Monday, January 13, 2014

Dave's Thoughts of the Day (Hopefully not the whole week!): January 13th

A Bob James album is like a bag of potato chips.  Once you start into one you can't stop.  I don't know what you call the genre... it's technically "smooth jazz" or "jazz fusion," but I would incorporate the term "Pop Jazz" too since "Angela" was his most popular song.  It smashed it on the charts.  "Pop Jazz" would also bring Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass into the genre and boy did I love the beat of the brass!   They were dominating the charts in the 60's, but you wouldn't know it with the pigeon-hole programming oldies stations do now.  You couldn't find a TJB song on the radio if your life depended on it.  That's a shame: it's all such great music. 

But anyway!  Bob James is another animal.  Part funk, part jazz, maybe part production music, it's tremendous.   You won't miss it when you hear his fender rhodes piano.  The way it's played is signature Bob James.  It's mostly instrumental too, it gives me a chance to think when I hear his music.

I LIKE Jon Rothstein from CBS Sports.  My only complaint is all the updates from less relevant games around NCAA Basketball.  Overall though he is great!  He really knows his b-ball.  I like his reports on players too.  It was through him I found out that Kane, the big shooter from Iowa State was playing tonight, and he nailed a 3 at the end of the first half to tie the game against Kansas.  That kid's great.  His ankle hopes to get better.

Some people don't like my twitter account.   That's all right... I know I can be annoying.  Besides, if you don't like it, don't follow my twitter, which is what folks of that persuasion do anyway.  Problem solved!  Oh ho!

I use a slot machine app on my phone now, and I enjoy it a lot, but I question the authenticity of its gameplay.  I hit the jackpot three times already w/ the slot machine in the app.  That would never happen on a real life slot machine!  Something tells me they're bogusing the odds with the app.   Too bad it's all fake money too... imagine if I put in a ten dollar deposit and it bankrolled a jackpot?   THAT WOULD BE A SCENE!!!!

Percy Harvin is a real glass vase isn't he?  Oi.

I get touched up when I root against the team other people are rooting for.  There are other times when I root for the team everyone else is rooting for in a game and I get touched up anyway!   People afraid of a mush or something.  Guys, pick a lane!   Do you want me to root for the clock?

Hahahahahaha, I mean it's all in good fun but I thought that observation was amusing.

Sometimes I do root for the clock, true story.  Nothing annoys me more than baseball games that run long.  I have a personal rule where if a baseball game exceeds 3.5 hours in length without going to extra innings, I turn it off.  I make rare exceptions and I add an exception for postseason baseball.  Otherwise, you see a game dragging on and on, SAYONARA!  

I root for the clock in football games too... usually College Football games have this problem.  Games that go on and on and it becomes unbearable.  Rhythm and flow!  Let's go!   That's what I'm after.

A lot of the moaning and groaning about Troy Aikman as a broadcaster is needless, I think.  Troy is a good broadcaster!   I was thinking:  His legacy with the Cowboys as QB puts him in a hole from the beginning.  It'd be tough for, say, Giants fans, 49ers fans, or Packers fans to not find something about him that riles them up.

It's only the best selling album of all time (up until the 21st century), and only today did I learn the original catalog number of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" Album:  QE 38112.  You could really stump someone in "Jeopardy!" by putting that up on the screen as the clue: QE 38112.  Nobody would get it!

One of my friends brought a season set of this HBO show called "The Wire."  "The Wire" has had rave reviews by many over the years.   Coach is about to check it out for himself.  I've heard great things!  Maybe I'll sample an episode down the line.

I was on the phone with my Dad today, really great to hear from him, and I'm planning to go back home to Oxnard to visit for the weekend.  He suggested we do something one of those nights as a family and I said "maybe we could go see a movie!"

Then he asked me what's out, and I said "Oh lots of movies are out... but I would highly recommend *not* watching 'The Wolf of Wall Street.'   Dad, that movie is verrrrrrrrrrrrrry explicit.   There were 500 F-bombs throughout the movie and really really graphic nudity, drugs...."

I went on and on about this and he chuckled at most of it.  Then I said "I think all of this stuff would be all right for you but it would be VERY awkward to see with the family."  Then he said, "we could go see it just ourselves!"   ....that might still be a tad awkward but the movie itself is said to be very good.  Either way, I think my Dad is going to see that movie eventually. 

Actually, Coach and all his friends on Sunday basically described all the best scenes of the stinkin' movie anyway!  I was thinking "I don't even need to see the movie now, all those jokers spoiled it for me."

My friend Coach had four other friends over this weekend, all of them were 49ers fans.   We all were expecting them to arrive at quarter of 10am on a Sunday and both Coach and I were *hurting.*  We really went nuts the night before with some other friends, got home late and boy oh boy I don't think the bathroom was happy with me at the end of the night.

Anyway, both of us got up late the next morning, well, not that late, I was up around 8:30am, but in Dave terms that's sleeping in.   Coach didn't get up for a good hour afterward.  I had to make sure he was even home.. the end of Saturday night was fuzzy my friends.   I wanted to go get a bag of breakfast burritos for the crew that was coming but it was not to be.   Just way too late.  Amazingly we got everything together with only a few minutes to prepare... for a 10am game!  Coach's friends arrived and it got intense, but all of them have a great sense of humor!

I am not sure if I can divulge this, but one of the guys we had over works for the Dan Patrick Radio Show, but on the TV side from DIRECTV HQ in El Segundo.  Sounds like an awesome gig... think of him as the "Victor" of the DP Show.  For those unaware, "Victor" worked at YES handling the TV Operations of the Mike Francesa show in New York.

Whoever this guy was he's a huge UCLA fan too, and with me and another guy (one of the other three friends) being SC fans we had a lil back and forth about the UCLA/SC rivalry DURING THE GAMES.  Friendly banter though, nothing serious.  Man that was a fun afternoon!  and the 49ers won!!   Good news all around.

It was great fun and the 49ers playoff parties have been grand as the sole neutral party, but this weekend I'm going to check out the Conference Championships with my Dad.  He truly is the best.

Oh!  The guy at Directv also works for this other program with Andrew Siciliano.   Those who follow the NFL know what it is.  We actually asked him "Why do you always put on the Tampa Bay Game??"  HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  He took the question in good stride.  Even showed us a pic of the TV set... its kinda different without all the funky lighting.

You know, you talk funk, and it all goes back to Bob James' funky grooves, especially from his first four albums.  "Lucky Seven" is the seventh album he did (I know, clever name!).  Everything through the 70's he did was just amazing... you wouldn't believe how many of his tunes were sampled by Hip Hop artists.  "Nautilus" was one of the most sampled tracks, IIRC, of all time.  "Take Me To the Mardi Gras," is not far behind.  Both of those tunes are phenomenal in their own right.



Did you see the Old Spice commercial with the mothers pleading for mercy with their sons about to get busy with women?  The mothers were coming out of the walls, dragging along the carpets, popping out of pots and pans or some jazz.  That has to be the worst Old Spice commercial of all time.  It was so creepy!  I suspect I'm not saying anything someone else hadn't already said.

Anyone feeling down, hopefully can turn to this:  Peach season is almost here!   It might be a couple months off, but thats two months closer than we were two months ago.  Do the dance, everybody!  We're this much closer to peaches!

Maybe there's folks out there who tire of my peach references.   Que sera sera, caveat emptor, et tu brute, ad nauseum.... ah you know what I mean.  Catch you all soon!

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