The Northward Contrail

41 years ago

I didn't get to add this link yesterday, when I would have liked to, but: My friend Professor Mondo posted this wonderful essay yesterday, looking back at a night 41 years ago.  Nerd Girl says check it out.

Sound and fury, accomplishing nothing

The other day something popped up in one of the online forums hubby reads.  I used to read this one, but got too annoyed by some of the shenanigans and pretty much don't go there any longer.  At any rate, something came up about a story I'm very familiar with, an older one.  There was already a long string of discussion about it, all generating very little light, some of it speculation and some of it wishful thinking.  And, as happens with a lot of these things, the actual sequence of events varied from the posted accounts.

I knew otherwise.  But I had to have this argument with myself once again: Do I get involved?  Or do I leave them to their own little world?  Part of me didn't want to descend back into something I thought I'd washed my hands of long ago.  But the part of me that wanted a piece of it ended up winning, and I posted what I knew.  Part of me was relieved to get it out.  And part of me was miffed that I couldn't leave it be.

I've been online long enough, participated in enough forums, left enough forums, and had my knees scraped in online discussions enough to know what it can be like.  I'm not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, and I'll readily admit that.  On the other hand, I tend not to post things unless I'm pretty confident of it and can back it up if need be.  (It must have something to do with that journalistic training and a really good education.) 

Of course, it's the online world, and that can all go out the window.  I find it interesting that you can devote decades of your life to the study of a specialty and share it willingly and openly with all who ask.  And yet you can be drowned out by somebody who comes along out of nowhere who sounds slick or makes wisecracks or is generally splashy, but whose batting average is considerably lower.  After six months of it, who's seen as the expert?  No wonder the old hands have had the tendency to do like Will Munny: move away, open the dry goods store, and put all that nastiness behind you.

With that and the antisocial behavior, the gratuitous off-topic political content, the departure of a lot of people I'd seen as bright lights in the field, the increasing inability or reluctance of moderators to keep things on the rails, and with me just realizing there's a lot more to life than what happens on the flat screen, I've pretty much washed my hands of a lot of it.  Sure, I spend a lot of time at the computer while I'm at work, but it's on specific tasks.  I'll spend a little time posting one-liners on Facebook, and I'll compose my rather pointless ramblings on here, but as for online participation...not really.  I don't like the signal:noise ratio, I don't like being yelled at, and I know that online discussions and arguments change absolutely nothing in the real world.

I lost the battle with myself the other day.  I just hope I can move on from it.  There are other things to do in life than sit at a computer all day and argue with other people, accomplishing absolutely nothing other than angryin' up the blood.  Life's more interesting than what's online, anyway.

A link for today

Busy with other things today, trying to get some things done and what all.  So instead, I'll refer you to the blog of Pat Hawkey, who is a professional plastic modeler.  (If you've read the dominant modeling magazines over the last couple decades, you know the name.)  Interesting and insightful reading, and a glimpse into one man's creative process. 

For Ernie Harwell

You may know by now that longtime baseball broadcaster Ernie Harwell passed away yesterday.  In his memory, here's a link to his essay, "The Game for All America," and it beautifully captures what baseball is, at its best.

Ain't that weird?

One of the big influences on my sense of humor was "Brother Dave" Gardner.  I think I've talked about him before on here.  My parents had his first four ablums he did for RCA Victor, and my brother and I listened to them a lot growing up.  (And I mean a lot.)  I can still tell many of his stories word for word.  It's a little weird hearing this far-out stuff coming from a hep-talkin' Southern cat, but, man, it influenced me like crazy, not only in my philosophies of life but also in my sense of humor.

Back then, I didn't know much about him.  He seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth after the early 1960s.  Some time in the early 1980s, a local newspaper ran a wire story showing a picture of Brother Dave, smiling, sitting in a hospital room after a brush with death, talking about his poor health and trying to get out of debt.  Not long after, he died.  One day, we discovered his 1975 "New Comedy Album" in a used book store, and listening to it was sort of a jolt; you could recognize flashes of the old Dave, but there was something worn-down and a little bitter about it.  (Years later, I came across Larry L. King's Harper's essay "Whatever Happened To Brother Dave?" -- it used to be online in full but isn't any more, but it's worth seeking out regardless -- and a lot of blank spots got filled in.)  Even with what I know about Brother Dave now, and what became of him, I still love him and I'm still interested in him.  There's been rumors that a biography will be written, and I hope that happens.  

Anyway, while Brother Dave is remembered as a comedian, he was also a singer and musician, and that's the point of today's discourse.  The ever-useful WFMU blog featured this post a few years back I recently discovered, with some recordings from Brother Dave's 45s.  By far, my favorite is his minor hit "White Silver Sands."  He performed a version on one of his comedy ablums, but the 45 version is so much fun.  Give it a listen and see if it doesn't make you smile.

Motorsports fun

Today's post is very simple: if you like television coverage of racing from back in the day, go here.  Plenty of stuff from the late 1970s through the 1990s.  The real treasure for me is all the IMSA stuff.  Go there, now.  (Although I'm a little sad it doesn't include the very memorable interview during the 1983 24-hour Daytona race when Bob Wollek made his feelings known, very colorfully, about his new, unexpected co-driver.)

Whoops

I love finding clips of when things go wrong in broadcasting.  (Maybe because I've been there/done that too.)  It's always interesting to find out how the voices and faces handle it when things go wrong.

One of the funniest, and creepiest, "whoops!" moments I've found is this, from a night in 1978 when part of a miniseries was shown out of sequence.  (I say "creepy" because it always scared me as a kid when a program was interrupted like that.)  Notice how Howard Reig handles the explanation, too.  This particular "oops" is a minor legend.

Then there's beloved Uncle Bob Schieffer having an "oops" moment, and hilarity ensues.  Notice, too, how Bill Gilliand does the time check with a bit of a smile in his voice.  (By the way, have you noticed that since the demise of the staff announcer, the world just isn't quite right any more?)

Of course, hands-down, this is my all-time favorite, as I've said on here before.  I would only hope that if something similar ever happened to me, I'd handle it with that kind of cool wit.

Enjoy.

Obscurity quest!

It seems I'm not happy unless I'm hunting down some trifle that 99% of the rest of the world would never give a second thought to.  But fleeting ephemera?  That's my forte.  Be it a commercial no one else remembers, or a funny sound effect, or a piece of incidental music that's stuck in my brain, or the name of some bit player or announcer whose face or voice keeps popping up, I'm not happy unless I'm trying to get that information or find out more.

A recent episode is a case in point, and perhaps says more about me than I'd like to admit.  Ever since I found this clip several months ago, I've been haunted by that music.  I remember it.  I remember when CBS used to close special sports broadcasts with it, that sort of vaguely melancholy coda.  The hunt was on.  I downloaded the video, listened to it over and over, all that sort of thing.  A few months later, I found out it was something by Dave Grusin called "Rising Star," a theme from the film The Electric Horseman.  For many years it was a somewhat popular piece of background music for various purposes on television and radio.  I'd never seen the movie, so I didn't know that's where it came from, but at least the riddle was solved.

So now all I needed to do was get a copy of The Electric Horseman soundtrack.  Easy enough, right?  Not quite.  Seems the CD is long out of print and commands a fortune when it does turn up.  No way I was paying that for one song.  On the other hand, the LP is plentiful and inexpensive.  One visit to a website and a couple of clicks later, and the LP was on its way.

The ablum arrived last week, and I took it to our turntable and gave it a listen.  Something sounded strange, though.  It sounded more stately than I recalled.  I was going to digitize it, anyway, so I fired up Audacity and made a digital recording from the turntable. 

Then the wheels turned in my head.  In Audacity, I sped the recording up about 8% or 10% and listened.  Yep, that was it.  So now I have two versions of "Rising Star" in my iTunes collection: the "as issued" version, and the "1983 Talladega 500 closing credits" version.  

Sometimes I get the feeling that my life is some social scientist's case study grant proposal waiting to happen.  (And Heaven help me if I ever find out there's a good, in-the-clear recording out there of the theme music from the CBS Apollo 11 coverage.)

On anticipation

The last couple weeks, I've been thinking about the big events in my life.  There have been quite a few.  Some of them are big, obvious ones: graduations, milestone birthdays that bring new privileges, first job, so on.  Others are more deeply personal.  Almost all have come with an amount of anticipation.  Some really built up, and I got excited and even a little impatient for them to come. 

Then, the big event happens.  And, often, you find yourself reacting one of two ways.  One is some variant of "Is that all there is?"  Or, "Well, it's all over.  What next?" accompanied by a sort of emptiness.

There's a strange sweetness in anticipation (or, sometimes, a rich, tomatoey goodness).  You're waiting for something.  If you're smart about it, you're aware that disappointment could come into play, but most of your mind is on the good stuff that's likely to happen.  You don't have it yet, though.  So the fantasies and dreams are still alive.  There's no reality there to it yet.  Why, anything could happen!  Since it hasn't happened, it could potentially be the greatest thing ever!  You have these pictures in your mind of how it's going to be, the fun you'll have, the things you'll feel and do. 

And then, it really happens.  The dreams give way to reality, and you find that what you get often has its little surprises.  I remember, for instance, the night of my high school graduation.  It was this day I'd worked towards for 12 years...and there it was.  It wasn't necessarily this great, powerful moment.  It was me, sweltering in the same cheap, tacky souvenir gown everyone else was wearing, in a huge auditorium during an early June heat wave.  And then riding back home with my parents.  Big deal.  It sure wasn't the way I'd imagined it.

The most compelling stories are of people who have struggled to make it: the underdogs, the people seeking love, the budding romances that are blocked by circumstance.  You feel for them, you pull for them, and there's a sweet ache that goes with how they make you feel.  And then, one day, it all pays off, and there's no more struggle and ache.  It's payoff.  Which, on one hand, is nice.  But, on the other hand, it means that there are no more "what ifs" to think about.  Dreams give way to the gritty realities of life, and suddenly you're thinking about all the things that 99% of the rest of the world are thinking about.  The hunger is satisfied.  You're part of the establishment, at least in that regard.  What next? 

Oddly enough, some of the most wonderful moments in my life have come without anticipation.  They just happened.  My very first hour of flight instruction, for instance, was done as an absolute surprise by a friend of mine.  I think that's part of why that memory is so sweet.  There was no buildup to it.  It came out of the blue.  Same deal with when I fell in love for good: it just happened, in one of those fluky ways life throws at you, and it was that much better.  The moment found me, as often occurs.  And then it was on to other things, few of which had the same significance.

It's weird.  I remember how I was pre-tenure.  I was hungry.  I was uncertain.  I wondered how long I'd get to keep my job, or if the next time the phone rang it would be the dean's office with an order to come upstairs for the last time, to do the paperwork and then be run out of town on a rail.  (They actually do that in academia, in case you didn't know.)  None of that happened, but I remember the hunger and the uncertainty.  Then tenure came.  After that initial blast of shocked gratitude, it all became sort of "meh."  I'm very grateful for what I have, and I don't take it for granted, and I sure don't miss the uncertainty...but it's like I'm a different person now.  I'm part of the establishment here.  I have only one more promotion for which to shoot, and though I have every intent of going for it, it's not like I'll lose my job if I don't get it.  

(Though, the funny part is, since becoming tenured I've probably done some of the best teaching of my life.  Not having to worry about certain things has made me feel free to try new things, to innovate and so on.  I know now that the real standard I have to meet is my own, which is an impossibly high standard to begin with.  So, in a weird way, it's been liberating, and my young hunger has now given way to a more abstract but still intense version of the same: to be the absolute best I can, so I will know I've given it my all.)

Random randomness

Last week was refreshing, but this week I'm back in the salt mine, and it's one of the crazy parts of the year, and things are starting to stack up a little.  So, in lieu of any Really Deep Thoughts today, some random Internet silliness I've enjoyed:

-- Looking for fine dining?  Try Hamm and Buble.

-- Titanic, as re-imagined by a certain entertainment megacorporation.

-- And because there's a place on the Interweb for everything, a website devoted to game show pilot episodes (industry lingo for the "proof-of-concept" shows done for networks or sponsors).