determined to be under the over/under).

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Reading: The Work of Author Tom Shanahan (A Recent Guest on The Vandy Program)

Okay, I’m plugging my own podcast, The Vandy Program, while at the same time suggesting you check out a couple of books from the writer I interviewed earlier this week, Tom Shanahan.

Tom’s website is here: tomshanahan.report and we had a really good discussion that I’ll link to below. Tom is making it his mission to tell some of the forgotten or overlooked stories from college football’s history of integration.

You can get his books at his site, and one of them is Raye of Light, which tells the story of Jimmy Raye, who became the first Black quarterback from the South to win a national championship at Michigan State in 1966. The coach of that team was Duffy Daugherty, who, thanks in part to Tom’s work, won’t be ignored for his role in recruiting Black players from the South to play Division 1 football.

You can listen to our full conversation here:

Listening to: Editors, Including a Cover of ‘Killer’ by Seal

Here’s an underrated band with incredible staying power; Editors is the name of the group and I’ve always thought lead singer Tom Smith’s baritone was top-notch.

The band’s early work includes the song “Munich,” off their debut The Back Room (2005). If you’re looking for a song that defines “2000s Post-punk,” this will help.

My introduction to this band came in 2009, thanks to an amazing song called “Papillon.” One of the coolest videos in the history of ever. 10/10, no notes.

That brings us to this glorious cover of “Killer” by Seal.

If you remember picking up Seal’s self-titled debut — not to be confused with his second album, also called Seal — in 1991, you know this song: it kicked off the disc and, while not the breakout hit that was “Crazy,” it did go to #8 on the British music charts.

Seal’s version of this song takes me way back to college; Editors treat the song extremely well in this live version.

(Here’s the original…)

AND…Editors are still making solid music here in the Year of Our Lord 2026. Here’s “Call It In.”

Rediscovering: In Search Of…with Leonard Nimoy

In my neck of the woods, the South Bend, Indiana area, this aired on Sunday nights on our CBS affiliate. In Search Of… was must-see TV.

Hosted by Leonard Nimoy, it was part-rabbit hole and part-precursor to Discovery, the cable channel.

Here’s an episode where they are in search of… The End of the World.

Finally: Radio Giscard, an AI-Generated French Instrumental Music Channel

Okay, it’s AI-Generated. I get it. It’s supposed to sound like it actually existed in the 1970s in France.

Don’t care, it’s actually quite cool. Please enjoy. Or don’t.

Thanks, as always, for visiting The Saturday List. You can subscribe at the button below.

Dave

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That makes this the 38th consecutive edition of The Saturday List.

Let’s celebrate — after the Subscribe button, of course — with what I’m Watching, Reading, Listening to, and Rediscovering.

AND, as we continue tweaking the format of this here newsletter, we’re starting to add a section called “Finally” at the end; something that serves as the nightcap. So you’ll see that below.

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Watching: My Interview with Sean McGinnis from The Manager Vault

Sean McGinnis and I go back…a few years. He is an executive, currently working in the Cleveland area, and he — along with co-founder Ashley Walton — has created a site called The Manager Vault.

Let’s face it, managing people is one thing, but leading people is entirely another.

We talk about this, and the type of advice he and Ashley share twice a week on their site, in an hour-long interview in a recent episode of my podcast, The Vandy Program.

Reading: Magnificent Humanity by His Holiness Pope Leo XIV

One of the sites I subscribe to is Word on Fire, which offers Catholic programming in video and in print. They were one of several groups that reprinted Pope Leo XIV’s Magnificent Humanity, which was his first “Papal Encylcical,” published in the Spring.

It features a foreword from Word on Fire founder Bishop Richard Barron and will certainly make you think about the role of technology in our lives now and in the future.

I’ve begun diving into the book, but the subtitle is On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence. An excerpt from very early in the book — and again I’ve just begun reading — brings up the “Tower of Babel” in the Book of Genesis:

“We must, then, avoid the ‘Babel syndrome,’ namely the idolatry of profit that sacrifices the weak, a uniformity that neutralizes differences, and the pretense that a single language — even a digital one — can translate everything, including the mystery of the person, into data and performance.”

Listening to: Ned’s Atomic Dustbin

What? Who? What kind of name is that?

Ah, if you’re uninitiated, here’s a really underrated band from that dates back to 1987 (!) and continued to produce bangers into the 90s. From the United Kingdom, I present Ned’s Atomic Dustbin.

First up, one of their biggest hits — but released only in the US and Australia — is “Grey Cell Green,” off of the album God’s Fodder (1991).

The band’s biggest alternative hit, reaching #1 on Billboard’s US Alternative chart, was “Not Sleeping Around,” off of the band’s album Are You Normal? (1992).

I’m sure you’re wondering: hey, Dave, what’s your favorite Ned’s song? I’ll answer that this way: off of the 1995 album Brainbloodvolume, here’s “Stuck.”

Rediscovering: Dawn of Def Jam: Rick Rubin Returns to His NYU Dorm Room (a Rolling Stone Film)

This is a 10-minute joyride. Life was…different back in the 1980s.

Rick Rubin is a legend, and you can see where it all started.

Finally… Ryan Fox — Winner of Golf’s Open Championship — And His Origin Story

This video popped up on Facebook this week, and it was created six years ago. Note that the DP World Tour of golf changed the headline of the video, as Ryan Fox won the (British) Open Championship golf tournament last Sunday.

It’s a neat 13-minute look at Fox as a golfer who grew up in a family of New Zealand sports royalty; It’s also a fun snapshot of Kiwi life, too.

Make it a great weekend, and a great week ahead!

Dave

New here? Glad to have you! I’ve curated this list from the internet and beyond for (checks notes) 37 straight Saturdays, and next week we’ll celebrate one full year of TSL. (Well, minus one day, as the first Saturday of The Saturday List was July 26, 2025.)

Alas, time to dig in — after the button, of course — on what I’m Watching, Reading, Listening to, and Rediscovering this week.

Watching: The Sandlot

Did you see the tribute to America at the MLB All-Star Game with Ray Charles singing “America The Beautiful”? The throwback to The Sandlot was a sweet touch.

The Sandlot was more than just a movie that spawned a whole bunch of memes and the “You’re Killing Me, Smalls” phrase. It’s probably one of the best baseball films of all time. Trailer below, and you can watch now on Disney+ or Hulu.

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Reading: The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914-1991 by Eric Hobsbawm

Warning: This is not going to be for everyone.

The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914-1991 reads like a World History textbook, probably because it’s…pretty much a World History textbook. (So if, like me, you were a US History minor in college, you might dig this quite a bit.)

Eric Hobsbawm passed away in 2012, but not until after he had become one of the pre-eminent historians of late 19th Century and 20th Century world history. (He wrote two other historical tomes: The Age of Capital (1848-1875) and The Age of Empire (1875-1914).

Beginning with “A Bird’s Eye View” of the century, Hobsbawm does a deep dive into just about everything from Franz Ferdinand to The Fall of the Soviet Union. You can’t digest this in a weekend — I’ve tried; it’s one of those books that takes a lot of time to get through — but it’s worth it for Hobsbawm’s analysis.

Listening to: Depeche Mode

On my personal list of favorite bands, Depeche Mode makes the Top 10. Why not throw back to some of their past hits, and share a couple recent songs, too? It’s Saturday, this may help put you in a good mood.

The band formed in 1980, with Dave Gahan singing lead and Martin Gore as guitarist and Andy Fletcher on keyboards and bass; those three were stalwarts of the band after original co-founder Vince Clarke left the band in 1981.

Gore took over as the songwriter and is one of the masters of the craft, IMHO. Fletcher died in 2022, and the band honored him with their most-recent album, Memento Mori. (More on that below…)

Violator, released in 1990, is one of the band’s best albums, and the track that put the band on the map is “Enjoy the Silence.” The song got as high as #8 on the Billboard Hot 100, and was #1 on the US Alternative chart.

My personal favorite song of DM’s is this one, “Precious,” written by Gore to his children after his divorce.

The 2023 album Memento Mori was a tribute to Andy Fletcher, and the song “Ghosts Again” is stirring as heck. And it showed that the band could still…produce a powerful tune.

Rediscovering: Victory

Sunday is the FIFA World Cup Final, featuring Argentina against Spain. May as well suggest checking out one of the most iconic soccer movies of all time: Victory. Released in 1981 under the title of Escape to Victory in some non-USA markets, Victory seemed to be a staple of early 1980s HBO.

Featuring Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine, and Pele (YES, Pele), the movie was directed by the legendary John Huston and told the story of a group of POWs in World War II who were (1) good at soccer and (2) aimed to use an exhibition soccer game as a ruse to escape their camp.

The late Pele did all of the soccer “choreography” in the movie, including this crazy bicycle kick goal toward the end of the game — this doesn’t give away any plot points, so you can enjoy it even if you haven’t seen the movie — and I sorta forgot that Pele died in 2022.

Victory can be found on Sling as part of a subscription, or can be rented for $3.99 from a whole host of services.

Finally…

Yeah, the World Cup has been amazing, so we’ll leave you with a compilation of visitors sharing their stories about what makes this country so great.

We’ll see you next week…have a wonderful weekend!

Dave

Well, whether you have or you haven’t…time for the weekly debrief. Here’s what I’m Watching, Reading, Listening to, and Rediscovering this week.

Watching: An Interview with Matt Sieger on The Vandy Program

As I’m not one to shy away from controversial topics on my podcast, The Vandy Program, I recently connected with Matt Sieger, an expert on the intersection of sports, religion, and culture in San Francisco.

Matt is a retired sportswriter who has written a couple of books, and one of them served as the backdrop for our discussion: The God Squad: The Born-Again San Francisco Giants of 1978.

If you’ve been following the story of the 2026 San Francisco Giants, you might wonder about the connection between the 1978 team and this year’s squad; as we dug in on the parallels, it became pretty apparent that the clash of ideals was between the religious members of the team and the city’s liberal culture. (And, believe it or not, winning fixes a lot.)

It’s a fascinating issue that’s about more than just religion and homosexuality; should players be forced to support something that they believe is not in line with their religious beliefs?

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Reading: ‘The End of Reading Is Here,’ Rose Horowitch in The Atlantic

The whole article…is something to behold. Rose Horowitch studies the fact that we — as a society; she focuses on Americans here — are not reading. “The End of Reading Is Here” is the name of the article. And it’s pretty crazy. Two excerpts follow and the above link is a “Gift Article.”

(I guess I’m trying to do my part with this newsletter on a weekly basis; but still, this is a sobering article.)

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Listening to: Bonnie Tyler (1951-2026)

We lost Bonnie Tyler this week. Consider the staying power of her music: three songs are still culturally relevant today. Here they are. Rest easy, Bonnie. And thank you.

Here’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart”…

And “Holding Out for a Hero”…

Finally, “It’s a Heartache”…

Rediscovering: A 1995 BBC Documentary on Currency Traders

This pulled me in instantly. It’s a combination of nostalgia, the energy of an actual trading desk, and the fact that the BBC followed three traders, on three continents, for an entire day — and the blind luck that that day turned out to be rather crazy — that made this one of those videos that can’t be explained.

Plus, there’s ubiquitous cigarette smoking and Reuters terminals and pagers. And bad music.

It continues to be a pleasure to deliver this newsletter to you; this was our 36th consecutive edition of The Saturday List. Make it a great week, will ya? We’ll see you next Saturday.

Dave

250 years ago today, July 4, 1776, Philadelphia. The Declaration of Independence was ratified, and a new nation was born.

Sure, the process of getting the signatures might have taken awhile — copies had to be printed the old-fashioned way; can you imagine life without email? — but the fact is that this date is cemented on the calendar.

Happy Birthday, America! Now, onto this week’s list.

Watching: The Patriot

Not to be confused with the TV show Patriot, about which I wrote last year, this is The Patriot, which was the revolutionary war film that starred Mel Gibson.

(My suggestion for a title was The Passion of The George, but this movie was not written or directed by Gibson, so that joke falls flat. Also, it’s not about George Washington.)

While the film is historical fiction, it does a really good job of painting the human cost of the revolution. The scene below serves as a little foreshadowing of what was to come later in the film; and it includes the late Heath Ledger, fellow Oscar winner Chris Cooper, and Gibson as the lead character, Benjamin Martin.

Worth a watch on a day like today.

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Reading: All About The Declaration of Independence

How about a patriotic rabbit hole?

The National Archives website provides just that opportunity, and one thing I’ve been digging into all week is the list of the signers of The Declaration of Independence.

There are some expected names: John Adams, John’s second cousin Samuel Adams, Ben Franklin; and there are some fun names, like Charles Carroll of Carrollton, or William Williams. And George Washington’s name ISN’T there (he was busy, in New York, leading an army).

Realize this, though: it took…a while…to get all the signatures, and the last of the 56 was secured on August 2.

On the site you can play around quite a bit, even adding your own John Hancock to the document. And you can spin through the other big documents from our nation’s founding, including the Constitution of The United States and the Bill of Rights.

Listening to: SiriusXMU’s ‘All-American Indie 250 Countdown’

SiriusXMU is one of my presets, and it’s the station I’m most likely to have on in the car. (There’s a Yacht Rock channel, though, that also gets fired up on longer trips.) All weekend, they’re ranking their take on the best songs from American artists in Indie rock history.

Anyway, I figure that, since the music I share here is probably more “Indie” than anything, why not share three songs that I’ll bet you’ll hear on the list; or at least that I’d put on this list.

The Strokes, “Juicebox.”

Sure, “Last Nite” is likely the song that put them on the map — and I bet it’s pretty high up on the XMU list — but I’m a big fan of this song.

Built to Spill, “Carry the Zero.”

Just a fun, kinda-trippy, late 90s Indie rock anthem.

Sufjan Stevens, “Chicago.” Uber-talented, puts on a tremendous live show, clever as heck — “Come on, feel the Illinoise!” — and “Chicago” is still amazing.

Rediscovering: The Greatest Performance of The Star-Spangled Banner…Ever

I will accept no debate on this subject.

Wayne Messmer, Chicago Stadium, NHL All-Star Game, 1991. During the Gulf War.

Wherever your celebrations take you this year, make them safe and extra-special. Thanks for hanging out with us each and every Saturday.

Dave

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Watching: The Changing Face of the Entertainment Industry, An Interview with Anthony Palomba, Ph.D.

I had the pleasure of sitting down for an interview with Anthony Palomba, a Ph.D. and professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, to talk about what exactly is happening with media. Fun interview for me, and there’s a lot here:

• The success of movies like Obsession and Backrooms;

• The changing landscape at CBS;

• How advertising has gotten granular, and if it can go farther in that direction;

• The future of late night programming;

• And what he sees coming down the pike.

It’s the latest edition of The Vandy Program and you can check it out below:

Reading: When Money Destroys Nations by Philip Haslam (with Russell Lamberti)

Avid readers of this newsletter are familiar with this concept, as I suggested a similar book, When Money Dies by Adam Fergusson, and I seem to be drawn to books about hyperinflation. When Money Destroys Nations by Philip Haslam (with Russell Lamberti) is another such book; though it is from a more recent phenomenon.

This book studies Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation, the seeds of which were sown perhaps when the country became Zimbabwe in 1980 — the book, rather eerily, does not even mention that the country was known as Rhodesia and declared its independence from the United Kingdom in 1965 — and certainly beginning in 1999, when inflation was a mere 57%.

It got so bad that the country printed what was the largest denomination of any note ever: the $100 Trillion bill.

It’s a sobering read about what really happens in a country when there is zero confidence in the government and its finances.

Listening to: Three Songs I Heard on Taco Bell Radio’s 80s Station (PLUS BONUS MATERIAL!)

I realize that sounds like it could be the title of a Coen Brothers movie. Alas, in celebration of just how good the Taco Bell Radio 80s station is, here are three songs I heard back-to-back-to-back on my recent burrito run. (And there’s a bonus song following each.)

Bananarama, “Cruel Summer.” They may be better known for their only US #1 hit, “Venus” — which is a cover of a song originally done by a Dutch band called “Shocking Blue” — but this, to me, is peak Bananarama. Nothing says “it’s really hot out, plus I’m eating Taco Bell by myself” more than the song “Cruel Summer.”

BONUS: Here’s Shocking Blue with “Venus.”

The next song actually SHOCKED me, because I just shared it on socials within the last month.

The band Boys Don’t Cry named itself (we think) after a song by The Cure of the same name. (The Cure’s “Boys Don’t Cry” came around in 1979, so it’s a likely story for a band to be formed four years later; the movie Boys Don’t Cry came around in 1999.)

In any event, “I Wanna Be A Cowboy” was kitchsy and fun and an immediate earworm for me; alas, most of the world forgot about it.

But not Taco Bell.

Here’s “I Wanna Be A Cowboy.”

BONUS: Here’s The Cure with the above-mentioned song.

What came after “I Wanna Be a Cowboy?”

38 Special, of course. Co-founder Donnie Van Zant is the younger brother of Ronnie Van Zant — the founder of the band Lynyrd Skynyrd — and 38 Special had a couple hits in the early 80s before catching fire with the next song on the Taco Bell playlist.

“Second Chance” was the band’s biggest hit in the US, going to #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and all the way to #1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart.

BONUS: Here’s “Simple Kind of Man” by Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Rediscovering: How ABC News Covered July 4, 1776

This should get you ready for next week’s party!

Part 1 is a setup, with coverage from across the country; Part 2 features the tall ships.

In Parts 3-5, we hear from President Gerald Ford and then it’s back to some tall ships.

Sprinkled throughout, the coverage is anchored by Harry Reasoner and you’ll see ads for ABC’s coverage of the 1976 Summer Olympics.

There’s nothing political about this coverage, no whining about whether or not the correct kinds of people are present. Just full-throated patriotism.

Thanks, as always for reading. We’ll see you on July 4, 2026.

Dave

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Watching: She Spent a Year Renovating an Abandoned General Store

I am now asking myself…how did I miss this?

No worries, as vlogger Emma Shaye catches us up on her progress taking an abandoned general store and turning it into a home and homestead.

The video below is a 40-minute recap on Year One; and, if you subscribe, you can catch up on what she’s done since.

It’s darn impressive.

Reading: The 4-Hour Body by Timothy Ferriss

This may have been the book that brought us the concept of “biohacking.” Timothy Ferriss entered the American psyche with his first book, The 4-Hour Workweek, in 2006 and followed it up in 2010 with The 4-Hour Body. Both were bestsellers.

The subtitle of The 4-Hour Body reads as follows: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman. I’ll leave the last two pieces up to you to review on your own, but I can certainly vouch for the “Rapid Fat-Loss” element.

Ferriss led the charge with what’s called the “Slow-Carb Diet,” which can work — YMMV, talk to your doctor before trying any new diet and all that — by zeroing in on low carbohydrates, high fiber, and giving your body one “cheat day” each week.

The book is chock full of other advice; for example, certain exercises have much more return on time invested than others. (Squats, for instance, are the kind of compound-exercise that, if done correctly, can really pay off.)

Listening to: Oliver Tree (1993-2026)

Singer, songwriter, rapper, artist, producer; Oliver Tree was a man of one bowl cut and many talents.

Oliver Tree died in a helicopter crash in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday, June 14, 2026.

I had not heard any of his music before he died, so, like many others, I am just now discovering his work. I figure his two most popular songs would be worth sharing here.

Here’s “Life Goes On.”

And here’s “Miss You,” which he performed with Robin Schulz.

RIP Oliver.

Rediscovering: Glengarry Glen Ross…And the Legendary Alec Baldwin Scene

I recall seeing this movie for the first time when it arrived in a Netflix envelope. Released in 1992, Glengarry Glen Ross is the movie adaptation of David Mamet’s 1984 play of the same name. It’s profane, raw, and brilliant.

You can find it on quite a few streaming services; here, we’re sharing Alec Baldwin’s scene. That one. “Put that coffee down!”

For some of us, it’s been…a week. For others, maybe the official start of Summer will kick things into a positive gear.

In any event, thanks so much for reading. We’ll talk to y’all next week.

Dave