Phil Rollins has been immersed in the University of Louisville hoops tradition for half a century. His playing days predate Freedom Hall.
As a senior in 1956, he starred on Louisville’s team that ruled Madison Square Garden and has been a fixture at Freedom Hall since 1963 after his pro career ended.
He’s red and black to the core. His business card includes a photo of him in his Cardinal uniform and reads “1956 NIT Champs.”
“What I remember is that a lot of people thought Freedom Hall was going to be a white elephant. It’ll never be what they want.
“I was in the service, but made it back for the first game in Freedom Hall. The place was packed. Charlie (Tyra) broke his record. Tommy Hawkins played a great game for Notre Dame.”
U of L contested its first tilt in Freedom Hall on Dec. 21, 1956. By that time, two other games had already been held there: Ed Diddle’s Western Kentucky State College Hilltoppers (later to become WKU) bested San Francisco, 61-57, several days earlier in the official inaugural. Bellarmine played an “exhibition” versus a squad from Fort Knox.
The Cardinals whipped Notre Dame, 85-75, before 13,756 fans in their first bout at the Hall. It was in that game that Tyra, cover boy on the first-ever Street & Smith College Basketball Yearbook, tallied 40, including a perfect 18 for 18 underhanded free throws. Sophomore guard Harold Andrews scored a dozen in his first start. Bill Darragh scored 17.
Darragh, a season ticket holder to this day, remembers that game as well as the Cards’ other two wins at the fairgrounds that season. U of L moved permanently from the Jefferson County Armory (Louisville Gardens) the following season.
“Freedom Hall was big, new and shiny. We liked the Armory, but the locker room was like a furnace room. It was dirty and dingy. Playing at Freedom Hall was exciting…
“In the Christmas tournament we beat St. Louis. It was payback. They’d beaten us earlier in the season. Against Dayton, I missed a shot that would have won in regulation. But it made a good friend happy. He’d bet on us. We won and we were able to cover the spot in overtime.”
It was an auspicious start to what’s been an amazing run in the Hall, given the school’s 680-plus wins against fewer than 150 losses there. This Saturday, that long, successful run will come to a close when the Cards play their final game in Freedom Hall. Next season, the team will move into a new downtown arena, leaving behind a place they’ve called home for more than five decades.
“The Catcher In The Rye” is a resonant novel with staying power, if nothing else.
Of course, there is plenty else. The book has spoken to and for disenchanted youth for decades now, each generation since its initial publication finding voice in the lucid expression of disengagement.
J.D. Salinger went reclusive decades ago. Given his impact, we kept waiting for more. We wait no longer.
His name would come up in conversation now and again. Whether speaking with somebody of my generation, Baby Boomers, or a later one, there would always be a memory.
The more literate would quote. From “Catcher” or “Franny and Zooey.” Or, one of the “Nine Stories.”
More often, those perhaps less conversant in his canon but well aware of Salinger’s importance and impact would simply utter “A Perfect Day For Bananafish.” Whether they had read it, or understood it, or simply knew of it.
Which short story has, besides its wallop, the perfect title, easily remembered.
I read “A Perfect Day For Bananafish” in college. So, when it has been mentioned through the years, I would always nod. Knowingly, of course. Then maybe retort with “Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters,” as if to find some station among the literati.
I reread it this morning. Truth is I had no recollection of what it was about. Though I knew it wasn’t bananafish.
Same thing with “Franny and Zooey.” Which, owing to my lack of perception when in college, never made sense to me. I reread it twenty or so years ago perhaps. Experience allowed me into its world. Though, frankly, all I recall is that it takes place in a train station during a holiday from college. Or, something like that.
And, if that’s wrong, it says more about my memory than J.D. Salinger.
As for “A Perfect Day For Bananafish,” wow. I understand how that might have shaken up the literary world when it appeared in The New Yorker over a half century ago. It is stunning. That Salinger guy sure could write.
I love this sentence, the first in the story’s second paragraph: “She was a girl for who a ringing phone dropped exactly nothing.”
Salinger, as with all great writers, could fashion sentences and phrases to be savored like an exquisite chocolate truffle. Slowly. By itself. Or in context, as if dessert for a fine meal.
Now that he’s gone, the search for the origins of the demons about which Salinger wrote shall accelerate. There shall be more parsing, more conjecture, more . . .
As for me, I intend to read the writing. At a juncture in my life when I might now understand what Salinger is intent to impart. And when I can appreciate the quality of his craft.
As the new year approaches, there seem to be two topics toward which all conversations gravitate.
Actually three. But I have no intention of weighing in on the whole Tiger Woods weltschmerz.
But the other two matters are disconcerting.
One is the extent to how seemingly everybody I know is really looking forward to 2010. To the new decade. This has been a taxing 365 on just about everyone. And it’s not simply the economy, but that has a lot to do with it. While the clock’s tick to 12:01 on 1/01 is an artificial demarcation, it can bring about new attitudes. And hope for better days.
And a lot of folks are ready, really ready.
Issue #2 is the loss of faith in Barack Obama. So many Democrats have turned on the president that the GOP, which was flopping about, looking for some place to land, merely has to sit back smug and smiling and watch.
I am stunned that reasonable, intelligent, perceptive citizens are aghast that not a lot has changed since W was sent out to pasture. I’m not sure what people expected. Obama grew up in Chicago politics. He was a ward healer for heavens’ sakes. His acumen was the ability to compromise, to assess the landscape, find the spots where consensus could be found and to put himself there for the bounty. He’s never walked on water that I know of. At least, there’s no youtube footage.
He is not a messiah. He never held himself out to be a messiah. Yet that mantle was foisted upon him by supporters so disenchanted by what the Bush administration wrought, that they were looking for a Moses to lead them to a promised land. What those who have turned on Obama have forgotten in how bad a situation he faced when taking office.
Yet we are so used to instant gratification these days, that we — or certainly some of we — expected him to immediately right the economy, right the Middle East, right the environment, right everything as soon as he took the oath of office. Like he had a magic wand and could make it all the bad stuff disappear with a wave of his hand.
That’s simply not how things work. Life — politics — is much more complicated than that.
Health care reform is a no brainer. Yet there special interests and politicos and some really stupid people that have gone biblical in their damning of any change whatsoever, or the changes about to be enacted.
I’m not going to talk specifics about that. Or Afghanistan. Or the closing of Guantanamo. Or the bank bailout. Or the unemployment problem. Mostly because I don’t feel I know enough facts to provide any cogent observations. But what I know is that there is a lot to be done to attack all those issues and many others.
I’m glad there’s an intelligent thoughtful listener like Barack Obama who is going to be leading the way.
I understand it’s going to take awhile — a lot longer that it takes Google to find answers — for resolution.
Those who have turned on Obama like spurned lovers need to examine their own beliefs and unrealistic expectations. It is time to give the fellow some slack, to have faith that those traits of his we cherished before he was elected remain. That they will eventually right the ship that still lists because of the Bush administration’s malfeasance.
As for 2010 . . . I’m ready too. This has been a long, strange and stressful year. One to which I shall gladly wish a not so fond adieu.
A calendar hangs on the wall by the four repair bays at Cecil’s Chevron downtown. Notated prominently — in thick black marker — are the dates and starting times of U of L games. Other matters are in regular ink.
Johnny Cecil is a Cardinal fan.
He has season tickets. He goes to away games when possible. He’s paid tuition for his kids to attend the university.
He is invested.
The morning after Charlie Strong’s introduction as Louisville’s new football coach, Cecil was smiling once again.
“I tried to watch the press conference on my computer here,” he said. “Then I listened on the radio. I watched on TV last night.”
Asked his initial impression, Cecil didn’t mince words.
“It’s a home run.
“I like that he’s seasoned,” he continued. “I like that his recruiting strength is in Florida and areas in the South where Louisville needs to be recruiting. I never understood how we’d get kids from out West to come here.”
Then there’s the topic mentioned in nearly every conversation about Strong’s introduction as U of L’s new football coach, the 10 seconds of immediate Cardinal lore known as The Moment.
At the press conference, Strong was speechless and fought back tears when acknowledging his fears that a head coaching position he’s long craved might never have come.
He was surely remembering the jobs he interviewed for but didn’t get despite his résumé. Like Minnesota, where he was interviewed under the guise of being a candidate for a job already filled.
Strong allowed his emotions to take charge. It was a stunning, deeply human moment.
Johnny Cecil was touched: “I could feel it.”
Football, the most popular sport in America, is also the manliest. Fans want their teams aggressive. They want their teams to play mean, to hit hard, to strike fast. They want their coaches strong and assertive.
How ironic then that the instant that has galvanized a fractured Cardinal football fan base was a tender interlude punctuated by tears of joy. Many have mentioned how Strong displayed more emotion in those dozen silent seconds than his mechanical predecessor did in three years.
The consensus from every corner is that Tom Jurich made a great choice. “Maybe a perfect fit,” says Wildcat, his online name notwithstanding, a major U of L pigskin supporter.
But, as Cecil acknowledged, “A new coach is always a crapshoot.”
Strong has never been a head coach. (Not that such a line on one’s résumé assures success, as Cardinal fans well know. Exhibit A: Ron Cooper. Exhibit B: Steve Kragthorpe.)
But Strong has had stellar mentors. Steve Spurrier, Lou Holtz and Urban Meyer all coached national champions. Seth Hancock has been an icon in the thoroughbred industry for decades.
The fellow knows how to coach ’em up on defense. In one BCS title match-up, Strong’s Gator defenders held Ohio State to 82 yards, bashing the favored Buckeyes 41-14. In last year’s title game, Charlie’s charges held Oklahoma, the most prolific offense ever in college football, to 14 points. This season, Florida was top five in four different defensive categories.
Yes, the statistics are there.
He’s coached umpteen All-Americans, even more high NFL draft picks, national defensive players of the year, big-time award winners, etc., etc.
The leadership and defensive coaching talent are there.
Strong knows the big time. Along with Florida, he’s coached at Notre Dame, South Carolina, Ole Miss and Texas A&M. Roaming sidelines around the New Year has become an annual ritual.
Experience is there.
Yet fame and fortune are fickle. Favorable outcomes are never a foregone conclusion. Strong has been left a woefully bare cupboard. The current U of L squad may be earnest, but it is thin in numbers and lacking sufficient championship talent.
In this Internet age, when the next latest and greatest is but a mouse click away, fans want microwave-fast gratification — yesterday. Adulation such as Strong is now experiencing can be fleeting. Loyalties change as quickly as some pseudonymous blowhard can make up a rumor in a chat room.
Alum and longtime fan Fred Smart observes, “We need organization and inspiration. We need to get the fans unified. And we need players.”
The fans seem united for now, and hopefully beyond next season’s inevitable setbacks.
Organization, staff selection and recruiting are among the many variables to be revealed between now and spring practice. (Early returns are positive. Strong nabbed a four-star quarterback within 24 hours of his hire.)
Former coach Howard Schnellenberger trumpeted a collision course with a national championship. Ron Cooper dazzled when he arrived in town clutching a list of 50 ambitious endeavors he wished to accomplish. John L. Smith charmed with his smirk, swagger and bowl-worthy squads. Bobby Petrino just won, baby.
Steve Kragthorpe, like a vampire, sucked the lifeblood out of the program.
If Charlie Strong repairs Louisville football as well as Johnny Cecil repairs cars, Cardinal fans are in for a grand tour.
Let me start with a personal anecdote (as if that’s something unusual that I haven’t done before . . . too many times.)
I attended the New Orleans JazzFest for the first time in 1976, and made it down there once again before that decade ended. Then I had some personal life changes that made it unwise for a number of years to tempt myself with the treasures of the Crescent City. But, in 1988, I was lured back by the prospect of experiencing the Little Feat reunion. With Bonnie Raitt, sitting in on slide guitar, be still my beating heart. On the marvelous Steamship President no less, always a boffo experience on the Mighty Mississippi.
Having been away from the festival for years, I couldn’t get enough. Even with music playing simultaneously on 10 stages in the Fairground’s infield from noon til dark on three consecutive days. It was as if I needed to hear every group. From Al Green to Hank Ballard & Midnighters to Los Lobos to Earl King to Hackberry Ramblers to Fairfield Four to John Mooney to Salif Keita to Exuma to Henry Butler to Famous Rocks of Harmony to Leo Nocentelli to . . . okay, you get the picture.
As has become tradition, the Neville Brothers closed the festival on the Fess stage Sunday afternoon.
Early in the set, Brother Aaron broke into a song I’d never heard him sing before, “Arianne,” with just Brother Art playing simple keyboard chording in the background.
What came out was this:
The song isn’t especially complicated or unique. The lyrics are more than a bit mundane, even silly. But when Aaron’s voice started swooping and soaring about halfway through, I was stunned beyond comprehension, my spinal cord turned to jelly.
When the song was over, even though the Nevilles hadn’t really kicked in gear yet, even though I had hoped to slip over to a couple of other stages for a taste of Dr. John and Willie Tee, I had had enough. For the first time in my life, I was sated. Totally. I did not need nor did I want at that moment to hear another note.
I walked to the car, and sat in quietude, savoring the glory of what I’d just heard. When my pals arrived an hour or so later, I was still smiling, knowing I’d been transported somewhere beyond anyplace I’d been before.
Larry Eustachy is now the hoops coach at Southern Mississippi.
A little over a half decade ago, when he was at Iowa State, he was legitimately in the conversation about the next great hoops coach. He was already a member of the Party Boy Hall of Fame. He was hangin’ with Betty Coed. And all her sorority sisters. Always with a drink in hand.
Larry Eustachy lost his job. And found a life.
To salvage his career, Eustachy entered treatment for the deadly disease which with he is afflicted. Alcoholism. Six years later, Eustachy remains sober, and, reading between the lines of his interview with Parrish, is an active daily participant in a 12 Step recovery process.
The purpose of Gary Parrish’s interview was to provide perspective on the Billy Clyde Gillispie situation. Gillispie, recently arrested in rural Kentucky for DUI, has entered John Lucas’s rehab facility in Houston. Eustachy publicly expressed his support and willingness to share his experiences, hoping to give strength and resolve to Gillispie to stay the course.
In the interview, Eustachy correctly parallels the diseases of alcoholism and cancer. He knew it would bring out the scoffers. Which it did. Parrish wrote a follow up column about the comments he received. It’s linked in the first story, or you can get to it here.
I’ve often said reiterated that I don’t comment at this venue on the personal lives of the sports personalities I cover, the men and women who are important to folks here in Kentuckiana. And I certainly gave Gillispie way more than my allotment of shit over his behavior while he was UK coach.
But this is no time for silence.
Of all the diseases from which people suffer, alcoholism and drug addiction might be the most misunderstood. Comments online and on the street about Gillispie’s situation indicate that.
So it is. And so it shall probably remain.
Such a pity.
I now pray for Billy Gillispie as well as for alcoholics and drug addicts who still suffer and patients battling cancer as I have during the course of my recoveries from those equally debilitating diseases.
I don’t in any way mean to condone some of Gillispie’s well chronicled life mistakes while at UK, and elsewhere for that matter. But I do understand that he has the opportunity, if he gets and stays sober, to avoid such gaffes in the future.
I hope he makes it.
And I hope Larry Eustachy’s Southern Miss Golden Eagles make it to the dance. But know that, at least for today, he’ll be okay if they don’t.
In a perfect world, everyone would love their neighbors and their neighborhood.
The Film Babe and I are blessed. We do.
We live in the Triangle and we can walk to the movies, walk to the best pizza joint on the planet — Impellizzeri’s — and simply walk through the lovely streets. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Oak Park has nothing on the Cherokee Triangle . . . except lots of tourists. And the neighbors that surround us are great.
Plus on Sunday nights in the summertime, we can walk a block and a half for one of the great pleasures of the year. Concerts in Triangle Park. It’s a vista beyond compare. The perfect setting for perfect moments.
Neighbors gather with picnic baskets and coolers of treats to mix, mingle, dance and generally enjoy the pleasures of the season. The gatherings are always gentle and genteel. Kids on the playground. Watchful parents right by. Teens wondering if they like their parents’ music enough to stay. Joggers slowing as they meander past the proceedings. Old farts reveling in one more Nervous Melvin cover of a Beatles tune.
It’s poesy.
And, adhering to the Grateful Dead credo about leaving only footsteps behind, you can walk through the park a half an hour after the proceedings are over and there’s rarely the first piece of trash left behind.
It’s a good thing.
Which makes me wonder why two cranks in the neighborhood have been trying for a couple years now to close down these joyous neighborhood celebrations?
Even more surprising is that one of the Scrooges lives in a manse on a little bluff overlooking the park with a grand front terrace on which he hosts a party almost every Sunday night when there’s music playing.
Irony is one word to describe his actions. Duplicitous is another.
The other naysayer lives in 1400 Willow, I believe. I’m not sure why she’s so upset. I’m told she doesn’t like the trash cans in the park. Or something like that.
Anyway, these two have taken it upon themselves to inundate the Parks Department and Mayor’s office with their continual braying complaints. One can only hope their insufferable crusade to dampen the terrific spirit force of this summertime ritual falls on deaf ears.
Yo, you two, hear this: Life’s too short. It’s time for you to step out on the concrete in front of the gazebo and dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand wavin’ free.
It’s like watching a loved one succumb slowly but inexorably to the Big C.
The heart is still there. The wit and intelligence. Body parts still try to work as they are supposed to, but can’t because the base structure is deteriorating day by day from its core. The mind starts to go.
Watching what is happening to the Courier-Journal makes me very sad. I’ve been reading it first thing every morning since I was in the 5th grade.
I know a lot of the writers there. Good, responsible journalists, they. Newspaper people who love the hunt for the real story, crave the quote that will fill in the blanks, who have the grand desire to illuminate the issues of the day. Reporters and columnists who really care. Crawford. Wolfson. Gerth. Bozich. Rees. Green. Read ‘em today. Tomorrow they might be gone.
Sigh.
The ship is sinking and the captain is tossing the crew overboard. Isn’t that trying to save the vessel at the expense of the pros that can keep it from sinking?
Too many days now, the paper is so thin you couldn’t cover the bottom of a bird cage with it.
Less content. Less news. Less commentary. Less info.
More typos.
Sigh.
Like mom and pop stores across the land walmarted out of business, the newspaper industry with its unwieldy superstructure — printing presses and delivery trucks and paper boys — was blindsided by the anschluss of the digital age. They knew something was happening but didn’t really know what it was or how to defend against it.
I don’t know David Hawpe personally. I am inclined toward his left of center world view. I know he’s an inveterate Cats fan, and I think I blamed him for the paper’s haughty position when the tide turned against Denny Crum, though I haven’t the slightest idea if he was behind it or not.
I do know this: His resignation is a mighty loss.
He’s a throw back to the days of smoky city rooms, working the phones until the story was tied in a knot, long colloquy over beers whether X or Y was going to challenge the incumbent in the next gubernatorial race and who would have a better chance to unseat the scoundrel in office at the time.
He’s not the only stalwart gone. Just the latest. Not the last.
Today I discovered what may be the saddest signpost yet that the wheels are falling off. Let’s say you get up at 7:30 in the morning and like to read the C-J with your coffee before work. The paper isn’t on the stoop. You call the delivery department to advise you didn’t get a paper, hoping to get one before you leave for the office.
Circulation doesn’t open until 10:00 a.m.
That is not a typo.
I mean, really, how penny wise and pound foolish is that?
The future is set. Reading newspapers online — in whatever form might evolve — is inevitable. Oh, for another decade or two, the big guys will survive. The New York Times. Washington Post. But eventually they too will succumb.
The demise of print is certain. Gutenberg is turning in his grave.
It’s nature’s way, a Darwinian imperative.
When the horseless carriage arrived, the buggy whip biz went kaput.
The future is digital. I wouldn’t be investing these days in any company that makes ink.
I’m just wondering when the first bill will be filed to outlaw ad blockers?
In his liner notes, the album’s producer Joe Henry makes reference to a Toussaint rendition of Professor Longhair’s “Tipitina.” That version, titled “Tipitina and Me” can be found on the album, Our New Orleans.
Henry called that Toussaint creation, recorded for that benefit album, “a history lesson in American musical alchemy.”
He became obsessed with it. Moi aussi.
Except my focus is less broad, less knowing than that of Henry, one of the preeminent producers/ musicians/ songwriters extant. What I hear when listening to “Tipitina and Me” is the history of New Orleans music.
I hear Longhair, of course. But also Louis Moreau Gottschalk, a “classical” composer who lived in and was mightily influenced by the sounds of the Crescent City. And James Booker. And Fats Waller. Henry Butler. Dr. John. Marsha Ball. Amasa Miller. The nameless guys and gals that sat at the uprights in Storyville’s whore houses. Etc, etc.
But Toussaint’s rendition transcends rollicking barrelhouse. Beyond stride and honky tonk and the blues, it is stunning in its eloquence. The word that comes to mind is elegant.
Which is how I shall describe The Bright Mississippi.
Joe Henry cajoled Allen Toussaint into this album, which is as monumental a career statement as one could conjure. It is also a perfect reflection of the history of music in the world’s premier music town. Call it a primer, if you will.
Plus you get eminent renditions of tunes by Thelonious Monk, Billy Strayhorn, Leonard Feather, Duke Ellington and Django Reinhart.
My friend Ronni Lundy recently regaled me with a tale from when she was pop music critic for the Courier-Journal. They were doing a piece on favorite singles of all-time. The readership was admonished that “Free Bird” was never released as single, only on an album, and therefore was ineligible, so please don’t vote for it.
It got the most votes anyway.
Well, when I talk about singles in this continuing series, I do include songs that were never released by themselves on 45s, as Mp3s, or for radio play. But they are songs that stand alone in my mind, having resonated for me somewhere along the way. It’s my shtick. I make the rules. Which, frankly, are subject to change at my whim.
Now, back to regular programming.
For those of us who have been around awhile, it’s easy to forget that in 1966 in Louisville, Kentucky, the counter culture and its musical ramifications were still far away. There was AM radio, and, well, that was it, AM radio.
We’re talking about a era with hit songs by Sgt. Barry Sadler, Frankie “I Loathe Rock & Roll” Sinatra and The New Vaudeville Band. “Winchester Cathedral,” that’s what I’m tryin’ to say. “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’,” which may have some kitschy nostalgic value in retrospect, but was a metaphor for endemic times back then. “Cherish.” “Lightnin Strikes.” Got the picture?
Sure there were such as “Paint It Black” and “Wild Thing” that forewarned us folks still fallow in the Heartland that something was going on but we didn’t know what it was. Buuuuut, not yet.
So that’s the scene.
I’m driving down Jefferson Street and all of a sudden this song blasts from the dashboard of my car like an Ali shot to the solar plexus. Breathless? You could say so. I remember the exact spot near 3d Street where I had to pull my car over to take the whole deal in. I sat blinded by the light.
Oop yip yip oop yip yip yeah!!!!!!!!!
This live version is pretty powerful, but, to my ears, not as much as the original from the album De Capo. But I couldn’t find one to embed, so this will have to do. You can hear that original by clicking here.
I remember the first time I wrote what I thought was a perfect sentence.
It appeared well after I started getting paid to write. As soon as the sentence was on the screen, I stopped to cherish the moment. There were just enough words. In a symbiotic order. I meant what I said, said what I meant.
The creation made me smile. I felt fulfilled.
When the essay was published the next week, the sentence did not appear in ink on paper as it had been written. My editor edited it.
It may have been Michael Jordan who started it all.
Or, perhaps, Madonna.
Paris Hilton has certainly made the most of it with the least cachet. Unless you consider the bluster of Rush — need I write his last name? — to be of social consequence.
It’s everywhere in the world of sports these days. Think Tiger. Think LeBron. Think Starbury. When John Calipari was named head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats, he spoke of it when promising to repair UK’s stature in the world of college hoops. Which sounded eerily similar to words uttered earlier at arch-rival Louisville by arch-rival coach Rick Pitino.
Of course, it exists in the entertainment world. Just read an article about Jessica Simpson and how she’s figuring out — with the help of her father/ manager — how to reinvent herself after falling off the charts, musically speaking, and up the charts, avoirdupois speaking.
Branding. It’s from Olde English, of Germanic origin, meaning “to burn.”
It’s all the rage these days as people and companies and teams and organizations are all trying to find a visible niche, a sense of self, an identity, a spot to call their own in our increasingly oversaturated, overstimulated, harum scarum cybergalactic world.
How appropriate that culture turns to commercial terminology in an age when multinational corporations are the new nation states. Whodathunk we’d aspire to be Kleenex?
Read sports rants, rumors & innuendo from my alter ego Seedy K. Click to check out Score! at leoweekly.com.
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Phil Rollins has been immersed in the University of Louisville hoops tradition for half a century. His playing days predate Freedom Hall.
“The Catcher In The Rye” is a resonant novel with staying power, if nothing else.
As the new year approaches, there seem to be two topics toward which all conversations gravitate.
I am stunned that reasonable, intelligent, perceptive citizens are aghast that not a lot has changed since W was sent out to pasture. I’m not sure what people expected. Obama grew up in Chicago politics. He was a ward healer for heavens’ sakes. His acumen was the ability to compromise, to assess the landscape, find the spots where consensus could be found and to put himself there for the bounty. He’s never walked on water that I know of. At least, there’s no youtube footage.
A calendar hangs on the wall by the four repair bays at Cecil’s Chevron downtown. Notated prominently — in thick black marker — are the dates and starting times of U of L games. Other matters are in regular ink.
Let me start with a personal anecdote (as if that’s something unusual that I haven’t done before . . . too many times.)
Larry Eustachy is now the hoops coach at Southern Mississippi.
In a perfect world, everyone would love their neighbors and their neighborhood.
It’s like watching a loved one succumb slowly but inexorably to the Big C.
In his liner notes, the album’s producer Joe Henry makes reference to a Toussaint rendition of Professor Longhair’s “Tipitina.” That version, titled “Tipitina and Me” can be found on the album, Our New Orleans.
Before we start on this song, a note on process.
I remember the first time I wrote what I thought was a perfect sentence.
