Perry Mason (2014) – IMDb
March 14, 2012
Perry Mason (2014) – IMDb. Perry Mason will be rebooted as a 2014 film, via PAUL MOTT.
The Case of the Borrowed Brunette
The original Erle Stanley Gardner novels were A+++, and so was the original TV Series, which ran from the mid-1950s to the early 1960s. Some notable points about both the books and the show:
1) in the books, Perry Mason runs around a lot–he’s not such a courtroom attorney at all. He’s more of an action guy.
2) in the books, he and Della Street are clearly and more explicitly in a relationship. This is something that can clearly be developed in a 2014 film. In the books, Della is more or less an equal to Perry, and in a remake, she could be made into an attorney who is a partner to perry rather than just a “confidential secretary”, though they would of course still have to have all those steak dinners.
3) Perry & Della are never married in either the books or the TV show, but they have a relationship.
Perry Mason & Della Street
4) The forensic science in the books and in the TV show was way, way ahead of its time–CSI ahead of its time.
5) Lt. Tragg was aces up in the TV show and in the books.
6) Perry never lost a case on the TV show (with a notable exception or two).
7) Paul Drake was famous for his sportcoat collection.
8) Perry drove a collection of terrific fifties convertibles on the TV show.
9) Perry & Della favored steaks and martinis in the books and on the show.
10) like modern lawyers, Perry & Della worked nights, mornings and weekends, and loved doing it. They had no life outside of work, and even when they were on vacation, they would stumble into a homicide or two and Perry would be back on the job.
11) Perry won all those cases without any Warren Court decisions. He never used the exclusionary rule, or any other procedural tricks. Instead, he relied on careful cross-examination, a thorough knowledge of forensic science, rigous private investigation to get to the real facts, and accurate assessment of the witnesses as they told their stories. He was F Lee Bailey before there was F Lee Bailey.
12) the original books were written as early as the 1930s.
13) The books in hardcover first edition are now out of print and can get as much as forty to fifty dollars a copy on line. I had a complete set at one time. They are worth it just for the covers alone. The paperbacks are not as good as the hardcover versions of the books. I used to keep them in my old law office when I was practicing. Clients loved seeing those.
14) Perry Mason never took a client meeting without having Della Street present. A very good piece of advice for current attorneys–never meet with a client alone. Always have a witness and a transcript.
15) The original TV Show was supplemented by a number of TV movies which came back in the 1980s, all of which were two hours long, and all of which were hugely popular.
16) Prior to playing Perry Mason, Raymond Burr was somewhat of a “bad guy” or “villain” in a number of film noirs, as well as famously being in the original GODZILLA film.
17) Many famous actors appeared in Perry Mason TV show in the 50s and 60s before they were famous.
18) Many of the defendants in the Perry Mason TV show disproportionately appeared to be extremely attractive, but virtuous looking, young women, who didn’t seem capable of hurting a fly.
19) Many of the Perry Mason books actually dealt with complex issues of law, which were capably explained by the author in layperson’s terms. They make excellent reading for modern law students.
20) Perry Mason is still the Platinum/Gold standard for legal fiction, in writing, film and TV. Hopefully the franchise reboot will adhere to these high standards.
–art kyriazis
The Wall Street Journal’s Will Friedland has a really nice story in Wednesday August 19, 2009 at p. D19 on the Cenntennial of legenday bop saxophonist Lester Young’s birth (1909-1959) which occurs today, August 24, 2009.
This year also marks the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Lester Young, who passed away at age 49 in 1959. Jazz Giant, Jazz Legend, Jazz Colossus, these terms don’t do him justice. In Jazz Circles, he was known only as the President, or the Prez, a moniker hooked on him by none other than the late, great Billie Holiday, aka Lady Day, Queen of Jazz.
As Friedland writes, “Young…created a new approach to the saxophone and to jazz in general. His playing was, by turns, lighter and gentler than anything that had come before it, but also capable of driving with tremendous force and energy.” Id. at p. D19.
Friedland reviews a release from Fantasy Records (now owned by Concord, I believe) called “Centennial Celebration”, which contains a good deal of Lester Young live during his later years, with emphasis on the 1950s. This is probably a must-buy if you don’t have any of this material. Even if you do have it, it’s never a waste of money to buy a Lester Young CD just to get even one track you didn’t have before. Or download the one you don’t have.
When Ken Burns did his Jazz documentary stretching over a bazillion PBS hours not so long ago, there were two figures that stood head and shoulders over everyone else—Lester Young and Billie Holiday.
Before President Obama was born, before Hawaii was even a state or was issuing official state birth certificates, we already had a black president—and his name was Lester Young—or as Billie Holiday dubbed him—the President, or the Prez for short. Everyone else in jazz was the Vice-President, or the Vice-Prez—but there was only one President, and that was Lester Young. Because Lester Young ruled the roost, he was in charge, and everyone else was second best.
Lester Young was so good, that you basically need to own every track he every played on, but if you can’t afford that, the Ken Burns jazz sampler is a great place to start. There’s several different phases to Lester Young’s career, all of them fantastic. Video of Lester Young, with Basie, with Billie Holiday and solo, are also around, and these are worth viewing as well.
First there’s the Count Basie years, from around 1935-1940, where Lester “leaps in” on countless classic tracks with the Count Basie Band. According to Friedland, Mosaic Records has recently issued a 4 CD set last year covering this period, but it’s covered on many of the compilations of either the best of Count Basie or the best of Lester Young. This stuff is just fantastic, the best big band jazz ever recorded.
Then there’s his work with Billie Holiday. Here, one just says, wow. These two were so born to work together. Billie Holliday’s best tracks are with Lester Young playing; Lester Young’s best playing is with Billie Holliday singing. This is the best jazz ever laid down on vinyl in U.S. history. It’s covered in part in the Ken Burns samplers of both Lester Young and Billie Holiday, fortunately.
There is also the final appearance of them both on CBS television in 1956 or 1957 for a special jazz show with several other jazz giants, which is caught on LP, CD as well as on video somewhere, and a good thing too, since both Young and Holliday would both be dead in just a couple of years’ time. This is a must-have session as well.
Then there is the body of Lester Young’s solo work, almost all of which is essential. I could rhapsodize about all of it, but there’s particular stuff that’s really great, such as the live in DC dates from 1956, which produced more than one CD/LP. This stuff is terrific, and very fine indeed. It’s well-represented on the “Centennial” CD reviewed by Mr. Friedwald. Lester Young’s solo 50s work doesn’t try to follow what others are doing during the 1950s—and that’s kind of what makes it great.
Lester Young is essentially a romantic at heart, and this comes across in all of his playing.
Of the great boppers, I’ve always preferred Lester Young to Charlie Parker—while I know Parker is technically great and plays fast and improvises crazily and so forth, but Lester Young is really the finer ballad player, and yet can still bop and swing as well as anyone, improvise, and also accompany his vocalist, or play in a big band. In short, there was nothing Lester Young couldn’t do with a saxophone.
One comment about Young, and it’s discussed by Friedwald as well, is Young’s terrible experiences with the United States Army during World War II, and particularly with segregation. Friedwald descrbes this as a “nightmarish year he [Young] spent in the detention barracks, in the segregated armed forces during World II, which certainly exacerbated the chronic alcoholism that contributed to his [Young’s] death at age 49. (Friedwald, WSJ, 8/19/09 at p. D9. The liner notes to LESTER SWINGS (see infra) state that “his sensitivity in these matters was certainly aggravated by his traumatic army experiences of 1944 and 1945, until it amounted almost to a form of disability. Several people who knew him at the time have remarked on this. It took only one aggressive or unfriendly present to upset his equilibrium.” “Von Hangman is here,” he would mutter, as gloom descended. On the other had, when things were goint well, he could be the life and soul of the party.
So what we know about Lester Young is that he was a supremely gifted musician; he was a sensitive and tortured soul; a sensitive and open man with his feelings and emotions; and when it came to institutional racism, he was no Jackie Robinson; he could not stand up to inhumane treatment, and nearly collapsed under its weight. That he survived at all is a testament to his inner artistic strength and will to survive to play another day, and the twelve years of artistic production we have from 1946 to 1958 are, in my view, supremely brilliant and as gifted as his pre-war output.
Lester Young, if you see him play on video, had that kind of sideways way of playing, that was wholly unique, plus the famous pork pie hat he always wore, which when he passed away in 1959, gave rise to one of the world’s greatest jazz compositions, by Charles Mingus, “Goodbye Pork-Pie Hat,” which has been covered by a zillion artists, including even an incendiary fusion version by Jeff Beck and Jan Hammer during the crazy 1970s. I’m not sure what Lester Young would have thought about fusion, but then again, Lester might have leapt right in.
Lester Young’s was a long and happy administration, and long may it rule, happy 100th birthday to Lester Young, the Prez. I hope that the Ken Burns Jazz Documentary re-runs on PBS sometime, and if it doesn’t run in its entirety, I sure hope they re-run the parts about Basie, Young and Holliday again, because those were smoking hot. It’s not that we don’t love Louis Armstrong or Duke Ellington or Charlie Parker, but Lester Young was the Prez for a reason—he had the sweetest sound, the most beautiful, and the music he made will last forever.
Happy 100th birthday to a true American legend, Lester Young, our only other officially recognized African American President.
DISCOGRAPHY – LESTER YOUNG
KEN BURNS JAZZ – THE DEFINITIVE LESTER YOUNG (VERVE 314 549 082-2) (2000) nineteen perfect tracks, compilation. Nice booklet with photos. Great place to start. A+++
THE PRESIDENT PLAYS WITH THE OSCAR PETERSON TRIO (VERVE 831 670-2) (West German Pressing, Polygram). Lester Young, tenor sax, Oscar Peterson, piano, Barney Kessel, guitar, Ray Brown, bass, JC Heard, drums. Recorded NYC November 28, 1952. 13 tracks with alternate takes, 61:49. A+
LESTER YOUNG: THE COMPLETE SAVOY RECORDINGS (SAVOY JAZZ SVY 17122 2CD Set with booklet). This outstanding two CD set collects rare material recorded for Savoy in 1944, 1949 and 1950 by Lester Young with the likes of Billy Butterfield, Hank D’Amico, Johnny Guarnieri, Dexter Hall, Billy Taylor and Cozy Cole (April 18, 1944); a session with the Earle Warren Orchestra (see, he really was the Prez!) (April 18, 1944) (too many greats to mention, but Harry Sweets Edison, Jimmy Powell, Earle Warren, Freddie Green, Jo Jones, to name but a few). The Lester Young Quintet (and this is rare); Lester Young tenor sax, Count Basie piano, Freddie Green guitar, Rodney Richardson bass, Shadow Wilson drums (May 1, 1944). These six tracks are worth the price of the entire 2 CD set. Fantastic. Lester Young and Count Basie in a small group setting. Wow! And this is all Disc One! Disc Two starts out with Lester Young Sextet, Lester Young tenor sax, Jessie Drakes trumpet, Jerry Elliot Trombone, Junior Mance, piano, Leroy Jackson, bass, Roy Haynes drums. (June 28, 1949). (10 tracks). Lester Young Quintet. Lester Young Quintet, Lester Young tenor sax, Jessie Drakes trumpet, Kenny Drew piano, Kenny Shulman bass, Jo Jones drums. April 2, 1950, live in Chicago (10 tracks). This 2CD set has a lot of outtakes, but also has a lot of rare material from great bands, and covers a hard to find period of Young’s career, unless you have the original Savoy 78s or 10” vinyl. Stupendous. A+++.
LESTER SWINGS – LESTER YOUNG (VERVE 314 547 772-2) (1999). According to the CD, “This CD contains some of the most memorable masterpieces from Young’s enigmatic and memorable Verve studio recordings. These recordings can be found in their entirety on the 8-CD set THE COMPLETE LESTER YOUNG STUDIO SESSIONS ON VERVE.” www.vevemusicgroup.com. thirteen tracks, 64.22. This CD covers the highlights of Lester Young’s solo and small group career from 1946-1958, and is thus the cream of the crop. Absolutely vital. A+++
LESTER YOUNG TRIO WITH NAT KING COLE AND BUDDY RICH SUPERVISED BY NORMAN GRANZ (VERVE 314 521 650-2) 1994) (Mfd for BMG direct marketing under license. This is an interesting CD. There are a total of fourteen tracks totaling 60:41. Tracks 1-10 are recording with Lester Young on tenor sax, Nat King Cole on piano and Buddy Rich on drums, playing as a trio, recording April 19, 1946 in Los Angeles, CA. This was originally issued on vinyl as 10” Norgran LP MGN and before that as Lester Young Trio Vols I & II on Mercury/Clef MGC 104 & 135, 1074 with just 8 tracks; two outtakes are included here. Tracks 11-14 are recorded with Lester Young, Harry Sweets Edison on trumpet, Dexter Gordon on tenor sax, Nat King Cole on piano, Red Callendaer & Johnny Miller on drums, and Cliffor Juicy Owens on drums, recording summer 1943 or 1944 Los Angeles, CA, and originally released on vinyl 78 Clef/Mercury 15003/8900. Some of the tracks on this CD are 78 to CD transfers. This is a very fine CD preserving some very famous session tracks with Lester Young and Nat King Cole now considered classic. A+.
LESTER LEAPS IN: HIS GREATEST RECORDINGS 1936-1944; LESTER YOUNG. (ASV Ltd. Living Era CD AJA 5176 MCPS MONO) (Made and printed in England) (ASV Ltd., 1 Beaumont Avenue, London, UK, W14 9LP). (1995). “lester young with count basie, billie holiday, teddy Wilson, buck clayton, bill coleman, dicky wells…and other jazz greats!” what else do you want to know? 24 tracks, 75:40 total playing time. This is pretty much prime Lester Young material. A+++.
LESTER YOUNG LIVE IN DC VOLUMES I AND II 1956 I don’t have the CD info on these, but they’re classics and easily found on the internet.
youtube links:
lester young with billie holiday
this is billie holiday doing fine and mellow from the cbs special in 1956 with lester young and an all star band. with coleman hawkins and gerry mulligan. wow! A++++
a famous clip of lester young and allstar big band doing the “jitterbug jam” check out those dancers swinging to lester’s solo! with Harry Sweets Edison and many others. A+++
count basie band with lester young at randall’s island ny
lester young in a nice video
lester young and great band – pennies from heaven
same band – blues for greasy
http://www.kerouacalley.com/young.html
multimedia directory of lester young videos etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_Young
wikipedia article on lester young
theres more youtube video out there of lester young–these are just some highlights.
here’s another discography and list of books on Lester Young from a fan website:
http://www.nme.com/artists/lester-young
Discography
albums.
* Lester Young Quartet And Count Basie Seven – 1950 (Mercury)
* Lester Young – ()
* The Immortal Lester Young – 1951 (Savoy)
* The Lester Young Trio – 1951 (Mercury)
* Count Basie And Lester Young – 1951 (Jazz Panorama)
* Collates – ()
* Pres – 1951 (Mercury/Norgran)
* Kansas City Style – 1952 (Commodore)
* Battle Of The Saxes – 1953 (Aladdin)
* King Cole-Lester Young-Red Callender Trio – ()
* Lester Young-Nat King Cole Trio – 1953 (Aladdin/Score)
* Lester Young – His Tenor Sax – 1953 (Aladdin)
* The Lester Young Trio – 1953 (Clef)
* The President Plays – 1953 (Verve)
* With The Oscar Peterson Trio – 1954 (Norgran)
* Pres Meets Vice-Pres – 1954 (EmArcy)
* The President – ()
* Lester Swings Again – 1954 (Norgran)
* Pres And Sweets – 1955 (Norgran)
* The Pres-ident Plays With The Oscar Peterson Trio – 1955 (Norgran)
* Lester Young – ()
* It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing) – 1955 (Norgran/Verve)
* The Jazz Giants “56 – 1956 (Verve)
* Tops On Tenor – 1956 (Jazztone)
* Lester Young And His Tenor Sax, Vol. 1 – 1956 (Aladdin)
* Lester Young And His Tenor Sax, Vol. 2 – 1956 (Aladdin)
* The Masters Touch – 1956 (Savoy)
* Lester’s Here – 1956 (Norgran)
* Pres And Teddy – 1956 (American Recording Society/Verve)
* Lester Young-Nat “King’ Cole-Buddy Rich Trio – 1956 (Norgran)
* Swingin’ Lester Young – 1957 (Intro)
* The Greatest – 1957 (Intro)
* Going For Myself – 1959 (Verve)
* Laughin’ To Keep From Cryin” – 1959 (Verve)
* The Lester Young Story – 1959 (Verve)
* Memorial Album – 1959 (Epic)
* In Paris – 1960 (Verve)
* The Essential Lester Young – 1961 (Verve)
* Lester Warms Up – Jazz Immortals Series, Vol. 2 – 1961 (Savoy)
* Pres – 1961 (Charlie Parker)
* Pres Is Blue – 1961 (Charlie Parker)
* A Date With Greatness – 1962 (Imperial)
* The Immortal Lester Young, Vols. 1 – ()
* 2 – 1962 (Imperial)
* The Influence Of Five – 1965 (Mainstream)
* Town Hall Concert – 1965 (Mainstream)
* Chairman Of The Board – 1965 (Mainstream)
* 52nd Street – 1965 (Mainstream)
* Prez – 1965 (Mainstream)
* Pres And His Cabinet – 1966 (Verve)
* In Washington, D.C., Vols. 1-5 – 1980 (Pablo)
Books
bibliography.
* Lester Young – Lewis Porter
* The Tenor Saxophone And Clarinet Of Lester Young, 1936-1949 – Jan Evensmo
* Lester Young – Dave Gelly
* You Got To Be Original Man! The Music Of Lester Young – Frank BÃchmann-Møller
* You Just Fight For Your Life: The Story Of Lester Young – Frank BÃchmann-Møller
* A Lester Young Reader – Lewis Porter
* No Eyes: Lester Young – David Meltzer
* Lester Leaps In: The Life And Times Of Lester “Pres” Young – Douglas Henry Daniels
–art kyriazis, philly south jersey
home of the world champion phillies
The Philadelphia Eagles this past week signed former Atlanta Falcons QB Michael Vick, which instantly generated a lot of media controversy.
Because here at the Sophist we like to examine both points of view, lets’s parse for a moment some of the assumptions underlying whether Michael Vick has actually done anything controversial.
I. You aint nothing but a Hound Dog
In the beginning, people think it was Elvis who sang “you aint nothin but a hound dog”, but that isn’t right at all. It was african american blues woman BIG MAMA THORNTON who first sang “you aint nothing but a hound dog” and what she meant by that was something far different than what elvis meant, and it had a lot to do with accusing her man of infidelity.
frankly, that is probably a more serious matter than what michael vick was actually charged with.
Big Mama Thornton later re-recorded “hound dog” on a record she cut live in prison (michael vick not in attendance) and let me say, every track on there is hot, hot, hot.
here’s a live version on youtube with the legendary bluesman buddy guy;
hot hot hot! the guitar licks by buddy guy, the drumming by his band, and the singing by big mama thornton are totally awesome. what a clip! 11 out of 10! this is a legendary blues clip. wow!
now that’s the blues!!!!
they should have the big mama thornton/buddy guy version of this tune play on the jumbotron video at the linc every time michael vick takes the field. eventually it would be his signature song!
big mama thornton was a big influence on Janis Joplin and a great many other singers, especially as Big Mama Thornton was the first to sing “Summertime” and “Ball and Chain” pretty frequently, songs that later became associated with Janis.
In fact, if you really look at Big Mama Thornton, the fact is that white artists stole or misappropriated all of her fine work–Elvis took Hound Dog, the Stones and other bands took Little Red Rooster, Janis took Ball and Chain and Summertime, and so on, and rarely did the white artists mention Big Mama Thornton or pay her the correct royalties or give her the proper dues.
and yet, if you compare Big Mama Thornton to the white artists, it’s clear as a bell who’s better. janis joplin is good, but Big Mama Thornton is amazing. Elvis is good, but Big Mama Thornton is better. and so forth.
here’s Big Mama Thornton doing “Ball and Chain” with Lighting Hopkins, just an amazing version of this tune, a real blues classic, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSNavkeDg54
If you’ve never heard of Big Mama Thornton, go and download her songs right now on youtube and music sites.
here’s her doing “Little Red Rooster” live at Newport with BB King and Muddy Waters. Pretty awesome. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ycw4uaXPRU&feature=related
here’s wikipedia account of big mama thornton’s version of hounddog, but you really have to listen to the song to get it:
at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hound_Dog_%28song%29
Big Mama Thornton version
The blues singer Big Mama Thornton’s biggest hit was Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller’s “Hound Dog,” which she recorded in 1952. Thornton’s “Hound Dog” was the first record Leiber and Stoller produced themselves. They took over the session because their work had sometimes been misrepresented, and on this one they knew how they wanted the drums to sound; Johnny Otis was supposed to produce it, but they wanted him on drums. [5] Otis received a writing credit on all 6 of the 1953 pressings. This 1953 Peacock Records release (#1612) was number one on the Billboard rhythm and blues charts for seven weeks. [6]
Thornton gave this account of how the original was created to Ralph Gleason. “They were just a couple of kids, and they had this song written on the back of a paper bag.” She added a few interjections of her own, played around with the rhythm (some of the choruses have thirteen rather than twelve bars), and had the band bark and howl like hound dogs at the end of the song. In fact, she interacts constantly in a call and response fashion during a one minute long guitar “solo” by Pete Lewis . Her vocals include lines such as: “Aw, listen to that ole hound dog howl.. OOOOoooow”, “Now wag your tail”, Aw, get it, get it, get it”.
Thornton’s delivery has flexible phrasing making use of micro-inflections and syncopations. Over a steady backbeat, she starts out singing each line as one long upbeat. When the words change from “You ain’t nothin’ but a HOUND Dog”, she begins to shift the downbeat around: You TOLD me you was high-class / but I can SEE through that, You ain’t NOTHIN’ but a hound dog. Each has a focal accent which is never repeated..[7]
The other musicians on this recording are Devonia Williams (piano), Albert Winston (bass), and Leard Bell (drums), and are listed as “Kansas City Bill & Orchestra”.[8] Habanera and Habanera-mambo variations can be found in this recording.[9]
II. I Wanna Be Your Dog
in 1969, James Newell Osterberg, Jr., aka Iggy Pop, and the Stooges recorded one of the all time classic rock tunes with “I Wanna Be Your Dog”. It’s been on so many commercials and movie tracks that it would be redundant to re-spell it out here, but suffice it to say that most critics believe this song to be the first genuine song of the punk/new wave movement.
here’s a youtube live performance of iggy pop doing the tune from 1979, and it’s pretty good;
for a really hot 2006 version of the tune on you tube see this link;
this performance is from brussels, 2006 and the band is hot, the audience is so into it, they’re singing every line along with iggy pop. this song is really great. if you can get it on rockband, or learn it on your electric guitar, it’s a winner winner chicken dinner, three chord wonder variety. it’s so elemental that it actually generates energy.
once you watch it, you really get the idea. this song, as well, has little or nothing to do with dogs, but rather about something else far more dark and mysterious.
if you’re still not sure, read wonderland avenue by the late danny sugarman about iggy pop and you’ll get the fuller picture. iggy and the stooges, and iggy solo, one of the greatest rock acts of our time. also, from the great state of michigan, which has brought us Grand Funk, Bob Seger, Kid Rock, the MC5 and other awesome rock acts.
one more version, live in serbia 2004, also good, but not as good as the other two;
enjoy.
the original track from 1969 without video is here;
stripped down like this, it doesn’t sound the same–but as a live track it has had a lot of power over the years. but it still packs power as a studo track. this stooges album is considered a classic.
i find it interesting that europe and especially eastern europe still listen to rock and roll, while american kids waste away on rap, pop and lord knows what. it sort of suggests that their youth are a bit more in tune with normality than ours…and europeans also like classical music as well much more than our people do. they’re far more likely to do a rock/classical/jazz split than americans, who will much more likely do a country/rap/pop split. I’m far more in the jazz/classical/rock camp, so i suppose i’m with the europeans.
III. BLACK DOG BY LED ZEPPELIN
“hey hey mama said the way you move….
GONNA MAKE YOU SWEAT
GONNA MAKE YOU GROOVE….”
“didn’t take too long, till i found out, what people mean, by down and out”
an immortal rock tune, “black dog” by led zeppelin is on their immortal led zeppelin IV, the one with “stairway to heaven,” in fact, on the LP version, it opened the side which famously ended with “stairway to heaven”. this was the subject of a famous discussion in the movie “FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH” (1982), what the perfect record to seduce a woman to is, and the answer of course is, LED ZEPPELIN IV, SIDE ONE, beginning with BLACK DOG and ending with STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN.
For obvious reasons, BLACK DOG would make a great tune to play when michael vick is on the field. especially with a rocking led zepp video. even if it’s true that jimmy page sold his soul to the devil….
VIDEO ONE
plays the song with all the lyrics, pretty cool.
live 1973:
this is what 70s arena rock was all about. just about every guy back in the 1970s tried to have the robert plant look for a while. inevitably, it still comes around. chicks dig long hair.
i can’t get over Jimmy Page’s outfit in this clip.
john bonham in this clip is the actual model for the four guys in This is Spinal Tap (1984). Eleven, one louder.
this is one of the classic songs of the 1970s. it’s really a blues tune speeded up to arena rock sound, but it’s still blues rock, and played very well. it’s a great tune. well worth reviving as an eagles fight song for michael vick.
IV. BLACK EYED DOG – NICK DRAKE
this is an obscure one–not even well known by nick drake standards, and not one of nick drake’s best tunes, but still out there.
here’s a link to it;
it’s really more of an outtake than a finished tune, it doesn’t have any of the joe boyd orchestration that characterizes the best tracks off Bryter Later, nor is it as melodic as the best stuff off of Five Leaves Left or Pink Moon, which are the three official and only Nick Drake releases to come out while he was recording. It is in fact, an outtake included in “Time of No Reply,” which is an album of outtakes and alternate takes released posthumously, and which was included in the Fruit Tree compilation.
While this is an interesting “dog” track, i don’t think it’s a good song for a football crowd. I do recommend it to everyone though as a good example of a demo of a song by a brilliant songwriter; and being that it’s an obscure Nick Drake song, an excellent choice for a cover by your band seeking a record deal.
Speaking of Nick Drake, his producer JOE BOYD is one of the most intriguing figures in music history. A harvard grad and producer of most of the top bands of the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and up to the present day, JOE BOYD is one of the key figures of music history, as well as the custodian of the NICK DRAKE legacy.
here’s his wikipedia bio, which only scratches the surface of this remarkable man’s career;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Boyd
makes for interesting reading, with great linkouts.
V. WALKING THE DOG BY RUFUS THOMAS 1965
this is an alltime classic, and you can dance to it.
This video linkout is vintage 60s live video feed, A++. with the stax/volt band behind him.
the blues brothers live with rufus thomas walking the dog:
this is from 1988, but amazingly, it’s the same band as from 1965! check it out…you’ll see what i mean….First Blues Brothers Band reunion tour Live in Pistoia (Italy) 1988 Steve Cropper-Guitar Donald Dunn-Bass Matt Murphy-Guitar Booker T Jones-Keyboards Anton Fig-Drums Lou Marini-Sax Alan Rubin-Trump. same guys playing on the 1965 vid for the most part.
VI HONORABLE MENTION
ME AND YOU AND A DOG NAMED BOO – Lobo
BULLDOG – Ventures
HOUND DOG MAN – Fabian
SNOOPY AND THE RED BARON – Royal Guardsmen
ANYTHING BY SNOOP DOOG
DIAMOND DOGS david bowie
Black Dog lyrics:
Hey, hey, mama, said the way you move
Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove.
Oh, oh, child, way you shake that thing
Gonna make you burn, gonna make you sting.
Hey, hey, baby, when you walk that way
Watch your honey drip, cant keep away.
*ah yeah, ah yeah, ah, ah, ah., ah yeah, ah yeah, ah, ah, ah.
I gotta roll, cant stand still,
Got a flame in my heart, cant get my fill,
Eyes that shine burning red,
Dreams of you all thru my head.
Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah.
Hey, baby, oh, baby, pretty baby,
Tell me what you do me now.
(repeat)
Didnt take too long fore I found out
What people mean my down and out.
Spent my money, took my car,
Started tellin her friends she wants to be a star.
I dont know but I been told
A big legged woman aint got no soul.
* chorus
All I ask for when I pray,
Steady rollin woman gonna come my way.
Need a woman gonna hold my hand
And tell me no lies, make me a happy man.
VII. Editorial and disquisition on Michael Vick
First of all, according to the Bible and the major religions, God gave Man dominion over the earth and all its living creatures. That pretty much means that man has substantial rights to do what he will with bears, dogs and cats, especially dogs that have been bred for, and exist because of, dogfighting. In short, the metaphysical existence of dogfighting breeds, and hence any of their metaphysical and ethical rights, are dependent upon, and exist by virtue of, their participation in and breeding for, dogfighting.
within of course, the law.
The same arguments of course apply to poodles, thoroughbred horses, cattle and many other animals which man has bred for man’s own needs and enjoyment. 99% of the rats which exist in laboratories today were bred and brought into metaphysical existence, in a word, instantiated, for the simple purpose of being experimented upon in a laboratory. Their rights and ethical/juridical existences are sub-dependent upon their instantive and metaphysical existence as being created to be lab rats.
In short, about 90% of all dogs, cats, cattle and other animals bred and brought into existence by man exist in a sort of BRAVE NEW WORLD existence, where they are actually genetically bred to serve a purpose, like the alphas, betas, and so forth of Aldous Huxley’s famous work.
As such, I can’t get morally excited or revolted about the fact that Michael Vick or his friends engaged in dogfighting with dogs bred to do dogfighting. After all, it’s what the dogs were bred to do, and in China, people eat dogs.
still, there are technical legal violations, but morally, i can equate it to ray lewis killing a man, or michael tyson raping a girl, or kobe bryant raping a girl, or oj simpson killing two people at once. or even to dante stallworth killing someone while driving drunk.
the life and dignity of a person has to be more valuable than the life and dignity of an animal. if that’s not true, our ethical and legal and moral systems are skewed.
In America, we have something like 100 million dogs and cats, and by all reasonably rational accounts, they are better fed and better cared for in terms of food, medical care and housing, than the bottom 100 million of our own population.
Animals have a powerful lobby; the poor do not. Mistreatment of animals usually draws a powerful response and a jail sentence; mistreatment of the poor usually draws a yawn. If a single dog or cat is hurt, the police cannot wait to find the rascal; but five hundred to a thousand poor African American victims of homicide die in our cities each year without any of those cases being solved.
There are no dogs or cats, to my knowledge, that have to sell their bodies for sexual pleasure in order to eat or obtain drugs or housing; yet we have tens if not hundreds of thousands of young women of all colors, races and cultures prostituting themselves on the streets of our cities in order to feed their drug habits, keep themselves fed, clothed and sheltered. The police and authorities don’t care about these women, but the animal lobbies care plenty about those dogs and cats.
Every year in the NFL, NBA and other leagues, you hear of players having illegitimate children, beating their wives, girlfriends, abusing their spouses, girlfriends, and in many cases, being accused of rape, most notably in the case of Kobe Bryant.
Let’s compare Kobe Bryant for a moment to Michael Vick. Kobe Bryant raped a woman (allegedly) in a Colorado hotel room. Michael Vick’s friends ran a dog fighting ring.
Yet, who went to jail and was prosecuted? Michael Vick or Kobe Bryant. I don’t have to tell you the answer. It was Michael Vick.
And you know the reason—because dogs are treated better in this country than women, and especially women who are the victims of abuse, rape and violence against women.
Dogs have a lobby, dogs provoke popular outrage, and dogs get police protection.
But abused women get nothing, except perhaps “she lied” or “her testimony is questionable” or “she’s of questionable moral character”.
In philosophical academic and legal circles today, there is a growing and popular movement centering on “animal rights”—the notion that animals are sentient beings entitled to the full panoply of civil and social rights that humans enjoy. There’s really well-read people at Ivy League universities making those arguments, which probably proves that they’re bs deconstruction communist arguments intended to undermine capitalism (e.g. if we give all animals rights, the capitalist superstructure will collapse of its own weight).
in fact, i even hear rumors from dc that a major figure appointed to the obama administration faces problems being confirmed–because he once wrote an article critical of animal rights.
the republican party is attempting to stop his nomination by claiming the man in question is a dog hater.
never mind that the guy is on his third wife and never sees his kids–those aren’t issues at all. what’s important is how he treats his dogs, not how he treats his wives.
are you kidding me? how have we gone in this country to judging a man by how he treats his pets, rather than by whether he can stay in a marriage or not?
Notwithstanding the commonsense fact that these are collectively the most ridiculous theories ever conceived by professors in the history of academia, this animal rights movement is actually gaining a lot of steam, which goes to show that any stupid gropundless theory can gain traction, as was the case for year with marxism.
Then again, a great many European lawyers in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries made a terrific living specializing in criminal defense of women accused of witchcraft. Pretty much everyone in Europe in that time was unanimous in the believe that around 25% of all women were witches or possessed by demons. That belief even crawled over, famously, to Salem Massachusetts for a while in the 1690s (see “The Crucible”).
Meanwhile, the womans’ rights movement to pass an Equal Rights Amendment and to obtain relief from violence against women continues to go nowhere. Maybe people still think many women are witches still, while cats and dogs can’t be possessed by evil spirits. (in fact, the New Testament flatly states that Jesus cast out an evil spirit from a human into an animal, more than once, I believe, so this is not true).
In fact, soon gay lesbian transgendered persons, along with cats and dogs, may all soon enjoy more constitutional and legal protections than women. Ted Olson, Esq., a prominent conservative republican attorney, is working with others to overturn the defense of marriage act signed into law by president bill clinton in 1996. they want federal courts to overturn the prop 8 process and issue a federal constitutional ruling.
so much for democracy, i suppose.
I’m not opposed to these other groups enjoying protections, but shouldn’t we fully address the equality of women before the law before we tackle the issues of other groups? Isn’t this fair and just? Obama has been strangely silent on women’s rights after being nominated over Hilary despite having fewer votes and fewer large states won than Hilary (he won due to technicalities in the apportionment formulas in the Democratic party which favored the small states; under the 1988 and prior rules, Hilary would have been the clear winner of the nomination).
though he did say he wanted to overturn the defense of marriage act. he didn’t say anything about enacting the ERA or helping battered women, though. i supposed by the end of the day, african americans, gays, transgendered and lesbians will have more rights than women, along with dogs and cats.
Women are the mother of us all (and I only mention this because August 15th is the saint day of the Holy Virgin Mary in the Greek Orthodox Church) and therefore deserve our saintly attentions as well as our full legal constitutional and law enforcement protections, before we bestow a drop of attention on dogs or cats, or other allegedly disadvantaged groups, especially groups that don’t have to raise kids or shop for groceries or both work and change diapers and also take care of a husband and a kid or three.
Animals were used by the pagan Roman Empire to eat the Christians in the arenas during the many persecutions of Christians before St. Constantine made Christianity the state religion @ 330 A.D. and moved the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Constantinople (where it remains to the present day). maybe its just for us to get back a little at animals for eating us.
Hercules had to slay a lion to prove he was a god. Samson had to kill a lion to prove he was the strongest of men. Killing animals in both greek myth and the bible was tantamount to sainthood and deification. In ancient times, you killed animals and sacrificed them to the gods, if you were an ancient greek, or to GOD, if you were in ancient Israel. How many sheep, goats, rams, etc. were sacrificed in the Old Testament to God? About a zillion, by my count.
Animals, in GOD’s view, were pretty much expendable. They didn’t have rights. Not only didn’t they have rights, but they were the COMMUNION of the ancient service. In the ancient service, there wasn’t just wine and a wafer (or wine and bread as we do it in the eastern Byzantine rite); no, what you got was a dead animal, which you put on the altar, and you BURNED IT FOR GOD along with prayers and incantations.
Imagine trying to do that today in modern America. They’d try and put you in jail for five years. Just for obeying the will of God.
I would argue that the juridical, moral and ethical status of animals has not changed in 12,000 years. We’ve killed more HUMANS in the 20th century than in all prior centuries; and there are more humans and animals alive in the 20th and 21st century than ever before; consequently, it stands to reason that while we might aspire to more ethical protections for humans, animals do not deserve any additional or heightened ethical protections.
Even assuming the status quo, animals, specifically dogs, are routinely mistreated everywhere in the United States. Not twenty minutes from Harvard University, my alma mater, there was a stop on the boston t called “Wonderland”, where they ran dog races back in the 1970s, and where I believe they continue to do so. Not horses, although horse racing is just as barbaric (how many horses have we seen break a leg and then be “sacrificed”), greyhound dogs are bred to run, chasing a mechanical rabbit along the inside of the track to exhaustion. These dogs, once they are done racing, do not make for good pets, and must often be put to sleep once they are done, unless they can be put to stud. Their lives are pretty awful; kept in bad kennels, fed poorly and kept poorly.
The conditions at Wonderland over the last thirty years, and Wonderland is a Massachussets sanctioned facility, would make the treatment of animals at the Michael Vick home seem wonderful.
I won’t even get into all the nutty dog and cat owners who have twenty or thirty cats or dogs. Or celebrity or politician dog or pet owners, who have four or five “rescue animals”, but don’t have the time to take care of them and hand them off to the maid or butler. I’m sure those dogs and cats are having a wonderful time full of love and attention.
In California, a lot of people don’t have kids but keep dogs and cats. In this wacky state, people are a little pathological about their pets, because they do the Freudian slip thing and sublimate, switching their displaced normal maternal/paternal instincts to the dog/cat pet from the child they were intended by biology and nature to have, so they actually commit the (1) sin and (2) error, of giving a humanity to their dog/cat pet(s).
It’s important to note that in God’s eyes, your dog or cat is NOT the same as your son or daughter. The bible commands you to GO FORTH AND MULTIPLY. It doesn’t say anything about being a shepherd and tending flock, except to describe lots of shepherds tending flocks. A person with pets is just a shepherd tending their flock.
Unless of course your pet happens to be the LAMB OF GOD, agnus dei.
But that’s a story for another day.
bottom line, i can’t get too worked up over michael vicks alleged acts of animal cruelty. while a little weird, they’re not exactly directed at people, and that’s the bottom line.
ART KYRIAZIS philly south jersey
home of the world champion phillies
posted august 22 2009
A GREAT TV DAY YESTERDAY AUG 16TH
August 17, 2009
WHAT A DAY FOR TV YESTERDAY AUGUST 16TH.
1) AN ELVIS MARATHON ON TCM, INCLUDING ‘KID CREOLE’.
2) THE RETURN OF DON DRAPER AND MAD MEN FOR SEASON THREE.
3) THE PHILS DESTROY THE BRAVES ON NATIONAL TV SUNDAY NITE BASEBALL ON RYAN HOWARDS TWO ENORMOUS HOMERS, SOLO AND THREE RUN SHOTS, AND WIN 4-1 AS JA HAPP WINS 9TH OF YEAR AGAINST 2 LOSSES.
Is it just me, or watching Elvis and Don Draper, do I get the feeling that back in 1961, smoking, drinking, and driving drunk, were GOOD for you?
That chasing women, even if you were married, was what men were supposed to do no matter what? and that this was ok as long as you came back to your wife at the end of the road trip or whatever?
the flip side of all this is getting inside of don draper’s creative process, which seems to require that 1) he gets a new account 2) he can’t think of an idea 3) he needs to bed down some new conquest not his wife in a seedy motel 4) the plane ride back or in his office later, he suddenly and brilliantly spits out the ad idea of the century for the account.
i’d think it was a crock, except my brother in law is an ad guy and i’ve seen his creative side work like this (except for all the wild sex) (I’m joking, he actually made don draper look like a monk back in the day) (that would be the chiat day).
speaking of monk, he’s back, and they’ve announced it’s his final season. this is rare for a tv show to say “that’s all folks”.
so the question begins, how many episodes will they devote to solving trudy’s murder before they wrap it all up? It’s been what, seven, eight years, and Monk has one case, one huge case, he’s never solved–the case of his wife Trudy’s murder.
It has to be solved.
Finally, a word about Elvis. “kid creole” is actually a very fine movie. the early elvis movies, from before 1962, are pretty good, and even the vintage ones, from the 60s, have fine qualities about them.
–art kyriazis
philly home of the world champion phillies
Chicago-Boston NBA Series
May 15, 2009
Well, no matter that Boston won in 7 incredible games, this has turned into a pleasant surprise, and a rivalry at that.
I remember well the old Michael Jordan-Larry Bird Chicago-Boston series of the 1980s, which were insane, with Jordan scoring infinity points, but Boston having a better team and winning anyway, and these games have been a lot like that.
Without Garnett, Boston has come down to earth, and Chicago has great young players, especially DERRICK ROSE the SUPER ROOKIE who’s really come to play. He only dropped 36 on Boston his first playoff game—Iverson-like intensity in the playoff cauldron. Watching Rose square off against Paul Pierce and Ray Allen was really something.
Chicago has at least six championship banners from the Jordan years, and a lot of titles, and Boston has at least thirteen from the Russell year, another five from the Bird years, and one from last year, so between them these two franchises have about half of the all the NBA championships of the last fifty years. It’s a lot of history and pride on the line.
I know Philly-Boston used to be something, and Boston-LA is always something, but Chicago-Boston is surely something too, and this year’s playoff series between the two was SOMETHING.
Chicago was assisted by at least three ex-Sixers this year—Larry Hughes, Tim Thomas and John Salmons—for different portions of the year. Hughes helped Chicago in the first half of the season, before he was moved to the NY Knicks, while Salmons was a late season acquisition from the Sacramento Kings. Thomas was over the hill, but helped them all year, including during the playoffs.
Everyone will remember the awful trade of Salmons, Kenny Thomas and Corliss Williamson a couple of years back for an over the hill, injured and not so productive Chris Webber—well, to be fair, in 2005-06, Webber’s only full season with the Sixers, he did average 20 ppg, balancing scoring duties with Iverson, and the Sixers won 38 games—and missed the last playoff spot in the east by 2 games. Such is the difference between success and failure in the NBA. Everyone thought that pairing would last forever.
That is until the two of them missed fan appreciation day the next to last day of the season. All the old fat white guys on sports radio suddenly went nuts and demanded they both be traded. Are you kidding me?
By the very next season, Webber played only 18 games, Iverson was back to scoring 30 plus ppg, but the Sixers panicked and traded Iverson after only 15 games, regressed to 35 wins, again missing the playoffs by five wins. Webber’s contract was bought out and I’m not even sure he ever played again.
In the meantime, John Salmons by this past season had developed into a very fine player with Sacramento—at 6 foot seven he was a good defensive player, and he finally had learned the offensive game, pouring in twenty points a game for the lowly Kings.
Chicago, in need of a scoring guard, took notice and picked Salmons up for a song during midseason (where was Eddie Stefanski during all this?) and Salmons helped drive Chicago into the playoffs and the final seed during a late season run.
Watching a guy like Salmons who played his high school ball at Plymouth-Whitemarsh, and who spent his first four years in a Sixers uniform, help drive the Chicago Bulls to a playoff spot, was kind of annoying to me this year. It only got worse during the legendary Game Six of this years Chicago-Boston series, the triple-overtime game in which Salmons dropped 35 points on the Celtics. Now that was showing off.
Does anyone doubt that Salmons could have been helpful at the two guard position this year for the Sixers? I think the case is closed on that one. Salmons is tall, he plays good defense and he can score.
This past year Salmons earned 5.7 win shares, one of those defensive, and averaged close to 19 ppg. His field goal average was .473, very efficient, and his three point average was .415, also excellent, and he averaged 2 assists and only 1.7 turnovers a game. That goes along with 4.3 rebounds a game. Throw in a steal a game and a block a game, and you’ve got a really good player who can do a lot of good things. It’s true Salmons is now thirty years old, but so what? He might be a late bloomer, but if he’s learned to play the game, he’s learned to play the game. And he can play.
Ray Allen is what, a hundred? He was playing for Milwaukee back when the amphibians and the reptiles first walked on dry land. He’s so old that some of the cave paintings in France are attributed to him. I’m not saying Ray Allen is old, but he has grandchildren playing ball in college right now. It’s not that Ray Allen is old, but he’s the only NBA player I know who get’s Social Security checks delivered next to his NBA paychecks.
Seriously, though, Ray Allen is the ageless wonder, a beautiful player who can still play the game beautifully, and for those who think Allen Iverson is washed up or too old, I offer as exhibit one, Ray Allen. Small shooting guards who are pure shooters can play a long time in the NBA—I think here of the wondrous Hal Greer of the Sixers—a Hall of Famer—who played of course with Wilt on the 1967 team that won 68 teams and dethroned the Celtics for the title—and we should be mindful of this fact.
In short, Boston-Chicago was a wonderful, marvelous series, a beautiful thing to witness, pure basketball at its best, overtime game upon overtime game, each with its own storyline. Neither time yielded or gave quarter. It’s nice to see pro athletes play that hard and that long and give effort on that scale. Again, it’s reminiscent of the days of Jordan and Bird and when they first met in the late 1980s—those playoff series were wars between Chicago and Boston. This latest series was no less.
–art kyriazis, philly/south jersey
home of the world champion philadelphia phillies
THE WORLD’S SHORTEST BOOKS by Mark J. Leonardo, Esquire, Attorney at Law, Malibu, California
May 13, 2009
The World’s Shortest Books:
THINGS I LOVE ABOUT MY COUNTRY
by Oscar Winer Jane Fonda & Cindy Sheehan .
Illustrated by Michael Moore
________________________________________
MY CHRISTIAN ACCOMPLISHMENTS &
HOW I HELPED AFTER KATRINA
by the Revs Jesse Jackson & Al Sharpton
_______________________________________
THINGS I LOVE ABOUT BILL
by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
________________________________
Sequel:
THINGS I LOVE ABOUT HILLARY
By former President Bill Clinton
___________________________________
MY LITTLE BOOK OF PERSONAL HYGIENE
by Osama Bin Laden
___________________________________
THINGS I CANNOT AFFORD
by Microsoft Chair Emeritus Bill Gates
____________________________________
THINGS I WOULD NOT DO FOR MONEY
by NBA Rebound Champion Dennis Rodman
_________________________________
THINGS I KNOW TO BE TRUE
by Nobel Prize Winner Al Gore & Sen. John Kerry
_______________________________________
AMELIA EARHART’S GUIDE TO THE PACIFIC
___________________________________
A COLLECTION of
MOTIVATIONAL SPEECHES: REASONS TO LOVE LIFE.
by Suicide Doctor Jack Kevorkian
__________________________________
TO ALL THE MEN I HAVE LOVED BEFORE
by Ellen de Generes & Rosie O’Donnell
____________________________________
GUIDE TO DATING ETIQUETTE
by former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson
__________________________________
THE AMISH PHONE DIRECTORY
_______________________________________
MY PLAN TO FIND THE REAL KILLERS
by Former Heisman Winner O.J. Simpson
_________________________________________
HOW TO DRINK & DRIVE OVER BRIDGES
by Senator Ted Kennedy
___________________________________
MY BOOK OF MORALS
by former President Bill Clinton
with introduction by The Rev. Jesse Jackson
*******************************************************
AND, JUST ADDED:
Complete Knowledge of Military Strategy!
By House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi
Mark J. Leonardo, Esq.
THE LAW OFFICES OF MARK J. LEONARDO, ESQ.
784 Latigo Canyon Road
Malibu, California 90265
(310) 456-7373
(310) 317-7261 (fax)
MARK LEONARDO IS NOT JUST ONE OF THE BEST ATTORNEYS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA–HE’S ALSO A GREAT PIANO PLAYER, A WONDERFUL FATHER, AND HE’S PERSONAL FRIENDS WITH FELLOW DETROIT NATIVE KID ROCK!!!! (WELL, HE USED TO BE UNTIL THE KID SPLIT UP WITH PAM ANDERSON). MARK IS ONE RIGHT ON DUDE!!! CALL HIM FOR ALL YOUR LEGAL PROBLEMS IN CALI!!!! AND, SINCE HIS OFFICE IS IN MALIBU, YOU CAN GO SURFING AT MALIBU POINT AFTER YOUR BUSINESS MEETING OR JUST HIT THE BEACH AT ZUMA…..
–art kyriazis philly/south jersey
home of the non-steroid using world champion philadelphia phillies
THE SIXERS STAND PAT AT THE TRADE DEADLINE
March 5, 2009
The Sixers stood pat at the trade deadline and promptly came out of the all-star break looking awful, dropping five of six. Meanwhile, Miami, which is in a position to catch Atlanta for the #4 see in the NBA east playoffs (the Sixers are 6th, Miami is 5th, and Atlanta is 4th), made a major move, obtaining Jermaine O’Neal from Toronto, though they had to give up some talent to get him. O’Neal always give the Sixers problems because he’s a good big man who’s mobile and can outplay Dalembert one on one. He will likely give Atlanta problems as well in the playoffs, incidentally.
In the meantime, looking from a distance, the Sixers have not really capitalized on the big event of the season, which is the decline and fall of the Detroit Pistons. While Orlando has risen up to join Cleveland and Boston as division leaders, the Pistons now have a worse record than the Sixers, and this was a Detroit team that last year was the #2 seed playing the Sixers and defeating them at the #7 seed. Right now
Detroit is the #7 seed BEHIND philly and fading out of the playoffs.
When a major team like this is out of the playoff picture, your GM should be approaching them about obtaining one of their players at the trade deadline, like a Rasheed Wallace, who can hit the three and rebound, and doesn’t have that much time left on his contract. He could have helped the Sixers. Or even Allen Iverson, who while obviously in the decline phase of his career, could have helped the Sixers coming off the bench, or playing the two guard, a position that has been a problem for the Sixers this year. Iverson could have helped the Sixers playing alongside Andre Miller, with Iguodala up front and Dalembert and either Young or Speights playing the power forward.
Even if AI only played 20 minutes a game, he’d help.
But the Sixers have done nothing. They instead committed everything to a gigantic blunder by signing Elton Brand, who is hurt, injured and will never be better, I predict. Even if he comes back, this is starting to look like the Jeff Ruland situation all over again. A hurt player who will never play like he did pre-injury. Or Glenn Robinson. Or Chris Webber. Or any of ten other guys that have come to this ballclub hurt and making a bundle. The guys who can play and never get hurt, like Barkeley and AI, we seem to give away for nothing.
Or Brad Doughery or Moses Malone.
How about this team?
Brad Dougherty, Moses Malone, AI, Charles Barkeley, Wilt Chamberlain.
You think you could win a few championships with that team?
That’s the five greatest sixers in history traded for virtually nothing.
For those five NBA hall of famers, the Sixers received; Roy Hinson, Jeff Ruland, Andre Miller, Jeff Hornacek, Darrell Imhoff and some other throw in players.
Those are five ok players, but not hall of famers.
Malone, Barkley and Chamberlain are 3 of the top 10 all time NBA rebounders of all time, incidentally, while if you add AI, you’ve got four of the top 25 scorers in NBA history as well. Dougherty, though he was finished early by his back, was a stud every year he was in the league, 20 ppg and 10 rebounds or more. The Sixers could have had Dougherty AND Barkeley for ten years straight. They would have won five championships in all likelihood with that combination. Even against Michael Jordan that combo wins.
The late Timmy Ling, my dear prep school classmate and friend, used to make fun of the Sixers’ drafts when we were in high school. During those years, the Sixers took some #1 draft picks as follows;
1969 – Bud Ogden
1970 – Al Henry
1971 – Dana Lewis
1972 – Freddie Boyd
Ling was relentless making fun of Ogden, Henry, Lewis and Boyd, and justifiably so. While other teams were drafting some of the greatest players in history in these years (Kareem Abdul Jabbar, for example) the Sixers basically decided, we aren’t going to get into a bidding war with the ABA, so we’ll just draft nobodies and pay nothing to no one. It was horrible, and got worse when Billy Cunningham walked to the ABA in 1973. The franchise hit bottom when they won only 9 games in the 73 season, still an NBA record for futility. Shortly thereafter, came George McGuiness and Dr. J and the big turnaround, but it was a bad stretch.
They got it right in 1973 with Doug Collins, but in 1974 the Sixers drafted Marvin Barnes, who I think is dead or in rehab now, but anyway, Barnes was about 7 foot, but had a drug and rap sheet as long as could be, and he ended up in the ABA and in jail much more than on the court. In 1975 the sixers drafted Darryl Dawkins #1 right out of high school.
Dawkins in today’s NBA would have been a star. In the condensed NBA of the 70s, he was only ok. He wasn’t as good as the best centers, and consequently was underrated at the time. Today, he’d be a star in the expanded NBA.
In 76 and 77 the Sixers drafted #1 Terry Furlow and Glenn Moseley, non-entities, but in 1978 they picked Mo Cheeks, a legend. 1979 was a miss, but 1980 got them Andrew Toney with the #1, and Andrew Toney became the Boston Strangler. Though his career was shortened by injury, Toney would have become a Hall of Famer with longevity.
And, of course, 1984, #1 pick was Charles Barkeley, who was the quintessential hall of famer and probably the Sixers’ best player since Wilt and before AI.
Even though Sir Charles is a DWI man, and spit on girls while he was here, and is overly fond of guns, we still like him because he’s a bit of a buffoon, and a bit of a thinking man’s man. Also, he lived to rebound and score, and he rebounded and scored because that’s what he lived for. 20 ppg and 10 rebounds pg were his calling card, and he punched those in every season like clockwork.
and no one his size (as short as he was) ever led the league in rebounding once, let alone several times.
When he played alongside moses malone, who was basically the same kind of player as Sir Charles, the two were an unstoppable force.
But the Sixers broke them up with trades, and also traded away Dougherty; Dougherty, Malone and Barkeley would have been the core of an unstoppable basketball team. You’re talking three guys who clocked 10-15 win shares every year routinely.
And we wonder why the Sixers never win championships or make the playoffs like they used to. For a while they wanted to trade Dr. J too.
Getting back to the now, Eddie Stefanski has watched and done nothing while Atlanta, a horrible team, passed the Sixers by this past year. He made noise about signing Josh Smith of Atlanta, but never got serious. Instead, Atlanta got him back, signed Bibby from Sacramento and added both a point guard and three point threat and made the playoffs last year; this year they are the fourth seed and playing much like the sixers, a young, running team, except that Atlanta are better at it than the Sixers because they can shoot the three. If I’m sitting down comparing Atlanta to the Sixers, I’m saying Atlanta has the better squad right now, up and down the lineup. It’s not close.
And because it’s not close, and because you want the 4th seed if you can’t have a LeBron, a Howard, a Garnett like Cleveland, Orlando or Boston, you have to compare what you do have to what the competition has, and try and get better at the trade deadline. Miami did this but Philly did not. I see this as weakness from the GM and a refusal to invest in the team. Furthermore, weakness caused by commitment to Elton Brand.
I had a lot of comments in the AI post, below, about what’s wrong with Elton Brand and why the salary cap dump of the AI trade was botched by the Brand sigining. In a word, the Sixers moved too quickly to lock up their salary cap room with the wrong guy. they should have waited for someone better and waited another year if necessary.
It wasn’t necessary to fire mo cheeks. Cheeks’ record was mainly due to Brand playing a poor brand of basketball; once he was pulled from the lineup, the team played better automatically. While Tony DiLeo gets some credit, the fact is the team played better because subtracting Brand was addition by subtraction.
Cheeks is the guy who got them to the playoffs last year. It remains to be seen if DiLeo has the necessary skills to get the Sixers to the playoffs and actually win two games if he gets there. I doubt that he does.
Art Kyriazis
Philly/South Jersey
Home of the World Champion Philadelphia Phillies
It probably isn’t news to anyone currently breathing that every newspaper owning corporation in the United States is currently in bankruptcy Chapter 11 proceedings. Here in Philadelphia, after sinking more that 500 million bucks to take the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philly Daily News off the hands of the guys who bought them from Knight Ridder, the purchasing group headed by Brian Tierney et al. ended more than eleven months of negotiations with creditors by filing for Chapter 11 protection with the United States Bankruptcy Court, meaning reorganization and possible liquidation. There are serious rumors that only one of the two newspapers will survive, probably the Inquirer.
In a way, this is strange, because there was a time in Philadelphia, and I don’t mean going back to Ben Franklin, when it was obvious that the Inquirer was the worst and most pitiful newspaper in town. The Philadelphia Public Ledger was the newspaper of record (its building still stands at 6th & Chestnut) for many decades, while the Philadelphia Bulletin was clearly the better of the two papers while the Bulletin and Inquirer were the two main papers in the second half of the 20th century.
Of course, the Public Ledger went under in the Great Depression; it died in a court-ordered liquidation in 1941 or 1942. This may just be history repeating itself. The Public Ledger was owned jointly by the owners of the NY Times, incidentally.
For a complete list of ALL newspapers ever printed in Philadelphia, go to this website pdf of newspapers held by the free library of philadelphia;
http://libwww.freelibrary.org/faq/guides/FLP-NEWSPAPER-HOLDINGS-BY-DECADE.pdf
you’ll be shocked and amazed how many newspapers there have been and how many small ones there still are other than the inquirer and daily news even now.
But then again, the Philadelphia Athletics won five world series and too many pennants to count between 1901 and 1953, and were the main baseball team in Philadelphia for more than fifty years. No one gave a fig about the Phillies. It was only after Connie Mack died and the A’s moved away that the Phillies finally developed a fan base, and even then not really until the 1964 pennant run with Dick Allen and Jim Bunning did they really draw any fans. But who remembers the A’s today in Philly? Where are they today? No one in Philadelphia remembers them at all.
There’s a small museum in one of the counties, and a small bronze plaque at the new ballpark. That’s about it for the team that in the first half of the 20th century was the second best ballclub in the American League, and by far the best professional sports team in Philadelphia.
Getting back to newspapers, the point is that you can’t understand history by looking at it now. If you looked around now and saw humans, you’d never know that dinosaurs once ruled the earth. Likewise, looking around and seeing the Inquirer being the main newspaper, you’d never know that once there was a Public Ledger, a Bulletin, and probably a dozen other papers. Even the Saturday Evening Post, the nation’s number one women’s magazine, was published right here in Philadelphia, but it died too. That building is still around also. We have seen the end of magazines like Life, the Saturday Evening Post, and most recently, U.S. News & World Report, in the past forty years. Now newspapers are dying as well.
There were a lot of great movies about newspapers. The best movie of all time is about newspapers. Here I refer to Citizen Kane (1941), which is a thinly veiled biopic of William Randolph Hearst and his media empire.
There’s also Meet John Doe (1936) and let’s not forget All the President’s Men (1974).
I’d throw in Broadcast News (1980s) as well, even though it’s really a TV movie, just because it’s flat out hysterically funny and not at all dated, and because Brooks is one of my favorite comics in the world other than Mike Reiss. Just looking at Brooks makes you laugh.
But history does repeat itself. The Hearst media empire was bankrupted by the Great Depression—so much so that Hearst himself, so rich that he could build the Heart mansion—the famous “Xanadu” in the Kane movie—in San Simeon, California—now a famous museum—actually lost all his money to his creditors in bankruptcy proceedings and lost control of his newspaper holdings. No one today has heard of the New York newspapers that Hearst made his fortune from.
Now, we are going through another serious economic dislocation which is again severely affecting media badly. As badly as Hearst was affected by the Depression and War years, that’s how badly newspapers and old media will be affected this time around. Add to that the free news which is available on the internet, and on every persons’ telephone, and one would be silly to expend money for a newspaper.
It’s quite obvious that within another twenty years, there will be no more magazines or newspapers in print at all, that everything will be delivered right to your computer, tv or phone via internet. Maybe (and I often futurize about this) the convergence of nanotechnology and biotechnology will eventuate in a chip being implanted in your brain or neural net, so that you can visualize the images yourself without a machine mediating at all. Perhaps we’ll all be connected to the internet and to each other one day in such a fashion. It’s difficult to make radical predictions, but then again, in 1910, no one could have predicted that baseball, then a deadball sport based on bunting, stealing and pitching, would in the 1920s and thereafter become a sport of sitting around waiting for someone to hit a three run home run.
I will miss the Philadelphia Daily News. For the last forty years, it’s been the best sports paper in the country, and I’ve read all the other papers around, including the Boston Globe, the Chicago, the LA, the NY and SF papers. NY has tabloids basically and no good writing at all; the Boston Globe for a long time had great writers, but they’ve all gone to ESPN or national outlets where the money really is; and no other city really had good sports writing. Philly might be the last town in which there’s been good beat writing and sports writing for a long time now.
If the Daily News goes, that will probably be the end of it, though it may survive on line since there’s an online edition of the daily news that’s pretty good, and even better, available nationally to all former philly residents who follow their teams. So when they throw the last daily news into the fire and you see the sled burning with the name “rosebud,” remember you read it here—this was all a story about Charley Foster Kane, who wanted to be the world’s greatest newspaperman, and succeeded all too well.
By the way, I mentioned in a prior post that GE was way off about Jimmy Fallon? GE stock is now trading at five dollars a share. That’s right, five dollars a share. they made a big deal about this on one of the network news shows while i was working out on the elliptical at the gym. whoa nellie! The stock apparently has completely crashed.
Jack and Suzy Welch, would you buy this company’s stock? It was trading at $40 just last year. And now it’s down to $5 a share and dropping like a rock. Pretty soon it will be worth, say, 1923 German deutsche marks, which is to say, nothing.
Oh yes I would says the Wizard of OZ. You can get a thousand shares in this company now for the price of a song. Heck, the only place the stock can go is a little down, or a lot up.
I said they should have bumped Leno three years ago. While I recognize most of their problems are with GE Capital, entertainment is the division that’s always recession proof.
If you’re not sure about that, check out the fact that 1930s and 1970s are the greatest eras of film history.
Jimmy Fallon had another great show–Jon Bon Jovi did a duet with one of his fans, while Tina Fey sat and rooted the two of them on. I think it was the girls’ dream moment of her life, all caught on camera. You can bet that will be on youtube.
Art Kyriazis
Philly/South Jersey
Home of the World Champion Philadelphia Phillies
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