rock

by: hhex65

Tue Jan 24, 2012 at 01:39:04 AM MST

Well, the NFL season is over but it won't leave a huge whole in my life this time for I do have other interests. For one: I plan to re-watch most of the 6 seasons of the Rockford Files. I love that character. There's probably no other TV character that I still feel as warmly about even though they aren't, never were or will be, real. Maybe Hawkeye from M*A*S*H, I haven't watched that in a while. The shit just found him. He would take a case about some little thing and it would turn into a big mess. Rockford would just chug ahead doing mostly the right thing, often against his own instinct of self-preservation, until he solved the case by doing the unglamorous legwork. I like the show because the "good" people in it are usually 65/35 good-bad, practically real. He never ranted about "common pond scum, how it blocks the sun and strangles the depths of the pure waters"-- he wasn't a creep or a vigilante.

His fee was 200-a-day plus expenses.

Someone asks him:
Q: Don't you trust anybody?
A: My father...but he's bonded.

Visually it conveys a pastiche of run-of-the-mill Los Angeles, there's a lot of driving, people eating tacos and drinking beer. It was the time when Prop 13 just was kicking in. Rockford lived on the beach in Malibu in a trailer, that spot must be worth a billion now. I wonder if he held onto it? He was neither naive nor casually cynical but understood well the humanity of others, for him empathy was not a weakness. I suppose it was something like a Chandleresque update but since it was TV all the dots got connected in G-rated fashion.

And that theme song, it was a radio hit. That arrangment really influenced me in a deep way. The TV-jingle chamber group of drums, bass, harmonica, dobro and electric guitars, flutes, French horns, trombones with a Minimoog as the lead voice. Real instruments. It featured a faceless guitar solo that I later found out was done by Larry Carlton who played on records by Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell, Billy Joel, Michael Jackson, and the Partridge Family, among others.

As much as I like knowing details about commercial music recordings I sometimes wonder if I don't like hearing music better when it is unattached to any specific ego or story. That could be why I never really enjoyed the music video era. Not very Rockford of me, though, to be so bitter and judgmental.

you cannot petition the Refs with prayer

by: hhex65

Sat Jan 21, 2012 at 10:00:00 AM MST

video fireplace

by: hhex65

Fri Jan 20, 2012 at 09:00:00 AM MST

ravens is fleetwood mac

by: hhex65

Wed Jan 18, 2012 at 22:20:42 PM MST

After Peter Green left The Mac had a series of people up front singing and playing including Danny Kirwan, Christine McVie, Bob Welch, Bob Weston, Dave Walker, Bobby Hunt & Doug Graves until they finally hooked up with Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks in 1975. Then they had huge success culminating in the 1976 multi-platinum LP "Rumours."

After Dilfer the Ravens were QB'd by Kyle Boller, Troy Smith, Steve McNair, Anthony Wright, Jeff Blake, Chris Redman and Elvis Grbac with varying results. Then finally in 2008 the estimable Joe Flacco took over. In his rookie year he took the Ravens to the AFC championship. They've made the playoffs ever since. Now they again have a chance to go to the Super Bowl, the NFL equivalent of recording "Rumours." But will the Bass and Drums of the Ravens cede some power to the offensive side? Will they let creativity flow so a "Rumours" can happen?-- or will they kneecap Joe Flacco and remake "Penguin" once again? Let's see:

McVie would never have undermined Stevie Nicks publicly like that. He wanted the whole team to win.

CFL

by: hhex65

Wed Jan 18, 2012 at 10:00:00 AM MST

The CFL (an eight team league) had two teams with the same name for a while. They had the Ottawa Rough Riders and the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Even though the "spelling" was slightly different it was confusing and attracted general ridicule.

The Ottawa Rough Riders went out of business in 1996 but a new Ottawa team is supposed to be up and running in a couple years. Falling attendance and financial mismanagement were blamed for their demise.

Example: in 1995, Ottawa drafted Derrell Robertson of the defunct Las Vegas Posse with a fourth round pick in a dispersal draft of teams that folded after the CFL attempted to expand into the United States. Unfortunately, Derrell Robertson had died the previous December in a car accident.

I like the CFL: its humanity, the open-field free kick, the front-center goal posts, the positioning of two kickers in the end zone to defend a field goal attempt, three downs, the kicker advancing the ball, and the forward motion of the backfield. It's a different game, really; not a substitute or alternative.

irrational negativity

by: hhex65

Tue Jan 17, 2012 at 01:55:54 AM MST

Sure, LeBron is a villain but I'd bet he'd never say that stuff. Denver realized Carmelo would leave so they dumped him and got some pieces back. The Cleveland fans would have gone nuts if LeBron had been traded and so in the end they got nothing and the fans went nuts. In fact, the Cavs got a $14.5m trade exception for him but they let it expire without doing anything with it. Denver made the playoffs last year and they look good now. They have good depth, at least. Nurse that hate, it'll kill ya.