As it turns out the iPhone 4 does do everything a customer could possibly want it to do.
With two exceptions:
1) It won’t scour the toilet in the bathroom when your cleaning service doesn’t show up.
2) Its reception — sketchy already with AT&T’s lack of enough towers and bandwidth — is further compromised when you hold the phone in a normal manner.
Since there came an avalanche of complaints about the latter from first day customers — Apple acolytes disinclined to utter a discouraging word — Mahatma Steve Jobs came out from his cave and pontificated.
To paraphrase The Holy One: “Get over it, dumbasses. Hold it differently.”
So much for the oldest adage in commerce, “The customer is always right.”
Seems the problem hasn’t a thing to do with a possible design flaw — the antennae is in the metal edge strip where 99% of users hold a cellphone. It’s the fault of customers who stayed up all night to be first in line to plunk down hundreds of dollars and be the first on their block with the latest of Jobs’ gadgets. They simply didn’t read the manual to learn how to properly hold the new smart phone.
And what a contemporary device it is. Tens of thousands of apps. It does everything. (Except scrub the tub.)
It does everything, that is, except connect speedily to its network.
Am I missing something here? Isn’t that the baseline?
Actually I’m an old school guy. I understand that smart phones are the future. The present actually. Pretty soon they’ll be able to safely drive your SUV, so you can text without worry while speeding down Shelbyville Road. But I’ll only have one when it’s the only type of cellphone available.
My current phone can send and receive calls. Period. (Okay, it has rudimentary texting capabilities, which I never use.) And that’s it. No internet. No email. No travel directions. No videos. No camera.
I bought this particular model because all the reviews said it had the best voice quality incoming and outgoing.
It wasn’t an easy purchase. When I hit the Verizon store, my trusty and helpful rep had never heard of the model. “Customers could care less about speaker quality.” She found one on a bottom shelf in the corner. The box was dusty. Literally.
I don’t have an innate dislike for cellphones. Except when people use them for any purpose when driving or at the dinner table or when I’m trying to talk with them face to face. You know, in person. I sit at a computer most of the day, so I don’t feel it necessary to have www access when I’m away from my desk.
Besides everybody else has one. So when I was at my daughter’s birthday party last night and wanted to know the draft status of UK’s Fab Five, several guys scurried to show they could connect the fastest.
As for my response to Steve Jobs: “Rotate on this, dude!”
So, if you’re a little younger, and wondering why all the fuss and nostalgia in the wake of Dennis Hopper’s passing, you’re just going to have to take our word for it.
Hopper’s an icon of the Baby Boomers. His loss hurts, confirms our mortality.
He was Billy in “Easy Rider” for chrissakes. There isn’t enough time and space here to explain what things were like in ‘69. Or why this seat of the pants, making it up as they went along flick about a couple of guys, flush with cash from a drug deal, taking off across country on motorcycles, still resonates.
It both instilled the rebel in my generation, and certified why it was legit. There was a basis for our paranoia, things needed to change, and with a little help from our friends, human and chemical, we could get it done.
Or, as the movie so adroitly taught us, maybe not.
By the by, that is Phil Spector with whom they did that deal at the movie’s beginning. And Jaaaaaaaaack Nicholson as a lawyer on the lam, talking about “Venutians” around a campfire.
But, Hopper’s career didn’t start there. He was in “Rebel Without A Cause.” And “Giant.” He acted in over 200 movies. “Red Rock West” is one of my faves. You surely know him from “Hoosiers” and “Blue Velvet.” Or, maybe, “Apocalypse Now.”
Not a bad career for for an egocentric, out of control druggie. Which apparently Dennis Hopper was for a long time.
By the time I ran into him at Churchill’s Turf Club one Derby Day, he seemed sort of quiet and subdued. And short. He was supposedly sober by then.
Dennis Hopper also directed one of my favorite guilty pleasure movies, “The Hot Spot.” A noirish steamer, it features Don Johnson, and Virginia Madden and Charles Martin Smith and comely newcomer, Jennifer Connelly. Rent it some time, it’s a fun one.
It’s worth it, if only for the soundtrack. John Lee Hooker moanin’ and groanin’ over his guitar and Miles Davis’ horn. It smolders.
Dennis Hopper. You mighta been a rascal, but you done good, dude. R.I.P.
Frankly, I’ve been a fan of the former world body building champion since the mid 70s.
I consider body building a somewhat silly endeavor, certainly narcissistic and way too much work. But there was always something about Schwarzenegger that was greater than all that.
The guy was/ is brash and boastful. But he’s also bright, self effacing and funny. Yeah, he smokes cigars bigger than my forearm, but not when I’m in the room, thankfully.
I loved in the documentary “Pumping Iron” and how he psyched out Lou Ferrigno as they were preparing for the Mr. Olympia and Mr. Universe competitions. How he willed himself to victory through hard work and affirmations.
I loved him in the piffle of a movie called “Stay Hungry” which also featured Sally Field, Jeff Bridges, Scatman Crothers, Fannie Flagg and Robert Englund before he went Freddy Krueger.
And I’ve admired how he’s remade himself at several points along the way, always defying odds. He became an actor of considerable Hollywood clout. He married a Kennedy. He was elected governor of the most populous state in the Union.
Like most politicians, he is way imperfect. He doesn’t have nearly all the answers. Unlike most politicians, he appears willing to listen and adapt. He admits he doesn’t have all the answers. He is willing to fail.
He gave a well-received commencement address at Emory University in Atlanta Monday morning. The grads included the Film Babe’s youngest, Samuel.
Ahhnüüld was funny.
“I was also going to give a graduation speech in Arizona this weekend. But with my accent, I was afraid they would try to deport me back to Austria.”
“This is my first law degree. Finally, the Kennedys will think I’m successful. And Maria can finally bring me home to meet her family.”
He mentioned how he’d had his people poll some students to see what they wanted him to talk about.
“17% wanted me to be inspriational. 23% wanted me to give some practical advice. And 30% just wanted their money back from “Jingle All The Way.”
Self effacement is a marvelous character trait.
Schwarznegger went on to advise the grads to “stay hungry,” and “to not only do well, but to do good.”
He was inspiring. It was a darn near perfect commencement address.
I have written a number of times previously about my love for Allen Toussaint, the gentle and genteel man and his music which is the essence 0f New Orleans.
I’m not sure if I’ve written about how smitten my piano teacher Chris Bizianes has become with Toussaint’s “Tipitina and Me,” which is featured on the post-Katrina “Our New Orleans.” I am trying to learn a simplified version of the tune. Fitfully. After Chris transcribed the song note for note, measure for measure.
So, you can imagine my heart rate when yesterday morning, I ran into Allen Toussaint in the lobby of our hotel here in New Orleans.
When engaging him in conversation, I desired to keep my cool, but am afraid I did start blabbering a bit. The foibles of abject fandom most always rear their head at inopportune moments.
I mentioned my teacher, the transcription, my Facebook communications with Joe Henry, my love for his music and what it means to me, how I was trying to learn the song. Probably without taking a breath. And allowing Allen only enough conversation space to nod and say thank you.
I told him Joanie and I have tickets to see him this week at Snug Harbor.
As we parted with a handshake, he turned and mentioned, “I was in the studio with Joe this week.”
“Yes, I know. With Aaron Neville. Are you all doing an album?”
“Gospel.”
“That will be great.”
Shaking my hand again, he asked, “Now tell me your name?”
I was immediately five years old.
But full with the satisfaction that I could impart to this man of incredible talent and quiet grace how much serenity and joy his music and performances have brought me through the decades.
In a couple of weeks, my krewe will be heading down to the Crescent City, as we do annually, for JazzFest.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll repeat it once again: It’s the greatest 10 days of music anywhere on the planet.
Among the hundreds of acts that will appear — most from New Orleans and Louisiana, but many big names from hither and yon — the one I’m looking forward to hearing the most this time around is Allen Toussaint. (For the complete lineup, click here.)
I’ll get three opportunities to hear him. He’ll play the big stage with his R & B band. He’s playing the Jazz Tent, hopefully with the lineup that joined him on his marvelous last album, the Joe Henry-produced, “The Bright Mississippi.” And he’s playing a mid-week gig at Snug Harbor, to which The Film Babe and I have already scored tickets.
If you’re not immediately familiar with this music of this gentle giant of Crescent City sound, let me help.
He was a stalwart in the early days of rock & roll. Here he is doing a medley of some hits you might not identify with him.
Yes, kiddies it must be said, he’s the guy behind the Ernie K-Doe classic.
During the 70s, he released a sublime album that calms the savage beast within whenever I listen. Trust me, “Southern Nights” has saved me thousands of $$$ in therapy bills. To say it soothes would be understatement. If you can track down a copy, I advise you do so. (So too “The Bright Mississippi.”)
More than likely you identify the title tune “Southern Nights” with Glen Campbell.
Here it is as it’s supposed to sound. Pristine. You can see the full moon and smell the magnolias in the humid southern night.
Toussaint’s influence is far and wide. My sense is few understand how much music we love he has created. The horn charts used by the The Band on their famous songs. Allen Toussaint wrote ‘em.
And, oh yes, this is his song.
Oh yeah. A bunch of Little Feat tunes: Allen Toussaint. Okay, one more. Check this out.
Enough is enough. You get the point. Allen Toussaint is the unknown genius of contemporary popular music. Period. End of argument.
So, anyway, I’m listening to Toussaint today, and fighting my way through trying to learn some of his songs on the piano, despite the fact that they are way beyond my novice abilities, and waiting anxiously to hear him yet again live and experiencing his genteel genius and confirming yet again how grateful I am that I’ve discovered the power of his musical creativity.
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.
More exactly, Steve Kragthorpe’s situation and the downward momentum of his career at Louisville: how he replaced Bobby Petrino, how the team was immediately less good, how the fans became disgruntled, how that disenchantment has escalated to cacophony, and how those fans want him gone — yesterday, if not sooner.
But first to Susan Boyle.
You remember her, right? She was all the rage as a singing sensation on one of those British who-is-going-to-be-the-next-superstar shows. One day, nobody had ever heard of the frumpy housefrau with the amazing voice. The next day, millions were viewing a video of her stunning debut on the Web.
How long ago was that? Weeks? Months? Last year?
Then she showed up soon enough with a makeover and a record contract, at which point all those instant fans abandoned their adulation and moved on.
Within a time frame most accurately measured in hours or days, they went veni, vidi, relici. With apologies to Plutarch, they came, they saw, they moved on.
Which is when I coined the term, “Boyle point.” It’s the instant in this accelerated cybergalactic age when our latest fascination becomes what was once called “yesterday’s papers,” the moment when we’ve mouse-clicked to the next diversion, the moment when the rage’s upward arc heads south.
So, as U of L’s football season trudges inexorably to ignominy, the fascination has moved from the field to the three-ring circus that is the discussion of Kragthorpe’s future in Louisville, and who his successor might be.
And in this saga, there have been too many Boyle points to compute.
There you stood, nine feet away from eliminating every ache and pain in my rapidly aging body. You knock that putt in and I’d be able to put on my Brooks Beasts and run pain free, my pulled hammy miraculously healed. I could jump on my Trek and tackle those hills in Cherokee Park without having to click to the lowest gear. At Hogan’s Fountain, I’d still have breath. I’d arise in the morning and not have to stretch first thing before being able to trundle to take care of business in the bathroom.
You wrinkled ol’ linkster, if you had sunk that baby and won the British Open, it would be a whole new ballgame for every one of us old farts losing the smackdown with our dotage. We’d be able to get out of our recliners without having to push up with our arms.
I’d have sat down this morning at my Young Chang upright and both hands would have worked together like their supposed to, chords with the left, melody with the right in harmonious, seamless symmetry. 12/8 time would ring like 12/8 time. “Blueberry Hill” would actually sound like Fats Domino, not “What’s that song he’s playing?”
But no, Tom, bless your heart, you acted your age, our age. You were attacked by the yips and short stroked a chance at immortality.
So it’s Monday Blue Monday just like last week and next and life, as it inexorably does, is once again inching forward to its inevitable conclusion.
If nothing else, Tom Watson, your flirtation with the unthinkable underscored one of the absolutes. Don’t wager with time. Time always wins. The under always prevails.
Ask Lance Armstrong, as defiant an SOB as ever laced ‘em up for competition. On the same day, Tom Watson failed in his attempt to send the Father Time packing, the greatest cyclist ever fell prey to the same delusion on the climb to Verbier, a challenge he would have swallowed whole and spit out with disdain a half decade ago.
You know those lyrics to that song, the one the Stones stole from Irma Thomas?
Time is on my side, Yes it is.
Great song. But wrong.
There is an arc to our physicality. We can cheat it by staying in shape, eating right, finding the balance with the cosmos. But we shall succumb. There is no winning argument against it.
Which isn’t to say we don’t hold our heads up high when we try. Tom Watson did. Lance Armstrong kinda did. (He’s a cranky ol’ boy, that one.)
So can we. I attacked those inclines in the park today. Breathed hard at the top of Golf Course Hill, but breathed nonetheless. Made it all the way in a higher gear too.
I thank Tom Watson for the elixir, the impetus to rejuvenate.
Spend a weekend at home alone, with my sweetie away, and here’s where my mind wanders:
Now I guess I could riff on and on about the abject soulfullness of this incredible song — Toussaint McCall’s “Nothing Takes The Place of You.” The funereal organ, so simple but so rich. The elemental piano trills for counterpoint. The essential rhythms of the muted drums.
Or the lyrics, understated, but enough to rip your heart out.
So, after listening to McCall’s one shot classic more than a few times, I began to wonder: Is this the most soulful tune ever recorded?
I’ve been reading a lot of articles and have watched several TV exposés about Bernie Madoff.
I’m still not sure what makes this guy tick. There is an evil pathology there that still escapes me. The guy — and probably his wife and some cohorts — simply didn’t care who they messed over for their own personal financial and social aggrandizement.
And, while I can’t say that these Cordish folks, who seem hellbent on fleecing as many cities out of tax dollars as they might, can quite be branded as Madoffian, I’m beginning to wonder.
Some Louisvillians who are experiencing bad times, their businesses having been plundered asunder by the white elephant we call Fourth Street Live, along with some other inquisitive taxpayers with an affinity for local interests and taking care of our own first, as well as some just plain taxpayers wondering what da fuh? is happening with our tax dollars, are starting to look beyond the gloss at Cordish.
On a daily basis, Rick Redding’s site continually provides insight into the political and cultural goings on here in Louisville.
And it was there reported last week that Paris Hilton received a cool $150,000 to appear in town for the Derby. First of all, good for her. She’s been able to turn herself into a commodity that people pay just to appear at a party. What a gig. (By the by, you can get me for a lot less. Hell I’ll even wear a pair of Jimmy Choos if the price is right.)
Anyway, the website reports that 1/2 was paid by the Barnstable/Brown party. Which means, one would surmise, that it lessened the charitable contribution by that figure. And that the other 1/2 was paid by those wacky carpetbaggers who have deftly got their hands in the pocket of our Mayor Jerry Abramson. That’s right, those lovable Cordish folks.
Which means, if you follow the money, that city dollars paid for Paris Hilton’s visit to the Derby.
Does anybody in authority understand the concepts of “cost/ benefit analysis” or “legitimate and prudent use of taxpayer dollars”? It doesn’t appear so.
Enough is enough, I say. It’s time for the Courier-Journal or LEO or Business First or The Voice or one of our local TV news departments, somebody/anybody with the energy and doggedness, to launch a full scale investigation to reveal the sordid details of the Cordish/ City of Louisville tryst. Frankly, this love affair is starting to stink worse than the dump out on the Outer Loop. Actually that’s not true. It’s stunk for awhile.
Home owned businesses are falling by the wayside because they can’t compete with the apparent sweetheart deals our city administration keeps handing Cordish.
Where’s the outrage?
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Fourth Estate . . . Which of you is up to the challenge?
This is the state that elected Edwin Edwards, currently domiciled in a federal prison facility, who ran on this slogan: “Vote for the Crook.” Seems Edwards, who liked both women in abundance and to make a bet more often than not, chose a company to run a casino in New Orleans, after which he was named executor of the estate of the company’’s principal. He was running against long time Klan leader, David Duke.
This is the state that elected demagogue Huey Long. That elected Huey’s brother Earl, who was cavorting about with famous stripper Blaze Starr. And chose Jimmie Davis as governor. His prime qualification for state office was that he wrote the tune, “You are My Sunshine.”
Read sports rants, rumors & innuendo from my alter ego Seedy K. Click to check out Score! at leoweekly.com.
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As it turns out the iPhone 4 does do everything a customer could possibly want it to do.
I have written a number of times previously about my love for Allen Toussaint, the gentle and genteel man and his music which is the essence 0f New Orleans.
In a couple of weeks, my krewe will be heading down to the Crescent City, as we do annually, for JazzFest.
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.
The purpose here is to discuss Steve Kragthorpe.
Damn you, Tom Watson.
