With all due respect to Don McLean, music didn’t die at all in 1959 (the tragic plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valen), or in 1971, the year he released his historic hit “American Pie.”

And it will probably go on for a long, long time, despite how strongly readers may feel that I’ve killed music with my song parodies, including a great collaboration with Mike Range in which “American Pie” takes on a whole new meaning.

But if you enjoyed my humorous approach to dealing with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, here’s an easy way to find (and praise) every song.

I have compiled all of my songs here in one easy listening catalog. Trust me, it would not be such easy listening if I tried to sing these songs.

For your…

With apologies to Kevin Durant’s brilliant one man show, when is the NBA going to learn that the fans want to see the best teams compete for the title?

With the NBA’s rush to cram in the season before the Olympics, injuries and Covid protocols have decimated every team.

Even the team that wins the title will know it was one injury or an oversized sneaker away from being eliminated long before the Finals.

Just give this season the biggest fucking asterisk in NBA history.

Brooklyn was the best team in the East and it’s not even close. Their three superstars were so good, they only shared the floor for eight games this season and still came within one game of the #1 seed in the East. …

Before we get to my predictions for the NBA Conference Finals, I need to give a shout out to a very astute NBA analyst — and it’s not anyone at the Action Network.

On June 5, I published my second round playoff predictions with this disclaimer:

this is not gambling advice. When I said you can take them to the bank, I meant you should put them in a safe deposit box and never look at them again until I call out the one prediction I got right.

I was wrong about one thing with this disclaimer because I didn’t get one prediction right…

I got them ALL right.

1. “With Booker taking his game to a new level against the Lakers and the injury to Murray, the Suns should bury Denver.” …

There’s a reason why a w̶h̶i̶n̶e̶r̶ s̶m̶a̶r̶t̶ ̶a̶s̶s̶ cynic like me is writing a love letter to the Big E — it might work.

I’ve seen articles that sing Medium’s virtues and ask for features to improve the user experience. Sometimes, their suggestions become codified into, well, code.

My idea is so simple, it shouldn’t cost more than I earn in a month writing here. In other words, dirt cheap.

If you don’t already know how it works, you get notifications when:

• Each time someone highlights a line in one of your stories
• Each time someone follows you
• Each time someone you follow highlights a passage you highlighted
• Each time someone claps for your story or response
• Each time your story reaches a set number of fans (10, 50, even 100, but someone would have to…

In case you missed it, the teetering NBA season finally crumbled.

Thursday morning’s news might give us the worst Finals matchup since the 8th seeded New York Knicks hip-checked their way into the 1999 NBA Finals.

• Kawhi Leonard is out for Game 5 and may miss the rest of the playoffs.
• Chris Paul is in Covid protocol and out indefinitely.

If you count all the other injury issues in Round 2 of the playoffs, every team has suffered key injuries.

• Kyrie Irving and James Harden suffered injuries during the Bucks series.
• Joel Embiid hurt his knee and didn’t score in the second half as Philadephia blew an 18-point lead.
• Mike Conley…

When I started my career, the advertising industry was nearing the end of its golden age.

Look at the subtlety and humor from this 2000 Super Bowl commercial below. Look at the attention to detail. Look at the production values.

The spot cost $2,000,000 to produce, about twice as much as most 60-second spots for the big game.

Back then, advertising agencies acted as media buyers for their clients and got 15% to create a marketing plan, negotiate with TV networks, track the ads to make sure they aired in full and on time, and then analyze results. There was so much money floating around, agencies could pay a large staff to develop great work.

…

AN EXCEEDINGLY RARE REVERSE RANT

This is one of those unusual rants where I have to ask, “what the hell is wrong… with me?”

For fans of the 500-WORD RANT, don’t worry.

I didn’t get run over by a dog sled, contract a rare disease, or find religion.

I only wanted to say thank you to a woman who has done something for me that my wife would never do. No, not that kind of favor. I don’t write sex confessionals (sounds of crowd stampeding for the exits, then dead silence).

Sometimes a friend can lift your spirits so much, you look at the world with fresh eyes for a while.

It’s like when your favorite sports team wins a championship, and you bask in this glow of irrational happiness.

Have you ever gone a day or two without receiving a single notification about…

A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO WRITING ON MEDIUM, PART 5

Note: Since 2015, I’ve published over 500 stories here on many topics. Almost nothing makes as much money as articles that claim to teach writers how to beat this highly addictive game.

Here’s a brief history of how the algorithm has changed and how it affects earnings.

Before the paywall, the only green you could earn was a bunch of hearts.

As a newbie in November 2015, everything thrilled me. Prestigious publications like Coffeelicious accepted my stories. It was a big deal when the editors chose to feature one of my articles in Medium’s then-Mt. Rushmore, the above-the-fold section of the homepage.

I even appreciated some of the self-help articles.

Many of my stories…