Jazz Festival 2009-Thursday: Cry to Me!

The woman shown above, who appears to be every bit of 80 years old, was on stage with Solomon Burke this evening at the Jazz Festival, getting DOWN. This is why I come to this thing-little moments like this.

This Jazz Festival I’m using the nice pocket notebook that Theresa gave me for a Christmas present to take the notes which eventually become these posts, so shout out to you Theresa.

I’ve decided that to shorten these posts a little bit, I’ll spare you most of my non-festival New Orleans activities. One thing, however, deserves mention. On the way to the festival I passed a huge Home Depot, and various “day labor” types were hanging around outside the parking lot fence. This represents a huge leap forward in the home improvement industry. Now, not only can you go to one store for all your supply needs, you can also pick up the workers to perform the actual work. This reminds me of the South Park episode (I realize I’m getting repetitive with the South Park references-hey, shoot me) where Cartman gets day laborers to do his book report on “The Old Man and the Sea.”

Today driving out to the festival it looked pretty cloudy, and I was scared for awhile we’d get rain. It had, in fact, rained last night, but it didn’t look like enough fell to start the mud bath I went through last year. Besides, the mud is always worst the day after the rains, not the day it actually does rain. Sure enough, that proved right. It stayed cloudy and breezy all day, making for one of the best Jazz Fest weather days ever. Unfortunately, it was musically only kind of “meh.” No one outside of the Mississippi Mass Choir managed to hold my attention long, so I saw lots of bands for only a short time today, although there were a few finds.

Thirty seconds into the walk to the Fair Grounds, I ran into “Festival Guy.” Festival Guy is World Traveler Guy’s poor step-brother that he doesn’t like to discuss publicly. Festival Guy is anywhere from 35 to 50, white, generally over 250 pounds, balding, sporting a gray-specked goatee with peanut butter and cheese cracker crumbs, straw hat, tye-dye or Hawaiian shirt, glasses, enormous cargo shorts, high white socks and some sort of deluxe hiking/walking shoes, 37 separate pieces of flair, and a man-danna. This Guy generally is either unemployed and living with his parents, or a part-time computer industry worker between gigs. I never noticed this Guy until recently, probably because until now, he’s been occupied full-time with following first the Grateful Dead, then any or all of their “jam band” followers (Pfish, Widespread Panic, Blues Traveler). Now that those bands have crumbled, he’s been freed to roam the summer festival circuit. Look for him at your local music festival, just back from the beer tent, telling you about seeing Coldplay last May at Red Rocks.

In true New Orleans style, Festival-goers are hitting the beer and daiquiri booths right at 11 a.m. Ready to party in style! I start the day with my new custom of going to the Gospel Tent right at its opening, for the day’s opening prayer, which was preceded by a chorus of “Let’s Stand Up for Jesus!” First up was the McMain High School Gospel Choir. I’m not exactly sure how a public high school can have a gospel choir. I know the local school system has changed radically into some hybrid of charter schools and a few public schools; apparently they’re able to support gospel choirs, which is excellent. The Gospel Tent has installed a misting system, like at many Austin outdoor bars. So along with the shade and breeze, it was quite cool.

Then it was on to the Jazz Tent for the Tulane University Jazz Ensemble. All their songs were comfortable and familiar. Sort of a jazzier version of Doc Severinsen’s Tonight Show Orchestra. Notably, women were playing bass and drums, something you don’t usually see except in a “girl group.” The one non-white person in the group played a really nice tenor solo…while wearing Terminator shades. The rest of the group looked like they’d be working on their MBAs at Harvard in a couple of years. You know, chaches. Hey, it was the Thursday at 11:15 slot. What do you expect?

But looking around the Jazz Tent throughout the day revealed something alarming, which Wynton Marsalis has been railing about for years-the lack of black interest in jazz. The Jazz Tent at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is, and has for some time been, mostly white. Although most of the players are black, they generally play to affluent white, older audiences. As is fitting, no one race or immigrant group can lay claim to having invented jazz, but black performers featured prominently, if not overwhelmingly, in its development into the only truly authentic American art form. This is occurring in major league baseball as well, despite the fact that the business and athletic success of the Negro Leagues played such a historic and important role in refuting many of the rationales for segregation. These trends are alarming. Perhaps hip-hop is killing jazz, just like it is rock and roll.

But what’s one irritable Texas lawyer to do?

Off I went to have some white beans and rice, “poulee fricassee” (chicken on a stick-basically a chicken-cicle) and “jama-jama” (spiced spinach). Then I took in a blacksmithing demonstration (no, really, I did), followed by the North Carolina Tuscarora Indian Stomp. I’d seen this last year, but its still kind of interesting.

Next it was on to the Blues Tent for Freddie King. The place was packed—nowhere to sit. I’m not much for the blues, at least not this slow, depressing kind (I can go for the more up tempo John Lee Hooker-style blues). King seemed a bit less dirge-like than other blues players, and the crowd loved it.

Then I noticed a 2009 Festival atrocity. They replaced Coke with Pepsi. Really? Pepsi is swill. Its like someone decided to put fizz in creosote and bottle it. Having to go nearly eight hours a day without Diet Coke is seriously going to harsh my mellow.

Having quit Freddie King early, I drifted instead back to the Jazz Tent for the remainder of Sharon Martin’s set. Kind of like Charmaine Neville, but more subtle, and sexier. Martin definitely was channeling Eartha Kitt, which is something we could all use a lot more of. Definitely a “chanteuse” who really sold it and worked the audience.

En route to the Acura stage, I began to notice kids…everywhere. All in their school uniforms. What’s the deal? Did they let school out today so the kids could all come to Jazz Fest and get their swine flu exposure sooner? They seemed to be in groups of about a classroom size, all escorted by teachers or some other authority looking adults. Very jarring site.

At the said Acura stage, I caught the tail end of something known as Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes. This was an Average White Band knock off, led by a poseur bass-playing singer. These guys are local. They’re the kind of band you’d hire to play at your barbecue or chili cook-off, or at the Fiji Texas-OU mixer. Somehow they got to play the main stage at Jazz Festival. Must have some pictures of someone important. Oh, and they all called themselves "Johnny." Uh, you aren't the Ramones, kids. Go away.

OK, here I planned to have some diatribe on women wearing bikini tops that, well, shouldn’t. It would have been really spectacular; someone for sure would have quit talking to me over it. But once again, its too late and this is too long, so lets just move on. Consider this a warning.

Where was I? After making brief stops at the Fais-Do-Do stage for the Creole Zydeco Farmers (and seeing a guy wearing the flower-top hat dancing up a storm I’d seen at many festivals past), it was on to Anders Osborne (no relation to Ozzy). This was a real disappointment. I’d last seen Osborne in 1991 when I first went to the festival. At the time, he was a guitar virtuoso, with jazz and fusion influences. Sort of a New Orleans Eric Johnson. This guy, nearly 20 years later, was anything but that. Osborne today was more Kenny Wayne Shepherd—white blues player with chops but without the soul. Think Johnny Winter without rhythm. Oh, and looking like Bret Favre with tattoos. I missed Theresa Andersson for this? Big mistake.

Next it was a stop at Congo Square for the New Birth Brass Band. What was new? Probably the use of an electric guitar. Not exactly “brass” now is that? They were a lot like the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, except faster and funkier. But still with second line influences, unlike Rebirth Brass Band, which now seems to want to become the first brass band hip-hop act.

So it was on to the subdudes (lower case spelling intentional on their part, ‘cause they’re, you know, “subdued”). The subdudes are no strangers to Jazz Fest or Louisiana, having been based here for over 30 years. Nothing was truly standout about their set today, other than they seemed to be having more fun than usual. Pretty much the standard set list, and the swelling crowd enjoyed dancing to the Louisiana Little Feat.

While en route to the Mississippi Mass Choir at the Gospel Tent, I finally went “off diet” and had some crawfish bread. This contains different melted cheeses, crawfish, and a little peppers, inside a toasted French bread baguette. Baiscally, this is the food of the gods. That and Popeye’s biscuits and Valian’s pizza. Mississippi Mass Choir then hit it out of the building. Clearly the performance of the day. Phenomenal soloists, stout backing, dynamic leadership, and driving instrumentalists. Very energetic and moving preaching as well. Very moving performance in an otherwise lackluster day.

Next, on recommendation of a guy I met at Johnny Sketch, was Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials at the Blues Tent. Now this was blues I could enjoy. Lil’ Ed, pictured above, was indeed little, but had a really big, tall hat. I should check into that by the way. But he played fat blues, very loud, distorted, nasty, but musical. It was sort of like Chuck Berry using Stevie Ray Vaughan’s guitar to play the blues.

Last up for the day was New Orleans stalwart Solomon Burke (“Cry to Me,” and “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love”) with a brief detour for Bonsoir, Catin. Last time I saw Burke was 1991, and he was still walking around the stage, channeling James Brown, complete with a 15 year old boy in a suit standing beside him as his “valet.” This year, however, he was wheeled out in a wheelchair, wearing a purple sequin three piece suit, with a red velvet cape wrapped around the wheelchair, and weighing about 500 pounds. He still had pipes though, and amazingly could still hold an audience even without moving around the stage. He played to a full house at the Congo Square stage for about an hour and 15 minutes, albeit with several guests. Burke was obviously Old School for sure. It made me think how the stars of years ago made their bones, as it were, on stage. They almost always had played live for years, to all kinds of crowds at all kinds of venues, before achieving fame. The Beatles played the Cavern Club. The Stones played the Crawdaddy. Before they ever had their first hit, they had played hundreds of shows. Today’s popular artists don’t necessarily go through that. They get popular on the internet, or some TV show, or by being a Mouseketeer. So they lack the experience of playing in front of audiences and finding what works and what doesn’t work. When they get out on stage, they don’t know how to handle it. You can definitely see this at Jazz Festival. The older performers who’ve been in the business for a long time have a way with the crowds that the newer ones lack. Burke is definitely a music professional, who can command an audience. It was entertaining to see just that element of the show. Plus the fact that he had a song in Dirty Dancing. Yeah, I said it. I like Dirty Dancing. Actually, I liked that guy who was Johnny's cousin, the one carrying the watermelons, whose only function was to provide exposition that filled in key scenes' necessary background. That's kind of how I see my place in life.

Bonsoir, Catin (don't forget the comma!) is a four-woman quartet from Lafayette playing old-style Cajun music. I “discovered” them last year at the Festival, and when I saw they overlapped with Solomon Burke, I just had to ditch Burke for a bit and check out some of their act. They introduce the songs by telling the stories each song relates (in Cajun french, which most of us don't know so well). This time, I found out one of the members is a former Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival Queen, which makes me even more their stalker. They drew a small but enthusiastic and respectable crowd (and a stalker), in light of being matched in the closing time slot against Emmylou Harris, Ben Harper, Solomon Burke, and Nicholas Payton.

Well, this was a lot longer than I imagined (that’s what she said), so I’ll dispense with the rest of my night and see you tomorrow.

Tomorrow-Beausoleil, Marcia Ball, and Tony Bennett

2009 Jazz Fest Preview

These dudes REALLY love Jazz Festival. I like the guy on the right, acting like this is just an everyday sight for him. Which it probably is, here in the Big Easy.

This will be more abbreviated than usual, given the hour. I'm back in New Orleans again for yet another Jazz and Heritage Festival. Meaning, its time to get my eat on while listening to great music. This year offers another great collection of musicians from all fields.

Here's the highlights of what I'm looking forward to this year:

Thursday: Theressa Andersson, Anders Osborne (outstanding guitarist), subdudes (country/folk/acoustic with a Louisiana flavor), Solomon Burke (original New Orleans R&B), Emmylou Harris, Mississippi Mass Choir, Jakob Dylan.

Friday: BeauSoleil (premiere Cajun band), Frankie Ford ("Sea Cruise" and "You Talk Too Much"), Marcia Ball, Bonnie Raitt, John Boutte (jazz vocalist), Tony Bennett (yeah, THAT Tony Bennett), Geno Delafose.

Saturday: Zachary Richard (zydeco-"Crawfeesh"), Buckwheat Zydeco, Cowboy Mouth (local hard rockers), Dr. John, the O'Jays, John Mayall, Deacon John, New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars, Aaron Neville solo gospel performance.

Sunday: Neil Young and Crazy Horse ("Keep On Rockin' In the Free World"), Allen Toussaint, Ellis Marsalis (Wynton and Branford's dad), Soul Rebels, Sherman Washington and the Zion Harmonizers (the premiere New Orleans gospel group), D.L. Menard and the Louisiana Aces (old-time Cajun country), Dash Rip Rock (fun New Orleans hard rock party band), Buddy Guy, and the Neville Brothers.

Here's who I definitely will not be catching: Sugarland, Bon Jovi, Kings of Leon, and Ben Harper.

Naturally, I plan to spend lots of time eating: crawfish pie, crawfish Monica, Prejean's quail, pheasant, and andouille gumbo, crawfish sack, crawfish tamales, tasso, seafood jambalaya, and jama-jama (spicy African spinach dish). Better get my fat clothes out when I come home.

Generally, with all the standing around, and walking from stage to stage, my 44 year old back is shot by Festival's end. Still, its worth it for those gems that always reveal themselves each year. Isaac Hayes singing an extended version of "Shaft" as night fell on the festival; Paul Simon singing Slip Slidin' Away as the rains hit Jazz Festival; Randy Newman singing "Louisiana 1927" as the skies started to pour; Irma Thomas' and Marva Wright's "Tribute to Mahalia Jackson"; B.B. King; Rev. Al Green; Jerry Lee Lewis; Johnny Rivers; one of Ike Turner's last performances before his death; Phillip Manuel's "Tribute to Nat King Cole"; the last half of the Stevie Wonder show; Rebirth Brass Band; and any time that the Zion Harmonizers play.

Today I was able to get into town soon enough to check out the Wednesday in the Square free show. This is a weekly concert series sponsored by the New Orleans Saints, in Lafayette Square across from the federal courthouse (where I used to play volleyball with other young lawyers during my brief career as a New Orleans maritime lawyer). Tonight's show featured Marva Wright and Marcia Ball. There was quite a crowd, in what was obviously a Jazz Fest warmup for everyone. An odd mix of professionals using this as an impromptu happy hour, Festival-goers, and people who would have been in the park concert or no. It was fun getting here in time for this warmup.

I'll aim to post each night after the day's show. That may break down, but I'll do the best I can. I'll probably be more reliable at uploading the millions of pictures I always take. I already have some pictures from the Lafayette Square free show. In the meantime, I feel sorry for all you losers working at your hum-drum jobs instead of joining me at Jazz Festival.

Drugs Are Bad, Mmm-kay? The Daily Affirmations Manifesto on Drugs

Ty: Do you take drugs Danny?
Danny: Every day.
Ty: Good. So what’s the problem?

Caddyshack

Drugs are bad because if you do drugs, you’re a hippie, and hippies suck.

Eric Cartman, South Park

Different views on a difficult social issue, for sure. The stoners who own the groovy good times van in this picture, outside my hotel in New Orleans at the moment, side with Ty Webb.

But in keeping with the Daily Affirmations philosophy of “tough stands on tough issues” (or is it “serve the queen bee,” I can never remember), its time to take a stand on one of the most compelling moral issues of our day—the War on Drugs. Actually, that was more of a compelling issue in the 60s and 70s, but better late than never.

Imagine, if instead of chocolate, Milton Hershey and his other chocolate-making buddies had gone into ganja, weed, Mary Jane, all those years ago. Suppose instead of building up a factory in mid-west Pennsylvania full of Oompa-Loompas making everlasting gobstoppers and purifying his chocolate in a river, they instead processed coca or marijuana leaves (from South America) on a factory line like Charlie Chaplin’s bolt fastener in Modern Times. Suppose they applied their entrepreneurial skills to promoting drugs instead of chocolate, and polite society became hooked on getting its rush from puffing the magic dragon instead of from fudge and Oreos. Hershey and all the others who rushed in to emulate his success would have lobbied for laws to push their competitors (i.e. chocolate manufacturers) out of business. This isn’t so crazy. Coca-cola originally contained small amounts of cocaine, for example. And, after all, a lot of these drugs weren’t criminalized until the 1920s or 30s. Congress and the states might have banned chocolate as the harmful substance instead of drugs, and we’d have grown up in a world where marijuana or other drug use might seem as normal as eating chocolate today. Except with less fudgy residue around the mouth and fingertips.

Imagine that world. Fatties roaming thru bad neighborhoods at night looking for a snicker’s fix. Shady travel agents booking “holiday” trips to Zurich and Geneva so clients can sample “the bean” in its pure form. Average teens making do with jawbreakers or lemon drops, while the Heathers and other cool kids break out the chocolate chips after football games and before prom, or on graduation night, when they hit the “hard stuff”…dark chocolate. Reese’s peanut butter cups made with, gag, vanilla yogurt. The “CEA” funding cocoa eradication raids in Peru, and following around fat guys at the Miami docks or along the RioGrande. Federal prosecutors trying to shut down California would have legalized “chocolate clinics,” which California legalized because chocolate is shown to have a somewhat beneficial effect on heart disease, where fat guys would go for their “prescriptions.” Richard Pryor singlehandedly starting the dreaded 1979 “chocolate fondue” craze. We’d hear warnings from time to time about sinister “Mexican hot chocolate” or the dreaded “white chocolate” coming across the border smuggled in balloons inserted into people’s body cavities. Sidebar, the Mexican hot chocolate at Café Pasqual’s in Santa Fe is one of the things that no life is complete without having at least once.

You get the point. Hershey went into chocolate, rightly or wrongly drugs got banned through the years, and now if you want to get high you have to make do with drinking, eating bad food, smoking, driving motorcycles, abusing cough syrup, having dangerous sex, sniffing glue, watching TV 18 hours a day, or eating chocolate. That’s totally bogus, dude.

Who decided that? Those idiots in the legislatures and Congress, that’s who. The ones all of you voted for (or didn’t because you decided you had better things to do on election day, like watch Tyra Banks re-runs and eat cheetoes). These are the same people who do lots of other crazy things in your name, like ban murder, rape and kidnapping, set up social welfare programs to help the poor, established free public schools, regulated businesses like insurance, utilities, banking (bad example), built roads (ok, maybe another bad example). Sort of like the “what have the Romans ever done for us” scene in Life of Brian. How did they get that job? At least 50% of the voters put them there, and in most cases sent then back for a return engagement. Unfortunately, these same idiots, in addition to all those other accomplishments, say you have to take a class before you get married to avoid a tax, spend their time angsting over preventing 16 year old girls from getting tans while the economy falls off the cliff, who test high school athletes for steroids but not cocaine or crack, and who worry about “suggestive” high school cheerleaders routines. Here in Texas, Republicans seem hell-bent to remake the world to suit soccer moms, while Democrats make more news when they run off to another state to hide out than when they actually show up for work.

So, when this collection of Thomas Jeffersons criminalizes marijuana, why should anyone listen? Although its crystal clear to everyone except its users (which isn’t surprising because it affects the brain) that marijuana is hazardous to one’s health, so are lots of other legal things and activities to varying degrees. Snow skiing, mountain climbing, motorcycling, pop tarts, scotch, very sharp knives, trapeze flying, driving, walking across the street, Matthew McConaughey movies….

But these are legal and pot is not. Why? Because your elected heroes and protectors of the public say so. No amount of self-aggrandizing, goatee-wearing hipster ridicule or by sweater-wearing, know-it-all rationalization can erase that fact. To reject that is, in essence, to reject the primacy of law. Ours is a government of law, not of man. Law prevents tin-horn dictators like Chavez or Castro or Huey P. Long from governing by whim, and prevents anarchy. Even closet libertarians like myself believe in laws and that governments should enforce the laws. And unenforced or ignored laws are the same thing as no laws.

Believe it or not, despite the lingering existence of some normatively “unjust” laws, law on balance reflects the majority will. Lawmakers, whom we can remove if we dislike their choices, enact laws. Courts, made up of judges that we in Texas can remove if we dislike their rulings, apply those laws. Presidents, Governors, and Mayors subject to elections oversee law enforcement organizations who enforce those laws (or don’t, as the case may be). Lawmakers who refuse to adopt policies consistent with the majority will ultimately do not last, as we’ve seen in dramatic fashion after first the Reagan Revolution, then the Clinton Revolution, then the Contract with America, then the Obama “I’m OK, You’re OK” take-back. When society is through with the old crowd’s policies, the old crowd must either change or the voters elect a new crowd with a different mandate. That is the nature of our democracy.

So consider marijuana. Society’s moral consensus has changed on a wide range of issues in the last 50 years, and the laws have on balance kept up. The fact that marijuana and other drugs have remained illegal, albeit with laws enforced against suppliers more heavily than users, reflects another “unpopular truth” among some—society still disapproves of drug usage. Recently in the UK, when the Labor Government decriminalized marijuana conviction penalties, the public reacted with outrage while other nations objected, and the Government had no choice but to revert to the prior sentencing scheme.

I have no inherent objection to someone using marijuana or cocaine or heroin or whatever else gets you going. You want to harm your health, go right ahead. Unfortunately for you, Jeff Spicoli, society has made your choice for you. Laws prohibit drug usage, sales and distribution. To belittle the legitimacy of these laws as akin to speeding tickets misses the point entirely. One does not have the right to decide which laws he will obey; law is not something ordered a la carte as if one were at Luby’s. What would such a right do to a society? No matter what law you name, you can always find someone somewhere who opposes it. Child molester laws? Most child molesters probably oppose those laws. Laws prohibiting serial killing? Serial killers vote “no.” Whether a law is “right” or “just” or “fair” simply does not matter.

But I have a more practical objection to drug usage in the face of such laws, and choose not to associate with those whom I know to use illegal drugs as a consequence. I do not care to associate myself and my name with the carnage the drug industry has wrought in our inner cities and throughout much of the world. Because its usage and sale is illegal, drugs command a higher price than if they were traded in organized commercial markets. Because “drug contracts” cannot be enforced in the courts, drug criminals must enforce their deals and preserve their “market share” by violence and intimidation. Drug violence, which arises as a transaction cost of making revenues and supplying users, has ravaged most American inner cities with official corruption and both random and targeted violence. Drug cartels whose revenues depend on supplying drugs to homeless crack addicts and preppy Amherst pot smokers alike, have through assassinations, attacks, and corruption, destabilized governments, diverted humanitarian aid, enslaved and oppressed millions, and caused countless deaths. What funds the Taliban? Poppy sales revenues. Anyone up for a Ciudad Juarez holiday these days? Those who become addicted must ultimately commit other crimes to fund their addiction, which normally leaves them incapable of performing any normal job. The human toll this causes on families, friends, co-workers, and ultimately other social institutions like emergency rooms, counseling organizations, and the like, has staggering costs. Nearly all this is due to the sale and use of an illegal product with an inelastic demand.

Just like all those flappers and zoot suiters having a great time at the local speakeasy made possible a monster like Capone, so too does you and your girlfriend getting fried at your cousin Ned's Labor Day party help make possible drive-by shootings that leave infants dead. Numerous other intervening causes exist, of course, but these things wouldn’t happen without people using illegal drugs. I do not care to be a link in that chain, or have my name associated with anyone who is.

Former Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis once told me and others a story about being pulled over by a state trooper for driving far above the speed limit. The cop didn’t give him a ticket. He did worse—he gave him a lecture. The cop said that if Speaker Lewis wanted to drive that fast, he should go back to Austin and pass a law allowing people to drive that fast. But if he wasn’t willing to do that, he should follow the laws that he makes just like all the rest of us. Speaker Lewis said he felt about three inches tall after that dressing down.

So, hippies, party on if you must. Leave me out of it.

The Loneliest Place in the World

Harry Kalas' passing and John Madden's recent retirement reminds us that the great lights are going out, especially in the broadcast booth. To be replaced by, who knows? Mostly anonymous screamers, hawking product and running an endless stream of chatter over the Great American Game. At the tail end of this post, I link to Vin Scully's broadcast of the ninth inning of Sandy Koufax's perfect game. Everyone needs to listen to this, as I'll explain.

Sports, particularly for boys when I grew up and before, were an introduction to some semblance of the adult world to come. I didn't understand or have interest in business, politics, the war, or even girls. Other than the race to the moon, sports were the one grown-up pursuit I could follow with any degree of understanding. Mainly because my friends and my brothers and I played sports. We even played with Dad, who taught me how to bat, how to throw, to catch, and to run. Every boy I knew followed the Astros, the Oilers (or Cowboys), and later the Rockets. We all played out in the street, sometimes assuming the identity of our sports idols. When we didn't have enough kids to make entire teams, we'd invent games to play, unlike the heavily supervised and managed children of today, whose helicopter parents won't let them throw a ball or run five steps unless its part of an organized league with appropriate parental supervision, coaching, and liability releases.

When we weren't actually playing games, we were watching them on TV or listening on the radio. I actually remember Dad and I watching the 1968 Super Bowl (Oakland vs. Green Bay). I missed the bus home from second grade one afternoon, having lost track of time watching the 1972 World Series (Cincinatti vs. Oakland) in the school library with the principal. Mom got mad at me but Mr. Ledger stuck up for me and calmed her down when she came to pick me up. Sidebar-the present lack of daytime World Series games is an abomination. Dad and I and later my brothers would watch every Oilers game, and lots of other baseball and football games together. We often went to Houston Cougar football games, marveling over Bill Yeoman's explosive veer offense. Every so often we went to the Astrodome to watch Astros games, sitting in the bleachers, eating peanuts, and hanging on every pitch. I can still name every player in the early 1970s Astros lineup.

It has always been so with American boys (and now boys and girls throughout the world). My dad recently showed me a letter to the sports section editor he wrote as a kid, complaining that a writer had slighted Stan Musial. In the 1940s and 50s, the St. Louis Cardinals had a minor league team in Houston, the Houston Buffs, so Houston baseball fans gave their loyalty to the Cardinals for many years. Dad's letter listed with zeal Stan the Man's accomplishments and talents, as only a boy who grew up immersed in the American Game of Baseball and the local team could.

We listened to games on the radio, especially baseball. Baseball ultimately is a radio game. The best announcers did more than describe the game-they painted a picture. They called the action, but gave it shading, depth, color, and dimension. They'd explain the strategy and nuance, but they'd tell stories too. The great announcers of that era were more than just play-by-play men, they were your friends with whom you caught the game. Year after year, they were part of your life. They had nothing in common with today's screamers, who have seizures over every fly ball, or hawk Auto Zone or tell you about plenty of good seats still being available for Administaff Friday Fireworks between pitches, or talk about their favorite brand of donut or where they're going golfing tomorrow, instead of describing the game. This new breed of announcer is a homer, simply a shill for the team ownership, trying to hype ticket and merchandise sales, having little interest in describing the game.

I was privileged to grow up listening to the magnificent Gene Elston call Astros games. Elston was of the variety I described. Plain spoken, friendly, comfortable. Never hyperbolic or prone to emotional outbursts like today's announcers, Elston called a game like he was talking just to you. Later, I would take a transistor radio to bed and listen through the static to Jack Buck broadcast Cardinals' games on KMOX or Jack Brickhouse broadcast Cubs games on WHO (in Des Moines). Though a bit livelier than Elston, these men had much the same spare, plain spoken style. They presented the game, not themselves.

But the best, ever, was and is Vin Scully of the Dodgers. Scully began calling Brooklyn Dodgers games in 1950, serving an apprenticeship under the incomparable Red Barber. Scully called the Brooklyn Dodgers' only World Series championship, in 1955, as well as Don Larson's perfect game in 1956, Hank Aaron's 715th home run, Reggie Jackson's three home run game in the 1977 World Series, Bill Buckner's error in the 1986 World Series, Kirk Gibson's home run in the 1988 World Series, Orel Hersheiser's scoreless innings streak...the list goes on. 59 years later, he is still calling Dodgers games, working solo, with his trademark simple eloquence. Scully called the NBC Game of the Week during the 1980s, as well as numerous All-Star games and World Series.

Without question, his greatest moment, and with apologies to Russ Hodges, the greatest moment in baseball announcing, was his call of Sandy Koufax's perfect game. In 1965, Koufax was in the middle of a hot streak almost no other pitcher has ever had. Koufax finished the season, in which the Dodgers won the World Series, with a 26-8 record, 2.04 ERA, 382 strikeouts, and pitched in 335 innings. Those numbers are unheard of today, and constitute one of the greatest seasons any pitcher has ever had. On September 9, 1965, Koufax pitched his fourth no-hitter, which at the time broke the record of three set by Bob Feller (later to be bested by the Alvin Express, Nolan Ryan). The Dodgers were in a tight pennant race with the hated enemies to the north, the Giants. Though the Dodgers would ultimately win the pennant by two games, they were a 1/2 game out of first (tied with the Reds) on the night Koufax achieved perfection. The game was one of the best pitched games ever. Bob Hendley of the Cubs threw a one-hitter against the Dodgers that night and allowed only two base runners. The final score was 1-0. One hit and two base runners in a nine-inning game each remains a major league record. Koufax struck out 14 batters, over half the 27 he faced, ending the game with six consecutive strikeouts. It was a masterpiece.

Amazingly though, it is Vin Scully's call of that game that people remember most. It has been called the best piece of baseball writing ever, though of course his description was completely off-the-cuff and unrehearsed. Scully paints a portrait of that game that takes the listener not just to the park, but to the mound right next to Koufax. The lead-in from the commercial break after the 8th is maybe the greatest opening sentence of any paragraph I've ever read, much less heard delivered extemporaneously by a man witnessing, and trying to describe, history. We see, or hear, the game as if we were right there. Scully, who had to have been just as excited as any fan in the park, dialed down his emotions and instead conveyed the spectacle through a combination of matter of factness and nearly-poetic images. "29,000 people in the ballpark and a million butterflies." "the mound at Dodger Stadium right now is the loneliest place in the world." "A lot of people in the ballpark now are starting to see the pitches with their hearts." Notice also that after he calls the final strike, he waits 38 seconds until he says anything else, instead allowing the moment to sink in, giving the audience a chance to revel and to hear the crowd's eruption. Jon Miller, himself an outstanding contemporary baseball announcer for the Giants, once called off an entire planned pre-game show to simply read the transcript of Scully's call, prompting the most fan mail he'd ever received. The call is simply exquisite. We live in times where its not likely we'll ever hear its equal again.

Click below to hear the broadcast



And, Slate magazine transcribed the call, so click on this link to read it.

Keep listening after the end of the game, for Scully to explain why he kept stating the date and time.

Hope you enjoy.

Tanning-the Second in a Daily Affirmations Health Tips Arc

While lung and other forms of cancer largely continue to decline, skin cancers continue to increase. The Center for Disease Control reports a 7.7 percent increase from 2003-05 for men, and a 2.9 percent increase for women from 1993-2005. That's 53,792 people with melanoma, 8,345 of whom died, in 2005. Nearly all of this is due to sun exposure, and specifically to ultraviolet ray exposure. My own mother had a skin cancer issue, and my uncle Jimmy, who spent most of his adult life in the sun as a football coach, had a melanoma on the neck. With early detection, both of these were caught, but had much more time gone by, it may have been too late.

Which brings us to tanning. A tan is basically a sign of skin injury, as your skin produces melanin in an attempt to ward off further sun radiation damage. Polite society once frowned upon tans as signifying someone who worked outside (and therefore was of a lower social class). Sometime around the 50s, with Frankie and Annette at the beach along with Gidget and Dick Dale, it became socially acceptable to smear oneself with baby oil and head out into the sun for a good eight or nine hour bake. In many cases, this just created a lobster thermador effect, but the idea was to become a nice cocoa brown, like the aforementioned teen idols. Cary Grant, for example, always sported a suntan. Even now, all the cool people are doing it. And by "it," I mean going out to the beach or laying out on a mat in the sun for several hours with little or no UV protection.

There's even a new phenomenon called "binge tanning," reported in the UK, in which women feel pressure to have a "year-round" tan and overuse indoor tanning beds, leading to a sharp rise in under-30s melanomas. I can understand why those pasty white, Casper the Friendly Ghost shop-dwellers feel the need to get some sunlight, but those of us living somewhere with more than 20 days of sunlight per year have no such excuse. Indoor tanning beds don't avoid this risk either, and in fact, can actually be worse than going into the sun.

Frankly, all you people are really doing is turning yourselves into cancer-ridden saddles. I see a tan and can literally feel the wrinkles forming, and can picture the hidebag you will become in twenty years or less. Are tans even really all that attractive? Certainly not with the splotching and peeling that they bring. Isn't normal human skin (with acceptable sunlight levels, enough to get your vitamin D) much more attractive? A tan evokes 1970s TWA stewardess on her way to the "fox bar" to chase down Mr. Goodbar Richard Gere (and generally winding up with Milt the new guy from accounting, sporting gold chains and a fresh new perm). That's not an association you'd hope for.

Yet, people persist because beauty knows no pain. Tattoos, botox, piercings, branding, liposuction, facelifts (and other unnecessary plastic surgery)...all this is our version of the plates in the lips or bone through the nose. Can you imagine parties on the Ethiopian plain, where women gripe about that one tramp who got her lip plate by cozying up to the tribal chief, or the men complaining about their wives wanting bigger and bigger lip plates? Basically the same thing happens at Westlake or Highland Park cocktail parties, just substitute "cosmetic surgery" for lip plates.

Here's a weird thought...the human body is beautiful just the way it comes from the factory. Its already done. There's no need to turn your body into some living canvas or subject it to technological tortures. Keep it maintained and it will look remarkable, just as it is, at any age. Its like having a german shepherd-give it good food and water, exercise, keep it out of the direct sun, cut its hair and groom it, and it will look and feel great its whole life. I'll allow that in the case of tattoos, there may be some uniquely personal reason and expression behind the tattoo, like your child's name, or your squad in Vietnam, or your Rush tribute band ("Rush-tastic"). But that dolphin or star above your ankle isn't telling anyone anything except you and your six closest girlfriends got to know the Oklahoma State rugby team really well at Spring Break in Daytona.

There's only a few people who can legitimately have tans:

Fishermen and sailors (and no, I won't use the term "fishers")
World War II fighter pilots downed in the Pacific
Surfers (see Blue Crush)
Park rangers
Roofers
Landscapers
DEA Agents stationed in Miami (but not Miami PD-hear that Crockett and Tubbs?)
Cougars.

On that last one, cougars need a tan as an identifying mark, going with the article of leopard print clothing, frosted scare hair, Catwoman nails, drug store makeup, martini in hand, and "augmentation." All those things without a tan just say "Lubbock doctor's wife." The tan really makes the image pop.

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As I outlined this post last weekend, ESPN Classic was playing the 1979 NCAA Men's Basketball championship game, the Bird-Magic Indiana State vs. Michigan State game that revitalized college basketball and launched those two into careers that would have the same effect on the NBA. Several things jumped out at me watching the game.

First, the short shorts. Holy God! Did we really wear shorts like that? How was that not a public health hazard? Lots of chafing I imagine. Leave something to the imagination guys.

Also, the game itself seemed faster, but more bunched around the basket. Without the three point shot, defenders didn't need to worry about the outside perimeter, so they felt free to camp in the lane and stop drives to the basket. That in turn put a premium on fast breaks to get to the hoop before the defense could get set, and on quick passing to beat the zones. It also was more of a big man's game, as rebounds were more important to the offense and to handle the increased traffic near the basket.

It was also interesting watching a game without a shot clock. This game seemed unaffected by it though. I don't recall the shot clock being such a big issue in college, although it did stop such atrocities as the 1978 SWC Tournament final, where Arkansas beat Texas 39-38. That's like a college intramural game score.

They interviewed both Bird and Magic in the present day, and showed clips from each interview during the game. Lets just say both of those guys' heads are a LOT bigger now than 1979. I think Bird's head may have its own gravitational field. "Don't you have any respect for yourself?" Signed, Greg Marmalard.

Bluebonnets! Bluebonnets! Bluebonnets!

An update to my earlier wildflower post. I was driving east on US 290 yesterday evening as twilight began to give way to dusk, windows down and Bob Dylan's "Visions of Johanna" blaring from my stereo, when to the right (south of the highway) I noticed five or six of the biggest, thickest bluebonnet fields I've ever seen. Seas of bluebonnets like I've never seen, not even in Fredericksburg. Several drivers had pulled over at various spots to take pictures.

You can find these fields just west of noted speed trap and sausage town Chappell Hill, after Brenham (or before Brenham if you're coming from Texas). These fields are closer to Chappell Hill.

While we're at it, the wildflowers are really in full bloom all along US 290 between Austin and Hempstead. Lots of buttercups, bluebonnets, winecups, coreopsis, and paintbrush (actually, I've been a little disappointed at the paintbrushes this year-not so thick as previous years). Looking forward to the later appearance of sunflowers, mexican hats, and indian blankets.

Also, you can click on this link to where people have been posting their own Texas wildflower sightings.

ETA: there's also an abundance of bluebonnets, and other wildflowers, surrounding and in Memorial Park in Houston. I will post pictures to flickr when I return to Austin tomorrow night.

Signs of Austin

I'm starting a new Flickr photo set called "Signs of Austin." Basically, this imaginative name applies to photos I've begun taking of various signs unique to Austin. I've decided that my new fake job, which I hope will impress and amaze the chicks at cocktail parties and happy hours better than "electric utility lawyer," is "free-lance journalist." You know, like Clint Eastwood in Bridges of Madison County (which, amazingly, I've seen only the last part of, since after all, the best part of any romance is the part where it doesn't work out and they have to live with the anguish sadly ever after-still not sure how I got this way....). "So, like, what do you do? Oh, actually I'm a Free-Lance Photographer; I travel the world taking photos for Time, Newsweek, Esquire...can I get you like another mojito?" Like that. So, this is Project #2 of Chris Reeder, Free-Lance Photographer/Hunk of Burnin' Love. (#1 was of the Town Lake Trail). Hope you enjoy.

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Two complaints.

First, can anything stop the new "white pants" trend before it goes any further? I get out of the office right around never, but in the span of two weeks, I've seen at least five women wearing white pants. Its not even Easter yet. White pants are so "wife-swapping at the hot tub after getting back from the EST lecture and the Woody Allen movie." White pants inevitably lead to white shoes, which have no place in polite society outside of the 1970s.

Second, ditto for the "high five." Can we please stop with the high fives already? Britney Spears thinks the high five is overexposed. This afternoon, I walked past a couple in their 80s if they were a day over 10, who had just successfully parked their late model Buick in a smallish parking space. The wife turned to her navy jacket, orange sherbet button down wearing husband and high fived him. When people who were alive in the last Great Depression pick up on a cultural fad, that's when you know its over. 1983 is tired of the high five. Unless you're Starsky or Hutch, the jive brothers from Airplane, or a member of a NBA team in the semi-finals or finals, kindly refrain from high fiving. I got sick of Joe Average trying to high five me for his pathetic daily achievements, like spelling "aphrodisiac" properly in his personal ad, about 20 years ago. This is just a permutation of an even better general rule-keep your hands to yourself.

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I don't want to let Opening Day pass without some remarks. Its harder to follow professional sports these days, with such widespread player movement. You really can't get behind any of the players on "your team" these days, because as soon as you do, they've been traded to Cleveland for draft choices and minor leaguers to be named later. But baseball itself can still amaze and entertain. Like life, it is few little moments of intensity surrounded by watching, waiting, planning, and expecting. Every "play" in baseball is preceded by all sorts of subtle moves, barely visible yet highly important. And unlike any other sport, each team has the same opportunities to win as the other team-9 sets of 3 outs. You can't run out the clock in a baseball game. Baseball has mounds of problems, and its owners may never sort them out. But even in imperfection, baseball still symbolizes our nation, particularly with the integration of outstanding players from all over the world, much like the integration of immigrants from everywhere in the world to our country. So I look forward to my 44th season (43 1/2 actually-I missed most of the 1964 season but was around for Bob Gibson's first World Series). See you at the yard, meat!