The Man in Blak

It's hard to tell if Manning actually intends to move around in second half passing situations like Macauley Culkin running from the bees in that one big sad movie with Dan Aykroyd, or if his enfeebled actions are the result of an experimental neuro-toxin that the Patriots have pumped into opposing locker rooms at halftime for years. Donovan McNabb's six minute Super Bowl drive/vomit is certainly evidence in favor of the latter; the NFL career (and, perhaps, the very existence) of Eli Manning, however, strongly indicates that the former is, sadly, a very real possibility. Fucking sucks all around, if you ask me.

I haven't watched D'Angelo Hall play every down of every game but, just for the sake of argument, let's sample some of the performances of opposing No. 1 wideouts over the last two seasons: 2005: Week 1: Terrell Owens, 117 yards Week 2: Darrell Jackson, 131 yards Week 7: Laveranues Coles, 96 yards Week 10: Donald Driver, 114 yards Week 16: Joey Galloway, 97 yards Week 17: Steve Smith, 131 yards, 1 TD 2006: Week 2: Joey Galloway, 161 yards Week 7: Hines Ward, 171 yards, 3 TD Week 9: Roy Williams, 138 yards, 1 TD Week 13: Santana Moss, 123 yards, 1 TD 2007: Week 6: Plaxico Burress, 97 yards, 1 TD Week 13: Torry Holt, 135 yards, 1 TD Looking at those stats, 2007 probably seems like a banner year for D'Angelo Hall, until you realize that opposing teams aren't throwing at him (or the Falcons in general) because they can run the ball for 4.3 yards/carry against the Falcons front seven. Those stats, in conjunction with Hall's undying need to talk and talk and talk and talk about how great he is, have a lot to do with the very valid belief that he's overrated. Oh, and there was

Linehan is certainly worth mentioning, but I don't think anybody could have done much with the 2007 Rams, once the injured linemen started piling up on the sideline. If anything, the current putridity of the Rams is more of a byproduct of a front office that doesn't know its own ass from a hole in the ground.

I voted for Crennel and Billick, respectively. Billick has been unconscionably bad this year; taking the FG one foot away from the end zone against Miami is just the cherry on the shit sundae.

Yeah, dude. o/\o And "Mother Sky" is about the only redeemable thing from Soundtracks anyway, as far as I'm concerned.

Well, I think both ideas make sense. The main point that we're both circling around has to do with the ability to contrast; with no harmonic/rhythmic/melodic context, you're basically left with the frequency (the occurence, negative space vs. positive, inhabited space) and the amplitude (the actual "volume", soft/loud) of said weird bits as possible venues for creating difference, growth, etc.

Well, yeah. There's a certain subset of fans like that for any sports team or any other particular group of fandom. The fact that you dressed 'em up through irrational Cardinals hatred is momentarily entertaining, sure, but ultimately kind of pointless, isn't it? Maybe not. Shrugs.

Not to get too far off track here, but I would agree with this; since musique concrete places non-musical sounds into a musical context, it only makes sense that volume is one of the only remaining "normal" facets of regular music that the listener can connect with.

It could very well be a difference in taste. To me, the "Aumgn"/"Peking O" double shot serves as a perfect change of pace after nearly eighteen minutes of "Halleluhwah." The two are distinct enough from each other that they don't really grate on as thirty straight minutes of nonsense for me: "Aumgn" functions as a musique concrete-ish exorcism of the preceding krautrock, while "Peking O" works along the lines of Beefheart or even something like Mr. Bungle, punctuating with screams and other non-sensical vocals. By the time we back to the semblance of a "normal" song about a minute or so into "Bring Me Coffee Or Tea", my mind kind of feels a little warped...and I suspect that's the intent. And all of that completely ignores the fact that the first half of the album is absolutely fantastic, which I suspect has a lot to do with the impressions that people have of the album.

If I'm in the right mood, I can enjoy almost any of their stuff, but I think you can safely limit the essentials to the Tago Mago - Ege Bamyasi - Future Days sequence of albums. That's not to say that Soon Over Babaluma or Monster Movie aren't good, just that the rest of their stuff doesn't necessarily stick with me like those three albums do.

Yes, when his performance is completely isolated against his contract, I would not dispute that Edmonds is not worth the $8-9 million that he would be paid. My argument, however, revolves around how that money would be used to improve the team. For better or worse, the Izturis signing has essentially locked up the Cardinal infield, which leaves the starting rotation and (now) the outfield as immediate concerns. As far as starting pitching is concerned, there's no desired value available out there on the FA market that wasn't already available before the Edmonds deal: the team can't afford (from a roster standpoint) to sink a ton of money into a mediocrity-at-best like Carlos Silva, and they don't have the prospects to get any sort of long term value out of a trade, so the best fits are the bargain bin residents like a Mark Prior or a Jeff Weaver (again), who would have came cheaply to begin with. The same situation applies in the outfield - there's no magical top-shelf corner outfielder out there on the market that the Cardinals would be able to snag, so the team's course is probably set towards non-tender flotsam like Kevin Mench that could have been acquired even with Edmonds' hefty contract on the books for 2008. If you hold onto Edmonds and he gets injured, you put him on the DL and you get your young outfielders some playing time anyway. If he stinks up the joint, what's keeping the Cardinals from making this deal again during the season? Or, even better, if he actually manages to come back and provide decent performance, what's keeping them from flipping Edmonds in June and actually getting something of worth back for him? If the Cards somehow spin this new "flexibility" provided by the Edmonds trade into an actual player of value, then the trade becomes bitter, but ultimately necessary medicine. But the likelihood of extracting long-term value from the current situation seems low to me, which makes the trade seem ultimately pointless and perhaps even destructive, if you consider the PR impact of trading away one of the favorite players of the "red-faced dopes of Cardinal Nation" for virtually nothing.

The return for Edmonds should tell you something in itself. A 37 year old center fielder who produced an 88 OPS+ last year and misses 45-50 games a year. He's Jim Edmonds in name only. Is Edmonds a HOFer? Just because the Cardinals chose to sell Edmonds at his lowest possible value doesn't mean that there isn't any value to be had at all. ZIPS has him projected to be above average at CF and he hit well enough during the last two months of last season that the projection doesn't seem all that unrealistic. His durability is always a concern, sure, but his trips to the DL give the Cardinals ample opportunity to ease in their young outfielders (Ankiel, Rasmus, Barton), rather than throwing them into a baptism by fire immediately. If Brian Barton plays like a Rule 5 steal and Rick Ankiel doesn't regress and Ryan Ludwick doesn't regress and Colby Rasmus continues to develop and Skip Schumaker doesn't have a ball hit his head out in the outfield again...then maybe the Cardinals are in decent shape. But it's a risk that they don't have to take.

So that probably also means Rolen more than likely is going to get traded. John Mozeliak (the new GM) has already said that he does not see any other big trades on the horizon, so Rolen is likely staying put. He's also indicated that Rick Ankiel will likely be the projected starter at CF for St. Louis, which gives us an outfield of Duncan-Ankiel-Ludwick, with Schumaker and new Rule 5-er Brian Barton as depth. All in all, I think it's a really lousy trade in every possible way. The return that they got for Edmonds is essentially useless (local kid that doesn't really project beyond "organizational soldier") and the "salary relief" excuse rings very hollow when we're in a brand new stadium, playing baseball in a league that's apparently making billions upon billions of dollars. I'm trying to realize that this move may precede another move or signing, but the prospects out there for trade or free agency don't really seem to fit the Cardinals needs well at all - it seems more likely that DeWitt and the Cardinals ownership pockets the $8 million from the Edmonds and signs some non-tender castoff like Kevin Mench or Emil Brown to push us to 75 wins and contention for the divisional title. Viva La NL Central, I guess.

Yes, from his age 24 to 26 seasons. Yes, from his age 23 to 25 seasons. And then there's the whole transition he made to being a full time hitter, with the 54 home run season being the first season where he wasn't a regular starting pitcher. Yes, from his age 25 to 27 seasons, the first of which covered all of 42 ABs. (He hit 36 HRs the year before.) Noticing a trend? I'm talking about the nature of Bonds late career power surge; Bonds had five of the top six home run seasons in his career (all with >45 home runs) at or after the age of 35. Before that period, Bonds had only topped 40 home runs three times in fourteen big league seasons. Does the Sinins encyclopedia offer any comparables for that?

Don't you think there's something disingenuous about this statement? How would you feel about a proclamation that says "Other than the years that they didn't win the World Series, the Boston Red Sox have won the World Series every year"? The late career power surge is unprecedented. Everybody wants to pose Hank Aaron as an alternative because he set his career high in homers at the age of 37, but that's too handy of a surface-level reading: his previous career high was 45 and he had four different 40 home run seasons in his 30s. Aaron maintained his remarkable power level throughout the end of his career; he didn't jump from 34 home runs in a season (where he suffered from an elbow injury, BTW) to 73 home runs in two years flat. In previous posts, I've maintained that Bonds was a HoF guy based off of his "pre-steroids" career alone - he may have been one of the the best all around players that had ever played the game, even up to that point, and you could probably discount the rest of his career for the suspicions of steroid use and still have a player that was worthy of inclusion. But we're not talking about suspicions any more and, if Bonds were to be convicted of perjury, I would feel that he should never be allowed in the Hall of Fame. In that scenario, his induction to the Hall of Fame sends the wrong message: as long as you hit a bunch of home runs, as long as you put up numbers, it's okay if you break the law and cheat the very spirit of athleticism. I agree that the media doesn't have to imply this, but this is what Bonds has sown from his previous interactions with the media. He picked this fight and, whether it's "ethical" or not for the media to take part in it, they're going to oblige.

If you consider those songs to be "crap", then that encapsulates our difference of opinions into one nice little box, doesn't it? Like I've said before, I have a sneaky suspicion that this album will open up for you a couple of years from now. The fact that you celebrate the second disc because it's "more in line with Radiohead does best" and laud "Up On The Ladder" because it "sounds like Radiohead" reveals a real (and quite possibly narrow) preconception of the band's work. Also, as an aside, I think it's kind of ironic that you harp on about "intimate, sensual" (endlessly, I might add), but then you invoke a real brow-scruncher like "the confidence of HTTT" in the same round of posts. If you think that "Faust Arp" or "House of Cards" are really that lousy, then I invite you to explain how you've come to that conclusion, but only if you'll challenge yourself to come up with a better explanation than "they don't sound like Radiohead", which seems to be all that you've offered as a response to date.

I almost feel like I need to make a direct response to Czech's hysterical impressions, but I'll just chime in with some comments of my own for now. Mk1 - As previously advertised, it's a loop of "Videotape" stuff. Pretty much an obligatory transition from the end of Disc 1, but it works. Down Is The New Up - Good idea: building the "evil" half of the chorus on those drums, which roll with the chord sequence perfectly. Bad idea: the harmonic bait-and-switch that immediately follows that buildup. It might make for a neat trick at the end of the song (and apparently Radiohead thinks so too, since they revisit it at the end), but when it's presented as an actual part of the song, the transition doesn't work as well once the element of surprise is gone (say, by the second playthrough). Also ill-advised: Thom's White Guy falsetto indulgence that rides out the end of the song. Don't get me wrong, I like this one all right, but the song seems a little fractured, structurally, and it doesn't fare as well after the first go-round. Sounds like it would fit perfectly on Hail to the Thief and I mean that in every possible positive and negative way. Go Slowly - Three tracks in and you can already feel a departure in pacing from the first disc, which seemed to race from song to song at times. Slow, peaceful track that arcs into a nice vocal moment about a minute and a half in, then falls away, acoustic guitar making one last grasp at the ledge. Pretty good. Mk2 - Another unremarkable sound collage. Sucks, really, and we're starting to slow to an absolute crawl, pacing-wise. Last Flowers - Just about the worst fucking place for this one. Another slow piece, piano and acoustic guitar. Takes too long to get started (strip the first 30 seconds and go straight into the vocals, says I) and really doesn't go anywhere once it finally decides to go. Rather than building to a moment or any sort of climax, it just gets a little louder at the end and works in a suspension. Kinda dreadful, when positioned within the context of this disc so far but, even as a standalone shot, it's still only merely okay. Up On The Ladder - I haven't heard the demos for this, so I can't see the curveball here, but I absolutely welcome a song with a pulse, at this point. If Radiohead really had some balls, they'd just bring UNKLE or Modeselektor into the studio, have them lay a real beat on this, and come to grips with the fact that they've actually made a dance song. All things considered, this is probably my favorite song off of the second disc, though I think it will really have more legs once it's inevitably resurrected via a "Talk Show Host"-esque remix. Bangers & Mash - Oh, dear. You can kind of see some promise in there about a minute and a half in, but those hopes are quickly smashed once the "break down" comes through a little bit later. Probably about as bad a track as they've ever made. 4 Minute Warning - Nice round of synth noise to start and then we hit the real song, which sounds like Thom singing from the bottom of a well. Works out pretty well, though it does kind of chop off at the end, right when it feels like you want to build up. Kind of a quirky little minimalist thing, but it works. Not bad for a closer to the disc. Overall, I think the second disc makes for a decent bonus disc, but there's nothing here that completely warps my impressions of In Rainbows. Completely supplemental, which makes it perfect for the Radiohead worshippers that dropped $80 or whatever it was for the discbox.

Holy fuck, I was joking and almost called it! Yeah, you and the Football Outsiders. Congrats.

Just a random curiosity, but couldn't they approximate the opportunity cost associated with those misses by factoring the change in run expectancy (as well as any runs that scored on the play to offset a "decrease" in run expectancy - e.g. a bases-clearing double) into the calculation?

People make the soccer mom reference about the Wii because it's a lazy generalization that makes them feel better about themselves. And lord knows I'd probably want to feel better about myself too, if I felt some execrable compulsion to have such an emotional stake in a particular console in this "war."

Compared to their contemporaries, yes, STP were tolerable, but I don't think the purpose of the thread was to argue that a great American rock song could only be considered within the realm of popular rock radio. I'll admit, I might have made that consideration from the fact that the topic framed it as a "rock and roll" song, which is something you almost never hear anymore. At any rate, the main point I was trying (and apparently failing) to make isn't that "Interstate Love Song" is a masterwork that stirs emotions long left untouched since Penderecki's Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima; it's simply that the argument in the opening post is not as far fetched as one would initially think. Obviously, there are probably a dozen or more rock songs from the last few years out there that one could put forth as having more artistic merit than the STP track (I didn't even touch on R.E.M. or the White Stripes, for example), but I'm not sure if they could provide a better confluence of quality songwriting and mass appeal. "Interstate Love Song" is just a crisp, hooky little rock and roll tune, no frills. If you want to argue that, say, "Fell In Love With a Girl" is a much better choice for the topic, then I could understand that as well, but "Interstate Love Song" is not so much of an eyesore (earsore?) that it completely falls out of bounds for such a discussion.

There are a few similarities, sure. Both song have southern-tinged leads into the verse and there are some definite structural similarities. The tone of the music is different, though - the latter is a completely transparent stab at creating a big power ballad, whereas the former is a more straightaway rock tune. "Interstate Love Song" has some other temporal quirks as well (the "Reply" / "Goodbye" tailend of the verse, in particular). Within the context of mainstream American rock, compare "Interstate Love Song" to what's come after it, which includes Creed, Limp Bizkit, Korn, Linkin Park, and the later career works of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I think there's an argument to be made for the Foo Fighters in this context ("Everlong" and "All My Life" immediately come to mind), but "Interstate Love Song" starts to look like an appealing choice when you consider the deluge of nu metal and post-grunge anathema that followed it.

One of those copies is headed to Indiana. Mua ha ha.

I'm not to be trusted when it comes to Stone Temple Pilots. Purple came out when I was 13 and "Big Empty" was on the soundtrack of my favorite movie at the time (The Crow). They might as well be imprinted onto my musical DNA. With that out of the way, I'd probably side with "Interstate Love Song" as their peak as well, with "Sex Type Thing" (rape threat notwithstanding) and "Trippin' On A Hole In A Paper Heart" as their best stuff. "Glide" is all right, but Weiland's brave foray into the expressive world of falsetto almost single-handedly kills that one. "No Way Out" is my personal pick from No. 4, even though it almost seems like the song loses its way about three quarters of the way through. Fucking sitars.