Author Archives: AD

Dia de los Muertos Jam

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Following his death on Sunday, today’s Jam features the lately departed Lou Reed. I’ve already posted some of my favorite selections, and there’s an obvious choice for this post, but in the spirit of the week’s holidays, today’s selection is a celebration.

Reed’s wife, Laurie Anderson, published a short obituary in the East Hampton Star yesterday. It concluded:

Lou was a prince and a fighter and I know his songs of the pain and beauty in the world will fill many people with the incredible joy he felt for life. Long live the beauty that comes down and through and onto all of us.

Lou Reed, Rock & Roll Animal, Purveyor of the Perfect Day, passes on at age 71

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lrLegendary American musician Lou Reed died yesterday on Long Island at the age of seventy-one. Rolling Stone called Reed’s first band, Velvet Underground, “the most influential American rock band of all time.”

I first heard Reed in high school when I was on the air at WYCE and someone from a local hippie shop phoned in a request. I can’t recall the album or the song, but I still remember the moment, because I was surprisingly and immediately hooked. By the time I was on WHCL and living with one of Reed’s modern-day disciples, VU’s Loaded was in heavy rotation, and, stretching traditional conventions about linear time, I’d tell listeners that Reed, a Syracuse grad, wrote “Rock & Roll” about that little radio station. In 2008, ALDLAND Podcast co-host Chris and I saw Reed in live performance at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium.

You can read about the power and reach of Reed’s influence on music across the web today. Here are a few songs and an original photograph for your listening and viewing remembrance:   Continue reading →

Dawg Upset: Vanderbilt defeats Georgia in Nashville, 31-27.

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uga @ vandy 2013ALDLAND was out in force last weekend for a cool, damp morning (11:00 am kickoff!) of football in Nashville. Brendan and Marcus broke down the game, as well as Vanderbilt’s bowl chances, in this week’s podcast, so listen to that for full game analysis. The Commodores took the lead in the second quarter on a perfectly executed fake field goal attempt. Two almost certainly erroneous targeting calls against Georgia helped Vanderbilt as well, but Vandy’s surprisingly poised redshirt freshman backup quarterback, Patton Robinette, who came on in relief of injured starter Austyn Carta-Samuels, deserves mention as well. (A botched Georgia punt was reminiscent of the last time these schools met in Nashville. This time, though, the Commodores were able to capitalize on the special-teams error.) Despite reasonably ample scoring, the game developed slowly through the first three quarters before the home team posted seventeen points in an exciting fourth quarter, erasing a thirteen-point deficit to claim an upset victory. It was Vanderbilt’s first conference win of the year (after a heartbreaking loss to Ole Miss to start the season), and both teams moved to 4-3 overall.

While Vanderbilt head coach James Franklin said that either Carta-Samuels or Robinette would be available for this weekend’s game at Texas A&M, he said yesterday that Robinette would start the game and that Carta-Samuels would not be available this week.

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Previously
Michigan On Top
Walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Death: Clemson outpoints Georgia 38-35

A Life on a Loop (via NYT)

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At 2:44 p.m. on a recent Sunday, Tim Burke took a moment from monitoring numerous N.F.L. games for the sports Web site Deadspin to post something that had nothing to do with football: a smidgen of a clip from an English rugby match he also happened to be following.

He stitched together still-frame images captured from the broadcast into a short, continuous loop that showed a player built like a cement mixer strong-arming an opponent to the ground by the unfortunate man’s throat. The GIF, or Graphics Interchange Format, showed a vivid moment, the kind that has become standard currency for online sports journalism. That Burke had time to produce it at all reflects the vacuum-cleaner-like way he approaches his job.

The sports editor at the Web site Buzzfeed, Ben Mathis-Lilley, could only observe in awe.

“It’s hard enough to watch one or two games at once and to actually get the stuff people think is great,” he said. “It’s hard enough to monitor all the American sports. But Tim is so good at coming up with stuff from all around the world, and from sports like minor league hockey, that no one else is watching.”

Burke, 35, is known among sports journalists for his ability to capture the moment — whether as a still, a video clip or in his favored format, a GIF — better, faster, more frequently and from more sports events than just about anyone. How he does it is a matter of wonder. … Read More

(via NYT)

Bay of Cigs: Shutting it Down

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jimmysmokes

More on this season may or may not follow.

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Previously
Playoff Prelude – 10/4
Playoff Time – 9/30
Heeeeeere’s Jhonny? – 9/12
Crime & Punishment – 8/7
Trader Jose(s) – 7/31
100 days of summer run distribution – 7/25
Are the Tigers the unluckiest team in baseball? – 6/28
Forget what you know – 6/25
History and Revision – 6/12
Tigers beat Braves 7-4 as part of series sweep of visiting Atlanta – 5/7
April in the D – 4/26
Jet Set (Sigh?) – 4/23
Run distribution, science, and the likelihood of a Detroit comeback – 4/15
WSJ throws a wet newspaper on the Tigers’ 2013 chances – 4/3
A Tiger is a Tiger is a Tiger – 3/29
The Departed – 3/14

Brainstorm: The Washington Football Team’s new mascot

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It finally is time for ALDLAND to weigh in on the NFL controversy that has reemerged in force this season: What To Do Or Not Do About The Washington Redskins From A Mascot Perspective.

If you haven’t been following this story this year, don’t worry: no one has said anything insightful about, and no one has changed positions on whether the Redskins should change their name. Washington owner Dan Snyder is not going to change his mind, and he isn’t going to change the name unless NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell forces him to do so, and Goodell has been maybe waffling on the issue.

I don’t have anything to add to the debate, but now feels like a good time to move past the preliminary phase of the conversation and start proposing some alternative mascots. And by “now,” I mean the day after the team’s current running backtight end, Fred Davis, said Snyder should rename the team the Fredskins. Not bad. Inspired, this came to me in a flash this morning:

washingtonmonumentI think the Washington Monuments really would be a great new name for the team. It’s location-specific, addresses Snyer’s concern for honoring history, and is only indirectly linked to Anglo-American racial hegemony.

If you’re still thinking about the Fredskins, here‘s an artist’s rendering of a possible logo along that line. If you have another idea, post it in the comments below.

Bay of Cigs: Playoff Prelude

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The Tigers look to get their train back on the tracks in Oakland tonight in game one of their American League divisional series. Detroit will send twenty-game-winner, Cy Young frontrunner, and probable ocular unicorn Max Scherzer to the mound in a pitching matchup against [all the overweight and PED jokes] Bartolo Colon. The Tigers and A’s played each other pretty evenly this season, and Detroit had to face Oakland in last year’s playoffs. What I remember from that series is that Coco Crisp is ruthless. Oakland may not be a top-tier team, but they are a frightening playoff foe. Detroit’s strength right now is its starting pitching, and the team will need to rely heavily on its defense– keep an eye on Jhonny Peralta in left field, and recall that Atlanta’s decision to start a catcher in left field hurt them last night— until it can get its bats going again.

Tonight’s game starts at 9:37. Stay tuned here for details about a possible live blog for the game, and, as always, follow us @ALDLANDia for the latest and unfiltered greatest hot sports takes.

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Previously
Playoff Time – 9/30
Heeeeeere’s Jhonny? – 9/12
Crime & Punishment – 8/7
Trader Jose(s) – 7/31
100 days of summer run distribution – 7/25
Are the Tigers the unluckiest team in baseball? – 6/28
Forget what you know – 6/25
History and Revision – 6/12
Tigers beat Braves 7-4 as part of series sweep of visiting Atlanta – 5/7
April in the D – 4/26
Jet Set (Sigh?) – 4/23
Run distribution, science, and the likelihood of a Detroit comeback – 4/15
WSJ throws a wet newspaper on the Tigers’ 2013 chances – 4/3
A Tiger is a Tiger is a Tiger – 3/29
The Departed – 3/14

ProFootballTalk blantantly ignoring City of Philadelphia

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pftI know the PFT folks are a bunch of newsmakers and newsbreakers, but you’re telling me that when three rows of fans were ejected from an Eagles game for brawling it was a sober affair?

I’m hoping to attend my first NFL game in about twenty years this season, and I think I have a good strategy for avoiding a lot of the financial pitfalls. Avoiding the over-the-top fan rowdiness seems to be its own challenge, however.

College Football Week 5: POLL

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pollingThe first BCS rankings still aren’t out, and Google doesn’t know when that’ll happen, which means that we’re still in the wild frontier of polling. Every poll is equally legitimate right now, including this one, which is the only one that will accept your vote without making you buy nonnegotiable class B stock in KIA. Cast your burden-free vote below.

Click to vote