checked out the french open draw yesterday. top half of the draw is a beast as nadal despite being the greatest clay court player of all time was only 5th seeded based on i assume a light schedule. so if he gets through his 9th ranked opponent, a young rising canadian who is now coached by nadals uncle, he will have to face djokivic in the quarters and then perhaps the young rising spandiard from the previous post in the semis. only then will he face probably the number two russian guy who has one other top ten player left in his side of the draw. do i know any other there names? the russian but i am loathe to try and spell it and no one really cares anyway.

but i was expecting this to be on espn or i was prepared to be angry that it was now on espn+ streaming for more money but espn dropped the french according to an article because its shitty morning yelling heads shows had better numbers and costs nothing to produce. so its back in the nbc family which means an occasional match on nbc i suspect and peacock+ streaming. so more money for that. but..... also, tennis channel?!? do i "get" tennis channel? yes! so get to watch some rafa this morning to see if he can continue to defy aging a little longer. hes actually "only" 35. old for tennis but not quite as old as i thought he was.

meanwhile espn is running formula one which based on some sports podcasts i listen to has surged in popularity of late. if only mark was still around to see it. rip.


- dave 5-29-2022 10:46 am

Mark rip??


- steve 5-30-2022 12:18 am


oy. metaphorically.
- dave 5-30-2022 1:05 am


Thanks for clarifying, I've been wondering about his absence. Jim's too.
- steve 5-30-2022 9:56 am


nadal - djokovic 245 est still on tennis channel.


- dave 5-31-2022 11:23 am


LOOKS LIKE ITS HEADED TO A FIFTH SET. 

#capslockgremlin


- dave 5-31-2022 6:22 pm


nadal did me a service and came back to polish him off in four then i got a text to meet someone downtown. i popped a klonopin as i hadnt had one in a few days and it was catching up with me, struggled with these useless earbuds that wont stay in my ear and headed out.  the subway gods were with me even if the earbud gods werent, as i hadnt returned them to their case and were thusly bereft of power, and i made an easy connection only to emerge to a balmy yet dusky city proper nailing my hour eta almost to the second. my something approaching a friend met me on the street as has been our way during covid only to slap me across the face with the most distressing news possible, and between my personal cocoon and the emotionally deadening drugs i could conjure up sympathy, but fell short on the empathy scale. that my sack is full of sadness hopefully speaks with greater authority anyway. 

so as he expressed it to me, he had no other way than to say it but that "his son" (at least that was the implication) had committed suicide last week. as it turned out it wasnt his biological son but that of the woman he has been living with since his marriage dissolved probably in 2019. so im sure he was very fond of the boy, who they found upon returning from a weekend in the country outfitting a new house they had just purchased, but i can only imagine how his mother is coping. she is exceedingly nice, and now her only child is dead. anyway, i know nothing of the boy only having met in passing while exchanging furtive glances so i cant begin to access his state of mind nor am i aware of his psychological history. he left no note. he was 18.


- dave 5-31-2022 10:13 pm


Rough
- bill 5-31-2022 10:44 pm


we push our kids here but also watch closely as this shit so so real and so close.....OD's suicide depression.....sorry dave
- Skinny 5-31-2022 11:47 pm


dont be sorry for me im just the befuddled messenger. like i said i cant speak to his state of mind. maybe a breakup w/a manipulative girlfriend fed it a mostly absentee father couldnt have helped. dont know what his college outlook was but he was well cared for of that i am sure. they are pretty much at a loss which must be a wrenching as the act itself, or maybe not quite so much, but unanswerable questions i suspect will eat away at you for some time.
- dave 5-31-2022 11:56 pm


Terrible. To Mike's point, It does seem that today's generation of kids are suffering from all the stresses of this world in ways my generation didn't, despite the political and social turmoil of the 60's and 70's. Afterall, so many of those problems were never dealt with and many more have been heaped on. Those times seem downright stable compared to today.
- steve 6-01-2022 10:09 am


what do the statistics say?

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6630a6.htm

i get the sense we are more attuned to it and talk about it more but the rates for boys arent significantly different now than in 75 after spiking in the 80s annd 90s. the rate for girls has doubled though in but is still significantly lower than that of boys.

heres another charting the past 20 years though the youthful age group is 15-24.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db433.htm#:~:text=The%20overall%20suicide%20rate%20increased,2018%20and%202020%20to%2013.5.


- dave 6-01-2022 12:22 pm


https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/mental-health/index.htm


- steve 6-01-2022 10:35 pm


one take on that same depression datapoint.

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/04/american-teens-sadness-depression-anxiety/629524/


- dave 6-02-2022 1:06 am


uffah on the LBGTQ.....75%.......thats where Theo (once Alice) is and today was a rough day......

close none DMT pal once said to me often when I said R this and T that......."its just a phase".......i checked in on his kids phases recently.........uffah uffah, its not a phase


- Skinny 6-02-2022 11:42 pm





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