All My Life | USWNT | British Open | Yanks & Mets Weekend
Alright @YouTheReader,
All My Life by Lil Durk featuring J. Cole was released on May 12th this year. It is the first time the two have collaborated together and when it dropped it debuted at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. All My Life, as Lil Durk told XXL:
“It’s just a rap that’s just showing you what I have been going through. What I have been doing lately. Trying to change how I am. Dr. Luke produced it. We were just trying to figure out what’s the right person to put on it. ’Cause it’s one of those songs where if it’s not the right person to do the second verse... I feel like Cole can bring the energy that I’m looking for to it. So, if it wasn’t J. Cole, it’d be [Kanye], but Ye, he tucked away somewhere.”
Durk Derrick Banks, or Lil Durk, is from the south side of Chicago. This year Lil Durk has sat down with Chicago politicians and their mayors in an effort to make improvements to Englewood, where crime is 725% higher than the national average. Lil Durk launched a community campaign called Durk Banks Scholarship Fund this spring where two Chicago students were selected to receive $50,000 to attend Howard University. (Source: Hip Hop DX)
The Chicago rapper grew up in a household without a father. His dad was incarcerated by the time he was 7 months old. After dropping out of high school, Banks got caught up in the streets of the South side and got into trouble with the law, which included gun charges against him. Lil Durk turned to rap as a means to make a career out of being The Voice of the Streets.
Along with gang violence that Banks was involved in also came drug abuse. Lil Durk is trying to raise awareness of these serious problems and even refers that he is trying to get better himself as a way to encourage us listening to prioritize healthy habits.
The chorus to this song is a choir of children singing which adds to the upbeat message that All My Life conveys. All My Life now joins If Only I by Two Friends, Dial Drunk by Noah Kahan, and Where The Wild Things Are by Luke Combs, as a nominee for Week to Week Notes’ Song of the Summer ‘23.
Jermaine Lamarr Cole was born on a military base in Germany and raised in Fayetteville, North Carolina. He has New York ties in that he attended St. John’s University while his rap career was taking off. Week to Week Notes will be sure to cover more of J. Cole as we stumble along.
J. Cole name-drops Jordan Peele, the director of Get Out, while giving the film a shout and as a way to avoid situations that will cause him trouble.
J. Cole is speaking about how many younger rappers die before they even get to reach their potential.
Cole World has a problem with how media organizations only mention rappers once they are dead so that they can get clicks off their demise.
Cole’s venting on topics such as All My Life is part of the reason he is one of the best rappers of his generation. Unfortunately for Week to Week Notes, it does appear he would have an interest in getting a pint with an interview, but that’s okay!
Strong finish! Likewise to all the dawgs! 🫡 On to the sports…
Team USA
USA vs. Vietnam | Tonight 9 PM ET | FOX
As the US Women’s National Team gets set to take on Vietnam tonight, the team’s storyline entering the World Cup is whether can they be the first women’s or men’s football or soccer country to ever 3-peat. The World Cup starts out with 8 groups of 4 countries playing each other, so 32 squads are in the lands down under at the moment. The American women are in Group E along with Vietnam (#32 in the world), Netherlands (#9 in the world), and Portugal (#21 in the world). We have never faced Vietnam in women’s soccer before so this is a first, however, this is the 5th straight World Cup where the USWNT faces off against an Asian opponent in the opening game of the tournament. In ‘19 Team USA beat Thailand 13 nil and Alex Morgan had 5 goals.
USWNT head coach, Vlatko Andonovski, has yet to announce the starting lineup but it is safe to say that Morgan and Lindsay Horan will be in the opening lineup. The pair will co-captain the American ship toward Eden Park, best known for where the All Blacks play rugby. This will be Andonovski’s first world cup and after a Bronze finish in the ‘20 Olympics (held in the Summer of ‘21), I would expect the team to come out on a mission.
Half-ass Opposition Research
@YouTheReader the answer is no, I will be making a US vs Vietnam joke. Things are going to be awkward enough when our ladies destroy them tonight. Vietnam’s first President, Ho Chi Minh, has his body on display for the public. He’s been dead since 1969 so of course his body is embalmed, but I just thought that was pretty wild. Why didn’t we do this with George Washington? Another cool thing or two I learned while half-ass researching our opponents tonight is that they have the longest cave in the world at 5.5 miles long and there is no legal drinking age in Vietnam.
‘23 British Open
Hoylake, England | Royal Liverpool GC | $16,500,000 (Purse) | GOLF/NBC
The British Open or The Open as the Brits like to call it is the oldest golf tournament in the world. The first Open Championship was played on October 17, 1860. Since 1860, The Open has not been played only 12 times. The most recent was COVID in ‘20, they didn’t play from 1915 to 1919 or 1940 to 1945 because of the World Wars, & lastly, they didn’t play in 1871 because they had no available trophy. Young Tom Morris won the championship from 1868 to 1870 and the organizers had no idea how to proceed with the tournament because they told him he could keep The Challenge Belt. His father, Old Tom Morris nearly got to keep the belt because he won in 1861&1862 but he finished two strokes behind from 3-peating. Rather than just getting another trophy, they spent 1871 bickering at one another before they decided that the tournament, which had been strictly at Prestwick Golf Club (1860 to 1870), would now be shared amongst other venues - to share the cost of the prize. (Source: Golf Channel)
The host this year is the Royal Liverpool Golf Club. Royal Liverpool has been around since 1869 and held its first Open in 1897. This will be the 13th time that Royal Liverpool will play host. The last two tournaments played at Hoylake were in ‘06 when Tiger Woods won only using a driver once and Rory McIlroy won it in ‘14. All of these scores below are going to be meaningless when you wake up and read this tomorrow because the event tees off at 1:30 AM ET in New York, but here’s a Day 1 recap!
Tommy Fleetwood
Tommy Fleetwood was Macking it for the crowd on Day 1. His first-round score was his best ever in The Open. In all seriousness, it would be a nice story if Fleetwood continued his strong start. He grew up near Hoylake and today is the one-year anniversary of his mom's passing.
Jordan Spieth
Jordan Spieth recently bought some stake in Leeds United with JT Thomas. The British media had some questions for him about the Yorkshire club and Spieth is looking forward to becoming emotionally invested in their attempt at making it back into the English Premier League after being relegated.
Patrick Cantlay
So what that Patrick Cantlay hit a nice putt going upslope through some grooves. Cool. The 45 minutes it took him to take the shot is the time none of us will never get back.
Brooks Koepka
Many on the internet will clip Brooks Koepka’s “You go out there then” reaction to a question about why he didn’t shoot lower and leave out how he was kidding. I’ll just GIF the negative part and type out the rest of his quote, “It’s windier than you think. The problem is there are just some crosswinds. There are some pins that you can’t go at so you have to hit it 35 feet to and hope you make a putt from there.”
Scottie Scheffler
Scottie doesn’t know what is going on with his putter of late. He’d be winning every event if he didn’t miss some of these.
Rory McIlroy
Rory is hanging in there at even par. I can’t be going on about Rory until he starts moving a move. We’ll see.
Seamus Power
Seamus Power is powering through with a hip. He was forced to withdraw from the Scottish Open just 9 holes into the first round last week. The Waterford man missed the cut at his debut Open last year at St Andrew’s and will be hoping for much better results this go around. (Source: Irish Mirror)
Shane Lowry
I consider Shane Lowry one of the lads at this point. Shane, check out The Ship Inn, they look like they have a decent pint of Guinness by UK standards. Great shot on the 4th!
Phil Mickelson
Phil Mickelson went flag hunting on 9 and couldn’t help but call his shot “You little beauty.” The rest of his day was ugly as sin so we’ll just show his highlight because he’s a big name.
JT Thomas
JT Thomas is really down bad just blatantly hitting golf balls directly into the sand traps. Luckily I could give him a tip in this scenario. Wait for everybody to get set up by their shot on the green. With your right hand grab the ball, in that same motion swing with your left hand to hit up some sand while simultaneously throwing the golf ball over your head. The guys won’t notice, but maybe the TV will.
New York Baseball Weekend
Yankees
Clarke Schmidt has really pitched well for the Yankees of late and might be the only guy on the team over the past month that has played better than you might’ve expected. Alec Marsh will be making his 4th start in the MLB. He is winless. His college career ERA was 4.13. His minor league career ERA is 5.72, there is no excuse why the Yankees can’t hit this guy.
Gerrit Cole at home against the 28-70 Kansas City Royals is enough said.
Jordan Lyles is 1 and 11. Yes, he has one victory and 11 losses, the most in the MLB. Sevy has been terrible, but the Yankees have no justifications for not sweeping the Kansas City Royals in the Bronx. These Royals pitchers are terrible which much like the series against the Rockies feels like a set up for the baseball gods to laugh at the Yankee pitiful lineup.
Mets
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Let’s Go Mets! Koadi Senga in his last 6 starts has pitched great. While he may only have a record of 2-2, Senga has pitched to a 2.37 ERA and batters are only hitting .180 against him. I gotta admit, Kutter Crawford is a great baseball name. Crawford is coming off a win where he went 6 innings striking out 9 Cubbies.
Mad Max turns 39 this Thursday. He’s got a player option for next season at $43,333,334 which of course he’s going to take. Ken Rosenthal reported earlier this week that Scherzer and Verlander aren’t expected to be going anywhere. Scherzer in his career against the Sox is 5-5 with a 5.51 ERA. James Paxton got rocked last week against the Cubs, giving up 6 runs in 3 innings. Pete Alonso hit a bomb off Paxton when the lefty was a Yankee in the 1st inning of a Subway Series game in ‘19. Will Pete take Paxton over the Green Monster?
Carlos Carrasco vs the lights of Fenway Park. Baseball sure knows how to market its prime-time matchups.
YouTube Rabbithole
Every Hole at Royal Liverpool Golf Club | Golf Digest