FIRST ROUND (seeding in parentheses): Louisiana-Lafayette (24) 28, Fresno State (9) 14; Oklahoma State (16) 13, Clemson (17) 8; Oklahoma (13) 31, Rice (20) 13; Louisville (12) 42, Duke (21) 10; Arizona State (14) 36, Ball State (19) 24; Bowling Green State (22) 35, Missouri (11) 29; Oregon (18) 21, South Carolina (15) 14; Stanford (10) 14, UCLA (23) 13
SECOND ROUND: Florida State (1) 56, Louisiana-Lafayette 28; Central Florida (8) 21, Oklahoma State 14; Oklahoma 31, Ohio State (5) 28; Louisville 35, Northern Illinois (4) 14; Alabama (6) 28, Arizona State 14; Michigan State (3) 28, Bowling Green State 14; Baylor (7) 28, Oregon 23; Stanford 37, Auburn (2) 27
QUARTERFINAL ROUND: Florida State 49, Central Florida 21; Louisville 49, Oklahoma 7; Michigan State 20, Alabama 0; Baylor 26, Stanford 0
SEMIFINAL ROUND: Louisville 25, Florida State 22; Baylor 21, Michigan State 14 (2 OT)
CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: Baylor 35, Louisville 28
Yep...Baylor is the third team in as many seasons to pick up its first-ever NCAA Division 1-A football playoff title (following Notre Dame in 2012 and Oregon the year before). What's more, Art Briles' Bears became the first Big 12 team since the since-departed Cornhuskers of Nebraska (in 1999- their sixth and most recent championship) to nail it all down.
How 'bout some highlights?
FIRST ROUND: Mark Helfrich's Ducks pulled it out against Steve Spurrier's Gamecocks with 2:51 to play in the fourth quarter, when QB Marcus Mariota fired a three-yard touchdown pass to WR Josh Huff (Oregon went 12-for-17 on third down); Dave Clawson's Falcons got help from their special teams to overcome a 21-14 Missouri lead with 21 unanswered second-half points (to embarrass Tigers head coach Gary Pinkel, who previously headed up Toledo, one of Bowling Green State's MAC foes), and BGSU's defense thwarted a Mizzou effort to pull this game out in the final minute of regulation; Bob Stoops' Sooners totaled 605 yards of offense (WR Jalen Saunders caught six balls for 205 yards and three TDs) to cook Rice (David Bailiff's team, which blew a 13-7 Owl lead); razzle-dazzle let Mike Gundy's Cowboys beat Dabo Swinney's Tigers when QB Clint Chelf caught the game-winning 47-yard TD toss from his understudy, J.W. Walsh, with 11 ticks to go in the fourth; QB Teddy Bridgewater (27-43-293 with an interception) launched four TD strikes and ran for another score...while Cardinal defenders chipped in by snatching five Blue Devil tosses (a pair of Louisville picks were by CB Terrell Floyd) to spoil Duke's first 1-A playoff game; QB Terrence Broadway made a splash with a 15-21-200 showing that featured three air scores and an INT to help Mark Hudspeth's Ragin' Cajuns, who were flagged down just ONCE (for five yards, at that), move on; Todd Graham's Sun Devils outran Pete Lembo's Cardinals, 324-69, with Arizona State QB Taylor Kelly running 25 times for 114 yards and a TD while going 22-for-30 for 199 yards and- you guessed it- three TDs; David Shaw's Cardinal led all the way...but almost lost it with 0:33 to play in the final quarter: After flicking a 17-yard air score to WR Shaquelle Evans, Bruin QB Brett Hundley tried to run for the winning two-point conversion...but was stopped at the Stanford one.
More highlights to come!
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Well, It's Just a Thought...
Things have been some kind of hectic for me thus far in 2014...and that's why I'm just now posting for the new year. (Just glad to be back!)
Hope this new year is treating you right thus far.
At this very moment, Winter Storm Leon is treating America's Southerners far from right. And it's also dogging people in this country's Northeast.
I just got through visiting Wikipedia to do research for this post...and I found out that only The Weather Channel is naming winter storms.
That's right...and that means that not even the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (whose National Hurricane Center has been giving names to that kind of disaster since 1953, using girls' names only from that year until 1977, when boys' names were added to the mix) wants to go along.
And AccuWeather isn't even in the game.
In fact, 2013-14 is the second winter in which this division of NBC Universal Media, LLC has been giving names to winter storms. And that's only if the storms prove disruptive, according to TWC senior director Bryan Norcross.
The network gets its names from Greek, Norse, and Roman mythology. (Last winter, blizzards and near-blizzards were named after deities such as Athena and Gandolf.)
When I first found out that the winter storms were getting their own labels, I got a crazy thought in my mind:
"What if, instead of naming winter storms after Greek/Norse/Roman gods and goddesses...they named winter storms after brands of cigarettes?"
Yeah, I know. It's a crazy thought.
But I figured that, first of all, cigarettes have been proven to be health hazards. (Researchers at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities came up with the first evidence way back in 1926; the studies continued over the next 26 years before the doctors and the scientists found a way to make them public so that everyday people could dig it all. And even then, the research continued for years to come.)
And think of all the deaths winter storms have caused through the years. Matter of fact, this year's first major winter storm (labeled Atlas by the TWC folks) took eight lives.
Each winter, The Weather Channel comes up with 26 names for blizzards and near-blizzards. And that's the same number of names NOAA annually uses for hurricanes.
Now if you go to www.cigarettespedia.com, you'll find that enough brands of smokes have come out all over the world to cover A through Z. So you wouldn't have to restrict the labeling of winter storms to American brands- current and defunct alike.
Even so, you'd have more of a case if you used brand names that are the same as people's first names...like Kent or Carlton or Raleigh or Winston (or even Adam, a brand Liggett Group marketed for a little while in 1973).
Well...there are two strikes against naming winter storms after cigs (depending on your point of view, those strikes could be lucky):
First, this country's tobacco companies would object. You can imagine some industry spokesperson saying: "Our products give people pleasure! How dare you name winter storms after our fine products!"
And here in America, cigarette commercials were taken off TV and radio on 1-2-1971. (It could've happened on the first day of 1971 if the networks hadn't given the tobacco companies one last lick...that last lick being the chance to sponsor the New Year's Day bowl games.)
Just remember: NASCAR's Sprint Cup, previously called the Nextel Cup until Sprint bought that wireless company out, was- for a long time- called the Winston Cup.
Oh, well...this was just a thought.
How do you feel about the network of Wake Up with Al giving names to winter storms? Is it helpful...or is it, as so many critics contend, self-serving?
I'm Jim Boston, and I hope you're having a ball here in 2014!
Hope this new year is treating you right thus far.
At this very moment, Winter Storm Leon is treating America's Southerners far from right. And it's also dogging people in this country's Northeast.
I just got through visiting Wikipedia to do research for this post...and I found out that only The Weather Channel is naming winter storms.
That's right...and that means that not even the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (whose National Hurricane Center has been giving names to that kind of disaster since 1953, using girls' names only from that year until 1977, when boys' names were added to the mix) wants to go along.
And AccuWeather isn't even in the game.
In fact, 2013-14 is the second winter in which this division of NBC Universal Media, LLC has been giving names to winter storms. And that's only if the storms prove disruptive, according to TWC senior director Bryan Norcross.
The network gets its names from Greek, Norse, and Roman mythology. (Last winter, blizzards and near-blizzards were named after deities such as Athena and Gandolf.)
When I first found out that the winter storms were getting their own labels, I got a crazy thought in my mind:
"What if, instead of naming winter storms after Greek/Norse/Roman gods and goddesses...they named winter storms after brands of cigarettes?"
Yeah, I know. It's a crazy thought.
But I figured that, first of all, cigarettes have been proven to be health hazards. (Researchers at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities came up with the first evidence way back in 1926; the studies continued over the next 26 years before the doctors and the scientists found a way to make them public so that everyday people could dig it all. And even then, the research continued for years to come.)
And think of all the deaths winter storms have caused through the years. Matter of fact, this year's first major winter storm (labeled Atlas by the TWC folks) took eight lives.
Each winter, The Weather Channel comes up with 26 names for blizzards and near-blizzards. And that's the same number of names NOAA annually uses for hurricanes.
Now if you go to www.cigarettespedia.com, you'll find that enough brands of smokes have come out all over the world to cover A through Z. So you wouldn't have to restrict the labeling of winter storms to American brands- current and defunct alike.
Even so, you'd have more of a case if you used brand names that are the same as people's first names...like Kent or Carlton or Raleigh or Winston (or even Adam, a brand Liggett Group marketed for a little while in 1973).
Well...there are two strikes against naming winter storms after cigs (depending on your point of view, those strikes could be lucky):
First, this country's tobacco companies would object. You can imagine some industry spokesperson saying: "Our products give people pleasure! How dare you name winter storms after our fine products!"
And here in America, cigarette commercials were taken off TV and radio on 1-2-1971. (It could've happened on the first day of 1971 if the networks hadn't given the tobacco companies one last lick...that last lick being the chance to sponsor the New Year's Day bowl games.)
Just remember: NASCAR's Sprint Cup, previously called the Nextel Cup until Sprint bought that wireless company out, was- for a long time- called the Winston Cup.
Oh, well...this was just a thought.
How do you feel about the network of Wake Up with Al giving names to winter storms? Is it helpful...or is it, as so many critics contend, self-serving?
I'm Jim Boston, and I hope you're having a ball here in 2014!
Monday, December 23, 2013
Notre Dame Didn't Get In This Time
Nebraska didn't make the field, either. (Both the Fighting Irish and the Cornhuskers came home 8-4 here in 2013...not good enough for an at-large team to make the 24-team field.)
In fact, just nine of the teams that made a would-be version of the 2012 NCAA Division 1-A football playoff made it to this year's version. (We'll meet them later.)
And this year's field includes four clubs that are making 1-A playoff debuts...plus three that hadn't made this version of a playoff since it featured a 16-squad field.
This time around, fourteen at-large spots became available. And it was all because (1) the Western Athletic Conference celebrated its 50th birthday by giving up on offering its schools a football championship and (2) a rift between the Big East's men's basketball-oriented schools and the conference's football-oriented members caused that league to drop football. (The men's-hoops-first institutions were allowed to keep the Big East name. Never mind that half the schools in the now ten-member league aren't even located in the Atlantic states, but right here in the Midwest.)
The other members that were in the 2012-13 version of the Big East got together with some other schools to form a new league, the American Athletic Conference.
Well...let's do it. Let's reveal the field for this year's version of a shoulda-coulda-woulda NCAA D-1-A playoff, with teams listed in order of seeding:
1. Florida State (13-0; ACC champ)/ 2. Auburn (12-1; SEC champ)/ 3. Michigan State (12-1; Big Ten champ)/ 4. Northern Illinois (12-1; MAC at-large)/ 5. Ohio State (12-1; Big Ten at-large)/ 6. Alabama (11-1; SEC at-large)/ 7. Baylor (11-1; Big 12 champ)/ 8. Central Florida (11-1; AAC champ)
9. Fresno State (11-1; Mountain West champ)/ 10. Stanford (11-2; Pac-12 champ)/ 11. Missouri (11-2; SEC at-large)/ 12. Louisville (11-1; AAC at-large)/ 13. Oklahoma (10-2; Big 12 at-large)/ 14. Arizona State (10-2; Pac-12 at-large)/ 15. South Carolina (10-2; SEC at-large)/ 16. Oklahoma State (10-2; Big 12 at-large)
17. Clemson (10-2; ACC at-large)/ 18. Oregon (10-2; Pac-12 at-large)/ 19. Ball State (10-2; MAC at-large)/ 20. Rice (10-3; Conference USA champ)/ 21. Duke (10-3; ACC at-large)/ 22. Bowling Green State (10-3; MAC champ)/ 23. UCLA (9-3; Pac-12 at-large)/ 24. Louisiana-Lafayette (8-4; Sun Belt champ)
Baylor and its old Southwest Conference foe, Rice, are in these Division 1-A playoffs for the first time ever. The Bears and Owls join fellow 2013 playoff newcomers Duke (the Blue Devils got pummeled by the Seminoles in the ACC title game, 45-7) and Louisiana-Lafayette (the Ragin' Cajuns ended Arkansas State's two-year reign at the head of the Sun Belt Conference, earning the automatic bid by beating the Red Wolves in mid-season, 23-7- getting the tiebreaker despite the two clubs sporting identical 5-2 league marks).
The Bruins needed help from Fresno State in order to make the field and become the only one of eight at-large hopefuls with nine wins apiece in 2013 to extend the season. The Bulldogs came through, crushing Utah State in the first-ever Mountain West title test.
Result: The Bulldogs' first 1-A playoff appearance since 1989, when Miami (FL) took it to Fresno State in the first round, 24-10.
Three years later, the Hurricanes eliminated Bowling Green State in the first round, 15-6. (While the 'Canes went on to win it all in those 1992 playoffs, the Falcons never again made this version of the 1-A playoffs...that is, until this season's.)
And UCLA is making its first playoff appearance since 1993, when the Bruins lost in the second round to eventual runner-up Notre Dame, 24-9. (Eight years afterwards, these 1-A playoffs went from a 16-team field to the present 24-team one.)
The 24-team field was in place the last time Ball State was a playoff entry...and that was in 2008, when the then sixth-seeded Cardinals (they skipped the first round) staged a miracle rally to bounce Oregon, 35-28, only to lose to Florida in the quarterfinals, 35-14.
And as for the nine teams that are holdovers from 2012...they're Florida State, Northern Illinois, Alabama, Stanford, Louisville, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Clemson, and Oregon. (The Sooners won it all in 1985, 1986, and 1987- the only three-peat. The Seminoles came through in 1995, 1998, and 2000. And the Ducks took the 2011 playoffs, preceding the Fighting Irish as playoff kingpins.)
Well, to get these 2013 playoffs off the ground, I'm going to do it with Lance Haffner Games' 3-in-1 Football computer game, and all the contests will be computer vs. computer. Soon as all the games get played, I'll come back to this blog and post all the results.
In the meantime, may you have a Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah/Happy Kwanzaa...and thanks for reading "Boston's Blog!"
In fact, just nine of the teams that made a would-be version of the 2012 NCAA Division 1-A football playoff made it to this year's version. (We'll meet them later.)
And this year's field includes four clubs that are making 1-A playoff debuts...plus three that hadn't made this version of a playoff since it featured a 16-squad field.
This time around, fourteen at-large spots became available. And it was all because (1) the Western Athletic Conference celebrated its 50th birthday by giving up on offering its schools a football championship and (2) a rift between the Big East's men's basketball-oriented schools and the conference's football-oriented members caused that league to drop football. (The men's-hoops-first institutions were allowed to keep the Big East name. Never mind that half the schools in the now ten-member league aren't even located in the Atlantic states, but right here in the Midwest.)
The other members that were in the 2012-13 version of the Big East got together with some other schools to form a new league, the American Athletic Conference.
Well...let's do it. Let's reveal the field for this year's version of a shoulda-coulda-woulda NCAA D-1-A playoff, with teams listed in order of seeding:
1. Florida State (13-0; ACC champ)/ 2. Auburn (12-1; SEC champ)/ 3. Michigan State (12-1; Big Ten champ)/ 4. Northern Illinois (12-1; MAC at-large)/ 5. Ohio State (12-1; Big Ten at-large)/ 6. Alabama (11-1; SEC at-large)/ 7. Baylor (11-1; Big 12 champ)/ 8. Central Florida (11-1; AAC champ)
9. Fresno State (11-1; Mountain West champ)/ 10. Stanford (11-2; Pac-12 champ)/ 11. Missouri (11-2; SEC at-large)/ 12. Louisville (11-1; AAC at-large)/ 13. Oklahoma (10-2; Big 12 at-large)/ 14. Arizona State (10-2; Pac-12 at-large)/ 15. South Carolina (10-2; SEC at-large)/ 16. Oklahoma State (10-2; Big 12 at-large)
17. Clemson (10-2; ACC at-large)/ 18. Oregon (10-2; Pac-12 at-large)/ 19. Ball State (10-2; MAC at-large)/ 20. Rice (10-3; Conference USA champ)/ 21. Duke (10-3; ACC at-large)/ 22. Bowling Green State (10-3; MAC champ)/ 23. UCLA (9-3; Pac-12 at-large)/ 24. Louisiana-Lafayette (8-4; Sun Belt champ)
Baylor and its old Southwest Conference foe, Rice, are in these Division 1-A playoffs for the first time ever. The Bears and Owls join fellow 2013 playoff newcomers Duke (the Blue Devils got pummeled by the Seminoles in the ACC title game, 45-7) and Louisiana-Lafayette (the Ragin' Cajuns ended Arkansas State's two-year reign at the head of the Sun Belt Conference, earning the automatic bid by beating the Red Wolves in mid-season, 23-7- getting the tiebreaker despite the two clubs sporting identical 5-2 league marks).
The Bruins needed help from Fresno State in order to make the field and become the only one of eight at-large hopefuls with nine wins apiece in 2013 to extend the season. The Bulldogs came through, crushing Utah State in the first-ever Mountain West title test.
Result: The Bulldogs' first 1-A playoff appearance since 1989, when Miami (FL) took it to Fresno State in the first round, 24-10.
Three years later, the Hurricanes eliminated Bowling Green State in the first round, 15-6. (While the 'Canes went on to win it all in those 1992 playoffs, the Falcons never again made this version of the 1-A playoffs...that is, until this season's.)
And UCLA is making its first playoff appearance since 1993, when the Bruins lost in the second round to eventual runner-up Notre Dame, 24-9. (Eight years afterwards, these 1-A playoffs went from a 16-team field to the present 24-team one.)
The 24-team field was in place the last time Ball State was a playoff entry...and that was in 2008, when the then sixth-seeded Cardinals (they skipped the first round) staged a miracle rally to bounce Oregon, 35-28, only to lose to Florida in the quarterfinals, 35-14.
And as for the nine teams that are holdovers from 2012...they're Florida State, Northern Illinois, Alabama, Stanford, Louisville, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Clemson, and Oregon. (The Sooners won it all in 1985, 1986, and 1987- the only three-peat. The Seminoles came through in 1995, 1998, and 2000. And the Ducks took the 2011 playoffs, preceding the Fighting Irish as playoff kingpins.)
Well, to get these 2013 playoffs off the ground, I'm going to do it with Lance Haffner Games' 3-in-1 Football computer game, and all the contests will be computer vs. computer. Soon as all the games get played, I'll come back to this blog and post all the results.
In the meantime, may you have a Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah/Happy Kwanzaa...and thanks for reading "Boston's Blog!"
Friday, November 22, 2013
Fifty Years Ago Today
It changed America's spirit.
It changed politics.
It changed history.
It helped turn television into America's leading source for news and information.
And, yes...it made for a somber Thanksgiving and a somber Christmas.
On what turned out to be a sunny day in Dallas, TX, one of three bullets fired from the Texas Book Depository ended a history-making presidency one thousand days after that tenure began.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the youngest ever elected to the most talked-about political job there is (he was 43 years and almost six months old when elected on 11-2-1960), the first Roman Catholic person to get the job, and, as things turned out...the last standing US senator to win a presidential election in this country during the 20th Century.
And the fourth (and most recent chief executive) gunned down by an assassin.
I'd turned eight years of age eleven days earlier. And I was one of the millions of Americans who cried when it happened.
Yep, I was born during the Dwight Eisenhower years...but I barely remember living through Ike's second term. Compared to memories of Eisenhower's last four years as commander in chief, I've got more memories of JFK's abbreviated term of office.
And those memories include his inaugural speech, his handling of the Cuban missile crisis, a nuclear test-ban treaty signed during the JFK years, America finally getting its space program rolling (okay, flying), the creation of the Peace Corps, and Kennedy's stand on civil rights.
It took Joseph's and Rose's second son a good while to get hip to the message that advancing freedom all over the world (a message the 35th President brought out in his inaugural address) also means advancing freedom right here in these fifty states.
But after 250,000 assembled in front of the Lincoln Memorial on 8-28-1963, that did it.
And those Southern Democrats Kennedy spent most of 1960 trying to woo in order to take the White House back from the Republicans were just going to have to get hip, too.
Almost a week ago, someone from the Associated Press turned in an article talking about the speech JFK gave in response to the 1963 March on Washington. (The AP article made it to this past Monday's Omaha World-Herald, and that's where I saw the report.)
One thing the article's author put in really struck me. It was the observation that, in lots of American homes during the bulk of the 1960s, you'd find pictures of three prominent people: Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King Jr., and...John F. Kennedy.
Three symbols of hope.
Three symbols who ended up brutally murdered.
And these three symbols were killed before any of them could reach the age of fifty.
When Kennedy took a bullet from Lee Harvey Oswald, it began the demise of America's famous "can-do" spirit.
Don't think so?
Think about all the talk about health-care reform...and about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. Think about all the talk surrounding whether immigration reform should take place here in the United States. Think about what's being said as to whether effective gun-control laws can ever get passed here. And now we talk about whether we should see to it that all of our country's children get a decent education...rather than how.
One thing's for sure: Oswald's act (no, I'm not into conspiracy theories...especially about just how Bobby's and Ted's and Joseph the Younger's brother died) led to the 1965 proposal of the Constitution's 25th Amendment...an amendment that finally got ratified on 2-10-1967.
When Lyndon Johnson moved up to the presidency this afternoon in 1963, the nation went without a vice president...until LBJ's 1964 runningmate, Hubert Humphrey, became America's second-in-command on 1-20-1965.
Never again would America's government run sans a vice president.
I've been going on YouTube to check out how ABC, CBS, and NBC (as well as WFAA-TV, the ABC station in the Metroplex) covered the events of 11-22-1963.
Words such as "disbelief," "anger," "sadness," and "indignation" were reported to have come out of so many people's mouths that day.
Some of the mouths belonged to key government officials.
Speaking of key government officials...some of today's government officials would absolutely love to see the next US senator to have won the White House (that's right, the man in there now, Barack Obama) removed from the White House.
And at least one big-name hate-radio (oops...talk radio) host would love to see Obama (a US senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008) gunned down.
Really now...do we HAVE to go through this again, with another history-making chief executive?
Haven't we learned anything from the events that took place fifty years ago today?
It changed politics.
It changed history.
It helped turn television into America's leading source for news and information.
And, yes...it made for a somber Thanksgiving and a somber Christmas.
On what turned out to be a sunny day in Dallas, TX, one of three bullets fired from the Texas Book Depository ended a history-making presidency one thousand days after that tenure began.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the youngest ever elected to the most talked-about political job there is (he was 43 years and almost six months old when elected on 11-2-1960), the first Roman Catholic person to get the job, and, as things turned out...the last standing US senator to win a presidential election in this country during the 20th Century.
And the fourth (and most recent chief executive) gunned down by an assassin.
I'd turned eight years of age eleven days earlier. And I was one of the millions of Americans who cried when it happened.
Yep, I was born during the Dwight Eisenhower years...but I barely remember living through Ike's second term. Compared to memories of Eisenhower's last four years as commander in chief, I've got more memories of JFK's abbreviated term of office.
And those memories include his inaugural speech, his handling of the Cuban missile crisis, a nuclear test-ban treaty signed during the JFK years, America finally getting its space program rolling (okay, flying), the creation of the Peace Corps, and Kennedy's stand on civil rights.
It took Joseph's and Rose's second son a good while to get hip to the message that advancing freedom all over the world (a message the 35th President brought out in his inaugural address) also means advancing freedom right here in these fifty states.
But after 250,000 assembled in front of the Lincoln Memorial on 8-28-1963, that did it.
And those Southern Democrats Kennedy spent most of 1960 trying to woo in order to take the White House back from the Republicans were just going to have to get hip, too.
Almost a week ago, someone from the Associated Press turned in an article talking about the speech JFK gave in response to the 1963 March on Washington. (The AP article made it to this past Monday's Omaha World-Herald, and that's where I saw the report.)
One thing the article's author put in really struck me. It was the observation that, in lots of American homes during the bulk of the 1960s, you'd find pictures of three prominent people: Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King Jr., and...John F. Kennedy.
Three symbols of hope.
Three symbols who ended up brutally murdered.
And these three symbols were killed before any of them could reach the age of fifty.
When Kennedy took a bullet from Lee Harvey Oswald, it began the demise of America's famous "can-do" spirit.
Don't think so?
Think about all the talk about health-care reform...and about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. Think about all the talk surrounding whether immigration reform should take place here in the United States. Think about what's being said as to whether effective gun-control laws can ever get passed here. And now we talk about whether we should see to it that all of our country's children get a decent education...rather than how.
One thing's for sure: Oswald's act (no, I'm not into conspiracy theories...especially about just how Bobby's and Ted's and Joseph the Younger's brother died) led to the 1965 proposal of the Constitution's 25th Amendment...an amendment that finally got ratified on 2-10-1967.
When Lyndon Johnson moved up to the presidency this afternoon in 1963, the nation went without a vice president...until LBJ's 1964 runningmate, Hubert Humphrey, became America's second-in-command on 1-20-1965.
Never again would America's government run sans a vice president.
I've been going on YouTube to check out how ABC, CBS, and NBC (as well as WFAA-TV, the ABC station in the Metroplex) covered the events of 11-22-1963.
Words such as "disbelief," "anger," "sadness," and "indignation" were reported to have come out of so many people's mouths that day.
Some of the mouths belonged to key government officials.
Speaking of key government officials...some of today's government officials would absolutely love to see the next US senator to have won the White House (that's right, the man in there now, Barack Obama) removed from the White House.
And at least one big-name hate-radio (oops...talk radio) host would love to see Obama (a US senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008) gunned down.
Really now...do we HAVE to go through this again, with another history-making chief executive?
Haven't we learned anything from the events that took place fifty years ago today?
Thursday, October 31, 2013
The Icing on the Cake
This was actually the next-to-last "Play Me, I'm Yours" piano I had a chance to check out. (I stopped by on my way to Village Pointe on 9-6-2013, because I'd heard stories about said piano getting vandalized.)
The stories about vandalism putting this piano out of commission weren't true.
And, as a result, I went ahead and, as originally scheduled, made this next-to-last "PMIY" piano the absolute last one where I'd spend a significant amount of time.
I'm talking about the 1920s R.S. Howard upright installed at Florence Park.
It was Sunday, 9-8-2013, and I was fired up about coming back to a place where, two days earlier, I fired up "Bringing in the Sheaves" before driving out to the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue area's busiest shopping center.
This time, I'd walked into...a birthday party.
And several children had beaten me to this uniquely-painted piano (with two of those children actually producing sounds from the 88s).
I didn't mind at all.
In fact, I was excited to see Kishawn and McKenna show what they could do on an instrument transformed by Alicia Reyes-McNamara and her crew of youngsters.
I just took out my camera and started snapping pictures, then reached for my camcorder to come up with some video...all the while trying to blend in.
Eventually, I ended up meeting the whole gang: David, Kelley, Becca, LaToya (some of the adults), Halsey, Harmony, Anna, birthday boy David Jr., and of course, McKenna and Kishawn (among the kids).
One of the older members of the party wanted to know if I played...and eventually, I ended up doing "Happy Birthday."
How'd it go?
Stay tuned!
The stories about vandalism putting this piano out of commission weren't true.
And, as a result, I went ahead and, as originally scheduled, made this next-to-last "PMIY" piano the absolute last one where I'd spend a significant amount of time.
I'm talking about the 1920s R.S. Howard upright installed at Florence Park.
It was Sunday, 9-8-2013, and I was fired up about coming back to a place where, two days earlier, I fired up "Bringing in the Sheaves" before driving out to the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue area's busiest shopping center.
This time, I'd walked into...a birthday party.
And several children had beaten me to this uniquely-painted piano (with two of those children actually producing sounds from the 88s).
I didn't mind at all.
In fact, I was excited to see Kishawn and McKenna show what they could do on an instrument transformed by Alicia Reyes-McNamara and her crew of youngsters.
I just took out my camera and started snapping pictures, then reached for my camcorder to come up with some video...all the while trying to blend in.
Eventually, I ended up meeting the whole gang: David, Kelley, Becca, LaToya (some of the adults), Halsey, Harmony, Anna, birthday boy David Jr., and of course, McKenna and Kishawn (among the kids).
One of the older members of the party wanted to know if I played...and eventually, I ended up doing "Happy Birthday."
How'd it go?
Stay tuned!
Sunday, October 6, 2013
So Nice, I Had to Do It Twice
Well, there it was...Saturday, 9-7-2013.
The day started out with me playing at the Ambassador Omaha, a nursing home at 72nd and Seward (not far from Crossroads Mall).
After getting done playing there at just after 11:00 AM and going home after that to grab a bite to eat, I headed back out to Village Pointe to play some more at the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue area's busiest shopping center...and hopefully, to meet up with the artist who painted the center's "Play Me, I'm Yours" piano, Lisa Schlotfeld.
I met Lisa when the local arm of Luke Jerram's claim to fame kicked off on 8-23-2013...and I'd been itching ever since to make it up to her for not being able to try out that colorfully-painted Marshall & Wendell upright (from the 1910s) at the 8-25-2013 reception the Omaha Creative Institute and the crew from "PMIY" threw at The Pointe.
Got to the shopping center at 1:28 PM...28 minutes later than I'd hoped. (It was all because I'd started out late in the first place, ran into a traffic jam on West Maple Road, and then, when I finally arrived at Village Pointe, I had trouble finding a parking space. But I found one nevertheless.)
Once I made it to Village Pointe's Center Court, two little boys- Raymond and Rowe (could be Roe or Ro instead)- were showing what they could do on this century-old piano.
Not long after that, I got a chance to follow Rowe and Raymond...and the first thing I did when I got to the piano was take its music rack off.
And I launched into a song William Gray wrote in 1898, "She's More to Be Pitied Than Censured," one of the many treacly, sentimental ballads the 1890s were known for.
That is...I launched into the tune when a family walked over to the piano and heard the music and saw who was coaxing said music out of the 88s.
And so, I cut "Pitied/Censured" short and invited siblings Rebecca,
Kristian,
Josh,
and Andrew
to play.
Had a ball watching the foursome tickle the keys.
I liked how Andrew was cutting up; in addition, I loved Rebecca's version of "Fur Elise," which she followed up with something old-timey. Rebecca also showed Josh how to play "The Knuckle Song" and, earlier than that, showed Raymond how to do "Heart and Soul."
Eventually, I ended up trading places and going back to ol' Marshall & Wendell to play "Pitied/Censured" in its entirety. Some other songs ensued- including some rags I'd written during the 1999-2005 period (like "Split Brains," "Ragtime Meadowlark," and "I Wanna Shout")- when a man who actually did make it to the VP reception (and tore it inside out, with the proof on YouTube!) came back to play those keys.
The day started out with me playing at the Ambassador Omaha, a nursing home at 72nd and Seward (not far from Crossroads Mall).
After getting done playing there at just after 11:00 AM and going home after that to grab a bite to eat, I headed back out to Village Pointe to play some more at the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue area's busiest shopping center...and hopefully, to meet up with the artist who painted the center's "Play Me, I'm Yours" piano, Lisa Schlotfeld.
I met Lisa when the local arm of Luke Jerram's claim to fame kicked off on 8-23-2013...and I'd been itching ever since to make it up to her for not being able to try out that colorfully-painted Marshall & Wendell upright (from the 1910s) at the 8-25-2013 reception the Omaha Creative Institute and the crew from "PMIY" threw at The Pointe.
Got to the shopping center at 1:28 PM...28 minutes later than I'd hoped. (It was all because I'd started out late in the first place, ran into a traffic jam on West Maple Road, and then, when I finally arrived at Village Pointe, I had trouble finding a parking space. But I found one nevertheless.)
Once I made it to Village Pointe's Center Court, two little boys- Raymond and Rowe (could be Roe or Ro instead)- were showing what they could do on this century-old piano.
Not long after that, I got a chance to follow Rowe and Raymond...and the first thing I did when I got to the piano was take its music rack off.
And I launched into a song William Gray wrote in 1898, "She's More to Be Pitied Than Censured," one of the many treacly, sentimental ballads the 1890s were known for.
That is...I launched into the tune when a family walked over to the piano and heard the music and saw who was coaxing said music out of the 88s.
And so, I cut "Pitied/Censured" short and invited siblings Rebecca,
Had a ball watching the foursome tickle the keys.
I liked how Andrew was cutting up; in addition, I loved Rebecca's version of "Fur Elise," which she followed up with something old-timey. Rebecca also showed Josh how to play "The Knuckle Song" and, earlier than that, showed Raymond how to do "Heart and Soul."
Eventually, I ended up trading places and going back to ol' Marshall & Wendell to play "Pitied/Censured" in its entirety. Some other songs ensued- including some rags I'd written during the 1999-2005 period (like "Split Brains," "Ragtime Meadowlark," and "I Wanna Shout")- when a man who actually did make it to the VP reception (and tore it inside out, with the proof on YouTube!) came back to play those keys.
That's right...none other than Jim "The Music Man" Snyder.
And we ended up spending the next hour or so trading musical sets. (And the crowd ate it up...especially the elder Jim's music!)
Jim Snyder's music included "Move It on Over," "Loving You," and even two Bob Seger numbers: "Katmandu" and that all-time favorite, "Old Time Rock and Roll."
I got the message.
When I got back to ol' Marshall & Wendell, I dusted off a 1956 R&B hit by the El Dorados, "At My Front Door." Then, I followed it up with Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally." I also answered "Loving You" with two of its fellow Elvis Presley tunes: "(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear" and the one that put him on the map to begin with, "Heartbreak Hotel."
The whole thing attracted the attention of quite a few passersby...including a woman named Beth, who's a professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. (The Village Pointe exhibition got Beth to the point where she came away interested in making Lincoln the 37th State's next street-piano city!)
By then, The Jim and Jim Show came to an end...and it spun off into the Jim Plus Somebody Else Show.
With me the only Jim left, I still was hoping Lisa Schlotfeld could still make it to the shopping center so that she could once again hear her contribution in action.
And just in case Lisa couldn't make the trip back to The Pointe, I knew I had to record myself and get it on YouTube (so that Lisa and others could see it).
And I knew I had to do better than the day before.
That's why I turned to a tune Lisa and others heard me do at Memorial Park at the very beginning of "PMIY," Omaha style: Good ol' "Do Re Mi," from "The Sound of Music."
Worked out much, much better than my attempt the previous day to serve up "Aida's" most famous piece...that time as if Del Wood, and not Giuseppe Verdi, wrote it.
Speaking of workout...really glad that two young pianists came along to prevent the last segment of a fine, fine afternoon from turning into the Just Jim Show.
Charles came over and turned in something jazzy.
Not long after that, it was Emily's turn...and she came up with something classical.
Well, the clock was getting to the point where it would approach 5:00 PM...and it was time to wrap it up and stick the music rack back on this century-old upright. Time to go home.
Or was it?
By this time, a Douglas County Post-Gazette reporter named Emily Heinzen strolled by and offered me the chance to get in that particular newspaper.
I got in...and knocked off my version of one of the first R&B hits to find favor with both Black and White audiences, Lloyd Price's 1952 landmark, "Lawdy Miss Claudy."
All in all, despite my not getting the chance to hook back up with Lisa, it was still a great, great outing.
Turned out to be one of the many, many reasons I'll never, ever forget Luke Jerram's most famous contribution coming to the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue area.
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Get to the Pointe!
Village Pointe, that is.
Ever since Lisa Schlotfeld, the artist who painted the Village Pointe Shopping Center's Marshall & Wendell 1910s upright, invited me during the 8-23-2013 Memorial Park get-together that kicked off the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue "Play Me, I'm Yours" art exhibit to come out to the Omaha Metro's busiest shopping center to play for a reception two days later (only to find out I couldn't come to the reception due to a prior engagement), I'd been pointing to the first opportunity to come out to the Pointe.
The engagement that kept me away from that earlier opportunity to play the Village Pointe piano: That month's meeting of the Great Plains Ragtime Society, the folks who put on the annual Ragtime to Riches Festival.
What's more, the GPRS meeting on 8-25-2013 happened at the Pink Poodle Steakhouse, a restaurant in nearby Crescent, IA. (This landmark restaurant features, among other things, three player pianos.)
So, after twelve long days, I arrived at VP's Center Court (173rd and Davenport Sts.) at 10:28 AM on Friday, 9-6-2013...and I met up with Steven Raphael.
This time, though, Steven and I didn't have the shopping center to ourselves.
We had a pretty good crowd during the three-hour period I managed to spend at Omaha's most popular shopping center. Lots of young moms and little children passed through Center Court and listened to Steven and me...but Steven went back home around 11:45 AM.
All the while preparing for the opportunity to give ol' Marshall & Wendell a go, I kept thinking about one of the most often-quoted phrases to come out of the last twenty years: "It takes a village..."
So I picked out some songs with American cities' names in the title ("The Sidewalks of New York," "Sweet Home Chicago," "Houston," "Detroit City Blues," etc.)...when I wasn't doing railroad songs ("Wabash Cannonball," "John Henry," "I've Been Workin' on the Railroad," and so on).
By the way...the first thing I did when I got a chance to start playing was take the music rack off the piano. This not only exposes the upright's inner parts...it also brings the sound out.
And I just didn't want to hog the spotlight...so every chance I got, I'd ask passersby if any of them tickled the ivories.
It turned out that a little boy named Jack answered the call.
Result: One of Jack's exercises is now on www.youtube.com.
Speaking of exercises...when people find out you can play an instrument, some want you to teach them how to play said instrument.
I get that a lot...but I'm not really much of a teacher. Still, a man named Roland (he's on Village Pointe's maintenance staff) asked about whether or not I'd be able to teach him.
It's going to be tough for Roland and I to hook up, what with both he and I holding down hectic schedules. (Oh, well...)
Still, that C-E-F-G trick I learned early on in the local going of Luke Jerram's claim to fame is a step toward teaching someone to play the 88s. At the very least, it helps generate interest in somebody who's never played (but wanted to)...and helps those who played in the past (but gave it up) get that I've-got-chops feeling again.
Well, as big as that first Friday here in September 2013 was, the next day was even bigger.
And I'm going to talk about it in my next post.
I'm Jim Boston...and thanks for reading this blog!
Ever since Lisa Schlotfeld, the artist who painted the Village Pointe Shopping Center's Marshall & Wendell 1910s upright, invited me during the 8-23-2013 Memorial Park get-together that kicked off the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue "Play Me, I'm Yours" art exhibit to come out to the Omaha Metro's busiest shopping center to play for a reception two days later (only to find out I couldn't come to the reception due to a prior engagement), I'd been pointing to the first opportunity to come out to the Pointe.
The engagement that kept me away from that earlier opportunity to play the Village Pointe piano: That month's meeting of the Great Plains Ragtime Society, the folks who put on the annual Ragtime to Riches Festival.
What's more, the GPRS meeting on 8-25-2013 happened at the Pink Poodle Steakhouse, a restaurant in nearby Crescent, IA. (This landmark restaurant features, among other things, three player pianos.)
So, after twelve long days, I arrived at VP's Center Court (173rd and Davenport Sts.) at 10:28 AM on Friday, 9-6-2013...and I met up with Steven Raphael.
This time, though, Steven and I didn't have the shopping center to ourselves.
We had a pretty good crowd during the three-hour period I managed to spend at Omaha's most popular shopping center. Lots of young moms and little children passed through Center Court and listened to Steven and me...but Steven went back home around 11:45 AM.
All the while preparing for the opportunity to give ol' Marshall & Wendell a go, I kept thinking about one of the most often-quoted phrases to come out of the last twenty years: "It takes a village..."
So I picked out some songs with American cities' names in the title ("The Sidewalks of New York," "Sweet Home Chicago," "Houston," "Detroit City Blues," etc.)...when I wasn't doing railroad songs ("Wabash Cannonball," "John Henry," "I've Been Workin' on the Railroad," and so on).
By the way...the first thing I did when I got a chance to start playing was take the music rack off the piano. This not only exposes the upright's inner parts...it also brings the sound out.
And I just didn't want to hog the spotlight...so every chance I got, I'd ask passersby if any of them tickled the ivories.
It turned out that a little boy named Jack answered the call.
Result: One of Jack's exercises is now on www.youtube.com.
Speaking of exercises...when people find out you can play an instrument, some want you to teach them how to play said instrument.
I get that a lot...but I'm not really much of a teacher. Still, a man named Roland (he's on Village Pointe's maintenance staff) asked about whether or not I'd be able to teach him.
It's going to be tough for Roland and I to hook up, what with both he and I holding down hectic schedules. (Oh, well...)
Still, that C-E-F-G trick I learned early on in the local going of Luke Jerram's claim to fame is a step toward teaching someone to play the 88s. At the very least, it helps generate interest in somebody who's never played (but wanted to)...and helps those who played in the past (but gave it up) get that I've-got-chops feeling again.
Well, as big as that first Friday here in September 2013 was, the next day was even bigger.
And I'm going to talk about it in my next post.
I'm Jim Boston...and thanks for reading this blog!
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