April 25, 2026

What I'm Watching, Reading, Listening to, and Rediscovering This Week

YES, we now have saturdaylist.com as our domain. Kinda cool, right? I mean, why didn’t we think of that months ago?

Don’t know, but…here’s what I’m tracking as we round out the month of April.

Watching: How Ben Sasse Is Living Now That He Is Dying

Ben Sasse was a US Senator from Nebraska who left the Senate to become president of the University of Florida. Known for his desire for healthy debate, and his ability to buck the system — he was a Republican but reached across the aisle, so to speak, pretty often — Sasse got tired of Washington’s gridlock and wanted to fix higher education.

Then cancer struck, and struck in a serious way: Sasse was diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer in December.

This interview, with Ross Douthat of The New York Times, will stop you cold, perhaps a few times.

Reading: Moneyball by Michael Lewis

“Billy, this is Michael Lewis. He’s a prolific writer, has written tons of books that sell a lot of copies. The only downside is that his books often get turned into movies that take quite a few liberties and ignore all of the little idiosyncracies that make his books great.”

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game falls into that category: the amazing luck that Lewis had following Billy Beane and the Oakland A’s in the early part of the 2000s got dramatized to maximum cinematic effect in the movie — called, simply, Moneyball — that launched a thousand memes. (Like the “Billy” one above.)

But the book itself is dynamite — here’s an Amazon link — and worth revisiting when you want to read something that is kinda tough to put down, as most of Lewis’s work is. (Bonus points if you’ve got a dog-eared version like the one in the photo.)

Listening to: Three Amazing Rock Songs from Way Back When (1979-ish)

“Way Back When” is subjective. But I like these songs a lot so here goes.

The Knack caught lightning in a bottle with “My Sharona.” 1979 was the release year for this one. If this were to drop in 2026 as a brand-new song, it would likely catch fire again. It’s that good, IMHO.

I grew up in Indiana and listening to John (Cougar) Mellencamp was the law.

For my money, though, “I Need a Lover” is his best work. It was part of his 1978 album A Biography and, since that album didn’t do very well, was also part of his 1979 album John Cougar. (Thus the 1979-ish in the subhead.)

Two minutes, thirty seconds of instrumental at the outset. Magic.

Speaking of musical acts with name changes — and lineup changes, it appears — Jefferson Starship presents this song from the mid-point of the band’s evolution. First, Jefferson Airplane, eventually Starship, Jefferson Starship brought together some but not all of Jefferson Airplane. And they dropped the “Jefferson” just in time to attack our ears with “We Built This City.”

Alas, this song, “Jane,” is a really solid 1979 earworm.

Rediscovering: The If It’s Out There, It’s In Here! NYNEX Ad Campaign

Every region had its version of Ma Bell back in the 70s and 80s. It was a confusing patchwork of companies, some large, some regional, some small and state-by-state — I remember having Indiana Bell growing up, and our neighbors just a few miles north of me had Michigan Bell — and, until the 1982 Breakup of the Bell System, you were mostly stuck with your state’s telephone system for local calling. (Long distance? Oh, that’s a subject for another day.)

After the breakup, some of the regions took their time with branding — Indiana Bell was the brand name for the Ameritech Hoosier State telco until 1993 — but New York Telephone and New England Telephone went full bore into making NYNEX — an acronym for “New York New England Exchange” — a powerful brand name.

Part of the brand’s power? Well, if you’re anywhere near Madison Avenue and the ad industry, you might as well create a really cool ad campaign.

Enter If It’s Out There, It’s In Here. The ad campaign that just kept the puns coming.

They launched in 1988, just in time for my arrival in Upstate New York and my NYNEX dorm phone. Created by Chiat/Day, the legendary ad firm behind Apple’s 1984-themed ad campaign, the ads were quick, clever, and just enough of a gag to get the point across: if you were looking for something in the Yellow Pages, you were bound to find it in the NYNEX Yellow Pages.

Here’s “Civil Engineers.”

What if you’re looking for “Herbs”?

How about “Furniture Stripping”?

“Fishing Tackle” anyone?

There’s a whole playlist of these ads. Great trip down memory lane.

Have a wonderful week. Maybe go catch some fish?