It’s forty years gone this weekend since those nicknames were bestowed upon my pal Stephen and me at the Atlanta Pop Festival.
Many if not most of the memories of that magical interlude have long been lost in the daze of time. But this I can say for sure. We came upon those identities honestly.
As for the rest of that Fourth of July weekend outside Byron, Georgia, the tales told here may be true or not. Only the synapses of my cerebrum know for sure. And they’ve long since lost most if not all connection to that time and place.
Stephen was The Mailman; I, Captain Canada. The sordid details:
We knew there was going to be triple digit Fahrenheit at the festival. So the day before we left, we purchased pith helmets. If such a chapeau provided protection for long lost Stanley Livingston in deepest, darkest Africa, we presumed one would work for us.
I went with basic khaki.
Stephen opted for that light grayish blue with maroon straps that we’ve come to associate with the United States Postal Service.
So hot was it that the very first day down there, we, along with our traveling companions Don and Merrily, sought respite in the nearest body of water. Which lake or river or pond — frankly I can’t recall — we found by following the gaggle of hippies on hoods of cars all headed, they said, as if guided by a stoned Trip Tik in that direction.
When Stephen jumped in, pith helmet firmly in place, one bleary-eyed bather adroitly observed, “It’s the Mailman.”
Firmer monikers have been borne of lesser tales.
The origin of Captain Canada is somewhat more convoluted. The statute of limitations having lapsed, the story can be revealed. With haste and for the last time, so we can move on.
The day before we departed Louisville, our friend Becker needed help moving from one furn apt. to another. Among the items he intended to discard was a flag of Canada. Which artifact I commandeered, immediately tying about my neck like a cape.
That’s only the germination of the nickname.
Which flowered fully on the first night of music at the festival. (Caveat: The imagery that might manifest from the description of the following interlude is not for the faint of heart, grannie or youths under the age of majority.)
That weekend marked my first experimentation with psychedelics. When the mescaline kicked in, it started to rain. At which point it seemed eminently logical to my then “experienced” mind to fully disrobe. No matter that we were sitting in throng of several hundred thousand. It seemed the natural thing to do.
Besides, I didn’t want my clothes to get wet. I had hand fashioned with a magic marker a “Who is Ron Dante?” t-shirt which I thought too clever and pithy to not be able to wear again once the showers had abated.
From such reasoning, wackier tales have been told.
The inclemency didn’t however prevent me from wearing my Canadian flag cape. From which point on, and for several years thereafter, I was known to a few as Captain Canada.
Enough of that.
Admittedly I am finding it difficult to accurately describe how wonderful and fun that weekend was. The experience is proving sensible description.
When I’ve attempted to do so through the decades, I have reverted to this. That weekend is something outside the timeline of my life. It is as if it was all a dream, so fantastic, so unreal, so joyous was the moment.
The performers included the following whose music I do recall if only to a limited extent. Jimi Hendrix, who played with fireworks filling the sky behind him at midnight on the 4th of July. The Allman Brothers Band, including a jam with Johnny Winter. The Chambers Brothers. (For which set, I stood directly in front of the speakers, as a result of which stupidity, my hearing has never fully recovered.) BB King. Grand Funk Railroad. Hampton Grease Band. Ten Years After.
Among the groups that I have no or only vague recollection hearing: Procol Harum. Poco. Terry Reid. Ravi Shankar. John Sebastian. Mountain. Spirit. Ginger Baker. Chakra. Cactus. Gypsy. Bloodrock. Captain Beefheart.
I know a number of folks who attended. I have read remembrances of the festival online. What fascinates me is how few speak of the musical moments.
The sounds were more a nucleus around which this grand, garish carnival evolved, an excuse for the gathering of southern tribes.
Considering the entire experience, I do have an acute feeling of personal evolution. I had taken the bar exam the weekend before the festival, didn’t think I’d pass it since I hadn’t studied much. And hadn’t a clue what was in store for the rest of my life.
It was your classic pivotal moment at the onslaught of adulthood.
So, hey, let’s go get stoned and rock.
I’d lived at home with my parents until my senior year in law school. My growth had thus been stunted. So my socialization abilities were still in their early stages.
Hey. let’s mingle en masse and talk jabberwok.
So, without getting too awfully philosophical, I’ll just offer that this eminently eye-opening weekend fostered a sense of freedom and wonder and creative possibility which I hadn’t previously conceptualized. Mostly it was just a load of fun.
As for specifics, there are but a few I remember.
An interlude where I handed a merchant enough Uniform Commercial Code razzmatazz in the middle of the night that he cashed a personal check for some biker dude. Which black leathered hulk expressed his appreciation by telling me he had my back in case I needed something taken care of during the festival.
Not wanting one blistering afternoon to walk all the way to the water spigot a mile away, I, much to the chagrin of Don and Merrily, filled our thermos with $3 worth of Pepsi.
Through my own personal haze, trundling back to our campsite on the final morning, while Richie Havens sang “Here Comes The Sun” at sunrise.
Camped next to us was a group, which included a gal who wore a wig the whole weekend in that awful heat, because she didn’t like the color of her hair after dyeing it. How antithetical to the whole counter culture ethos, I thought at the time.
A couple having sex the next blanket over, with the girl shouting in ecstasy “Ooooooooh, the stars!” While her head was resting on my lap. Trust me, it felt as odd at the time as it sounds now.
The pathway from our camping spot to the stage, lined with hundreds and hundreds of people selling drugs.
Laughter. Early. Often.
Juicy peaches bigger than my fist for a nickel.
The Heat. And I’m talking Fahrenheit not cops, which were essentially nowhere to be seen.
The Chambers Brothers doing “People Get Ready.”
Hendrix playing the “Star Spangled Banner” at midnight on the Fourth.
The Allman Brothers Band, whom I’d never heard before. Specifically, “Every Hungry Woman,” during which I was drawn closer to the stage as if it were a siren call.
The Hampton Grease Band.
Frankly, sadly, that’s about it for the music.
It’s not like I/ we weren’t paying attention to the sounds. It’s just that the entire experience was so overwhelming, that there was so much sensory input, so many diffused interactions that the music was but one element. An important one, but just one of many nonetheless.
I guess it’s fair to ask, beyond the fact that it was a super time, if there were any cultural imperatives to be learned from Atlanta Pop?
Well, yes. One, there is power in numbers.
Law enforcement was basically non existent. Byron had a couple of part time cops. A number of state troopers were sent to the scene. I’ve read that nobody was arrested, despite the drugs and nudity. There were just way more of us than them that weekend. Besides it was a ferociously peaceful gathering. (Apparently there was a brouhaha about opening the gates and freeing up the festival. It passed me by. We actually bought tickets in advance. $14 for the weekend.)
Pepsi doesn’t quench thirst like H2O.
Nobody had a clue who Ron Dante was? Nor much cared. (FYI, he was the studio guy responsible for The Archies. That’s right, “Sugar, Sugar.”)
Pith helmets are an effective way of protection from the sun.
Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman — both of whom died within months of the festival — were the best. I’m grateful that I heard them live when they were still around. That I remember at least some of their playing there.
And that I can now, forty years after the fact, lord it over today’s guitar fawning youngsters.
The other weekend I was on a road trip with friends. We were playing oldies on the box.
One of the most maudlin tales of tragedy played — Ray Peterson’s “Tell Laura I Love Her.” Those of you who grew up with rock & roll, know the details all too well. Laura and Tommy were lovers. He wanted to buy her gifts, most of all a wedding ring.
Oh, why should you hear it second hand? Here’s Ray himself, still sharing the sadness after oh so many years (Wearing a tux out of respect for the departed.):
Listening in the car with more mature ears, I couldn’t help but wonder: 1) If Tommy and Laura were so close, why didn’t she know he was racing that night? 2) If Tommy couldn’t get Laura on the phone, why didn’t he text her? And, most of all, 3) Where was Laura that night, with Tommy’s best buddy, who apparently wasn’t at the race either?
I’m not sure exactly why, but there were any number of these teen weepers back in the Days of Top 40, News, Weather & Sports. The reason why is a cultural contemplation too serious for examination at this time.
But I do have some queries, since more than a few of these songs raised salient questions, which, frankly, we never asked back in the day. I guess it’s never too late to investigate.
Mark Dinning’s “Teen Angel” died in a car that was stalled on the railroad tracks. But, 1) If she went running back after safely out of harm’s way to get the high school ring, why wasn’t she wearing it around her neck, as was the style in the day? Didn’t she want her friends to know? 2) Why did the car stall? Didn’t her boyfriend have it serviced before their big date?
Did her family sue?
Speaking of stalled and smashed cars and dashed relationships, J. Frank Wilson’s “Last Kiss” was most sad:
I mean what happens if the kid 1) heeded his daddy’s warning to get some new tires and a brake check up at Ken Towery’s, or 2) kept two hands on the wheel instead of trying to cop a feel while driving?
Speaking of what on earth was he thinking — why was Jan Berry of Jan & Dean speeding in a Corvette at Dead Man’s Curve just two years after he sang these ominous lyrics, “Won’t come back from Dead Man’s Curve.?”
That, my fellow rock & rollers, is life imitating art.
It’s been said that his girlfriend’s dad put a voodoo hex on Jimmy, the Leader of the Pack. We’ll just never know.
But life back then was fraught with more than car crashes or motorcycle wrecks.
A walk on the beach could mean an end to a relationship that maybe just maybe wasn’t meant to be. Listen to Johnny Cymbal’s all too sad tale.
I mean if the kid was strong and courageous enough to kill the shark — with his bare hands — why on earth didn’t he do it before the beast chewed his significant other to death?
Speaking of being chewed to death, how about poor Timothy?
Well, we could go on and on, wallowing in the angst, decrying cars that stalled at the wrong place and wrong time. So let’s call it a day. But only after allowing eminent cultural observer Julie Brown to put it all in perspective.
Which means that all the questions I’ve got boil down to one.
Who’s Johnny?
Okay there’s more. Read on, s’il vous plait.
After being publicly humiliated by my host James Bickers during my weekly film review this morning, I feel compelled to add one more song to the mix: Dickey Lee’s “Laurie (Strange Things Happen)”. Laurie was an angel. Perhaps literally. Though she’s not to be confused with Teen Angel, who didn’t even live in the same town.
Anyway, the kid hooked up with Laurie — or so he thought — and she asked for his sweater to stay warm. Oh, the tale is too weird. I can’t go on. So, here’s Dickey:
Even though this was 1965, I must ask: Was this kid on LSD or what? Or was Laurie’s dad just being a schmuck?
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!”
Let me get the hyperbole out of the way at the start.
Here me now and believe me later. Little Feat is the most unappreciated band of rock’s halcyon days.
Period.
Bill Payne’s piano. Richard Hayward’s and Sam Clayton’s syncopated percussion. A southern sensibility that is both traditional and innovative. And, of course, Lowell George’s intelligent, nuanced, evocative and clever lyrics. Oh yes, there’s his signature slide guitar stylings, which legend says was taught to him by Bonnie Raitt.
When this album was released in ‘73, the band, with a few personnel adjustments, had put out two albums to considerable acclaim, “Little Feat” and “Sailin’ Shoes.” Both are worthy of your attention.
But “Dixie Chicken” put it all together. The sultry funk. The aroma of magnolia and marijuana. The slinky sensuality. Plus it rocks and you can dance to it.
How about a taste of the title tune, with some superstar help:
In case you miss the rock & roll elegance of that cautionary tale, here are the lyrics:
I’ve seen the bright lights of Memphis/ And the Commodore Hotel/ And underneath a street lamp, I met a southern belle/ Oh she took me to the river, where she cast her spell/ And in that southern moonlight, she sang this song so well
If you’ll be my Dixie chicken I’ll be your Tenessee lamb/ And we can walk together down in Dixieland/ Down in Dixieland
We made all the hotspots, my money flowed like wine/ Then the low-down southern whiskey, yea, began to fog my mind/ And I don’t remember church bells, or the money I put down/ On the white picket fence and boardwalk/ On the house at the end of town/ Oh but boy do I remember the strain of her refrain/ And the nights we spent together/ And the way she called my name
If you’ll be my Dixie chicken I’ll be your Tenessee lamb/ And we can walk together down in Dixieland/ Down in Dixieland
Many years since she ran away/ Yes that guitar player sure could play/ She always liked to sing along/ She always handy with a song/ But then one night at the lobby of the Commodore Hotel/ I chanced to meet a bartender who said he knew her well/ And as he handed me a drink he began to hum a song/ And all the boys there, at the bar, began to sing along
If you’ll be my Dixie chicken ill be your Tenessee lamb/ And we can walk together down in Dixieland/ Down in Dixieland, Down in Dixieland
Now, that’s a song, kiddies.
My favorite song on the album — truth be told, my favorite Little Feat tune of all — is “Fat Man In The Bathtub.”
Check it out:
Okay, some more over the top praise. Little Feat is the most underrated band of all time. How’s that for devotion.
Anyway, as happens so much, it was too good to last. At least in the group’s best incarnation. George, founder, leader and most aggressive drug advocate, broke the band up in the late 70s, casting aspersions on his bandmates Payne and Paul Barrere. Lowell George died not long thereafter of a heart attack, probably drug induced.
In ‘88, the remaining members, with some additions, reconstituted. The group’s first gig was on the Riverboat President at the New Orleans JazzFest. (Did you have any doubt, we’d end up there?) Bonnie Raitt sat in on slide.
The band has evolved through the years, and still gigs. Various personnel changes on the periphery haven’t changed the essence of the group. They’ve put out any number of albums through the years, including some amazing live shows. Most all deserve a listen.
I’m going to start courtside at the Lakers/ Celtics NBA Finals series. Trust me, this isn’t about sports.
It’s about an LA hoops fan so iconic in a town full of them that, when spotted in the crowdby TV cameras — not difficult, he always sits in the front row by the court — he’s identified by only his first name.
Jack.
Since he burst on the scene — in his 29th film — as George Hanson, the stoned lawyer in a football helmet who talked about the “Venutians” around the campfire with Fonda and Hopper in “Easy Rider,” Jack Nicholson has been all that and a bag o’ chips.
His cinematic portrayals have been among the best and most memorable of the last half century.
He was J.J. Gittes in my second favorite film of all time, “Chinatown.” Robert Dupea, who only wanted some wheat toast at the diner in “Five Easy Pieces.” Jonathan, the scoundrel in “Carnal Knowledge.” R.P. McMurphy in “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.” Not to mention the wacked, oh so blissfully Jack performance as Jack Torrence in “The Shining” — “Here’s Johnny!!!” – Jimmy Hoffa and the Joker, among many more.
As much as I love his portrayal of the private dick not as smart as he thought he was in Roman Polanski’s brilliant “Chinatown,” one guy’s opinion is his best performance ever was as retired police detective Jerry Black in Sean Penn’s “The Pledge.”
On the day of his retirement, Black, an honest, hard working cop, investigates the rape and murder of a young girl. He ends up pledging to her mother (Patricia Clarkson) that he’ll find the killer. It becomes his obsession, even after an addled Native American (Bencio del Toro) is suspected of the murder and kills himself during questioning by another detective (Aaron Eckhart).
The film is more character study than cop trying to solve a case potboiler. Yet it works as both. Nicholson, 57 when he made the film, is devoid of affectation here. His drive and demons and flaws and maturity reveal themselves subtly. He’s on to something in finding the serial killer. And such is his obsession that he’s driven to put those he loves in harm’s way to honor his commitment.
This is a movie full with anguish. But the nuance and intensity grow as the movie progresses to an unexpected finale.
Jaaaaack, the guy known for that lurid gleam in his eye that says he’s trouble, never appears in “The Pledge.” Jack Nicholson, the awrd winning actor worthy of his fame, does.
This is far from an easy film. But it’s well worth the watch.
“Did you see that, man? Look! It landed all the way over there. From a sitting position.”
The kid is 13, 14 maybe, covered with tats, hanging with the outcasts on the outskirts of the gaggle of teens outside the Eastern Parkway Qdoba. His eyes betray the ragweed he’s smoked. He talks like it was real reefer.
His fellow brooders pay no attention. Except the black girl. “You can’t do that. It’s just not healthy.”
The basis for his boast is a looey he’s hocked 15 feet across the patio.
It’s the first day of vacation.
School’s out for summer/ School’s out forever
A redhead walks to the table with a purpose, tells him, “We’re movin’ on, douche bag. And you’re not invited.” She stomps away with a gang, doesn’t look back.
“You can come,” the boy in a whitey on a skateboard rumbling by yells to the hocker. “We’re doing it because we’re bored. Because we can. You might see some blood.”
The kid in the black “Keep Highland Weird” t-shirt scurries after. “A fight,” he asks?
“A rumble,” answers that redhead with the acned chest.
Is that Highland as in Highland Middle f/k/a Highland Jr. High?
Let’s give a cheer for Highland Jr. High/ In every sport we’ll do our best or die
I wonder what Mr. Sanders thinks from his viewing spot? He was principal when I went there.
Hell, I know what he thinks. Why isn’t that kid wearing a belt on his pants? That’s what he’s thinks while shaking his head at an alien world out of his time zone he can’t comprehend.
Oh dear Highland High School/ We always will love you/
No matter what happens/ We’ll always be true
The guy I’d really like to talk to at the moment is Bob Denk.
He owned the beatnik coffee shop up near where Wick’s is now. Topaz Emporium. Or was it The Zapot? Or both one after another? He was Kerouacian in a post-beatnik world.
So he was out of his time too. But not like Mr. Sanders.
What would Denk make of ever changing just the same as it ever was Bardstown Road on the first night of summer vacation 2010? The skate board shops? Packs of kids all talking on cellphones to somebodies who are somewhere else?
What would Bob Denk think of the nearly empty record shop? There was a time when all those girls just freed from the imprisonment of braces and homework, the ones now purposely tattered for their first night on the strip, would have been tie-dyed, inside the store, nodding their heads in agreement at the dude carrying on about “It’s A Beautiful Day.”
Instead there’s two guys — one white, one black and stylin’ with a toothpick and pork pie hat — in the Hip Hop section. And a fellow in a suit, trying to figure out which Jimmy Buffet album to buy?
And I’m there too. Watching all the foot traffic through the windows, tracking down Janelle Monáe, who, bless her Mr. Please Please Pleas-adoring heart, may or may not be the next big R & B thing, like my man James Bickers says. Or she may get swallowed up in all the noise.
And I grab Jeff Beck. The “Live at Ronnie Scott’s” album, where he plays with such exquisite passion and clarity it’s hard to listen and breathe at the same time. My guess is Denk would approve. Beck plays some Mingus on the disc.
And the new one from The National, which sucked me into its vortex at the listening station. They are to Cincy as My Morning Jacket is to Louisville. Except they had to move to NYC to make it happen.
It’s Bardstown Road. Tuesday night.
Summer’s here/ And the time is right/ For dancing in the street
The Spanish restaurant is empty as always. Down the street the line is long for burritos. Further down there’s a pizza war brewing.
Thin slice vs. thick.
Papalino’s vs. Impellizzeri’s.
“I’m an old school guy,” I tell the girl at the nouveau yogurt shop. “Whatever happened to chocolate and vanilla?”
She doesn’t understand irony. Would I like Original Tart or Acaiberry? I want to ask when tart became a flavor?
I leave it alone, allowing her to eventually figure out I get ten cents change when I hand her three bucks, a quarter and 3 pennies for a $3.18 tab.
The coffee shops are wireless, devoid of poetry readers. Would Denk understand?
There’s just something about those Texas singer/ songwriters.
It is at once one of the most fascinating and improbable of musical traditions. Hard drinking, crusty Lone Star guys with dust covering their boot heels putting elegant poetry to song.
Waylon Jennings. Willie Nelson. Kris Kristofferson. Townes Van Zandt. Okay, there are way too many to name. But I must mention Jimmie Dale Gilmore, whose voice is the most haunting of the lot, perhaps in all of contemporary pop music.
And, of course, Guy Clark, a fellow who can fashion a phrase with the best of them, say Chuck Berry, the kind that cuts right to the moment.
I’m a sucker for melancholy. So my favorite has always been the magnificent, “Desperados Waiting For A Train.” It’s a young man’s homage to the old fellow who took him under his wing.
Enough drab gab. Here’s a version, led by Clark and Nancy Griffin, along with a phalanx of genre superstars, performed one night on the Letterman show:
There’s a part of me that wants to post some other versions. Like the one by The Highwaymen. Or Clark doing it solo.
But the one above should have already ripped your heart to shreds. More would be superfluous. So I’ll let that one wash over you and leave it at that.
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.
When LEO hit newsstands in the summer of 1990, college sports was not mired in the profit über alles ethos it is today.
ESPN was but a decade old and had not yet cornered the market in collegiate football, basketball and baseball. Nor in minor sports, which with the advent of ESPNU, are now in the stranglehold of the beast from Bristol.
The rah rah sis boom bah, win one for the ol’ alma mater attitude had died years before with the Gipper and Rudy Vallee. The once-legit concept of “student-athlete” — at least in major sports — had become delusion.
Not every school that eked out wins over East Nevada Tech and South Dakota A&P found a spot in a bowl game named for some upstart Silicon Valley venture. Schools that didn’t make it into the NCAA basketball tournament accepted without squawking that an 18-14 record was not post season-worthy.
The difference between University of Louisville sports then and now is just as great in some respects. Just the same as it ever was in others.
At the time, there was no women’s lacrosse at U of L, a sport that now has it’s own dedicated stadium. Nor women’s softball, which now has its own bucolic diamond. Nor women’s golf. Nor women’s rowing.
What is now a state-of-the-art athletic complex that has hosted national and conference championships was then a gravel parking lot near I-65.
Cardinal baseball — which also has its own new ballyard — was an afterthought. With a College World Series appearance now on its résumé, U of L baseball is becoming a national power.
The summer of 1990 marked the halfway point of Howard Schnellenberger’s regime as coach of Cardinal football. Hired before the 1985 schedule, the first five seasons for the former national title coach at Miami were up and down as he attempted to reinvent U of L football. Playing in ramshackle Fairgrounds Stadium, his squads suffered through three desultory seasons before going 8-3 in 1988 but without a bowl appearance. They fell to 6-5 the following year.
The Cardinals reached unprecedented heights the fall after LEO was born, tying their opener to San Jose State, losing at Southern Miss, but winning 10, including an improbable and resounding 34-7, New Year’s Day victory over Alabama in the Fiesta Bowl.
During Schnellenberger’s tenure, Louisville remained staunchly independent at a time when conference affiliation was becoming increasingly imperative. In fact, the coach cited U of L’s nascent affiliation with Conference USA as one of the reasons he jumped ship before the Cards collided with the national title he promised. As well as before completion of Papa John’s Stadium, for which he was the prime mover.
Louisville football has been a roller coaster ride ever since.
Louisville basketball also reached a cusp in 1990.
The ’89-’90 season ended 27-9 but with a disheartening loss to Ball State in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. It was the type of opponent to which Hall of Famer Denny Crum’s teams rarely lost. U of L was the team of the ’80s in college basketball. National championships were won in ’80 and ’86, with two other Final Four appearances.
It all changed during the ’90-’91 season. The Cards went 14-16, the school’s first losing campaign in a half century. Only one time after that did a Crum-coached Cardinal team make it as far as the Elite Eight. Crum resigned during a contentious scenario with Athletic Director Tom Jurich after a horrendous 12-19 record in 2000-2001.
Louisville ended its Final Four drought in 2005 under Coach Rick Pitino. Last season, the school’s final stint in Freedom Hall, ended with a resounding defeat to California in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
U of L football, hoping for yet another refurbishment, will open next season with a new coach, Charlie Strong, in an expanded stadium.
U of L basketball will open next season in a new downtown arena against national runner-up Butler. Most longtime season ticket holders are feeling left behind by the athletic department’s money-over-loyalty policy that is governing the current seat selection process for the new facility.
The stench of upcoming major conference realignment is in the air. The demise of the Big East may be a reality sooner than later.
The University of Louisville, not an obvious fit in the SEC, Big 10, ACC or Big 12, might be an odd school out.
For all the successes and expansion of the last score of years, Cardinal athletics remain in a state of flux today, just as they were in 1990.
If you come here regularly, you know I periodically riff about my favorite films.
I’ve never discussed “The Money Pit,” director Richard Benjamin’s slapstick opus to the travails of renovating an older home, starring Tom Hanks, when he still did comedy, and Shelly Long, when we still knew who she was.
It’s too late to do it now.
I don’t need to watch, I’m living it.
This rant could have been called “The Money Pit: A Reality Series.” But that would infer some sort of televised extreme makeover status, including a hyperactive commentator in a personalized hardhat and a crew of 50, painting and fixing our entire 90 year old home in 72 hours or less. On somebody else’s dime.
That is most assuredly not the case. Besides we don’t need a complete makeover. Been there, done that.
Truth is Joanie and I had contractor Jim Phillips, and his boffo crew and cadre of subs, do some major renovations before we moved in. Gutting rooms. Moving walls and doors. Adding rooms and fixtures and other modern accoutrements.
From that experience, we learned one salient lesson. It was only the beginning.
The first hint came when we added a shower to an upstairs bathroom. We discovered that the previous owner — known around the neighborhood for bragging how cheaply she was able to get repairs done — when having a jacuzzi installed in that bathroom, engaged the services of some jackleg handyman who didn’t really know what he was doing. He cut holes in major floor support beams, weakening them to the point the second floor might have collapsed, had the jacuzzi ever been used.
Which, fortunately, it had not. But for the discovery during the installation of that shower plumbing, the Mrs. might have started her first bath after we moved in on the second floor and ended up on the first. Those beams are now steel reinforced, a cost unforeseen when we started the renovation.
It wasn’t the only one.
Anyway, we’ve lived here several years now, and, well, it’s always something.
Sure, there’s the routine, periodic stuff. Like painting the exterior, which Jason Skaggs and his excellent crew are now doing. And punch list kind of minor tweaks to make living here more to our liking.
But today is far from atypical.
At one point or another, there were three painters, a carpenter repairing a rotted baluster so it can be painted, a couple of masonry guys giving us a tuck pointing estimate on a brick walk and some steps, and a couple of guys from the plate glass company, removing my shower door.
The latter of which exercise is necessary, so that the tile guys can come next week to remove my shower tiles. Which will then allow the plumbers to come and fix the leak in my shower floor that is dripping through the subflooring into the basement.
After which repair, the tile guys will return to retile the shower.
The completion of which will then allow the plate glass guys to return to reinstall the shower door.
Did I mention we just had our outside steps re-concreted because last winter’s application of ice melt was turning them to sand? And that the month old new surface has already started cracking?
No, I guess I didn’t. The guys that did that are coming Thursday to assess the situation.
Nor have I talked about the fact that there’s a small foundation crack in the basement, which is not fatal. But does allow water to get in when there’s more than a drizzle outside. We’re still awaiting recommendations on repair guys for that situation.
Yoo hoo, Epoxy ‘r’ Us, where are ya?
So it goes.
Which is to say the kick I use to get when watching “The Money Pit” is MIA.
The Film Babe and I live in an old house. A great old house, but one that always needs something fixed.
This morning wasn’t bad. Just a couple guys painting the outside.
And a couple plumbers to check on an unpleasant odor that my sweetie senses every once in awhile. We decided to forgo the tests necessary, since it would have required setting off a smoke/ stink bomb. But, of course, while giving the house a thorough once over, they did discover a leak in my shower that had permeated the sub floor.
Like I said, it’s always somethin’.
And now on to the point of the blog, which is peripherally related.
I’m here in my office tracking down rumors to pass along, when I hear my better half and the Blackburn & Davis dudes talking in the dinette. When I enter the room which includes my stereo set up and entire music collection, one of the guys, Mark, says you should hear Conway Twitty and Sam Bush’s version of “Rainy Night In Georgia.”
At which point, I say, “Bush just played Jazzfest, but . . . ”
“Not Sam Bush,” he says, “Same Cooke.” As he points to the autographed 8×10 glossy of Cooke that hangs on my wall. “Check it out on youtube.”
Which I obviously did. After we called our general contractor Jim Phillips and his ace tile removal specialist Eric Stoess, who immediately come over to help the plumbers remove tiles in the shower in hopes of discovering the origin of the leak.
If you’re keeping score at home, the number of Thursday a.m. workmen at the house then totaled 6.
The upshot is gratitude for several things. The professionalism of the plumbers. That Jim Phillips, who did the major renovation of our house, continues three years later to provide amazing service. That the leak might just be a caulking problem easily remedied. (My fingers remain crossed.)
And that I discovered this video.
But wouldn’t you know it, the Sam wasn’t Bush or Cooke, but Sam Moore. He, of Sam & Dave fame.
Great song. Which I now present for your enjoyment.
Of course, I’m reminded of a Conway Twitty story from my youth. (Tell the truth, you’d expect nothing less, right?)
In 1958, at the age of 13, I was a guest deejay for three nights on WKLO. One of the big hits at the time was Twitty’s “It’s Only Make Believe.”
While introducing the song, I mangled his last name. Need I say how? I don’t think so. I was 13.
I loved that song. So, as a bonus, just for you, my loyal readers, here’s Conway lip syncing the 45 version.
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.
Read sports rants, rumors & innuendo from my alter ego Seedy K. Click to check out Score! at leoweekly.com.
On the Radio
The Culture Maven reviews film weekly on WFPK 91.9. The reviews (and entertaining attendant shtick) are archived here. Hear them live Tuesdays at 8:05 a.m.
Captain Canada and The Mailman.
The origin of Captain Canada is somewhat more convoluted. The statute of limitations having lapsed, the story can be revealed. With haste and for the last time, so we can move on.
The performers included the following whose music I do recall if only to a limited extent. Jimi Hendrix, who played with fireworks filling the sky behind him at midnight on the 4th of July. The Allman Brothers Band, including a jam with Johnny Winter. The Chambers Brothers. (For which set, I stood directly in front of the speakers, as a result of which stupidity, my hearing has never fully recovered.) BB King. Grand Funk Railroad. Hampton Grease Band. Ten Years After.
