Music Friday: "These Are the Times"

Son Volt has a new album out, and I was pleasantly surprised. At first listen, I'm digging it. 

Here's one tune from Electro Melodier.  

Music Friday: "Driver 8" & "Outfit"

One of my favorite R.E.M. songs from their earlier work is "Driver 8." 

The Drive-By Truckers shared this video via FB. I've also included "Outfit" from the same person recording the concert.  

Musing of the Moment: SEC Expansion?

Yesterday less than an hour before Texas A&M Coach Jimbo Fisher gave his opening statement at SEC Media Days, news broke that allegedly the University of Texas and the University of Oklahoma had contacted the SEC about joining the conference. 

A&M obviously wants to remain the only Texas school in the SEC, which its athletic director clearly stated when interviewed by Paul Finebaum. 

However, going by the bylaws of the conference, there need to be 11 of the 14 schools who vote yes to new members. I think that's quite possible. 

I don't see the SEC turning this down because it would make them an even stronger conference, one that would rake in lots more cash and basically rule the college football world in a sport trending toward a 12-team playoff. 

Going to 16 teams might help with scheduling because one could eliminate the East-West conferences and use four-team mini conferences that would let teams play each more often that they normally don't get to. 

If you break it down by regions, here's a rough grouping of these mini conferences to my mind.

A) Texas, Oklahoma, A&M, and LSU

B) Alabama, Auburn, Ole Miss, and State

C) Arkansas, Mizzou, Kentucky, and Vanderbilt

D) Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee

With these groupings, the natural old East-West every year rivalry games could be kept. Alabama would always play Tennessee, and Auburn would always play Georgia, for two prime examples. 

Musing of the Moment: Billionaires in Space

There is a belief among followers of the GOP that trickle-down economics works - that giving tax breaks to the rich will eventually flow downhill to the middle and lower classes.

If you want a prime example of how that belief is total bullshit, consider Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos launching themselves and their buddies to the edge of space. 

When they got back, they celebrated with champagne like they just launched a yacht. 

It doesn't trickle down. They build rockets with it. 

It's not trickle down. It's pissing on the middle class and the poor.  

Music Friday: "Don't Do Me Like That"

As I was driving back from a campus visit for my daughter today, this song from Petty came across my satellite radio channel. 

I had forgotten how much I enjoy the drum fills at the start of this tune. Enjoy. 

Music Friday: "Sad But True"

Apparently there's a cover album of Metallica's Black album coming out. Isbell and his band did an interesting version of "Sad But True."

I'm sharing the cover and the original. 

Music Friday: "Pride" & "Fight the Fight"

I recently purchased an album I used to have on cassette tape, Time's Up by Living Colour. 

Here's a couple of my favorite tunes from their sophomore effort. 

Random Notes from a Crank

We spent over a week in Panama City Beach, Florida for a travel baseball tournament. Unfortunately, when we arrived, we caught the end of a tropical storm, so many of our games were delayed and moved to later days. 

We went to a tournament that had teams from over 20 states, but every team we played was from Georgia. How annoying. 

With one team we played early on, their head coach and fans displayed the worst sportsmanship and fan behavior I've ever seen. The head coach should have been ejected. He was constantly bitching about balls and strikes and was a whiny, mumbling mess when he was coaching at third base. 

They stopped the game for a while because they thought our team were getting strikes that weren't strikes. But they were legitimate strikes. And he mumbled something about our team having the umps "in our pocket."

Yes, that's it. Prior to driving 12-13 hours, we somehow found out the refs we would have in pool play and paid them off. We paid off refs from Florida when we're from east central Illinois. Yes, that's the ticket. 

Thankfully, that band of assholes got bounced out early from the tournament because they lost their next two games in elimination play. 

Jackasses. 

If you're from Georgia, you should really be worrying about the state government curbing your voting rights - not balls and strikes. 

Driving home through the Florida Panhandle was annoying with so many clowns still having their Moscow Don signs up. Whenever I see campaign signs for that clown, all I think is "Losers." 

After a long delay, Tottenham finally a new manager, former head coach of the Wolves, Nuno Espirito Santo. 

Nuno wasn't obviously the first choice of the Spurs, but he might be the guy they actually need. 

Having watched the Wolves for a good while, his teams didn't exactly have the "free-flowing" acumen that some of the other possible managers' squads epitomize. But we'll see how he adapts to the squad the new managing football director (Paritici) puts together. 

The transfer scene will be full of speculation for the Spurs. The biggest question mark is what happens with Harry Kane. Man City have already offered 100 million for him, which Tottenham rejected. But I'd take a sweetened deal for Kane for that money with Sterling and Stones thrown in. 

The more interesting movement to watch is which players move to other clubs (Aurier, Winks, et al.) and which players they bring in. From what I read recently, Paratici has already been hard a work trying to find center backs and a striker. I'd like to see them sign Connor Coady from Wolves. 

Hopefully Nuno will get Doherty playing like he has in the past for him. And I hope Nuno gets Dele Alli back to being the player he can be. 

Nuno is known for working with what he's got and not bitching about what he doesn't have. I want to see Doherty, Rodon, Dele, Bergwijn, and Tanganga improving in a significant fashion. 

And for me, I want to see Lo Celso and Ndombele working together well in midfield. 

Music Friday: "

I know I am way late. I forgot about it on Friday.

Saturday was spent watching travel baseball games, and then Sunday was an elimination game. We then traveled the 12-13 hours home on Sunday from Panama City Beach, Florida. 

I'm tired of driving. 

I'm tired of crazy-ass travel baseball fans, which I'm sure I'll recount later. And I'm tired of rainouts, which are likely to happen in Florida in June. 

Here's a classic from CCR. 

Music Friday: "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea"

Neutral Milk Hotel is one of those bands I heard about but never got their albums. Recently I got this one that's said to be tremendously influential among alternative rock circles. 

Here's a fun tune from the album. 

Random Notes from a Crank

If you're someone like me who gives a damn about our planet, read Ben Ehrenreich's "We're Hurtling Toward Global Suicide" in The New Republic. It a solid, sober article about the climate crisis and how one underlying assumption is highly problematic.

Most climate models and climate change purveyors still assume unlimited growth in relation to finite resources works. It doesn't. 

I've been watching the European Championship 2021 so far this summer, and it's been fun. Ronaldo's Portugal won the last one.

Here are the teams I'm rooting for. I like England's squad because they have mainly Premier League players, but I also Denmark since I'm part Dane and Wales because I like Gareth Bale and Joe Rodon because of their affiliation with Tottenham Hotspur. Denmark, unfortunately, had a massive scare with what happened to Christian Eriksen. 

If I'm a betting man, I'd put my money on France. They are the front runner in the competition. 

Music Friday: "Hurt"

My daughter is thinking about songs to choreograph her solo dances to, and one of her two solo songs she's thinking about is "Hurt" by Johnny Cash, which is a cover of Nine Inch Nails.

I recently rewatched the episode about "Hurt" on Netflix's Song Exploder. 

I am a huge fan of Johnny Cash, but I think I like the original better. 

Today I'm providing videos of both. 

Music Friday: "D.B. Cooper"

Todd Snider has a new album out this year, First Agnostic Church of Hope and Wonder. I recently acquired it, but I've only listened to it a couple of times so far since I haven't been on my computer a lot lately. 

Regardless, here's an old, great tune from his catalog. 

Musing of the Moment: "Incentivize" & "Utilize"

I highly dislike a certain word that has crept into many people's lexicons. That work is "incentivize." I like people simply saying, "provide incentives" instead of making a noun into a verb. 

I have another qualm, but it's in a different vein. I have a similar beef against the word "utilize" being used when a person could simply use "use" instead of "utilize." 

Why make things more complicated than they have to be?

These complaints reminds me of this classic riff on soft language by George Carlin. 

Music Friday: "Granny"

 I've been listening to the Dave Matthews Band a bit lately on SiriusXM radio. 

Here's a classic that eclectic band.