When I got home from work last night, I went right to the Internet. After I got online, I checked out the news headlines on my ISP's Website and saw this:
"Gingrich weeps as he recalls his mom."
The man who served as this country's House Speaker from 1995 to 1999- who wants to get back into politics by going right to the very top- was at a coffeehouse in Des Moines to give his campaign one final pre-Iowa caucus push.
At some point or another, the discussion came to memories of the woman who adopted the Harrisburg, PA native when he was a child (she died in 2003).
Newton Leroy McPherson Gingrich (that's his full name, folks) told the coffeehouse crowd about how his adoptive mother had to battle bipolar depression, talked about how she lived a happy life, and then...he teared up.
I just hope that his tears the other day were truly genuine.
When USA Today did the story, the reporter told the world that Gingrich's tears were reminiscent of when, in early 2008, then US Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) answered a reporter's question about the rigors of campaigning for the most talked-about job in politics...only to shed some tears.
I remember how those same reporters, coming into 2008 itself, talked about how Rodham Clinton "lacked the warmth" supposedly needed for her to succeed as a presidential candidate. (They'd been after the former first lady since 1992, after all!)
Now many of these same media people are out there speculating over the idea of HRC trading in her gig heading up the State Department for the vice presidency.
Anyway, after the story about Rodham Clinton's tears broke, she ended up getting plenty of support- especially from the reporters who savaged her over events like her and husband Bill's 1992 interview on 60 Minutes.
And now, we're told that Gingrich's teardrops might pull more people toward supporting the former US representative from Georgia.
We shall see.
All I know is this: Many of the things NLMG has done since coming on the national political scene in the 1980s (especially masterminding two government shutdowns during the Bill Clinton years) have driven many people to tears.
And then you've got some of things Gingrich has said here in 2011 alone...especially his desire to rip the textbooks out of inner-city children's hands and replace those books with brooms and dustpans. (To say nothing of his contention that there's nothing American about the man who's got the job the ex-college prof and six other Republicans are after: Barack Obama.)
Above all, I'm wondering if Newton ever weeps as he recalls the two marriages he walked out on before he met a woman named Callista.
Oh, well...it was just a thought.
Well, that's all I've got for now...except: I'm Jim Boston, and I'll see you in 2012! Thanks for reading this blog!
Well, I am.
I'm ready to get going with the 2011 edition of a would-be, could-be, should-be NCAA Division 1-A college football playoff...especially after watching Wisconsin-Whitewater take down longtime nemesis Mount Union, 13-10, to keep its (Real Life) NCAA Division 3 football title. (And as I'm typing this, I'm checking out a Division 1-AA semifinal. Right now, with 7:54 to play in the third quarter, Sam Houston State leads Montana, 28-14. They're both after the championship Eastern Washington picked up in 2010.)
Tomorrow, the fairy tales- oops, I mean the D-1-A bowl games- get started. And for this season, it all ends on 1-9-2012 with the Extra Bowl. (Oops...I mean the BCS championship game. And that game's Louisiana State-Alabama matchup ought to be a big reason to switch 1-A football to a playoff system instead of this bowls-and-polls crap.)
So, manana, I'm going to my computer and start the first round of this version of this year's 1-A playoffs.
If you're new to "Boston's Blog," I like to run a 24-team playoff that includes the champion from each of NCAA Division 1-A football's eleven conferences (not just the six wealthiest ones- the ones labeled "BCS" leagues) along with thirteen at-large teams. To get all the teams seeded, I use a point system that's kind of like the one your state's high school athletic association probably uses to determine football playoff pairings in each class.
This point system goes like this:
A playoff team gets 50 quality points if it beat a Division 1-A team that had a winning record, 45 points for every victory against a 1-A club that had a .500 record or worse, 40 points for stopping a Division 1-AA squad that won most of its games, and 35 points for defeating a nonwinning 1-AA team.
And that playoff team has to give up quality points for every loss it racks up: 50 for every loss to a winning Division 1-A club, 55 every time the qualifying team loses to a nonwinning 1-A squad, 60 for any loss to a D-1-AA team that won most of its contests, and- that's right- 65 points in case a 1-A playoff team gets beat by a 1-AA club that stank.
All undefeated 1-A playoff teams receive 55 bonus points apiece.
And yep, the system uses tiebreakers, too. The first tiebreaker involves the number of victories the tied clubs' Division 1-A opponents racked up. If those numbers end up exactly the same, head-to-head competition is used. If the two teams didn't play each other, their conference records are examined. In case the records are dead even, point differential in conference games is used. If the teams had the same number there, I take a look at the point diff in all games.
If the point differential in all games is the same for both teams, well...a coin flip breaks the tie.
In this system, the bowl games aren't taken into consideration; just regular-season play. And the Associated Press poll and its ESPN-USA Today and Harris Interactive counterparts have no bearing on this system, so there's no media bias.
This system stresses how a team did this season, not its popularity or longtime reputation.
And with that in mind, it's time to announce (drum roll)...the 24 entries in this season's NCAA Division 1-A football playoff (well, at least THIS version):
1. Louisiana State (13-0; SEC champ)/ 2. Houston (12-1; Conference USA at-large)/ 3. Boise State (11-1; Mountain West at-large)/ 4. Oklahoma State (11-1; Big 12 champ)/ 5. Stanford (11-1; Pac-12 at large)/ 6. Alabama (11-1; SEC at-large)/ 7. Virginia Tech (11-2; ACC at-large)/ 8. Oregon (11-2; Pac-12 champ)
9. Wisconsin (11-2; Big Ten champ)/ 10. Southern Mississippi (11-2; Conference USA champ)/ 11. Michigan (10-2; Big Ten at-large)/ 12. TCU (10-2; Mountain West champ)/ 13. Kansas State (10-2; Big 12 at-large)/ 14. Arkansas State (10-2; Sun Belt champ)/ 15. South Carolina (10-2; SEC at-large)/ 16. Arkansas (10-2; SEC at-large)
17. Clemson (10-3; ACC champ)/ 18. Michigan State (10-3; Big Ten at-large)/ 19. Georgia (10-3; SEC at-large)/ 20. Northern Illinois (10-3; MAC champ)/ 21. Oklahoma (9-3; Big 12 at-large)/ 22. Nebraska (9-3; Big Ten at-large)/ 23. Cincinnati (9-3; Big East champ)/ 24. Louisiana Tech (8-4; WAC champ)
Oh, by the way...the top eight seeds get to duck (or Duck) the first round.
You're probably wondering: "Hey! How come West Virginia didn't get in? They were ranked!"
Well, here's how it happened: West Virginia, Louisville, and Cincinnati shared the 2011 Big East title by posting identical 5-2 conference records (both the Mountaineers and Bearcats went 9-3 overall, while the Cardinals turned in a 7-5 showing).
In head-to-head-to head competition, the three teams had 1-1 records, so it came down to point differential: The Bearcats got the automatic bid because they outscored Louisville and WVU, 46-40. (When the Mountaineers took on Cincy and Louisville, it came out a combined 59-59 tie; and the Cards were outscored by their two fellow trichamps, 60-53.)
Even so, Bill Stewart's club would've made the playoffs on its own if Clemson hadn't toppled Virginia Tech, 38-10, to snatch the ACC title away from the Hokies. (Result: The Tigers get in for the first time in four years; in 2007, Central Florida stunned Clemson, 28-14, in the first round.)
Another thing: For the first time since 1989, the team with the Heisman Trophy winner didn't make the playoffs...and this year's Baylor squad would've left 1985 Auburn, 1987 Notre Dame, 1988 Oklahoma State, and Houston's 1989 edition as the only teams that had the Heisman winner and no place for them in the playoffs if the help Art Briles' club needed had come. (It was a 16-team playoff from the would-be event's 1982 inception through 2000.)
The Bears and their old Big 12 foes from Lincoln totaled the same number of quality points here in 2011: 265. But Bo Pelini's squad saw its Division 1-A opponents get 81 wins of their own this year, while the men from Waco saw their 1-A foes pick up 77 W's this time around.
But the Cornhuskers beat Iowa, 20-7, to keep Robert Griffin III (the latest to lug The Trophy out of New York City) off the computer.
And Penn State (that's right, scandal-ridden Penn State) could've gotten in at 9-3...but South Carolina stopped Clemson, 34-13, to deny the Nittany Lions a place.
Speaking of scandal...USC got left off the field despite its 10-2 record. That's what the Reggie Bush/player agent antics of the mid-2000s did to the Trojans.
Well, that's it. I'm fired up about running Lance Haffner's 3-in-1 Football, computer vs. computer style, to find out which team's going to replace Ohio State (which beat TCU last season, 28-22) at the top of this playoff heap.
Stay tuned!
That's right...I mean the members of the Occupy Wall Street movement and its offshoots not just here in the United States, but all over this planet.
I wholeheartedly support the protesters.
I mean, what would you do if you were coming out of college (and facing a mountain of debt)...only to find the nation's biggest businesses are just not hiring right now?
What would you do if you'd just come back from Iraq or Afghanistan (be it your only tour of duty or your umpteenth), where you'd just gotten through fighting to keep America on the map...and you're ready to get back to civilian life...only to find there's no place left for you in this country's workforce?
The Americans who're coming out of college and are coming back from this country's two long-running, unfunded wars- as well as the Americans who've recently been thrown out of jobs through no fault of their own- have done it all the way they've been told they're supposed to do it. And that goes for the nation's rank-and-file citizens who are lucky to right now hang on to their jobs.
And the thanks they get are supposed to be wages that largely haven't gone up since the day a man who spent 27 years (1937 to 1964) making movies and 13 other years (1953 to 1966) hosting TV shows put his left hand on a Bible and raised his right hand in front of an international TV audience?
And all that time, CEO pay zoomed up anywhere from 240% to 300% since that day in 1981!
I mean, come on! You mean to tell me that when average, everyday people are kicked down- let alone repeatedly over a 30-year period- they're not supposed to rise up and fight back?
When everybody in the United States except the country's three million wealthiest citizens is paying the financial freight, the time is definitely right for the other 304 million Americans to protest.
Not only that...it's time to keep on protesting the nation's income disparity and Wall Street's role in it.
And it'd be great to see the Occupy movement do the same thing to Capitol Hill. After all, this country's legislative branch- especially the Republicans in it- has been just as implicit, getting its marching orders from those financial leaders and only those financial leaders.
I mean, forces such as OWS are more effective when they keep sounding the message (and sounding it repeatedly) that it's long been time for America's wealthiest to step up to the plate and reinvest in this country and in its citizens...rather than acting like traitors and shutting down plant after plant after plant (and opening up plant after plant after plant in countries whose citizens can't afford to BUY the products they're making, because they're paid so doggone little).
Change isn't easy. And it isn't always quick.
Yet if the changes we want don't happen as quickly as it takes to brew a cup of instant coffee, we're not satisfied.
That kind of attitude didn't bring about the big social changes that took place during the 20th Century.
Change isn't easy. And it isn't always quick.
And that's why we've got to keep fighting for the changes we want.
Also: If we can't go out in the streets and march, we can support the people who are able to get out there.
And contrary to what Newton L. Gingrich keeps telling people, the Occupy protesters aren't vagrants in need of a bath.
Regardless of what St. Rush of Cape Girardeau says, those protesters AREN'T human debris.
Don't let Bill O'Reilly con you into believing that OWS and its offshoots are finished. And don't let others tell you the movement doesn't have a clear focus.
That's right...this movement is about to hit its stride.
Guess what?
That piano is now located at Hollywood Candy, a combination candy store-antique mall located at 1209 Jackson St., Omaha, NE 68102.
Seven days ago, I had the chance to play it (it's a 1905 Schilling upright; the serial number is 47120)...and only after I saw a little boy and a little girl (one after the other) give the upright a try.
The pictures you're about to see below were taken yesterday afternoon...and I can't wait to get at that old Schilling again!
Who knows...maybe the staff at Hollywood Candy will allow the Great Plains Ragtime Society to have a meeting or two there each year (as long as the store's still got the piano Lady Gaga played in a cornfield).
By the way...you can reach Hollywood Candy at 402 346-9746.
I felt stung over a question that was posed of me this past Tuesday.
As I was getting ready to leave the apartment building I live in to go off to my factory job, a young woman who came to visit the family living in the apartment across from mine saw me head out the door.
After I said "Hi" and asked her how she was doing, the visitor asked me: "One bedroom or two?"
She was a young mother; her infant child was in her arms. And I thought she wanted to ask about renting one of these apartments.
So I answered: "Two."
I wasn't ready for the next question: "And only one living there?"
"Yes. I live here."
"A two-bedroom apartment, and only you living there."
I just wasn't very happy about where this was going...and I realized that if the conversation continued, I'd be late for work.
So I told the young visitor: "I'm okay with it."
As I hurried out to my car and drove off to my job, I felt stung. (Let's face it...I felt insulted.)
In fourteen years of living where I presently do, I'd never been asked to defend living single in a two-bedroom apartment.
Until 10-18-2011, that is.
I feel comfortable living in an apartment of that size. (Why shouldn't a person feel comfortable where he or she lives?) What's more, this two-bedroomer gives me all the space I need at the present time.
For the next nine hours, I couldn't help thinking about whether the questioner came from a country where housing laws- if housing laws exist in that kind of a nation- are harsher than they are here in the United States.
And then I got to thinking about the millions of Americans who put their lives on the line so that the nation could finally, in 1968, put a fair-housing act on the books.
I thought about how some of those millions of Americans were forced to face firehoses and barking dogs...firehoses and barking dogs unleashed by officials bent on keeping apartheid (okay, segregation) alive and legal in this country.
In addition, I remembered how some people were put to death because they wanted these Jim Crow laws overturned for good.
To top it all off, I thought about a 1965 headline in The Omaha Star (the legendary newspaper started in the 1930s by Mildred Brown): "Omaha and Birmingham Run Neck and Neck in Housing Discrimination."
That's right. Birmingham, AL...where, two years before that headline, police chief Eugene "Bull" Connor ordered barking dogs and powerful firehoses to be trained on people seeking their BASIC human rights.
Thinking about all these things made a young mother's question hard for me to take.
You see, as long as I'm still able to get my rent paid (and paid on time), and as long as I enjoy living where I do, what's the problem?
I don't know if that visitor has access to a computer; don't know if she's ever come across this blog (or anybody else's blog) before.
But if she EVER reads this post, I sincerely hope she understands why I feel uncomfortable having to explain and defend living single in a two-bedroom apartment.
Either the United States of America is a free country or it isn't.
No ifs...no maybes...no buts.
And I'd like to ask this young mom- if I ever see her again- this: "Which country is this- a free one or not? WHICH??"
That's exactly what Burns Davis was.
Was rather than is.
The Monday before last month's Great Plains Ragtime Society meeting (held 9-25-2011), I'd sent the massage therapist from Lincoln, NE a copy of a flyer touting that September meeting. And it was all about trying to get more Lincolnites interested in traveling those 52 miles to Omaha to check out what GPRS has been doing to help promote old-time piano.
I was eleven days too late.
I received an email from Nan Bostick; she'd written to find out if I'd heard about what happened to Burns.
Opened up the link Nan sent with that email and found out...the unthinkable happened.
Burns Smith Davis passed away on 9-8-2011.
It happened- unexpectedly- at home. (She would've turned 64 on 11-13-2011.)
I found out that Burns wasn't actually her birth name. She was born Bonnie Jill Reimer...and the birth took place in Enid, OK. (The proud parents were Barney J. and Martha Louise Smith Reimer.) Burns went on to take her first and last names from a couple of highly influential piano teachers of hers.
In 1968, Burns received a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Oklahoma...where she went on to, in 1972, earn a master's degree in literary science.
In previous posts, I'd called Burns a Californian-turned-Nebraskan. Actually, she was an Oklahoman-turned-Arkansan-turned-Washingtonian-turned-Californian-turned-Nebraskan. (Fresh out of college, BSD held down library jobs in Fayetteville, AR; Yakima, WA; and Red Bluff, CA. In Yakima, Burns went back to college...and got another master's degree, this time in botany.)
Burns Davis moved from Red Bluff to another California city, Cupertino, where she became a nursing home administrator.
In addition, she became a ragtime enthusiast there...to the point where she became active with a rag group and a local festival.
Her next city was Los Gatos, CA...where she got involved in business consulting and design.
And then, in the middle 1990s, Burns came to Nebraska's capital city; in Lincoln, she joined the State Library Commission. On top of that, she launched Davis Business Systems.
The Star City was the place in which Burns' life reached a real turning point.
In 1998, Burns decided to become a massage therapist...so, she enrolled at the city's Myotherapy Institute.
And that's where people found out that she had The Knack.
Not long after studying at the institute, BSD started her own massage therapy business, Ehaweh Arts. (The firm's name came from one of Burns' great-grandmothers, an Oklahoman known for her own ability to heal.)
Meanwhile, Burns began to land jobs as a substitute organist at a succession of Lincoln churches: St. Mark's Episcopal, St. David's Episcopal, St. Paul's United Methodist, St. Paul's Congregational, and Trinity United Methodist. (At Trinity, Burns served a while as its main organist.)
She even went back to Enid to attend Phillips University...and to intern on the organ at that city's Central Christian Church. The high point was a concert in June 2000.
Five years and one month later, I met Burns Davis for the first time.
And it wouldn't have been possible if it weren't for Gil Lieberknecht.
Gil gave me a list of performers he'd been playing alongside at different ragtime get-togethers nationwide (especially the Sutter Creek outing in his- and Nan's- native California). The list came in handy, because I was trying to find performers for the first annual Ragtime to Riches Festival, then held at a church in Council Bluffs, Broadway United Methodist.
Jim Radloff was on that list, too...and he and Burns answered the call. (So did two other performers I'd competed alongside at the World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest: Marty Mincer and "Perfessor" Bill Edwards.)
Burns went on to play every last one of the R to R Festivals we've had thus far, from the first (where Gil was the guest of honor) to this year's event (the first held at Omaha's First Central Congregational Church).
She ended up doing the last Sunday concert at every R to R only because her Ehaweh Arts schedule and her work as a church organist in the Star City combined to leave her with the last Sunday concert...but last year and this, Burns got R to R Sunday (at least the afternoon part) off.
In fact, at the 2010 festival, Burns gave a workshop about Gil, the highly-prolific ragtime composer who moved, as a teen, to Nebraska in 1947 (his dad Henry was born here) and died in 2008 at age 76.
And it was one heck of a workshop! (In fact, Burns' tribute to her old buddy- of "Goldenrod Rag" fame- was the workshop I could only hope to do about the man nicknamed "Gil Lieby.")
Burns' 2010 R to R workshop had the same thing her festival concerts had: A kind of quiet elegance that featured Burns' wit (who else would list CDs as some of her musical instruments?) and great analytical intelligence.
By the way, she was no slouch as a singer. In fact, one of her Ragtime to Riches concerts began with BSD singing and playing "Everybody Rag with Me." (Earlier this year, Burns- a new convert to Judaism- became a cantorial soloist. All of that after membership in the St. Mark's Episcopal choir.)
Massage therapist...librarian...business consultant...instrumentalist...singer...animal lover...ragtime enthusiast...Burns Smith Davis was no slouch as a person.
Burns, I'm glad to have met you.
A couple of months ago, the staff at Film Streams at the Ruth Sokolof Theater (1340 Mike Fahey St., Omaha, NE 68102) asked me about doing something I've never, ever undertaken in my life:
Cue a silent movie.
It's all part of the theater's upcoming silent film festival, a cycle that begins on 10-4-2011 at 7:00 PM. Each movie in the series (the series ends on 12-15-2011) will feature live musical accompaniment from a different performer or group of performers...and the music will run the gamut from hard rock to ragtime.
Well, they're letting me go up to bat on 12-15-2011. At 7:00 PM that evening, I'm playing alongside one of Buster Keaton's best movies, the 1926 classic "The General."
I'm in another club around here, the River City Theatre Organ Society, and one of its earliest activities happened in 1986. It took place at the Orpheum Theater, and it was "Those Were the Days." One of its components was a showing of "The General," and Jack Moelmann- later the president of the American Theatre Organ Society- cued the film at the theater's Mighty Wurlitzer.
That showing was what I remembered when Film Streams chief Rachel Jacobson asked me about doing a silent movie.
Film Streams has the piano, all right; it's an 1899 Steinway upright that had, for a long time in its life, been used at Boys Town. I ended up finding the instrument a couple of years ago at the former Renier's Pianos and Keyboards (then located at 49th and Dodge Sts.).
Renier's had the old upright in the store's basement, and I ended up paying $50 for the instrument itself and $50 for moving the piano.
And it all started because I wanted to donate an old piano to a local venue (such as a coffeehouse)...so that area performers Adam Swanson (2008, 2009, and 2010 Regular Division titleholder at Illinois' World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest as well as the event's 2003, 2004, and 2006 Junior Division champ) and Marty Mincer (he won the contest's Regular Division crown in 1990 and 1993) could get more opportunities to play around here.
As things turned out, no local coffeehouses or restaurants were interested in taking in an old piano. (They kept saying they had no room for a piano...not even an 1899 Steinway upright.)
But Film Streams had room...plenty of room.
Rachel, Casey, Maggie, and the rest of the Film Streams staff have been nice enough to let me come in and get practice on the old Steinway at least once a week. (Well, a piano isn't just a prop or just a piece of furniture!)
Today, I went to http://www.youtube.com/ and saw "The General" in its entirety (for the first time since I saw the film at the Orpheum); a week earlier, I went to that Website and was able to check out 65% of the movie...and only because I ran out of time.
Last week, though, I started working out my own take on that Buster Keaton classic (in spite of the fact that at least two original scores have been written in support of "The General"). And I went off to Film Streams to make sure I can cover "The General's" length- 78 minutes.
And this morning, I finished up figuring out how I want to accompany the film, then went off to practice at another rehearsal spot, Pella Lutheran Church (at 41st and Harney Sts.), with its 1909 Behr Bros. upright. (Practice today went very well...okay, I really felt comfortable.)
I'm really looking forward to cuing "The General" with 16 days left in 2011...and I hope you can come to see one, all, or any number of films in Streams' upcoming silents showcase. If you're already a member of Film Streams, tickets are $8 each; if not, they cost you $12.
And if you'd like more information, call 402 933-0259 and/or visit http://www.filmstreams.org/.
I'm Jim Boston, and thanks for reading this blog!
