The Seattle Seahawks have just defeated the St Louis Rams to win the comical NFC West this year, with a losing record of 7-9. Yet, by existing NFL rules, they will get to host a playoff game next week. Should this rule be changed?
My personal feeling is yes, it should. However, I have an appreciation for “business” to involve teams from all parts of the country to maintain a true “national” interest in the game, so I propose a compromise.
Division winners should get in as they currently do. However, Division winners without a winning record (so .500 won’t cut it) should not be allowed to host a playoff game.
You still keep the national interest this way because the team is still in. Their fans will just have to travel or watch it on TV.
I think that’s just sick that Seattle got in with a 7-9 record and gets to host a playoff game. I want to see a competitive playoff game, not a butt kicking. Furthermore, it’s an absolute insult to all the good teams in the NFC with better records than the Seahawks.
You know, I thought football was a man’s game. Alas, if it were, the Seahawks should man up and let someone else in the NFC get in, or offer to travel to New Orleans to take on the Saints. But maybe it’ll be appropriate that their fans will get to see the Saints kick their butts as a lasting momento to end the season.
But to be a man, I’ll congratulate the Seahawks on making the playoffs and stepping up when they needed to and win a do or die game. I will thoroughly enjoy their annihilation next week.
What do you think of this rule about automatic playoff hosting for division winners?
Most people do not hear most of the songs they know for the first time in the year the song was released. If anyone did, I would feel very sorry for them for missing out on all the great songs of the past from before they were born, or even great songs each year they lived they would have missed.
What most people don’t do is reflect each year on the best songs they heard for the first time that year. I’ve blogged some of mine, but not all so this is my entire collection for 2010 which could fit on a CD if I made one.
After several years of discovering a ton of jazz and older music, then tunes from musicals, so that they made up most of the songs in my list for recent years (2009 list), I am back with an eclectic set that reflects my true musical tastes and philanderings across genres. I even have not only one song from the current year, but two! A song from the year of the list was something I didn’t have for several years. I did find newly released songs I liked a lot in those years, but they didn’t compare to a variety of jazz and musicals standards I discovered in those years.
But before I share my list, let me ask you the same question as I answered to write this post. What were the best songs you heard for the first time in 2010?
I’d love to know so please do leave a comment. I can add the links to videos so people can hear what you’re talking about, if you would like. But if you don’t want to do it here, maybe write a blog post like this if you have a blog, or a Facebook note or something like that on a social media platform account you have. It might just be one of the more thoughtful notes to your friends all year.
Here is my list, in no particular order of preference, with videos streaming the songs. You will need to click on the YouTube link for some videos with some weird copyright condition that only allow them to be viewed on YouTube. I hate Grown Up Corporate YouTube that’s become a wussie and lost all its edge.
There once was a time when you could take a dirty phrase to make a classy hit song out of it. I don’t know when it ended, but it was certainly alive in the 1940s when this song came about! This is the Louis Armstrong version, with Velma Middleton and the Louis Armstrong Orchestra, not the original Fats Waller version (at the end) that wasn’t nearly as good.
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Hey Pops! What’s wrong Daddy? You look like somethin’ botherin’ you Ain’t nothin’ botherin’ me honey That a piece of roast beef can’t fix up
A man works hard then comes on home Expects to find stew with that fine ham bone He opens the door, then start to lookin’ Say, Woman, what’s this stuff you cookin’?
Now all that meat and no potatoes I just ain’t right, dey like da green tomatoes Here I’m waitin’ Palpitatin’ With all that meat and no potatoes
All that meat and no potatoes All that food to the alligators Now hold me steady I’m really ready Now all that meat and no potatoes
I don’t think that peas are bad With meat most anything goes Yes, I look into the pot I’m fit to fight ‘Cause, woman, you know that mess just ain’t right
Oh, Pops!
All that meat and no potatoes Just ain’t right, like green tomatoes Woman, I’m steamin’, yeah! I’m really screamin’ All that meat and no potatoes
Say, I don’t think that beans are bad With meat most anything goes I look into the pot And what a sight! Oh, woman, you know that without rice Beans just ain’t right
Oh, Pops!
All that meat and no potatoes Just ain’t right, like green tomatoes Now woman, I’m steamin’ And I’m really screamin’ All that meat and no potatoes
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Louis Armstrong & Velma Middleton
When I first heard this song, I found it really groovy, and I still do, but I thought to myself, why would someone write such a great song about meat and potatoes?
Well, after some researching, I found out.
The title of this song, All That Meat and No Potatoes, was a slur from the early 1940s that was used to described a big figured attractive woman with small breasts. Gee, don’t you wish English was still that classy these days?
Hey, some people will never be classy, but you could help them by giving them language like this rather than, well, you use your own choice words.
Anyhoo, the story regarding how this song came about was that Fats Waller liked some female vocalist he was working with, except that she was all that meat and no potatoes. So he wrote a song about it.
Awww. Wasn’t that romantic? 🙂
But you’ve got to give credits to Fats, and his manager Ed Kirkeby. They wrote a good song on the literal end of things, expressing discontent with cooking that had a lot of meat and no potatoes, as a metaphor for Fats’ feelings towards this woman.
Then Louis came along and just took it to another level. Compare the version above to the version below.
It might be jazz, but I’ll tell ya, can Louis rock it or what???
There are tons of guitar tabs online, so why am I posting guitar tabs on my blog? Two words: more information.
More information which will help you figure out what was on my mind in creating every part of the tab and decipher it better if you use it. And for me, I eventually will have my guitar tabs set online so I can access it from anywhere that has an Internet connection!
The main problem with guitar tabs is that there is so little information compared to sheet music that you can’t hope to know what was going through the tabber’s mind when certain chords were written out. They might have been listening to a version of the song you weren’t. They might have arranged it a little differently because they sang it a little differently than the version they referenced. Sometimes they do this because with just one guitar instead of a band, certain things just don’t sound good so void of other musical support (a sign of a bad song). But overall, let’s face it, the general guitar tabs out there isn’t professional quality stuff. That’s why there are so many versions for each song.
With some advances to blogging and web technology, as well as efforts of others to post things, the guitar tabs I present will have more feature containing information you can reference to learn them and/or modify them for your own versions. First, I will have videos with recordings of the pieces I referenced so you can hear them for yourself. Second, there are notes written out, even if just letters rather than sheet music style. Notes an octave apart will be identified by capital letters for the higher notes. That way, if I modified anything, you can figure it out and understand what I did, then decide for yourself if you want to leave it or change it yourself. Finally, the chords appear exactly where they should be as I change them so there is no doubt.
In my first guitar tab on this blog, I present an exotic version of Blueberry Hill, the Fats Domino classic many people know, some of whom via the favourite song of Richie Cunningham from the Happy Days sitcom from 1974-1984. Fats’ version is the bottom of two videos below, included for comparative purposes. The version I present is by Louis Armstrong, from 1949 and recorded in Canada, no less! I like it because has a whole bunch of extra lyrics, with some scatting, that will either challenge you or allow you to duet with someone. Its video is below, meant to accompany the guitar tab above, although you’ll probably want to do it at a much slower, nostalgic sort of tempo to squeeze everything in.
One day soon, I hope to record a version so I can really demonstrate how I envisioned it to be played with solo guitar or ukulele, and not just ask you to figure it out from the video below.
These tabs all fit on one page to avoid the inconvenience of page turns. However, the letter size tabs (8.5″ x 11″) may be too small for your eyes. If so, you can either enlarge to tabloid size (11″ x 17″) using an automatic enlarge feature on many photocopiers, or download the tabloid sized versions for printing. The tabloid size tabs can be inserted into a typical letter sized binder on the 11″ size, and folded almost in half to fit. You just open each tab to use it.
Artist: Louis Armsrtong with Gordon Jenkins and His Orchestra
Title: “Blueberry Hill” (Lewis-Stock-Rose)
Label: Decca Personality
Cat No: 24752-B
Release Year: 1949
Country: Canada
Format: 10″ Shellac Record Thanks to VinyltoVideo YouTube user for the post!
Fats Domino’s well-known version of Blueberry Hill
Jan 2011 update: Margaret Whiting passed away on Jan 10, 2011. It is sad, of course, but what a legacy she left us with, including the song in the video below written by Francesca Blumenthal in 1986. Rest in peace, Margaret.
At this time in 2009, I started building this blog as part of my year to learn about social media. In 2010, I am learning about multi-media and this is my first video. I should point out that like my study of social media, it’s about knowing its capabilities and potential more than the technical stuff, though a lot can be learned by doing hands-on technical stuff. It’s too bad all too many “boss” types in the world never really learn the details of things they “manage” from doing to appreciate the challenges and power of those things.
I used Windows Movie Maker to make this video, with its rather limited capabilities and features. I know it’s not a great video editing program, but I’ll get around to one soon enough. I created the images from Photoshop actions I made to save a lot of time and repetitive effort.
The idea for this video first came to me in the middle of 2009 when I wanted to social media share the 1986 song The Lies of Handsome Men, written by Francesca Blumenthal, sung by 1940s crooner Margaret Whiting in 1990 when she was 66! Thank you to Francesca for correcting my mistake in a comment below. What a beautiful song this is and I hope you’ve got more such songs in your repertoire, past and future!
In my opinion, Margaret’s version is the definitive version of the song. I haven’t heard anybody else sing it like it, and I love it when I find definitive versions of songs that just blow the rest of the versions away. What made the difference for me, as I later found out through research, was that Margaret had been involved in acting and she used those acting skills to put just a little more intonation and feeling into the song. I listened and I really believed she meant everything she said. Mind you, the way she ended up with a former gay porn star 20 years her junior while in her 50s for 33 years of her life (see notes near the end of the notes before the video), she’s a mighty fine actress to have convinced me she believed those lies when she obviously brushed them aside!
Usually, I can find what I want in music online on YouTube. However, there was no version of this song I could find anywhere to share so I penned it down as an idea for a video in 2010 when I would be focusing on learning multi-media. I thought of it as a simple project, to create a slide show video where the images would be male movie stars and musicians of an era past, in black and white.
Images were mostly from an amazing site of black and white movie portraits called Dr Macro’s High Quality Movie Scans. Portraits were so beautiful and noble back in those days! Order of the portrait tied the images to something in the lyrics as much as possible, albeit sometimes rather vague and sometimes without connection because it isn’t easy to have a limited collection to suit any old set of lyrics, you know! Names of subjects are at the bottom of this post.
I wanted to use past celebrities’ B&W portraits because they were more true to the song’s age and feel, as well as avoid all the people today created out of hype with faults yet to be found. The stars in the past have had their good and bad days and have their legacies pretty much written so they are more “timeless” since public opinion won’t likely change much on them any more.
Had I thought of this video in December, I might have gone after the images of the women of Tiger Woods. Hahaha!
But I can still dedicate it to them, can I not?
Alas, they ain’t got nothing on Margaret! On her fourth marriage, Margaret married a gay porn star 20 years her junior in the late Jack Wrangler (neé John Stillman), who eventually also came to do straight porn.
Ooops. Bad pun intended! 😉
According to Jack, this was how they met.
In 1976, Jack Wrangler met celebrated 1940s pop singer and film actress Margaret Whiting when she attended one of his one-man erotic shows in New York. As he later recalled, “I was with my manager when I looked over at Margaret, who was surrounded by five guys at a booth. ‘There she was with the hair, the furs and the big gestures. I thought, ‘Boy, now that’s New York! That’s glamour!’ I had to meet her.” A relationship developed. He was 33; she was 55. When Wrangler confided to Whiting that he was gay, her response was “only around the edges, dear.” The couple has never married. As Whiting told People magazine in 1987, “There’s no point in us getting married. We’re not having kids.”
Remember, Margaret Whiting made her debut as a crooner in the 1940s! Those women of Tiger Woods ain’t got nothin’ on her!
Margaret is still alive so far as I know. Jack passed away in April 2009 from emphysema after 40 years of smoking. Their picture together is the slide in the video.
Seems Margaret didn’t believe in the lies of handsome men if she convinced Jack to be her mate despite his openly gay declaration. 😉
Here is the video below. Please give constructive criticisms if you can afford the time. Thank you.
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Reading Level: 7.1
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LYRICS
I believe in star signs
And I believe in film romances
I believe in in fantasy
And I believe with just one glance he’s
Crazy for my eyes
‘Cause I believe the lies
Of handsome men
I believe in witchcraft
And I believe in Cinderella
I believe in gypsies
And I believe I cast a spell that
Sends him to the skies
‘Cause I believe the lies
Of handsome men
Somewhere in a corner of my mind
I’m not a fool, completely blind
But even though he’s hooked me on his line
I find the pleasure has been mine
I believe in love songs,
They seem to know just what I’m feeling
I believe in Prince Charming
I never guess he’s double dealing
How my spirits rise
Believing in the lies
Of handsome men
Sometimes in a dark and quiet place
The truth and I meet face to face
And even if his Highness disappears
I keep some lovely souvenirs
So I believe in heroes
And I expect that happy ending
Wishing on some rainbow
I pretend he’s not pretending
Someday I’ll get wise
But right now I need the lies
Of handsome men
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STARRING
(in order of appearance, group by song verses)
Margaret Whiting
Bing Crosby, James Dean, Marlon Brando, Duke Ellington, Paul Newman, Basil Rathbone, Tony Curtis
Lex Barker, Gene Kelly, Rudolph Valentino, Cary Grant, Louis Armstrong, Robert Young, Elvis Presley
Rock Hudson, Humphrey Bogart, Ray Charles, Henry Fonda, Warner Baxter, John Wayne
Frank Sinatra, Gary Cooper, Rudolph Valentino, Rudolph and wife Natacha Rambova, Clark Gable, John Garrick, Ronald Reagan
Ralph Bellamy, Robert Montgomery, Buster Crabbe
Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Vincent Price, Sidney Poitier, Laurence Olivier, Johnny Mack Brown, Errol Flynn, Claude Rains
Muhammad Ali, Gene Autry, Fred Astaire, Joel McCrea, Vic Damone, Gregory Peck, Clint Eastwood
Digital Citizen 