Randomess While Watching the Convention Coverage

Sara's at work, and I'm bored looking around the web, while listening to the convention coverage in the background. Thought I'd throw some random thoughts around..

- Stevie Wonder just played 2 songs. One new one, and one old school one (Sign, Sealed, Delivered). It got me wondering (and please I'm trying to be as tasteful as possible here)..how does he remember the lyrics to his older songs? Now days I know teleprompters are pretty common for bands who have been around awhile (I've seen Dave Matthews, and U2 use them). Obviously Stevie can't use one of these.

- Whenever I hear Stevie Wonder now, the first thing I always think of is the scene from "High Fidelity" where Jack Black asks "Rob, top five musical crimes perpetuated by Stevie Wonder in the '80s and '90s. Go. "

- Super Right Winged Conservative dude, James Dobson begged and pleaded for all his listeners to pray to God for storms to hit the Denver area for tonight, in order to screw up Obama's speech. Well the weather looks pretty nice from what I'm seeing on TV. Meanwhile, next week when the Wackos..er..Republicans have their convention, it looks like a pretty big sized hurricane is going to hit somewhere along the Gulf Coast, which would probably take away some of the publicity. If the hurricane does hit, is it safe to assume that God is an Obama fan too? I mean it has to be some kind of omen, right?

- Obama fills a stadium of 75,000 people with many more wanting to get in. Crazy Old Guy is giving a speech tomorrow in a place with 10,000 to announces his VP choice...and they can't even give the tickets away.

- How does Michael McDonald have a music career? They don't come very more bland than him. Every song sounds the same.

- I was listening to my iPod today at work and a string of songs that were popular when I was in college played one after the other. Whatever happened to bands like The Verve Pipe, Tonic, Better than Ezra, and Toad the Wet Sprocket? Ok, maybe I shouldn't have listed The Verve Pipe. They may have been more a Michigan phenomenon.

- I hate how the news networks get advance copies of the speeches, and then start reading bits and pieces of the speech, and tell us what the speaker is going to say. I think Matthews and Olbermann spoiled the entire speech for everyone watching their show tonight.

Seriously?

So as our country is going to hell in handbasket thanks to the mis-managment of everything W and his cronies have touched, one would think that the least important issue in this country would be the design (yes, its a Faux News...er..Fox "News" article, but who better to link to, in order to show the ridiculousness of it all?) of the set where Barack gives his acceptance speech tonight. Unfortunately when a crazy old man is running for President, and is grasping at straws, you have to come up with something.

I mean seriously, using pillars as a prop is that big of a deal?! Of all the crap going on in this country, the thing you (and your team) have to scream about is the design of a set? If you really do want to go there, maybe you should do a little backchecking before you raise a stink about things.

Case in point - 2004 Republican Convention:





Woops.

I guess someone could point out to the Crazy Old Man that today is the 45th anniversary of MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech, and maybe, just maybe the columns there are as a symbol of the columns that are at the Lincoln Memorial where the speech was given.

Then again, if someone brought that up to him, I'm sure Crazy Old Man would probably say he missed that speech, because he was TV-less, and locked up in a POW camp. Sure the timeline wouldn't fit quite right, but who would call him out on it?

R.I.P. Roi and Randomness

LeRoi Moore, of the Dave Matthews Band died unexpectedly the other day due to complications from an accident on his farm back in June. It was pretty shocking news to me. Anyone who knows anything about me knows how big of a fan of DMB I've been over the years. I used to be able to be talked into going to a show or 49 any time, any place, with little to no notice. While my obssesion of the music has subsided consideribly over the years, I still listened to them on a regular basis, and have always eagerly anticipated their next album, because for the most part I knew it would be something good to listen to. Their first couple of albums were basically the soundtrack of my life for a good 5 to 6 years. I had them on A LOT. If it were possible to wear out a CD, I would have worn out a few. Whenever I listen to some of the albums, I'm immediately taken back to that time period with fond memories.

Roi was one of the quiet guys (if not the quietest) in the band. On stage he just stood off to the right side of the stage, an unassuming figure usually hiding behind his sunglasses. You wouldn't even know that he was there until it was his turn he made his presence known. He was like one of those guys in a group of people who sits in the back kind of taking the scene in, when suddenly he'll speak up and crack a joke that brings the house down, and then everyone wonders who he is, and where did he come from. That was Roi. Some of the best shows I'd ever been to were ones where he completely took them over. Yeah, Dave would be front and center singing, doing his crazy dancing, telling his incoherent stories, but Roi was the one bringing it all home with his sax/flute/penny-whistle playing. After the show was over, Roi would just silently walk off the stage, and no one would notice, because everyone was focused on what Dave was doing, and where Carter was going to throw his drumsticks to.

To me, the day Roi died - DMB died with it. I would say that about anyone of the founding members. Sure the band will go on, and I'll still buy their albums, and go to a show every now and then, but its no longer THE band. I'm sure they'll find a replacement, and that replacement will do fine over time..but it just won't be the same.

To hear Roi in what I think is one of his best performances on an album, check out the song "Lover Lay Down" on the Under the Table and Dreaming Album.

Ok on to random thoughts that have been going through my head lately..

- I really think McCain should be tested for dementia or alzeheimers or something. Actually any one running for President should be evaluated. He doesn't know how many houses he owns? This is a guy who claims that Obama is an elitist, but it turns out he's the one who has at least 7 homes all over the country, many worth over $1 mil, but Obama is the elitist? Then when Obama calls him out on it, his campaign staff says the following "This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years -- in prison," Oh good, he's now throwing around the POW card, like Giuliani threw around the "9/11" card when he was running, and losing, in the primaries. Here's a copy of what the "POW card" looks like by the way:

Yes, its a "Monopoly" like card. Apparently life is just a big game of Monopoly to McCain, with all his houses scattered everywhere and whatnot. I mean when I play the game..the board game that is, I lose track of all the property and houses/hotels that I own from time to time.

- Speaking of McCain and his time in POW camp maybe he should stop referring to that so much. According to his buddies W and Cheney, he wasn't tortured in that camp, and no war crimes were committed against him. All of the techniques used against him (stress positions, beatings, sleep deprivation, etc..) are the same ones that the White House knowingly used on people rounded up in Afganhistan and Iraq, and we all know that none of those people are tortured. They just had "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" used on them. There's a much better article written about this point. I wish someone in the media would bring this up to McCain and see what he says.

- Please note, I don't mean to belittle McCain's time in 'Nam. I wouldn't want to trade places with him for nothing. The fact that he lived, let alone kept his sanity is amazing and he should be commended for that. But the more he goes on using the POW reference to rebut anything anyone says about him, the more it looks like he's using that as a crutch, but it looks more like a joke. If's he not going to be serious about it (which admit it..in the context used about the house situation is absurd) then how does he expect anyone else to take it serious anymore?

- I bought a can of Coke from the machine in the kitchen at work today, and got a Santa can. The first thing I thought was "man, they're starting Christmas earlier and earlier every year". I then saw that it was a Christmas 2007 Santa can, which got me wondering just how safe it was to be drinking it.

- I had my first fantasy football league draft last night. I'm not impressed. I guess that's what I get for not following football as closely as I used to. I don't think I have a shot at winning anyways. The same guy has won our league the last 3 years in a row. He's a well oiled fantasy football machine.

- Rumors of the new U2 CD are heating up. Apparently some songs have leaked onto the internet, because Bono was blasting the CD at one of his beach houses really loudly, and someone passing by recognized it was new U2, so they sat outside and recorded it all. I haven't heard the leaks. I want to wait for the full thing to come out and hear it then. I can't wait.

- UVA students moving back into town this weekend. Trying to get anywhere in town is going to be a nightmare. Its going to look like 3,000 Griswold families driving all over town, raiding the stores of EVERYTHING, and clogging up the roads because they have no idea where they're going. Good times.

- The Tigers season turned out to be a bust. I can't get too down on them..the management went out and got the players they thought they needed to contend. Unfortunately some of the players were a bit washed up. I still like the Cabrera deal, and I'm excited to see him in a Tigers uniform for years to come.

- Aadam has decided to start a blog. Its still in the early development stages, and I think he's still trying to figure out what exactly he wants to do with it. There's a link to it up on the right side of the page, and its tentatively called "Legends of the Silverdome". Check it out when you get a chance.

Some EMU Love

Going through some of my sports blogs earlier today I came across the following picture:


Love the George Gervin reference...an Earl Boykins jersey would have been cooler.