Your Honor, Can We Punt?
by Bryce Martin
When Michael Vick's attorney, Billy Martin, read what was supposed to be a statement from Vick, and he made the apology to his Falcons teammates for not being there for the opening "of spring training," two things were clear: 1. Vick didn't write the statement. 2. Vick's attorney knows nothing about pro football and likely nothing about sports in general.
The term "spring training" belongs exclusively to baseball. It is never, not even in the most casual of conversations or discourse, used in reference to pro football.
I'm guessing that Martin is solely focused on his career as an attorney as to be completely removed from the routine life of the common man. I'm not sure I would want such a person as my attorney, but, hey, that's what makes a dogfight, I mean a horserace.
Another thing. Martin's voice sounded angry that someone would even charge Vick with such crimes. Excuse me, guilty or not, dogfighting equipment, numerous buried dog carcasses, and dozens of bull dogs in cages is no call to get huffy after being charged with illegal dogfighting after a long federal investigation. It is, afterall, Vick's residence no matter how little he might say he stays there.
In addition to Vick's crack defensive team, he has the added support of Deion Sanders, who equated Vick's having the biggest and baddest dogs to his wanting the biggest and baddest cars and chains as a sign of status back when he was a star NFL defender. If you ever wondered whether Sanders really grasped the idea of religious conversion he said he achieved in recent years, this should reconcile that thought.
...
For what it's worth:
Why would a cowboy want spurs that jingle jangle?
Judging by the classic photo, Marilyn Monroe didn't seem upset when her dress blew up while standing over the sidewalk grating.
The Phillies' Ryan Howard reminds me of the cop near the end of the movie in "Planet of the Apes."
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Wednesday, July 25, 2007
The Little Church in the Wildwood
By Bryce Martin
I was driving home early Sunday morning through Bakersfield
Listening to gospel music on the colored radio station
And the preacher said, "You know you always have the
Lord by your side"
"Far Away Eyes"
(Mick Jagger-Keith Richards)
1977
Sort of like Mick Jagger (sort of because the actual event preceded The Rolling Stones song) I was leisurely driving down Union Avenue one quiet Bakersfield Sunday morning when most of the radio stations were broadcasting religious programming. I finally gave in and quit twisting the knob. Music from a piano sounded so familiar. Not the song itself as you might expect but something about how the music was being played. A voice came on, not a familiar voice, but a voice that spoke a familiar language. "Tune in again next week," it said, "when you'll again hear a broadcast from the Little Church in the Wildwood, Sarcoxie, Missouri. Until then..."
Sarcoxie, Missouri? I knew it. Here I was miles from home in California, and just a little bit of home I recognized right off from a snippet of radio.
There amounted to town churches, but a good number of churches in Missouri remained from pioneer days and were located in what might aptly be described as the wildwood. One could only imagine that was not exclusive with Missouri. There was in fact a song with a title about a church in the wildwood, and I was told years ago it was a song written many years hence about a place far from Missouri.
I knew the gospel show from Sarcoxie was not a live broadcast. Radio stations played either a tape or a long-play record submitted to them. it amounted to a paid advertising from the church doing the promotion to the radio station. The church in these instances always asked for money, usually near the end of the broadcast, to stay on the air. No money from your area and they moved on to another area.
Church music was a part of growing up. I heard it not only in church and local radio and television programs, but around my house with songs from Grandma as she sewed and did chores and at the houses of relatives who practiced songs of worship and praise on parlor pianos.
I got mixed up a little on two songs, "The Bible Tells Me So" and "Jesus Loves Me." The first one was written by cowgirl Dale Evans and the second one Grandma sang around the house. What created most of the mixup was that "Jesus Loves Me," whether intentional or not, references the other song with its line "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so."
I'd hate to think what lyrics I might get mixed up growing up today. Was that "ho" or "mo?" And what kind of memories I might have from them.
A stretch? A cheap shot? As I look around, I think maybe not.
-30-
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Sweet and a Little Sour For Good Measure
by Bryce Martin
It was one sweet block, mostly.
An asafetida bag was something you got from your druggist. It emitted an offensive odor so fetid and foul only the devil could love. A user wore it on a string around their neck. It supposedly had medicinal powers strong enough to ward off a cold. It was also the basis for a joke, an old, old joke I would imagine. The joke had to do with a play on words. When someone wanted to sound as if they were going to use a bad phrase, but instead intended to trick you: "KISS MY AS!-afetida bag," they would say. Another one in the same vein: "GOT DAND!-ruff in my hair."
An old man in Galena was the only person I ever knew of who actually wore one of the asafetida (pronounced locally as "as-fit-tid-e") bags on his person. It was said that he had came in every winter for the past few years to get outfitted with a new bag from druggist Otto Schwartz who owned Schwartz's Drug Store on Main Street. He sold the best ice cream you could buy. He made and packaged it himself using pure and superior ingredients. It was expensive, though, at fifty cents a carton. And that was in 1960. Vanilla was the only homemade flavor offered. I would say that the overwhelmingly obnoxious smell of the asafetida bags, compared to the soothing aroma of the vanilla bean and the rest of the ice cream's creamy ingredients, covered both ends of the smellorama meter for Schwartz's Drug Store.
Otto's son, Corky, often worked the soda counter. The malts, shakes, and ice cream sodas were first rate. You could get a burger, too.
Across the street and on the opposite corner had once stood the Double Dip. Malts, shakes, sodas, floats, the like. An elderly couple owned an operated it. They were gone by 1960, retired or maybe deceased. I last went there when I was very young, and with adults. In its last days, it did little business. The owners appeared too old to keep it up.
Across the street from the Double Dip was Anthony's. No ice cream or sodas, but candy galore. A gigantic Hershey chocolate bar rested in the window deck. My favorite was the peanut clusters.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
It was one sweet block, mostly.
An asafetida bag was something you got from your druggist. It emitted an offensive odor so fetid and foul only the devil could love. A user wore it on a string around their neck. It supposedly had medicinal powers strong enough to ward off a cold. It was also the basis for a joke, an old, old joke I would imagine. The joke had to do with a play on words. When someone wanted to sound as if they were going to use a bad phrase, but instead intended to trick you: "KISS MY AS!-afetida bag," they would say. Another one in the same vein: "GOT DAND!-ruff in my hair."
An old man in Galena was the only person I ever knew of who actually wore one of the asafetida (pronounced locally as "as-fit-tid-e") bags on his person. It was said that he had came in every winter for the past few years to get outfitted with a new bag from druggist Otto Schwartz who owned Schwartz's Drug Store on Main Street. He sold the best ice cream you could buy. He made and packaged it himself using pure and superior ingredients. It was expensive, though, at fifty cents a carton. And that was in 1960. Vanilla was the only homemade flavor offered. I would say that the overwhelmingly obnoxious smell of the asafetida bags, compared to the soothing aroma of the vanilla bean and the rest of the ice cream's creamy ingredients, covered both ends of the smellorama meter for Schwartz's Drug Store.
Otto's son, Corky, often worked the soda counter. The malts, shakes, and ice cream sodas were first rate. You could get a burger, too.
Across the street and on the opposite corner had once stood the Double Dip. Malts, shakes, sodas, floats, the like. An elderly couple owned an operated it. They were gone by 1960, retired or maybe deceased. I last went there when I was very young, and with adults. In its last days, it did little business. The owners appeared too old to keep it up.
Across the street from the Double Dip was Anthony's. No ice cream or sodas, but candy galore. A gigantic Hershey chocolate bar rested in the window deck. My favorite was the peanut clusters.
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Sunday, July 22, 2007
Of Culverts, Viaducts and Old 66
by Bryce Martin
Some disjointed history.
Words such as “culvert” and “viaduct” were words I heard often around the region where I grew up, but little or not at all in other parts of the country. Culverts are usually open-top and they carry water drainage. Viaducts are elevated bridges, usually for rail. My little Kansas hometown didn't have a multitude of either but you often heard the words as a way to bring a landmark into the equation when giving directions or when relating to an area in general.
What I have discovered living in other parts of the country, namely California, culverts and viaducts are as commonplace as they are from where I'm from, except they're more likely to be called ditches and overpasses.
A viaduct must have also been a common term for comedian Groucho Marx. Maybe that is why I had no trouble as a youth understanding Groucho's “Wanna buy a duck”? routine.
...
Route 66 follows as a pattern an old road through Kansas. It enters Kansas a mile east of Galena, heads northwest and, after passing Eagle-Picher, the road turns south on Main Street. Going through town it reaches 7th Street and turns west again, going through the Quaker town of Riverton. Past Riverton, it curves south at the Brush Creek Bridge and toward the community of Baxter Springs. There, Route 66 turns east and then south, running to the Oklahoma state line.
In 1961, the southern section of Interstate 44 was completed. This leg extends from Joplin to the Will Rogers Turnpike in Oklahoma. Kansas, now completely bypassed, no longer has a piece of The Mother Road. The east part of Galena, where 66, had entered the town, is now barren of travelers passing through. A new route from Galena to Joplin is, in actuality, old US 166, east along 7th Street, now a divided, four-lane.
In the 1950s, where 22nd Street crossed Short Street was a high gravel bed that formerly served as the foundation for the “old car line track” -- A public transit system, which amounted to a vast electric interurban railroad, called the Southern Missouri. The electric locomotives headed trains into and out of the areas most populated by, primarily, mill workers and mining hands. The electrics tied together Carthage, Mo., to Baxter Springs; and Miami, Okla., to Joplin, Mo. Workers and visitors could travel to the various areas of robust activity and families could pay visits. The electric railroad industry was competing with the diesels and the doomed steamers. The electrics were quieter and cleaner than steam or diesel, and operated on the fundamentals of electricity, magnetic induction, and whatnot, which means I do not have a clue how they worked.
Hey, it's electricity.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
Some disjointed history.
Words such as “culvert” and “viaduct” were words I heard often around the region where I grew up, but little or not at all in other parts of the country. Culverts are usually open-top and they carry water drainage. Viaducts are elevated bridges, usually for rail. My little Kansas hometown didn't have a multitude of either but you often heard the words as a way to bring a landmark into the equation when giving directions or when relating to an area in general.
What I have discovered living in other parts of the country, namely California, culverts and viaducts are as commonplace as they are from where I'm from, except they're more likely to be called ditches and overpasses.
A viaduct must have also been a common term for comedian Groucho Marx. Maybe that is why I had no trouble as a youth understanding Groucho's “Wanna buy a duck”? routine.
...
Route 66 follows as a pattern an old road through Kansas. It enters Kansas a mile east of Galena, heads northwest and, after passing Eagle-Picher, the road turns south on Main Street. Going through town it reaches 7th Street and turns west again, going through the Quaker town of Riverton. Past Riverton, it curves south at the Brush Creek Bridge and toward the community of Baxter Springs. There, Route 66 turns east and then south, running to the Oklahoma state line.
In 1961, the southern section of Interstate 44 was completed. This leg extends from Joplin to the Will Rogers Turnpike in Oklahoma. Kansas, now completely bypassed, no longer has a piece of The Mother Road. The east part of Galena, where 66, had entered the town, is now barren of travelers passing through. A new route from Galena to Joplin is, in actuality, old US 166, east along 7th Street, now a divided, four-lane.
In the 1950s, where 22nd Street crossed Short Street was a high gravel bed that formerly served as the foundation for the “old car line track” -- A public transit system, which amounted to a vast electric interurban railroad, called the Southern Missouri. The electric locomotives headed trains into and out of the areas most populated by, primarily, mill workers and mining hands. The electrics tied together Carthage, Mo., to Baxter Springs; and Miami, Okla., to Joplin, Mo. Workers and visitors could travel to the various areas of robust activity and families could pay visits. The electric railroad industry was competing with the diesels and the doomed steamers. The electrics were quieter and cleaner than steam or diesel, and operated on the fundamentals of electricity, magnetic induction, and whatnot, which means I do not have a clue how they worked.
Hey, it's electricity.
-30-
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Rockin' With Conny and the Bellhops
by Bryce Martin
At Liberty Elementary in Galena, Kan., Gene Woods was a classmate. When the whole Elvis scene was just unfolding, Woods performed a pair of his songs at one of our school talent shows. He broke a string on his guitar right off with some savage picking but in what we were just beginning to recognize as true Elvis fashion he just kept on boppin'.
Long combed-back hair, shirt collar up, and sensous rock 'n' roll music, it all came from the devil's handbag of tricks. We were a little suprised the school allowed Woods to do Elvis.
Woods went on to play guitar for Conny and the Bellhops at the Hilltop Club in Pittsburg. That was the first real rock 'n' roll band in the region and that was the beer joint where the band made its name. In Kansas you only have to be 18 to legally consume alcohol, which means on any given night many 16-year-olds and younger are downing some suds in Kansas taverns.
Conny was the lead vocalist and a wonderful saxophone player. His name was Edgar M. Conrad III. He died in 1989.
Talking to Woods during a band break he once mentioned the group had just recorded a song he had written called "Bop Sticks" and it was out on a 45 rpm record. Since they were an instrumental group, I knew it was a rocked-up version of "Chopsticks," which as it turned out it was. They had a regional hit record with another one called "Shot Rod."
Gene Woods still lives in Pittsburg.
Another who guested at the Hilltop about the same time was Dick Feller. He went on, as they say, to write "Some Days Are Diamonds," a gem of a song for John Denver, and other hits and a few misses and lives in Nashville, actually in Hendersonville, Tenn. I lived in Hendersonville and I'd run into him at the post office and we'd chat. In my salad days, before the main entree of life, he was more or less a regular at the Land Inn in Fort Scott, Kan., another hangout of mine.
True pioneers of the musical sphere, Conny and the Bellhops was a surf rock band before the genre got its name.
I didn't know at the time I was drinking in so much history with the beer.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
At Liberty Elementary in Galena, Kan., Gene Woods was a classmate. When the whole Elvis scene was just unfolding, Woods performed a pair of his songs at one of our school talent shows. He broke a string on his guitar right off with some savage picking but in what we were just beginning to recognize as true Elvis fashion he just kept on boppin'.
Long combed-back hair, shirt collar up, and sensous rock 'n' roll music, it all came from the devil's handbag of tricks. We were a little suprised the school allowed Woods to do Elvis.
Woods went on to play guitar for Conny and the Bellhops at the Hilltop Club in Pittsburg. That was the first real rock 'n' roll band in the region and that was the beer joint where the band made its name. In Kansas you only have to be 18 to legally consume alcohol, which means on any given night many 16-year-olds and younger are downing some suds in Kansas taverns.
Conny was the lead vocalist and a wonderful saxophone player. His name was Edgar M. Conrad III. He died in 1989.
Talking to Woods during a band break he once mentioned the group had just recorded a song he had written called "Bop Sticks" and it was out on a 45 rpm record. Since they were an instrumental group, I knew it was a rocked-up version of "Chopsticks," which as it turned out it was. They had a regional hit record with another one called "Shot Rod."
Gene Woods still lives in Pittsburg.
Another who guested at the Hilltop about the same time was Dick Feller. He went on, as they say, to write "Some Days Are Diamonds," a gem of a song for John Denver, and other hits and a few misses and lives in Nashville, actually in Hendersonville, Tenn. I lived in Hendersonville and I'd run into him at the post office and we'd chat. In my salad days, before the main entree of life, he was more or less a regular at the Land Inn in Fort Scott, Kan., another hangout of mine.
True pioneers of the musical sphere, Conny and the Bellhops was a surf rock band before the genre got its name.
I didn't know at the time I was drinking in so much history with the beer.
-30-
The Big City of Joplin Held Many Wonders
by Bryce Martin
Visiting the big city of Joplin, Mo., always was an adventure and a real door opener for the wonders of the world.
We visited Lewis Green in Joplin. Lewis, a cousin, was a car salesman for Hi-Dollar Joe Burtram. He had a daughter about my age I had not met before and she immediately disoriented me. She was nice and all that, but she began talking to me as if we were old friends, question after question loaded on top of comment upon comment.
I quickly excused myself, backed away and went out the front door. I decided to walk around the neighborhood a bit. Not too far, though. I did not want to get lost. I walked down a sidewalk and a boy asked, “Who’s at the Y? See anybody?” I didn’t know what or who the Y was, but I figured I must be walking from its direction. “What’s that?” I asked. The kid was sitting shirtless on his front porch. He didn’t bother to get up, but he turned his head and shoulders around and shouted at the screen door shielding the open front door. “Hey, hey,” he desperately tried to get someone’s attention inside. “This guy wants to know what the Y is.”
He obviously thought I lived around there. I walked back to the Greens’ house. A commercial had just played on the television. It was the one where some cartoon gangsters had names like Sticky Valves and Greasy Sludge and they were doing damage to a car engine until Bardahl came along. It had music similar to Dragnet.
Is Sticky Valves a-ridin’ with you tonight?
Is Greasy Sludge a-ridin' with you tonight?
Are you sure your car is running exactly right?
'Cause with Bardahl
Sticky Valves won’t be stickin’
Greasy Sludge won't be grippin'
And your engine won’t be clickin’
...
…Bardahl did it again… Bardahl did it again…
That's how it went. Or thereabouts.
The cartoon villains wore shirts with horizontal stripes, beret-like thug caps and eye masks. The kicker was the Bardahl song imitating the popular theme song of the Dragnet TV show.
“Isn’t that just the neatest thing,” the daughter said.
I told her it was. I mentioned to Lewis about the kid wanting to know about the Y.
“Oh, that’s the YMCA,” he said. “It’s just down the street.”
Wow, I thought, a YMCA. This neighborhood has a real YMCA, a magical place I had only barely heard about. I'll have to remember that next time I'm in the neighborhood. And I'll be sure to refer to it simply as "the Y" if I get the chance. How neat is that?
-30-
by Bryce Martin
Visiting the big city of Joplin, Mo., always was an adventure and a real door opener for the wonders of the world.
We visited Lewis Green in Joplin. Lewis, a cousin, was a car salesman for Hi-Dollar Joe Burtram. He had a daughter about my age I had not met before and she immediately disoriented me. She was nice and all that, but she began talking to me as if we were old friends, question after question loaded on top of comment upon comment.
I quickly excused myself, backed away and went out the front door. I decided to walk around the neighborhood a bit. Not too far, though. I did not want to get lost. I walked down a sidewalk and a boy asked, “Who’s at the Y? See anybody?” I didn’t know what or who the Y was, but I figured I must be walking from its direction. “What’s that?” I asked. The kid was sitting shirtless on his front porch. He didn’t bother to get up, but he turned his head and shoulders around and shouted at the screen door shielding the open front door. “Hey, hey,” he desperately tried to get someone’s attention inside. “This guy wants to know what the Y is.”
He obviously thought I lived around there. I walked back to the Greens’ house. A commercial had just played on the television. It was the one where some cartoon gangsters had names like Sticky Valves and Greasy Sludge and they were doing damage to a car engine until Bardahl came along. It had music similar to Dragnet.
Is Sticky Valves a-ridin’ with you tonight?
Is Greasy Sludge a-ridin' with you tonight?
Are you sure your car is running exactly right?
'Cause with Bardahl
Sticky Valves won’t be stickin’
Greasy Sludge won't be grippin'
And your engine won’t be clickin’
...
…Bardahl did it again… Bardahl did it again…
That's how it went. Or thereabouts.
The cartoon villains wore shirts with horizontal stripes, beret-like thug caps and eye masks. The kicker was the Bardahl song imitating the popular theme song of the Dragnet TV show.
“Isn’t that just the neatest thing,” the daughter said.
I told her it was. I mentioned to Lewis about the kid wanting to know about the Y.
“Oh, that’s the YMCA,” he said. “It’s just down the street.”
Wow, I thought, a YMCA. This neighborhood has a real YMCA, a magical place I had only barely heard about. I'll have to remember that next time I'm in the neighborhood. And I'll be sure to refer to it simply as "the Y" if I get the chance. How neat is that?
-30-
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Nashville's Burger King Betty
by Bryce Martin
In the late 1980s I had a small office in Nashville on Music Row where I served as editor of the Nashville Inquirer. I saw Betty often keeping order at the Burger King lot down the street on 21st Avenue. I lived near there, too, and was around on weekends as well as during the week at my office. Next door and directly south of Burger King's parking lot was San Antonio Taco Co. Behind it and downstairs was Bobby's. It was a bar owned and operated by a hefty fellow who was said to have won a lottery in New York and this was what he had to show for it. It was Betty's job starting at about dark to when Burger King closed to keep anyone from parking, and leaving their vehicle unattended, who wasn't patronizing Burger King. After Betty would run someone off, a favorite thing was for them to open a car door, place an empty beer bottle upright on the asphalt and drive away. "Is Rolling Rock beer?" Betty asked. "I can't keep up with what these rich Vanderbilt kids drink."
There was a little shop area just to the north of Burger King and on the corner where a man did the same thing as Betty. He was looking out for the convenience store that sat back from the street. Young people came in, mostly Vanderbilt students who lived in nearby dorms, for beer and cigarettes. Those who lingered too long in their cars or around the entrance he asked to leave. "Get a real job," those asked to leave would shout to him.
Bobby's dream of making a killing selling New York style pizza to poor souls in Nashville who had been deprived of such heavenly bliss failed to catch on to any great degree and his Bobby's went out of business. Jerry Seabolt, former record producer ("California Sun" by the Rivieras, and others) and promotion man for Smash Records, took over with his own place he called Duffy's Tavern, and it went out of business in about a year's time. I had paid to see Pat McLaughlin perform at Duffy's on a Saturday night and I had seen Tara Moonshadow sing for tips during the week. I thought I had found my hangout. When Duffy's folded, San Antonio Taco bought that portion of the building (it was all connected) to use for storage.
Betty, meanwhile, kept on keeping non-Burger King customers off her lot.
I could have mentioned to Seabolt but never did that "California Sun," the top five hit of 1964 that he produced, was an exact copy right down to the arrangement of the song as done by Rodney Lay and The Blazers, a recording that went nowhere by the fivesome from my neck of the woods in Coffeyville, Kan.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
In the late 1980s I had a small office in Nashville on Music Row where I served as editor of the Nashville Inquirer. I saw Betty often keeping order at the Burger King lot down the street on 21st Avenue. I lived near there, too, and was around on weekends as well as during the week at my office. Next door and directly south of Burger King's parking lot was San Antonio Taco Co. Behind it and downstairs was Bobby's. It was a bar owned and operated by a hefty fellow who was said to have won a lottery in New York and this was what he had to show for it. It was Betty's job starting at about dark to when Burger King closed to keep anyone from parking, and leaving their vehicle unattended, who wasn't patronizing Burger King. After Betty would run someone off, a favorite thing was for them to open a car door, place an empty beer bottle upright on the asphalt and drive away. "Is Rolling Rock beer?" Betty asked. "I can't keep up with what these rich Vanderbilt kids drink."
There was a little shop area just to the north of Burger King and on the corner where a man did the same thing as Betty. He was looking out for the convenience store that sat back from the street. Young people came in, mostly Vanderbilt students who lived in nearby dorms, for beer and cigarettes. Those who lingered too long in their cars or around the entrance he asked to leave. "Get a real job," those asked to leave would shout to him.
Bobby's dream of making a killing selling New York style pizza to poor souls in Nashville who had been deprived of such heavenly bliss failed to catch on to any great degree and his Bobby's went out of business. Jerry Seabolt, former record producer ("California Sun" by the Rivieras, and others) and promotion man for Smash Records, took over with his own place he called Duffy's Tavern, and it went out of business in about a year's time. I had paid to see Pat McLaughlin perform at Duffy's on a Saturday night and I had seen Tara Moonshadow sing for tips during the week. I thought I had found my hangout. When Duffy's folded, San Antonio Taco bought that portion of the building (it was all connected) to use for storage.
Betty, meanwhile, kept on keeping non-Burger King customers off her lot.
I could have mentioned to Seabolt but never did that "California Sun," the top five hit of 1964 that he produced, was an exact copy right down to the arrangement of the song as done by Rodney Lay and The Blazers, a recording that went nowhere by the fivesome from my neck of the woods in Coffeyville, Kan.
-30-
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Vandy remains constant, UT ripe for ridicule
by Bryce Martin
(An encore feature first published October 6, 2003)
Although they both are members of the powerful Southeastern Conference, there is a world of difference between Vanderbilt, which has a lot to overcome when it comes to football, and Tennessee, whose fans are touchy when you label them as hillbillies.
From the Merchant of Venom, Vitriol and Verisimilitude (that's me):
Vanderbilt and Mississippi State collided Saturday, i.e., they each tried to.
Coming into the head-to-head, the two had a combined 28 consecutive Southeastern Conference losses. Something had to give, and, of course, that something was Vandy.
I will try to summarize what it all means by filling in as best I can the void left by the late poet Ogden Nash. In my best Ogdian, here goes:
In this ever-changing world
Vandy football remains a constant.
If a game was on this date circled,
You can bet they lost it.
Mississippi State 31, Vanderbilt 21.
The Commodores are now zero for their last SEC 20.
Unlike Neo in The Matrix, new coach Bobby Johnson is not The One.
For those who say the problem of losing at Vandy is not who the coach is but lack of talent, that is only partially true. A literal handful of coaches in this U.S. of A. could work, squeeze, cajole - demand, even - another win or two and get it. Johnson is not one of that handful. Vandy fans will have to wait three or four more years, when Johnson is shown the door, to see if that coach comes along. Do not bet on it.
Remember a few years back, when University of Tennessee fans hyperventilated at mean old ESPN for portraying its Knoxville eleven as the butt of jokes perpetuating hillbilly stereotypes?
I was reminded of that Saturday on ESPN while watching the No. 7 Vols fall to Auburn, 28-21. UT's (way-) backup quarterback, #15 Jim Bob Cooter, was shouting plays (to little avail, apparently) given to him by the coaches from the sidelines to starting QB Casey Clausen.
Stereotypes? Jim Bob Cooter?
First off, UT is located in Knoxville, the South, mid-South really but the South nonetheless. If your mascot was, say, a lion, and you had an innocuous and forgettable fight song, like most schools, most of the rest of the country would still associate you with coonskin caps and all things Southern. Couple all that with the fact a Bluetick Coonhound called Smokey serves as your actual mascot, your fight song mentions moonshine stills, ducks in a pen, and a girl as sweet as soda pop. Toss in the fact your head coach is portly (remember: the higher the IQ the smaller the waistline) and you have... need I say hillbilly.
UT fans could not have been blindsided by the accusation back then. Now they have added a Jim Bob Cooter to the equation. UT has declared hillbillies' open season for ESPN.
In summation, Vandy, you ain't nothin', and UT, you ain't nothin' but a houn' dog.
...
Published: 10/6/2003
-30-
by Bryce Martin
(An encore feature first published October 6, 2003)
Although they both are members of the powerful Southeastern Conference, there is a world of difference between Vanderbilt, which has a lot to overcome when it comes to football, and Tennessee, whose fans are touchy when you label them as hillbillies.
From the Merchant of Venom, Vitriol and Verisimilitude (that's me):
Vanderbilt and Mississippi State collided Saturday, i.e., they each tried to.
Coming into the head-to-head, the two had a combined 28 consecutive Southeastern Conference losses. Something had to give, and, of course, that something was Vandy.
I will try to summarize what it all means by filling in as best I can the void left by the late poet Ogden Nash. In my best Ogdian, here goes:
In this ever-changing world
Vandy football remains a constant.
If a game was on this date circled,
You can bet they lost it.
Mississippi State 31, Vanderbilt 21.
The Commodores are now zero for their last SEC 20.
Unlike Neo in The Matrix, new coach Bobby Johnson is not The One.
For those who say the problem of losing at Vandy is not who the coach is but lack of talent, that is only partially true. A literal handful of coaches in this U.S. of A. could work, squeeze, cajole - demand, even - another win or two and get it. Johnson is not one of that handful. Vandy fans will have to wait three or four more years, when Johnson is shown the door, to see if that coach comes along. Do not bet on it.
Remember a few years back, when University of Tennessee fans hyperventilated at mean old ESPN for portraying its Knoxville eleven as the butt of jokes perpetuating hillbilly stereotypes?
I was reminded of that Saturday on ESPN while watching the No. 7 Vols fall to Auburn, 28-21. UT's (way-) backup quarterback, #15 Jim Bob Cooter, was shouting plays (to little avail, apparently) given to him by the coaches from the sidelines to starting QB Casey Clausen.
Stereotypes? Jim Bob Cooter?
First off, UT is located in Knoxville, the South, mid-South really but the South nonetheless. If your mascot was, say, a lion, and you had an innocuous and forgettable fight song, like most schools, most of the rest of the country would still associate you with coonskin caps and all things Southern. Couple all that with the fact a Bluetick Coonhound called Smokey serves as your actual mascot, your fight song mentions moonshine stills, ducks in a pen, and a girl as sweet as soda pop. Toss in the fact your head coach is portly (remember: the higher the IQ the smaller the waistline) and you have... need I say hillbilly.
UT fans could not have been blindsided by the accusation back then. Now they have added a Jim Bob Cooter to the equation. UT has declared hillbillies' open season for ESPN.
In summation, Vandy, you ain't nothin', and UT, you ain't nothin' but a houn' dog.
...
Published: 10/6/2003
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Bad Body Bad Boy
(Part 1 of 3)
by Bryce Martin
In Tex Cobb's world, the sport of boxing was hindered by the rules of the ring. He affirmed a last-man-standing approach.
It was the same routine every morning. He would come in alone about 7 a.m., round up a discarded morning newspaper and order coffee, for which he would need about 100 purple packets of artificial sweeteners. He always sat in the wall booth next to the jukebox and always played the same songs, sometimes carrying a book. It would always be a book filled with a collection of classic, philosophical insights.
I was already acquainted with Randall "Tex" Cobb, boxer-cum-actor, when we crossed paths for around three hours every morning during several months in 1989 and 1990 at the 24-hour Steak 'n' Egg Kitchen on West End Ave. in Nashville. Getting to know more about him proved interesting.
He would read some mornings but would not absorb himself in the material if it meant distracting someone who wanted to carry on a conversation. Once, I asked about his famous comment regarding sportscaster Howard Cosell…actually about the bout he had with then-champion Larry Holmes in November 1982 in Houston with the World Boxing Council heavyweight title at stake that led to the comment.
"Holmes didn’t whip me," Cobb said. "He beat me in fifteen rounds. If we’d kept on going I would have won. That’s in the ring. Outside the ring, in the street, I would have handled him like a pussycat. He knows it, too."
Holmes pounded Cobb savagely during the ABC-televised contest, never knocking the challenger down in winning a unanimous decision. Cosell pronounced it a travesty and never again broadcast another boxing match.
Cobb’s fabled rejoinder: "If I had known that’s what it would take to get Cosell to quit doing boxing I would have fought Holmes a long time ago."
But, back to Cobb’s opinion on the fight, the part about him not losing to Holmes.
"I was in the best shape of any heavyweight who ever fought," he said. "It’s not about how hard you can hit. It’s about how many punches you can throw. I was a ‘bad body’ fighter, probably in the top three all-time. Those who judged me on how I looked didn’t see the whole picture."
So, given more time, Holmes would have eventually toppled for the count?
"I’m a gladiator. I’ve never trained just for boxing. My workouts go way beyond what any boxer has even attempted to try. You can’t kill someone who wants to die."
A death wish, is it?
Then came the Cobbian laugh, the one you could never be prepared for, best described as some short honks delivered in meticulously punctuated intervals. Customers from faraway booths turned heads to target the eruptions, smiled, and repositioned themselves.
"Give me a broad-axe and a club. That’s the way I wish it could be."
I knew that he had played football at Hardin-Simmons in Abilene, Tex., left that for kick-boxing, a sport not nearly as popular then as now and one in which he excelled, and in later years I had read an article about him in a fitness magazine that described his workouts, incredibly grueling and torturous in description. He began a professional boxing career in 1977 at age 22.
Each morning, he would be wearing a bulky sweatshirt, either jeans or sweatpants, scuffed white athletic shoes and usually a sock hat to cover a bushy head of hair. He was not one to put on airs. "Whatcha see is what you get," he liked to say.
It was not uncommon for him to disappear for lengthy intervals. Those were the times he would be doing movie work or television commercials. He was best known for his biker role in "Raising Arizona." A second movie, "Uncommon Valor," provided a prominent role as well.
"Yeah, they let me run my mouth some in that one," he smiled.
He had worked with the likes of Richard Pryor, Nicolas Cage, Chevy Chase, Gene Hackman, and several other big names, but he never talked about movies or himself unless someone asked, then he would usually turn it into a joke and steer the conversation elsewhere.
"They had me playing a psycho…rip off your arm and wrap it around your head and not blink twice about it… It was a stretch but I think I handled it."
He would then add his loud and deranged laugh, which somehow did not make him any less likeable. Usually polite, a good listener and with the smiling, open manner of one who enjoys life and wants those around him to do the same, Cobb seemed natural in making friends with all those he met.
His nose was that of a boxer’s, flat and broad; yet other than the defacement of that most prominent feature, a stranger to his existence might not tab him as being a fighter. I can’t help but try to picture how he might have looked had he chosen a more regular profession. I find it impossible to form any other image.
Married, he would call his wife, Sharon, from the restaurant phone and discuss their plans for the rest of the day just before leaving.
END PART 1
By Bryce Martin
Published: 4/30/2001
-30-
(Part 1 of 3)
by Bryce Martin
In Tex Cobb's world, the sport of boxing was hindered by the rules of the ring. He affirmed a last-man-standing approach.
It was the same routine every morning. He would come in alone about 7 a.m., round up a discarded morning newspaper and order coffee, for which he would need about 100 purple packets of artificial sweeteners. He always sat in the wall booth next to the jukebox and always played the same songs, sometimes carrying a book. It would always be a book filled with a collection of classic, philosophical insights.
I was already acquainted with Randall "Tex" Cobb, boxer-cum-actor, when we crossed paths for around three hours every morning during several months in 1989 and 1990 at the 24-hour Steak 'n' Egg Kitchen on West End Ave. in Nashville. Getting to know more about him proved interesting.
He would read some mornings but would not absorb himself in the material if it meant distracting someone who wanted to carry on a conversation. Once, I asked about his famous comment regarding sportscaster Howard Cosell…actually about the bout he had with then-champion Larry Holmes in November 1982 in Houston with the World Boxing Council heavyweight title at stake that led to the comment.
"Holmes didn’t whip me," Cobb said. "He beat me in fifteen rounds. If we’d kept on going I would have won. That’s in the ring. Outside the ring, in the street, I would have handled him like a pussycat. He knows it, too."
Holmes pounded Cobb savagely during the ABC-televised contest, never knocking the challenger down in winning a unanimous decision. Cosell pronounced it a travesty and never again broadcast another boxing match.
Cobb’s fabled rejoinder: "If I had known that’s what it would take to get Cosell to quit doing boxing I would have fought Holmes a long time ago."
But, back to Cobb’s opinion on the fight, the part about him not losing to Holmes.
"I was in the best shape of any heavyweight who ever fought," he said. "It’s not about how hard you can hit. It’s about how many punches you can throw. I was a ‘bad body’ fighter, probably in the top three all-time. Those who judged me on how I looked didn’t see the whole picture."
So, given more time, Holmes would have eventually toppled for the count?
"I’m a gladiator. I’ve never trained just for boxing. My workouts go way beyond what any boxer has even attempted to try. You can’t kill someone who wants to die."
A death wish, is it?
Then came the Cobbian laugh, the one you could never be prepared for, best described as some short honks delivered in meticulously punctuated intervals. Customers from faraway booths turned heads to target the eruptions, smiled, and repositioned themselves.
"Give me a broad-axe and a club. That’s the way I wish it could be."
I knew that he had played football at Hardin-Simmons in Abilene, Tex., left that for kick-boxing, a sport not nearly as popular then as now and one in which he excelled, and in later years I had read an article about him in a fitness magazine that described his workouts, incredibly grueling and torturous in description. He began a professional boxing career in 1977 at age 22.
Each morning, he would be wearing a bulky sweatshirt, either jeans or sweatpants, scuffed white athletic shoes and usually a sock hat to cover a bushy head of hair. He was not one to put on airs. "Whatcha see is what you get," he liked to say.
It was not uncommon for him to disappear for lengthy intervals. Those were the times he would be doing movie work or television commercials. He was best known for his biker role in "Raising Arizona." A second movie, "Uncommon Valor," provided a prominent role as well.
"Yeah, they let me run my mouth some in that one," he smiled.
He had worked with the likes of Richard Pryor, Nicolas Cage, Chevy Chase, Gene Hackman, and several other big names, but he never talked about movies or himself unless someone asked, then he would usually turn it into a joke and steer the conversation elsewhere.
"They had me playing a psycho…rip off your arm and wrap it around your head and not blink twice about it… It was a stretch but I think I handled it."
He would then add his loud and deranged laugh, which somehow did not make him any less likeable. Usually polite, a good listener and with the smiling, open manner of one who enjoys life and wants those around him to do the same, Cobb seemed natural in making friends with all those he met.
His nose was that of a boxer’s, flat and broad; yet other than the defacement of that most prominent feature, a stranger to his existence might not tab him as being a fighter. I can’t help but try to picture how he might have looked had he chosen a more regular profession. I find it impossible to form any other image.
Married, he would call his wife, Sharon, from the restaurant phone and discuss their plans for the rest of the day just before leaving.
END PART 1
By Bryce Martin
Published: 4/30/2001
-30-
Monday, July 02, 2007
When Edison Highway was the cool spot
by Bryce Martin
Edison Highway was the main entry to Bakersfield coming from the east before the bypass changed things. The Lucky Spot country music tavern, a long loaf of a building, stood on a sun-bathed corner on Edison to partner with a slew of other beer joints, liquor stores, second-hand stores, garages, and fruit and vegatable stands. All of the businesses lined the south side of the road. The railroad track ran alongside the north side for several miles, that and some scattered packing sheds. I will always remember one business in particular, one of those oases you see along the desert advertising itself as a last chance. A traveler leaving town and heading east faced a long, hot trek of highway back in the 60s when legendary Bakersfield and Mojave desert summertime conditions were bound to be hot ones. Travelers didn't want to be the ones they had seen stalled on the side of the road roasting in the sun until who knows how long. As a sure-fired attention getter, one of the gas stations had a huge billboard with a big-breasted cartoon girl wearing a bikini. ICED JUGS -- JUGS FILLED FREE, the sign read. Not to be outdone, a gas station right next door to it offered the same, FREE ICED JUGS, but no bikini-clad girl. Both places always had an overflow of cars.
-30-
...
by Bryce Martin
Edison Highway was the main entry to Bakersfield coming from the east before the bypass changed things. The Lucky Spot country music tavern, a long loaf of a building, stood on a sun-bathed corner on Edison to partner with a slew of other beer joints, liquor stores, second-hand stores, garages, and fruit and vegatable stands. All of the businesses lined the south side of the road. The railroad track ran alongside the north side for several miles, that and some scattered packing sheds. I will always remember one business in particular, one of those oases you see along the desert advertising itself as a last chance. A traveler leaving town and heading east faced a long, hot trek of highway back in the 60s when legendary Bakersfield and Mojave desert summertime conditions were bound to be hot ones. Travelers didn't want to be the ones they had seen stalled on the side of the road roasting in the sun until who knows how long. As a sure-fired attention getter, one of the gas stations had a huge billboard with a big-breasted cartoon girl wearing a bikini. ICED JUGS -- JUGS FILLED FREE, the sign read. Not to be outdone, a gas station right next door to it offered the same, FREE ICED JUGS, but no bikini-clad girl. Both places always had an overflow of cars.
-30-
...