On this day of all days... give our last show a listen

Dylan Week Day 5: From Woodstock to Woking

Along w/ Dylan's 70th this week, we also have Levon Helm's 71st today. Here's his band doing a nice job on "I Shall Be Released" w/ Larry Campbell, Teresa Williams, & Warren Haynes:

Yesterday, saw the 53rd b-day of Woking's own Paul Weller. Here's his fantastic cover of "All Along the Watchtower:"

In other Woking news... 2 Woking related points in 1 post? Maybe, but we might actually get 3. Hold on to your hat, we're getting crazy... I started reading War of the Worlds the other day. I think I'm gonna teach it in my super-sweet sci/fi class next winter. It's fun... & the Martians land in Woking. I've seen the 1950s film many times (it's shit) & I watched the Tom Cruise/Spielberg version a couple weeks ago (it's not shit, but it can see the litter box from where it is), & yesterday I learned there's a crummy, Ed Woodesque version that came out a few years ago which is actually set in the original time period. I suppose I'll have to see that too.

I know what you're thinking though. You're thinking, "Hey, Woking is just outside of London; shouldn't there be some sort of soccer related aspect to this post?" Yep, there should. And here it is, the 3rd Woking related point in this post. When I was a kid, maybe 11 years old or so, my dad's friend who lives in Sault St. Marie & is connected to the Canadian Soccer Association, hosted a tour of a school team from Woking. They played some games in Northern Ontario & then came down to Petoskey to play the teams my dad was coaching. I remember it was over Father's Day weekend, & I remember we took them to Sleeping Bear Dunes in the belief that "Hey they came all this way, we best show them some weird shit." I remember it was super hot, I got some weird cut on my tongue, & that night there was an awesome Northern Lights which we watched over Harbor Springs from our deck. Those kids from Woking ended up going on to do something in the Football League. I don't remember exactly what it was, but I think it had to do w/ a strong Woking FC run in the FA Cup. For more specifics, you'd probably need to speak to my dad, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this is already more specific than you'd like. So much so, that I bet no one reads this far down to learn that the comment password for today is Surrey. I'll check the comments section later to see if anyone puts it there for an extra 10 comment points.

Dylan Week: Day 3: The B-Day (w/ Arsenal Goals of the Year)

For the big 70th birthday, I was going link y'all to some footage from Renaldo & Clara, but the only footage I could find sucks... of course, some would say that I may have found the entire film. I was able to find the Dylan/Dead rehearsals I promised though, so be sure to listen to them all today...all 4 1/2 hours of them! I'm listening to them now for the first time in years. I wish they'd done "Absolutely Sweet Marie" though. That songs seems tailor made for a Dylan/Dead collaboration. All in all, the rehearsals are just as hit or miss as I remember, but you need to listen to them anyway.

Speaking of Dylan memories, I distinctly remember sitting in Mr. Bean's (the teacher @ my high school, not the British comic character) English class looking @ his copy of Rolling Stone which was announcing Dylan's 50th b-day. The article was about how rock music was getting old & stately & I was thinking about how old 50 seemed to be. Now here we are 20 years later & he's still rocking out all year every year & still writing great stuff. The problem w/ this little memory is that I can't find any proof of that RS issue anywhere. I looked for it last night for a 1/2 hour... no dice. Maybe it wasn't a Rolling Stone after all. It's funny how I spent the last 20 years so certain that I'd read about his 50th in a RS; now I think I've been wrong. I wonder what other memories I have that are just plain incorrect. I mean, of course they're all open to interpretation, but flat out remembering things that didn't happen @ all is scary. What if everything I remember is wrong.

Maybe, in 20 years, when I look back on the Arsenal 2010/2011 season & remember that they came close to winning everything, but in actuality won naught, I'll be able to take comfort in the fact that my memories could be incorrect. It was a frustrating seas, over all. They finished 4th again (3rd the last couple years, but 4th has become their spot lately). The made it to the League Cup finals, they beat Barcelona in the 1st leg of their Champion's League tie, but then they lost the cup, were eliminated from the FA Cup & the Champion's League in the same week, & took a nose dive in the league... just as I predicted. They did score some crackers though, & here's the official Goals of the Season highlight reel. Enjoy... I'm sure Dylan is enjoying this today as he kicks back, blows out his candles, & watches Arsenal highlights.

"We're Goin' to Wembley!"... & Maybe The Elbow Room

This is neither the "royal 'we,'" nor the "collective 'we,'" but rather the "quotatative 'we.'" This is only vaguely connected to the 25th anniversary of the Challenger disaster, but related none-the-less.As people were talking about it this week, it got me thinking about where I was when I heard about it: Mr. Harvey's 6th grade math class in Petoskey, MI. I wasn't the greatest student as a middle-schooler, believe it or not, but he was an alright guy... aside from his odd proclivity towards jamming Glenn Frey in class. I remember 1 day we had to listen to his new album, the 1 which was featured on Miami Vice w/ "Smuggler's Blues" & "You Belong to the City." WTF? Remember all the Christie McAuliffe jokes? I know they were horrible. In fact, even as a 6th grader, I knew they were a little inappropriate, but here's the 1 I just wrote. When I say "just," I mean while I was looking up how to spell her last name.

Q: Who's the only person who fell further than Christie McAuliffe in 1986?
A: Glen Frey... I mean really! What ever happened to him? One minute he's on top of the world w/ Miami Vice; the next minute he's begging Don Henley for an Eagles reunion.

Anyway, I didn't log in to take cheap shots @ The Eagles... that's too easy. I logged in to meander down 6th grade's memory lane. Other than the Challenger, the other things that stand out are WWF (we were in the heyday of Hulkamania), Garbage Pail Kids (these stupid stickers that combined the charm of Cabbage Patch Kids w/ the aesthetic of "What's grosser than gross?" jokes), & the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. As you remember, France knocked Brazil out in the 1/4 finals after a hard fought 120 minutes when the game finally went to penalties & Fernandes scored during the penalty kick shoot-out. of course, they ended up losing the 1/2 finals to Germany when the ref left his brain in the cab, causing France to go out 2 World Cups in a row against Germany in Semi-Final matches due to sub-par reffing.
In fact, & I know this will come as a shock, many of my Petoskey memories revolve around soccer...

... Which is how we can relate all of this to Wembley. The title of the post come from the chant often sung by fans of the winning team during the semi-finals of cup competitions in England seeing as the finals are held there. This only interests me because on Tuesday, those fans happened to be fans of Arsenal, which brings me to the point of this post: Jean asked why I hadn't written about this yet.

Arsenal are going to the Carling Cup Finals at Wembley on 27 February, 2011. The main reason I hadn't mentioned this yet is because it's only the Carling Cup... & they're only playing Birmingham City. They should win so they'll probably lose 1-0 which will then spell the end of their strong run as they lose confidence, crash out of the FA Cup & barely qualify for Europe. All of those other competitions are more interesting... & more prestigious. That said, it's nice to see them back chasing a trophy since they haven't done this since they lost to Chelsea in the finals of the same tournament in 2007. They lost to Barcelona in the Champions League finals in 2006. The last thing they actually won was the FA Cup in 2005. Which reminds me, it's FA Cup 4th Round weekend so enjoy... & then come on out to The Elbow Room tonight for Deep Space Six!

A Team: B Movie

Like most of you, I grew up lovin' The A Team. Like a few of you, I grew up w/ certain episodes memorized. I watched it every week, & then when I was in high school it was on in syndication so I got to watch it again. I always enjoyed the episodes in exotic locations the most. In one, they help rangers in an Elephant reserve in Africa (BA bangs the ranger). In another episode, they fight Nazis on the Amazon (Face probably bangs someone, but I don't remember). In another episode, they end up in Eastern Europe to play a football game against the Russians (an obvious Victory rip-off). Why they thought ripping off Victory was a good idea was never explained unless it was solely as an excuse to get Joe Namath to guest star... in which case, I can think of a handful of better plots in which he could have featured. The pilot (which aired immediately after Super Bowl XVII... the Redskins beat Miami 27-17) takes place in Mexico & sees the team fighting a drug cartel. (You may remember that this episode lent its name to one of our favorite inventions, The Mexican Slayride: a glass of Negra Modelo w/ a couple shots of Captain Morgan's. Like the unexplained problems in the football episode, we encounter a rather odd one in the pilot too: Why it's spelled "slay" instead of "sleigh".


With this in mind, I took it upon myself to sit through the new A Team film the other night. It was better than I expected, but it was still a piece of shit. The problems weren't what I'd heard though. People have complained about the acting and the plot, but the cast is good & the plot almost works. I don't mind that it was updated to do away w/ the Viet Nam back story. Placing the team in Iraq makes sense. The real problems lie in the directing & editing. A more unified vision would have made it a good film, but the long, sweeping, beautiful landscape shots are cut short to get the action, but then the action is disjointed. It's disjointed because they don't take the time that was required to build up the story. Maybe I'm asking too much from an '80's TV reboot, but when it comes to The A Team, I can be pretty demanding. It seems like another case of the old "too many cooks" situation.

What I really liked about the film:
1) The explanation of BA's fear of flying. It works, & it's funny.
2) the destruction of the van. It happens early, & it's also kind of funny.
3) The bad guys. They're more complex than 1 would expect.
4) The way they updated it while keeping the camp factor the same.Speaking of the van, if you live in the LA area, and no other car service can help for your wedding, maybe you can hire The A Team Van!