Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

Nearly two months into residency at the new house, we still haven”t unpacked a lot of stuff. But we did manage to unpack the DVDs late last week, so tonight I decided to pull out a prize of my collection - Dead Kennedys, The Early Years Live.

Except for the fact that the medium is shiny and round, this DK disc is hardly a true DVD. It”s nothing more than a dub of the old VHS version. But hey, at least it”s out on DVD.

In an age where entire seasons of Angel or Smallville are released on DVD immediately after the network reruns run their course, there”s a pathetic lack of good but obscure stuff - specifically music stuff - available on DVD.

At the top of my wish list:

• MTV”s The Cutting Edge - Early/mid “80s showcase of “alternative” acts, usually centered around the sound of cities such as Austin, Chapel Hill and underground L.A. Peter Zaremba of the Fleshtones hosted it, and my friends and I would gather every Sunday night to watch it. I was featured (sort of) in the Mardi Gras show filmed at Jimmy”s in New Orleans when a shot of Zaremba getting pegged by a doubloon I”d tossed at him made it to air.

• The Decline of Western Civilization - The amazing documentary of the L.A. punk scene done by Penelope Spheeris. The damn Independent Film Channel shows Decline Part II (The Metal Years) every other week, but never the original. I guess it”s hung up in a royalty dispute with Lee Ving or something.

• The IRS Show - This was kind of an infomercialumentary produced by the late, great IRS Records to promote its up-and-coming acts such as The Go-Gos and Wall of Voodoo. It was hosted by Jools Holland of Squeeze and featured concert clips, concept videos made specifically for the film and interviews with the bands. Awesome.

• URGH! A Music War - If you know what this is, you”re top 1% in musical hipness. It”s a compilation of live performances from acts such as The Police, Oingo Boingo, The Cramps, Dead Kennedys, Burning Spear, X, OMD … and the list goes on. A real Who”s Who of early “80s alternative. I had an audio cassette of this for about 10 years before I even knew there was a movie. I had a badly-dubbed VHS of it for awhile, and a couple of years ago I saw a copy of the actual VHS in the close-out bin at Sam Goody or someplace. I bought it - for $3.99. Tonight I searched for it on Amazon and all I found was a used zShops copy - for $295.00.

The only good news I”ve seen on the rare-and-cool music DVD front is the release last month of Athens, GA Inside/Out. I have it on VHS, but should probably replace it with a DVD.

If I seem somewhat obsessed with this topic, it”s only because I am. And the reason I”m obsessed is that the above titles are a small part of what I have to say was a damned impressive collection of musical bits and pieces I put together back in high school.

I”d spend hours hunting for cool stuff coming across the cable and do whatever it took to get it down on VHS. My complilations included R.E.M.”s bizarre Murmur-era appearance on Nickelodeon”s version of American Bandstand (imagine 12-year-olds dressed up in New Wave outfits trying to dance like Belinda Carlisle); the band”s first network TV appearance (Letterman) where they played So. Central Rain before the song had a name; a show called New Wave Theater that ran at the end of USA Network”s Night Flight show and an awesome concert series that aired on Showtime (I have no idea of its name now) that had great performances by Jason and the Scorchers, Lone Justice, P.I.L., R.E.M. The Alarm and others that slip my mind at the moment.

And my most-prized catch was Lenny Bruce”s unbelievably hilarious club routine/cartoon Thank You Masked Man. I saw that at the tail end of Night Flight one Saturday and stayed up (they replayed the whole 4-hour show for the west coast) to record it the second time around. Masked Man was my greatest pop-culture contribution to my circle of friends.

The bad news is that over time all but a couple of those VHS tapes have disappeared. I still have a few Cutting Edge episodes and The IRS Show, but I”ve been on a decade-long quest to rebuild the collection (big points to the wife for finding a proper copy of Thank You Masked Man to replace the copy I”d dubbed back from dubs a friend had made of my original recording).

I don”t need directors” commentaries, deleted scenes or making-of features. Just put it on DVD and sell it at Amazon, people.

This week the old search/mail bag brings us the following inquiries:

does lsu wear gold or purple football jerseys for road games (Yahoo)

Well, I tried to stay away from LSU football stuff this week … but since you asked, LSU actually wears white jerseys - not gold or purple - jerseys on the road. We also wear white jerseys at home. It”s one of those weird Louisiana things, so don”t ask why. Makes us unique though, doesn” t it?

dish-pro explained (Google) and mix legacy and dishpro (Yahoo)

Given my recent experience with the DishNetwork folks trying to set up my DishPVR 721 in the new house, it”s not surprising that customers are turning to random jackass bloggers such as myself for answers.

The DishPro is essentially an all-in-one antenna thingy (called the LNBF) coupled with Dish”s next-generation receivers (such as my 501 and 721 PVRs). I”m not sure what it means for a receiver to be a DishPro, but a DishPro LNBF has internal switches, which means it doesn”t work with “legacy” (old) switches. This is an issue if you”ve had just a single or dual LNBF running through splitters to more than one (single) or two (dual) tuners. You”ll need the DishPro Quad LNBF to use three or four receivers if you go DishPro.

sex scene photo monster ball hooker girl name is real hooker (Google)

girl name amber rules hooker is real actress

fucking megan ashford (Google)

Two choices on this one - the first is FCC-approved, the second is FCC-banned:

1) No shit! That fucking Megan Ashford!! What a bitch, dude!

2) Never had the pleasure, but I hear it”s a good time.

No, I have no idea who this Megan Ashford is. In fact, she may be the most anonymous person on Earth. With a not-too-uncommon-sounding name, Googling only produces two results for an actual “Megan Ashford”. Maybe that”s what the searcher is so pissed about.

I discovered a few weeks ago that one of the old, mature trees in our new front yard is a pecan tree. Not being an arborist, I only discovered this when I was out raking leaves and saw a bunch of pecans on the ground. Logic took over from there.

At first I tried to convince the wife that a pecan pie made from our own pecans would be a swell weekend project for her. But she showed little desire to shell pecans, and the pound of unshelled pecans left in our freezer by the former owner left little room for convincing.

So on the ground the pecans sat. A couple of Saturdays ago, a group of neighborhood kids found out about my tree and spent a half-hour stuffing pecans in their pockets. I even helped them by shaking some more loose for them. The way I see it, they”re going to fall, and if I don”t want to deal with them, it”s best that they get picked up by somebody else. Plus I get Whitey Points by being nice to the indigenous children.

And then this afternoon we arrive home to find a scraggly bum digging through the leaves along the curb looking for pecans. Somehow that wasn”t as cute as watching the little kids scramble for them.

Obviously used to picking up things left along the side of the road, the bum wisely stayed out of my yard (I hung out on the front porch to make sure, and the Big Brown Dog was on standby inside). It wasn”t exactly a scene fit for a Chamber of Commerce brochure, but as long as bum dude stayed on public property, I wasn”t going to hassle him.

He picked up probably 4 pounds of pecans and then moved on.

The best news is that he decided to stop by a couple of hours after my in-laws left following a weekend visit. The wife”s father is already rather troubled by his daughter”s “hood life, and I figure if he”s seen bum dude out there, he”d have packed a suitcase for the wife and brought her back to Tennessee.

I wrote a few days ago that the one group of people you won”t see complaining about USC being ranked No. 1 but not playing in the Sugar Bowl are the USC supporters. After all, if Oklahoma were to have beaten Kansas State last Saturday, USC still wouldn??t have made the BCS Championship game, and they also wouldn??t have a No. 1 ranking to defend (in the AP poll, at least) in the Rose Bowl.

Looks like I wrote too soon.

If a column written this week by Bill Plaschke of the L.A. Times is any indication, the Men of Troy have settled into full-on whine mode.

The piece touches on all the typical ??it ain??t fair?? arguments - the polls have USC No. 1, computers deciding who??s better is just plain un-American, there??s no way the Boise State / Hawaii game should factor into the BCS rankings, etc. But what I like about this particular whine-fest is the wonderful, left-coast, feel-good, ??I??m OK, You??re OK?? spin he puts on things.

I??d suggest fetching some Kleenex before reading on ?�

In describing the scene after USC??s players watched the BCS selection show and learned they would not be playing in the Sugar Bowl, he writes this:

“I can”t lie,” giant defensive tackle Shaun Cody said softly. “This is really tough.”

Those university presidents who sold college football”s integrity for $900 million and the BCS, they should have heard that voice.

“It”s not right,” receiver Mike Williams said, wincing. “It”s just not right.”

Those fools who program computers that determine a team”s worth without understanding a team”s heart, they should have seen that face.

Touching, isn??t it? How can the BCS do that? LOOK AT THEIR FACES, MAN! THE GUYS ARE WINCING! WINCING, I TELL YOU!!

Plaschke quotes USC coach Pete Carroll as saying his players are confused by the situation and ??It??s hard for them to fathom.?? And here I thought USC was a pretty good university. Maybe they don??t have logic classes there.

USC player Marcell Allmond is apparently pretty upset that Oklahoma didn??t fall father than No. 3 in the polls after their first loss of the season last Saturday.

“That”s not fair at all,” said Allmond. “They lose a game and it doesn”t drop them way down in the rankings? We lost a game early and it dropped us real far. We had to work our tails off to get back up. What does Oklahoma have to do?”

A writer looking for facts would not have included this quote, as young Marcell is either just a whining little Trojan or he??s amazingly stupid. See, when 3rd-ranked USC lost to then- 2-3 Cal, there were seven teams who won that weekend and were still undefeated. That??s why they fell to No. 10. When Oklahoma lost last weekend, it was their first loss. USC and LSU are the only other major teams with just one loss, so Oklahoma fell to No. 3 (behind the two other one-loss teams, you see) rather than to No. 25, as you would have liked to have happen.

This is because the polls are as much political as analytical. It??s the same reason a team can go from No. 2 to No. 1 after giving up 500+ yards and 28 points to a 7-5 team on the same day the No. 3 team shut down the No. 5 team 34 ?? 13. No. 2 moves up to No. 1 when No. 1 loses. That??s all the analysis required of the polls.

If I had a few hours, I could probably also explain to Marcell how a No. 3 Oklahoma can still be ranked No. 1 in the BCS [hint: it involves math].

Even Coach Carroll seems to be confused by the math of the BCS, especially as it related to the regular season??s final game in Hawaii.

“It just didn”t seem right. Could I believe that game had an impact? No, I could not believe it had an impact.”

See, Pete, all the games have an impact on strength of schedule. And none matters more than any other; it??s just unusual that the ratings were so close and a USC opponent was in that last game played, and that??s why the one game seemed to matter so much.

But the best part of the piece is Plaschke”s assertion that ??how you finish?? should be the most important thing and the line that ??The BCS teaches us that it”s all about reputation, not reality.??

How else to explain how LSU beats three lightweight programs - Louisiana Monroe, Western Illinois and Louisiana Tech - but passes USC in strength of schedule because the Southeastern Conference is considered that much tougher than the Pac-10

LSU passed USC in strength of schedule because - believe it or not - they played a stronger schedule. That??s how you explain it. Even with those lightweights, playing an SEC schedule (two games against a 10-win team, one 9-win team, two 8-win teams, a 7-win team, a 5-win team, a 4-win team and a 2-win team) left us with a better SOS than USC had based on its PAC-10 schedule (one 9-win team, two 7-win teams, two 6-win teams, a 5-win team, a 4-win team and a 2-win team) helped push LSU past USC in SOS.

Facts are tough, Bill.

And the only reason USC is ranked No. 1 in the polls is its ??reputation.?? The national press just loves that little Trojan man on the white horse. It??s so romantic. LSU doesn??t enjoy that kind of favorable bias.

Read the entire pity party here.

P.S. Funny how a school that is so upset about computers deciding who plays in the national championship game issued a press release last January touting the fact that the Trojans finished No. 1 in two of the BCS computers.

I had to go to PetsMart at lunch yesterday to pick up a new bark-collar battery for the Little Black Dog (yes, in addition to all his other charms, he also barks incessantly). While I was there, I thought I”d pick up a new inside toy for the Big Brown Dog, who has a fondness for sneaking his nice indoor toys out into the yard and turning them in to mudcakes.

The only toys that don”t eventually end up outside are those that suffer an early death. The BBD is a frustrated predator, so anything he can “kill”, he does. We spend a lot of time picking up shards of tennis balls, little bits of toy stuffing and the remnants of various other toys that couldn”t stand up to the torture of the BBD.

So as I”m shopping toys at PetsMart, I”m evaluating things for durability as much as for the potential enjoyment of the BBD. Yesterday I settled on a canvas-covered stuffed toy shaped more or less like a plump star. No arms or legs to pull off; no obvious and easy way to gut the thing, and priced right at $3.99.

The perfect BBD inside toy, I thought.

After dinner last night, I bust out the new toy and present it to the BBD. He settles in on the family room rug to “play”.

Within three minutes, he”s ripped the toy apart, pulled out all the stuffing and made his way to the little plastic squeaker inside. The squeaker, you see, is what he wants to play with.

Goal one with the squeaker is, of course, to make it stop squeaking. After that”s done, he brings it over for me to throw for him. Seventy-pound dog, 1/2-ounce smashed piece of plastic.

In between playing fetch with the silver-dollar-sized squeaker, the BBD revisits the corpse of his former toy; making sure to rip the hem completely off the rest of the canvas. At one point he”s standing on top of the toy, hem in teeth, pulling up as hard as he can. I guess it”s the modern dog”s version of picking apart a beaver.

Tonight, with the canvas corpse officially dead, the BBD went back to offering up the squeaker for fetch. That is until the wife decided it was smashed up enough to be a choking hazard.

Now that was $3.99 well spent.

The squeaker”s in the trash, and the wife just tossed the BBD a new tennis ball to play with. It”ll be wet shards within 5 minutes.

What”s Job 1 for sportswriters and talk jocks when an NFL coach gets fired these days? Mention LSU head coach Nick Saban as the most likely replacement.

And with the dismissal of Dan Reeves by the Falcons today, that”s all the buzz here in Atlanta.

Of course Saban is on every NFL owner”s wish list - he”s got to be among the top 5 coaches in college football; he”s got NFL coaching experience; he”s young, dynamic and intelligent.

But as my team”s coach, I take it kind of personally that the talk of Saban leaving for the NFL is not about “if”, but “when.” And not “when” in the sense of 10 years; every winter for the past three years the “experts” have said there”s no way Saban goes back to LSU for the next season.

Do I think Saban stays at LSU for 20 years? No. Ten years? Not out of the question. Does he leave after his 4th season? Um … maybe?

Saban is very much a goal-oriented kind of guy. In four seasons, Saban has won two SEC championships, a Sugar Bowl and a Peach Bowl (we”ll forget about last year”s Cotton Bowl for a second). And now - 45 years after our only national championship - he”s got LSU in a position to win the BCS title. This in just four years after LSU suffered back-to-back losing seasons.

So if Saban beats Oklahoma Jan. 4, has he done all he set out to do at LSU? Probably so. LSU is no Miami - if we played for a national championship every 10 years rather than every 45 years, we”d be pretty happy with that.

But maybe he”s driven by a greater goal - to make LSU truly a football power, a team mentioned alongside Oklahoma, Miami, Florida State, Michigan.

It”s impossible to say. I don”t think, however, Saban is chomping at the bit to head back to the NFL. Get a few more SEC titles under the belt and a couple more BCS bowl wins, and maybe the NFL becomes the next (and maybe last) challenge.

I do like how LSU A.D. Skip Bertman is playing the situation. Skip”s attitude is to keep Saban as happy as possible to make him want to stick around LSU as long as possible. Skip knows LSU won”t be Saban”s last coaching job, and he”s structured Saban”s contract in ways that reward his sticking around without trying to force him to.

As Skip said in an Advocate (the Baton Rouge daily, not the national gay newspaper) piece this week:

“The reason Nick is going to stay is because he wants to stay,” Bertman said. “He”s not going to stay because there”s a lot of money because we can”t compete with the pros. What we have to do at the university is show Nick that he is appreciated.

“There is no contract that I am going to be the architect of that will lock Nick Saban in. There is no “golden handcuff” contract. That”s not the way to court your best coach. What I want to do is indicate to Nick and his family how valuable I think he is.”

Skip”s pretty bright for an old baseball coach.

His strategy for retaining Saban is to offer the moon to stay at LSU, but leave the door open if and when Saban decides it”s time to go.

Saban reportedly will get a $1 million annuity if he stays another two years. He”ll be guaranteed to be the NCAA”s top-paid coach if he wins the national title. The new contract Skip plans to offer Saban after the Sugar Bowl will add even more long-term retention goodies.

And despite having an automatic-renewal clause (with built-in raises) in his contract, there”s absolutely no buy-out penalty if Saban leaves LSU for another job.

In effect, the LSU job is Saban”s as long as he wants it (unless LSU buys him out), and he”s free to leave whenever he wants (with no penalty).

It”s a counter-intuitive move of brilliant proportions. Most programs look to retain their coach by making it painful to leave. LSU, recognizing early on how hot a commodity Saban is, plans to retain him by letting him be free to leave, but demonstrating how much we”d like him to stay.