Dissin' Franchises

The Democratic National Committee apparently decided it made sense to open their convention with a prayer.  This is merely the latest in a string of back-peddling, centering gestures that have seen me gradually retreat from the excitement I originally felt at the prospect of Barrack Obama winning his bid to become the forty-fourth presidency of the United States.  Visceral rage now tempered by conversations with the like-minded individuals in my cabinet (which convenes infrequently at best and usually via cell phone), I'm not merely disenfranchised (back where I started).  The framework of their assurances had loomed beyond the reaches of my comprehension yesterday when I first learned of the prayer.  These assurances - to a degree - have steadied my modest political hand.  I wish the democrats (notice I abstain from referring to them as "my party") could embody diversity and tolerance through dogma and policy rather than an apparently essential dog and pony show.  At this point, the  institutional turmoil having been cast aside by the results of the primary election (and unwittingly giving way now to ego-maniacal in-fighting and consequent media frenzy), the goals are now changed.  No longer are democrats anointing their presidential candidate from amongst themselves.  Currently targeted are the skeptics wavering inexplicably on the fence.  Currently targeted are those historically republican voters, hopefully so frustrated by their party's dogged stubbornness that their vote is now up for grabs.  

It is here that we all find ourselves: subjected by the puppeteers to all the disingenuous posturing that the "objective" media can shell out (funny how none of them appear to be on the fence).    

Amen.

CHECK THIS OUT!

These guys are actually using Game Boys as synthesizers to make music.  

Why Michigan's in Trouble

When women and young children watch football on television they consistently ask the same question:  Why are they running the ball directly into the heart of the defense when there's all that open space to the outside?  For anyone who has ever played football at any level, the answer is relatively simple: By stacking the line of scrimmage, having some variation of two running backs, one or two tight ends, and modest spacing between offensive lineman, you can be relatively sure the defense on the other side of the ball will sport a similarly condensed formation.   This narrowing of the field favors whomever is bigger and stronger by decreasing the importance of speed.  The closer a defender is to a blocker when the ball is snapped, the easier it will be for the blocker to block, or to at least to get to his assignment and occupy his attention. As a defender, you cannot make a tackle when you're being blocked, and, more often than not, you cannot make a tackle soon enough even if simply occupied.    

At some point, having encountered bigger, stronger defenses with very little or no success, a coach somewhere reluctantly, and perhaps inadvertently, heeded the advice of football novices everywhere. If I recruit more speed on the offensive line and at each and every skill position, I can spread out our formations, utilizing one back sets, empty backfields, and numerous receivers.  So equipped, defenses will have to spread the field, taking defenders outside of the box and into open spaces.  Having created bigger gaps in the defense, I can get my faster players the ball in those open spaces before the defenders get there.   

This has proven boundlessly successful.  We needn't look very far for some prime examples. Urban Meyer has already won a national championship at Florida with the spread offense. West Virginia, under Rich Rodriquez, put on offensive showcases on the ground and through the air by utilizing this approach.  So much so, in fact, it got him the job in Ann Arbor. Big time college football is big business, however, and defensive coordinators don't make big bucks for hopelessly wringing their hands.  The more successful and prevalent an offensive scheme, the more attention it will get from defensive masterminds.  And the process has already begun. Larger defensive backs are being moved closer to the line of scrimmage at linebacker, larger linebackers moving to defensive end, and larger defensive ends sliding over into interior linemen.  

Michigan will undoubtedly struggle this year without the speed to adequately execute Rich Rodriguez' spread offense.  By the time his recruiting classes have graduated from high school and are enrolled at Michigan, defenses will have caught up.  Make no mistake, the spread is not better than other more traditional offenses.  It is superior, however, against bigger, stronger, slower defenses.  In terms of $ucce$$ off the field, Rodriguez made the right decision by fleeing West Virginia for Ann Arbor.  On the field, however, he'll be having an ideological crisis in the not too distant future.  Only then will we see what kind of coach he is; one who is able to fine tune his spread offense with some of the X's and O's it isn't known for, or a coach who will struggle to readjust in his quest to return Michigan's program to greatness.     

Best Olympic Sport You've Never Seen

TV Listings:

Monday August 19 12:00p - 5:00p  MSNBC  Multiple Sport Coverage
Men's weightlifting (105kg), Germany vs. Denmark in men's handball, men's beach volleyball quarterfinal, and U.S. vs. China in baseball.

Tuesday August 18 8:00a - 12:00p USA Multiple Sport Coverage

Women's basketball and handball quarterfinals.

Wednesday August 20 5:00a - 11:00a MSNBC Multiple Sports
Softball bronze-medal game (LIVE ET/CT), men's freestyle wrestling (66kg and 74kg), men's volleyball quarterfinal (LIVE ET/CT), and men's handball quarterfinal.

Friday August 22 10:30a - 2:00p  MSNBC Multiple Sports
Women's field hockey bronze-medal game, women's modern pentathlon, and men's handball semifinal.

Saturday August 23 9:00a - 10:00a USA 

Handball Women's gold-medal game.

Sunday August 24 5:00a - 11:00a USA Multiple Sports
Coverage includes gold-medal finals in men's handball and men's basketball (re-air). Plus, bronze-medal men's matches in volleyball and water polo.

For complete listings, though sometimes vague and incomplete depending on what sport you're looking for, go here.

No Substitute

There is absolutely no substitute for live music.  None.  As someone who attends a fair amount of concerts, I always lamented the fact that I had never before seen Radiohead.  The breadth of this regret is now multiplied.  I am able to accurately quantify this regret, however, only because I was there last night in Mansfield, and for that I am actually grateful.      

Setlist:

01. Reckoner (In Rainbows)
02. Optimistic (Kid A)
03. There There (Hail to the Thief)
04. 15 Step (In Rainbows)
05. Kid A (Kid A)
06. Nude (In Rainbows)
07. All I Need (In Rainbows)
08. The Gloaming (Hail to the Thief)
09. The National Anthem (Kid A)
10. Videotape (In Rainbows)
11. Jigsaw Falling Into Place (In Rainbows)
12. The Bends (The Bends)
13. Faust Arp (In Rainbows)
14. Weird Fishes/ Arpeggi (In Rainbows)
15. Everything In Its Right Place (Kid A)
16. Exit Music (OK Computer)
17. Bodysnatchers (In Rainbows)

Encore 1:

18. House of Cards (In Rainbows)
19. I Might Be Wrong (Amnesiac)
20. Paranoid Android (OK Computer)
21. A Wolf At The Door (Hail to the Thief)
22. How To Disappear Completely (Kid A)

Encore 2:

23. Cymbal Rush (The Eraser - Thom Yorke)
24. Karma Police (OK Computer)
25. Idioteque (Kid A)

(Studio album chronology: Pablo Honey, The Bends, OK Computer, Kid A, Amnesiac, Hail to the Thief, and In Rainbows)

In front of a fervent but docile full house at the Comcast Center, Radiohead delivered a show teeming with some of the contradictions I had expected and hoped for.  They filled a 20,000 capacity amphitheater that I associate more with stadium acts like Bon Jovi and 3 Doors Down, (acts completely devoid of any nuance or subtlety), and purposefully meandered through a set list comprised mostly of their least accessible material; stuff a band shouldn't be able to pull off in such a venue, much less to the delight of 20,000 mongoloids.   And they not only pulled it off, they looked and sounded as though they were in their natural habitat.  In fact, based upon Thom York's frenetic stage presence -- singing eyes closed, head twiddling back and forth around the mic, giving way to enraptured dancing that only he can pull off -- their natural habitat might just be another planet.    

A galaxy away from Pablo Honey as a band, an easy observation from set list alone, what is most striking about Radiohead jams, especially as compared to the prolonged instrumental passages of most other rock acts, is the sampling, the club beat experimentation, and the appreciation for and full exploitation of crescendo and decrescendo. all the while operating within a framework that sometimes felt classical, while at others was decidedly ladder-day Miles Davis, or avante-noise, but that is always without hint of the blues.  It was this realization, and the subsequent juxtaposition in fact, that made the opening chords of The Bends, situated masterfully in the middle of the show, a sledgehammer and a refreshing change of pace in the same breath.  

The entire experience was enhanced by giant flat screen televisions beside the stage and in front of the "lawn" seats, each split into quadrants, each quadrant focused on a different band member, and a stage backdrop lined with 50 or so giant tubes (see above), perhaps 2 and a half feet in diameter, that stretched from the floor to the roof, on which glow stick colors danced up and down, disappearing, reappearing, and changing color in keeping with the pace and mood of the music. 

The eye of the storm is undoubtedly Yorke's incredible voice, which is sometimes as jagged and loose lipped as the music swirling alongside or around it, while at other times is incomprehensibly languid and beautiful, casting itself gently above the billowing atmospherics and melodies of his bandmates.  

Remarkable.