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johngarfieldtribute · 3 years

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ART IS UNIVERSAL!

I love the movie posters from Old Hollywood, and the international releases often brought a fresh look to the film’s promotional materials.

The French movie poster for FOUR DAUGHTERS prominently featured Julie. By the time the movie hit overseas, his groundbreaking debut performance was something of mass appeal to audiences.

In comparison, the promotional materials prepared in the US before the film’s premiere popped in photos of Julie and fellow supporting player Jeffrey Lynn as afterthoughts.

Julie’s incredible performance was groundbreaking. He is the screen’s first REBEL HERO and one of the earliest Method actors in film. He precedes Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Paul Newman and others. Read TCM’s profile on Julie here.

Julie‘s hometown paper, The New York Times enthusiastically praised his debut. It’s hard to believe these upcoming SPOILERS are actually in a review. More accurately, it reads like a PLOT SUMMARY. However, this reviewer recognizes Julie’s incredible debut performance, so it’s worth transcribing. (Note the low key ad for the movie in the bottom right).

Warners’ ‘Four Daughters” a Sentimental Comedy at Music Hall

Friday, August 19, 1938

by B.R.C. (NYT film reviewer and freelance journalist, Benjamin R. Crisler)

A charming, at times heartbreakingly human, little comedy about life in a musical family of attractive daughters which occasionally is ruffled by the drama of a masculine world outside, “Four Daughters” at the (Radio City) Music Hall, attempts to agree with Jack Warner’s recent assertion in the advertisements that it is the climax of his career. Putting aside Mr. Warner’s career for the nonse, we may assert with equal confidence that “Four Daughters” is one of the best pictures of anybody’s career, if only for the sake of the marvelously meaningful character of Mickey Borden as portrayed by John (formerly Jules) Garfield, who bites off his lines with a delivery so eloquent that we aren’t sure whether it is the dialogue or Mr. Garfield who is so bitterly brilliant.

Our vote, though, is for Mr. Garfield and for whatever stars watch over his career on the stage and screen, because, on re-reading the dialogue, as we have just done carefully, it seems to have lost something of the acidity, the beautiful clarity it had when Mr. Garfield spoke it. As the most startling innovation in the way of a screen character in years—a fascinating fatalist, reckless and poor and unhappy, who smokes too much, who is insufferably rude to everybody, and who assumes as a matter of course that all the cards are stacked against him, Mr. Garfield is such a sweet relief from conventional screen types, in this one character, anyway, so eloquent of a certain dispossessed class of people, that we can’t thank Warner Brothers, Michael Curtiz, the director, Mr. Epstein and Miss Coffee, the screen playwrights, and even Miss Fannie Hurst, the original author, enough for him.

In addition to Mr. Warner, Mr. Garfield and the Music Hall, “Four Daughters” is also a triumph for Priscilla Lane, who is much more attractive, animated and intelligent, than the run of ingénues; for Jeffrey Lynn, a new romantic discovery who knows how to be handsome inoffensively; for Claude Rains, as the musical father; Frank McHugh, as a rich beau; May Robson as Aunt Etta; Rosemary, as the voice of the family, and Lola as the quiet homebody. In fact all the Lanes—a prolific and talented tribe—meet at the Music Hall this week, and one would hardly know which Lane to take, so inviting are all three, not to mention Gale Page, who makes an attractive fourth.

The story begins gayly with a blossoming peach tree and a family quintet rendition of Schubert’s “Serenade” with Papa wielding his flute like a baton, with Priscilla playing the violin, Lola at the harp (if we remember correctly), and Gale at the piano. It is a house full of music and youth and femininity, and the good-natured grumpiness of Papa, who hates jazz, and with only the remotest threat of masculine invasion. But see how the serpent enters this Eden: First Mr. Lynn, a composer, comes swinging on the gate, and then his orchestrator from the city, Mr. Garfield, with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, no money, not even a clean shirt, a personal grudge against the Fates, an interesting vocabulary and a heart of purest suet— Mr. Garfield, the eternal outsider.

In the long run it is this character—and a very fine cinematic invention he is—who steals the picture. His suicide is the pivotal theme, the tragic incident (and Mickey himself would call it an incident) which brings the cinematically predestined lovers, Priscilla and Jeffrey, back together again, after Priscilla’s impetuous sacrifice of herself and what she fancied was the altar of two other people’s happiness. But it’s just a simple family affair, after all, and it ends—the old folks a little older, the young ones a little less gay—with the same flowering peach tree and Schubert’s “Serenade,” and with the discordant squeak of Jeffrey swinging on the gate again to interrupt Priscilla’s fiddle part. It may be sentimental, but it’s grand cinema.

Variety, the show biz bible newspaper had this to say:

December 31, 1937 11:00pm PT

Four Daughters by Variety staff

Score one for Warners on this gentle drama from Fannie Hurst’s novel, Sister Act. It’s a beguiling film which reveals John Garfield as an interesting picture prospect. Formerly Jules Garfield, of Broadway’s Group Theatre, the actor turns out to be much more forceful personality on the screen than he was on the stage.

This tale deals with the heart-throbs of the four talented daughters of a professor of music. It’s a simple, gay and lovable small-town household. And as the various girls acquire beaux, the old man looks on with a twinkling eye, and kindly Aunt Etta bustles about to make the place homelike.

Michael Curtiz’s direction is both affectionate and knowing. Claude Rains is irresistibly persuasive and attractive as the father. Priscilla Lane has the best part as the youngest sister. May Robson plays the aunt in proper mother-hen fashion. As the ill-starred newcomer, Garfield plays with such tight-lipped force that for a time he threatens to throw the picture out of focus by drawing too much interest.

1938: Nominations: Best Picture, Director, Supp. Actor (John Garfield), Screenplay, Sound

The Spanish version of the movie poster also gives prominence to Julie’s scenes as Mickey Borden. Incidentally, Frank Sinatra and Doris Day starred in a musical remake from 1954, YOUNG AT HEART. Scuttlebutt is that Francis Albert would only do it if the ending was changed to his liking. Glad he did it so we could have that beauty of a title song.

The poster above shows a different angle for the promo campaign. Notice that Julie is touted as “the most dynamic discovery since Cagney.”

Looking like the total outsider. The nonconformist. Check out that stubble. Turns out, Mickey was the sensitive observer. Such a natural!

The studio paired Julie with Priscilla Lane in several films. Here’s a compilation of clips of their screen time.

“I believe the more successful an actor becomes, the more chances he should take. An actor never stops learning.” —John Garfield

How about an honorary Oscar awarded posthumously for Julie’s incredible work in film? This was only his first film role and his later performances showed even more depth—more maturity. What an amazing gift he had, and it’s a huge loss that he was taken too soon.

#john garfield #four daughters #priscilla lane #foreign movie posters #frank sinatra #doris day #young at heart

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adabassist · 4 years

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NOT EXACTLY THE SUMMER OF ‘69, BUT I WAS NEVER AS COOL AS BRYAN ADAMS ANYWAY

Recently someone asked me how I ended up a bass player. I forget what I told them, but it was short, sweet, and long on understatement. The real answer is a lot more complicated.

My earliest memory is from before I was 2 (yep, 2 - believe it or don’t), sitting at the 70-year-old upright piano we got for free from a garage sale down the street, pounding on the low keys, because they made this GLORIOUSLY ENORMOUS SOUND… To this day, I cannot recall ever hearing an upright piano where the notes were as big sounding, although I’m sure my small ears had a skewed sensory experience compared to later years.

We (I have an older sister and brother) would play a musical piano game called “Thunderstorm”, where we would try to recreate the thunder (lower 1/3 of the keyboard), lightning (middle 1/3), and rain (higher 1/3) associated with a big storm (our parents were thrilled). I remember trying to pound on the higher keys in desperation, wondering why they lacked a powerful sound no matter how hard I hit them. I began to see the notes played in terms of size, with the lowest notes “appearing” to be largest in my mind’s eye.

Before long, I could hear how certain notes sounded good together - just octaves and fifths at first, then other “hip” intervals like a minor 7th (though I had no name for that interval in my head - I just liked the sound). I even wrote a song called “Dun” somewhere along the line, played with the index finger on each hand; left hand stayed on G (same pitch as a G string on a bass), and right hand moved between D, E, and F. “Dun” got its name because I played it so often that my siblings would mock me by singing that song back to me: “DUN DUN DU-DUN DUN DU-DU-DU-DUN DUN….”

You could say that my fate was sealed.

I would regularly sit down at the piano and play whatever my heart desired. Back then I had never taken piano lessons, and had no idea how to read or even what was “proper” to be played on a piano. I just figured stuff out when I felt like it, and otherwise just had fun learning the sonic relationships between the keys. But I thought I was pretty good anyway. I even used to make “tickets” for the family (markers, scissors, and construction paper) and make them “attend my concerts” from time to time. Let’s just say I wasn’t a big hit.

I auditioned for the school talent show in 1st grade, figuring I was a shoo-in, regardless of what my family thought (lousy philistines). I got through to the 2nd audition, and upon completion, the music teacher said, “That’s not what you played for the first audition. Can you play that song?” I said no, because everything I play is all off the top of my head. I didn’t make the talent show, and I remember thinking how “rinky-dink” the songs were by the people who did get to perform…

Somewhere along the line, I learned the names of the notes, and even found out that I could do a neat trick: if my sister played a note on the piano, I could name it - every time. I was so good at it that she was sure I was cheating or peeking, so I was marched into the next room to continue the game. This of course changed nothing; I had discovered that I could simply name the notes upon hearing them. I didn’t know what perfect pitch was, but I had it. When my cousin - well-recognized at his school for being a talented violinist - came to visit, and couldn’t do the same trick as I could, he got more than a little annoyed. But that’s the nature of perfect pitch; you can develop it to a degree, but largely, you either got it or you don’t.

I was about nine when I found a harmonica in a box in our garage, brand-new, no idea what it was doing there. I began to play with it and discovered that the same scale I played on the piano was also recognizable on a harmonica! I had never played another instrument before, and I was enthralled. After a while I got the idea that I could play the harmonica and the piano at the same time, so I went into the living room with the harmonica and sat down at the piano. Blew a C chord on the harp, and played a C note on the piano.

YUCK. That sounded AWFUL.

I couldn’t understand it - the harmonica was clearly marked “C” (this might be what gave me the idea to try them together). But the “C” on the harmonica didn’t sound good at ALL with the “C” on the piano.

Turns out the piano was tuned exactly one half-step flat. Possibly because it had spent most of its life in the salty air near the San Francisco Bay, and the soundboard had rotted just enough that it couldn’t keep strings at tension or pitch anymore. Tuning it so it at least played in tune with itself was a logical decision.

But it forever skewed my sense of what a “C” actually sounded like in my head. To this day, I refer to my condition as “IMPERFECT pitch”.

I did figure out that if I played a Db scale on the piano, it worked well with the harmonica, but it was too difficult to wrap my brain and hands around all of that when the piano was ten feet from the front door, and comings and goings were a constant distraction. So the harmonica went the way of the bread machine you got as a gift sometime around the turn of the 21st century: stashed away in a box, likely never again to see the light of day.

Not long after that, my mother asked me if I’d like to take piano lessons. Just out of the blue. I don’t even remember why she asked, or how she knew the person I was to take lessons from, but I thought it was a brilliant idea! A little structure, a little edification, learning to read and play actual songs instead of the meandering stuff I already knew how to do. Great! I’m sure I was one of the very few kids in my town who was excited about piano lessons. But I enjoyed them, and there’s no doubt they helped me many years down the road, as any professional musician who took piano lessons as a kid can attest to.

One day I was visiting a friend, who had been gifted an old nylon string guitar. He didn’t play it, keep it in tune, or want much of anything to do with it, really. I started messing around with it, and I realized that the frets were the same 1/2 steps I played on the piano! As long as I accounted for the “black keys” by jumping 2 frets instead of 1, I could play a major scale on any single string, no matter how it was tuned or not-tuned. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know how to tune a guitar; just seeing the relationship between frets and 1/2 steps was enough to make me see notes in a whole new light.

When I was trusted enough to ride my bike downtown (about 3.5 miles from home on roads with sketchy bike lanes), I began renting instruments for a month at a time to see if I could make them sound good. Woodwinds, mostly - clarinet, flute, alto sax. There was that same major scale, easy to play in one key, difficult to figure out in others, plus the weird keys weren’t logical - if I wanted a note to be sharp or flat, I had to press some random key that seemingly had nothing to do with the order of notes. It made no sense to me, I had no idea what I was doing, and at the end of the month, I traded it in for another instrument. This cycle of “lather, rinse, repeat” went on for several months until one day when my brother arrived home with a bass, a guitar, and a big amp.

The sound coming out of his bedroom was INCREDIBLE. Warm yet exciting, like a smoldering fire with a little bit more residual energy than is safe. I was totally enthralled - here was an instrument that I could see made sense already, sounded fabulous, and vaguely reminded me of the lowest notes on the upright piano. I said, “THAT’S what I wanna play!” But my mom said NO - she was not going to have her sons fighting over the same instrument, especially because we already fought over everything else. My brother chose bass first; I got to play the guitar instead.

Playing guitar was pretty cool, actually - it was a cheap japanese red Flying V knockoff, difficult to wield, barely stayed in tune, but it was COOL. A little distortion, a little reverb (only used sparingly because I hated hearing my mistakes echo), and I had a good time. I had my little practice area in the basement next to my brother’s bedroom, and I played an awful lot. But to be honest, it always felt a little… weak. Like trying to throw a cotton ball. Yes, you could get angry and loud, but there was something missing. And every so often, I’d get the urge to sneak into my brother’s room and play his new bass (the first was apparently just a rental) when he wasn’t around. And every so often, I’d get caught, and I’d get “scared straight” for a month or two (my brother was built like a Sherman tank, and I looked more like Chunk with long hair). But the urge would always return, and the cycle would repeat itself. Until one fateful day…

I was in 8th grade, and I took the bus to school. My brother went to the high school half a mile away, so he was always home first. So when I walked in the front door, I could hear his bass booming through the ductwork like always, and like always, that made me want to play my guitar. So, like always, I dumped my school bag, full of assignments that would be ignored until morning like always, by the door and headed for the basement.

I never noticed that the bass notes stopped at some point; all I remember is descending the short staircase that led to the lower level, making a sharp U-turn as I prepared to go down into the basement, and jumping back out of the way because A BASS was flying through the air, up the stairs, right at me. I was fast enough to avoid it, and it hit the floor HARD in front of me. I immediately peeked around the door jamb down the stairs, and saw my brother stomping towards his bedroom door.

So I called down: “Hey - do you want this bass anymore?”

My brother hollered “NOOOOOOO!” and slammed his bedroom door behind him.

I looked back at the bass, and thought, Great! So I grabbed it and ran downstairs, plugged it into my guitar amp (quietly, I knew better), and for the first time in recorded history, played a bass in my house with something tantamount to permission.

And it was GLORIOUS. Bottom end! Like the piano upstairs, but BIGGER! Notes made sense, I could find my way around because I’d played guitar, and the stuff I’d been trying to play on those other instruments - piano, guitar, clarinet, sax, flute, recorder, even the harmonica - was much better suited for the electric bass, and I finally GOT that. Here was the sound I’d heard in my head for 10 years married to the notes I wanted to play for 10 years, and my fingers were causing it to happen.

And somewhere in that 23-minute span, I remember feeling - not hearing, feeling - a Voice in my head, and it spoke to me with absolute clarity: you remember this moment, because this is what you’re going to do with the rest of your life.

I say 23 minutes because I always got home at 3:20, it took about 2 minutes to shed my coat and bag and head downstairs, and my practice area clock said 3:45 when my brother tore open his door and came around the corner, snarling, “GIMME MY BASS BACK.” And so I did. But the wheels had been set in motion; 23 minutes of bass playing versus years of piano, guitar, and everything else… there was no contest.

So I talked things over with my mom (and mentioned in passing what my brother had done with his beautiful new bass), and that Christmas there was a wonderful new Ibanez Roadstar II bass and a Fender Bassman 20 amp. Within a week I had nickel-sized blisters on 7 different fingertips, and that wasn’t enough to get me to slow down. They started calling me Froggy Fingers when I went back to school after Christmas break. I didn’t care. I finally had to take a scissors to my blisters because callouses were forming over the top of them, the swelling wouldn’t go down, they didn’t hurt at all, and I could barely pick things up because my fingertips were so deformed. But away I went on the bass, spending 6-7 hours every night playing in my corner of the basement (and watching my already piss-poor grades get even worse - I graduated with an academic GPA of 1.6).

This was my solace; this was my everything. All the other things that had gone wrong or were currently going wrong in my life mattered a lot less once I had a bass to play. Maybe that’s why I played so much. There wasn’t much else going on for me to be excited about at that time in my life, and playing music - playing a BASS - gave me an outlet for my passion, my frustration, my energy, my creativity, and created a drive to improve and be really good at something for a change. And I knew it was going to happen because It Made Sense. It still does. Nearly 4 decades later, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

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the-fae-folk · 5 years

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Are the fae involved in travelling circuses? They always have an air of mystery like the fae so maybe there’s a connection

There was excitement in the town when the circus tents were first spotted in the empty fields behind the old gas station on Fiddler’s Lane just at the edge of town. The tents were a little unusual. Not the simple red and white stripes that one might normally see on circus tents. No, these tents were adorned with every colour imaginable, and a few that were difficult to focus on or remember for very long afterward. The pattern seemed fairly simple at first glance, just vines of colour atop a white background. But the longer one looked at the tents, the more complex and hypnotizing the patterns seemed to become.

The Circus opened in the evening, a few scant hours before the sun was to set. You join in the throng, your neighbors and friends chattering and laughing with excitement, as all of you head into the circle of tents that surrounds an open promenade area in the center. In this center arena a man stood. His skin was dark as the earth and he wore only a pair of silk trousers that shimmered a soft white in the light of the fire he held. There were no flaming sticks, no bottles of kerosene or lamp oil, no specially treated gloves. The man was simply holding fire in his bare hands as if it was perfectly normal. At first the crowd clapped and cheered in enthusiastic bursts as he juggled the flames and made them dance and flash in different colours and patterns. Then they gasped in awe as he actually devoured them piece by piece. Those who had seen fire eaters before wondered at how he didn’t simply put the flames out in his mouth but seemed to be swallowing them whole like a man starved greedily gulps down water.In one of the tents a lady dressed in a long gown of black with a thousand tiny diamonds sewn across it to look like stars and a top hat with black lace beckoned them near. Inside her tent she cracked a whip and from a back entrance came riding a group of ten dark haired and dark eyed people who all wore black and rode upon horses as dark as the night itself, so that sometimes it seemed that horse and rider were a single entity, a living shadow. The tent itself was dark as well, and at first you grumbled about not being able to see. Then the first ride rode to the center of the tent and stood up on the back of his horse as it turned and turned in endless small circles in the middle of all. Suddenly a great light appeared and the man on the horse seemed to be holding it up. At first it was very small, like a distant star, then it grew till the audience realized that it was supposed to be the sun itself. You clapped, because in your opinion the sphere of light looked very much like what the sun was supposed to look like in your school books at home.Then the other riders stood upon the backs of their horses. Each rider was a different height, and they all rode at different speeds, so they were scattered across the whole of the tent, circling the sun at the center. The Audience stood around the edge, right up against the walls of the tent. Soon each rider had materialized from thin air a great orb of their own. Planets. First there was mercury, closest to the sun and on the fastest horse. Then came Venus, Earth, and Mars. Beyond them rode the tallest rider on the largest horse. In his great arms he held Jupiter aloft in the sky. His wife came next holding Saturn and its rings. Then Uranus came and Neptune soon after. Last of all rode a child upon a pony. He was the slowest of all, and the smallest, yet he proudly stood atop his pony and held Pluto in the sky.Though they held the planets in their arms, it looked in the dark of the tent as if the celestial orbs were aloft in the abyss of space. Tiny holes in the black interior of the tent fabric were like stars, and for a long quiet moment, filled only with the noises of the moving horses, you feel like you too are adrift in the skies of eternity.Soon enough you make your way to the next tent. This one is less of a spectacle, yet no less interesting. A fortune teller allowed one person in at a time and read their fortune. You had never believed in fortune tellers, but something gave you pause when she told you to beware a girl with eyes like a sunset and the name of Julia. You knew a Julia with eyes like that, and oft you had considered gifting your heart to her. You felt afraid. The fortune teller smiled at you, a smile of knowing. The smile of something far older than any human had any right to be. You left that tent in a hurry.The next tent held a lion tamer. He laughed and cracked his whip as the two lions roared and performed tricks. It was normal enough for a circus, but those lions…something about their eyes felt wrong. They were too intelligent, too angry, too powerful. When you caught the eye of the tamer, you found that he had the same eyes as the lions. For a moment there were no humans at all in the center of the ring, just three lions. Then there only two lions again and one human tamer.Only two tents left. The next held a number of harlequins and jesters. The harlequins, in their brightly coloured checker patterned clothes, would act out stories and exaggerated scenes without words. Music was drifting in from somewhere unseen, but you didn’t mind as it seemed to fit their acting. The stories were sometimes funny, and sometimes sad. But all of them were worth watching. Meanwhile the jesters would simply wander round juggling balls or pins, doing unexpected magic tricks between the harlequin stories, and occasionally utterering a quip that sent gales of laughter among the crowd.You bought a Popsicle before entering the next tent, the woman selling it to you smiled widely as you paid her in coins and wished you well. She had offered you a free one as it was hot, but you had felt it more honest to pay. You heard her offer a free Popsicle to the next person as well.

The final tent held tumblers who seemed to defy gravity itself with their leaps and jumps, with their prancing and dancing, and with their twirling and flying. Graceful like birds, their costumes were sewn with feathers, and their arms were like wings as they soared, their smiles were catching and you found yourself yelling wildly in support of their act.

Every tent had been seen now. It was nearly sunset. A final show was to be put on in the main circle open to the air. A bonfire was lit by the fire eater man, who in the strange light looked as if his very chest glowed from within and his skin could almost be dragon scales.

Circus performers in elaborate and beautiful costumes came and joined hands round the fire. They danced to hornpipes and flutes, to drums and harps. No players could be seen holding instruments, but no one noticed. Round and round they went. The fire crackled merrily in the center, sometimes it flickered blue or green, sometimes white. The ring of dancers was made of shadows, of glowing light creatures, of birds, of beasts, of costumed humans, of monsters, and of angels.You laughed and clapped to the music as they circled. When the sun was at last gone, the dance ended and it was time to go. As you left through the exit you felt the eyes of the players and performers upon you. “You came and you saw,” they seemed to say in silence. “You get to leave unharmed, unscathed. There are not many who could say as much as that. Fare thee well, Human. Good luck.” You shivered as these strange thoughts crossed your mind. It was only a circus after all. Your bed lay in wait for you at home. You would sleep soundly, dreaming of the circus, wondering if you might go again.But the next morning it was gone. No tents, no animals, no performers. Not even a blade of grass was out of place in the field. No one but you remembered a circus ever having been in town, not in years. The only proof you had that a circus had been, and that you had gone to it, was a faded ticket stub that you’d bought at the gates. You knew, somehow you just knew, that one day in the far future, the circus would come for you again.

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outpastthemoat · 5 years

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gg / 1.02

i want to take a moment to mention how much i love the gilmore front porch as a hangout spot. i love the faded floral couch on the front porch where lorelai paints rory’s nails. i love lorelai’s rack of potted plants (that is there in some episodes).

“i love the rodeo! the rodeo rules!”

i love the songs in this episode. “man who murdered love is a favorite of mine from the gilmore girl soundtrack (yes, i bought it when it first came out, just for the sam phillips la-la-la songs. i even learned to play the la-la riffs on the guitar. there was a whole webpage on the internet devoted to archiving .mp3s of the la-la songs and i had them all downloaded and burned on cds to practice with.) i love “i don’t know how to say goodbye to you” by sam phillips.

i love the classic image from the credits of lorelai running down the steps in her pink tie-dye shirt and cowboy boots and cutoffs while rory waits by the stairs with her arms crossed.

i just love lorelai’s outfit. and emily’s comment: “do you need a ride, or is your horse parked outside?”

“rory’s totally low maintenence. like a honda!”

“i’ve already had the longest day of my life and oh, look, it’s already 10, how nice!”

lorelai goes straight to luke’s to tell him all about her terrible morning and how her fuzzy clock didn’t purr on time. luke rags her about her clothes too.

lorelai’s jeep is so iconic. it’s a major part of the show for me.

now that we’re in the second episode, the gilmore girl looks the way it does for the rest of the series. the living room looks a lot different. why does lorelai have a piano? lorelai admits freely she isn’t musical. i’m betting rory went through a phase where she wanted to learn, until she decided she also wasn’t musical.

when i drove through the washington area of CT, the washington depot area that the internet claims is where stars hollow is based on didn’t resemble it much. there wasn’t a town center like the show - no gazebo - only a post office and tiny sandwich shop. but, there was a fancy private school, which is i guess what chilton was based on, and there was an inn that was VERY similar to the independence inn. but for the town flavor, the other towns nearby were more like stars hollow. especially woodbury - it even had a gazebo, and the little diners, and family owned grocers.

i never liked tristan, but i did feel sorry for him. and now we see paris!! paris is one of my favorite characters because of her character arc and her relationship with rory. it’s much more interesting to me than rory’s friendship with lane. though i love lane too, i just like seeing her relationships with luke and mrs. kim and her band friends grow through the years because mostly her friendship with rory just stayed the same.

“china? wow.” here we get a hint of lorelai’s stiffled desire to travel.

i like drella the harp player, i wish she’d stayed around past the first season.

luke’s NO CELL PHONES sign. this was back in the day before you sat and looked at your phone unless you were playing solitare, mostly you still just talked on it.

babette and maury drinking tea in the garden with their gnomes. “gnome knicking says a lot about a man’s character.” the actress who plays babette was the voice of rebecca from the disney show talespin, it was my favorite when i was a kid.

mick the internet guy is kirk. i like to pretend that it really is kirk, just filling in for this guy mick, and in kirk fashion, he not only takes on the job, he also takes on the identity.

lorelai confronting emily at her salon is a bold move. those people know emily. she probably goes there every week. the hairdresser is the only woman in the world who knows emily’s real hair color. lorelai yelling at her there is super embarressing for emily.

poor lane - when rory leaves stars hollow high, she looses her best friend and has to “notice new people.”

lorelai and rory pausing outside luke’s. “what do you think about luke? is he cute?” and rory immediately saying lorelai shouldn’t date luke, because if they broke up, they could never eat there again. maybe that’s why lorelai never starts up anything with luke for years - because this one time she brought it up, rory shoots it down. and maybe it puts some fear in lorelai’s mind about the idea. because she knows luke is kinda interested - she just came out of the diner that morning with him saying he was glad that she turned down a date from a chilton dad. but rory said no. she can’t go against rory’s veto even if she wants to. and luke is lorelai’s emotional support barista. she tells him all her problems. if they broke up, she’s already got more to lose than just good coffee. but the funny thing is, she doesn’t seem to know a lot about luke himself yet. luke is pretty laconic about his personal life. she learns a lot more about his personal life over the first season. i’d say that over the first season, they go from friendly to actual friends. (with potential.)

#gilmore girls #java junkies

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robinallender · 5 years

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2018 albums of the year

I’ve been doing my albums of the year since 2004 (Brian Wilson’s Smile topped it since you ask... somewhat regrettable), but this is the first time where I don’t have a specific number one album. Just lots of great records that came out in 2018 which I love equally. And besides, Cass McCombs didn’t release an album this year.

In the heady days of 2004 my album list was just an email to friends. Who would have thought that by 2018 I would have graduated to Tumblr (via MySpace, Twitter and a brief foray into WordPress)? Makes you think doesn’t it...

Anyway, grab a beer, pull up a beanbag and list, list o list!

O Zomer! – Cassandra Miller

Fantastically difficult to get hold of album of hypnotic/demented chamber music.

Minus – Daniel Blaumberg

Was absolutely knocked for six by this performance, reminded me of early Will Oldham weirdly.

What News – Alasdair Roberts, Amble Skuse & David McGuinness

Beautiful folk songs with a light electronic garnish.

Sleep Like it’s Winter – Jim O’Rourke

Not a ‘songs’ album but you can still tell it’s Jim. Wonderful ambient record.

The Dream My Bones Dream – Eiko Ishibashi

Speaking of which... O’Rourke produced this beguiling, dream-like album

May – Benoît Pioulard

One of my all time favourite artists. Hypnagogic melodic tape noise. The beers are kicking in.

I’m All Ears – Let’s Eat Grandma

Brilliant pop music that is almost irritating but that’s sort of why it’s good? Does that make sense? Also, they remind me of The Cure.

Kill All Children – Prison UK

Sad music from the future

Age Of – Oneohtrix Point Never

More sad music from the future.

Golden Hour – Kacey Musgraves

One of the best gigs I saw this year, superbly written country songs.

Volume Four – Kosmische Läufer

Another volume of cosmic exercise music.

Selva Oscura – William Basinski, Lawrence English

Run a deep bath.

Boiled Moon – Yama Warashi

Exquisite. And from Bristol!

Lightsleeper – Neil & Liam Finn

Two expert songwriters tear up the rule book in very subtle ways.

DAYTONA – Pusha T

If you know you know!

The Joy of Living – Jackie Oates

Extremely moving collection of folk songs.

Stravinsky: Perséphone (Live) – Finnish National Opera Orchestra

If you know you know!

The Long Sleep – Jenny Hval

Only an EP, but ‘Spells’ is one of the songs of the year.

Safe in the Hands of Love – Yves Tumor

I can’t make head nor tail of this to be honest, but I like it and maybe that’s the point.

Homes – Shida Shahabi

Melodic treated piano. Reminiscent of Nils Frahm I guess, but I much prefer this. Beautiful stuff. Do I over-use the word ‘beautiful’?

Bringing the backline – Trust Fund

Why do I only find out about good Bristol bands when they break up?

Compro – Skee Mask

Did some really fierce admin to this. Beautifully produced techno/electronica (I think?).

Shelter – Olivia Chaney

Absolutely stunning voice. Maddy Prior... Joni Mitchell... Chaney is up there.

Hell-On – Neko Case

Speaking of amazing voices. Neko Case is such an under-rated writer, one of the finest lyricists around. ‘In the current of your life I was an eyelash in the shipping lanes’.

Wide Awake – Parquet Courts

I really like this album. But is it just me or does it sound like a lot of bands around now are sort of just doing an impression of ‘indie rock’. Like it’s a homage to a genre that wasn’t particularly good in the first place? I’m damning with faint praise. I did lots of physio to this album after I broke my leg. That’s more damning with faint praise isn’t it? I like it, OK? Just off to grab a beer, do you want anything?

Knock Knock – DJ Koze

I was young once.

A Broke Moon Rises – Papa M

David Pajo on glorious form.

Yes I Jan – Bas Jan

Kings of the Holloway Road.

Pastoral – Gazelle Twin

The sound of Brexit.

Collapse EP – Aphex Twin

Reassuringly bonkers/banging.

Skiff – The Skiffle Players

More rootsy meanderings from a side project of Cass McCombs (hence its inclusion in this list).

BASIC VOLUME – Gaika

Totally brilliant UK hip-hop, and well done Warp for putting it out.

Phantom Thread (OST) – Jonny Greenwood

I saw a good tweet which said this film should have been called ‘the weird guy’.

Hundreds of Days – Mary Lattimore

Beautiful looping harp music.

Yolk in the Fur – Wild Pink

If you’re looking for a replacement for Mark Kozelek in your life because he doesn’t write good songs any more (actually I’m not sure he even writes songs any more), then I can recommend Wild Pink. That’s doing them a disservice. This is a great album.

And there you have it! My albums of 2018! Although I think I might have forgotten a few...

I think I don’t have a number one because this year has been more dominated by ‘older’ music for me. These are a few albums that I got thoroughly into this year (but which didn’t come out this year).

DAMN. – Kendrick Lamar (2017)

I mean obviously.

Spark of Life – Marcin Wasilewski Trio (2014)

Not the footballer. Wonderfully melodic, melancholy jazz record.

Magma – Gojira (2016)

I’ve probably listened to this album more than anything else this year. It’s a perfect metal album: concise, brutal, melodic, imaginative. And they seem like really nice guys!

The Uncle Sold – Ed Dowie (2017)

If I’d have heard this record last year it would have been my album of the year. Unique, funny, wistful, beautiful songs. Reminiscent of Kevin Ayers, Robert Wyatt, Wim Martens... but really it’s its own thing.

Suburban Light – The Clientele (2000)

Soft-focus, autumnal pop. Like someone taking a blurry photograph of The Velvet Underground.

The Meadowlands – The Wrens (2003)

Absolutely classic overwrought indie rock.

Against the Streams (1994), At the Wood’s Heart (2005) – June Tabor

One good thing about Spotify is that if you feel like dipping into an artist’s back catalogue, it’s all there for you. What a privilege it is to be able to bathe in the exquisite melancholy of June Tabor’s 19 (!) albums. These two are my particular faves at the moment.

And (bonus feature!) here are a few individual songs I enjoyed that came out this year (2018):

‘thank u, next’ – Ariana Grande (of course... I’m not mad) ‘Slow Fade’ – Daniel Avery ‘Sleeping Volcanoes’ – Cass McCombs (I love him I love him I love him) ‘Wealth’ – Modeselektor feat. Flohio ‘Into the Fire’ – These New Puritans (featuring Current 93, what’s not to like?)

OK that’s it. See you next year!

#2018 albums of the year #albums of the year

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papermoonloveslucy · 6 years

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LUCY on PASSWORD ~ Part 1

1963-1964

“Password” is a game show created by Bob Stewart for Goodson-Todman Productions. The host was Allen Ludden, who had previously been well known as the host of the “G.E. College Bowl.” In the game, two teams, each composed of a celebrity player and a contestant, attempt to convey mystery words to each other using only single-word clues, in order to win cash prizes.

“Password” originally aired from 1961 to 1967 on CBS, along with weekly prime time airings. An additional 1,099 daytime shows aired from 1971 to 1975 on ABC. The show's regular announcers were Jack Clark and Lee Vines on CBS and John Harlan on ABC.

Two revivals later aired on NBC: “Password Plus” (originally titled “Password '79”) from 1979 to 1982, and “Super Password” from 1984 to 1989, followed by a primetime version on CBS from 2008 to 2009 “Million Dollar Password.” All of these versions introduced new variations in game play.

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The theme song used on “Password” from 1961 to 1963 was called "Holiday Jaunt," composed by Kurt Rehfeld. That theme was followed later by "You Know the Password," composed by Bob Cobert, which was used from 1963 until the CBS version's cancellation in 1967 (listen above). When the show returned on ABC in 1971, Score Productions composed "The Fun of It." The theme used later in that version's run, beginning in 1974, was called "Bicentennial Funk," which was used until the ABC version's finale in 1975.

“Password” was most often taped in New York at CBS-TV Studio 52 (later converted to the Studio 54 disco) and CBS-TV Studio 50 (the Ed Sullivan Theater) until the end of the daytime run in 1967. The original CBS version made annual trips to CBS Television City during the 1960s. Mark Goodson opposed a permanent move to Hollywood so the network canceled the series.

The Milton Bradley Company introduced the first home version in 1962 and subsequently released 24 editions of the game until 1986. Owing to common superstition, these releases were numbered 1-12 and 14-25, skipping 13. It was tied with “Concentration” as the most prolific of Milton Bradley's home versions of popular game shows. Milton Bradley also published three editions of a “Password Plus” home game between 1979 and 1981, but never did a version for “Super Password.” Lucille Ball was fond of playing the home game.

In 2013, TV Guide ranked it #8 in its list of the 60 greatest game shows ever.

“Password” ~ September 26, 1963

Lucille Ball (Celebrity Player)

Gary Morton (Celebrity Player)

[Note: No video footage of this episode was available for preview]

“Password” ~ December 26, 1963

Allen Ludden (Host)

The program is sponsored by Tame hair care products. The top prize is $500 and the consolation prize is $50.

Lucille Ball says that next Monday on “The Lucy Show” she will conduct a 45 piece orchestra. She is referring to “Lucy Conducts the Symphony” (TLS S2;E13) on on December 30, 1963.

LUCY’S PARTNERS

James Waldo from Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is in a stock broker training program.

Mary Ellen MacInally from Tulsa, Oklahoma, is a student who plans to enter the ministry.

William Sexton from Evansville, Indiana, has been married for a year and a half.

Ralph Jones from Westfield, New Jersey, is studying mathematics at Union Junior College.

Gary Morton says that he, too, will be on “The Lucy Show,” in an episode that Lucy had written for him about his favorite sport, golf. He is referring to “Lucy Takes Up Golf” (TLS S2;E17) airing on January 27, 1964. In it, Gary plays Gary Stewart, Lucy Carmichael's ‘golf nut’ boyfriend.

GARY’S PARTNERS

Margery Blom from New Orleans, Louisiana, is a newlywed.

Robert Davidson from Rego Park, New York, has an insurance firm in Manhattan.

Jackie Lane from Nashville, Tennessee, is enjoying her trip to New York.

Sigrid Newman from New York City is a registered nurse at the New York Hospital.

TRIVIA

In round four, the password “TINKLE” makes everyone giggle. Ludden is relieved when Jones successfully guesses it in the second try.

When the password is “PROPOSAL” and the clue is “MARRIAGE,” Lucy's mind immediately goes to “DIVORCE.” Lucille Ball divorced Desi Arnaz in the spring of 1960.

At the end, Lucy says her son [Desi Jr.] beats both her and Gary when they play at home. Ludden makes the usual mistake of guessing that her son is named Ricky. Lucy corrects him, smiling. Ludden says that Vivian Vance has challenged Lucy to a game. Vance appeared on the game twice previously, once in 1961, and a second time in November 1963, where she likely issued the challenge. A year later (September 24, 1964 - see below), the challenge was accepted.

THE RESULTS

Lucy and James Waldo win the first round.

Gary and Robert Davidson win the second round, despite Gary saying he’s not being sure of what several of the words meant.

Lucy and William Sexton win the third round.

Lucy and Ralph Jones win the fourth round.

“Password” ~ May 7, 1964

Allen Ludden (Host)

Bern Bennett (Announcer)

The program is sponsored by Salem Filter Cigarettes.

THE PLAYERS

Lucille Ball is introduced as the start of television, motion pictures, and the Broadway stage. She had just finished her second season of “The Lucy Show.” Allen Ludden implies that there was a question if it would be renewed for a third season. Lucy reminds the audience that the show will start at 9:00pm in the fall, a half hour later.

Gary Morton is introduced as the star of television and supper clubs. Ludden talks with Gary and Lucy about golf, Gary's favorite pasttime.

Lucie Arnaz is from Los Angeles, California. She is 13 (in July) and in seventh grade. She doesn't know what she wants to do when she grows up.

Desi Arnaz Jr. is from Los Angeles, California. He is 11 and in sixth grade and plays little league baseball. He is a center fielder but would like to play second base.

In round one, Lucy's partner is Desi Jr. and Gary plays with Lucie.

In round two, Lucy's partner is Lucie, and Gary plays with Desi Jr.

In round three, Lucy's partner is Gary, and Desi Jr. and Lucie play together. The children are playing for their allowances; a quarter a point.

TRIVIA

This episode was taped in at CBS Television City in Hollywood.

In round one, the password is “LEOPARD” and Lucy's clue is “STRIPED.” She instantly realizes her mistake, as does the studio audience.

When the password is “HARP,” Desi Jr.'s clue is “MARX”, thinking of Harpo Marx, who made a guest appearance playing his namesake instrument on an episode of “I Love Lucy.” The audience audibly gasps at how clever Desi's clue is. Gary gets it right.

In the lightning round, the password is “THUNDER” and Gary's clue is “LIGHTNING,” to which Desi Jr. says “ROUND.” Ludden stops the clock, momentarily confused if Desi is just repeating the name of the game. In that same round, the password is “COWBOY” and Gary's clue is “GUNSMOKE.” Desi responds “CHESTER,” which is the first name of one of “Gunsmoke's” leading characters played by Dennis Weaver.

In the final round, the password is “CARROT” and Desi's clue is “RED.” He was probably thinking of his mother's hair, not the vegetable.

THE RESULTS

Lucy and Desi Jr. win the first round.

Gary and Desi Jr. win the second round.

Lucie and Desi Jr. win the third round.

All their winnings will go to a summer camp for underprivileged children.

In the final moments, Ludden says that Mr. and Mrs. Jimmy Stewart will be on the show next week. He gives a plea for helping the Peace Corps.

“Password” ~ September 24, 1964

Allen Ludden (Host)

Jack Clark (Announcer)

The program is sponsored by Salem Filter Cigarettes.

THE PLAYERS

Lucille Ball is introduced as the comedy star of television, motion pictures, and the Broadway stage. Lucy says the new time slot for “The Lucy Show” is 9 o'clock and that Vivian Vance is still with her on the show. She also mentions future guest stars like Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Danny Kaye, and Ann Sothern. The show's third season premiered three days earlier on CBS with “Lucy and the Good Skate” (TLS S3;E1).

Lucy's first partner is James Horn from Hubbard City, Texas. A student, he spent the summer working at the Texas Pavilion at the New York World's Fair. Ludden says that the most popular day at the fair was 'Lucille Ball Day.' The event was held on Monday, August 31, 1964.

Lucy's second partner, Vivian Vance, is introduced as “a housewife from Stamford, Connecticut.” This is indeed where Vance was living at the time, commuting to Los Angeles to do “The Lucy Show.” Vance's appearance is obviously a complete surprise to Lucy, and even to Morton, who is just as shocked to see her. She is playing for a charity called Medi Help.

In round three, Lucy is partnered with Peter Lawford and Gary with Vivian.

Gary Morton is introduced as the star of television and supper clubs. Gary promotes their 15-minute CBS radio show “Let's Talk To Lucy.” As Lucy tells listeners, “Don't boil water or you'll miss it.” Morton is the show's producer and announcer. Dean Martin, Mrs. Dean Martin, Red Skeleton, Mrs. Red Skeleton, Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye are some of the upcoming guests.

Gary's first partner is Kelly Brummer from Denver, Colorado. She is a student with a merchandising major and a French minor, which confuses Lucy.

Gary's second partner is Mr. Peter Lawford. At the time, Lawford was married to President Kennedy's sister, Patricia. Lawford had an uncredited role (voice over) in the 1945 film Ziegfeld Follies that starred Lucille Ball. He often appeared on Goodson-Todman's other panel shows “What's My Line?” and “To Tell the Truth.” His winnings will go to the Kennedy Library.

TRIVIA

Trying to get her partner to say “FRECKLE” Lucy is chastised by Ludden to “watch her gestures.” Gary uses the clue “DAY” to get his partner to guess it, to no avail. He is referring to the popular singer and actress Doris Day, who famously had freckles.

As usual, Lucy is startled by Ludden's “Yes!” when she gets it right.

When the password is “DRAPE” and the clue is “CURTAIN,” Lucy sings a bit of “Everything's Coming Up Roses” from the 1959 Broadway musical Gypsy: “Curtain up, light the lights...”

During Vivian's entrance applause she and Lucy exchange some barely audible chat:

Lucy: (to Vivian) “What a wonderful surprise. I was calling and wondering why you weren't home.” Vivian: “I wanted them to introduce me as Mrs. John R. Dodds.” [Vivian's husband at the time.]

When the password is “PANTS,” Gary gives Lawford the clue “STRETCH” and he guesses correctly. Lucy says she would have thought girdle.

Ludden: (to Vivian) “Does Lucy have a lot of stretch pants?” Vivian: “Yeah.” Lucy: (chiding Vivian) “Don't tell him everything!”

As usual with Lucy, Ludden has to admonish her for gesturing too much.

Ludden: (to Lucy) “Watch those hands!” Vivian: “Oh, she cheats!” (laughs)

While Lawford is thinking about a clue, he tuts at Lucy and Vivian, thinking they are cheating.

Vivian: “Oh, no! She said I look thinner. We didn't say a word about what was here.” (referring to the word card)

Ludden stops the clock momentarily when Gary inadvertently says the password during the lightning round.

When the password is “FEMININE” and Lawford's clue is “MASCULINE,” Lucy guesses “VERILITY” and then makes a lewd gesture thrusting forward her stiffened arm and clenched fist. She immediately softens it. In a previous appearance she gave her husband the middle finger!

THE RESULTS

Lucy and James Horn win the first round.

Gary and Peter Lawford win the second round.

Gary and Vivian win the second round.

Ludden closes by promoting that Mr. and Mrs. Jimmy Stewart will be his next celebrity guests.

“Password” ~ November 12, 1964

Allen Ludden (Host)

The program is sponsored by Clairol and Bufferin.

THE PLAYERS

Lucille Ball says “The Lucy Show” is on at a new time, 9:00pm. She promotes that later in the season, for three episodes, Ann Sothern will appear. Lucy says that they are trying to get Jean Arthur to guest star. [This never happened.]

Gary Morton promotes Lucy's radio show, “Let's Talk to Lucy.”

Lucie Arnaz is 13 years old and in the 8th grade.

Desi Arnaz Jr. is 11 and a half years old. He has a new record out for Reprise Record with Dino Martin and Billy Hinsche.

For round one, Lucy and Desi Jr. are partners against Gary and Lucie.

For round two, Gary and Desi Jr. are partners against Lucy and Lucie.

For rounds three and four, Lucy and Gary are partners against Desi Jr. and Lucie.

TRIVIA

When the password is “FLEA,” Desi Jr. mistakenly thinks it means “RUN.” He realizes his error in the second clue, which he gives as “DOG.” Lucy says “We're going to have spelling lessons when we get home.” Lucy and Desi Jr. win the round.

In the lightning round, Desi Jr. is startled by the word popping up from the desk. It quickly goes back in and pops back up again.

While Lucy and Desi are playing, Gary unwittingly says the last clue “HUNGRY” even though he is not playing. Ball momentarily shoots her husband the middle finger! [see above photo]

In round two, Ludden starts with the wrong team and shouts “Cut! Cut!” after hearing a voice from the booth. It is unclear whether this was edited out for broadcast, but was left in for the syndicated master print seen on the Game Show Network (GSN).

Mother and daughter win round two. This time it is Lucille Ball who is startled by the pop-up lightning round passwords.

In round three, Lucie and Desi Jr. are playing for their allowance: 25 cents for each point they earn. Ludden says that they did this the last time they were on. Lucy says if they win too much, they can't have it all at once. The youngsters prevail.

Time runs out before the end of round four, but Lucy and Gary win $250 for their charity anyway. Lucy announces that all the prize money will go to a Child Guidance Center in Los Angeles.

The announcer promotes that Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows will be next week’s guests. Promoting Desi's upcoming record Ludden says the titles are “We Know” and “Since You Broke My Heart” although Ludden mistakenly says “Your Heart”. Desi quickly corrects him. Although Desi said earlier that the record due to be released soon, Desi failed to realize that the program was pre-taped and would air ten days after the single debuted.

Coming Next! LUCY on PASSWORD ~ Part 2 (1965-1987)

#Password #Lucille Ball #Lucy #Game Show #Allen Ludden #TV #Gary Morton #Desi Arnaz Jr.#Lucie Arnaz #Vivian Vance #Peter Lawford #1963 #1964 #Goodson-Todman #CBS #Jack Clark #Bern Bennett #Lightning Round #The Lucy Show

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techcrunchappcom · 4 years

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New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/asmussen-has-the-big-ten-found-the-right-road-sports/

Asmussen | Has the Big Ten found the right road? | Sports

You know that annoying person on the interstate who can’t decide which side of the road to be on? The one that forces you to shout: PICK A LANE!

That’s the Big Ten.

First, it is playing football. Then, it is not playing. Then, it is playing. Then, not playing.

Don’t know about the rest of you, but the dizzying way the conference seems to make decisions is giving me a migraine.

This is not to question the motives or the ultimate choice made by the Big Ten. I will leave that chore to others. Check Twitter. They are out there with all sorts of thoughts, using colorful language.

My problem is not with the message. It’s with the delivery. Here, style is at least on an equal playing field as substance.

In the past, the Big Ten had generally handled its business pretty well.

Sure, you can quibble with some of the expansion picks. I prefer to look at it over the long term. This season’s football doormat might be a power 10 years from now. Don’t believe it? Check out Northwestern football in the 1970s-80s. Or Iowa in the 1960s-70s.

Programs improve. They find their Pat Fitzgerald or Hayden Fry and they start to win. It happens and it’s a good thing. It would be very boring in the Big Ten if Ohio State won every title. Except, of course, to the fanatics in Columbus.

Worst of timesBack to the present-day Big Ten. It is not having a good summer.

The rollout of the new football schedule in early August was fine. Though there was some understandable angst from West schools that “got” to play both Ohio State and Penn State.

Soon, the fairness of the schedule became moot.

On Aug. 11, commissioner Kevin Warren postponed the season and sent conference fans and coaches into a tizzy. Not to harp on it, but the announcement was woefully inadequate in terms of access and transparency. The Big Ten made a major blunder.

Warren should have held a press conference, live (socially distanced) and/or on Zoom. And he should have answered questions for an hour or two or three. Until every raised hand had a chance to be heard.

Maybe it wasn’t Warren’s call to make. Perhaps, the conference presidents and chancellors gave him a directive and he executed it.

At the time, fans and media weren’t told how the school leaders voted. Later, the league fessed up and said it was 11-3.

Another mistake was not having a plan moving forward. Usually, “postponed” is followed with a makeup date.

To be fair, COVID-19 plays by its own rules. It is extremely difficult to predict when and where a surge in infections will happen.

Someday down the road, it will be very helpful for all of us to learn why particular decisions were made.

Certainly, the league will admit to mistakes and want to learn from those mistakes.

Long road backThe Big Ten has been damaged reputation-wise by how it has mishandled fall sports.

The conference is in a difficult spot. Its first obligation MUST be the health and safety of its players, coaches and fans. But there is such a strong passion for Big Ten sports, that the pressure to begin playing football has been tremendous. From the White House on down.

Balancing the two really isn’t possible without the help of scientists. Tada. Fortunately, the Big Ten is loaded with them.

The work done at Illinois by Marty Burke and pals is providing a blueprint for the rest of the Big Ten.

The key to the return of football and other sports is a massive testing program.

If we know Player A is virus-free, he is not a threat to Player B, C and D.

Sure, there will be a few positives that slip through the net. But if the testing is daily, those who get infected will be quickly discovered and be treated immediately.

If the Big Ten feels comfortable with the testing setup, it is possible the games can be played this fall, with reports circulating about a possible Oct. 17 start date. That didn’t seem likely two weeks ago.

If it happens — and we can dive more into the eight-game schedule or 10-game schedule that is possibly being talked about — here’s hoping we don’t spend a whole lot of time lamenting what we missed. Instead, we should celebrate the opportunity to once again enjoy the game.

Look ahead. And watch out for that (Big Ten) car in front switching from lane to lane.

#asmussen #Sports

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1inawesomewonder · 4 years

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After playing four games over the weekend during Christmas break while many teams had a lesser schedule the hockey powers that be said to the 2010 Flames, “Try this on for size”. Coming off of the holiday break and two days back at school, the Flames were asked to play four road games over the weekend.

If you consider West Side Arena as the unofficial center of our hockey universe this season, then the weekend of road games looked something like this.

Weekend miles for hockey: 426 miles with at least that many laughs

Saturday – 134 miles

West Side to Kearsarge (Proctor Academy): 84 miles round trip. 5-0 win in a cold but awesome rink.

West Side to Northern Cyclones (Hudson): 50 miles round trip with a quick stop at Dunks. 2-2 tie in a great battle.

Sunday – 292 miles

West Side to Keene (Keene Ice): 66 miles one-way. 4-0 win in a great team effort to defend their net.

Keene Ice to Providence Youth Hockey (Cranston Veteran’s Memorial Ice) by way of the Thirsty Beaver: 113 miles one-way. Great lunch with the kids, parents, and coaches. Football and World Juniors Gold Medal game on the TV’s, good food, and plenty of smiles. Oh, and a great game on the ice, with the Flames holding on for a 6-4 win, and a 3-0-1 weekend.

Cranston back to home base: 113 miles one-way. Good night.

This Flames team has come a long way this season and they continue to grow as players and teammates. The parents have really gelled as well which makes all of this a lot more fun.

I didn’t take pictures at Keene Ice on Sunday morning but I did have a blast sitting up with all of our families to watch the game. I did take pictures down at the old Memorial Rink in Cranston though. Here are pictures through some seriously puck marred glass of the Flames fourth and final game of the weekend. As always, click on what you like, and zoom in for a look. Enjoy!

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Providence got on the board first. They would get some open looks all game long.

Jax lets a wrister go early in the game.

Travis looks toward the heavens in prayer.

Travis calls everybody off as he yells, ” I GOT IT! I GOT IT!”

Garrett scans the horizon for any would-be opponents.

That there is a real beauty, eh. Oh, ya! She’s a kick save and a beauty!

Legend has it that you can see fish swimming below the ice if you look hard enough.

This is what it looks like when working hard pays off.

Austin asks Jordan if he got the plate number of the truck that hit him. Jordan responds smartly, “No habla inglés.”

Travis prayed and the defense responded in answer.

James, “Teddy don’t be alarmed. Follow me, I got this.”

Coach Nick has been harping on playing tough so Ian smacks The Mighty Fin in the face. Result, these two combined to score 3 goals.

This is Austin doing a crossover, or it’s the tip-toe steps he takes to sneak peaks at the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve.

The Flames saddle up and break out on the rush.

This puck hit the inside apron of the net and came out. Goal! #82 gets some sledding in.

Like a bolt of lightning, Finley powers into the offensive zone for the Flames 3rd goal.

This puck did not go in the net this time, but it was close.

Austin creates some room to work on his moves.

Then, just like that, he rips a shot at the open side of the net.

The puck tickles the twine for a shorthanded goal, and a 4-2 lead.

Drew opts to shoot on net, while Teddy is already looking behind the goalie for any chance of scoring.

Teddy is barely open, maybe. That’s a tough passing lane though.

The ole wrap around from Austin was submitted but instantly rejected.

Luke gets a shot away while #82 takes another turn sledding.

I stepped back to get a blurred picture looking through puck blemished glass. The picture wasn’t great but I bet the boards could tell some good stories.

Colby gets a shot through some traffic. Providence was tough to create space against.

Nice passing play by the Flames but this one-timer was denied.

Ian gets the puck over the line as the Flames refused to give up on the loose puck.

The salute resonates throughout the land, announcing that Kaveney “The Magnificent” has indeed put the biscuit in the basket.

Teddy makes a tremendous open field tackle on James. The referee retrieves the puck while knocking out a couple of squat thrusts. And Drew is laughing hysterically at all of it.

A close look reveals that Travis has the puck on his right pad. Another great save.

Jax barges through while politely saying, “Excuse me. Pardon me. Excuse me. Thank you.”

#88 was an offensive force for Providence. He got behind the Flames defense several times on the afternoon.

They say a picture speaks a thousand words. This one only spoke 3 words, not a goal.

Garrett takes a shot from the blue line and then used his mind to make the puck float toward the net.

Finley skates left, shoots right, and buries her second goal of the game to make the score, 6-3 Flames.

There they are, all lined up and playing hockey down in Rhode Island on a January Sunday afternoon.

Opportunity. Drew with the puck on his stick for a shot. Or Logan over at the left post open for a pass.

Finley and Austin both slip on a patch of ice as the shot sails wide.

Providence scored with 00:00.4 left to play. #88 was at it again.

2010 Flames Sweep From Keene To Cranston After playing four games over the weekend during Christmas break while many teams had a lesser schedule the hockey powers that be said to the 2010 Flames, "Try this on for size".

#@1inawesomewondr #2010 Flames #Keene hockey #Manchester Flames #Providence youth hockey #youth hockey

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kayawagner · 5 years

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No OSR for me!

I have never really paid much attention to the OSR movement. Firstly, I didn’t really understand if it was Old School Revival or Old School Renaissance. Then I didn’t know what counted as old school. I mistakenly thought that it was a move back to the style of gaming that we all discovered in the 70s and early 80s. It then appeared that that isn’t the case and OSR is a just limited to D&D retro clones.

I think within 12 months of owning the D&D basic set, red box, I was writing house rules even if I didn’t know that the phrase ‘house rule’ meant or even existed. We were modding our games on a monthly basis. We absorbed every new spell, character class, monster, magic item and rule suggestion when ever we saw them. Initially there was loads of D&D material in White Dwarf magazine and that was easier to buy than Dragon magazine.

As soon as you saw how other people were modifying the game then we all started doing it. I can remember the first time my character got hold of a musket. I quickly went from D&D to Boothill to Traveller and then Runequest. Boothill was a brief liaison and I can put Gamma World in that group as well.

As soon as I discovered RuleQuest and Traveller with its on target combat system I had to have hit locations in D&D. Once you have hit locations then armour by the piece is a natural extension.

Once we had Gamma World we basically had D&D compatible high tech equipment. I think it was 1979 or maybe 1980 that I discovered Gamma World and I only ran one adventure and that had mutant chickens called Gallus Gallus513. That name has stuck in my memory ever since. One day I will manage to slot a mutant chicken into a game with that name.

It must have been 1981 that I discovered Rolemaster. This is back in the day or the rules being sold as drop in house rules for D&D and we could drop lots of our own house rules and use these awesome books instead.

Once I had all of rolemaster I house ruled that to make it a bit more like RuneQuest, which I think came out first, possibly 1979?

The point of that little jog down memory lane is that is RuneQuest old school? Is rolemaster old school? Rolemaster Classic is a basic rerelease of Rolemaster 2nd Edition and the 2nd edition was pretty much just a tidying up of those piecemeal D&D house rules. There is still a huge amount of Dungeons and Dragons DNA in Rolemaster Classic right down to magic users not wearing armour for absolutely no good reason at all and everyone taking Sleep as their most useful 1st level spell.

I suspect that if I published a Rolemaster adventure and stuck the OSR labels all over it there would be howls of protest.

Even given that OSR really means the resurrection of old D&D rules in infinite variety I don’t really understand the appeal. I understand that no one is forced to play OSR or D&D the reason we stopped playing it surely is because it really wasn’t very good.

Other games flourished and we had the proliferation of so many different games because those games could do what they did better.

I cannot even see it as a desire for simpler games. D&D was never simple. The DMG was basically 300 pages of exceptions to the basic mechanics. Rolemaster was labelled chartmaster because of the visual onslaught of and entire book of charts, Arms Law, but D&D had more charts and tables but scattered far and wide.

I am sure it is a case of if you ‘get’ the whole OSR thing then it makes perfect sense. What started me thinking about this today was that I was asked to do a review for an OSR game. As is my habit I looked up any other games that the publisher had produced and as this was an indie developer I ended up looking at his MeWe profile as well.

One of the things about OSR seems to be that it has attracted a lot of what I would consider unpleasant people, that is what the reaction to the logo was all about in Michael’s recent post. Well this game was written by one of those people. There was no way on earth I was even going to read the game based upon the personal posts by the author.

I have had some tense discussions with people on forums especially in rolemaster circles where I strive for ever greater simplicity in my play and they revel in the micromanaging of every detail. In the Rolemaster community we are discussing the idea of a competition to create spin off mini RPGs ‘powered by’ a core of the Rolemaster rules. I am all in favour of this sort of thing and bringing Rolemaster to genres and audiences it has never appealed to before. Those with opposing views are saying that you cannot go outside of fantasy or sci fi as any realistic simulation of wounds would mean that the PCs would die from infections if there were no magical or high tech healing. I don’t agree with them but I can understand their point of view, this would be a fun competition and not compulsory homework, their gaming table, their rules.

That is nothing like sort of argument I am seeing in even my brief encounter with the OSR, I cringe to use the word, community. I can now understand why the logo’s owner would not want it associated with some of these games. I honestly had no idea. It is obviously not D&D’s fault, nor the OSR concept that breeds hate speech and intolerance. I don’t really understand why it has coalesced around OSR. If OSR went away they would not all suddenly become liberal pluralists. They would hold the same views if they were playing any game or not gaming at all.

Where did all this come from?

I was doing a bit of digging and I came across this. It is from White Dwarf magazine issue 2, August 1977.

Look at the italic text. It looks like the dark side of role players had been there right from the start. I guess I was just too young at the time to see it. Maybe, the OSR community in moving back into old style D&D gaming has stepping into an area of gaming that has already been there quite happily for decades without drawing attention to itself.

I don’t know and I don’t really care. All I know is that any ideas I had of trying to suggest that Rolemaster was a perfectly valid OSR system is now firmly in the ‘bad idea’ pile. I won’t be doing that any time soon.

Freebie: HARP Lite

Ask The Readers: Tell me about Gamma World!

Blast from the past?

No OSR for me! published first on https://supergalaxyrom.tumblr.com

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nyfacurrent · 5 years

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Announcing | NYFA Holiday Gift Guide

‘Tis the season for gift giving, and we’re here to help with ideas for the artists and arts lovers in your life.

Get creative with your gift giving and inform your own wish list this holiday season, courtesy of NYFA! All purchases help support the work of NYFA affiliated artists and entrepreneurs.

NYFA Gift Ideas

The Profitable Artist: NYFA’s comprehensive “how-to” guide identifies common challenges of being an artist; examines specialized areas of strategic planning, finance, marketing, law, and fundraising; and distills these topics in such a way that artists of all disciplines can digest them and apply them to their own experience and practice. Authored by NYFA’s expert staff in conjunction with outside professionals. Purchase the book here.

NYFA Coaching Gift Certificate: This holiday season, give the artist or arts administrator in your life the gift of time with an expert NYFA staff member. Help your loved ones and friends take their career to new levels in the new year with a one-on-one NYFA Coaching consultation. Our coaches give personalized feedback and actionable next steps to help artists grow their careers and further expand their resources. Each gift certificate is ready to be printed immediately after purchase. To redeem, recipients book their own appointments through the NYFA Coaching website by using the unique code listed on the certificate. Gift certificate options here.

Art by NYFA-Affiliated Artists: Purchase an original artwork this holiday season, created by a NYFA-Affiliated Artist. A portion of proceeds from your purchase will go towards supporting NYFA and the artists we serve. View available artworks here.

Art, Objects, & Art Books

Dawoud Bey (Fellow in Photography ’86, ’90)’s Seeing Deeply is a 40-year career retrospective of the award-winning photographer that features images ranging from street photography in Harlem to a commemoration of the 1963 Birmingham church bombing. Purchase the photo book here.

Zhong-hua Lu (Fellow in Folk/Traditional Arts ’18) learned traditional brush painting during the Cultural Revolution in China, secretly practicing until Chairman Mao died in 1976. His delicate, nature-inspired work is available for purchase in the form of notecards or matted prints. Purchase Lu’s prints here.

Sara Lynch (MARK ‘09)’s one-of-a-kind jewelry and ceramics are handmade in New York State. Find items including a custom tea bowl of your favorite animal; pyrite, labradorite, and amethyst dangle earrings; and a moon cycle porcelain cup in her Etsy shop.

Helen Taylor Condon (Fellow in Folk/Traditional Arts ’18) has been designing and making hand-braided rugs for nearly 50 years. Her Adirondack-themed baskets and wreaths are available for sale this holiday season and are functional works of art for your home. Purchase hand-braided baskets and wreaths here.

Tim White (Fiscally Sponsored)’s 16mm film bookmarks are composed of 40 16mm film frames from the production of the short film “3-22-11.” Each bookmark is one-of-a-kind and helps support the film’s completion. Visit this page for more information, and scroll to “The Perks of Donating” section to purchase.

Fiction and Nonfiction Books

Artist-scholar Danielle Brown (Fellow in Folk/Traditional Arts ’18)’s book East of Flatbush, North of Love, is an ethnographic memoir that examines life growing up in the West Indian enclave of East Flatbush, Brooklyn. She uses music to teach the reader about life in this immigrant community, as well as in her parents’ native Trinidad. Purchase the book here.

Caitlin Cass (Fellow in Fiction ’18) makes comics, drawings, and counterfeit historical exhibits that folklorize historic failures and foretell grim futures. One of her latest works, Pre-History (Vol8 Iss6), is an artful hand-folded book about extinction and life. Purchase the book here.

YZ Chin (Finalist in Fiction ’18)’s Though I Get Home re-examines the relationship between the global and the intimate. Central to the book is Isabella Sin, a small-town girl—and frustrated writer—transformed into a prisoner of conscience in Malaysia’s most notorious detention camp. Purchase the book here.

Dana Czapnik (Fellow in Fiction ’18)’s forthcoming The Falconer: A Novel is a coming-of-age story that provides a snapshot of 1990s New York City and America through the eyes of the children of the Baby Boomer generation who are grappling with privilege and the fading of radical hopes. Pre-order the book here.

Monique Duncan (Boot Camp ’17)’s children’s book When Mama Braids My Hair captures a young girl’s experiences of having her hair braided and the bond it creates with her mother. Readers will enjoy going on an adventure with the main character and learning about the origins of the popular braided hairstyles of today. Purchase the book here.

Eric Gansworth (Fellow in Fiction ’18) is an enrolled Onondaga writer and visual artist. His most recent book, Give Me Some Truth, is a Native American coming-of-age story that navigates loud protests, even louder music, and first love. Purchase the book here.

Wafa Ghnaim (Fellow in Folk/Traditional Arts ’18)’s Tatreez & Tea: Embroidery and Storytelling in the Palestinian Diaspora celebrates the centuries-old folk art tradition of Palestinian embroidery through 40 patterns, nine family recipes, and a complete guide to the techniques, meanings, and origins of each embroidery thread and color. Purchase the book here.

Marwa Helal (IAP ’14, ’16, ’18)’s forthcoming book of poems, Invasive species, centers on urgent themes in our cultural landscape, creating space for unseen victims of discriminatory foreign policy: migrants, refugees—the displaced. Helal transfers lived experiences of dislocation and relocation onto the reader by obscuring borders through language. Pre-order the book here.

Sigrid Nunez (Fiction ’06)’s The Friend follows the story of a woman who unexpectedly loses a lifelong friend and mentor to suicide and finds herself burdened with an unwanted dog he has left behind. It was recently awarded the 2018 National Book Foundation award for Fiction. Purchase the book here.

Garrett Robinson (Boot Camp ’15)’s Beauty Beyond Reason is a collection of lyrical poems celebrating performance dance. Through this short story collection, Robinson expresses his appreciation for the sacrifices and commitment made by dancers while illustrating the important lessons that art teaches humanity. Purchase the book here.

Hugh Ryan (Fellow in Nonfiction ’17)’s forthcoming When Brooklyn Was Queer: A History is a never-before-told-story of Brooklyn’s vibrant and forgotten queer history from the mid-1850s to today. Pre-order the book here.

Amanda Stern (Fellow in Fiction ’12)’s memoir Little Panic: Dispatches from an Anxious Life documents the transformation of New York City in the 1970′s and ‘80s, through a deep, personal, and comedic account of the trials and errors of seeing life through a very unusual lens. Purchase the book here.

Music

Master folkloric percussionist Moris J Canate (Fellow in Folk/Traditional Arts ’18) is the founder of Afro-Colombian musical ensemble Group Rebolu. From traditional songs to original compositions, the Robulo repertoire is loaded with energy, history, and danceability. Purchase an album here.

Parthenia (Fiscally Sponsored)’s Nothing Proved - New Works for Viols, Voice, and Electronics creates a rich tapestry of stories from works that were written for and premiered by Parthenia over the past decade, by three women composers. Purchase the album here.

Maggie Roche (Music Composition ’02)’s Where Do I Come From is a two-CD set of 24 songs with four previously unreleased tracks, released posthumously after Roche’s passing in 2017. The collection spans forty years and her entire musical career, providing an immersive and poignant look at an original American songwriter. Purchase the album here.

Violinist Jake Shulman-Ment (Fellow in Folk/Traditional Arts ’18) is among the most highly regarded klezmer musicians performing today. Shulman-Ment’s band, Midwood, features some of the most exciting performers on the international music stage. Purchase their first album, Out of the Narrows, here.

Salieu Suso (Fellow in Folk/Traditional Arts ’18) was born into a family of farmers and traditional musicians/historians from Gambia, West Africa. He plays the 21-stringed Kora (West African harp); his father is a renowned Kora player and he is a descendant of the originator of the instrument. Purchase an album by Suso here.

Techung (Fellow in Folk/Traditional Arts ’18) is a Tibetan folk and freedom singer/songwriter/performer living in exile. His music captures the traditional soundscapes of Tibet, but also transcends description through collaborations with musicians from other heritages. Purchase an album by Techung here.

Experiences

Nomi Ellenson (Boot Camp ’17) is offering empowering boudoir photography shoots for those who want the experience of feeling like a supermodel and confirmation that a super-vixen resides within. Ellenson’s goal is to help clients discover their beauty and creatively explore their alter-egos and inner divas. Book a “Boudoir On-the-Go” session here.

See new work by Justin Peck (Fellow in Choreography ’13) as part of New York City Ballet’s “New Combinations” program in late January and February 2019. The Resident Choreographer’s work will be joined by encore performances of Kyle Abraham (Fellow in Choreography ’10)’s Fall 2018 world premiere “The Runaway” and the first full staging of “Herman Schmerman” since 1994. Purchase tickets here.

Taylor Mac (Inter-Disciplinary ’09)’s Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus is coming to Broadway, beginning previews in March 2019. Nathan Lane and Andrea Martin will star in the comedy, which takes place just after the conclusion of William Shakespeare’s first tragedy, Titus Andronicus. Purchase tickets here.

Marlon Mills (Boot Camp ’17) is offering group or private dance lessons to those interested in experiencing the excitement of dance this holiday season. His expertise includes Salsa and West Coast Swing as well as partner dances including Bachata, Cha Cha Cha, and some Ballroom. Contact the New York City-based Mills for more details at [email protected].

More Ways to Give

With friends like you, we can continue to fulfill our mission to empower artists in all disciplines at critical stages in their creative lives. Consider making a donation to NYFA to help us continue our vital services.

And, if you’re doing your holiday shopping on Amazon, start shopping with AmazonSmile. Every time you shop, Amazon will make a donation to NYFA.

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for more news and events from NYFA affiliated artists. Also, don’t forget to like us on Facebook to see what current fiscally sponsored projects are up to! To receive more artist news updates, sign up for our bi-weekly newsletter, NYFA News.

Images from Top: Amy Cheng (Fellow in Painting ’90, ’96), Gorgeous Wish, 2011, archival pigment print, available to purchase through Artspace; The Profitable Artist, Photo and Artwork Credit: Marco Scozzaro (IAP ’16); 16mm film bookmarks by Fiscally Sponsored artist Tim White, from the project “3-22-11;” Moris Canate (Fellow in Folk/Traditional Arts ’18), Grupo Rebolu, 2016, Photo Credit: Diana Bejarano; Marlon Mills (Boot Camp ’17) teaching salsa outdoors at Pier 45 in Manhattan.

#nyfa gift guide #nyfa holiday gift guide #gift guide #amy aronoff #amyaronoff #instagram #announcements

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wellplacedrocket · 6 years

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Second Half GIFvalanche: So That Happened

I honestly don’t remember much of the halftime show. I think that’s when I got up to go to the bathroom, refill my water, and pace nervously, awaiting my fate. I know Justin Timberlake played, and there was a Prince element involved as a nod to Minneapolis. If only the Vikings would have been in the game, I’m sure this would have been the Culmination of Being for many of their fans. Sorry, Minneapolis, I had no time for your (our) cultural moment in the national spotlight that night.

The Patriots started the following drive and it sure looked like during halftime they clicked everything into place and solved the Eagles’ defense. And the solution was to Gronk them to death. Hell, the first attempt was a rare miss on a pop route but it was horrifyingly open.

No matter, the next one was a leisurely 15 yard out to him in a very comfortable hole in the Eagles’ zones.

Then another pop for 20 yards, same route as the one they’d missed two plays ago, except the defender was in much better position - but fell over. Then another portent - Brady gets pretty decent protection, but with no one open quickly, he wisely chucks it out of bounds, making all the Eagles fans wish he’d hung onto for literally a quarter-second longer.

Just for funsies, the Patriots then sent Gronkowski wide left from where he easily, almost casually pick up the 3rd and 6, and a couple plays later had him basically box out Ronald Darby (who slipped) for a 5 yard TD.

Slipping and losing your footing is a tough break, so I’m not gonna yell at him. But Jesus H. Christ. But most of the drive just looked so, so easy, like why hadn’t they just been forcing it at Gronk the whole time? Looking at the scoreboard now, all the Eagles’ unlikely heroics in the first half and they were still only up three. My sphincter clenched.

The next sequence is emblematic of Nelson Agholor’s career. I always defend receivers against the slings and arrows of fans who spit angrily at drops, because man...this shit is just way harder than it looks. But he’s still gotta make this catch. And so Agholor, much maligned as a bust last year…

...manages one of the greatest career turnarounds I’ve ever seen a skill position player make, improving his catching ability, but as an added bonus and unexpected twist, he somehow also turned into an outstanding yards-after-catch threat.

Way to go, Agholor.

It’s easy, particularly in football, to get nauseating with fawning cliches about how much of a team game it is, and how credit is due everywhere, but every position group really did have their moment here. The Eagles kept their drive going with blocking that was merely serviceable, but just outstanding rush talent from Blount…

...and Ajayi.

Then I gotta highlight great TE action, because this is a textbook block-to-pop by Ertz, starting from the right wing.

Having expected the Eagles to deflate and lay down softly as soon as the Patriots reasserted themselves in the game, this drive was blowing my mind in all the best ways.

Now I want to contrast a couple plays’ worth of QB action. This first one shows Foles doing something that has always made me squirm and scream in my brain. He’ll look super indecisive with where he wants to go and double clutch on throws. Football is so fast, that if you double clutch even for a half second, your window is probably shut. He hadn’t done this all game and it’s not a good look here…

...although good on him for just chucking it away. Now look at this one, where he’s back to Nick Foles: Unstoppable Football Howitzer.

This wound up being the first of two reviews that made me want to snap my own neck. Much has been made about the review system in sports - particularly football - with many calling for it to be abolished for how it kills the action, and sends everyone down a labyrinth of byzantine rule-parsing. I say technology has made it impossible for sports viewers to tolerate human error that goes against their interests. In earlier days of sports on TV, there weren’t a bajillion camera angles with high-def picture in ultra slow motion that could instantly analyze the action. That genie is out of the bottle now - you think anyone would just let it go when an obviously blown call, revealed by the most advanced video technology in the world, goes against them? Sports would devolve into nothing but judgement about officials’ human imperfections and conspiracy theories, even moreso than it is now.

Still, the emotional limbo that a video review puts you in is excruciating. Do I lose my shit?! Do I lose my shit in a bad way?! Is third RB Corey Clement a god damn hero? Is he an unforgivable putz/traitor?!?!

It was a hell of a run, throw, and catch, another case of the entire roster showing up for their moment. And I was surprised they let it stand. I don’t know that I have ever heard the argument that a ball carrier can be considered to have “control” of the ball if it’s moving around in his grasp, even though it makes intuitive sense. Ball movement is just the visual fulcrum point on which judgement of control sits, for lack of a better one. But the refs, in a rare instance of this, went with the intuitive judgement rather than the driest rule interpretation. And if this had been the Patriots scoring a TD like this, I’m sure I would still be hulked out, speaking in tongues of rage, and fighting gladiator matches on planet Sakaar.

Eagles fans immediately burned effigies of Chris Collinsworth and Al Michaels for being so confident this play would be overturned - I’m a little more forgiving. I would later read about their awful PRO-PATRIOTS BIAS as they continued to harp on how it was called...I was too stressed out to notice much of what they were saying at the time, but I suppose it was a little more airtime than commentators usually give to matters of dubious officiating.

The Eagles defense now had a 10 point lead to protect again, and while their D line depth seemed to be paying dividends by limiting the Patriots to short runs, their pass defense once again struggled. A defensive holding call coughed up a first down (it looked like it was reeeeeaaaaaaally upsold by Gronkowski), and then Brady again just barely beats the rush to get it to Hogan, working against pillow soft coverage once again. You could make a plush bathrobe out of this coverage.

Hogan might have pushed off, at least Darby thinks so. But he might not have even needed to.

Check out this tackle by Malcolm Jenkins, it’s hard to see where the hell he even comes from here. Somewhere, Brian Dawkins sheds a proud tear.

I dunno, I probably shouldn’t be getting super pissed about the soft coverage, because even when they press it, it’s burned.

Tom Brady has a very comfortable pocket there. That one is on the rush as much as the secondary. Jesus, what a collapse of one of the strengths of the team, but you also have to tip your hat to the Patriots O-line, they were a wall.

It would have been nice if the Eagles Defense didn’t just lay down softly in this game, you know? But here’s where I was hating myself for ever thinking that maybe the Eagles could pull this shit off. I should be more detachedly cynical than that by now. For all the eye-popping limit-breaks that the offense had made happen, there the Patriots were, and their highlights just looked easier.

There was no telling when the universe would catch wise to Nick Foles and the Eagles offense’s historic success and move to correct the error, but those guys looked like they gave zero fucks:

Holy shit.

HOLY SHIT.

What is going on?!

Then it was the fourth quarter, where hopes go to get snuffed out.

The drive would ultimately stall in the red zone thanks to a nice open field play made by the Patriots’ defense, but I wanted to call attention to the play design here. The Eagles had already hit on an Agholor end-around, and they used that motion again…

...but had him stop and go back the other way. It’s interesting, but I would have preferred if they were going to use the end-around as a decoy to decoy all the way - fake to Agholor and have the RB pop out to Foles’s right. As it happened, the Patriots’ OLB didn’t even rush the pass, and Lane Johnson didn’t have anyone to block. His defender just went with Agholor and was on him right away.

Nice job by Jake Elliott to boot the FG through, but I couldn’t help but notice in a game wherein a touchdown almost always gets 7 points, the Eagles were now only up 6.

And the defense wasn’t inspiring much confidence.

I mean, that’s right into the teeth of what the Eagles defense is supposed to be great at. Mighty Fletcher Cox gets into the backfield, but on the wrong side of the play. Vinny Curry might have been doing a stunt here, but he gets turned aside, and then the Patriots’ O-line does a good job of getting second level.

I actually didn’t mind the blitz here. Usually blitzing against Tom Brady is suicide, but it’s not like anything else was working, and the D-line just wasn’t getting it done. The results were pretty predictable, but Defensive Coordinator Jim Schwartz had to have been tearing his hair out like “FUCK IT! SEND ‘EM ALL!”

When two guys in pass coverage end up in the same space, someone has screwed the pooch. I mean, this looks just beautifully textbook, like it’s during practice for the Patriots. I know exactly how this game ends, and this drive still fills me with dread.

I can’t actually blame the defense too much on that play. Darby’s position wasn’t bad, it was just a difficult throw and a very difficult catch in a perfect spot. But everything leading up to that play made me regret the part of my brain that allowed me to believe the Eagles could win the Super Bowl. I felt so stupid to having opened that emotional door. Grass grows, birds fly, sun shines, the Scout hurts people, and brother, the Eagles lose in the postseason. Like a force of nature. Of course the Eagles defense would shit the bed this game. It was so obvious. Of course the offense would spend all game lighting it up, and would now come crashing back down to earthbound reality. Of course this would be a record setting game in NFL history for total yards of offense that the Eagles would lose in the 4th quarter.

I flashed forward to the L I’d be chewing on for the rest of my life over this. The immediate sympathy from some friends and coworkers over how close the Eagles were, and the schadenfreude from others. How it would sting when I had to next see people. How years down the line, the pain would be reduced down to a duller ache as I recalled the time the Eagles almost...almost...

It would be internalized and just part of my existence. I would wonder at times what ripple effects it ultimately had on my psyche.

Tom Brady makes fourth quarter comebacks in the Super Bowl like people make eggs for breakfast. The Eagles don’t. Haves and have nots, a tale as old as life.

Ah, yes. This was what I expected. Foles and the offense had been on fire, and now it would cost them as they tried to force increasingly ludicrous miracles.

Hm, a 3rd and 6 converted, down 1 with under 9 minutes to go in the Super Bowl. That’s actually...pretty...clutch?

Another 3rd down…

...and that is a great job on defense. It was actually a pretty good play call, the Patriots blitzed the middle and Foles barely gets it away to the outside. The Patriots blitzed right into a screen, which often burn blitzes, but S Devin McCourty gets around Vaitai, who was after him, and flows out to chase down the play.

It would make for a better story if I said I was surprised they didn’t punt here. But I’d watched the Eagles all season, and going for it on 4th and 1 from their own 45, down 1 with 5:45 left fit their personality. It just seemed like everything was setting up for them to fall on their faces and the Patriots to get the ball back, and burn a few minutes of the clock on their way to another game-sealing “Tom Terrific” touchdown.

The fact that they clutched it out, in the biggest moment of the franchise’s history, demonstrated there was something different going on here. I was in uncharted waters. Looking at that play, it’s a pretty classic pick (a quasi-legal technique executed to perfection by Celek) that is overlooked only because it’s so close to the line of scrimmage. Hell of a backfield dodge under pressure by Foles and a great throw made off his back foot - a posture he has long taken heat for throwing out of too much.

Wha…

How...

What is this?! What is going on here?! You got Foles making Aaron Rodgers throws out here, and Eagles receivers catching them. For all the marbles. EVERY MARBLE. The Eagles do not rise to the occasion! THE EAGLES SHIT THEIR BEDS.

You can argue this was the play of the game, because it got them into reasonable FG range. Vaitai gets beat, but pushes the edge rusher just enough to give Foles the time to get it away. And Foles isn’t taking Ertz in the flat, who is wide open. No, Nick Foles is now Big Dick Nick: Gunslinger and he fires it in a tight window to the slant.

Foles and Agholor have the hot read going on the corner blitz. This is probably just a bad idea by Patriots’ D-coordinator, Matt Patricia. Agholor, a first round pick in 2015, had, after two underwhelming seasons marred by drops, a breakout season and had shown himself to be excellent running with the ball. You don’t want to be putting him in a situation to get the ball quickly with lots of space by drawing away his defender. But maybe the Patriots felt like they had to get weird.

They did a trap block with the LT Vaitai here, and it’s nice to see that in this game, given the context, and despite his previous struggles, they weren’t treating him like a liability with the playcalling. They were featuring him with this call. It’s also very nice to get able to get a few yards and the cloud of dust.

Oh, man. This play.

First of all, I want to snark at McCourty, the S who’s on Ertz 1-on-1 at the top of the screen, but I can’t. It’s a very tough spot he’s put in. This is TE territory, and TEs very much like getting matched up against smaller DBs in tight quarters. McCourty then slips on the break just like Darby had, which made the throw and catch pretty easy.

Then in the biggest moment for this team, which has been around since dirt, from a city that breathes football and in which it has been played since it was a thing, that hadn’t ever won the primary professional football association’s championship - on this play where they take the lead, Al Michaels, of “do you believe in miracles?” fame, says “Zach Ertz for the touchdown! And again, all you can think back to now is the Jesse James play with Pittsburgh. Does he complete the process?”

I’d like to think he’d want to take a mulligan on that one, given the context for Eagles fans. We know the review is coming, god damnit. Just let us have this moment, give us a memory, Michaels. But no.

I don’t know how long the review took, so I’m going to conservatively guess it was 8 months.

This was truly awful, and I get the “down with replay!” crowd here. You lose your shit in those few moments of sports fan glee, before the blood drains from your face because the thing you just saw happen might not have happened. They launch a forensic investigation over whether a knee brushed a blade of grass. Then you wait in trepidation, and if it goes your way, you feel awash in relief more than you feel the ragejoy you were just robbed of. If it doesn’t go your way, you want to crawl under your couch. All if this amplified 10,000x by the Super Bowl.

The fact that this is the first place Michaels goes is, I suppose, not really his fault and mostly just an example of where we’re at with football now. Everyone has to suspend their emotional reaction for however long it takes to reach a conclusion, and when that conclusion is reached, the losers feel shittier and the winners feel about 25% less ecstatic with the loss of immediacy.

Lots of Eagles fans and people rooting against the Patriots had out their torches and pitchforks for what they perceived as favoritism by Michaels and Collinsworth toward the reigning champs that had been going on all night. I didn’t really see what the complaints were about, but I was baffled that these two found this TD controversial. Michaels hit on it right away, the crux of the matter was whether Ertz was ruled a runner with possession of the ball before he broke the plane with it. And look at it. Yeah, he was a runner. He literally runs with possession of the ball. How much is he possessing the ball? Enough to shove it out over the goal line as he makes a desperate dive. The Clement TD was more up in the air than this one, by far.

When the refs finally confirmed the TD after their forensic analysis, this should have been the biggest moment of my sports fan life, but instead...nah. It was more exhaling and unclenching my butt for the first time in 5 minutes than it was “FUCK YEAAAAAAHHHH.” Suggesting we put scrap video review is stupid, but I understand I was emotionally robbed by it.

Going back to that clip for a moment, my favorite reaction is Jeffrey’s (#17). He looks like he wants to jump on Ertz but then doesn’t and instead does this kind of childlike hop with his arms up. It’s a heartwarming moment of pure human joy.

Anyway, if you’re up 5, there’s little reason not to go for 2, but of course it didn’t work out. Good defense.

Now here’s Tom Brady with the ball, a timeout, and 2:21 remaining. Like, it’s supposed to be unlikely they score, right? That’s what makes the legends for those who pull it off. Here was THE BIGGEST LEGEND in the history of the sport. The Eagles Defense was hot garbage that night. “2:21, the two-minute warning, and a time out, he’s got all day,” Michaels remarked with confidence. It just felt so inevitable.

Yes, here was the beginning of the end for all of us Eagles fans. Soft coverage, a quick out to Gronkowski for 7 yards. Soft coverage isn’t actually a bad idea here, but still, if it means you’re going to give up at least 7 yards each play, then the Patriots have plenty of time. The pass rush is actually getting into the backfield alright here, but Brady is able to make the decision quickly to a wide open receiver, so they’re not super close to him.

Again, I wish I had a better story of my reaction to this play, but I was as frozen as I would have been if something horrible had happened, if the Eagles defense had all just fallen over and allowed Brady himself to slow-jog the 70 yards for the TD. But truth is stranger than fiction, and the Eagles pass rush had finally - FINALLY, after a game of being at best a step too slow as everyone danced to Brady’s tune - got to the target.

Although they had plenty of time, the Patriots still had to move the ball, and probably felt they had to crisscross the entire field with route patterns, and so couldn’t afford to trade receivers for extra blockers. Once again, the Eagles coverage is soft, they’re sinking back into zones starting at 10 yards. However, the soft coverage came through here - Brady is looking for a deeper throw and climbs the pocket, burning time not finding any targets. He goes to checkdown, but as he turns to dump it, Brandon Graham is in his face, hacking at his throwing arm. The D-line, the rock of this team, which had spent the game unexpectedly and embarrassingly vanishing, had burst back into the story.

Tom Brady doesn’t get strip sacked and force fed a fat L, like a lowly Brandon Weedon or Trevor Semian. Brady dishes out the Ls to other hapless chumps. But there he was, ass on grass. As an Australian football radio guy would shoutcast, “Tom Brady...bereft on the turf!”

By the way, Michaels goes “Derek Barnett comes away with it! Brandon Graham was one of the guys who got in there!”

I mean...holy shit, Michaels. That’s some real godawful play by play there. Boom goes the dynamite.

I suppose I should have been leaping for joy, but with the Eagles in the driver’s seat and 2:09 remaining, I was silent, “leaned-in” as though my focus on the ensuing events would ward off the many ways the Eagles could still manage to find to fuck it all up. First sack of the game, for the Patriots’ only turnover, and it bounced straight to Barnett. That was catching a break.

My friends, if you believe in the healing, soul-nourishing power of schadenfreude, please feast your eyes.

Even Big Balls Doug wasn’t about to go styling in this situation. The Eagles came out and went with the prescribed heavy package runs, bringing on Seumalo and 2 TEs to try to zone block through all the guys the Patriots would certainly be crowding the line of scrimmage with. Kelce gets blown the hell up here but scrambles and sticks with it. Blount does a nice job extending the play for as long as he could.

The exact same playcall next play was Pederson showing confidence in his kicker for what would be - and I know I’ve beaten this phrase to death - the biggest kick of his life. Jake Elliott, the rookie replacement after starter Caleb Sturgis was injured. Elliott, who got signed off the Bengals practice squad, who had an alarmingly high miss rate for close range kicks, but was somehow money from deep, who had a record-setting walk off 61-yard FG for a win against the Giants at the Linc...go win the game, kid.

Kickers are strange animals. They spend most of their time at practice and during games off to the side, just repeating their one craft over and over again. They get together with teammates to practice special teams execution and how to deal with given scenarios, maybe some trick plays. But by the nature of their job, they don’t get to be all that social with their teammates very much. Then they come in the moments that everyone remembers, sometimes to perform the game winning act after their team has spent the last several hours scrambling with sprained joints and peeing blood to set that kicker up for his shot. All the superstar QBs, WRs, LBs take a backseat, hold their breath, and stand to the side watching the skinniest guy on the team do his thing. Nothing else matters in that moment - not the touchdowns, sacks, clock management. All the egos fade away. Everyone has invested 100% of their emotional selves into this one dude.

If he comes through, he’s the hero. Multimillion dollar superstars storm the field with big goofy, unselfconscious smiles to dogpile him…

...and carry him into legend on their shoulders.

I’m always touched by this scene. Sports does this in a way we don’t get to see much in other walks of life. Everyone loses their god damn minds in hilarious joy and swarms this guy, and each other. It’s a human moment. All the other shitty contexts in life, all the conflict and racism and Steve Bannons vanish because it’s time to scream bliss gibberish at the kicker as they jump on his shoulderpads, for he is their guy.

And if he blows it, you have the Minnesota Vikings.

It’s an exercise in clutch. So on comes Elliott for a midrange FG to put the Eagles up 8 with just over a minute to go in the Super Bowl. No big deal.

It should be noted that rather than the ecstasy of a walk-off W here, Elliott’s teammates give him the usual workmanlike acknowledgements. It was still a one score game.

Failed trick plays always make the attempting team look like goober losers, but I don’t blame the Patriots for getting weird here. They sacrifice the maybe 10 - 15 yards that they’d have likely gotten with a standard return to shoot for the moon with this thing. It went nowhere, mercifully, but it was a solid idea. “That is a really interesting call,” observes Collinsworth. Was it? Seems pretty reasonable and justifiable.

Yesss, yesss, this is where the soft coverage becomes a smothering pillow. At least it should. That is a very tough throw and catch they attempt, but it was possible, god damnit. The zones were swiss cheese.

The pass rush was making its presence known. They were starting to give Brady tickles, which was a better late than never sort of thing. In fact, it was a “if you’re going to do it at all, late is the time to do it” sort of thing.

I mean...come the fuck on. The pass rush certainly was breathing down Brady’s neck here, and I get the secondary is playing waaaaayyy deep, but it’s 4th and 10. Still better safe than sorry by LB Nigel Bradham there, who was in the middle on those sink zones. He just wanted to make sure he was well behind Amendola.

Now let’s take a moment here for football probabilities. In all likelihood, I should have been already celebrating, right? Like there’s no way, right? The Patriots had 26 seconds to get another 78 yards plus a 2 point conversion just to tie it. Even for Tom Brady that’s a steep ask, right? Right?

No, it wasn’t. No, it fucking wasn’t. There was zero chance I was going to cease sweating and unclench my sphincter for even a nanosecond.

See? SEE?! The Eagles were giving the Patriots this kind of quick out for 10 yards, but the Patriots were happy to take it. They hit one of those every 6 - 7 seconds of gameclock, then they only need one (one!) bomb miracle and the Eagles will have LOST, THE SKY WILL OPEN, THE SEVEN TRUMPETS WILL SOUND, AND A MOUNTAIN OF FIRE WILL FALL, AND LAND IN THE OCEAN. THE ANIMALS WILL CRY AND FLEE, AND THERE WILL BE MUCH WAILING AND GNASHING OF TEETH AMONGST HUMANKIND. GREAT C’THULU WILL ADJOIN WITH BEELZEBUB, THEY WILL OPEN ONE OF THEIR 17 SCREECHING MAWS AND SING THE SONG THAT ENDS THIS EARTH.

I’m glad no one was around to make even a single god damn sound as I was watching this. If anyone were to have piped up with “Man, this is getting surprisingly suspenseful, given how 2 minutes ago it looked as if the Eagles were clearly going to win,” I’d have uppercut them to the sun.

Darby makes the right move hugging the sideline after Gronkowski makes the catch, trying to tangle him up inbounds, but the Patriots look like they’ve set up sort of a pick play just for the this purpose. Listen to Collinsworth rooting so hard for Gronkowski to get out of bounds. “There he is!” he exhales in relief as the real life centaur stumbles across the line. OH, THERE HE IS, COLLINSWORTH? THAT SURE IS A LOAD OFF, RIGHT?! HEAVEN FORFEND HE GETS TACKLED IN BOUNDS AND SOMEONE OTHER THAN TAWM FACKIN’ BRADY WINS THE SUPER BOWL.

Good defensive positioning here, but why couldn’t he just reel it in? Can’t we please have an anticlimactic crunch-time INT to put the game away, followed by what would be my favorite victory formation? I love victory formation, partially because I had very few opportunities to run it. All the routine trappings of football execution that you’re having to perform - huddle, line up, get your alignments right, listen for snap count, execute your prescribed action - are 1000% more fun in victory formation because 1. It’s an easy thing to do 2. There’s no pressure 3. Everyone is smiling and someone is probably making a joke and 4. There’s always that tiiiiiny chance someone on the other team is salty and is gonna pull some dickish shit. One of the dark sides of sports for me is that being pissed off is often thrilling. And in victory formation, you hold all the cards. “Scoreboard,” is the unbeatable comeback to any insult. Imagine how fun it would be in the Super Bowl!

But no. No, now we gotta have actual excitement. I didn’t want excitement. I wanted anything but excitement. I wanted a hilarious blowout like the NFCCG. I wanted the game to be over after the first quarter, and the rest of the game to be a joyous victory lap. I wanted to start happy drinking beer, rather than slowly sipping room temperature water. This game had already had miracles. Jeffrey, Blount, Clement, Ertz, the Patriots O-line, Gronkowski’s 2-TD performance, Tom Brady again, the Philly Special, Brandon Graham, Derek Barnett, the world holding Nick Foles’s beer and watching what he did next. 1,152 total yards of offense, the most in any NFL game ever.

You think there was any chance anyone thought a 51 yard heave into the endzone was impossible? Or some crazy never-before-seen hook-and-ladder or whatever Emperor Palpatine on the Patriots sideline cooked up to make use of the best QB, the best TE, and whatever role-player-come-unstoppable-superstar the Patriots have elevated this week?

I didn’t blink as the ball was snapped. Dug my fingers into the couch arm as Brady spun out of the arms of Graham, who was suddenly in pass rush hypermode. Brady found a moment, a platform, and reminded everyone of his weird agelessness as he cannoned the ball downfield. I remember being aware of the crowd roar and wondered how anyone had any juice left to make sound as the ball flew. It sailed upward into the middle air of the stadium, tracked by hundreds of cameras and millions of eyeballs, and then down to a tight bunch of desperately grappling men. It bounced once off the players, and those watching who had the diaphragm strength left to gasp did so. Then it fell to the turf and into history.

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amtushinfosolutionspage · 6 years

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Kevin Harlan is Still Searching for the Perfect Broadcast

VICE Sports: I want to jump in with a question I’m sure you’re asked all the time, but what call of yours are you most proud of or feel you’re best known for?

Kevin Harlan: I guess I’m best known for the LeBron dunk back against Boston, five, ten years ago. I’m not really sure when it was to be quite honest. There’s a dunk over Kevin Garnett. He was the reigning Defensive Player of the Year and LeBron was beginning to emerge as this player that we’re seeing now, and that call has gotten a lot of notoriety.

I’ve never done a conference finals. I’ve never done an NBA Finals. I’ve never done an All-Star game. There are certain games that you do along an NBA season that might have a call here or there that’s pretty good or that fans will latch onto. I’m really not as dialed into the social media thing the way I probably should be or certainly the way my daughters are, and son, so they’ll tell me from time to time that something I said…like the other night we were doing a promo for Lil Uzi Vert. He was going to perform at halftime or the postgame of our show. It was Los Angeles before the All-Star game.

And I go “Have they missed a couple letters here in this guy’s last name because it doesn’t even make sense.” I’d never heard of the guy before, and so I looked him up during a commercial break because they handed me the card, and they said you’ve got to read this coming out of the commercial. And I said “Who is this? What is this? I didn’t know if it was a game or, I wasn’t sure what it was. So I read the card and said ‘Who doesn’t love the song Money…” or whatever the name of the song was, and my girls start texting me like “Dad what’d you say about Lil Uzi Vert?” I said “I don’t know I just read the card!” so I play a little dumb with them sometimes. I’m really not dialed into this stuff.

There was a great three-point shot by LeBron in a regular season game the day after the Super Bowl a couple years ago. I’d just done the Super Bowl then flew to Washington, and they were playing the Wizards. He hit a big-time three-point shot that I think tied the game, falling out of bounds, right in front of the bench. Just a remarkable, remarkable shot.

When I was doing Jordan when I first got to TNT, and before that with the Timberwolves, anytime he touched the ball you just knew something big was gonna happen, but I can’t really tell you if there’s a specific call that stands out. They all kind of blend together, to be quite honest. But I know the LeBron thing has been a special treat for people around the internet, and they’ll play it when I come back into Cleveland, in the arena sometimes.

It’s personally my favorite call of all time, and I don’t want to harp on it too much, but how did With No Regard For Human Life even pop into your head?

Well I used it three times. One time it was Kevin getting dunked on LeBron. When I was doing the Timberwolves and Garnett was a young player, I think I used it then. And then I used it in Madison Square Garden when Kobe had 61, and he had a big dunk. Big, big dunk off the baseline, reverse, came up the left side and really hammered it.

You can’t write anything down because it would not sound like it would be in the flow of a call. I get asked these questions a lot “How did you think of that?” and I don’t know. I’m not a very smart guy. I’m kind of a goofy guy, I guess, and so when it came with Garnett back in the early Timberwolves days, they were so bad that we were just kind of looking for things to keep us awake and focused during the broadcast because we were getting our brains beat in all the time, and so we’d joke around. I worked with a couple guys that I really liked and we would have a good time on the air even though we’d pile up the losses and win 15 games and lose 60 whatever, so you try to keep yourself motivated and creative, and so we’d come up with stuff like that.

What triggers it, though, is kind of when you see the expression afterwards. I was working with Doug Collins, who I just adore. But Doug, when he saw that, it takes a lot for him to get into it, and he took his left arm, braced it against my chest, leaned back in the chair, thus moving me back in the chair, so literally I was falling backwards when we saw that dunk. And he was so excited. I know that’s what kind of lit my fuse on that particular call.

The fact that he had to get by a couple of guys on the move, and how far he was away. And his arm was fully extended and then he goes over the reigning Defensive Player of the Year. I mean, that’s a pretty stunning thing to see. And there’s not a lot of that in the NBA, when you have the confluence of rising superstar and established defensive presence and big-time playoff game and national audience and everything just kind of came together. And when he had that dunk with Doug’s reaction, it just kind of came out.

I’m really surprised a lot of us don’t say dumber stuff, like, there’s not obscenities that come out. Because when you’re in the stands, you’re standing there saying “Holy shit, what was that?” In replacing those vile words, we come up with things like “With no regard for human life.” But LeBron at that stage was a young player and just really beginning to take over, and the transition from Kobe to him was in full flower and you could see this kid was a special kid. And then to do it against a veteran like Garnett, a championship team like the Celtics, was a pretty big thing.

How would you describe your style as a play-by-play broadcaster, and in your field is it important at all to stand out and separate yourself in anyway?

First and foremost I think I’m a fan, and I have this great seat to watch these players do stuff that I just, like, I watch Harden and words don’t do it justice, the kind of stuff that he does. Kind of like LeBron. The stuff he does is just, one minute he’s zipping a pass down the lane through a bunch of arms and legs, and the next he’s skying up to grab a rebound against a taller, stronger player, and then he takes a three-point shot with ease and grace. Then you watch Harden stopping on a dime, backpedaling up and getting above the arc and hitting a three and the passing and the presence and the vision. So I’m really inspired and like a fan in that regard. I’m a passionate person. I’m an emotional persona. And it just kind of comes out. It’s probably best suited for a local broadcast as opposed to a national broadcast, but I really just enjoy it.

My dad was in pro sports for so long and I’ve been around baseball clubhouses and NFL fields and locker rooms and sidelines my whole life. I don’t know if my dad ever told me this but he probably lived by this credo because that’s kind of the way he ran his: He loved what he did, would’ve done it for free, and felt it was an honor to be there. I feel the same way. It’s an honor to do these games. NBA, NFL, or college basketball. I’ve really enjoyed college basketball and the tournament. It’s such an honor to be there, so I let my emotions sometimes get the best of me.

But you know, a great pass in the first quarter should not be downplayed. Now, in the realm of a game is it significant? Probably not in the first quarter. First half. And people will say “Oh you should wait until the end of the game!” Are you saying that a great pass by Harden or a juke and he breaks a guy’s ankles and the guy goes tumbling down and it’s the second quarter, I’m not gonna show a little bit of emotion? You’ve got to be kidding me. So I feel like when a good play happens, a good play happens. Now, maybe you save an extra gear for late in the game when it has a bearing on the outcome, but I’ve got to tell you that in every game there’s a highlight or something happens that is just, to me, incredible. Every single game, and I’ve done hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of basketball games. Moreso with the pros than college, but the pro game I see stuff where I can not believe what I just saw. And I like having that feeling, because I’m thinking the fans that are watching in their seats, back and around us, I know they’re saying the same thing: “Wow did you see that play?!” And that’s how I feel.

How important is it to inject humor into a broadcast?

Unfortunately we’re in a business now where personalities and…before you were asking, Michael, about how to stand out. I think when you try to stand out that becomes an issue because I think you have to go into it calling the game and making sure you’re prepared and have done all the professional things you need to do. And as they tell these players, you’ve prepared all week and you’ve lifted these weights and you’ve run these miles and gone through the sets, now go out and have fun! I feel like I’ve prepared all week or all night or however long for my game until I go do it, well I want to go out and have some fun. I really am enjoying myself.

I love the business. I don’t like much around the business, but I love the business. I love doing the games because at the end of the day personalities and having fun seem to always grab the attention, and a lot of guys I think are graded on their humor as opposed to how they’re calling the game and I think you’re mistaken if you don’t recognize that. But I don’t think you can force it. We have to read these billboards, you know, so “The NBA on TNT is brought to you by GEICO, 15 minutes can…” and last night for the first time all season we had one by Arby’s, and you know in the Arby’s commercial the guy comes on and says “We’ve got the meats” or however he says it. So we had this great game, but our guy today tells me “You know what people liked?” And I was like “What, one of the KD blocks? Was it a pass inside?” “No. They loved the way you read that Arby’s commercial.” I said “Really, God.” I’m amazed at the type of stuff people latch onto, and that’s why I don’t go on social media and see this stuff because you’re kind of seduced into thinking “Well that’s who I’ve gotta be. That’s how I’ve gotta act with more humor.” I think if the humor comes naturally, especially with the guy you’re with, then it feels organic, but if it’s forced and you’re trying to do funny lines and skits and little bits and stuff, I think people can kind of see through that.

I never go into a game thinking “Hey let’s try and be funny tonight” or “Let’s try to be passionate, real, excited when maybe the game isn’t so.” I go in thinking nothing except let’s begin as a pro, stay as professional as you can. Make sure you never lose sight of the game regardless of what the score is, and make sure you’re doing an honest job in reporting the game. And if the other stuff tries to fall in because of a guy slipping or something goofy happening,a guy gets hit on the head with a ball or whatever it might be, you’re loose enough and in the moment enough that you kind of laugh and have fun because you know your viewer is probably laughing at whatever it might be.

What did you mean when you said that you love the business but don’t like things around the business?

I don’t like…the travel is, and people always say that, and who am to complain about the travel, especially now, I’m only doing a game or two a week. But when football is going on and I’m doing a Sunday, a Monday, and a Thursday, that can be pretty tough. And we just became empty nesters, so now my wife is going with me on trips and that has been a game changer because we’ve been married 31 years and we had four kids and our last one just left for college. She was just with me in San Francisco the last couple of days and that was terrific, and I would’ve hated to be out there without her. She made the trip and it just changed everything. That part of it actually is getting better.

It becomes tiresome and comes with the territory, and I’m not complaining, but there’s a lot of scrutiny on every word that we say. “What did he mean by that?” and “How should I take that?” We had a broadcaster in Oklahoma City say something that was unfortunate and was hurtful to some and we all get that. I think instead of just calling the game you’ve got to be very cognizant of how you present it and what you say, and that becomes an additional challenge. Again, not complaining, it just becomes something else on your plate that you’ve got to consider. And you should! It’s great this is all happening in our society. That there’s this real concerted effort by everybody—hopefully, certainly by us broadcasters—to make sure that you’re treating people the right way. That you’re never trying to say anything hurtful or disrespectful. And not that guys in the past would ever do that, but it’s a different climate we’re in now.

When I say it’s the stuff around, I shouldn’t complain about that. It was in the past, the travel. And now that my wife is with me it’s much better. I think we’re more on guard in what we say and we’ve got to be careful with what we say, more than ever before and there’s example after example, from Jimmy the Greek to the golf guy talking about a female swing of a club. All this stuff is out there and you’ve just got to be very, very careful that you don’t offend anybody and represent yourself and your company in a professional way. You can’t go into a broadcast scared, but you’ve got to go into a broadcast with that sense of awarness. Not that you didn’t before but it’s even, I’m sure you can appreciate, even more now that you really not say anything that would be construed or taken in a way that you don’t want, and it’s not kind or fair to other people.

How do you prepare for a game?

When you first get in the business, there’s the release and newspaper stories and that’s it. Now you’ve got very smart bloggers out there and you’ve got these websites that look at the analytics, and you feel like if you don’t visit these sites and take advantage of all these different ways to get information that you’re letting down your audience, thus not being the professional that you need to be.

You’ve gotta go and make sure you check all this stuff, because you don’t want to be left not in the know. You don’t want to miss a great statistic that would complement a big play by Harden or whatever. Luckily, the media relations staffs of all these different teams are dialed into these things too, so a lot of times they’ll put them in their notes which is really helpful because it saves you time from having to go and look this stuff up.

There was this guy who was a blogger. His name was Dieter Kurtenbach. I read a couple of his stories and I thought wow this guy is really good. Trying to find guys like that to read, like Bill Simmons. I think Simmons has a very interesting basketball mind. His mind is fascinating to me. There are a lot of them. There are so many. You’ve got to read what they think.

To get back to your question, the first thing I like to do is read the beat writers from each of the teams going in because they’re there every practice, every press conference, every game, every quarter, every dribble, they’ve seen it all. They’ll know far more than I’ll ever know about the team, but we’re expected to go into that arena, sit in that chair, put on that headset, and be as knowledgeable as those beat guys are. So you start there. Then you go to the release because you want to make sure you’ve got the details correct. Sometimes the stories can have an errant number or something like that, so you go back and double check, and then you start to hunt for stories online. Writers you know, websites you go to, statistical pages which are very important and have more of an analytical insight, whether it’s PER or whatever it might be.

You always say, I want one sentence on every player, so if I’m watching John Wall at the free-throw line I want to know, “John Wall grew up in North Carolina, he was a player of the year, he played a year at Kentucky, never thought of another school, first pick,” whatever I might say about him, but that I can say it in one line. It’ll take about five to seven seconds, and that’s what you try to do.

But in the world we’re in, and as fast as the pro game moves, so much of what we’ve written and prepared for can’t be used because the game is so fast. It’s like “score, score, rebound, free-throw, read a card, another free throw, back at it they go.” There’s never a time to catch your breath, which is the beauty of the college game. In the college game there’s far more space. There are these times to breathe and you can tell a story. You can get into a meaningful conversation with your analyst, because they use a lot of the clock, they don’t move as fast, they’re not as skilled, there’s not as much scoring, there are a lot of missed shots, on and on and on and on. In the NBA they’re so skilled. It’s a great pass, it’s a terrific rebound, it’s a wonderful three-point shot, and there’s so much to document that you can’t go to your information. So you’re discouraged a little bit on the pro side that you can’t get out all the good stuff that you’ve got. And there’s so much good stuff out there. And that can be a little frustrating.

The college game—I just finished doing the tournament—there is a ton of space. The game moves slower. It’s a natural rhythm for a broadcast. The NBA really should be done as a radio broadcast because more times than not if you try and get any kind of meaningful conversation with the analyst, the analyst is saying “ah, the two points there by Jaylen Brown and they’re going the other way, and as I was saying…” You’re constantly doing all this work without any chance to get it in, where as in the college game there is so much time and space and pockets that you can really kind of put stuff into and set up and get a storyline established. It’s great. But, that being said, the skill level between the two styles is immense. It’s absolutely immense.

You’ve got a bunch of people to read. They’re scary to read because they’re so smart, and so provocative, and so dead on with what they say, you feel sometimes like “God, why didn’t I think of that?” [Laughs]. I say that all the time. I have a lot of respect for the people that cover these games.

What’s the best game you’ve ever called?

You know I’d like to think that I haven’t called it. I like to think that it’s still ahead of me. I like to think that all the mistakes I’ve made in all the years I’ve been lucky enough to do this, I’d like to think that it’s yet to come. I’ve had a couple of Super Bowls that have been great because of last-minute heroics. The Malcolm Butler interception for the Pats on Russell Wilson. The historic comeback by Brady and the Patriots against Atlanta. If you’re lucky enough to get a Super Bowl like that it’s terrific. So there have been plays within games that I’ve been pleased with.

Listen, after every broadcast I can pick a thousand things I would say or do differently. A thousand. Maybe more. I wish I would’ve let it breathe more. I wish I would’ve put more emphasis on it. I wish I would’ve been smart enough in the moment to ask my analyst this or lead him into that or follow up with something he said or told the truck “No let’s hold off on that graphic because I think there’s something else more important.” There’s a thousand of those moments every single broadcast. So I like to think, and I’ll probably never have it, I like to think that my best broadcast is yet to come. But if it doesn’t, as I tell each of my three girls and our son, something that I learned very early on, it’s cliche but it’s so true: The journey is the essence of why you’re doing it. That is the reward. Going through all the preparation, making all the flights, not getting a lot of sleep, handling a different team from night to night, trying to be as good as you are. Your voice on some nights could be spot on and you could rattle off and not trip over anything. There are other nights where it’s like pulling gum out of your teeth. There’s no flow, there’s no rhythm, there’s no pace, there’s none of it. Those nights are just so frustrating.

I’ve never had a perfect broadcast or been close to one. I doubt I ever will, but I love the challenge of going for that. I love the challenge of preparing both my delivery and presentation with the notes that I have, and the information I’ve got. I love the challenge of aiming for that in every broadcast, and am disappointed when I fall short. But know that there’s another game coming up. It’s like a torture chamber to sit and listen [through my tapes]. “That was stupid, that was dumb, that was wrong, that didn’t sound good, talk slower” it’s just everything.

I don’t want to bring up any bad memories, but does any one gaffe stand out?

There’s things you probably would not say again. I’m trying to think if there’s anything that..for whatever reason I can’t think of one. I’m sure there are. You know when that kid ran out on that field in San Francisco a couple years ago, I was scared to death going back to the San Francisco airport thinking that was gonna be a real problem for me. My boss was standing next to me when the drunk kid ran out on the field and I kinda went with it, but I thought “This is the one thing they do not want you to do, is they do not want you to…”

Draw attention?

Yeah! Which is exactly what I did! I broke every rule right there.

I don’t know anyone who didn’t love that.

[Laughs] It turned out well, but had I been doing the game on TV for CBS, I would never have done it because that is just an automatic “no.” But on radio I guess it was just a bit different because you’re so used to describing every single thing you see on the field, and the kid ran right through the formation as they were lining up to take the snap. So it looked like he was a slot receiver. And he ran right by them! And he was allowed to run on the field for like 40 seconds before the security guys came out and got him. So there have been moments like that where I thought “That probably wasn’t very smart.”

A lot of times you’ll say the wrong pronunciation of a guy’s name or you’ll say something and local fans in Milwaukee or Houston will say “that’s not right,” and you completely flub that up and they call you out on it. Those are the things that you really begin to dread. Every mistake is a learning process and you just don’t do it again. You spend extra time on pronunciations. You spend extra time on making sure everything is dotted and crossed the right way.

Which player right now excites you the most, as a broadcaster? Is it an athletic star—LeBron or Russell Westbrook—or someone more like, say, Lance Stephenson, who provides pure entertainment in a different form?

I don’t know if the league has ever had a deeper list of great players. I’m watching Antetokounmpo right now. Oh my God. I mean this guy is just, he is a fascinating player with his background. So when I see him do things, the agility he has for his size, I’m just amazed. Harden to me is…he’s not Michael and he’s not LeBron. He’s not Kobe. I’ve had the honor of calling all three of their careers. I started doing Jordan his rookie year. Kobe, did a lot of his games as a rookie in the playoffs, right through his last season. Then LeBron since he got in the league. So those three guys are just incredible. But Harden is different than any player I can recall. Harden scores, he shoots, he sets up, he’s as unbelievable an offensive player as I’ve seen. He really is.

He’s brilliant.

He is brilliant. He is absolutely brilliant. And then LeBron of course, what we’re seeing him do just has never been done. Jordan to me was so exciting. I caught a little bit of Dr. J in his last couple years because I started in the 80s. But he wasn’t like these guys. Dr. J was graceful and had a majesty about him, where LeBron is, as we all know, for his size, to do what he does, and have the skills of a guard and the wherewithal of a big man, is just amazing. But Harden to me is a pretty unique guy and I don’t even know I can do justice in trying to really describe his game because I think you wouldn’t understand it unless you saw it. He doesn’t have the physical, imposing features of Jordan, even Kobe—who bulked up during his career—and certainly LeBron. He doesn’t look like them.

I love shooting. I love the art of a jump shot. And maybe it’s because I work with Reggie [Miller] and worked with Steve Kerr that I have a great appreciation for just how hard it is to do that, have all the mechanics that make it work, whether you’re guarded or unguarded, five feet or 25 feet away. I just love those guys. I think I love them more than the alley-oops and the jams. I thought I loved the dunks and all that power, which are great, they’re fun. But you see them so often.

To see a real skilled shooter like Ray Allen or Miller or now Curry, and Klay, and Harden…I am loving this space and pace and passing. Passing to me, and shooting, are like the two most wonderful things about this game. I love great sets and intricate plays. But I love the passing that gets you through that and makes a play become that memorable play. And so those are my two favorite things: passing and shooting. And I couldn’t put one over the other. They’re hand in hand. Those are the things that I enjoy the most about the game.

When you’re in the stands, you’re standing there saying “Holy shit, what was that?” In replacing those vile words, we come up with things like “With no regard for human life.”

The player who’s most intriguing to me is Harden because he’s unlike Kobe, Michael, and LeBron. He’s just a different guy. Now they all have elements of what he has but I don’t think he has any elements of what they have. They were power and force and ferocity. The athleticism. Not that James isn’t athletic but he’s not that athletic. He’s not Kobe Bryant, Jordan, LeBron athletic. So he’s doing it on guile and skill and nuance and adroit footwork. Just all this great stuff that to me is fascinating.

I don’t know him. I’ve never talked to him. He probably has no idea who I am, but in calling as many games of his as I have, I just have more of an appreciation for him every time I see him play. And I have that same appreciation for the shooters I see, and I love shots. Big shots, long shots. Who was the guy that played point guard for the Kings back in the early 2000’s?

Jason Williams.

Jason Williams. I wish I could’ve bottled that team. I wish all these kids passed like that. I wish they passed behind the back. I just wish there was more. I kind of held out hope that Ricky Rubio was gonna be like that, and at times he can do something like that, but he didn’t become the full blown Jason Williams that I thought he might be. When Jason Williams was on that team, kind of freestyling, freewheeling, swashbuckling, I just loved it. I absolutely loved watching him play. That was fun and entertaining and just the craft and the skill it took to pass like that I just found… “Wow what am I seeing?” because not every guy can do it. But those guys that can, and shoot with the consistency from outside, that’s kind of what Harden is. Harden has that wow factor where it’s like “How did he stop so fast that a good, agile guard is thrown off his balance and falls down? How does that happen? How does he do that?” And he does it gracefully. He said the other day, “I don’t know how I do it, I just do it. And I think about it but don’t know how I do it.” I just find that really, really fascinating.

Well, he’s about to win his first MVP.

He is, he is. Is he your MVP?

Oh, no question.

LeBron has had a great statistical season, there’s no doubt. In any other year he’d probably win, but this guy, this year has been great.

I’m not sure if you can make predictions on the record or not so I’ll word it in case you can’t: Which team do you think will be the hardest to defeat over the next couple months?

I think if Golden State is anything like they’ve been against a very smart San Antonio team, minus their best player, in Curry—they’ve kind of been in this malaise, whether they were bored or whatever—they have hit another gear, and they’re looking like the team that won last year. And as good as Houston is, and they are good, and it hurt them to lose Mbah a Moute, they’re gonna miss his defense and they’re gonna need it against a team like Golden State should that be a series. But Golden State is showing all the earmarks of being the team they’ve been, even though the regular season maybe didn’t reveal it as much. You know, they won 58 games. That was third most in the league, and everyone says “Oh, they’re complacent” and “Oh, they’re gonna flip a switch.” I would never degrade them and say it’s as easy as flipping a switch. I just think that for whatever reason, with guys injured and the season being so long, they weren’t gonna move up and catch Houston or drop back any further and lose that position. I think they just kind of said let’s refine what we’re doing, let’s work on the small things, and it’s starting to show. When they get Curry back, and if their bench can give them a little bit more, I think they’re going to be a very difficult out regardless of who they play.

I picked Houston before the season started and I’m sticking with that prediction.

I like it, I love the pick. I love the pick of Houston. I love them, I love them. Morey is definitely the Executive of the Year, and they bolstered their bench and they’ve got defensive minded guys. What I find remarkable about Houston is Paul and Harden are able to figure out between the two of them, they can defer when the other one is going. They have that innate feel and relationship that they don’t get pushed out of shape, maybe when the other guy takes a shot and they thought they should’ve. There’s not been an issue there. They’re friends. And they’re teammates to the best degree it seems like, and I think that’s been a remarkable story. And there’s a lot to like about Houston. I’m splitting hairs here but I do think if Curry can come back and be the Curry that we know, I think Golden State is going to be a very, very difficult out.

Hopefully we get them in the Western Conference Finals. My fingers are crossed.

As basketball fans, wouldn’t that be a treat? My goodness.

Kevin will call Game 4 of Timberwolves-Rockets alongside Reggie Miller and Kristen Ledlow, Monday (April 23) at 8 p.m. ET on TNT

Kevin Harlan is Still Searching for the Perfect Broadcast syndicated from https://australiahoverboards.wordpress.com

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flauntpage · 6 years

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Kevin Harlan is Still Searching for the Perfect Broadcast

VICE Sports: I want to jump in with a question I’m sure you’re asked all the time, but what call of yours are you most proud of or feel you’re best known for?

I’ve never done a conference finals. I’ve never done an NBA Finals. I’ve never done an All-Star game. There are certain games that you do along an NBA season that might have a call here or there that’s pretty good or that fans will latch onto. I’m really not as dialed into the social media thing the way I probably should be or certainly the way my daughters are, and son, so they’ll tell me from time to time that something I said...like the other night we were doing a promo for Lil Uzi Vert. He was going to perform at halftime or the postgame of our show. It was Los Angeles before the All-Star game.

And I go "Have they missed a couple letters here in this guy’s last name because it doesn’t even make sense." I’d never heard of the guy before, and so I looked him up during a commercial break because they handed me the card, and they said you’ve got to read this coming out of the commercial. And I said "Who is this? What is this? I didn’t know if it was a game or, I wasn’t sure what it was. So I read the card and said ‘Who doesn’t love the song Money…" or whatever the name of the song was, and my girls start texting me like "Dad what’d you say about Lil Uzi Vert?" I said "I don’t know I just read the card!" so I play a little dumb with them sometimes. I’m really not dialed into this stuff.

It’s personally my favorite call of all time, and I don’t want to harp on it too much, but how did With No Regard For Human Life even pop into your head?

You can’t write anything down because it would not sound like it would be in the flow of a call. I get asked these questions a lot "How did you think of that?” and I don’t know. I’m not a very smart guy. I’m kind of a goofy guy, I guess, and so when it came with Garnett back in the early Timberwolves days, they were so bad that we were just kind of looking for things to keep us awake and focused during the broadcast because we were getting our brains beat in all the time, and so we’d joke around. I worked with a couple guys that I really liked and we would have a good time on the air even though we’d pile up the losses and win 15 games and lose 60 whatever, so you try to keep yourself motivated and creative, and so we’d come up with stuff like that.

I’m really surprised a lot of us don’t say dumber stuff, like, there’s not obscenities that come out. Because when you’re in the stands, you’re standing there saying "Holy shit, what was that?" In replacing those vile words, we come up with things like "With no regard for human life." But LeBron at that stage was a young player and just really beginning to take over, and the transition from Kobe to him was in full flower and you could see this kid was a special kid. And then to do it against a veteran like Garnett, a championship team like the Celtics, was a pretty big thing.

How would you describe your style as a play-by-play broadcaster, and in your field is it important at all to stand out and separate yourself in anyway?

But you know, a great pass in the first quarter should not be downplayed. Now, in the realm of a game is it significant? Probably not in the first quarter. First half. And people will say "Oh you should wait until the end of the game!" Are you saying that a great pass by Harden or a juke and he breaks a guy’s ankles and the guy goes tumbling down and it’s the second quarter, I’m not gonna show a little bit of emotion? You’ve got to be kidding me. So I feel like when a good play happens, a good play happens. Now, maybe you save an extra gear for late in the game when it has a bearing on the outcome, but I’ve got to tell you that in every game there’s a highlight or something happens that is just, to me, incredible. Every single game, and I’ve done hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of basketball games. Moreso with the pros than college, but the pro game I see stuff where I can not believe what I just saw. And I like having that feeling, because I’m thinking the fans that are watching in their seats, back and around us, I know they’re saying the same thing: "Wow did you see that play?!" And that’s how I feel.

How important is it to inject humor into a broadcast?

Unfortunately we’re in a business now where personalities and...before you were asking, Michael, about how to stand out. I think when you try to stand out that becomes an issue because I think you have to go into it calling the game and making sure you’re prepared and have done all the professional things you need to do. And as they tell these players, you’ve prepared all week and you’ve lifted these weights and you’ve run these miles and gone through the sets, now go out and have fun! I feel like I’ve prepared all week or all night or however long for my game until I go do it, well I want to go out and have some fun. I really am enjoying myself.

I love the business. I don’t like much around the business, but I love the business. I love doing the games because at the end of the day personalities and having fun seem to always grab the attention, and a lot of guys I think are graded on their humor as opposed to how they’re calling the game and I think you’re mistaken if you don’t recognize that. But I don’t think you can force it. We have to read these billboards, you know, so "The NBA on TNT is brought to you by GEICO, 15 minutes can…" and last night for the first time all season we had one by Arby’s, and you know in the Arby’s commercial the guy comes on and says "We’ve got the meats" or however he says it. So we had this great game, but our guy today tells me "You know what people liked?" And I was like "What, one of the KD blocks? Was it a pass inside?" "No. They loved the way you read that Arby’s commercial." I said "Really, God." I’m amazed at the type of stuff people latch onto, and that’s why I don’t go on social media and see this stuff because you’re kind of seduced into thinking "Well that’s who I’ve gotta be. That’s how I’ve gotta act with more humor." I think if the humor comes naturally, especially with the guy you’re with, then it feels organic, but if it’s forced and you’re trying to do funny lines and skits and little bits and stuff, I think people can kind of see through that.

I never go into a game thinking "Hey let’s try and be funny tonight" or "Let’s try to be passionate, real, excited when maybe the game isn’t so." I go in thinking nothing except let’s begin as a pro, stay as professional as you can. Make sure you never lose sight of the game regardless of what the score is, and make sure you’re doing an honest job in reporting the game. And if the other stuff tries to fall in because of a guy slipping or something goofy happening,a guy gets hit on the head with a ball or whatever it might be, you’re loose enough and in the moment enough that you kind of laugh and have fun because you know your viewer is probably laughing at whatever it might be.

What did you mean when you said that you love the business but don’t like things around the business?

I don’t like...the travel is, and people always say that, and who am to complain about the travel, especially now, I’m only doing a game or two a week. But when football is going on and I’m doing a Sunday, a Monday, and a Thursday, that can be pretty tough. And we just became empty nesters, so now my wife is going with me on trips and that has been a game changer because we’ve been married 31 years and we had four kids and our last one just left for college. She was just with me in San Francisco the last couple of days and that was terrific, and I would’ve hated to be out there without her. She made the trip and it just changed everything. That part of it actually is getting better.

It becomes tiresome and comes with the territory, and I’m not complaining, but there’s a lot of scrutiny on every word that we say. "What did he mean by that?" and "How should I take that?" We had a broadcaster in Oklahoma City say something that was unfortunate and was hurtful to some and we all get that. I think instead of just calling the game you’ve got to be very cognizant of how you present it and what you say, and that becomes an additional challenge. Again, not complaining, it just becomes something else on your plate that you’ve got to consider. And you should! It’s great this is all happening in our society. That there’s this real concerted effort by everybody—hopefully, certainly by us broadcasters—to make sure that you’re treating people the right way. That you’re never trying to say anything hurtful or disrespectful. And not that guys in the past would ever do that, but it’s a different climate we’re in now.

How do you prepare for a game?

You always say, I want one sentence on every player, so if I’m watching John Wall at the free-throw line I want to know, "John Wall grew up in North Carolina, he was a player of the year, he played a year at Kentucky, never thought of another school, first pick," whatever I might say about him, but that I can say it in one line. It’ll take about five to seven seconds, and that’s what you try to do.

But in the world we’re in, and as fast as the pro game moves, so much of what we’ve written and prepared for can’t be used because the game is so fast. It’s like "score, score, rebound, free-throw, read a card, another free throw, back at it they go." There’s never a time to catch your breath, which is the beauty of the college game. In the college game there’s far more space. There are these times to breathe and you can tell a story. You can get into a meaningful conversation with your analyst, because they use a lot of the clock, they don’t move as fast, they’re not as skilled, there’s not as much scoring, there are a lot of missed shots, on and on and on and on. In the NBA they’re so skilled. It’s a great pass, it’s a terrific rebound, it’s a wonderful three-point shot, and there’s so much to document that you can’t go to your information. So you’re discouraged a little bit on the pro side that you can’t get out all the good stuff that you’ve got. And there’s so much good stuff out there. And that can be a little frustrating.

The college game—I just finished doing the tournament—there is a ton of space. The game moves slower. It’s a natural rhythm for a broadcast. The NBA really should be done as a radio broadcast because more times than not if you try and get any kind of meaningful conversation with the analyst, the analyst is saying "ah, the two points there by Jaylen Brown and they’re going the other way, and as I was saying…" You’re constantly doing all this work without any chance to get it in, where as in the college game there is so much time and space and pockets that you can really kind of put stuff into and set up and get a storyline established. It’s great. But, that being said, the skill level between the two styles is immense. It’s absolutely immense.

You’ve got a bunch of people to read. They’re scary to read because they’re so smart, and so provocative, and so dead on with what they say, you feel sometimes like "God, why didn’t I think of that?" [Laughs]. I say that all the time. I have a lot of respect for the people that cover these games.

What’s the best game you’ve ever called?

Listen, after every broadcast I can pick a thousand things I would say or do differently. A thousand. Maybe more. I wish I would’ve let it breathe more. I wish I would’ve put more emphasis on it. I wish I would’ve been smart enough in the moment to ask my analyst this or lead him into that or follow up with something he said or told the truck "No let’s hold off on that graphic because I think there’s something else more important." There’s a thousand of those moments every single broadcast. So I like to think, and I’ll probably never have it, I like to think that my best broadcast is yet to come. But if it doesn’t, as I tell each of my three girls and our son, something that I learned very early on, it’s cliche but it’s so true: The journey is the essence of why you’re doing it. That is the reward. Going through all the preparation, making all the flights, not getting a lot of sleep, handling a different team from night to night, trying to be as good as you are. Your voice on some nights could be spot on and you could rattle off and not trip over anything. There are other nights where it’s like pulling gum out of your teeth. There’s no flow, there’s no rhythm, there’s no pace, there’s none of it. Those nights are just so frustrating.

I’ve never had a perfect broadcast or been close to one. I doubt I ever will, but I love the challenge of going for that. I love the challenge of preparing both my delivery and presentation with the notes that I have, and the information I’ve got. I love the challenge of aiming for that in every broadcast, and am disappointed when I fall short. But know that there’s another game coming up. It’s like a torture chamber to sit and listen [through my tapes]. "That was stupid, that was dumb, that was wrong, that didn’t sound good, talk slower" it’s just everything.

I don’t want to bring up any bad memories, but does any one gaffe stand out?

There’s things you probably would not say again. I’m trying to think if there’s anything that..for whatever reason I can’t think of one. I’m sure there are. You know when that kid ran out on that field in San Francisco a couple years ago, I was scared to death going back to the San Francisco airport thinking that was gonna be a real problem for me. My boss was standing next to me when the drunk kid ran out on the field and I kinda went with it, but I thought "This is the one thing they do not want you to do, is they do not want you to…"

Draw attention?

Yeah! Which is exactly what I did! I broke every rule right there.

I don’t know anyone who didn’t love that.

[Laughs] It turned out well, but had I been doing the game on TV for CBS, I would never have done it because that is just an automatic "no." But on radio I guess it was just a bit different because you’re so used to describing every single thing you see on the field, and the kid ran right through the formation as they were lining up to take the snap. So it looked like he was a slot receiver. And he ran right by them! And he was allowed to run on the field for like 40 seconds before the security guys came out and got him. So there have been moments like that where I thought "That probably wasn’t very smart."

A lot of times you’ll say the wrong pronunciation of a guy’s name or you’ll say something and local fans in Milwaukee or Houston will say "that’s not right," and you completely flub that up and they call you out on it. Those are the things that you really begin to dread. Every mistake is a learning process and you just don’t do it again. You spend extra time on pronunciations. You spend extra time on making sure everything is dotted and crossed the right way.

I don’t know if the league has ever had a deeper list of great players. I’m watching Antetokounmpo right now. Oh my God. I mean this guy is just, he is a fascinating player with his background. So when I see him do things, the agility he has for his size, I’m just amazed. Harden to me is...he’s not Michael and he’s not LeBron. He’s not Kobe. I’ve had the honor of calling all three of their careers. I started doing Jordan his rookie year. Kobe, did a lot of his games as a rookie in the playoffs, right through his last season. Then LeBron since he got in the league. So those three guys are just incredible. But Harden is different than any player I can recall. Harden scores, he shoots, he sets up, he’s as unbelievable an offensive player as I’ve seen. He really is.

He’s brilliant.

To see a real skilled shooter like Ray Allen or Miller or now Curry, and Klay, and Harden...I am loving this space and pace and passing. Passing to me, and shooting, are like the two most wonderful things about this game. I love great sets and intricate plays. But I love the passing that gets you through that and makes a play become that memorable play. And so those are my two favorite things: passing and shooting. And I couldn’t put one over the other. They’re hand in hand. Those are the things that I enjoy the most about the game.

When you’re in the stands, you’re standing there saying "Holy shit, what was that?" In replacing those vile words, we come up with things like "With no regard for human life."

I don't know him. I’ve never talked to him. He probably has no idea who I am, but in calling as many games of his as I have, I just have more of an appreciation for him every time I see him play. And I have that same appreciation for the shooters I see, and I love shots. Big shots, long shots. Who was the guy that played point guard for the Kings back in the early 2000’s?

Jason Williams.

Jason Williams. I wish I could’ve bottled that team. I wish all these kids passed like that. I wish they passed behind the back. I just wish there was more. I kind of held out hope that Ricky Rubio was gonna be like that, and at times he can do something like that, but he didn’t become the full blown Jason Williams that I thought he might be. When Jason Williams was on that team, kind of freestyling, freewheeling, swashbuckling, I just loved it. I absolutely loved watching him play. That was fun and entertaining and just the craft and the skill it took to pass like that I just found… "Wow what am I seeing?" because not every guy can do it. But those guys that can, and shoot with the consistency from outside, that’s kind of what Harden is. Harden has that wow factor where it’s like "How did he stop so fast that a good, agile guard is thrown off his balance and falls down? How does that happen? How does he do that?" And he does it gracefully. He said the other day, "I don’t know how I do it, I just do it. And I think about it but don’t know how I do it." I just find that really, really fascinating.

Well, he’s about to win his first MVP.

He is, he is. Is he your MVP?

Oh, no question.

LeBron has had a great statistical season, there’s no doubt. In any other year he’d probably win, but this guy, this year has been great.

I’m not sure if you can make predictions on the record or not so I’ll word it in case you can’t: Which team do you think will be the hardest to defeat over the next couple months?

I think if Golden State is anything like they’ve been against a very smart San Antonio team, minus their best player, in Curry—they’ve kind of been in this malaise, whether they were bored or whatever—they have hit another gear, and they’re looking like the team that won last year. And as good as Houston is, and they are good, and it hurt them to lose Mbah a Moute, they’re gonna miss his defense and they’re gonna need it against a team like Golden State should that be a series. But Golden State is showing all the earmarks of being the team they’ve been, even though the regular season maybe didn’t reveal it as much. You know, they won 58 games. That was third most in the league, and everyone says "Oh, they’re complacent" and "Oh, they’re gonna flip a switch." I would never degrade them and say it’s as easy as flipping a switch. I just think that for whatever reason, with guys injured and the season being so long, they weren’t gonna move up and catch Houston or drop back any further and lose that position. I think they just kind of said let’s refine what we’re doing, let’s work on the small things, and it’s starting to show. When they get Curry back, and if their bench can give them a little bit more, I think they’re going to be a very difficult out regardless of who they play.

I picked Houston before the season started and I’m sticking with that prediction.

Hopefully we get them in the Western Conference Finals. My fingers are crossed.

As basketball fans, wouldn’t that be a treat? My goodness.

Kevin will call Game 4 of Timberwolves-Rockets alongside Reggie Miller and Kristen Ledlow, Monday (April 23) at 8 p.m. ET on TNT

Kevin Harlan is Still Searching for the Perfect Broadcast published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

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