REHAB PROJECTS

Today, while the blogger nurtures a bunch of pulled back muscles, we turn our thoughts away from college football (momentarily) and back towards Topic B around this blog: music. Specifically, we’re looking at three currently-ignored 80s artists who may, someday, find themselves the beneficiaries/victims of the sort of critical re-examination which sort of brought The Monkees and Neil Diamond back into semi-hipness. I’m not saying that will happen for any of these three, but who would’ve ever thought The Monkees would someday be appreciated for their musical merits? So let’s take a handicapper’s look at . . .

BANANARAMA

On the plus side of the ledger, their low-key, unemotional singing meant they were doing irony before irony was cool. They also did a decent job of incorporating the 60s girl-group sound without sounding too retro. “Robert DeNiro’s Waiting” qualifies as the best sort of subversion, sneaking a Big Statement about date rape into a puffy bubblegum dance tune. (Extra credit to the group for actually writing that song themselves.) “Cruel Summer” has probably the best rock & roll marimba playing there ever will be. Furthermore, Siobhan Fahey actually managed to have some success (though not in the US) with Shakespear’s Sister after Bananarama hung it up. And then there’s the ever-present “cute young women in denim overalls” factor, which cannot be discounted.

The negative is pretty considerable, though. For a trio, they sang in unison a lot, and when they sang in unison, they weren’t always in unison, if you know what I mean. (I could make a trenchant comment here, but I have a reputation to consider . . .) Their post-1985 albums are so formulaic they’re almost unlistenable. And, while they were one of the biggest British acts of the mid-80s, their US career was pretty much a cipher.

Verdict: 80s fashions are bound to come back someday, since everything is inevitable, and when they do, Bananarama will get some consideration as video-age fashion fodder. But it’s doubtful that Bananarama will ever be regarded by most music snobs as much more than a slightly-forgettable precursor to the Spice Girls. That’s unfair; they were better than that, but that’s how it goes. Odds of a full critical rehabilitation: 30-1.

LITTLE RIVER BAND

First things first: I could easily go the rest of my life without hearing “Lonesome Loser” or “Cool Change” one more time. But LRB’s songwriting chops are underappreciated. No 70s pop band would’ve dared to write anything like “Reminiscing,” and even if those pseudo-Bee Gees harmonies haven’t aged well, the song and the sentiment have. “Lady” was a nice adaptation of a tortured lyric as well. There’s one LRB song in particular, though, that I don’t feel has ever gotten its due respect, and that’s “We Two” from 1982’s The Net. Glenn Shorrock, who sang all the group’s previous hits, had just left the band; new lead singer John Farnham absolutely crushed this song with a performance that still hits me like an icicle to the skull. Add in the brooding suspended minor-chord guitar riffs, and this song goes into the “why wasn’t this a bigger hit” Hall of Fame.

The downside of LRB was always their lyrical abilities. “We Two” was great musically, but lyrically, it wouldn’t pass muster in a freshman comp class: Carousels and wishing wells were the things we loved/To fly away in a big balloon was what we talked of and also We are fools/We make all these rules/We make it so hard to find love, to be free, to be fresh out of school suggest that the lyrics may have been written while waiting for lunch to be delivered.

Verdict: It will take some time, but I feel pretty confident that LRB’s basic solidity and undeniable talent will someday get somebody’s attention. If they can get past “Lonesome Loser,” that is. Odds of getting reappreciated: 3-1.

EDDIE MONEY

No, really, at one time he was a fairly important artist. His videos were considered important enough to merit MTV debuts. Eddie Money was never the greatest singer, but he didn’t claim to be. Instead he focused on creating honest, sincere pop music that had a slight rockin’ edge to it. If he came up today he’d be a country artist, so relentlessly Everyman is his music. Even now in his mid-fifties, he’s still working as hard as ever.

The complaint against Eddie Money has always been that his songs pretty much all sounded the same, and, unfortunately, they do. He wasn’t a gifted enough singer to pull off deep, introspective ballads, so he stuck to mid-tempo songs like “I Wanna Go Back,” “Endless Nights,” and “Take Me Home Tonight.” That’s a fine use of talent, but, well, Gary Puckett and the Union Gap also put out a bunch of decent soundalike songs in the late 60s, and nobody’s calling them great overlooked 60s artists now.

Verdict: There have been a lot of acclaimed singers whose vocal chops weren’t actually that good. At least Eddie Money always sounded honest and seemed to know his limitations. Someday people will tire of praising John Mellencamp and turn their attentions to Money. Just not any time soon, probably. Odds of a reputation rehab: 9-2.

A RIVAL IN DISREPAIR

This week’s college football BlogPoll Roundtable comes to us from Blue-Gray Sky, where they’ve got rivalry on their minds.

1. Who are your rival(s)?

Well, the Hawkeyes’ obvious rival is Iowa State, though since the series was revived in 1977, the Iowa-Iowa State rivalry has been more like the rivalry between dogs and fire hydrants, with the Hawks 18-8 over the Clones since the Carter administration. But still, it’s the biggest football game in Iowa every year, and a couple of them have even been pretty good games.

Inside the conference, Iowa’s traditional rival is Minnesota (and more about that series anon), though you could make a good case for Wisconsin. However, in the past few years, the most heated conference games have been the Michigan games–they’ve all been great, intense football, and I don’t mind tell you that I even enjoyed the games Iowa lost. Though I hasten to add I didn’t enjoy them very much. Illinois would like to be our rival, based on bad blood going back to the Bruce Pearl era and furthered by the Jon Beutjer debacle, but there’s really no teeth in that rivalry these days.

2. Size up your chances in your rival games this year.

I’m a little worried about the Iowa State game. The Clones seem to have finally learned the difference between a rut and a groove. They finished strong last season; if they can keep even some of that momentum going, they could surprise a few of the folks who have Iowa in their preseason top five. The Clones have enough offensive weaponry to keep the game close, particularly if their very experienced defense can shut down Drew Tate–which they almost did last year. I’m nervous about that game already.

As for Minnesota, I think the Hawks should be able to win that game. The Gophers are a little too happy to be a perennial 6-5 team, and I’m starting to think that Glen Mason just doesn’t care that much about having a great defense. Wisconsin, well, I’ve predicted a major step back for the Badgers this season. Too many replacements.

3. If you could start up a new rivalry with another team, who would it be?

I don’t understand why Iowa and Nebraska don’t play every year. Talk about a logical border battle.

I’d also like to see an Iowa-Missouri game, if only because I would actually like to see an Iowa-Missouri game. But, well, bwauk-bwauk, I guess. If I were Gary Pinkel, I wouldn’t want to play any non-conference games that weren’t gimmes, either.

4. Overall, what do you think the best rivalry in college football is?

I’m going to avoid the obvious Big Ten homer pick and go with Florida State-Miami. It’s a game that always means something not just to the two teams but to the entire national championship picture, and the football is intense. Throw in all of Bobby Bowden’s angst over past Miami games and it just gets better. This is no friendly rivalry; these two schools positively hate each other.

But not as much as they both hate Florida.

5. Lastly, game trophies. What are the best and worst rivalry trophies out there?

Now I will homer out and pick Floyd of Rosedale, the prize for the winner of the Iowa-Minnesota game. Floyd epitomizes everything that a great rivalry trophy ought to be: enormous, hotly contested, and almost unbearably hokey/dorky. Plus it’s great fun to deflate the egos of Minnesota fans who think that the trophy has something to do with Rosedale Mall. (Or at least it would be great fun, but I think more people have met JD Salinger than have ever met a living, breathing Gopher football fan.)

As for the worst, I’ll go with Iowa State and Missouri and their Telephone Trophy, since (a) who cares about this game anyway?, and (b) it commemorates a non-event which no one remembers. That’s hardly the stuff legend is made of; that trophy is not fit to be mentioned with the Old Oaken Bucket, the Little Brown Jug, or the Petrino Golden Carry-On that should be awarded to the winner of the Auburn-Louisville game.

100 GRAND BAR

It has dawned on me that my 100,000th hit* is coming soon–in about ten days, if my current traffic pace continues; much sooner than that if I dare to suggest that Ohio State may not be one of the top two teams in the Big Ten this year. (But hey, who am I to rain on somebody’s sense of entitlement?)

I’m still undecided on how to celebrate this millmilestone. In true TBP fashion, I present:

TOP TEN WAYS MARK MAY CELEBRATE TBP’S 100,000th HIT

1. Pick some halfway-decent football team in the ACC to antagonize; sit back and watch their message-board fangeeks burn out their circuitry.
2. Mess with the style sheets some more so the site doesn’t work with any browser, not just IE 5.0.
3. Assemble some gargantuan but utterly unnecessary list like “100 Greatest TBP Posts of the Past Two and a Half Years;” see if I can get Michael Ian Black and Hal Sparks to savage me mercilessly, then pitch the whole mess to VH1.
4. Go back to VH1 and see if they’ll reconsider that pitch if I can get an interview with Lindsay Lohan’s back-up emergency dog-walker.
5. Finish the Seven Deadly Sins or Bad 80s Cars series, provided I can remember where I left off.
6. Acquire some political opinions, then vehemently defend them in a fashion which makes it clear that I have never really considered the merits and flaws of my position at all.
7. Every day for one month, link to some random Internet item about Spandau Ballet (like this, for instance).
8. Write some actual content for a change.
9. Continue in my campaign to convince the world that anyone with an interest in playing “State West of Louisiana Retain ‘Em” online probably needs the services of an online pharmacy.
10. Fix that header graphic so “The Bemusement Park” is actually, y’know, centered in the box.

*: According to my site host’s statistics, this site passed 250,000 hits a few months ago and is closing in on half a million.

A CAUTIONARY NOTE TO POSTERS

I do not at all mind if you come on here and point out a mistake that I have made. I make plenty of them. But if your comment makes it clear that you did not even bother to read the comments to see if anybody else had already pointed out my mistake, I reserve the right to edit and/or add to your comment for the purposes of chastisement and/or amusement.

Likewise, if you post a comment for the express purpose of implying that I am stupid, but you cannot write more than six consecutive words without making a spelling, grammatical, typographical, logical, or emotional error, your comment may and probably will be edited to reflect this fact.

No amount of cajoling, pleading, whining, or bellyaching will cause your comment to be re-edited.

Lastly, any language in comments which I judge to be obscene, vulgar, or otherwise inappropriate will most certainly be replaced with an appropriately infantile expression. Your posting of a comment on this site implies your acceptance of these terms. Got it? Good.

BLOG SILENCE

No, I’m not overwhelmed by irony. I’m busy at a conference which continues through the middle of next week. So don’t go expecting a lot from TBP. (This is good advice in general, well beyond this week.)

ANSWER ME THESE QUESTIONS THREE

This week’s Blogpoll Roundtable comes to us courtesy of Joey at Straight Bangin’, asking that musical question . . .

Which unheralded player on your team will be the hardest to replace? Which seemingly inconsequential player could make the biggest impact?

The hardest to replace will be Warren Holloway, last year’s possession receiver, who flew under everybody’s radar until That Play. Ed Hinkel is back to rip the field, but Clinton Solomon will have to bring a little heat of his own, or it could be a long season without much of a running game.

Meanwhile, look out for Charles Godfrey, the free safety. With the Hawks breaking in a new defensive line, Abdul Hodge and Chad Greenway won’t be able to fall back into pass coverage quite as much. This will probably lead to a few teams trying to cut up the middle of the field with dink-’n-dunk. The early buzz on Godfrey is that he’s very much in the Bob Sanders mold, which means you’d better not throw in his direction unless your tight end has a good dental plan.

Which regular-season game that won’t feature your team would you pay the most money to see this season? Why?

Easy. Florida at South Carolina on November 12th. This game’s got more story lines than the last three seasons of “The Real World.” South Carolina has just learned that Lou Holtz could do in Columbia what he did in Minneapolis. The university is now hoping that they’ve self-flagellated sufficiently to appease the NCAA’s Lords of Discipline without getting the hammer dropped on them. Otherwise, they’re about to begin a long day’s journey into Vanderbilt.

Enter Steve Spurrier, the Karl Rove of college football, anxious to make us all forget that he ever lived as far north as Washington. The man with football’s most well-publicized mean streak would like nothing more than to shut up all those Gator fans whose adoration of him has soured because Spur indirectly brought on the Zook years.

Meanwhile, across the sidelines, you’ve got The Next Guy, Urban Meyer. If they were selling stock in him, you couldn’t afford it. How better could he claim the heart of Florida fans than by heading up to Columbia and steamrolling The Ol’ Ball Coach? I don’t think the outcome of this game is much in doubt. I see visors flying through the air before halftime and, at the end, something operatic: Spurrierdammerung, if you will. But it’s going to be a great game.

If your team were a rapper, who would it be and why?

I grew up in northwestern Iowa, a region of the country so intensely white we refer to the Transfiguration as “the day the Lord’s clothes turned beige.” So if I wind up making a fool of myself here, please understand that I never really had a chance.

The Hawkeyes are Pete Nice. In the same way that Pete Nice looks like the world’s most happenin’ claims adjuster, the Hawkeyes don’t look very threatening on paper. But if you underestimate them, they’re ready to smoke you like a chunk of brisket. And neither one would’ve ever gotten anywhere without a lot of teamwork. The difference, of course, is that the Hawkeyes have actually done something in the past decade. But whatever happened to Pete Nice? Not even Allmusic can say . . .

MOSTLY TRUE STORIES

I heard some interesting discussion on a local talk radio show tonight. The host (Mark Reardon on WTMJ, for my two readers in Wisconsin) was briefly recapping the major news of the day, and asking his listeners to rank the day’s news stories in terms of their perceived importance. These were the stories; I’ve linked to summaries in case you’re not familiar with them:

• Baghdad car bombing kills 28, many of them children.
• New developments in the London bombing investigation.
• Pakistani train crash kills 128.
• Chief Justice Rehnquist is hospitalized.
• Technical problems halt the space shuttle launch.
• The ongoing flap over Karl Rove and Valerie Plame.

Just to point out the limitations of this unscientific poll, Reardon only asked four or five callers for their opinions, and he only asked them to pick the top three stories, as they saw it. Far and away, the Iraq bombing was the top story. Second, to most, was the continuing investigation into the London bombing. While there wasn’t a clear-cut choice for third, nobody picked the Pakistani train crash, and nobody picked Karl Rove. Reardon then pointed out that the network news led with the space shuttle, then went to Karl Rove, and the Baghdad bombing was third. He called this an example of “the mainstream media” trying to tell us what’s really important, thereby also telling what to think about and how to think about it.

We’ll ignore the fact that, since Reardon works for a company which also owns several TV and radio stations in this and lots of other markets, as well as the only daily newspaper in Milwaukee and a bunch of other publications, he’s part of “mainstream media.” (We’ll ignore it because there are a lot of reasons why “mainstream media” doesn’t actually mean “mainstream” any more.) That’s not what was amazing. I agreed with the callers’ assessments of the stories and their newsworthiness. A space shuttle non-launch isn’t news, and the Rove story is just something to keep the political versions of “Pardon The Interruption” functioning smoothly for a few days.

What struck me, though, was the rationale that the callers gave for voting the Iraq story #1. While I’m not sure I heard everybody speak on this matter, most of what I heard was something like “this story is important because it shows us what sort of enemy we’re really up against.” Now, I hate the fact that I have to issue the following caveat, but I do: I do not in any way, shape, or form condone suicide bombing, particularly when said bombers deliberately target children. Likewise, I am not a member of the Democratic Party or any other political party. I am not opposed to the war in Iraq, and I think the world is a better place with Saddam Hussein behind bars. Got it? (Oh, and in case somebody is reading this, I’m still waiting for that big check George Soros was supposed to write me for posting my assessment of GWB’s debating prowess in the comments over at Resurrection Song . I hope Soros hurries up, because we could really use a dishwasher.)

Alright, now that I’ve disclaimed my opinion to the point of nothingness, let me just say: What? While I agree that the Baghdad bombing is the biggest news item of the day, since when is it the function of the media to teach us a healthy disrespect for our enemies? Isn’t this exactly the sort of media bias we’re supposed to be against?

The Iraq story is big because any time our country calls upon someone to make the ultimate sacrifice, it’s news, and we both need and deserve to know as many of the details as possible without compromising national security. It is not news because there are some people in the US who don’t fully support the war and need to be shown the error of their beliefs. I just found it a little bit ironic that, in deriding media bias, Reardon’s callers seemed to tip their hands. Their complaint, it appears, isn’t that the media are biased; it’s that not enough of them are biased in the right direction. Apparently it’s OK by them for the media to tell us what to think about and how to think about it, so long as they agree with those assessments. I respectfully disagree.

TAKE ME OUT OF THE BALL GAME

I am often accused of hating baseball, simply because of nine or ten things I’ve written in the past two and a half years. I’d like to set the record straight. I do not hate baseball. In fact, under the right circumstances, I’ve been known to watch as many as three or four at-bats of a televised game, providing that no football, hockey, golf, tennis, indoor lacrosse, bowling, competitive spelling, backgammon, keno, Candy Land, or peek-a-boo games are being broadcast at the same time.

Okay, it’s true. I do pretty much hate baseball. But I want you to understand, dear reader, that my hatred is not entirely irrational. Compared with a fitting candidate like, say, college football, baseball is severely lacking as a pastime.

We’ll start with the first and most obvious complaint: Nothing ever happens in a baseball game. Well, not “ever;” sometimes as many as 60 of the 240 or so pitches thrown in a baseball game result in something happening. In fact, I believe that there have been baseball matches in which there were as many as twenty actual base hits. So it wouldn’t be fair to say that nothing ever happens in baseball. Let’s call it “next to nothing” instead.

But when something does happen, hoo boy! Get ready to hear an exhaustive dissertation on the historical and statistical importance of that bloop single you just saw! Baseball fans have stats for everything, and some of them even make sense. They’ll tell you that a lifetime .300 hitter is really something, even though that stat compares unfavorably with Bo Schembechler’s bowl-game record (or John Cooper’s record against Michigan, if you prefer). They’ll break down how Player X bats with runners in scoring position, or with a left-hander on the mound, or with a bad case of Cuervo’s Disease, or whatever. They’ll even come up with stats that show this particular pitcher can’t get this batter out, since the batter is a left-handed utility man with an unusually open stance and a tendency to pronounce the word library as “liberry,” while the batter doesn’t stand a chance against the pitcher because he can’t hit a pitcher who throws a side-armed split-finger fastball, trims his sideburns to the exact midpoint of that flap that sticks out where his ear canal is, and always remembers to put the toilet seat back down. So, since the batter can’t hit off the pitcher, but the pitcher can’t get the batter out, that means one of two things: (a) you’re about to witness an intense struggle between two implacable combatants, locked in a battle of fierce pride and tribalism, ending only when one of these warriors’ wills prove more indomitable than the other, or (b) you’re about to witness a nine-pitch walk.

Never mind, of course, that there are seven players on the field at all times who have essentially nothing to do but stand around and wait for something to happen. And never mind that a really active play might involve three of those seven players. Nope, it’s all about that ego duel between the pitcher and the batter, with the catcher serving as an oddly-dressed consultant. The combination of endless, semi-meaningful statistical manipulation and all the conceivable action centering around 20% of the participants reminds me of one other thing: Dungeons and Dragons. In fact, watching baseball is a lot like watching people play D&D, except D&D’s magic system makes considerably more sense than the infield fly rule.

So, since there’s seldom anything happening on the field, most baseball fans retreat into the meta-game, the real “inside baseball” stuff, if I may steal that cliche back for a second (I promise to return it to the political wonks shortly). But even here baseball’s a dud. It doesn’t have heroes right now, since we’re now mostly convinced that a lot of the recent offensive heroes have been, well, “enhanced.” (I realize it’s not fair to paint with such a broad brush. I wish that 93% of all power hitters didn’t have to give the other 7% such a bad name.)

Baseball can’t even come up with a good villain. The best they can do right now is Barry Bonds, who (a) hasn’t played a lick all season, and (b) is about as threatening as a bunny with the sniffles. (If you can’t tell the difference between Bonds and a true athletic villain like, say, Steve Spurrier, well, it’s nice to meet you, Adam, and please don’t take any dietary advice from your wife.) Baseball freaks love to tell you that they love the way Barry Bonds plays the game, but they just wish he’d be a little more connected with his teammates and a little more forrthcoming with the media. Otherwise, they say, he just might not be a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Honestly, I can’t believe that the threat of having to wait one more year for his inevitable indictuction into Cooperstown hasn’t caused Bonds to get his act together. It’s probably keeping him up nights as he tosses and turns endlessly on his bed of cash.

Who are you kidding, Baseball Fan? The reason Bonds and his ilk treat you like leftover French toast is because you’ve proven, time and again, that you’ll take whatever disrespect they can dish out, and you’ll come wimpering back once you hear those magic words, “Pitchers and catchers report.” They don’t care because they cannot possibly put a product on the field which is so dreadful that you won’t watch it. People lose all sense of rationality and perspective when baseball is involved. Heck, here in southeastern Wisconsin we pay–we volunteered to pay–an extra half-cent-per-dollar sales tax to build a stadium for the Milwaukee Brewers. At the time of that vote, this was sort of like people in Atlanta voting to subsidize the William Tecumseh Sherman Interpretive Center, right there in downtown on the corner of Peachtree and Peachtree.

So maybe the owners are to blame? Quick, name three baseball owners other than George Steinbrenner and Ted Turner. Can’t do it? Neither can anybody. I came up with Mark Attanasio and Carl Pohlad, and that was it. But shouldn’t George and Ted qualify for true villainy? Bosh. Ted Turner is the Wile E. Coyote of baseball; his season always ends with him cowering under a pink parasol, holding up a little sign that reads “help.” And Steinbrenner’s team just isn’t good enough to hate anymore.

(You know, it’s funny. When Daniel Snyder bought the Washington Redskins, his actions seemed so ill-informed and tyrannical that people started calling him “Boy George,” an obvious reference to Steinbrenner. But now, in 2005, who’s got the lineup that might’ve scared everybody silly if it was still 1998?)

Nothing (OK, next to nothing) ever happens. Most of the guys on the field just stand around trying to look athletic. There’s nobody you can hate, but there’s nobody you can really like, either. It’s no wonder NASCAR has now eclipsed baseball as America’s number-two televised sport. At least in NASCAR, things are always moving (albeit in the same direction), and there are plenty of drivers you can hate. It’s enough to make a guy happy they call baseball the “national pastime” and not the “national interest.” To be an interest, you must be interesting.

I don’t mean to rain on tonight’s Some-Star game, but for somebody like me, this is one of the greatest nights of the year. After all, there’s no baseball tomorrow.

OH, THE OUTRAGE

I’ve never heard of July sweeps, but they must exist, since one of the local TV stations is doing a big exposé tomorrow night, and this one is a shocker. Are you ready for this? I don’t think you are . . .

They’re promising to reveal that some goods sold at flea markets are somewhat substandard.

I know. My life is now lying on the ground in little tattered shards, too.

OOPS!

In case you thought the Brewers trading Junior Spivey for Tomo Ohka was not a good move, think again.

Washington Nationals second baseman Junior Spivey fractured his right radius — a bone in his forearm — while taking batting practice off a tee prior to Saturday’s 1-0 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies, an injury that will keep him out between two and three months.

The Brewers’ luck sure has turned around with the new ownership.