This year on September 25, Bob Matthews passed away. He was the sound behind the Grateful Dead live albums Live/Dead, the Skull n Roses album, Europe 72', 100 Year hall etc)
David Lee Roth is retiring after his Las Vegas gigs. We all get old. And yet, Record World goes on n on.
Mandy Barnett has been one of the best unknown but known country singers, a voice like Patsy Cline to which Mandy had done a tribute to Patsy for a few years running. On her 46th birthday, The Grand Ole Opry finally extended her an invite to become part of the Grand Ole Opry family. About time.
(Ouch!)
In some ways the feel good story of Maryland getting crushed mirrors Arkansas rise to 4-0 in the young season upsetting Texas A M last week and reality came calling with a 37-0 shutout at number 2 Georgia. It doesn't mean that season is over for both teams. Both can still be proud of what they have achieved. Nevertheless, Alabama is number 1 and will remain number 1, likewise Georgia at 2. Oregon got knocked off by Stanford, they will fall out of the number 3 position. Number 4 Penn State shut out Indiana, who is becoming a disappointment in the big ten. Iowa State took out Kansas 59-7, Brock Purdy throwing for 4 TDs in the first quarter. And in the late game, Arizona State went to Los Angeles and beat UCLA 42-23. Jaylon Daniels passing for 286 yards and two touchdowns. Ricky Pearsall scoring on 65 and 54 yard bombs, well the latter was a screen pass that Pearsall tore through the UCLA D. Arizona State's D shut down the UCLA O in the second half and shut them out. For their reward, ASU will host Stanford and perhaps make their way back to the top 25 college teams. UCLA will likely drop out.
Iowa passed the test of playing a up and coming Maryland team in College Park and blew them out 51-14. And for their effort, they jumped over Penn State to take the number 3 rated team in College Football.
The Iowa Defense terrorized the Terrapins offense by grabbing six interceptions and forcing a fumble. And scoring 31 points in the second half (Would have been 35 had the refs not intervene and take away a Iowa TD) T. Tagovailiola (why can't we get players with names we can write correctly?) threw for 5 INTs and was taken out of the game. Dontay Demus Jr, their biggest threat, twisted his ankle and was caeted off the field. Even tho, Iowa Defense really stole the show (51 points off turnovers, take that Norte Dame) this was Spencer Petras best game, throwing for three touchdowns and running for two. This will set up a epic showdown with Penn State next week in Iowa City. While there still doubts about Iowa's offense, so far the defense has been unstoppable. That is what you want in a winning team.
In some ways the feel good story of Maryland getting crushed mirrors Arkansas rise to 4-0 in the young season upsetting Texas A M last week and reality came calling with a 37-0 shutout at number 2 Georgia. It doesn't mean that season is over for both teams. Both can still be proud of what they have achieved. Nevertheless, Alabama is number 1 and will remain number 1, likewise Georgia at 2. Oregon got knocked off by Stanford, they will fall out of the number 3 position. Number 4 Penn State shut out Indiana, who is becoming a disappointment in the big ten. Iowa State took out Kansas 59-7, Brock Purdy throwing for 4 TDs in the first quarter. And in the late game, Arizona State went to Los Angeles and beat UCLA 42-23. Jaylon Daniels passing for 286 yards and two touchdowns. Ricky Pearsall scoring on 65 and 54 yard bombs, well the latter was a screen pass that Pearsall tore through the UCLA D. Arizona State's D shut down the UCLA O in the second half and shut them out. For their reward, ASU will host Stanford and perhaps make their way back to the top 25 college teams. UCLA will likely drop out.
It's October, and the New Bo Market has gone from Friday night concerts to a October of outdoor Halloween movies, to which I got to watch the ridiculous Scooby Doo movie, between going back to the Chrome Horse to watch the Iowa game and to surprise some folks by watching Last Call. Before I left, there was this bodacious and beautiful blonde that surprised the hell out of me of wanting to slow dance to Tennessee Whiskey, the overplayed Chris Stapleton nugget that even I play as part of Acoustic Adventures. It's been a while since I had somebody rub their boobies on me (that will never happen again) and me hoping to hell that nobody tells my other half. In the middle of the song she asked me about the guy sitting next to me and she must have been plastered. She asked me if that long hair girl was my wife. To which I looked at her funny, I can't hear even on a good day, so I asked her to repeat the question again. Thought she meant another friend Laurie, who was in a wheel chair. The second time, I looked at her and said no, that's not my wife, that's Gary, who is a guy. I'm sure she was embarrassed by finding out that and I winked and thanked her for the dance. And proceeded to call it a night. However it was a fun time hanging out with my drum brother who bought pizza during the Iowa game. Laurie is recovering from ankle replacement. Hope she has a speedy recovery.
Ratings aka Pointless Banter: 1,946 for the month of September. Nothing much gained, nothing much lost. Archives trump the latest news, discouraging to see people liking the Best albums of 2009 over the Davenport Baseball Weekend blog of last week. And I don't even think I play any of the Best of 2009 albums all that much anymore. The Moondog 45s from 2 years ago, got a big boost. Not from me, unless I'm referencing one of the 45s in that blog. In this case I forgot all about those singles.
Facebook has become notorious for banning people for 30 days over certain words. Our fave Mark Prindle got a month long ban for quoting a certain four letter word (K**L) from Flipper's live version of Ever (which can be found on the Sex Bomb Baby comp) but he's back again. I also felt the wrath of the FB sensor over the word Nuke, to which I didn't reference to anything else. In my case, I appealed and FB apologized and kept that word up till I deleted it. Now if FB can get rid of those funny Qanon quacks, we might get somewhere?
Five Star Mud Game
Buffalo 17 Oakland 14
Buffalo 17 Oakland 14
Frank Youell Field-Oakland 11-14-65
Kemp's Revenge
It's hard to call the Raiders the Las Vegas Raiders and playing indoors and on treated grass. Not unlike the days of playing on a high school field with cow pasture of turf. The real Raiders, black and silver, numbers obscured by mud. And this game was just that, rain, mud puddles and the laundry bill to clean all that mud off cost a thou or two. The great Clem Daniels gliding through the mud for 91 yards rushing and scoring two touchdowns. But Jack Kemp, one of the best AFL QB's managed to get Bills back down the field, and converting on a fourth and six. Billy Joe ran it in for a one yard TD and Buffalo got a hard fought 17-10 win Dick Wood, Oakland's QB, had a better rating than Kemp, but he threw three interceptions (2 to Butch Byrd), and Kemp did come alive in the final two minutes to propel the Bills win. Oakland had two more games playing on the chewed up turf, a win over Denver, which wasn't that muddy and then a 24-14 victory over Joe Namath and the New York Jets, another mudful game that Daniels scored 2 TDs and ran for 110 yards.
The weather of 2021 has been quite peaceful, except for the Son of Shitstorm 2020 that came exactly one year after that landscape changing storm. The Arizona monsoon season had 23 days of measurable rain, 4.29 inches of rain at the Phoenix airport all total, making it the second wettest in thirty years. The wettest was 9 inches in 1984 if you care to know. Tucson had 12.43 inches of rain this year, 3rd wettest. Up here, Iowa had a below normal of rainfall but warm temps through the summer. At the moment we are 12 inches below the normal amount of rain we usually get (making us in level 3 drought). October shows we might get more rain, but temps will be above normal (tho that could change). It is a bit odd to see Arizona getting more rain than we are. Not complaining.
We can close the book on the Chicago Cubs season, some glorious highs and some very bad lows but throughout this house cleaning, the Cubs did hold their own at times, tho their pitching staff were terrible at times, but they took two out of three from St. Louis, which basically locked a playoff spot and didn't need to go all out. Tyler Payne and Joe Biagini became the record 68 and 69th players to be used on a roster that had more changes and transactions that could rival War And Peace as a book. The Cubs dropped the first game, then came back to win game 2, on an 2 run Ian Happ home run. And then game 3, which was rain shortened, a 3 to 2 win to which Bianini won the game in relief. If nothing else the Cubs did win their last four out of five game or six out of eight, taking the series with Pittsburger earlier in the week and then the hot Cardinals in St Louis. They finish with 71-91 record, and it will be a 135 days before they get back to spring training and try to correct the wrongs of a season that saw the abrupt trading of their 2016 World Champ superstars Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo and Javy Baez and bringing up the likes of Frank Schwingel, Patrick Wisdom and Rafael Ortega who actually scored more this half of season than the big 3. In the end, the Cubs' pitching, which sucked all year, didn't improve at all, even after trading Craig Kimbrel to the White Sox (which he hasn't done exactly well) and Ryan Tepera (Same to the Sox) and Andrew Chaplin to Oakland. Journeyman Adrian Sampson did fairly well, however Kyle Hendricks faltered during the second half, Alec Mills was off and on and Zac Davies who sucked all year despite pitching a no hitter, which would open the floodgates for a long losing streak that took the sails out of the Cubs and the playoffs went up in smoke. They couldn't Milwaukee when it counted, nor St. Louis for that matter. At least the Cubs went down fighting, in order to get a 7th pick in the draft.
As for Baltimore Orioles. they were shit. 52-110 and they couldn't beat the Toronto Blow Jobs or Tampon Bay. Hell, they couldn't beat anybody. They and Arizona had the worst records 52-110. Another year, another in the cellar stinking up the joint. And so it goes. Toronto beat the O's 14 times in 19 games. Tampon Bay won 18 and lost 1 all season A big joke that is given to the people of Baltimore by the Spanos family, and will continue to be in the shitter till they get new ownership. Despite them helping the the Toronto BJ's, Toronto will join the O's in watching the playoffs. Poetic justice to a team playing a shit team that the BJ's couldn't beat the Yankoffs or Boston when it counted.
And Joe West is retiring, the longest tenured umpire in MLB. He'll call the Dodgers/Cardinals playoff and go on to chase his dream of being a lousy country singer. His umpiring paved the way for the likes of Las Diaz, C B Bucknor and the WOAT, Angel (without a clue) Hernandez. Happy trails Mr. West.
(K A C E Y on Twitter Photo Credit, Jenny playing to an indifferent audience in Forrest Gump)
When it came down to a stripped down sound, Kacey Musgraves pulled no punches on her Saturday Night performance of Justified, from her latest album, wearing only cowboy boots. As they say, nothing is shocking anymore and I've seen it all in the 50 years of music and everything else. In Kacey's own way, she was paying tribute to Jenny, in the classic movie Forrest Gump. To which the above photo is from that movie and not Kacey herself. Will this shock translate into music sales for Kacey? Maybe for one week but then again Melody Gardot posted herself in the nude on her live album for Decca/Verve a couple years ago. Since she was mostly MOR Jazz, she got raked over the coals for that. And may have sold a couple more copies. Decency rules prevents us to show Melody's cover art. And Melody is quite the looker.
If the Rolling Stones want to do a tour without Charlie Watts, I don't have a problem with that since Charlie gave his blessing to the band. And Steve Jordan would be the best replacement, after all Daryl Jones has been the bass player after Bill Wyman left and nobody gave them grief over that. Times have changed, Mick Jagger managed to stroll into a bar unnoticed. Go see them if you can, but without Charlie, any new Stones album would not be the same. But Jordan will come close.
