Observations: Titans-Colts "game" 2008 regular season finale
by Bryce Martin
The storyline all along is how wonderful it is for Vince Young to observe from the sidelines and how much he will learn. You knew that was typical propaganda. He is, after all, still Vince Young.
He showed that. He was still clueless, had no concept, threw just to get rid of the ball and showed why he is and will remain a dud. The time on the sidelines has done nothing but ingrain his ineptness to an even deeper abyss.
In the few times I've seen Quinton Ganther he has looked better than LenDale White or Chris Johnson. He has better burst than Johnson and has the power of White. Johnson is fast, but goes down like a feather.
The Colts are really missing out on the possibilities backup QB Jim Sorgi brings to the game. His nose is good for a first down on any play.
The Titans were once 10-0. The Colts started 3-4. The Titans end at 13-3, the Colts at 12-4. Coach of the year: Tony Dungy.
Did Rob Bironas not fully awake on the casual Titans sideline in time to make his field goal attempt?
Bad move by Fisher: Johnson was deactivated for the game. Supposedly, this was to give seldom used RB Chris Henry a chance to play. Instead, it was Ganther, who has shown in the past his abilities. That meant that Steve Slaton and Matt Forte, two running backs who were mere yards behind Johnson for the most by a rookie, would have a chance to overtake Johnson in rushing yards. They both did. If pressed on that one, Fisher, you can bet, would invoke the old it's-not-about-records routine. Well, considering the way the Titans laid out the game plan, it was more like a Seinfeld episode about nothing, so why be such a stick-in-the-mud? Dungy, at least, let his guys hit their milestones before pulling them.
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Tell them how the weather was... -- Ernest Hemingway bryce_martin_1@Lycos.com
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Friday, December 26, 2008
Caroline Has the Idealism For the Job
by Bryce Martin
Dispense with the formalities and give Caroline Kennedy the Senate seat in New York. Posthaste. None of this is she qualified malarkey. Look around. Who could not do any political job at the top level on an equal par as those drawing paychecks today. There is no question mark there. The terribly obvious answer does not require that cane with the dot at the bottom.
That is not the reason she should be given the job, however. It's because she is a flaming liberal in a flaming liberal state. She recently gave all the credentials needed for the job when she cited the terrorist attacks of 9-11 as her reason for wanting to get into "public service." Enough said. The idealism of it all takes my breath away. She will be able to lead us in a new direction by talking our enemies into becoming our friends. Forget about securing our borders, improving intelligence sources and all that. Let's talk ourselves free and all hold hands.
New York people sure are lucky. Most of the rest of us though will continue to hold out hope for some real direction.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
Dispense with the formalities and give Caroline Kennedy the Senate seat in New York. Posthaste. None of this is she qualified malarkey. Look around. Who could not do any political job at the top level on an equal par as those drawing paychecks today. There is no question mark there. The terribly obvious answer does not require that cane with the dot at the bottom.
That is not the reason she should be given the job, however. It's because she is a flaming liberal in a flaming liberal state. She recently gave all the credentials needed for the job when she cited the terrorist attacks of 9-11 as her reason for wanting to get into "public service." Enough said. The idealism of it all takes my breath away. She will be able to lead us in a new direction by talking our enemies into becoming our friends. Forget about securing our borders, improving intelligence sources and all that. Let's talk ourselves free and all hold hands.
New York people sure are lucky. Most of the rest of us though will continue to hold out hope for some real direction.
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Thursday, December 25, 2008
Favorite Christmastime Records
(in no particular order)
Bryce Martin
"Truckin' Trees for Christmas" -- Red Simpson
Red gave me his LP that included this song when it was released.
"If We Make it Through December" -- Merle Haggard
"Christmas Time is Here" -- Vince Guaraldi
Charlie Brown.
"Gee Whiz, It's Christmas" -- Carla Thomas
Of all that went on in Memphis musically, I think of her.
"Papa Noel" -- Brenda Lee
"The Chipmunk Song" -- The Chipmunks (Alvin, Theodore & Simon)
Boy, I get tired of seeing this listed as "Alvin & The Chipmunks." It was "The Chipmunks," and later on when Alvin was considered the star (think Diana Ross and The Supremes in reverse) it became "Alvin & The Chipmunks."
"Winterlude" -- Bob Dylan
"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" -- Karen Carpenter
I always thought the lyrics contained a hint of sarcasm. I checked the song's origin and I was right. It was changed some but it's still there in the title line.
"Hey Santa"-- Carnie and Wendy Wilson
"Hallelujah"-- Jeff Buckley
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(in no particular order)
Bryce Martin
"Truckin' Trees for Christmas" -- Red Simpson
Red gave me his LP that included this song when it was released.
"If We Make it Through December" -- Merle Haggard
"Christmas Time is Here" -- Vince Guaraldi
Charlie Brown.
"Gee Whiz, It's Christmas" -- Carla Thomas
Of all that went on in Memphis musically, I think of her.
"Papa Noel" -- Brenda Lee
"The Chipmunk Song" -- The Chipmunks (Alvin, Theodore & Simon)
Boy, I get tired of seeing this listed as "Alvin & The Chipmunks." It was "The Chipmunks," and later on when Alvin was considered the star (think Diana Ross and The Supremes in reverse) it became "Alvin & The Chipmunks."
"Winterlude" -- Bob Dylan
"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" -- Karen Carpenter
I always thought the lyrics contained a hint of sarcasm. I checked the song's origin and I was right. It was changed some but it's still there in the title line.
"Hey Santa"-- Carnie and Wendy Wilson
"Hallelujah"-- Jeff Buckley
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Monday, December 01, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Looking at Tim Tebow and Vince Young
by Bryce Martin
Vince Young is bundled up like an Eskimo on the sidelines of the Titans games while coach Jeff Fisher and other non-players are mostly in light attire. That's a great example for Young to set. He is learning and passing on some wonderful leadership qualities. Also, I wonder what he's really tuned into under the wool caps and hoods.
And what's the deal with three quarterbacks suited up each game? In years past, the Titans have not carried three quarterbacks on the 53-man roster. None of the Nashville media wants to even bring it up. One can only guess they don't want to burn a source (Fisher) by even asking. It's especially newsworthy a subject to pursue since teams have to trim the roster to 45 near game time. Fisher was disappointed a few weeks back when one of his starters came back too soon from a groin injury and had to come out for good after a couple of plays. He made it clear that had he known that he would have instead inserted a backup player who could have, at least, played the entire game.
Yet, none of the media points out how Young, supposedly, the backup quarterback, requires a backup himself. One of which, is "wasting" a roster spot.
...
Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow seems to be loved by everyone. Opponents aside. And even they voice unusual signs of respect for the big fella. He's Mr. Clean, a young man who goes on Christian missions with his parents.
That's not what I see on television when watching Florida football contests. Florida will likely win the national championship this year. They're big, fast, strong and powerful, just like Tebow, except for the fast part, and he is fast enough.
After Tebow plows through a weak line from a lesser opponent, I see him on the sidelines laughing and high-fiving his teammates with the kind of wide smile and jubilation often reserved for winning national championships. Don't tell me he's happy, he's young and all that cliched nonsense. I would expect someone such as him to show more charity for his opponents on the field. When you and your bullies are pounding the weaklings 40-6, is this the kind of Christian attitude to display?
His actions do not fit his billing, nor his stated beliefs.
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by Bryce Martin
Vince Young is bundled up like an Eskimo on the sidelines of the Titans games while coach Jeff Fisher and other non-players are mostly in light attire. That's a great example for Young to set. He is learning and passing on some wonderful leadership qualities. Also, I wonder what he's really tuned into under the wool caps and hoods.
And what's the deal with three quarterbacks suited up each game? In years past, the Titans have not carried three quarterbacks on the 53-man roster. None of the Nashville media wants to even bring it up. One can only guess they don't want to burn a source (Fisher) by even asking. It's especially newsworthy a subject to pursue since teams have to trim the roster to 45 near game time. Fisher was disappointed a few weeks back when one of his starters came back too soon from a groin injury and had to come out for good after a couple of plays. He made it clear that had he known that he would have instead inserted a backup player who could have, at least, played the entire game.
Yet, none of the media points out how Young, supposedly, the backup quarterback, requires a backup himself. One of which, is "wasting" a roster spot.
...
Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow seems to be loved by everyone. Opponents aside. And even they voice unusual signs of respect for the big fella. He's Mr. Clean, a young man who goes on Christian missions with his parents.
That's not what I see on television when watching Florida football contests. Florida will likely win the national championship this year. They're big, fast, strong and powerful, just like Tebow, except for the fast part, and he is fast enough.
After Tebow plows through a weak line from a lesser opponent, I see him on the sidelines laughing and high-fiving his teammates with the kind of wide smile and jubilation often reserved for winning national championships. Don't tell me he's happy, he's young and all that cliched nonsense. I would expect someone such as him to show more charity for his opponents on the field. When you and your bullies are pounding the weaklings 40-6, is this the kind of Christian attitude to display?
His actions do not fit his billing, nor his stated beliefs.
-30-
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Jesse Jackson: I Cry a little When I See You Near
by Bryce Martin
Jesse Jackson knew even before Barack Obama put his hand on the Bible for swearing-in ceremonies as our nation's 44th president that the jig was up. He had to do something big to, if not be the No. 1 black again, maintain any celebrity status at all.
Clearly, he was about to be forgotten now that Obama had rendered him obsolete.
Think. Think. Think, he thought to himself. Oprah will be there. I'll be there. The cameras will get shots of us from the crowd. What's that stuff called? Makes you cry? Not onions. It makes it look like tears are rollin' down. Glycerin. That's it. I read once they use it in the movies to fake crying scenes. Perfect. It'll be as famous as Iron Eyes Cody. Civil Rights leader Jesse Jackson is back.
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by Bryce Martin
Jesse Jackson knew even before Barack Obama put his hand on the Bible for swearing-in ceremonies as our nation's 44th president that the jig was up. He had to do something big to, if not be the No. 1 black again, maintain any celebrity status at all.
Clearly, he was about to be forgotten now that Obama had rendered him obsolete.
Think. Think. Think, he thought to himself. Oprah will be there. I'll be there. The cameras will get shots of us from the crowd. What's that stuff called? Makes you cry? Not onions. It makes it look like tears are rollin' down. Glycerin. That's it. I read once they use it in the movies to fake crying scenes. Perfect. It'll be as famous as Iron Eyes Cody. Civil Rights leader Jesse Jackson is back.
-30-
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Difference in Time and Times
by Bryce Martin
Not all that long ago, say, in the 1950s, if you asked someone (strangers included) how far it was to a certain locale, you would always get your answer in one form: in miles.
Disregarding the few who would respond with their own question, "Clock time, or as the crow flies?"
Ask today, and you will still get an answer in one form: in time.
Since I base how long it takes to drive somewhere on the old mile-a-minute ratio (at 60 miles an hour), I have a real dislike for those who relate to minutes or hours and not distance. Considering that most people today drive ninety miles an hour minimum to go a mile to get a quart of milk or 40 miles to go to work, I don't find their response beneficial.
Instead of driving fast to go everywhere, people drove the speed limit, but left earlier if they had an appointed time. It goes deeper than that. You left early so if you had a flat tire you had time to change the flat and still be on time. Being punctual meant something. You allowed yourself time because you were a responsible person. Personal responsibility today is an arcane concept. That's why you now get your destinations in minutes and not miles.
"Do you have the exact time?"
Holding his own pocket watch as if to simulate a time comparison, my grandfather would periodically ask a shopkeeper or other citizen on the sidewalk that question. Why "exact" instead of just asking what time they had, or what time they were keeping? Because people had wind-up watches and they all tended to run fast or slow. People who owned the watches knew after a period of time about how many minutes fast or slow they probably was running based on the last winding.
It was just my grandfather's way of making sure they kept up with their calculations, or, in rare cases, they had a watch that kept correct or near-correct time. Plus, it almost always encouraged further talk about the make of the watch and how consistent it was, not in keeping good time, in the minutes it ran fast or slow.
Of course, if you was in a real hurry, such small talk would have to wait for another day.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
Not all that long ago, say, in the 1950s, if you asked someone (strangers included) how far it was to a certain locale, you would always get your answer in one form: in miles.
Disregarding the few who would respond with their own question, "Clock time, or as the crow flies?"
Ask today, and you will still get an answer in one form: in time.
Since I base how long it takes to drive somewhere on the old mile-a-minute ratio (at 60 miles an hour), I have a real dislike for those who relate to minutes or hours and not distance. Considering that most people today drive ninety miles an hour minimum to go a mile to get a quart of milk or 40 miles to go to work, I don't find their response beneficial.
Instead of driving fast to go everywhere, people drove the speed limit, but left earlier if they had an appointed time. It goes deeper than that. You left early so if you had a flat tire you had time to change the flat and still be on time. Being punctual meant something. You allowed yourself time because you were a responsible person. Personal responsibility today is an arcane concept. That's why you now get your destinations in minutes and not miles.
"Do you have the exact time?"
Holding his own pocket watch as if to simulate a time comparison, my grandfather would periodically ask a shopkeeper or other citizen on the sidewalk that question. Why "exact" instead of just asking what time they had, or what time they were keeping? Because people had wind-up watches and they all tended to run fast or slow. People who owned the watches knew after a period of time about how many minutes fast or slow they probably was running based on the last winding.
It was just my grandfather's way of making sure they kept up with their calculations, or, in rare cases, they had a watch that kept correct or near-correct time. Plus, it almost always encouraged further talk about the make of the watch and how consistent it was, not in keeping good time, in the minutes it ran fast or slow.
Of course, if you was in a real hurry, such small talk would have to wait for another day.
-30-
Sunday, November 02, 2008
9/19/2006
New and notes from the San Antonio food scene
Gary and Kathy Gilstrap owned a pharmacy in Galena, Kansas, for 20 years — until they took a vacation to Europe and discovered their ardent interest in the art of fermentation. After intensive research, the Gilstraps decided to “look for dirt,” and dirt they found, in the Pedernales River Valley, where they founded their Texas Hills Vineyard. Gary Gilstrap will share his story and his passion 7 p.m., Thursday, September 21, at the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park Visitor’s Center on the corner of Avenue G and Ladybird Lane in Johnson City. (830) 868-7128 for info.
New and notes from the San Antonio food scene
Gary and Kathy Gilstrap owned a pharmacy in Galena, Kansas, for 20 years — until they took a vacation to Europe and discovered their ardent interest in the art of fermentation. After intensive research, the Gilstraps decided to “look for dirt,” and dirt they found, in the Pedernales River Valley, where they founded their Texas Hills Vineyard. Gary Gilstrap will share his story and his passion 7 p.m., Thursday, September 21, at the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park Visitor’s Center on the corner of Avenue G and Ladybird Lane in Johnson City. (830) 868-7128 for info.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
David Price Just Another Decent Lefthander
by Bryce Martin
Tampa Bay lefthander David Price will qualify as a rookie starting the 2009 major league baseball season.
The few innings he pitched during the regular 2008 season did not equal the total number of innings (or days on the roster) to hurt his official rookie status for the upcoming season. It did, however brief it was, let me see what kind of pitcher he is, and will be.
The velocity of his fastball, which is good, is negated by the fact he keeps it up and it is straight -- has no movement. He will be throwing a number of gopher balls. His motion is easy to time for a hitter.
He has been a starter and I see him being used that way. I see him going 7-12 with a 5.84 ERA. A mediocre six or seven year career in the bigs.
Unless, he is switched to the pen and comes up with a devastating out pitch.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
Tampa Bay lefthander David Price will qualify as a rookie starting the 2009 major league baseball season.
The few innings he pitched during the regular 2008 season did not equal the total number of innings (or days on the roster) to hurt his official rookie status for the upcoming season. It did, however brief it was, let me see what kind of pitcher he is, and will be.
The velocity of his fastball, which is good, is negated by the fact he keeps it up and it is straight -- has no movement. He will be throwing a number of gopher balls. His motion is easy to time for a hitter.
He has been a starter and I see him being used that way. I see him going 7-12 with a 5.84 ERA. A mediocre six or seven year career in the bigs.
Unless, he is switched to the pen and comes up with a devastating out pitch.
-30-
Saturday, October 04, 2008
O.J. Running Out of Juice
by Bryce Martin
Poor O.J.
He looks so forlorn. His sister weeps at the verdict.
His lawyers speak with scorn in their voices about a jury with a "lynch mob mentality" and one "seeking revenge," in so many words calling it a hatchet job performed on their client.
This pillar of humanity is now physically separated from family and loved ones by virtue of a guilty decision that will likely put him behind bars for many years.
Justice cuts both ways.
I offer that as consolation.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
Poor O.J.
He looks so forlorn. His sister weeps at the verdict.
His lawyers speak with scorn in their voices about a jury with a "lynch mob mentality" and one "seeking revenge," in so many words calling it a hatchet job performed on their client.
This pillar of humanity is now physically separated from family and loved ones by virtue of a guilty decision that will likely put him behind bars for many years.
Justice cuts both ways.
I offer that as consolation.
-30-
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Nashville is Panic City
by Bryce Martin
Sex and Gasoline. That's what makes the world go around. Here in Music City, that is how singer/songwriter Rodney Crowell sums up man's effort to keep the show going on the big globe.
With the slightest hint or mention of a possible snowflake from Channel 4's Snowbird, citizens of Nashville are legendary in their scramble as they routinely crowd grocery stores for America's lifestream of bread, milk and toilet paper.
If you become snowbound, you are stranded.
If you have no gasoline, you are stranded.
Channel 4 needs to introduce a Gasbird.
In the wake of Hurricane Ike, most of the rest of the country got back to normal gaswise in about a week, save for Nashville where people doubled up gas purchases in a delayed panic mode and created a shortage.
News stories about Nashville's mad grab for gas did, at least, bring to the fore some interesting facts:
... a fuel tanker holds 9,000 gallons
... Nashville gets it gas from a spur of the Colonial Pipeline.
... gasoline travels the pipeline at an average speed of 3 to 5 miles per hour.
... Memphis gets it gasoline from the Capline Pipeline, starting in St. James, La., and, unlike Nashville, Memphis refines much of its own gasoline.
... The Colonial Pipeline trumps tanker trunks and barges for delivery since it has the capacity to deliver more than 100 million gallons of refined gasoline a day.
... About 120 taxis roam Nashville on weekend nights (needing mucho petro).
... Sex is so popular because it's centrally located (I close with a joke if possible).
-30-
by Bryce Martin
Sex and Gasoline. That's what makes the world go around. Here in Music City, that is how singer/songwriter Rodney Crowell sums up man's effort to keep the show going on the big globe.
With the slightest hint or mention of a possible snowflake from Channel 4's Snowbird, citizens of Nashville are legendary in their scramble as they routinely crowd grocery stores for America's lifestream of bread, milk and toilet paper.
If you become snowbound, you are stranded.
If you have no gasoline, you are stranded.
Channel 4 needs to introduce a Gasbird.
In the wake of Hurricane Ike, most of the rest of the country got back to normal gaswise in about a week, save for Nashville where people doubled up gas purchases in a delayed panic mode and created a shortage.
News stories about Nashville's mad grab for gas did, at least, bring to the fore some interesting facts:
... a fuel tanker holds 9,000 gallons
... Nashville gets it gas from a spur of the Colonial Pipeline.
... gasoline travels the pipeline at an average speed of 3 to 5 miles per hour.
... Memphis gets it gasoline from the Capline Pipeline, starting in St. James, La., and, unlike Nashville, Memphis refines much of its own gasoline.
... The Colonial Pipeline trumps tanker trunks and barges for delivery since it has the capacity to deliver more than 100 million gallons of refined gasoline a day.
... About 120 taxis roam Nashville on weekend nights (needing mucho petro).
... Sex is so popular because it's centrally located (I close with a joke if possible).
-30-
Sunday, September 14, 2008
It's OK to drive drunk in Tennessee, depending on who you are
by Bryce Martin
It's been a spell since Titans defensive end Jevon Kearse was arrested and charged with DUI. He's fighting it of course. Not so much I suspect because he has that right but that he knows he can buy his way out of it. Past history regarding other Titans has shown that.
Soon we should be getting the verdict that the charge has been tossed out, or reduced to illegally disposing of a gum wrapper.
"Booze it and lose it."
What a laugh that is, Tennessee's new trooper motto to crack down on drunk driving. Crack down on you and me, that is, and not on those with the big bucks to give a lawyer to work out a sweetheart deal in one of those court side rooms where the robes are off.
Back in the latter part of June, Kearse was arrested and charged with driving under the influence following a traffic stop near the Vanderbilt University campus.
He was stopped on an early Sunday morning after campus police reported seeing the SUV that Kearse was driving weaving across the road.
Kearse submitted to a field sobriety test, but refused a breathalyzer. He was arrested and charged with DUI and violation of Tennessee's implied consent law for failing to take the breathalyzer test.
Kearse has since said he was "set up." He never said that he was actually sober, mind you, but that the police had laid in wait for him.
Heaven forbid that in the year 2008 someone would actually take responsibility for their actions.
Why would anyone want this guy's autograph?
Better still, how can anyone in Tennessee not laugh at the "Booze it and lose it" joke?
Right, I "lose" my license, but those such as Kearse "lose" a few thou, just pocket change to them.
It was even funnier when Titans coach Jeff Fisher was the designated DUI motto-bearer.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
It's been a spell since Titans defensive end Jevon Kearse was arrested and charged with DUI. He's fighting it of course. Not so much I suspect because he has that right but that he knows he can buy his way out of it. Past history regarding other Titans has shown that.
Soon we should be getting the verdict that the charge has been tossed out, or reduced to illegally disposing of a gum wrapper.
"Booze it and lose it."
What a laugh that is, Tennessee's new trooper motto to crack down on drunk driving. Crack down on you and me, that is, and not on those with the big bucks to give a lawyer to work out a sweetheart deal in one of those court side rooms where the robes are off.
Back in the latter part of June, Kearse was arrested and charged with driving under the influence following a traffic stop near the Vanderbilt University campus.
He was stopped on an early Sunday morning after campus police reported seeing the SUV that Kearse was driving weaving across the road.
Kearse submitted to a field sobriety test, but refused a breathalyzer. He was arrested and charged with DUI and violation of Tennessee's implied consent law for failing to take the breathalyzer test.
Kearse has since said he was "set up." He never said that he was actually sober, mind you, but that the police had laid in wait for him.
Heaven forbid that in the year 2008 someone would actually take responsibility for their actions.
Why would anyone want this guy's autograph?
Better still, how can anyone in Tennessee not laugh at the "Booze it and lose it" joke?
Right, I "lose" my license, but those such as Kearse "lose" a few thou, just pocket change to them.
It was even funnier when Titans coach Jeff Fisher was the designated DUI motto-bearer.
-30-
Friday, September 12, 2008
Time for Vince Young to play the victim
by Bryce Martin
Vince Young has had two obvious and popular choices waiting for him for quite some time.
Depression. Bipolar.
Heaven forbid that anyone in the year 2008 would accept personal responsibility when playing the victim is the new, clear way to go.
Bipolar has become extremely popular, but depression is coming on strong of late. Hollywood and its spoiled sunglasses crowd has set the tone for most of it. California really does seem to set all the trends.
No longer is a stigma attached to matters involving the inner workings of the head. In fact, it's quite trendy to be bipolar these days.
Of course, when such things as depression and bipolarism were real and complicated clinical disorders for some people, the whole concept has lost much of its true meaning when it has evolved into a convenient scapegoat for those merely irresponsible and too dumb or too absorbed to admit it.
Get the diagnosis, get some pills to make you feel good, let everyone know how much all this therapy is helping you, and you're off the hook. Just another victim, on the mend.
Still, you won't be able to throw a football any better. Or read defenses. But, when you feel this great, who cares.
Chow Must Feel Vindicated
Titans offensive coordinator Norm Chow got fired from his post when he made a major mistake. Telling the truth outside the locker room regarding Young. Chow and Young were already at odds since the quarterback did not respond well to a full season under Chow. But, when Chow told a sideline reporter on a nationally televised game at the end of last season that Young was "immature," and that reporter did Chow no favor by repeating the remark on national TV, that was the final straw. No way could it work after that. The Titans brass looked beyond Chow after that, found a replacement and sent him packing.
To see Young not even make it past his first game with a new boss had to give Chow a pick me up. Not only did Young pout big time -- a leader not even wanting to go back into battle -- right before his injury he had to be sweet-talked into even taking the field. Can you hear an I-told-you-so from way out west?
As for Young, we've already seen the script.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
Vince Young has had two obvious and popular choices waiting for him for quite some time.
Depression. Bipolar.
Heaven forbid that anyone in the year 2008 would accept personal responsibility when playing the victim is the new, clear way to go.
Bipolar has become extremely popular, but depression is coming on strong of late. Hollywood and its spoiled sunglasses crowd has set the tone for most of it. California really does seem to set all the trends.
No longer is a stigma attached to matters involving the inner workings of the head. In fact, it's quite trendy to be bipolar these days.
Of course, when such things as depression and bipolarism were real and complicated clinical disorders for some people, the whole concept has lost much of its true meaning when it has evolved into a convenient scapegoat for those merely irresponsible and too dumb or too absorbed to admit it.
Get the diagnosis, get some pills to make you feel good, let everyone know how much all this therapy is helping you, and you're off the hook. Just another victim, on the mend.
Still, you won't be able to throw a football any better. Or read defenses. But, when you feel this great, who cares.
Chow Must Feel Vindicated
Titans offensive coordinator Norm Chow got fired from his post when he made a major mistake. Telling the truth outside the locker room regarding Young. Chow and Young were already at odds since the quarterback did not respond well to a full season under Chow. But, when Chow told a sideline reporter on a nationally televised game at the end of last season that Young was "immature," and that reporter did Chow no favor by repeating the remark on national TV, that was the final straw. No way could it work after that. The Titans brass looked beyond Chow after that, found a replacement and sent him packing.
To see Young not even make it past his first game with a new boss had to give Chow a pick me up. Not only did Young pout big time -- a leader not even wanting to go back into battle -- right before his injury he had to be sweet-talked into even taking the field. Can you hear an I-told-you-so from way out west?
As for Young, we've already seen the script.
-30-
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Vince Young malady spreads to Obamanation
by Bryce Martin
Barack Obama buried his face in his hands and was heard to say, "Those mean Republicans. I can't take it anymore. I'm going away, out of the public eye to find some space."
With that the once apparent heir to the kingdom, leader of the Obamanation, pulled a Vince Young. When the kitchen got hot, he went out to get hot chicken wings.
"I may not come back at all, in any capacity," a close friend of Obama's was said to hear him say. "The great people of Illinois may not have my 'present' vote to back them anymore."
Obama has often reminded citizens that Republicans do not play fair and are misguided and how he is as right as red on lipstick. Many of his supporters are hoping he gets his mind right and continues in his past present form.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
Barack Obama buried his face in his hands and was heard to say, "Those mean Republicans. I can't take it anymore. I'm going away, out of the public eye to find some space."
With that the once apparent heir to the kingdom, leader of the Obamanation, pulled a Vince Young. When the kitchen got hot, he went out to get hot chicken wings.
"I may not come back at all, in any capacity," a close friend of Obama's was said to hear him say. "The great people of Illinois may not have my 'present' vote to back them anymore."
Obama has often reminded citizens that Republicans do not play fair and are misguided and how he is as right as red on lipstick. Many of his supporters are hoping he gets his mind right and continues in his past present form.
-30-
If Vince Young needs to find answers, here are the questions
by Bryce Martin
Vince young?
Oh, yeah. Baby young.
Vince's real problem?
Simple.
He's a crummy QB.
He gets booed because he's crummy.
If he "mans up," if he suddenly matures beyond the emotions of a young schoolgirl, he will still be a crummy quarterback. At that point, however, he can mess up all he wants and be happy with it because he has matured.
When people say he has physical skills, what they really mean is he can display a burst of speed combined with a touch of elusiveness. That does not constitute all it takes to be a good NFL quarterback.
He doesn't like to look bad because his college frat party may not invite him to the next beer bust.
He needs to live at home and let momma cook and take care of him. It's a rough world out there for overpaid millionaires.
Guys in Iraq are getting ambushed, rocks tossed at them, and are missing limbs, yet many of them volunteer to go back when they recover as well as they can. And we're supposed to care about this overpaid whiner? That will be a cold day.
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by Bryce Martin
Vince young?
Oh, yeah. Baby young.
Vince's real problem?
Simple.
He's a crummy QB.
He gets booed because he's crummy.
If he "mans up," if he suddenly matures beyond the emotions of a young schoolgirl, he will still be a crummy quarterback. At that point, however, he can mess up all he wants and be happy with it because he has matured.
When people say he has physical skills, what they really mean is he can display a burst of speed combined with a touch of elusiveness. That does not constitute all it takes to be a good NFL quarterback.
He doesn't like to look bad because his college frat party may not invite him to the next beer bust.
He needs to live at home and let momma cook and take care of him. It's a rough world out there for overpaid millionaires.
Guys in Iraq are getting ambushed, rocks tossed at them, and are missing limbs, yet many of them volunteer to go back when they recover as well as they can. And we're supposed to care about this overpaid whiner? That will be a cold day.
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Saturday, September 06, 2008
My Titans: Quick thoughts, readings and observations
by Bryce Martin
Vince Young is fat. Michael Vick is in prison and probably in better shape.
Jevon Kearse has always been a soft tackler. Kearse looks old and tired.
I'm glad Roydell Williams is gone. He might catch an easy pass and he might not.
LenDale White is slower than molasses in January. His cornrows add nothing. He, like Vince Young, is young but already has a double chin.
Oh, and we'll do well to go 10-6 again. Even with Jeff Fisher adding so much talent to aid the offense.
That last one was a joke. If you were not laughing on your own and had to see my reminder here to understand, go tend to your pom-poms.
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by Bryce Martin
Vince Young is fat. Michael Vick is in prison and probably in better shape.
Jevon Kearse has always been a soft tackler. Kearse looks old and tired.
I'm glad Roydell Williams is gone. He might catch an easy pass and he might not.
LenDale White is slower than molasses in January. His cornrows add nothing. He, like Vince Young, is young but already has a double chin.
Oh, and we'll do well to go 10-6 again. Even with Jeff Fisher adding so much talent to aid the offense.
That last one was a joke. If you were not laughing on your own and had to see my reminder here to understand, go tend to your pom-poms.
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Friday, August 29, 2008
Vanderbilt: The Worst Coaching Staff in America
by Bryce Martin
Vanderbilt head football coach Bobby Johnson's teams have won a total of 20 games in his six years at the helm. Most of those wins have come outside the Southeastern Conference of which Vandy is a member, of sorts.
When Vandy makes dumb mistakes that cost them ballgames, a regular occurrence, Johnson always states the obvious. That Vandy has enough problems in beating anyone and that they, more than anyone else around, cannot afford to make dumb and unnecessary mistakes.
Yet, he and his coaching staff allow the same unnecessary mistake to happen time after time, that of a running back fumbling and turning over the football. By now, you have to figure it is just lip service coming from Johnson. The team has not had a winning season since 1982. Do you think it would harm the team's chances down the line if they actually benched someone who fumbled?
Perhaps they avoid those kinds of benchings because they know they have been lax as coaches. There's barely enough time to work in all the fancy stuff, much less time to stress fundamentals such as how to not possibly fumble a football when you have taken it from your quarterback and cradled it up against your body.
When a team wins, as Vandy did in its opener yesterday against Miami (Ohio), the mistakes are sometimes downplayed. With Vandy, they shouldn't. Running back Jeff Jennings coughed one up early in the first half and this time it only cost Vandy a field goal.
I really do not think the Vandy coaches are stressing the finer points of holding on to the football as they should regarding their running backs. They can't be. Year in, year out, they can't be. I do think the Vandy coaches are alibiing their way out of all the fumbles. It is their responsibility as coaches. A player cannot fumble a football if he holds it properly.
I know that if I was a coach and I taught a running back the proper way to hold a football so as to not fumble it, and we practiced it enough, that I would definitely sit down anyone after that who did not follow instructions. Vandy, more than any other school can afford to do that, to teach a player that lesson. But that is only if the coaches have truly done their part.
It's about time the coaches took the heat, and we quit blaming the Vandy players.
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by Bryce Martin
Vanderbilt head football coach Bobby Johnson's teams have won a total of 20 games in his six years at the helm. Most of those wins have come outside the Southeastern Conference of which Vandy is a member, of sorts.
When Vandy makes dumb mistakes that cost them ballgames, a regular occurrence, Johnson always states the obvious. That Vandy has enough problems in beating anyone and that they, more than anyone else around, cannot afford to make dumb and unnecessary mistakes.
Yet, he and his coaching staff allow the same unnecessary mistake to happen time after time, that of a running back fumbling and turning over the football. By now, you have to figure it is just lip service coming from Johnson. The team has not had a winning season since 1982. Do you think it would harm the team's chances down the line if they actually benched someone who fumbled?
Perhaps they avoid those kinds of benchings because they know they have been lax as coaches. There's barely enough time to work in all the fancy stuff, much less time to stress fundamentals such as how to not possibly fumble a football when you have taken it from your quarterback and cradled it up against your body.
When a team wins, as Vandy did in its opener yesterday against Miami (Ohio), the mistakes are sometimes downplayed. With Vandy, they shouldn't. Running back Jeff Jennings coughed one up early in the first half and this time it only cost Vandy a field goal.
I really do not think the Vandy coaches are stressing the finer points of holding on to the football as they should regarding their running backs. They can't be. Year in, year out, they can't be. I do think the Vandy coaches are alibiing their way out of all the fumbles. It is their responsibility as coaches. A player cannot fumble a football if he holds it properly.
I know that if I was a coach and I taught a running back the proper way to hold a football so as to not fumble it, and we practiced it enough, that I would definitely sit down anyone after that who did not follow instructions. Vandy, more than any other school can afford to do that, to teach a player that lesson. But that is only if the coaches have truly done their part.
It's about time the coaches took the heat, and we quit blaming the Vandy players.
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Thursday, August 28, 2008
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Men with bangs: A nation of sissy-men
by Bryce Martin
When mayor-elect Karl Dean was running for mayor of Nashville, he started off looking like your regular man man. That was until one day near the last few weeks of the election, he was pictured wearing bangs. I don't recall when it started, but I also remember about that time it was reported that women in general seemed to enjoy his candidacy.
Will someone please inform the mayor it's over, he won. He can shed the bangs. I remember when a man or boy would be ridiculed beyond mercy for wearing bangs. Bangs were for girls. Girls prettied themselves up with bangs.
Are there no men left who understand the concept? I can understand young men not knowing any better, and it appears their fathers are just as lame. We are raising a nation of sissy-men. Worse, they don't even suspect.
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by Bryce Martin
When mayor-elect Karl Dean was running for mayor of Nashville, he started off looking like your regular man man. That was until one day near the last few weeks of the election, he was pictured wearing bangs. I don't recall when it started, but I also remember about that time it was reported that women in general seemed to enjoy his candidacy.
Will someone please inform the mayor it's over, he won. He can shed the bangs. I remember when a man or boy would be ridiculed beyond mercy for wearing bangs. Bangs were for girls. Girls prettied themselves up with bangs.
Are there no men left who understand the concept? I can understand young men not knowing any better, and it appears their fathers are just as lame. We are raising a nation of sissy-men. Worse, they don't even suspect.
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Origin of the Thesis
brĂ˝cian, brĂcsian; p. ode, ade; pp. od, ad [brĂ˝ce, brĂce use] To be of use, profit, benefit, do good; prodesse, proficuum esse:-- He his gefĂ«rum brĂ˝cian gĂ˝mde he took care to do good to his companions, Bd. 5, 9; S. 623, 33. HĂ brĂ˝caĂľ monigra hlo multorum saluti proficuum erit, Bd. 4, 22; S. 590, 32. Him sylfum brĂcsade benefited himself, Bd. 5, 13; S. 632, 6.
Source: Bosworth/Toller, page b0130, entry 10.
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brĂ˝cian, brĂcsian; p. ode, ade; pp. od, ad [brĂ˝ce, brĂce use] To be of use, profit, benefit, do good; prodesse, proficuum esse:-- He his gefĂ«rum brĂ˝cian gĂ˝mde he took care to do good to his companions, Bd. 5, 9; S. 623, 33. HĂ brĂ˝caĂľ monigra hlo multorum saluti proficuum erit, Bd. 4, 22; S. 590, 32. Him sylfum brĂcsade benefited himself, Bd. 5, 13; S. 632, 6.
Source: Bosworth/Toller, page b0130, entry 10.
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Friday, July 18, 2008
Gang signs a symptom of a problem for NBA (NFL)
by Bryce Martin
Higher-ups within the NBA (insert NFL at your discretion) think they detect players giving off gang signs during games and are studying ways to eliminate the practice.
First off, I find even the thought of this as both humorous and incredibly childish at the same time.
Black gang signs. Black gangs. Let's call it for what it is. Most of the players are black, nearly all who would be involved would have to be black. I image any whites who grew up gang-affiliated and who now draw big NBA bucks have no desire to return to the habits of the poor. Do you think leather-faced Okies (white, again) wanted to return to the ties that once bound them before turning to the fields of despair known as the Great Depression once they could regularly put food on their tables?
With the big NBA bucks, you would think they would want to eliminate the habits of their retrogressive juvenile days. Live in a mountain chalet in Colorado with a millionaire's view, buy a vineyard in Napa and start a winery, live along the coast in Malibu and cavort in beach house luxury. I seem to prefer the West, so imagine your own dream choices.
The black NBA players remind me of the lottery winners who win millions, enough for 36 people to live an opulent lifestyle for the next 70 years, and what do they plan to do now? Keep their $8.65 an hour job and maybe splurge on a new riding mower. Why did they even bother to enter in the first place?
The psychological part of all this may be complicated. That might be why the NBA people feel they need to deliberate long and hard to come up with some answers. Or it could be as simple as pie.
If I had started this out as a letter to the NBA on how to resolve the situation, it would have began thus:
The simple remedy -- Reward childish behavior with childish penalties. If a player is caught giving off a gang sign, immediately banish him to The Romper Room, sort of like the NHL penalty box, for a set length of time. Have that room on a side wall with a big glass viewing window for TV cameras and spectators. Have "The Romper Room" painted in large letters on the outside wall in a child-like scrawl. Show nothing but Woody Woodpecker cartoons on the room's lone TV set, with big plush and stuffed toy animals scattered about on the thick and colorful carpet adorned with kittycat characters.
After his time is up, he needs to turn in a small chalkboard where he has written his ABC's. Harsher penalties would follow in The Romper Room. Such as actually having to pass a quiz after watching an entire episode of Mr. Rogers, unless the game is over by then. Oh, and -- I know the union would fight this one -- they don't get paid while in The Romper Room. I would argue that they have violated certain portions of their contract regarding professionalism by using gang signs and that a no-pay penalty could be longer in duration and they need to count their blessings they got off this light, this time.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
Higher-ups within the NBA (insert NFL at your discretion) think they detect players giving off gang signs during games and are studying ways to eliminate the practice.
First off, I find even the thought of this as both humorous and incredibly childish at the same time.
Black gang signs. Black gangs. Let's call it for what it is. Most of the players are black, nearly all who would be involved would have to be black. I image any whites who grew up gang-affiliated and who now draw big NBA bucks have no desire to return to the habits of the poor. Do you think leather-faced Okies (white, again) wanted to return to the ties that once bound them before turning to the fields of despair known as the Great Depression once they could regularly put food on their tables?
With the big NBA bucks, you would think they would want to eliminate the habits of their retrogressive juvenile days. Live in a mountain chalet in Colorado with a millionaire's view, buy a vineyard in Napa and start a winery, live along the coast in Malibu and cavort in beach house luxury. I seem to prefer the West, so imagine your own dream choices.
The black NBA players remind me of the lottery winners who win millions, enough for 36 people to live an opulent lifestyle for the next 70 years, and what do they plan to do now? Keep their $8.65 an hour job and maybe splurge on a new riding mower. Why did they even bother to enter in the first place?
The psychological part of all this may be complicated. That might be why the NBA people feel they need to deliberate long and hard to come up with some answers. Or it could be as simple as pie.
If I had started this out as a letter to the NBA on how to resolve the situation, it would have began thus:
The simple remedy -- Reward childish behavior with childish penalties. If a player is caught giving off a gang sign, immediately banish him to The Romper Room, sort of like the NHL penalty box, for a set length of time. Have that room on a side wall with a big glass viewing window for TV cameras and spectators. Have "The Romper Room" painted in large letters on the outside wall in a child-like scrawl. Show nothing but Woody Woodpecker cartoons on the room's lone TV set, with big plush and stuffed toy animals scattered about on the thick and colorful carpet adorned with kittycat characters.
After his time is up, he needs to turn in a small chalkboard where he has written his ABC's. Harsher penalties would follow in The Romper Room. Such as actually having to pass a quiz after watching an entire episode of Mr. Rogers, unless the game is over by then. Oh, and -- I know the union would fight this one -- they don't get paid while in The Romper Room. I would argue that they have violated certain portions of their contract regarding professionalism by using gang signs and that a no-pay penalty could be longer in duration and they need to count their blessings they got off this light, this time.
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Thursday, July 17, 2008
Yankees and Bonds deserve each other
by Bryce Martin
The notion that any Yankees fan would clamor to have their team sign Barry Bonds offers insight as to just how pathetic anyone who is a fan of that tawdry, dog-mange outfit is and to what lowness extreme they will stoop to accommodate.
The fact that anyone is even a Yankees fan is beyond me. Well, maybe not. Manners, class and civic pride are items filed under Lost America.
I am a baseball fan, but of no particular team. I would not be bothered if the Yankees had won each world series in the past 40 years, nor if they had never been in one during that time.
It's George Steinbrenner that rots up the place. I don't like the fact that he knows not one iota about baseball, and has shown it over the years with his inane comments about particular parts of the game. An owner with that much control, and that small of a brain, should keep his mouth shut and stay in the background. He has been smart enough over the years to hire people who do know something, although I can't imagine why anyone would want to work for the sleazeball.
The Yankees just signed Richie Sexson, the steroids-tainted Sexson, but those dear Yankees fans were hoping it was Barry Bonds, the "Satan of Swat." Here's hoping they were the only ones hoping that. It's something to be expected from the lowlifes up New York way, you just hope it doesn't spread.
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by Bryce Martin
The notion that any Yankees fan would clamor to have their team sign Barry Bonds offers insight as to just how pathetic anyone who is a fan of that tawdry, dog-mange outfit is and to what lowness extreme they will stoop to accommodate.
The fact that anyone is even a Yankees fan is beyond me. Well, maybe not. Manners, class and civic pride are items filed under Lost America.
I am a baseball fan, but of no particular team. I would not be bothered if the Yankees had won each world series in the past 40 years, nor if they had never been in one during that time.
It's George Steinbrenner that rots up the place. I don't like the fact that he knows not one iota about baseball, and has shown it over the years with his inane comments about particular parts of the game. An owner with that much control, and that small of a brain, should keep his mouth shut and stay in the background. He has been smart enough over the years to hire people who do know something, although I can't imagine why anyone would want to work for the sleazeball.
The Yankees just signed Richie Sexson, the steroids-tainted Sexson, but those dear Yankees fans were hoping it was Barry Bonds, the "Satan of Swat." Here's hoping they were the only ones hoping that. It's something to be expected from the lowlifes up New York way, you just hope it doesn't spread.
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Monday, July 14, 2008
Separating fact from fiction
by Bryce Martin
"Baby borned with 2 privates."
I looked at my junk mail and the above came from "Schramm."
Gee, you wonder how the junk screener can tell.
I didn't open it of course, so I don't know where it came from or what it was about, nor was I curious to find out beyond any obvious speculation that the mind associates with such language symbols.
I have to look at my junk and trash on occasion since I accidentally hit spam for some messages I didn't mean to, and now anything from those senders automatically goes to my round receptacle.
My grandmother called our trash can a receptacle. It was also people from her generation who commonly called a person's reproductive organs "privates." The less educated still might say "borned" instead of "born." Schramm? Wasn't that the name of a Texan who had something to do with the older version of the Dallas Cowboys?
So, how did the screener know that it was not Tex Schramm who wanted me to know about the latest headline from the National Enquirer?
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by Bryce Martin
"Baby borned with 2 privates."
I looked at my junk mail and the above came from "Schramm."
Gee, you wonder how the junk screener can tell.
I didn't open it of course, so I don't know where it came from or what it was about, nor was I curious to find out beyond any obvious speculation that the mind associates with such language symbols.
I have to look at my junk and trash on occasion since I accidentally hit spam for some messages I didn't mean to, and now anything from those senders automatically goes to my round receptacle.
My grandmother called our trash can a receptacle. It was also people from her generation who commonly called a person's reproductive organs "privates." The less educated still might say "borned" instead of "born." Schramm? Wasn't that the name of a Texan who had something to do with the older version of the Dallas Cowboys?
So, how did the screener know that it was not Tex Schramm who wanted me to know about the latest headline from the National Enquirer?
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In embracing underdog tag, McCain doing all he can to lose
by Bryce Martin
I would say that John McCain is writing the primer on how to lose a presidential election, but G.H.W. Bush writ that tome and McLame is just adding a few updates.
The latest and most damning evidence is McCain not only not challenging his being labeled an underdog but his embracing of the word, something about how he welcomes the underdog role.
Polls don't mean squat at this juncture, and even those in whose favor the polls tilt are usually quick to point out.
His comment to such a remark should go something like this:
"Underdog? Me? How do you figure? How much faith can you place in polls? Last I heard, we were going to have an election and the people were going to speak."
It's true that McCain in the past has gained something of a reputation for overcoming odds not in his favor. That's fine. But let others comment on the merits or not of that.
To come right out at this stage and admit you are an underdog is helping the other side define who you are. In other words, you are inferior. The last time I heard someone fall for this George Herbert Walker Bush lost an election. And he should have.
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by Bryce Martin
I would say that John McCain is writing the primer on how to lose a presidential election, but G.H.W. Bush writ that tome and McLame is just adding a few updates.
The latest and most damning evidence is McCain not only not challenging his being labeled an underdog but his embracing of the word, something about how he welcomes the underdog role.
Polls don't mean squat at this juncture, and even those in whose favor the polls tilt are usually quick to point out.
His comment to such a remark should go something like this:
"Underdog? Me? How do you figure? How much faith can you place in polls? Last I heard, we were going to have an election and the people were going to speak."
It's true that McCain in the past has gained something of a reputation for overcoming odds not in his favor. That's fine. But let others comment on the merits or not of that.
To come right out at this stage and admit you are an underdog is helping the other side define who you are. In other words, you are inferior. The last time I heard someone fall for this George Herbert Walker Bush lost an election. And he should have.
-30-
Obama is tasteless and offensive
by Bryce Martin
Other than teenagers who wear their caps sideways, who doesn't think fist-bumping is crude and tasteless? Especially coming from a grown man.
Now you have presidential hopeful (in case you haven't heard) Barack Obama calling the satirical cartoon of him and his wife gracing the current cover of New Yorker magazine as "tasteless and offensive."
Of course, in addition to fist-bumping his wife, who is carrying a rifle over her back, he is wearing a turban and in the background an American flag in a fireplace is burning.
This Obama is supposed to be a literate and knowledgeable man. I guess not. He doesn't understand satire, a basic requirement of any learned individual and he has not paid much attention to history. Anyone with the faintest of memories should be able to recall how all politicians are regularly skewed by cartoonists.
Where's the diversity? From Obama, that is. I guess street gestures such as goofy "handshakes" are okay but fuddy-duddy traditions are off-limits.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
Other than teenagers who wear their caps sideways, who doesn't think fist-bumping is crude and tasteless? Especially coming from a grown man.
Now you have presidential hopeful (in case you haven't heard) Barack Obama calling the satirical cartoon of him and his wife gracing the current cover of New Yorker magazine as "tasteless and offensive."
Of course, in addition to fist-bumping his wife, who is carrying a rifle over her back, he is wearing a turban and in the background an American flag in a fireplace is burning.
This Obama is supposed to be a literate and knowledgeable man. I guess not. He doesn't understand satire, a basic requirement of any learned individual and he has not paid much attention to history. Anyone with the faintest of memories should be able to recall how all politicians are regularly skewed by cartoonists.
Where's the diversity? From Obama, that is. I guess street gestures such as goofy "handshakes" are okay but fuddy-duddy traditions are off-limits.
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Friday, July 11, 2008
The old parlor game: I have never...
by Bryce Martin
I guess you could call it a game. That one back in the late 60s where, when a bunch of friends got together on a weekend, people revealed things they had never done in an effort to see who could come up with the best revelation. Each one started out "I have never... ."
"I have never seen Sound of Music," is one that I recall, describing the movie starring Julie Andrews.
I never actually participated in one of the parlor get-togethers. I felt amiss that I didn't, so here goes now sans parlor:
1. I have never watched The Simpsons.
2. I have never worn a watch.
3. I have never owned (nor used) a cellphone.
4. I have never used a radar detector.
5. I have never had a headache.
6. I have never bought or worn a piece of jewelry.
How am I doing? I don't remember there being any prizes.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
I guess you could call it a game. That one back in the late 60s where, when a bunch of friends got together on a weekend, people revealed things they had never done in an effort to see who could come up with the best revelation. Each one started out "I have never... ."
"I have never seen Sound of Music," is one that I recall, describing the movie starring Julie Andrews.
I never actually participated in one of the parlor get-togethers. I felt amiss that I didn't, so here goes now sans parlor:
1. I have never watched The Simpsons.
2. I have never worn a watch.
3. I have never owned (nor used) a cellphone.
4. I have never used a radar detector.
5. I have never had a headache.
6. I have never bought or worn a piece of jewelry.
How am I doing? I don't remember there being any prizes.
-30-
Friday, July 04, 2008
Don't slander Joltin' Joe
by Bryce Martin
Don't slander the memory of a class guy, Joe DiMaggio.
Alex Rodriguez and Madonna? Many who thought A-Rod to be hurting for class now have some real ammo. Madonna? She never looked good. What's more, based on Madonna's indoor track record, she deserves the title "Easy Girl" as much as "Material Girl." That is not deserving of a "ha-ha" sarcastic response. She has looked, acted and lived the slut role, and it has served her well -- for those that like 'em.
Preachy I don't mean to be. It is comments like the following that rankle. Rodriguez has kept mum about any romance between him and Madonna, "leading some to wonder if he could indeed be involved in the biggest Yankee romance since Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe."
Romance? Madonna and A-Rod. Lust, no doubt. "Romance" is too polite a word.
Marilyn (she is also known by her first name) was flawed, but that was on a personal level. She did her best to maintain a decent public persona. Insiders say DiMaggio didn't treat Mickey Mantle well when he arrived as the new New York Yankees hero. Whatever his reasons for that, DiMag is considered one of the classiest men in all of sports history. His name and that of Marilyn's should never be linked in any way to the sordidness that is Madonna. And now A-Rod by association.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
Don't slander the memory of a class guy, Joe DiMaggio.
Alex Rodriguez and Madonna? Many who thought A-Rod to be hurting for class now have some real ammo. Madonna? She never looked good. What's more, based on Madonna's indoor track record, she deserves the title "Easy Girl" as much as "Material Girl." That is not deserving of a "ha-ha" sarcastic response. She has looked, acted and lived the slut role, and it has served her well -- for those that like 'em.
Preachy I don't mean to be. It is comments like the following that rankle. Rodriguez has kept mum about any romance between him and Madonna, "leading some to wonder if he could indeed be involved in the biggest Yankee romance since Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe."
Romance? Madonna and A-Rod. Lust, no doubt. "Romance" is too polite a word.
Marilyn (she is also known by her first name) was flawed, but that was on a personal level. She did her best to maintain a decent public persona. Insiders say DiMaggio didn't treat Mickey Mantle well when he arrived as the new New York Yankees hero. Whatever his reasons for that, DiMag is considered one of the classiest men in all of sports history. His name and that of Marilyn's should never be linked in any way to the sordidness that is Madonna. And now A-Rod by association.
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Thursday, July 03, 2008
Caroline Kennedy emerges -- as dunce
by Bryce Martin
Slow news days and Caroline Kennedy floats to the forefront.
That's Caroline Kennedy as in JFK, the icon, the image.
What a dunce she is. Ever since she cast her support for Barack Obama and emerged from her longtime, self-induced anonymity, she was bait for Obama to snare on his hook.
Does she really think she is on the committee to help Obama pick a running mate for any reason other than how the Kennedy name associated with her father JFK brings comparisons to Obama? Ah, think of the images: JFK and Obama. Obama and JFK.
Too typical, as Letterman might say, and he wouldn't in this situation since he is left-leaning himself.
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by Bryce Martin
Slow news days and Caroline Kennedy floats to the forefront.
That's Caroline Kennedy as in JFK, the icon, the image.
What a dunce she is. Ever since she cast her support for Barack Obama and emerged from her longtime, self-induced anonymity, she was bait for Obama to snare on his hook.
Does she really think she is on the committee to help Obama pick a running mate for any reason other than how the Kennedy name associated with her father JFK brings comparisons to Obama? Ah, think of the images: JFK and Obama. Obama and JFK.
Too typical, as Letterman might say, and he wouldn't in this situation since he is left-leaning himself.
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Bull Durham and the Big Bandwagon Show
by Bryce Martin
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has been described as incorporating "the meaning of everything." A remarkable reference tome, it makes specific note of our language from its earliest origins and even cites, when possible, the earliest known use of a word or phrase.
My treatise here, however, is not about the wonderful OED. It's given as a backstory, to use a film making term. My point will be how a word or phrase is taken at face value, as in a work of fiction, where it is made up at that time for that work.
Case in point: The phrase "Big Show" from the movie Bull Durham.
I am aware that the director of the movie and its writer, one Ron Shelton, actually played a little minor league baseball. Nevertheless, I say the phrase "Big Show" was never a term as relating to the Major Leagues. I'm not saying the phrase was never uttered in that regard, as I imagine many more exist just as obscure, I'm saying it was never a phrase used by minor leaguers even on a casual basis, if at all.
Document it. Show me, one book, fiction or non-fiction, film, video, magazine or newspaper mention, one quote or line pulled from one -- just one -- single Associated Press or United Press International wire story, one of tens of thousands AP and UPI items that have covered every game ever played in the major and minor leagues going back as far as you like, anything that predates Bull Durham, where any reference to the big leagues associated with the term "Big Show" actually exists. Exhaustive, yes, but fundamentally fair.
You won't find it. With sportswriters in minor and major league dugouts, hotel lobbies, airports and clubhouses, all over, covering the games and writing feature stories, find me one of their mentions of "Big Show" as described.
Shelton did nothing wrong in making up the term. The fault lies in writers who came after him and used the phrase -- from a work of fiction, remember -- as a real phrase. I'm positive also that if someone asked former minor leaguers who played previous to the Shelton work if they had ever heard the phrase in their playing days many would answer in the affirmative. I'm also positive these same individuals would be just as faulty in response to other details associated with their own playing days.
It's what I prefer to term a bandwagon phrase, a false one, in this instance, some people jump on due to it seeming so natural. It then takes on a credence not deserved.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has been described as incorporating "the meaning of everything." A remarkable reference tome, it makes specific note of our language from its earliest origins and even cites, when possible, the earliest known use of a word or phrase.
My treatise here, however, is not about the wonderful OED. It's given as a backstory, to use a film making term. My point will be how a word or phrase is taken at face value, as in a work of fiction, where it is made up at that time for that work.
Case in point: The phrase "Big Show" from the movie Bull Durham.
I am aware that the director of the movie and its writer, one Ron Shelton, actually played a little minor league baseball. Nevertheless, I say the phrase "Big Show" was never a term as relating to the Major Leagues. I'm not saying the phrase was never uttered in that regard, as I imagine many more exist just as obscure, I'm saying it was never a phrase used by minor leaguers even on a casual basis, if at all.
Document it. Show me, one book, fiction or non-fiction, film, video, magazine or newspaper mention, one quote or line pulled from one -- just one -- single Associated Press or United Press International wire story, one of tens of thousands AP and UPI items that have covered every game ever played in the major and minor leagues going back as far as you like, anything that predates Bull Durham, where any reference to the big leagues associated with the term "Big Show" actually exists. Exhaustive, yes, but fundamentally fair.
You won't find it. With sportswriters in minor and major league dugouts, hotel lobbies, airports and clubhouses, all over, covering the games and writing feature stories, find me one of their mentions of "Big Show" as described.
Shelton did nothing wrong in making up the term. The fault lies in writers who came after him and used the phrase -- from a work of fiction, remember -- as a real phrase. I'm positive also that if someone asked former minor leaguers who played previous to the Shelton work if they had ever heard the phrase in their playing days many would answer in the affirmative. I'm also positive these same individuals would be just as faulty in response to other details associated with their own playing days.
It's what I prefer to term a bandwagon phrase, a false one, in this instance, some people jump on due to it seeming so natural. It then takes on a credence not deserved.
-30-
Undecided Voters Are Life's Clueless
by Bryce Martin
In November a new president will be elected in the United States. According to a majority of political pundits, those potential voters classified right now as undecided will likely tip the election to either the democrat or republican candidate.
That is sadly pathetic. Anyone of voting age who is undecided at this point is one of life's clueless. It is not that difficult. Everyone should be pre-screened and anyone who is undecided by, say, July 4, in a presidential election year should automatically be declared incompetent and disqualified. These people are the equivalent to the sad mess of jurors who made up the O.J. Simpson double-murder trial. As long as democrat and republican parties exist, the choice should always be simple enough to make. Toss in not voting as an option and the choice should be clear, not necessarily what one wants, but clear.
Granted, John McCain apparently thinks the Republican base is moving to the left and he is more a democrat than a republican because of it, which is why the base will not vote in large numbers and he will lose, but the decision is always between night and day.
An undecided voter should carry no weight when the choice is so simple.
by Bryce Martin
In November a new president will be elected in the United States. According to a majority of political pundits, those potential voters classified right now as undecided will likely tip the election to either the democrat or republican candidate.
That is sadly pathetic. Anyone of voting age who is undecided at this point is one of life's clueless. It is not that difficult. Everyone should be pre-screened and anyone who is undecided by, say, July 4, in a presidential election year should automatically be declared incompetent and disqualified. These people are the equivalent to the sad mess of jurors who made up the O.J. Simpson double-murder trial. As long as democrat and republican parties exist, the choice should always be simple enough to make. Toss in not voting as an option and the choice should be clear, not necessarily what one wants, but clear.
Granted, John McCain apparently thinks the Republican base is moving to the left and he is more a democrat than a republican because of it, which is why the base will not vote in large numbers and he will lose, but the decision is always between night and day.
An undecided voter should carry no weight when the choice is so simple.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Everybody in the Military Today is a War Hero
by Bryce Martin
In the early 1970s, not long after a lottery system was implemented in the latter part of the Vietnam War, the military draft was abolished. Just prior to that, Local Boards called men classified 1-A, 18 1/2 through 25 years old, oldest first.
It's now an all-volunteer military.
Today's all-volunteer way of thinking is wrongly blurring with the past.
In 1964, for example a good many men, given the choice, would not have opted for military duty. It's didn't matter. There was a draft.
So, who were the heroes back then? If you were drafted, but would not have went given the choice (as one does today), and you were captured by the enemy, survived and returned and served your time, were you a hero? After all, you didn't want to be captured by the enemy and you didn't want to be wearing a military uniform in the first place. Would you be any different than someone in your exact position who joined freely and eagerly?
Today, since it is an all-volunteer affair, you can make the case that everyone starts out as a hero just by joining, and hero hash marks increase as more heroic acts follow. Everybody's a hero.
So, was someone such as John McCain a hero merely because he was captured by the enemy? He was from a military family and joined on his own, but, remember, there was a draft on, and the draft had to influence thinking. "Hey, there's a draft on anyway, why not join and make the best of it." Would a reluctant draftee in the same predicament as McCain be a hero as well?
Does being captured by the enemy automatically make one a war hero?
It certainly does now.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
In the early 1970s, not long after a lottery system was implemented in the latter part of the Vietnam War, the military draft was abolished. Just prior to that, Local Boards called men classified 1-A, 18 1/2 through 25 years old, oldest first.
It's now an all-volunteer military.
Today's all-volunteer way of thinking is wrongly blurring with the past.
In 1964, for example a good many men, given the choice, would not have opted for military duty. It's didn't matter. There was a draft.
So, who were the heroes back then? If you were drafted, but would not have went given the choice (as one does today), and you were captured by the enemy, survived and returned and served your time, were you a hero? After all, you didn't want to be captured by the enemy and you didn't want to be wearing a military uniform in the first place. Would you be any different than someone in your exact position who joined freely and eagerly?
Today, since it is an all-volunteer affair, you can make the case that everyone starts out as a hero just by joining, and hero hash marks increase as more heroic acts follow. Everybody's a hero.
So, was someone such as John McCain a hero merely because he was captured by the enemy? He was from a military family and joined on his own, but, remember, there was a draft on, and the draft had to influence thinking. "Hey, there's a draft on anyway, why not join and make the best of it." Would a reluctant draftee in the same predicament as McCain be a hero as well?
Does being captured by the enemy automatically make one a war hero?
It certainly does now.
-30-
Thursday, June 26, 2008
George, George, burning brightly
by Bryce Martin
The most prominent story on the Yahoo front page is how fatherhood has changed Tiger Woods. Sure, like he was Jesse James off the golf course before. The guy's a milktoast, plus he's just a golfer, for Christ's sake.
I had to toss in "Christ" because I was reminded of George Carlin who died recently. I wonder if he took some marshmallows along with him because he'll be in a place where roasting them could be a regular event.
It was Carlin who made a career out of letting us know he was way to smart to believe any of this religion nonsense. Bill Maher can now carry that flag. When you get right down to it, Carlin was just a standard liberal, which is not exactly the same as having a real opinion on weighty matters. It's more a matter of always being on the wrong side of anything with heft.
I did applaud Carlin's distaste for golfers and for our way-out-of-proportion hero worship. I don't know where he went so wrong as to get on the right side of those two items.
When you miss the really big one though, I guess nothing else really matters, by comparison. Actually, I know it doesn't, I'm not guessing.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
The most prominent story on the Yahoo front page is how fatherhood has changed Tiger Woods. Sure, like he was Jesse James off the golf course before. The guy's a milktoast, plus he's just a golfer, for Christ's sake.
I had to toss in "Christ" because I was reminded of George Carlin who died recently. I wonder if he took some marshmallows along with him because he'll be in a place where roasting them could be a regular event.
It was Carlin who made a career out of letting us know he was way to smart to believe any of this religion nonsense. Bill Maher can now carry that flag. When you get right down to it, Carlin was just a standard liberal, which is not exactly the same as having a real opinion on weighty matters. It's more a matter of always being on the wrong side of anything with heft.
I did applaud Carlin's distaste for golfers and for our way-out-of-proportion hero worship. I don't know where he went so wrong as to get on the right side of those two items.
When you miss the really big one though, I guess nothing else really matters, by comparison. Actually, I know it doesn't, I'm not guessing.
-30-
Monday, June 23, 2008
McCain Looking More and More Duddish
by Bryce Martin
Streaming headline: McCain Distances Himself from Aide Who Says Another Terrorist Attack Would Benefit Republicans
Why would McCain do that?
A compete moron knows that is a true statement. Maybe none truer in this election year.
The Democrats aren't just weak on national security and terrorism, they're Here-Take-It-If-You-Insist puny thin on putting us all up for grabs.
Anyone who is not aware of that fact should not be involved in our voting process.
McCain? He'd make a good running mate for Obama.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
Streaming headline: McCain Distances Himself from Aide Who Says Another Terrorist Attack Would Benefit Republicans
Why would McCain do that?
A compete moron knows that is a true statement. Maybe none truer in this election year.
The Democrats aren't just weak on national security and terrorism, they're Here-Take-It-If-You-Insist puny thin on putting us all up for grabs.
Anyone who is not aware of that fact should not be involved in our voting process.
McCain? He'd make a good running mate for Obama.
-30-
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Obama's minister of claptrap
by Bryce Martin
Criticizing the good reverend (ahem) Pfleger in a context that makes his skit involving a putdown of Hillary Clinton the point of emphasis is missing the point. His main indiscretion in that little stage show was his pandering to the black congregation. Look up the word claptrap in the encyclopedia and you will now see a picture of Pfleger.
Just look at the robed black chorus behind Pfleger as they become more animated the closer Pfleger gets to the transparent punchline you know is coming.
Another thing more galling than his easy Hillary joke is the fact he is obviously homosexual. Galling, because he is what denomination?
-30-
by Bryce Martin
Criticizing the good reverend (ahem) Pfleger in a context that makes his skit involving a putdown of Hillary Clinton the point of emphasis is missing the point. His main indiscretion in that little stage show was his pandering to the black congregation. Look up the word claptrap in the encyclopedia and you will now see a picture of Pfleger.
Just look at the robed black chorus behind Pfleger as they become more animated the closer Pfleger gets to the transparent punchline you know is coming.
Another thing more galling than his easy Hillary joke is the fact he is obviously homosexual. Galling, because he is what denomination?
-30-
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Vince Young a portrait of immaturity
by Bryce Martin
How can Vince Young think anyone would care if he had retired after his rookie season?
One blogger commented he'd retire too if he threw the football as poorly as Young. Another said he probably changed his mind only after he found out he'd have to give most of his money back to the Titans.
Young got little sympathy from readers regarding his admission in a recent interview to wanting to chuck it all when his comfort zone closed like a zone trap after replaying Year I of the NFL in his mind.
Personally, I wouldn't care if it meant not seeing him sulking on the sidelines after a benching for oversleeping and other team infractions. He always says he is just displaying his emotions, those that he has because he is such a competitor. Really? I could have sworn I saw a whiny kid.
Now he comes up with this "I thought about retiring" gambit. Retiring from what? Quitting is a better word. And for him, it is still a decent option.
Young's immaturity level is now apparent. It's just above the mercury bowl near 0. Immature kids commit suicide with the idea that the world will be sorry, that the world will sorely miss them when they're gone.
Young's mistake is thinking that anyone would care about his career suicide.
He needs to grow up, whether he can ever throw a football well or not.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
How can Vince Young think anyone would care if he had retired after his rookie season?
One blogger commented he'd retire too if he threw the football as poorly as Young. Another said he probably changed his mind only after he found out he'd have to give most of his money back to the Titans.
Young got little sympathy from readers regarding his admission in a recent interview to wanting to chuck it all when his comfort zone closed like a zone trap after replaying Year I of the NFL in his mind.
Personally, I wouldn't care if it meant not seeing him sulking on the sidelines after a benching for oversleeping and other team infractions. He always says he is just displaying his emotions, those that he has because he is such a competitor. Really? I could have sworn I saw a whiny kid.
Now he comes up with this "I thought about retiring" gambit. Retiring from what? Quitting is a better word. And for him, it is still a decent option.
Young's immaturity level is now apparent. It's just above the mercury bowl near 0. Immature kids commit suicide with the idea that the world will be sorry, that the world will sorely miss them when they're gone.
Young's mistake is thinking that anyone would care about his career suicide.
He needs to grow up, whether he can ever throw a football well or not.
-30-
Sunday, May 25, 2008
"El Paso" from 1959 by Marty Robbins.
The line is actually "Rose's Cantina."
Rosie's Cantina
by Bryce Martin
Nothing much happens in my hometown of Galena
Midnight you could find me at Rosie's Cantina
After a few beers down the way at the Mile-A-Way
Time for some black coffee and a pinball game
The jukebox is playing Lonnie Irving's "Pinball Machine"
Charlie Brown brings me my coffee and its steaming mean
Soon the place starts filling up with drunks of the night
Someone called "Nasty" is ambling the room for a fight
Plates fly past of eggs over easy and bacon fried up crisp
Silverware clatters on tables, in the corner someone gets kissed
Quarters are placed on the glass of my pinball machine
Meaning others are wanting me to concede the use of the thing
Sorry I say but I'll keep on drinking my mud and playing pinball
I might just play forever as long as I'm winning and all
I'm at Rosie's Cantina located just off main after midnight again
Lighting up the room as I give another pinball a spin
Well, ole Nasty I guess he sees this as his chance
He stands up across my way and gives me his best death glance
I act as if I hardly notice and wouldn't care if I had
He cowers back down and falls asleep on a chef's salad
Plates fly past of eggs over easy and bacon fried up crisp
Silverware clatters on tables, in the corner someone gets kissed
Quarters are placed on the glass of my pinball machine
Meaning others are wanting me to concede the use of the thing
Sorry I say but I'll keep on drinking my mud and playing pinball
I might just play forever as long as I'm winning and all
I'm at Rosie's Cantina located just off main after midnight again
Lighting up the room as I give another pinball a spin
-30-
The line is actually "Rose's Cantina."
Rosie's Cantina
by Bryce Martin
Nothing much happens in my hometown of Galena
Midnight you could find me at Rosie's Cantina
After a few beers down the way at the Mile-A-Way
Time for some black coffee and a pinball game
The jukebox is playing Lonnie Irving's "Pinball Machine"
Charlie Brown brings me my coffee and its steaming mean
Soon the place starts filling up with drunks of the night
Someone called "Nasty" is ambling the room for a fight
Plates fly past of eggs over easy and bacon fried up crisp
Silverware clatters on tables, in the corner someone gets kissed
Quarters are placed on the glass of my pinball machine
Meaning others are wanting me to concede the use of the thing
Sorry I say but I'll keep on drinking my mud and playing pinball
I might just play forever as long as I'm winning and all
I'm at Rosie's Cantina located just off main after midnight again
Lighting up the room as I give another pinball a spin
Well, ole Nasty I guess he sees this as his chance
He stands up across my way and gives me his best death glance
I act as if I hardly notice and wouldn't care if I had
He cowers back down and falls asleep on a chef's salad
Plates fly past of eggs over easy and bacon fried up crisp
Silverware clatters on tables, in the corner someone gets kissed
Quarters are placed on the glass of my pinball machine
Meaning others are wanting me to concede the use of the thing
Sorry I say but I'll keep on drinking my mud and playing pinball
I might just play forever as long as I'm winning and all
I'm at Rosie's Cantina located just off main after midnight again
Lighting up the room as I give another pinball a spin
-30-
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Who could follow Ted Kennedy?
by Bryce Martin
I read that in what I can only gather was a serious headline.
A dog comes to mind. A bloated one maybe. One who tosses another dog to die in a pond off the road.
So, how is that wonderful example of humankind to be replaced, to get back to the question. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
I read that in what I can only gather was a serious headline.
A dog comes to mind. A bloated one maybe. One who tosses another dog to die in a pond off the road.
So, how is that wonderful example of humankind to be replaced, to get back to the question. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
-30-
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Which twin has the Toni?
by Bryce Martin
Or, which quip is mine?
Is it:
1. On a clear day you can see Claire Trevor
2. (regarding Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden) The Mork and Mindy of radical chic
3. He gives diarrhea a new egress
4. He has delusions of adequacy
5. (regarding Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker) children of a lesser god
6. After getting caught in an army of lies, as a general rule I received corporal punishment in a private place.
7. He's such a liar he'd lie when the truth would be better
8. (Candy, to anyone, at the Bonanza Bar, Argus, Calif., C. 1965) Hang it in yer ear, Fluffy
9. Pop culture is an oxymoron
10. Oxymoron is probably an oxymoron.
Unfortunately for me, I guess you could say, it is No. 6. Quipping is something I'm still working to improve after all these years.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
Or, which quip is mine?
Is it:
1. On a clear day you can see Claire Trevor
2. (regarding Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden) The Mork and Mindy of radical chic
3. He gives diarrhea a new egress
4. He has delusions of adequacy
5. (regarding Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker) children of a lesser god
6. After getting caught in an army of lies, as a general rule I received corporal punishment in a private place.
7. He's such a liar he'd lie when the truth would be better
8. (Candy, to anyone, at the Bonanza Bar, Argus, Calif., C. 1965) Hang it in yer ear, Fluffy
9. Pop culture is an oxymoron
10. Oxymoron is probably an oxymoron.
Unfortunately for me, I guess you could say, it is No. 6. Quipping is something I'm still working to improve after all these years.
-30-
Sunday, May 18, 2008
I am not well envoweled
by Bryce Martin
I found out that I am not well envoweled but that I might be a monkey's uncle, or something close to one.
This all from a site called isthisyour.name:
Etymology:
Forename:
Origin: English (Root: Brice)
Meaning: Son of Rice
Surname:
Origin: (Origin Scottish) This name may be derived from the Latin martius, warlike, from Mars, the God of War. In the Gaelic, mor is great, and duin, a man. Morduin, a chief, a warrior.
Top 5 Facts:
1. How well envoweled is Bryce Martin? 27% of the letters are vowels. Of one million first and last names we looked at, 87.6% have a higher vowel make-up. This means you are poorly envoweled.
2. Backwards, it is Ecyrb Nitram... nice ring to it, huh?
3. In Pig Latin, it is Ebrycay Artinmay.
4. What is Bryce Martin in binary code? 01000010 01110010 01111001 01100011 01100101 00100000 01001101 01100001 01110010 01110100 01101001 01101110.
5. People with this first name are probably: Male. So, there's a 98% likelihood you sweat just thinking of the price of shaver blades.
3 Things You Didn't Know:
1. Bryce Martin, what is your Power Animal? Bryce Martin, based on your name and a process known to only three people on the planet, we can tell you that your Power Animal is the: Cynomolgus Monkey.
2. Your 'Numerology' number is 2. If it wasn't bulls**t, it would mean that you are supportive, diplomatic, analytical, and play well with others. A team-player, you seek peace and harmony in a group.
3. According to the US Census Bureau°, 0.016% of US residents have the first name 'Bryce' and 0.2778% have the surname 'Martin'. The US has around 300 million residents, so we guesstimate there are 133 'Bryce Martin's.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
I found out that I am not well envoweled but that I might be a monkey's uncle, or something close to one.
This all from a site called isthisyour.name:
Etymology:
Forename:
Origin: English (Root: Brice)
Meaning: Son of Rice
Surname:
Origin: (Origin Scottish) This name may be derived from the Latin martius, warlike, from Mars, the God of War. In the Gaelic, mor is great, and duin, a man. Morduin, a chief, a warrior.
Top 5 Facts:
1. How well envoweled is Bryce Martin? 27% of the letters are vowels. Of one million first and last names we looked at, 87.6% have a higher vowel make-up. This means you are poorly envoweled.
2. Backwards, it is Ecyrb Nitram... nice ring to it, huh?
3. In Pig Latin, it is Ebrycay Artinmay.
4. What is Bryce Martin in binary code? 01000010 01110010 01111001 01100011 01100101 00100000 01001101 01100001 01110010 01110100 01101001 01101110.
5. People with this first name are probably: Male. So, there's a 98% likelihood you sweat just thinking of the price of shaver blades.
3 Things You Didn't Know:
1. Bryce Martin, what is your Power Animal? Bryce Martin, based on your name and a process known to only three people on the planet, we can tell you that your Power Animal is the: Cynomolgus Monkey.
2. Your 'Numerology' number is 2. If it wasn't bulls**t, it would mean that you are supportive, diplomatic, analytical, and play well with others. A team-player, you seek peace and harmony in a group.
3. According to the US Census Bureau°, 0.016% of US residents have the first name 'Bryce' and 0.2778% have the surname 'Martin'. The US has around 300 million residents, so we guesstimate there are 133 'Bryce Martin's.
-30-
Monday, May 12, 2008
Is lead the killer it's made out to be?
By Bryce Martin
Galena is the name of my home town. Galena means lead. My home town had the largest lead smelter in the world, starting around a hundred years ago.
"Long-term exposure to lead dust poses a health risk, particularly to young children."
I've heard that.
A killer tornado blasted the old home front over the past weekend. In the region, typical summer dust devils traditionally blew dust off mountains of mining waste, known by locals as chat piles.
We breathed it.
Still do.
The most recent tornado destruction in the region, and perhaps deadliest of all, that fairly well put Picher, Okla., to waste for good, was making news in stories and headines nationwide and alarming EPA people as to what extent it had stirred up ancient lead dust to wreak its own kind of havoc in the wake of front-end tornado damage.
I would surely imagine that breathing and taking into the body by other means elements of lead ore would be harmful to the body and, as most anything else, there are always exceptions. The exceptions might explain why at least three people from Galena that I am aware of have lived to be 100 years old, and many more have lived well into their 90s.
While I would not expect research later on to indicate that breathing lead dust over a long period of time is beneficial to a human being, I have to wonder if it is truly the menace it is made out to be by today's standards, where even a flake of lead paint on a child's toy causes an uproar.
My Galena is in Kansas. Other Galenas exist in Missouri, Illinois, and elsewhere, but mostly in the geologic lead belt that supplied lead ore turned into bullets for most of the rifle munitions used in World War II. Other Galenas have different names, such as Picher. There are, in fact, hundreds of towns not named Galena in roughly a six-state area that could have been thus named.
I knew her as Norma Thompson in the 1950s when she was my music teacher. She died at age 100 on October 20, 2003, in Oswego. With a zest for life, she taught vocal music appreciation and stressed such things as inflection and proper breathing while vocalizing. She didn't live all her wonderful years in Galena, but she was in the immediate region all that time, breathing in the times, if you will.
Questions remain after all these years. Why do some suffer and die from lead exposure and why do others just as touched go on to lead long and normal lives?
-30-
-30-
By Bryce Martin
Galena is the name of my home town. Galena means lead. My home town had the largest lead smelter in the world, starting around a hundred years ago.
"Long-term exposure to lead dust poses a health risk, particularly to young children."
I've heard that.
A killer tornado blasted the old home front over the past weekend. In the region, typical summer dust devils traditionally blew dust off mountains of mining waste, known by locals as chat piles.
We breathed it.
Still do.
The most recent tornado destruction in the region, and perhaps deadliest of all, that fairly well put Picher, Okla., to waste for good, was making news in stories and headines nationwide and alarming EPA people as to what extent it had stirred up ancient lead dust to wreak its own kind of havoc in the wake of front-end tornado damage.
I would surely imagine that breathing and taking into the body by other means elements of lead ore would be harmful to the body and, as most anything else, there are always exceptions. The exceptions might explain why at least three people from Galena that I am aware of have lived to be 100 years old, and many more have lived well into their 90s.
While I would not expect research later on to indicate that breathing lead dust over a long period of time is beneficial to a human being, I have to wonder if it is truly the menace it is made out to be by today's standards, where even a flake of lead paint on a child's toy causes an uproar.
My Galena is in Kansas. Other Galenas exist in Missouri, Illinois, and elsewhere, but mostly in the geologic lead belt that supplied lead ore turned into bullets for most of the rifle munitions used in World War II. Other Galenas have different names, such as Picher. There are, in fact, hundreds of towns not named Galena in roughly a six-state area that could have been thus named.
I knew her as Norma Thompson in the 1950s when she was my music teacher. She died at age 100 on October 20, 2003, in Oswego. With a zest for life, she taught vocal music appreciation and stressed such things as inflection and proper breathing while vocalizing. She didn't live all her wonderful years in Galena, but she was in the immediate region all that time, breathing in the times, if you will.
Questions remain after all these years. Why do some suffer and die from lead exposure and why do others just as touched go on to lead long and normal lives?
-30-
-30-
Did McCain vote for Bush or did he not?
by Bryce Martin
Why does it have to be one of the two?
I imagine the truth is that John McCain did both. He voted for George Bush in 2000, but at a party later on, to appear cool to the sick left, he told Arianna Huffington he didn't and others overheard it.
In saying that I am in no way defending Huffington. Based on her track record, that would be impossible. Unless, you were one of the "sick left" that I noted, as she is.
The liberals really are a pathetic bunch of sick puppies. When I hear from certain TV pundits that recent victories by Barack Obama show that his stand on the fever-brained Rev. Wright proves that dip in the road is now behind him. Please. This is a democratic primary, please keep that in mind to aid any relevance. An apology from an ax-murderer would be sufficient, if that cretin was a democratic front-runner.
Just being a democrat automatically makes you upstanding to other democrats. This is the godless, anything-goes party. Liberal dems would back Hitler if they thought he could take Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Tell me that Obama is not defined by his association with the misguided Rev. Wright when it comes up in the general election, and Republicans, the ones who actually have a few scruples left, question the odd association between candidate and religious mentor. Tell me then -- Oh, pundits! -- that Obama has put that issue behind him. He can't put that issue behind him. It's part of who he is, a big part, and it's not good.
McCain, as undesirable and as big a phony in his own way as Obama, is not a choice, either. Democrats, though, always have a choice. Any democrat will do.
In a comment that a majority of Americans should be thinking and expressing out loud, I have only heard it voiced once when I heard Sean Hannity say he is surprised that Obama has even 25 percent of the democratic vote, much less the lead that he does enjoy. I can believe that from the democrats. I would hate to believe that for all America.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
Why does it have to be one of the two?
I imagine the truth is that John McCain did both. He voted for George Bush in 2000, but at a party later on, to appear cool to the sick left, he told Arianna Huffington he didn't and others overheard it.
In saying that I am in no way defending Huffington. Based on her track record, that would be impossible. Unless, you were one of the "sick left" that I noted, as she is.
The liberals really are a pathetic bunch of sick puppies. When I hear from certain TV pundits that recent victories by Barack Obama show that his stand on the fever-brained Rev. Wright proves that dip in the road is now behind him. Please. This is a democratic primary, please keep that in mind to aid any relevance. An apology from an ax-murderer would be sufficient, if that cretin was a democratic front-runner.
Just being a democrat automatically makes you upstanding to other democrats. This is the godless, anything-goes party. Liberal dems would back Hitler if they thought he could take Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Tell me that Obama is not defined by his association with the misguided Rev. Wright when it comes up in the general election, and Republicans, the ones who actually have a few scruples left, question the odd association between candidate and religious mentor. Tell me then -- Oh, pundits! -- that Obama has put that issue behind him. He can't put that issue behind him. It's part of who he is, a big part, and it's not good.
McCain, as undesirable and as big a phony in his own way as Obama, is not a choice, either. Democrats, though, always have a choice. Any democrat will do.
In a comment that a majority of Americans should be thinking and expressing out loud, I have only heard it voiced once when I heard Sean Hannity say he is surprised that Obama has even 25 percent of the democratic vote, much less the lead that he does enjoy. I can believe that from the democrats. I would hate to believe that for all America.
-30-
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Sure, this'll be my summer beach read
by Bryce Martin
Headline:
Barbara Walters discusses her candid autobiography
Aside from the old canard about how any life story would make an interesting read, I can't imagine anyone actually wanting to read Barbara Walter's autobiography. Nor can I conceive that a publisher would even consider the notion.
However, I also remember the other old canard about never underestimating the bad taste of our citizens. Kenny Rogers not being around much anymore has made me lose my edge on that one. After further consideration, Rogers might rightfully fall under the category of no taste.
Walters, a woman born in this country, who cannot speak English, and who was incensed by the Saturday Night Live segments that poked fun at "Barbara Wah-wah," is the female version of Regis Philbin. It's not so much that she has never accomplished anything noteworthy, it's that she has accomplished nothing. At least, not in the terms of reasonable noteworthiness.
To each his own, unfortunately.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
Headline:
Barbara Walters discusses her candid autobiography
Aside from the old canard about how any life story would make an interesting read, I can't imagine anyone actually wanting to read Barbara Walter's autobiography. Nor can I conceive that a publisher would even consider the notion.
However, I also remember the other old canard about never underestimating the bad taste of our citizens. Kenny Rogers not being around much anymore has made me lose my edge on that one. After further consideration, Rogers might rightfully fall under the category of no taste.
Walters, a woman born in this country, who cannot speak English, and who was incensed by the Saturday Night Live segments that poked fun at "Barbara Wah-wah," is the female version of Regis Philbin. It's not so much that she has never accomplished anything noteworthy, it's that she has accomplished nothing. At least, not in the terms of reasonable noteworthiness.
To each his own, unfortunately.
-30-
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Titans bring out dart board again
by Bryce Martin
The Titans dart-chunkers are at it again.
Chris Johnson? Why pick an injury prone running back when it is not necessary? The Titans recently rid themselves of Chris Brown, a running back who could not stay healthy no matter what. Just show him some grid marks and he gets gimpy.
I realize by looking at past years that what looks like safe picks for teams sometimes turns instead to be disastrous picks. Still, if someone has not proven themselves in college why would you expect them to do so at the pro level? Wouldn't you want to pick someone based on what they have done, not what they might do?
And Vince Young needs some weapons, huh? Sure, let's steer away from the bigger problem. He needs an arsenal to overcome his inefficiencies. So, Titans talent stratego Mike Reinfeldt was asked (in a Tennessean article) if Young had any input regarding the draft:
“Obviously he is concerned with the process and its impacts and he may share his thoughts,” Reinfeldt said. “We listen to those thoughts, but at the same time we have guys that spend their whole lives out in the field going from school to school to school, watching endless hours of tape. This is their job; this is their profession.”
I guess this would explain why six of the seven picks last year are washouts, as easily predicted by this writer last year at this time. They quite obviously picked on potential last year instead of what was actually there. They're off to the same start this year.
Las Vegas would love these Titans pickers. You could build a town with them.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
The Titans dart-chunkers are at it again.
Chris Johnson? Why pick an injury prone running back when it is not necessary? The Titans recently rid themselves of Chris Brown, a running back who could not stay healthy no matter what. Just show him some grid marks and he gets gimpy.
I realize by looking at past years that what looks like safe picks for teams sometimes turns instead to be disastrous picks. Still, if someone has not proven themselves in college why would you expect them to do so at the pro level? Wouldn't you want to pick someone based on what they have done, not what they might do?
And Vince Young needs some weapons, huh? Sure, let's steer away from the bigger problem. He needs an arsenal to overcome his inefficiencies. So, Titans talent stratego Mike Reinfeldt was asked (in a Tennessean article) if Young had any input regarding the draft:
“Obviously he is concerned with the process and its impacts and he may share his thoughts,” Reinfeldt said. “We listen to those thoughts, but at the same time we have guys that spend their whole lives out in the field going from school to school to school, watching endless hours of tape. This is their job; this is their profession.”
I guess this would explain why six of the seven picks last year are washouts, as easily predicted by this writer last year at this time. They quite obviously picked on potential last year instead of what was actually there. They're off to the same start this year.
Las Vegas would love these Titans pickers. You could build a town with them.
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Friday, April 25, 2008
A Ben Day artist on a lesser palette
by Bryce Martin
Our school newspaper was called the Bulldog Growl. I was somehow voted to assume duties as a class reporter for the Growl and our advisor, Mr. Paul Ferguson, designated me as the ben-day artist for the sheet.
On such occasions that my services were needed, a class runner would find me and I would be excused from whatever classroom I was partaking of knowledge to prepare me for life in the outside world some soon day, and I would join the crew in preparing a new issue. Mr. Ferguson would give me my art kit and tell me what holes he wanted me to fill with illustrations or cartoons. Other than specific details he ordered, such as doing a masthead overhaul, I was free to add my own cartoons or to design illustrations as I saw fit.
The ben-day tools included some small, square plastic plates. They had various sized, raised dot patterns on each. Once I made my drawing, I would decide what areas of it I wanted shaded. It was a technique to simulate the dot patterns used in the printing process for newspapers and magazines. If you looked at a printed photograph or even the artwork in a comic book, you would see it was all composed of tiny dots. The ben-day technique merely simulated that process. I would slide the chosen plate with the preferred dot pattern under the stencil carbon and reach for my burnisher. The burnisher looked like a probing tool a dentist might use. It had a rounded end that I rubbed over the drawing to get the dots to appear where I wanted them. I did the actual drawings with other similar tools.
My artwork was added in holes purposely left to help aid or illustrate a particular news or feature story or, as I mentioned, to fill up space, such as the use of a cartoon. The stories were typed with the ribbon removed so the bare keys could strike the stencil. With a typist doing that and me using my art tools it amounted to "cutting a stencil." I was a staff writer also, but all our typing for the stencil was done by a special typist. We turned our stories in for that typist. It took a special touch because, to offer just one example, if you typed too hard an o would not be an o but a solid circle. After the stencil was ready, someone ran copies from the mimeograph machine and others helped in assembling and stapling together the pages.
This "benday" word was so foreign to me and Mr. Ferguson spoke it so casually. I thought of India ink and of Egyptian words and contexts. After mind groping for clues and quickly exhausting those, I asked Mr. Ferguson what the name of the technique referred to. He said it was named for the man who invented it, a man named Ben Day. I thought he was kidding, of course, though I didn't know why. Some years later, I came to find out that indeed a Benjamin Day and his skill with dot patterns was the single driving force behind a popular new art movement.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
Our school newspaper was called the Bulldog Growl. I was somehow voted to assume duties as a class reporter for the Growl and our advisor, Mr. Paul Ferguson, designated me as the ben-day artist for the sheet.
On such occasions that my services were needed, a class runner would find me and I would be excused from whatever classroom I was partaking of knowledge to prepare me for life in the outside world some soon day, and I would join the crew in preparing a new issue. Mr. Ferguson would give me my art kit and tell me what holes he wanted me to fill with illustrations or cartoons. Other than specific details he ordered, such as doing a masthead overhaul, I was free to add my own cartoons or to design illustrations as I saw fit.
The ben-day tools included some small, square plastic plates. They had various sized, raised dot patterns on each. Once I made my drawing, I would decide what areas of it I wanted shaded. It was a technique to simulate the dot patterns used in the printing process for newspapers and magazines. If you looked at a printed photograph or even the artwork in a comic book, you would see it was all composed of tiny dots. The ben-day technique merely simulated that process. I would slide the chosen plate with the preferred dot pattern under the stencil carbon and reach for my burnisher. The burnisher looked like a probing tool a dentist might use. It had a rounded end that I rubbed over the drawing to get the dots to appear where I wanted them. I did the actual drawings with other similar tools.
My artwork was added in holes purposely left to help aid or illustrate a particular news or feature story or, as I mentioned, to fill up space, such as the use of a cartoon. The stories were typed with the ribbon removed so the bare keys could strike the stencil. With a typist doing that and me using my art tools it amounted to "cutting a stencil." I was a staff writer also, but all our typing for the stencil was done by a special typist. We turned our stories in for that typist. It took a special touch because, to offer just one example, if you typed too hard an o would not be an o but a solid circle. After the stencil was ready, someone ran copies from the mimeograph machine and others helped in assembling and stapling together the pages.
This "benday" word was so foreign to me and Mr. Ferguson spoke it so casually. I thought of India ink and of Egyptian words and contexts. After mind groping for clues and quickly exhausting those, I asked Mr. Ferguson what the name of the technique referred to. He said it was named for the man who invented it, a man named Ben Day. I thought he was kidding, of course, though I didn't know why. Some years later, I came to find out that indeed a Benjamin Day and his skill with dot patterns was the single driving force behind a popular new art movement.
-30-
Saturday, April 19, 2008
News Flash: Catholics Still Facing Sex Abuse
by Bryce Martin
A headline worth examining:
Pope Prays for Healing in Sex Abuse Scandal
The current visit by the current pope has brought the expected. But to refer to the years and years of sexual predator priests plying their lewd and cruel vices on young boys as the "sex abuse scandal" is grossly misleading. The term connotes an actual event took place and we are now moving beyond it.
Does anyone actually think it's over? The causes and conveniences that created the situations are still in place. All that's changed is that the perpetrators know now to be more careful in not getting caught and catholic officials are now better armed in ways of concealing and covering up such offenses. The situation is worse now than ever for rising victims.
As crimes go, this case is long from being closed.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
A headline worth examining:
Pope Prays for Healing in Sex Abuse Scandal
The current visit by the current pope has brought the expected. But to refer to the years and years of sexual predator priests plying their lewd and cruel vices on young boys as the "sex abuse scandal" is grossly misleading. The term connotes an actual event took place and we are now moving beyond it.
Does anyone actually think it's over? The causes and conveniences that created the situations are still in place. All that's changed is that the perpetrators know now to be more careful in not getting caught and catholic officials are now better armed in ways of concealing and covering up such offenses. The situation is worse now than ever for rising victims.
As crimes go, this case is long from being closed.
-30-
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Steve McNair easily not a hall of famer
by Bryce Martin
I have nothing against Steve McNair, although as a Titans fan I was always painfully aware of his production numbers and embarrassed by them in comparison to other, better quarterbacks.
The Sports Zone, 104.5 radio in Nashville, brought up the question today on the wave of McNair's announced retirement. I understand such questions are the topic of call-in radio sports shows.
This particular item shouldn't be on that topic list. McNair is not even on the table for discussion on whether he is a future NFL Hall of Fame candidate. Of course he's not. Two recent Titans retirees, Frank Wycheck and Eddie George, both borderline, make for a much better and legitimate debate.
I know of at least 18 or 20 quarterbacks with better numbers who will never make the hall. Simple. Like McNair, they don't have the numbers.
Those who bring up talk of Super Bowls are showing their ignorance on such matters. Sure, how you rate on such things as major awards among your peers, and post-season contributions, can play a factor in assessing a career, but that counts in instances where regular season totals are a little light and need some extra weight to ballast a career.
McNair's best season would rank as Peyton Manning's worst. Look it up. An unfair comparison, I realize, but still embarrassing.
It is not just my opinion that McNair is not a hall of famer. It's plain to see, and it's not a topic that should just now be coming to light. Any real sports fan, especially one who follows a certain team such as the Titans, ought to already know such things.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
I have nothing against Steve McNair, although as a Titans fan I was always painfully aware of his production numbers and embarrassed by them in comparison to other, better quarterbacks.
The Sports Zone, 104.5 radio in Nashville, brought up the question today on the wave of McNair's announced retirement. I understand such questions are the topic of call-in radio sports shows.
This particular item shouldn't be on that topic list. McNair is not even on the table for discussion on whether he is a future NFL Hall of Fame candidate. Of course he's not. Two recent Titans retirees, Frank Wycheck and Eddie George, both borderline, make for a much better and legitimate debate.
I know of at least 18 or 20 quarterbacks with better numbers who will never make the hall. Simple. Like McNair, they don't have the numbers.
Those who bring up talk of Super Bowls are showing their ignorance on such matters. Sure, how you rate on such things as major awards among your peers, and post-season contributions, can play a factor in assessing a career, but that counts in instances where regular season totals are a little light and need some extra weight to ballast a career.
McNair's best season would rank as Peyton Manning's worst. Look it up. An unfair comparison, I realize, but still embarrassing.
It is not just my opinion that McNair is not a hall of famer. It's plain to see, and it's not a topic that should just now be coming to light. Any real sports fan, especially one who follows a certain team such as the Titans, ought to already know such things.
-30-
C'est Magnifique Bardot
by Bryce Martin
Some recent Yahoo headlines have done their intended job in getting a reaction.
Brigitte Bardot May Go To Prison For Anti-Muslim Remarks
In France, where the government holds up its hands in surrender to anything I guess you can expect this.
If you can't say something bad about Muslims, who can you say something bad about?
Please don't tell me that most Muslims are good people and not like the ones who consider all non-Muslims as infidels who need their throats slit. I don't hear this so-called majority speaking out against their brethren.
France. What a joke. Here's a country that for the past 30 years or so has fought to keep American culture out of its society (not necessarily a bad idea) and only recently was complaining about our slang words creeping into their vocabularies. But, it's fine if Muslims want to come in and take over their country (which is obviously happening) and erase all its past and traditions for a new Franceistan.
Some Gays Having Trouble Getting a Divorce
They're not married. Think that could be the problem?
-30-
by Bryce Martin
Some recent Yahoo headlines have done their intended job in getting a reaction.
Brigitte Bardot May Go To Prison For Anti-Muslim Remarks
In France, where the government holds up its hands in surrender to anything I guess you can expect this.
If you can't say something bad about Muslims, who can you say something bad about?
Please don't tell me that most Muslims are good people and not like the ones who consider all non-Muslims as infidels who need their throats slit. I don't hear this so-called majority speaking out against their brethren.
France. What a joke. Here's a country that for the past 30 years or so has fought to keep American culture out of its society (not necessarily a bad idea) and only recently was complaining about our slang words creeping into their vocabularies. But, it's fine if Muslims want to come in and take over their country (which is obviously happening) and erase all its past and traditions for a new Franceistan.
Some Gays Having Trouble Getting a Divorce
They're not married. Think that could be the problem?
-30-
Friday, April 11, 2008
Yes, wars are costly
by Bryce Martin
I love these national wire stories, comments and emails from people on how much the war in Iraq is costing, and hinting in saying so how we just need to pull our tent as if the money could be better spent elsewhere. It could, but it never is and so why would this be any different?
If we had never went to Iraq, no single American would have one single penny gained from us not going. And don't say, yeah, but we could have made better use of it. We could have, yes, but (see above) since when has our federal government taken that stance? Whatever amount of money is spent through waste and corruption would not begin to equal what has been spent in Iraq. It's clear that no one elected to any of our higher offices will stop the moneygrabbers and wastrels.
I don't understand completely why these people don't just come out and say they are democrats and against anything republican.
Wars cost money. It's a known fact. So, what's your point?
...
by Bryce Martin
I love these national wire stories, comments and emails from people on how much the war in Iraq is costing, and hinting in saying so how we just need to pull our tent as if the money could be better spent elsewhere. It could, but it never is and so why would this be any different?
If we had never went to Iraq, no single American would have one single penny gained from us not going. And don't say, yeah, but we could have made better use of it. We could have, yes, but (see above) since when has our federal government taken that stance? Whatever amount of money is spent through waste and corruption would not begin to equal what has been spent in Iraq. It's clear that no one elected to any of our higher offices will stop the moneygrabbers and wastrels.
I don't understand completely why these people don't just come out and say they are democrats and against anything republican.
Wars cost money. It's a known fact. So, what's your point?
...
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Remembering Music Row's Argyle Bell
by Bryce Martin
Argyle Bell (1951-2001)
Argyle made me feel welcome without ever actually welcoming me. I thought of him as being a Yankee by his looks and the fact I think he told me he was from Boston. Maybe even from New York or Jersey, what with the Ramones hair and clothes.
He always seemed in a hurry, as if he was only where he was because he was running late to his real destination. He was like a marathon runner speaking to observers on the sidelines as he trudged on.
I came to Nashville in 1987 and soon after was writer and editor for a Music Row publication called Independent Record Magazine and later called Nashville Inquirer. Argyle liked the fact I had came from Bakersfield, Calif., and that I could tell him things I knew about Clarence White and about Gary Paxton regarding recording ventures in Bakersfield. He mentioned how much he cherished a picture he had of himself with Buck Owens.
I would see Argyle walking the Music Row area much the way did a long and gangly Zac Meadows. Each of them picked up copy, delivered copy, and ran errands in connection with various small publications they were associated with. Argyle was a hustler, but in the old meaning of someone not afraid to wear out some shoe leather to earn a respectable living.
I drank way too much and was, in fact, a common drunk. Argyle once told me when we met on a sidewalk, "Bryce, you drink too much," and walked on. He wasn't walking away because I had consumed too much Schaefer. He was always walking away. The fact he would always remember my name made me feel good. And I knew he really meant that I did drink too much and was concerned for me, though he didn't know me well enough that it should matter to him.
Once, at the Third Coast bar, I saw him walking across an upstairs level. "Oh, he lives up there," another bar sitter said. I thought that was the neatest thing, living right here on Music Row in the middle of such a show. I didn't even know the place had rented rooms, or even that it had an upstairs area. At the Third Coast, he gave me a flyer about a show he was planning involving mainly Clarence White and The Byrds. I thought it a great idea but a bust commercially. I mean you have to hit the public over the head to get their attention and most had no idea who White was or knew much about The Byrds. This wasn't his first year putting it on he would have me to know. Sometimes I rummage through old boxes to see if I still have that old flyer. I haven't found it yet.
The last time I saw Argyle was when I was in a line in Hillsboro Village to go inside the Belcourt regarding an audition for a movie due for shooting in Nashville at the old prison. I had moved from Music Row years before. I saw Argyle, the same old Argyle, the hair, the slim-legged black pants from the 60s, bustling along like in the old days. I didn't want to lose my place in line, or holler out, so I just watched as he turned a corner and disappeared. Not long after, he was gone. I wish now I had left my place and joined him for a while. We could have talked on the run, as in days of old. I bet he would have still remembered my name. "Take care, Bryce," he would have said as we parted paths.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
Argyle Bell (1951-2001)
Argyle made me feel welcome without ever actually welcoming me. I thought of him as being a Yankee by his looks and the fact I think he told me he was from Boston. Maybe even from New York or Jersey, what with the Ramones hair and clothes.
He always seemed in a hurry, as if he was only where he was because he was running late to his real destination. He was like a marathon runner speaking to observers on the sidelines as he trudged on.
I came to Nashville in 1987 and soon after was writer and editor for a Music Row publication called Independent Record Magazine and later called Nashville Inquirer. Argyle liked the fact I had came from Bakersfield, Calif., and that I could tell him things I knew about Clarence White and about Gary Paxton regarding recording ventures in Bakersfield. He mentioned how much he cherished a picture he had of himself with Buck Owens.
I would see Argyle walking the Music Row area much the way did a long and gangly Zac Meadows. Each of them picked up copy, delivered copy, and ran errands in connection with various small publications they were associated with. Argyle was a hustler, but in the old meaning of someone not afraid to wear out some shoe leather to earn a respectable living.
I drank way too much and was, in fact, a common drunk. Argyle once told me when we met on a sidewalk, "Bryce, you drink too much," and walked on. He wasn't walking away because I had consumed too much Schaefer. He was always walking away. The fact he would always remember my name made me feel good. And I knew he really meant that I did drink too much and was concerned for me, though he didn't know me well enough that it should matter to him.
Once, at the Third Coast bar, I saw him walking across an upstairs level. "Oh, he lives up there," another bar sitter said. I thought that was the neatest thing, living right here on Music Row in the middle of such a show. I didn't even know the place had rented rooms, or even that it had an upstairs area. At the Third Coast, he gave me a flyer about a show he was planning involving mainly Clarence White and The Byrds. I thought it a great idea but a bust commercially. I mean you have to hit the public over the head to get their attention and most had no idea who White was or knew much about The Byrds. This wasn't his first year putting it on he would have me to know. Sometimes I rummage through old boxes to see if I still have that old flyer. I haven't found it yet.
The last time I saw Argyle was when I was in a line in Hillsboro Village to go inside the Belcourt regarding an audition for a movie due for shooting in Nashville at the old prison. I had moved from Music Row years before. I saw Argyle, the same old Argyle, the hair, the slim-legged black pants from the 60s, bustling along like in the old days. I didn't want to lose my place in line, or holler out, so I just watched as he turned a corner and disappeared. Not long after, he was gone. I wish now I had left my place and joined him for a while. We could have talked on the run, as in days of old. I bet he would have still remembered my name. "Take care, Bryce," he would have said as we parted paths.
-30-
Friday, March 21, 2008
Some memories stick like gum on a hot sidewalk, or:
Random ruminations while wondering whatever happened to Wonderful Monds
by Bryce Martin
Some baseball anecdotes and oddities stick with you over the years like gum on a hot sidewalk. Here are some of my favorites:
Hall of Fame knuckleball pitcher Hoyt Wilhelm debuted at age 28 with the New York Giants in 1952. He hit a home run in his first at bat, and a triple his second time at the plate. In a fluttery career spanning 21 years and 432 total at bats, Wilhelm never homered or tripled again.
While warming up in the bullpen, then-Dodgers pitcher Jim Brewer was the target of a heckler.
"Hey, Brewer, why don't you go back to the copper mines in Oklahoma."
Brewer, not looking where the words came from, responded, "They don't mine copper in Oklahoma."
The sucker bit. "What do they mine?"
Said Brewer, "They mine their own business."
Outfielder Mickey Rivers was talking bad about his former teammate Reggie Jackson to a reporter. Informed that Jackson had a reputed IQ of 160, Rivers asked, "Out of what, a thousand?"
Identify this mystery voice: "What's the static's on this boy, Pee Wee?"
Credit sportscaster Red Barber with this one: "Baseball is only dull to dull minds."
A wooden baseball bat is likely to break if held in any rotation other than where, when held straight out, you can read the trademark. That is why you used to always see hitters slightly rotating the bat and adjusting their grip at the dish. "You've got your trademark turned down," a catcher jostled Hank Aaron. "I didn't come here to read," Aaron shot back.
While pitching for the Texas Rangers, Don Durham told me Manager Billy Martin requested he hit a player. Not unusual, except it was the runner at second base he wanted Durham to plunk.
Pitcher Don Dennis was the first (and maybe only) player to ever hit a baseball to the roof of the Houston Astrodome, a distance of -- if memory serves -- 160 feet. He did it with a fungo bat in pre-game warm-ups.
Credit outfielder Glenn Burke with introducing the "high five" to the annals of sports history. It was less than monumental when he slapped palms with Dodgers teammate Dusty Baker in 1977 after Baker homered, but it is now part of the ritual.
Voice: Dizzy Dean asking TV-boothmate Pee Wee Reese to give him some statistics.
By Bryce Martin
First Published: 8/22/2002
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Wednesday, March 12, 2008
VP Search for McCain No Problemito
by Bryce Martin
I read (as in "reed" and not "red") where so-called GOP presidential candidate John McCain is mulling over a choice for running mate. Any possible vice-president pick would have to share his views, he said.
Okay, how about the obvious choice, Ted Kennedy?
If you're in for a dime, you're in for a dollar.
Or, to coin a new phrase, if you're in with slime, wallow in slime.
...
by Bryce Martin
I read (as in "reed" and not "red") where so-called GOP presidential candidate John McCain is mulling over a choice for running mate. Any possible vice-president pick would have to share his views, he said.
Okay, how about the obvious choice, Ted Kennedy?
If you're in for a dime, you're in for a dollar.
Or, to coin a new phrase, if you're in with slime, wallow in slime.
...
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
The movie "Semi-Pro" is wrong from the git-go
by Bryce Martin
Listen, I realize Will Farrell is no great actor. He can hide behind that lack of distinction by being known as a comedian. His greatest acting job thus far was when he convinced thousands of NASCAR fans he was laughing with them and not at them. Well, maybe that didn't take all that much skill. After all, they are NASCAR fans.
I won't be seeing Farrell's new movie, Semi-Pro, but it has struck a nerve nonetheless.
I can see now how Farrell is able to play the clueless bumpkin over and over in one disposable movie after another. Just take any one of his movies, once you've bought and viewed it, and plunk it in a sink of warm water and it will dissolve before your eyes like a foam dinner plate. The reason why Farrell is so good at being permanently OTL is because he apparently is. I've seen the mini-interviews where he touts Semi-Pro as being authentic in detail and a sort of time capsule of the era captured on celluloid.
What hogwash. The most un-authentic part about the movie is its title. It's a movie about the old American Basketball Association (ABA), which was a professional league and not a semi-pro league. That's not just my opinion, it's a fact. It's not even up for debate.
For years I have battled Average Joes who refer to players on minor league baseball teams as "semi-pros." Even some old-timers I read about who actually played professional minor league baseball back in the, say, the 1950s, refer to that experience wrongly as "semi-pro." It's not just minor league baseball of course, it's about any professional minor league team or player. Mr. AJ (Average Joe) thinks anything less than major league is semi-pro, which is just not true and is highly inaccurate and a slam against those who were and are pros and not semi-pros.
The guy who pitches for a fast-pitch softball team on weekends and who gets gas, meal and motel money for weekend out of town tournaments is a semi-pro.
It's a battle I will never win, educating the American public. Especially now that Will Farrell has set me back another 10 years or so.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
Listen, I realize Will Farrell is no great actor. He can hide behind that lack of distinction by being known as a comedian. His greatest acting job thus far was when he convinced thousands of NASCAR fans he was laughing with them and not at them. Well, maybe that didn't take all that much skill. After all, they are NASCAR fans.
I won't be seeing Farrell's new movie, Semi-Pro, but it has struck a nerve nonetheless.
I can see now how Farrell is able to play the clueless bumpkin over and over in one disposable movie after another. Just take any one of his movies, once you've bought and viewed it, and plunk it in a sink of warm water and it will dissolve before your eyes like a foam dinner plate. The reason why Farrell is so good at being permanently OTL is because he apparently is. I've seen the mini-interviews where he touts Semi-Pro as being authentic in detail and a sort of time capsule of the era captured on celluloid.
What hogwash. The most un-authentic part about the movie is its title. It's a movie about the old American Basketball Association (ABA), which was a professional league and not a semi-pro league. That's not just my opinion, it's a fact. It's not even up for debate.
For years I have battled Average Joes who refer to players on minor league baseball teams as "semi-pros." Even some old-timers I read about who actually played professional minor league baseball back in the, say, the 1950s, refer to that experience wrongly as "semi-pro." It's not just minor league baseball of course, it's about any professional minor league team or player. Mr. AJ (Average Joe) thinks anything less than major league is semi-pro, which is just not true and is highly inaccurate and a slam against those who were and are pros and not semi-pros.
The guy who pitches for a fast-pitch softball team on weekends and who gets gas, meal and motel money for weekend out of town tournaments is a semi-pro.
It's a battle I will never win, educating the American public. Especially now that Will Farrell has set me back another 10 years or so.
-30-
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
When "gospel rock" was an oxymoron
by Bryce Martin
It's the Devil's music with the Lord's chorus serving as counterpoint.
That might be my definition for the music genre known as "Christian rock" or "gospel rock." It, to me, is still an odd combination of words and an even more odd genre of music. When I first heard the term, I was stymied. Surely, it was an oxymoron, in the vein of "dry ice" and "jumbo shrimp," or everybody's favorite, "military intelligence." Rock 'n' roll was the Devil's music, birthed, bought and paid for in the 1950s, so why kowtow to it? Why humor it? Dismiss it outright and be gone with it.
In a recent newspaper filler, I read that the man who invented the genre had moved on to that rockin' band of angels in the sky, presumably. I imagine that history will little note nor long remember Larry Norman ("Christian rock pioneer Larry Norman dies at 60"; Tennessean; February 27, 2008). Norman, as noted in the small article, was inducted into the Gospel Hall of Fame in 2001. But it was his 1969 album Upon This Rock that introduced the concept of Christian rock and the act that prompted his title as "father of Christian rock."
Christian-themed lyrics to Chuck Berry chords or a Bo Diddley beat.
Even a casual historian on the subject of rock 'n' roll music knows the genre owes a kinship to blues and gospel music. Some oldtime gospel songs even long before Elvis rocked in a way that Elvis was to rock later on. Elvis, in fact, received much of his music tutelage as a young churchgoer.
It gave me goosebumps to hear hundreds of combat boots stomping in an unrehearsed, completely inspired unison/cadence in my place of order in the balcony of a large chapel while our godforsaken pitiful selves sang "Onward Christian Soldiers" each Sunday in U.S. Marine Corps boot camp in San Diego in 1964.
The sound was there then -- and had been around for who knows how long -- many of us just didn't know it.
-30-
by Bryce Martin
It's the Devil's music with the Lord's chorus serving as counterpoint.
That might be my definition for the music genre known as "Christian rock" or "gospel rock." It, to me, is still an odd combination of words and an even more odd genre of music. When I first heard the term, I was stymied. Surely, it was an oxymoron, in the vein of "dry ice" and "jumbo shrimp," or everybody's favorite, "military intelligence." Rock 'n' roll was the Devil's music, birthed, bought and paid for in the 1950s, so why kowtow to it? Why humor it? Dismiss it outright and be gone with it.
In a recent newspaper filler, I read that the man who invented the genre had moved on to that rockin' band of angels in the sky, presumably. I imagine that history will little note nor long remember Larry Norman ("Christian rock pioneer Larry Norman dies at 60"; Tennessean; February 27, 2008). Norman, as noted in the small article, was inducted into the Gospel Hall of Fame in 2001. But it was his 1969 album Upon This Rock that introduced the concept of Christian rock and the act that prompted his title as "father of Christian rock."
Christian-themed lyrics to Chuck Berry chords or a Bo Diddley beat.
Even a casual historian on the subject of rock 'n' roll music knows the genre owes a kinship to blues and gospel music. Some oldtime gospel songs even long before Elvis rocked in a way that Elvis was to rock later on. Elvis, in fact, received much of his music tutelage as a young churchgoer.
It gave me goosebumps to hear hundreds of combat boots stomping in an unrehearsed, completely inspired unison/cadence in my place of order in the balcony of a large chapel while our godforsaken pitiful selves sang "Onward Christian Soldiers" each Sunday in U.S. Marine Corps boot camp in San Diego in 1964.
The sound was there then -- and had been around for who knows how long -- many of us just didn't know it.
-30-
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Suicide Bombers dumber than dumb
by Bryce Martin
Now we find out that the Feb. 1 market bombings in Iraq carried out by women suicide dingdongs were females who did not have Down syndrome as originally reported, that they were not women with that disability who killed innocent people and themselves in the name of their religion.
I suspected as much. People I have known with Down syndrome were smarter than that.
...
Turnip Truck Talk
I was amused when Oprah Winfrey seemed shocked that many weeks after she endorsed Barack Omama she couldn't believe people felt she did it because he was black. Imagine that. Blacks vote for democrats (read liberals) at a 90+rate. (No bloc of voters would vote that high a percentage on the sun rising in the east each morning in the U.S. of A.). Plus, Omama is a strict liberal, with nothing new on the same old liberal agenda we haven't heard for years. It's not like she can say she offered her support because he is a fresh voice.
...
The Real George
"Since pacifists have more freedom of action in countries where traces of democracy survive, pacifism can act more effectively against democracy than for it. Objectively the pacifist is pro-Nazi."
George Orwell, October 1941
...
by Bryce Martin
Now we find out that the Feb. 1 market bombings in Iraq carried out by women suicide dingdongs were females who did not have Down syndrome as originally reported, that they were not women with that disability who killed innocent people and themselves in the name of their religion.
I suspected as much. People I have known with Down syndrome were smarter than that.
...
Turnip Truck Talk
I was amused when Oprah Winfrey seemed shocked that many weeks after she endorsed Barack Omama she couldn't believe people felt she did it because he was black. Imagine that. Blacks vote for democrats (read liberals) at a 90+rate. (No bloc of voters would vote that high a percentage on the sun rising in the east each morning in the U.S. of A.). Plus, Omama is a strict liberal, with nothing new on the same old liberal agenda we haven't heard for years. It's not like she can say she offered her support because he is a fresh voice.
...
The Real George
"Since pacifists have more freedom of action in countries where traces of democracy survive, pacifism can act more effectively against democracy than for it. Objectively the pacifist is pro-Nazi."
George Orwell, October 1941
...
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Favorite Recordings
Take Five
Dave Brubeck Quartet
1961
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Gene Pitney
1962
Soulful Strut
Young-Holt Unlimited
1968
The Poor People of Paris
Les Baxter
1956
Cherry Bomb
John Mellencamp
1987
Hot Rod Hearts
Robbie Dupree
1981
Blinded by the Light
Manfred Mann
1977
Pancho & Lefty
Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard
1983
Somethin' Else
Eddie Cochran
1959
I Love L.A.
Randy Newman
1983
In the Mood
Ernie Fields
1959
Tusk
Fleetwood Mac
1979
For a Few Dollars More
Ennio Morricone
1967
A Whiter Shade of Pale
Procol Harum
1967
Topsy II
Cozy Cole
1958
Roll Truck Roll
Red Simpson
1966
Tequila
The Champs
1958
Made in Japan
Buck Owens
1972
Slow Motion
Wade Flemons
1959
Pretty Baby
Jimmy Thurman
1959
Sugar Town
Nancy Sinatra
1967
Patricia
Perez Prado
1958
-30-
Take Five
Dave Brubeck Quartet
1961
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Gene Pitney
1962
Soulful Strut
Young-Holt Unlimited
1968
The Poor People of Paris
Les Baxter
1956
Cherry Bomb
John Mellencamp
1987
Hot Rod Hearts
Robbie Dupree
1981
Blinded by the Light
Manfred Mann
1977
Pancho & Lefty
Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard
1983
Somethin' Else
Eddie Cochran
1959
I Love L.A.
Randy Newman
1983
In the Mood
Ernie Fields
1959
Tusk
Fleetwood Mac
1979
For a Few Dollars More
Ennio Morricone
1967
A Whiter Shade of Pale
Procol Harum
1967
Topsy II
Cozy Cole
1958
Roll Truck Roll
Red Simpson
1966
Tequila
The Champs
1958
Made in Japan
Buck Owens
1972
Slow Motion
Wade Flemons
1959
Pretty Baby
Jimmy Thurman
1959
Sugar Town
Nancy Sinatra
1967
Patricia
Perez Prado
1958
-30-