An Open Letter to Sacramento Kings Management

Dear Joe, Gavin and family:

Watching a Kings game at Arco Arena has become an assault on the senses, and I'm not referring to the play on the floor. Specifically, I'm talking about an assault on one particular sense - hearing.

And lest you think that I'm some Johnny-come-lately fan who likes to whine as soon as the wins become scarce, I've been a part of a season-ticket group since the inaugural season of 1985-86, and have probably seen close to 200 games during that time. My dad and I, who usually attend the games together, have been through thick, thin, thinner, and thinnest. And we'll be coming back next year.

But you need to know that the noise level at Arco Arena has gone beyond ridiculous, to somewhere between absurd and criminal. Last night, in the bar before the game, the band was so loud that you literally couldn't hold a conversation, even if you yelled at each other from two feet away. The bands that play in the bar are generally good, but come on - is anyone there to listen to the band? I'm not kidding, I've been at concerts where the music hasn't been that loud.

So we wander down to our seats, expecting a nice respite...but no, the "pre-game show" is showing on the big screen TV, and that's right, you guessed it...ear splitting loud. So loud it HURTS. And at this point, there can be no more than 2,000 people in their seats. We can hear it, OK? Why does it have to be so loud?

The decibel level during the introductions probably rivals that of a 747, but it seems that there is an NBA rule now that requires such nonsense. So I won't hold that one against you.

Thank God, the game begins. And we get treated, every time the Kings have the ball, to...you guessed it...ear splitting music. WHY, WHY, WHY, has it become necessary to play music DURING the damn game? When I went to the Bob Dylan concert at Arco last October, I didn't expect to see a pick-up basketball game being played on the stage. And when I'm at a basketball game, I DON'T WANT TO HEAR MUSIC WHILE THE GAME IS GOING ON! And I can assure you that no one I've ever talked to likes to hear music while the game is in play.

You guys are cool, I get that...but believe me - this whole "noise thing" is dumb. It is idiotic. It is well beyond stupid. It's insulting to your customers, and frankly disrespectful to your players.

So please, dear God, turn it down.

Your loyal Kings fan,

Jeff

First Day of Spring

"In The Park," Berthe Morisot

The 50th Anniversary Music Project

In August, my parents will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. As part of their present, I'm going to make them a collection of music tentatively titled "Fifty Years of Popular (and Semi-Popular) Music," including an annotated discography. So far it's been a lot of fun mapping out what this monster is going to look like (and I say "monster" because right now it figures to be at least 12 CDs worth of material), and friends and colleagues have been generous in loaning me CDs of the songs that are only part of my vinyl collection.

The planning is about to turn into the writing, and as I get further along, the annotation will be posted on the blog. But for now, here is a nearly final artist list:

ABBA
The Allman Brothers Band
The Association
Average White Band
The Band
The Bangles
The Beatles
The Bee Gees
Chuck Berry
The B-52s
The Blasters
Blondie
David Bowie
James Brown
Jackson Browne
Glen Campbell
The Cars
Johnny Cash
Rosanne Cash
Ray Charles
Chic
The Clash
Sam Cooke
Elvis Costello
Counting Crows
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Sheryl Crow
Jim Croce
Dire Straits
Dixie Chicks
Devo
The Doors
Nick Drake
Bob Dylan
The Eagles
The English Beat
Eurythmics
Fleetwood Mac
Aretha Franklin
Peter Gabriel
J. Geils Band
Gnarls Barkley
The Go-Gos
Bobby Goldsboro
The Grateful Dead
Macy Gray
Al Green
Patty Griffin
Cast of "Hair"
Daryl Hall and John Oates
Isaac Hayes
Don Henley
Hoobastank
Hues Corporation
Buddy Holly
Chris Isaak
The Jackson Five
Michael Jackson
Elton John
K.C. and the Sunshine Band
Gladys Knight & the Pips
Kool and the Gang
Alison Krauss
Cyndi Lauper
Little Richard
Los Lobos
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Madonna
Bob Marley and the Wailers
George McCrae
John Mellencamp
Moby
Van Morrison
Harry Nilsson
The O'Jays
Roy Orbison
Outkast
Pet Shop Boys
Tom Petty
Liz Phair
Wilson Pickett
Elvis Presley
The Pretenders
Prince
Otis Redding
R.E.M.
Cast of "Rent"
The Rolling Stones
Sam & Dave
Bob Seger
Carly Simon
Simon and Garfunkel
Paul Simon
Frank Sinatra
Sister Sledge
Sly and the Family Stone
Soggy Bottom Boys
The Spinners
Dusty Springfield
Bruce Springsteen
Steely Dan
Rod Stewart
Talking Heads
James Taylor
Three Dog Night
Tower of Power
U2
Wall of Voodoo
Dionne Warwick
The Who
Lucinda Williams
Al Wilson
Jackie Wilson
Bill Withers
Stevie Wonder
Neil Young
Warren Zevon
ZZ Top

There's more to come, and I'm sure someone is being left off the list, but you get the idea...

Childhood "Books"

The inspiration for this came from Sheila. Whoever reads this is going to think that I was a weird kid. And I probably was.

The task - list 5 books that played an important role in your childhood and explain why - is simple enough. The thing is, I didn't read a lot of books when I was a child. At least not a lot of books that I can point to as having played an important enough role to make note of. But I did read a lot, so I'm altering the rules just a bit. (Conjure up your best Darth Vader voice in your imagination - "I'm altering the deal...pray I don't alter it any further...").

The Baseball Encyclopedia. I've written about this before, but I got this book for Christmas when I was 8 years old, and it has been a constant companion since. It sits on the bookshelf in my office at work, where I regularly scare people with my ability to recall World Series results going back to the 1950s. My favorite part of the book when I was a kid was the World Series section, and I would read through the brief descriptions of each game and create the game in my head, imagining what the crowd was like, the field, the shadows, the players.

Time Magazine. On Wednesday afternoons, the first thing I would do after getting home from school was look for that week's issue of Time Magazine, and then sit down and read it cover to cover. I may not have been familiar with a lot of literary characters at the time, but I sure knew who Hugh Sidey and Jay Cocks were. I still have all of the issues from the Watergate era moldering in a box, somewhere out in the garage. Every now and then I pull one out and read it.

Sports Illustrated Magazine. This was the Friday afternoon obsession. I still remember a classmate named Mark, and how we would spend most of our day on Fridays trying to predict who would be on the cover that week. I think we even kept score for a while. I even got a letter printed in 1974; ironically, it was in the swimsuit issue, so I couldn't even take it to school.

The 18 Greatest Golf Holes in America, by Dan Jenkins. I've always enjoyed golf, even though I'm lucky to break 100, but became obsessed with this book after a neighbor (who happened to be the Titleist golf representative for Northern California) loaned it to me, also in 1974. Dan Jenkins, the longtime SI writer on golf and college football, had traveled the country, and identified what he felt were the best 18 holes of golf in America. And he had done it the hard way - not choosing a bunch of great 18th holes, but rather the best 1st hole, the best 2nd hole, and so on...it started a life-long interest in golf architecture, to the point where one shelf in our library is almost solely dedicated to books on the subject.

How The Grinch Stole Christmas. This was the first book I ever memorized, and I remember reading it to my cousins when I was 7 or 8 years old. I don't think I could recite it from memory today, but I still make a point to read it several times during the holiday season.

So there you have it - a strange and perhaps motley collection, but one that served me reasonably well in the formative years (or so I'd like to think).

Score One For Bloggers

Further evidence that the world is coming to grips with this new era, even if mainstream media is slow to catch up:

The Capitol Correspondents Assn. has voted to bring bloggers into the association, allowing them to become credentialed members of the Capitol press corps with access to the legislative floors and most news conferences. Pres. Steve Geissinger with MediaNews reports the vote concluded last night with 34 in favor of credentialing bloggers and 3 against it.

Geissinger says about half the membership voted. A pretty good turn out in his estimation since a third of the members are TV cameramen and still photographers, none of whom voted. At issue were amendments to the association bylaws that opened membership to others than full time reporters working for major media outlets. Under the new rules, members must still cover state government and politics but need only derive 50% of their income from media jobs, which opens the door to part-timers and the self employed.

Geissinger says there's no immediate danger of news conferences becoming "zoos"because only a handful of Capitol bloggers meet the criteria at this time. There's also no reason to believe that the new rules will permit the credentialing of a blogger paid by a political party, trade association or some other special interest group. Geissinger says the bylaws already contain a conflict of interest clause, so that's a non issue. The issue of blogger credentialing arose a while back when a blogger applied for CCA membership, triggering a discussion of blogging as a legitimate journalistic activity. By approving the new rules, which were drafted CCA's board of directors, the CCA membership has recognized that, as Geissinger says, "We're in the Internet age."

The Capitol Morning Report
Sacramento, CA
3/1/2007

Quote of the Day

"I respect him, he respects me, and that's how we pretty much differ.''

- Dwayne Jarrett, on his relationship with former USC wideout Mike Williams.

Classic. You couldn't make up stuff this good. (Hat tip: Peter King)

The Sounds of Cheney Hall, 25 Years On

Twenty-five years ago, I was a senior at UC Berkeley, living in Cheney Hall, just south of the campus on Durant Avenue. Because I’d attended community college for two years before transferring, I was one of the few upperclassmen living in the dorms. This made me popular when party time rolled around, because I was also one of the few dorm residents who didn’t have to worry about having a fake I.D.

Cheney Hall was a co-ed dorm, but the 2nd floor was all male, and over the course of the year we had ourselves a pretty darn good time, If I do say so myself. There were several of us with decent stereo systems, and one of us (not me) with something quite a bit better than that – a state of the art, Bang & Olufsen set: turntable (you could pound on the damn thing, and the record still wouldn’t skip), receiver, pre-amp, speakers, the works. All of us that hung out together the most – Colin, Eric, Sutton, John, Don, Eric, Maria (no, she didn’t live on our floor), and me – were really into music. Our tastes varied widely – everything from AC/DC to ZZ Top, from Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen to Brian Eno to The Clash to The B-52s and back again, which led to some interesting arguments from time to time. For the most part, we made a real effort to get into the stuff that the others liked (though I may never forgive Colin for Haircut One Hundred) – which is probably the only reason that I own so many Brian Eno records today.

A year or so ago, John volunteered to put together a batch of CDs for all of us, provided that we were willing to put together a list of our favorites from that time and send him as many as we could to save him from having to go out and buy half the record store. From that effort, the “Cheney Hall Big Chill” list was born, a batch of songs that I can guarantee will be a good starter for a rockin’ party. Without further ado, the list:

AC/DC: Back In Black, You Shook Me All Night Long

The B-52s: Dance This Mess Around, Private Idaho, Mesopotamia. We saw the B-52s play at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, somehow managing to find our way to and from the BART station on both ends. We lived to tell the tale.

Laurie Anderson: O Superman. Boy, did this start some arguments. You either loved it, or thought it was an unmitigated piece of crap. Nothing in-between. I loved it.

The Blasters: No Other Girl

Blondie: Rapture

David Bowie: Heroes

The Clash: Lost In The Supermarket, Train In Vain, Rock The Casbah

Elvis Costello: Pump It Up

David Bowie and Queen: Under Pressure

Dead Kennedys: Holiday in Cambodia

Earth, Wind and Fire: Let’s Groove

English Beat: Mirror in the Bathroom, To Nice To Talk To

Brian Eno: Kings Lead Hat. I’m not sure that any of us at the time realized that “Kings Lead Hat” was an anagram for “Talking Heads.” Apparently, Eno’s idea of an inside joke.

J. Geils Band: Centerfold, Freeze Frame. I remember a football player, whose name escapes me, waking from a drunken slumber at 4 in the morning upon hearing the beginning of “Centerfold,” and running down the dorm halls naked as a jaybird, dancing like a crazy man. Pretty funny stuff.

Go Gos: Our Lips Are Sealed, We Got the Beat

Rick James: Super Freak

David Lindley: Don’t Look Back, Mercury Blues

Bob Marley: Jammin’

Orchestral Manouevers In The Dark: Enola Gay

Pretenders: Brass In Pocket

Prince: When You Were Mine, Controversy

Psychedelic Furs: Pretty in Pink, Into You Like A Train

Ramones: I Wanna Be Sedated

Rolling Stones: Waiting For A Friend

Romantics: What I Like About You

Roxy Music: More Than This, Avalon, True To Life. "Avalon" was one of the last albums I bought in Berkeley, and one of my all-time favorites to this day. One of the clearest memories of my life is sitting in my dorm room, alone, right after having finished my last final, and listening to “True To Life.” I had no idea what would come next, but thankfully things have turned out OK.

Bruce Springsteen: Hungry Heart. This one wouldn’t have been my choice; I would have opted for “The River.” Oh well.

Talking Heads: Once In A Lifetime. I saw the Heads play Zellerbach Auditorium in October 1980; to this date one of the greatest shows of my lifetime. The English Beat opened, and I remember their aged saxophone player (“Saxa”) sitting in a folding chair, at the edge of the stage, blowing that horn and sounding as if he were 16 years old. The auditorium held only a couple of thousand people, and we had great seats – sixth row, if I recall. The band was in the midst of their first tour with the “big band,” although the personnel would change when they filmed the monumental “Stop Making Sense” a few years later. We were parked right in front of an absolutely immense speaker, and Adrian Belew’s guitar chords attacked our eardrums as if they were heat-seeking missiles from Hell. David Byrne hadn’t yet gotten comfortable with dressing up, and wore a plaid shirt and jeans. Awesome show.

Peter Tosh: Legalize It, Stepping Razor. The UC Theater, Winter 1982, a classic double bill: “The Harder They Come” and “Rockers.” You didn’t have to bring your own; all you had to do was breathe the air.

The Specials: A Message To You, Rudy

Tom Tom Club: Genius Of Love. We overplayed this one to the point where I still can't quite enjoy it today.

Wall of Voodoo: Mexican Radio

X: Soul Kitchen

There were a lot more, but this gives you an idea. You could certainly do worse.

Ah, Now It All Makes Sense

ABC News Headline:

Shaving Off Her Hair and Tattooing Her Body May Be Spears' Way of Finding a Fresh Start

There's really nothing I can add to that.

Pazz and Jop

The Village Voice recently published its annual Pazz & Jop Critics poll, which over the years has become the best (by far) barometer of what is going on in the rock universe. Take a look at the past poll results, and essentially you're looking at the history of rock - at least since 1971, when the poll first appeared.

The fact that Bob Dylan again triumphed in the album category is less of a story than the fact that this year's poll is the first to be published since Robert Christgau, the self-styled "Dean of American Rock Critics," was fired by the Voice last September. Happily, Christgau landed on his feet, securing not one but three new gigs: contributing editor at Rolling Stone, music correspondent for NPR, and writing his legendary Consumer Guide for msn.com. I wondered what would happen with Pazz & Jop, but apparently the show must go on, and so it has. The Voice's new music editor, Rob Harvilla, contributes a good-natured piece which references the Christgau phenomenon, and the poll also devotes a section to voters who made sure to include some bitchy comments about the Christgau firing along with their polls. And for the skeptics such as myself who wondered whether the poll should be retired gracefully, the Dean himself participates, a damn nice gesture considering what happened.

I began subscribing to the Voice in 1978, and the first issue that came in the mail (with Reggie Jackson on the cover) just happened to be one with Christgau's Consumer Guide in it. For the most part, his taste has always matched up well with mine. He's never had much use for some artists that I love (Peter Gabriel and Jackson Browne, for example), and has sometimes failed to appreciate artists who I think are wonderful (for instance, I've never seen him write anything about Patty Griffin, which strikes me as strange). But in the end, he can always be counted on to identify a new artist's potential before he hits it big (e.g. Prince), and find the potential in a new genre (e.g. rap, punk, hip-hop) before it hits the masses. And his ability to distill an album's essence into a paragraph or two is simply amazing. One of my favorites:

Born in the USA [Columbia, 1984]. Imperceptible though the movement has been to many sensitive young people, Springsteen has evolved. In fact, this apparent retrenchment is his most rhythmically propulsive, vocally incisive, lyrically balanced, and commercially undeniable album. Even his compulsive studio habits work for him: the aural vibrancy of the thing reminds me like nothing in years that what teenagers loved about rock and roll wasn't that it was catchy or even vibrant but that it just plain sounded good. And while Nebraska's one-note vision may be more left-correct, my instincts (not to mention my leftism) tell me that this uptempo worldview is truer. Hardly ride-off-into-the-sunset stuff, at the same time it's low on nostalgia and beautiful losers. Not counting the title powerhouse, the best songs slip by at first because their tone is so lifelike: the fast-stepping "Working on the Highway," which turns out to be about a country road gang; "Darlington County," which pins down the futility of a macho spree without undercutting its exuberance; and "Glory Days," which finally acknowledges that among other things, getting old is a good joke. A+

Almost alone among critics of the day, Christgau nailed what may be the single most important thing about the album - the crispness of its sound. Seems simple enough, but just try it sometime.

The Voice had become less and less interesting to me over the years, and when Christgau was fired, I finally cancelled my subscription. But I'm glad to see that Pazz & Jop lives on, even if it is a little like watching the Tonight Show without Johnny Carson.

A Valentine's Day Tale

The top link at the right belongs to "The Sheila Variations," which quite simply is the best blog out there, anywhere. On any given day, you can read highly entertaining, informative or amusing (and perhaps all three) posts on subjects ranging from James Joyce to Anna Nicole Smith, and back again.

I honestly don't know how she does it, but there's no doubt in my mind that the site's author/owner, Sheila O'Malley, is going to be famous one day. And when that happens, I'll be able to say, "ah heck, I read her way back before she even changed the name of her blog."

My favorite tale of hers, one that never fails to amuse, is a tale of Valentine's Day, "An Eyeball And A Dozen Roses." There's nothing I can say about it that will do it justice. You just have to go read it for yourself.

You've Got To Wonder

I've been thinking about this since I watched the show last night:

What were the odds that someone would ever sing "Whipping Post" at their American Idol audition?

What were the odds that someone singing "Whipping Post" at their American Idol audition would do a great job, and advance to the Hollywood round?

I suspect about the same odds you could have gotten last week for a NASA astronaut being charged with attempted murder.

More Zingers From Zimmerman

One of the most entertaining football columns of the season comes after the season ends - Paul Zimmerman's annual analysis of NFL announcers. Paul has high and exacting standards, and few of the teams working today meet them. I suspect that few teams have ever met them, but that's an entirely different topic.

This year, only one team - Brad Nessler, Ron Jaworski and Dick Vermeil - receives five stars. That team covered only one game all season - on ESPN the opening Monday night, because the network showed two games that night. His lowest rating, 0 stars, goes to ESPN's "A" team - Mike Tirico, Tony Kornheiser, and Joe Theismann. I agree with Zimmerman that this team was terrible, but in my mind part of the problem was the production philosophy, which led to the execrable weekly parade of the Network Stars, a loathsome trend that Zimmerman rightly deplores (and one which harkened back to the Howard and Dandy Don days). While they weren't good, I did think that they were better than the former ESPN Sunday Night crew (Mike Patrick, Paul Maguire, and Theismann), which for my money was the worst NFL announcing team of all time.

Zimmerman goes further than he normally does in this column with his dissection of the ESPN crew:

...Week 6, Chicago at Arizona, a defining moment for the Cardinals and their coach, Denny Green, and their offensive coordinator, Keith Rowen. The Cardinals are driving for the victory. The Bears can't stop them, no matter what defense they throw up. Rookie QB Matt Leinart is killing them with underneath passes, the same way Peyton Manning did in the Super Bowl ... ironic, huh? Down the field they come. Theismann has talked to Rowen, who told him that he knew he could beat the Bears this way ... if only Green would let him do it, but the coach was bugged by Edgerrin James bitching about not being permitted to close out the contest. This was the knowledge that Theismann had in the booth, and at one point in the drive, he muttered, "Don't stop throwing." It just popped out.

But they did stop. They reached the Chicago 23-yard line and brought in two tight ends and two running backs, the ultimate give up. Now Theismann had a decision to make. He could lay out his knowledge of the situation, as practically any honest announcer would, and it would have been fascinating, a real coup for a guy who has been much reviled during his career. But just then Kornheiser came up with one of his grade school pronouncements ... "You have to admit it, don't you ... you're rooting for them." And Joe, given the choice, opted for the low IQ route, a little bantering back and forth with his sidekick.

Well, the Cards' heavy offense was stopped and they missed the field goal and lost the game. And in his postgame press conference Green went into some contrived rage thing about how the Bears were "anointed." And then he made Rowen the scapegoat and fired him. The viewers of ESPN could have been privy to all this ahead of time, they could have been in on a real scoop. But Theismann chose to ignore journalistic integrity and play marbles with Bozo the Clown. Personally, the whole thing makes me sick.

Pretty strong words there. I'd love to be in the vicinity of Theismann if/when he reads that. I like Kornheiser in different settings, but on Monday night thought he fell into the Dennis Miller (ie waste of time) category. He's apparently coming back next season, but there's no doubt in my mind that this team would be better without him.

Just An Observation

After having used the same on-ramp to enter Interstate 5 for my drive to work for the past twelve years (with the exception of the four years when my job and schedule allowed me to take the bus), I'm more convinced than ever that these are the six most difficult words in the English language for drivers to understand:

TWO CARS
PER GREEN
EACH LANE

...at least the drivers of Elk Grove, California.

Worth 1000 Words, NFL Edition

(Hat tip: The Irish Trojan)

Dungy vs. Gruden

Building on the comment below about Tony Dungy and Jon Gruden, here are their records since Dungy was fired by Tampa Bay and replaced by Gruden.

Dungy's record:

2002: 10-6; 0-1
2003: 12-4; 2-1
2004: 12-4; 1-1
2005: 14-2; 0-1
2006: 12-4; 4-0 (Super Bowl victory)

* Regular season record: 60-20
* Postseason record: 7-4
* 5 winning seasons; 5 playoff appearances; 1 Super Bowl victory

Gruden's record:

2002: 12-4; 3-0 (Super Bowl victory)
2003: 7-9
2004: 5-11
2005: 11-5; 0-1
2006: 4-12

* Regular season record: 39-41
* Postseason record: 3-1
* 2 winning seasons; 2 playoff appearances; 1 Super Bowl victory

Judge for yourself...

Super Bowl Quick Hits

- What a shock - two terrible interceptions thrown by Rex Grossman in the 4th Quarter, with the game still very much on the line, ended the Bears' chances for victory. I've already picked on the guy enough, so this time I'll let Sports Illustrated's Don Banks do it for me:

Grossman will go down in history alongside Tony Eason and David Woodley as the worst starting quarterbacks in Super Bowl history. He actually had a chance to make a difference for the Bears on Sunday, but he didn't have the game to match the moment.

- Peyton Manning didn't have a game with statistics to match the past Super Bowl performances of folks like Joe Montana, Steve Young, or Phil Simms, but it was a terrific performance nonetheless. Having Manning under center is like having a coach out on the field - his ability to read the defenses until the last second, directing traffic right up to the very moment that the ball is snapped, make him as much fun to watch as any quarterback of my lifetime. With this win, his place in Canton in secure; one can only imagine what the future might hold.

- I wonder if, given the chance to do it all over again, whether the Tampa Bay Buccaneers would fire Tony Dungy and go with the Jon Gruden option? Sure, they got their Super Bowl victory; but with a team built primarily by Dungy. And good moments have been hard to find since that victory.

- The weather obviously played a factor in the game, but at least for this viewer, it made the game more interesting than many recent Super Bowls.

- Prince was great - no surprise there.

- There were some amusing commercials, but nothing that will go down in advertising history.

- Even though they were pushed up and down the field for much of the game, I thought the Bears defense played a courageous game. I doubt that will be much solace on the trip back home.

Just seven more months until opening weekend. How long until March Madness?