TRADITIONS AND LEGACIES

OLD SCHOOL WINS

     Old school sportswriters, before modern media, often wrote with the wisdom of sages and the language of poets. Modern America has a couple of contemporary tableau that are living personifications of traditional vs brash modern.

      The presidential sweepstakes offers contrast. The Democratic debates have been deep on substance, policy and agendas. Despite what a voter may think of the Clinton or Sanders philosophy, as a viewer you are treated to thoughtful articulation. The Republican debates have been "slice and dice" sessions with candidates attacking each other, often on less than substantial matters. Bombast and bravado have been the headlines, maybe inevitable when three of the leading candidates are Trump, Carson and Cruz, outsiders at best. Trump and Carson have no political experience and Cruz is detested by his own colleagues in the Senate and in the GOP. To this blogger's point of view, Ohio's Kasich has taken the traditional route and also the high ground. Florida's Bush has tried to play it that way, with questionable affect. In demeanor only, those two Governors have shown the class and capacity to be a President. They have shown intelligence.

       Maybe the biggest window came in the biggest American party-the secular spectacular. As the nation nurses Super Bowl hangover, the 50th edition wrote a legacy headline-Peyton Manning, supported by the earnest hard work of a smashing defensive unit rides off into the sun set in one of American sport's greatest fairy tale endings. Probably the hardest working/studying if not the most intelligent quarterback ever ends an all time record setting career with the biggest victory in the sport. Experts are quick to list Manning as one of the best 5 players ever. For those of us who know, support or cheer Manning, this is a glory moment.

        An Indianapolis sportswriter opined last week how the home of the Colts, where Manning led the team to a Superbowl, was for Super Sunday, a suburb of Denver. People love Manning, almost everywhere, and there is good reason.

       His brilliance at reading defense, and his physical skills will indeed be legend in the game. But there is more about Peyton and the run up coverage about him and his challenger quarterback Cam Newton is a classic example.            Newton is an extraordinary athlete. He is handsome, powerful, charismatic and in his own words representative of the new kind of super athlete who is taking over the game. Like many in modern America, Newton struggles with proper grammar, but he is still an articulate young man and personifies the kind of brashness and pride that is so rampant today. He is a football version of Donald Trump, though with more measurable skills. Peyton is old school.

       Manning is and has always been, humble and quick to give praise to his teammates, coaches and others. He told the pregame show he simply wanted to be remembered as a guy who was liked by his teammates and remembered for being a good team player. No doubt, ever.  He's the oldest Quarterback to play in the Superbowl, so he is old school, but there is something enduring about humility in a game of millionaires, swagger and bling.  Something rewarding too about a team that can win by defense--the hard, hard, agonizing work of grinding away. It is telling that Manning, who earlier in his career could run and could sail passes with the precision of a laser, but as a hurt, hobbled and aching old veteran could lead an offense and willingly cede the gridiron stage to the defense to let them control the pace of a game.

     Modern America likes flash and sizzle and selfies, the sort of thrill that an offensive game provides. Peyton used to be that way, as Cam Newton is now. But traditional ways require sacrifice, hard work and doing what it takes, even in the age of selfies and touchdown dances.  Selflessness wins over selfies.

       Had Peyton and the Broncos lost, you know he would have faced the media, answered their inquires, no matter how much he hurt. Cam Newton says he is a great fan of the game, and I don't doubt that. But I hope he is also a student. His post game behavior and his pre game "superman" swagger show that as good as he is, as promising as his future there are some old school lessons he should learn.

        Peyton Manning did it by hard work, very hard work, discipline and intelligence. Defensive hard work pays dividends. America should be paying attention.

        See you down the trail.

DYLAN SCORES-SEATTLE POUNDS-USING THE RAIN AND OTHER GOOD THINGS-CHEERS

GOOD THINGS
(For the Dylan surprise and the Super flop
read below--but first....)

     A painted sky, from the deck of friends Jacque and Mike.

THE FIRST RAIN OF THE YEAR

   The California drought was dampened with a bit of rain on Super Bowl Sunday.  A little more than an inch fell in the first measurable rain since last year, but conservation minded Californians went to work gathering what we could.

 Lana made repeated visit to empty a catchment vessel, filling storage containers. 

    The harvested rain water will irrigate a vegetable garden.

  All communities ought be more aggressive in harvesting rain flow. 

 MORE GOOD STUFF

   Comparing French Burgundy to Windward Pinot. Vintage tasting from 2000 to 2014. Our favorite was Windward in each year and these women are two of the best wine hostesses in the state, any year.

    Carpaccio covered with a Parmesan and truffle sauce!

    Catching the Moon and Venus in a ballet.

   And one more look at a rain wet deck-a delightful scene to dry Californians.

NOT SO GOOD

    Disappointed by the Super Bowl-not just the outcome, but the lack of excitement, balance, and competition.  Seattle's defense was relentless and effective. Denver's was not. 
     It is almost a sport to criticize Peyton Manning today, though not fair or objective. Manning never really got a chance, his line did very little to help, though his performance still set a record, but is of little consolation. Seattle's offense and especially Russell Wilson were champions. Seattle won the game, handily and deserve accolades.I wish it would have been closer, just because it would have been more fun. And while the Red Hot Chili Peppers are fun, I would have preferred a half time show with more Bruno Mars and less Peppers. But the party was cool, the company was great and the food was good, so, why should I complain.  Go 49ers!
     And while some of you are yelling "sell out," I was knocked out by the Bob Dylan Chrysler commercial. I certainly didn't see that coming! I was surprised that he'd do a commercial, yes, but I loved the tone and vibe of the piece he did.  
     I can't understand why folks would be upset. After all the music biz is just that, a business. Why shouldn't a poet, songwriter or rock star be able to earn a bit more by doing a commercial? It raises the quality of the advertising. Are artists supposed to give away paintings, or songs, or novels? I'm not sure it makes me want to buy a Chrysler, but I give them credit for making the American road, a patch of Highway 61.

    See you down the trail.

THE DOWNTON ABBEYing of AMERICA

THE REAL CULTURE WARFARE

Courtesy PBS Masterpiece Classics

    You wonder how many million Super Bowl viewers had DVR's set to their PBS station while they attended parties or watched the game at home.

     Super Bowl fans caring about a Masterpiece Theatre production you say?  Absolutely, indeed!  It hit me one morning a few weeks ago at our post tennis match coffee at Lilly's coffee deck in Cambria;  six or seven guys sitting around talking about a soap opera, the soap opera of course, Downton Abbey. This marvelous production, created and written by Julian Fellowes has captured American hearts.  

     People who are not usual PBS viewers have discovered how extraordinarily well Brits do television drama. The intricate plot line is the subject of conversations from dinner parties to grocery store check out lines. Conservatives, liberals, young and old have found a fiction upon which they can gather.

      An intrigue here is how this period drama of a time of class distinction and way of life has brought, well, a little class to America. Can't you enjoy the image of a football jersey wearing, chicken wing and jalapeno popper stuffed fan clicking away from the post game wrap up to watch the latest from the Grantham clan or Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes presiding over the staff?

      Julian Fellowes is seeding something here. It dawns on me the aristocratic excess and the enforced civility of the staff both are under girded by a sense of rule and dignity. The characters know, even if they do not always do, what is expected, what is proper. There is much to say about all of that, but at the very least it is a good thing for an increasingly casual America to see, to be entertained and perhaps even to be influenced, ever so slightly, by people with manners. Mr. Fellowes, you are a PBS radical indeed!!!

AND ABOUT THAT WONDERFUL MUSIC

Here is something special, the lyrics. 

      See you down the trail.

THE WEEKENDER- SUPER & ECLECTIC

A NATIONAL HOLIDAY?

    As a powerful offense can grind and thrash its way down field, the Super Bowl has, since its inception in 1967, become a dominant day in American culture. 

    It is the second largest food consumption day in the US, trailing only Thanksgiving.

    Super Bowl telecasts are among the most viewed programs in history and now command huge international audiences.

    How many million parties could you count?

    The fact that brothers Jim and John Harbaugh are coaching this year's contestants, adds another first to an historic American event.  

     In only 46 years a televised football game has become a defacto national holiday and drives a significant portion of the US economy thanks to advertising, merchandising and promotion.  A Super event indeed.

PRE OR POST GAME THRILLS

Don't be surprised if you find yourself grabbing a hold of something, or swaying a bit.

THIS IS ONE WILD RIDE

NOT A SPORTS FAN?

Write a caption for this photo

THE CONVERSATION

Have a Super Weekend.

See you down the trail.

WAR CLOUDS OVER IRAN & SPRING IS SPRUNG

THE MOVE IS IRAN'S

     The best analysis comes down to this-Iran will be hit by

an Israeli strike unless it shows the world a sign that it has or 

will shut down its nuclear weapons program.

     As a counter to the almost universal attitude of an inevitable Israeli strike is the threat by the supreme leader,

Ayatolla Khamenei that a strike on Iran would be more damaging to the United States.  
     Iran calls the US freezing of Iran's assets "psychological warfare" as they have begun a series of war games.
     Clearly the situation is a tinderbox. Israelis have stepped up security and Jewish organizations in the US and elsewhere have been told to do likewise.  US Military and Intelligence warn that an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear program would prompt an Iranian missile retaliation.
     The statement today by Khamenei is deemed a serious escalation.  Until now western sources have tried to portray the Iranian regime as being rogue and even without support of Iranians.  Now that the holy man has spoken, it will make it tougher on those elements in Iran who have been identified
as reasonable or pro western. The power remains someplace between the megalomania of Ahmadinejad and the zealotry of the Ayatolla. 
     Tricky and critical at this time.

DAY BOOK

NATURAL RHYTHM

     Coastal California is getting some needed rain today.

Amounts vary, but any precipitation is welcomed. It may be 

drier than it should be, but spring has arrived.  After 5 years

on the Central Coast, this former mid-westerner is still amazed to see blooms in early February.  We used to wait till

late March or April.  

 This is also the time of year when controlled burns are permitted.

      A personal note.  Congrats to Indianapolis for the superb job of hosting the Super Bowl.  Many friends and former colleagues were involved in a myriad of functions.

I have enjoyed hearing their reports and was proud

of how it all looked and came together.

     See you down the trail.

MODERN AMERICA & ANCIENT ROME

THE SUPER GAMES

     As one of the tens of millions who communed yesterday

by watching Giants beat Patriots, did you for a moment wonder if history will see us as we view the ancient Romans.

     There's a story about a festival in 160 BC that was to honor a famous playwright. Mid way in the performance about a mother in law some one announces the Gladiator Games were about to begin. The audience for the play, vanished.

     It seems the Romans also loved their super games, but

we've added the ironic wrinkle of watching commercials as a kind of sport.  Who gets credit for this clever advent?  There are contests, evaluation web sites and news stories about

which commercial we liked the most. It blows my mind. During the rest of the year commercials are considered an annoyance, something to endure or speed through with our DVRs, but not on Super Sunday.

     Chariot racing was a big sport with the Romans, the source of heavy wagering.  Chariot drivers were early superstars.  Then came the Gladiator Games.

      Some have compared the NFL to modern Gladiator Games, but we need to be careful here.  First those Ancient Romans staged games that were to the death.  Thousands watched and cheered as the combatants played a real blood bath and death match.

      Then, another kind of insidious and sinister spin on the game set the Romans apart from us.  Toward the end of the Republic Gladiator Games were sponsored by politicians.  It is true.  Roman pols sponsored the games to boost their standing.  In a tribute to the idea "things never change" the Roman Senate tried unsuccessfully to curb political sponsorship.

      So on balance, we must be a tad bit more evolved.

When the Boston fans talk about sacking Belichick, it is only a figure of speech, a non lethal deposing of which they foment. And mercifully it was Madonna who provided our half time enjoyment. Were we truly like the Romans, it could have been Newt Gingerich prancing in high boots and short shorts, or Mitt Romney being carried in by legions of the 99%.

      How would historians have regarded that?

      DAY BOOK

THE CATS HAVE THEIR GAME

Luke has recently shown his love for climbing on the car.

Now little brother Hemingway is following suit.

Yes, you rascal!

See you down the trail.

THE WEEKENDER :) WHAT KIND OF IRON?

REEL THOUGHTS

THE IRON LADY

     First, Meryl Streep is absolutely superb, in all of the 

incarnations she portrays of Margret Thatcher.  

        In many ways the film is also superb, but it has a center of gravity that is disturbing and disrespectful.  

      Thatcher was one of the towering characters of the late

20th Century. Obviously she was a barrier breaker and an historic figure.  Regardless of her politics, and people are still divided about that, she deserves a more appropriate lens by which to view her life and influence.

      Screen writer Abi Morgan, whose credits are the movie Shame and TV movies, is inauthentic, disingenuous

and probably a wholesale fabricator in using an increasingly

incapacitated Lady Thatcher as the touchstone from which she launches into memories.  Speaking with her husband's ghost as a point of departure, for example. It is distasteful, contrived and demeaning to a true historic character.

     The director Phyllida Lloyd, a well regarded director in

British Theater, presides over a film that could have been

brilliant had it not been for her and Morgan's penchant to  make it a bit of a cheap English tattler.

     Despite those serious weaknesses in structure, Streep, Jim Broadbent as Dennis Thatcher and Alexandra Roach as a young Iron Lady were all brilliant. The film is well made

except for its orientation of focus.

      Thatcher's life was towering enough to find another through-line or means of story connection.  Seeing her in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease is cheap and in many ways a bit of a shot at her. There is enough known about her, that Morgan and Lloyd didn't have to resort to contriving scenes of

the once elegant lady rummaging around her apartment, disheveled and demented. 

      A personal note-the thing I remember about Margret 

Thatcher, made indelible in my meeting her after she had 

left office, was her supreme command and eloquent use of 

English. She spoke as well as anyone I've known or have seen.

She could be tough, yes, but so well spoken.

      There is a lot about the film that is commendable,

but the horrible contrivance of seeing her as a failing old 

woman is an artistic license that should earn scorn for Lloyd and Morgan. Streep on the other hand becomes more legendary by her uncanny and brilliant work though I wish she had not been called on to play some scenes.

GREAT THATCHER MOMENTS

A Young Iron Lady  1975

Later as PM in the House of Parliament

(Turn up the volume on this)

THE FILM VERSION

Have a good weekend. 

Enjoy the Super Bowl-at least there is a

Manning in it.

See you down the trail.

THE WEEKENDER :) A SIDE TRIP

ROCK RADIO WARS

My long time pal, former colleague and blog mentor

Bruce Taylor, a.k.a. The Catalyst has been

dumbfounded about why I would leave the climes

of the California Central Coast for the bone chilling

temperatures of Indianapolis, especially since the 

Super Bowl is a couple of weeks away.

The reason is a red carpet premiere of a

a documentary in which I am interviewed.

Film maker David Fulton has flown a few of us who now live

on the west coast back to Indianapolis for a round of 

radio and TV interviews, VIP events and the screening

itself. Here's the trailer.

In the last couple of days I've been able to catch up with

former colleagues, see old friends and catch a whiff of the

Super Bowl mania in Indianapolis.

I've been on the 3 major television stations 

including where I anchored for many years.

 David was surprised by how cordial all of the 

television people have been.  I told him that is 

partially a result of having been colleagues

with people who now staff the stations.

The journey also provided a chance for a sentimental

visit to Muncie, home of my Alma Mater Ball State, 

my kid hood home and where my family members are

interred. It is also home to the Pizza King which is the 

home of the ground beef, barbecue pizza.

So, Bruce, even though it has not risen above

20 degrees, there has been some benefit indeed!

The VIP Party, Red Carpet, Limo ride and all of that

is tonight.

See you down the trail.

AREN'T THERE PALM TREES AT THE SUPER BOWL?

OR SO THE ROAD ADVENTURE CONTINUES

(Indianapolis) Part of the mission here is to get an

early look at the Superbowl festivities. Oh boy are

some Super Bowl partiers going to be in for

a shock, if the early February weather is

like this. Indianapolis is great at hosting,

staging mega major events, making sports fans

feel right at home, putting on a party, but...

Most Super Bowl revelers equate the big party down

with palm trees, maybe even leisurely strolls along

the beach, or avenue.

Here is a quick thought about that in the form of

MORE FROM THE ROAD

Finally got out of the Phoenix airport into the air

a little before 8PM.  Arrive Indianapolis at 1:02 AM.

The jet gateway was frozen, so there was that time 

when all the folks, eager to deplane, are standing

tummy to fanny balancing carry ons and craning their necks

to see the front of the line, as if that might by some

power, expedite the process.

That first blast of 12 degree weather was a balm of 

sorts on this weary traveler who started his forward process

at 3:45 am PT.

Thank you for rapid reservation service at the car rental, except I'm stopped at the gate by the security guy who

radios in to the main office that Mr. Cochrun is in a car without paperwork.  A few minutes of back and forth

and I end up backing up, finding the "right" car in the

"right slot" and off onto the freeway which is

snowy and ice covered.  It's been a while for that experience as we don't get snow or ice on the Pacific Coast Highway, Highway 46, aka The Green Valley Road, or our stretch of the 101. I keep looking for pavement and

believe the signs that war of ice on bridges and overpasses.

To the hotel, finally, knuckles a little tight from

the grip on the wheel and to the room. Lights out at

3 AM.

DAY BOOK

SUPER BOWL AND SUPER WEATHER?

 The walkway to the parking  garage

gave first glimpse of the wonderland outside.

 Morning dawns.  12-14 inches of snow an

hour north.  School delays and icy roads

here.

Ah, the joys of travel.

See you down the road.