Mostly Modern Media
Since 2003. Still never was a cornflake girl.
Recent posts
Now hosted at Substack along with every other writer on the internet.
- A day-by-day look at what's worth losing sleep or skipping work to see
- A lot of ignorant-ass sports media-adjacent people are saying she shouldn't have started today. That's objectively ridiculous.
- An open letter to the star of the alternative Super Bowl show.
- A day-by-day look at what's worth losing sleep or skipping work to see
- Or, how a guy from Georgia fell in love with the Winter Olympics and always loves covering them
Music
Who says music majors are useless? After reviving my musical life at School of Rock, I’m now a frequent participant at Flashband and a member of The Randos, an eclectic group playing eclectic music, and Glitter on the Highway, featuring strong female voices. Check out videos and upcoming appearances.
Books
Check out my books at Duresport, including a look at the historical and cultural forces that will keep the U.S. men’s soccer team from winning the World Cup, histories of Major League Soccer and women’s soccer, tips for improving your soccer club’s website, and personal takes on MMA and youth soccer.
Other stuff
Writing
- The US men’s and women’s teams claimed titles at the Winter Games this past week. The warm fuzzy feelings didn’t last long
- Other nations are catching up with the US in its traditional strengths such as snowboarding. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing for Americans
- The Canadians began the Milano Cortina Games with a cheating scandal and a gold drought. In the second week of action, it’s woe Canada no more
- With 13 medals through the first five days – surpassing their total at Turin 2006 – the Italians are the surprise stars of these Games. What’s different this time?
Reading
- Trump won the presidency in 2016 and 2024 thanks in no small part to campaigning against the long and draining wars of his predecessors. Now, he’s started a war of his own.
- The country’s politicians have spent centuries mastering the art of saying nothing. That all changed in September.
- Adding: If he wanted to stop fraud, why'd he fire all the people in charge of stopping it?
- Today, I confronted Jeremy Carl, Trump's nominee to a top State Department role, about his history of racist remarks, including ridiculous claims that white …
- "It is rich irony that, after decades warning about how Democrats would corrupt our country with state-sponsored atheism and moral relativism, Republicans can now lay claim to perhaps the most godless and amoral administration in American history."
- Kimberly Prost and Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza vow US reprisals will not affect work of international criminal court
- ‘This is the interview Donald Trump didn’t want you to see,’ the guest, a Texas Democrat, wrote on X
- Hundreds of judges around the country have ruled more than 4,400 times since October that the Trump administration is detaining immigrants unlawfully, a Reuters review of court records found. Those…
The old blog’s best posts
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Meg Gunn Dure: 1947-2016
One of the sadder obituaries I’ve written because she deserved so much more time.
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Jim Sherman, rock and roll teacher: 1947-2016
Fun one, even if he also departed too young. Mr. Sherman was a colorful guy.
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Revisiting the messiest Yes album — Union!
Everyone who played on more than two Yes albums joined forces. Sort of. Not really. What happened?
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Ann Hammond Dure: 1939-1995
My mom. Written 20 years after the fact because she died so young.
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Paul Jeffrey, Duke jazzman
This guy scared me. Multiple times. But I learned so much from him, and I was so happy that he liked my writing (if not my playing).
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Top 10 overrated and underrated Saturday Night Live stars on Rolling Stone’s list
A Rolling Stone list that doesn’t get things quite right? You don’t say!
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All-time great performances: Fishbone on SNL
Find the video if you can. My jaw hit the floor. I couldn’t believe how good they were. (My dormmates and eventual girlfriend disagreed.)
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Rik Mayall, the people’s poet
The death of Rik Mayall is profoundly sad news for those of us who grew up as fans of The Young Ones and were always sorry that they only ever made 12…
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Leon Sebring Dure III: 1931-2014
Dad was complicated. But he was driven by a sense of responsibility to leave the world a bit better than he found it.
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How ‘Reality Bites’ and the dictionary screw up irony
With nearly 9,000 page views, this is the most-read post on Mostly Modern Media.
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Best non-prog uses of odd time signatures
Written before Adam Neely and David Bennett had a gazillion subscribers breaking this stuff down on YouTube.
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Tunes of the Weird: King Crimson
This performance is one of the oddest and funniest things I’ve ever seen, from a band not normally described as “funny.”
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The Blondie controversy
Their Hall of Fame kerfuffle could’ve been avoided. I saw Blondie years later, and the band was fantastic. But I still missed Nigel Harrison.
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What part of "closest to the price without going over" don’t you understand?
This rant about failing to use simple strategy on a long-running game show drew more than 8,000 views.