Forty-five years ago today, Stax released Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay,” a recording Redding never heard due to his death in a plan crash less than a month before the hit’s release and just eighteen days after the recording session. The Wall Street Journal has an oral history of the recording of the song.
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Previously
Up in smoke: Duck Dunn, dead at 70
Related
Time to retire #27?
I think we can safely say that Notre Dame wasn’t up to the task of competing for a college football national championship. The game was by some accounts “boring” and others “hilariously disastrous.” People tend to like to see these championship games be competitive affairs. What team other than the Irish do you wish played Alabama last night?
Another question: Do or should any AP voters vote Ohio State #1?
If there’s one outcome-determinative piece of information I can give you in advance of tonight’s college football national championship game between #1 Notre Dame and #2 Alabama, it would be this: Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron brought along thirty pairs of shoes for the occasion. Everything else you’ll read is nonessential.
That said, I’ll add my prediction, which is Continue reading
So the holidays are over. The BCS games were mostly boring. The NFL wild card games were also mostly boring. You are probably sitting around pondering if life is even worth it any more. Don’t fear, loyal listener(s), it is. There’s a new ALDLAND podcast for you to listen to in which we discuss all that boring stuff and make sense of it. As the great philosopher John L. Smith once said, “SMILE!”
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Download the ALDLAND podcast at our Podcasts Page or stream it right here:
Earlier, Brendan told you what’s wrong with Grantland, and I can’t sit here and say that the world needs 3,100 words on a made up basketball statistic modeled after the play of Kobe Bryant.
I’ve already outlined my thoughts about the site in general, and nothing has happened since then to make me want to walk away from my generally positive view of the site
No sooner had Brendan fired his shot across Grantland’s bow, though, than I saw a post from Grantland’s newest writer and my favorite comedian, Norm Macdonald, about how he made a New Year’s resolution to resume his crippling sports gambling habit. Norm Macdonald is what is right with Grantland, and Grantland has never been more right.
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Previously
This is what is wrong with Grantland
Related
Writing about writing about writing: Grantland
1500 words to say that Conan never was that funny and he isn’t getting funnier and TBS doesn’t seem to care
Norm Macdonald’s 2013 PGA Year in Preview
I was reading a recap of Michigan’s curb stomping of Northworstern last week and they mentioned what is called a “Kobe assist”. So I thought that term sounded funny and googled it and the first result was a Grantland article on the subject. More precisely a 3,100 word Grantland article on the subject. I got like a paragraph in and lost interest. No one needs a 3,100 word article on whatever a Kobe assist is. That is why ALDLAND will always be the best “land,” other than of course Super Mario Land.
Why, the Florida Gators did.
It’s hard for the average sports fan to get worked up about the squabbles inside the sports media world. If you have ever wondered what’s going on with all of ESPN’s “Sources,” though, we finally have a substantive, authoritative development on that issue, courtesy of Steve Peresman, the news editor and coordinating producer of ESPN Los Angeles, via some forceful prodding by Fox Sports’ Jay Glazer and Dan Patrick Show producer Paul Pabst. If this is the sort of thing that interests you, Awful Announcing sets up the whole exchange here. (Take special note of what they call “a nuanced point, but a significant one.” I’d also say it’s the main point, the central theme to this everlasting spoof.)
It’s true. Lob City has won fifteen straight games, and they haven’t even been close. The biggest consequence? NBA analysts are running out of things to write about them. Everyone worked through the novelty of LAC being good last season, along with every criticism and critique of Donald Sterling, Clipper Darrell, and Vincent “Vinny” Del Degro. After the fifteenth-consecutive noncompetitive win, what’s there to say?
ESPN’s J.A. Adande has an idea: winning easy actually is a bad thing for the Clippers. I mean cheese and potatoes you guise! What are these guys supposed to do?? They tried not winning for, oh, forty years or so, and that didn’t work out. Then they decided to draft Blake Griffin, had Chris Paul thrust upon them, and tried winning for a change, and now you’re saying that’s bad too? These guys just can’t win. Err…
But don’t worry, because Adonde’s found a silver lining to this dark cloud of endless, dominating victories:
But for every flaw the Clippers have, it’s easy to point out areas in which they can get even better.
Really easy, in fact. He later noted that the first rule of Tautology Club is the first rule of Tautology Club.
A timely observation of my Thanksgiving tradition was a casualty of my recent relocation, but I was able to restore order, albeit belatedly, this week with the assistance of Commodawg. Considering anew how a group of (mostly) Canadians had such a substantial impact on American music, I found myself wondering what group of Canadians was the most Canadian, and, in turn, what Canadian song was the most Canadian Canadian song ever.
I immediately knew the answer, having reached the conclusion some years ago. The group: the hit-making Bachman-Turner Overdrive precursor The Guess Who. The Jam:
Tell me I’m wrong.
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