Catch-all

Keeping up with this blog thing is difficult, y'know? Here is a list of all that I don't have which is required to maintain one of these things:

• Dedication • Perserverence • Patience • Time (sorta) • Desire • Interest • Good Ideas • Smarts • Basic computer skills • Ability to pique one's interest • Ability to maintain one's interest • Ability to capture one's interest • A computer • Ego complex • Alter-ego complex • Id complex • Superid complex • Carpal-tunnel-free fingers • Hope • Dignity

You get the point. So I think that maybe I just should, say, do this once a week. At least that I can keep up with. I think.

So here's a wrap up, in easy to digest point form:

• Preparing for Nebraska Roady 2005 which will be Sept. 30-Oct. 2. Eleven Brandonites are hitting the road to Lincoln to catch the UNL-Iowa State game on the 1st. That said, this is a game that scares me a bit. The Huskers have lost just eight games at home in the past 17 years and Iowa State, which had a bye last week, has already knocked off No. 8 Iowa. Granted that was in Ames, and in college football there is nothing like home-field advantage.

• The days could be numbered for Zac Taylor as the Huskers' starting QB. There is preliminary talk that perhaps true freshman Harrison Beck, a top-10 H.S. recruit in the off-season, might get a chance if Nebraska's struggling offence can't get things righted. Taylor got mucho love in the off-season for being a guy that would be able to play in Coach Callahan's west coast system and his effort in the team's Red-White game seemed to be a good sign. He put up video-game numbers at Butler Community College but that hasn't equated to big numbers through three games (two against teams the Huskers traditionally would have butchered).

That said, the Blackshirt D has been outstanding and kept that team in games it hasn't always looked like it belonged in. A good sign for the future, especially considering one of its biggest horses, Steve Octavien, has been injured since the first minutes of Game 1.

• I have to rant about Khari Jones being released by the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

Is this just the most ridiculous thing that this guy can't find work in a league where there's, what, maybe five legitimately good quarterbacks? I mean, be real, if you cheer for teams in Calgary, Regina, Winnipeg, Hamilton or Ottawa then you don't have much going for you at that position. And Jones has now been released by three of those aforementioned five teams.

Perhaps the downfall for KJones was signing the six-figure deal with the Bombers in 2004 because he's priced himself out of the market when teams aren't willing to take a chance. Still, no one can make an argument, a legitimate argument, that the Ticats are better off with Danny McManus and Marcus Brady than they are with Khari, who was never even given any sort of chance to play there.

Before being released, Jones had completed 35-of-60 passes for 406 yardds, two INT's and a TD in a mostly relief role. In fact, the Ticats had been using him in gimmick roles more than anything, not exactly the breeding ground for QB consistency, while they stubbornly stuck with McManus, despite the fact that if McManus were anyone other than a 16-year veteran he would not be afforded opportunity after opportunity given his string of mediocrity.

Back to Jones.

The argument I've always heard by people knocking him, and make no mistake for some unknown reason it's mostly Winnipeggers that do this, is that he was blessed with great receivers during the great run of 2001 in which he threw for an ungodly 46 touchdowns. That he couldn't succeed otherwise. And yet we're still putting people like Henry Burris into diety status in this league when he isn't even remotely as poised or able to lead a team as Khari was.

I could run down a Murderers Row of quarterbacks in both the CFL and NFL that were blessed with great receievers who couldn't get it done. Jones himself, through Week 12, had completed 64 per cent of his passes despite the fact he was throwing to guys named Flick, Morreale, Peterson and Yeast. And doing it on the worst team this league has had in awhile. His QB rating is in the respectable mid-80s and he's not exactly being bailed out by the perfect storm situation he was apparently granted in 2001.

What I would like to know is what Jones would have to do to please people? Forty-six touchdowns didn't do it. Even if Winnipeg had won the Grey Cup that year, that wouldn't have done it either. Four years later we'd still be here defending him or railing against him, depending on where you stand.

More accurately, Jones was more a victim of his team's inability to adapt to when other teams made adjustments to what the Bombers were doing. We heard time and again that teams were doubling and tripling Milt Stegall but yet our offence did little to change or make adjustments. That's what smart coaches do, make adjustments. The only adjustment the Bombers made was to repeatedly fire their OC's for someone more incompetent. Over the past four seasons the offence has grown steadily more stale and, starting in 2002, Jones paid part of the price for that. (Three OC's in three years, people).

So here we are with Calgary forced to play Jason Gesser last week in a must-win game, Saskatchewan doing its QB-by-committee thing again this season, Ottawa stubbornly sticking with Kerry Joseph for a reason no one knows and Hamilton shedding a former league MVP in favour of a 40-year-old, a never-was hopeful that never will and a no-name out of NFL Europe whose own family would have a hard time picking him out on the field.

Now sit there and tell me that each of these teams, with who they have in place at QB right now, are honestly in position to make a run because of their quarterbacks and not in spite of them. And while you're at it tell me that who those teams have at quarterback are each better equipped to lead a team than Jones is.

If you can do that, I'm sure there's a GM job available for you in Hamilton. They like to hire people like you.

• The tribute album to the late Luther Vandross is on the shelves right now.

Tell me, was it just me or did Luther's death not really get the same kind of ink that would seem fitting for a guy who did as much as him? Who would you put in his league for length of career, success, impact on music and celebrity status?

Sixteen albums, eight Grammy awards and the ultimate benchmark: Being recognized instantly by people who need only to hear your first name to know who you're talking about.

The tribute album is typical but that should not take away from the fact there's still some memorable performances. Usher's rendition of "Superstar" is powerful, Beyonce and Stevie Wonder, a surprising combo, team up on "So Amazing," Alicia Keys, one of the greatest female voices we have, checks in on "If This World Were Mine," John Legend earns another feather in his cap and sings "Love Won't Let Me Wait" and Jamie Foxx even pulls up for "Creepin" once again showing his range as a singer has advanced by leaps and bounds over the past few years.

Wyclef Jean, who has carved a niche out of really reinventing cover songs, does it again on "Always and Forever." You have to be a bit curious as to how Clef, whose Haitian roots and hip hop background don't always lend themselves to sugary ballads, would handle one of the classic love songs. Instead he doesn't overdo it and go for the sound you'd expect of that song. Wyclef puts a bit of a dancehall beat behind him and modestly belts out the famous chorus with his distinct mellow delivery that allows the song to maintain its sensitivity while also adding a certain nostalgia.

Elton John teams up with Vandross on "Anyone Who Had a Heart" for a sentimental interpretation of the Burt Bacharach original. It's a solid duet of two very distinct — yet diametrically opposed — voices blending together.

Celine Dion, Aretha Franklin, Angie Stone and Patti LaBelle join the cast and one thing is clear: It's hard not to make something good when the masterpiece of work is in front of you and you just have to colour in between the lines.

• Speaking of Luther, brings me to Stevie Wonder. Now, anyone who knows me knows that my having seen Stevie in concert will always go down as my "In 20 Years I'll Be Telling People I Saw Him In Concert and Feel Like It Was Royalty" moment. And maybe I just won't ever think anything he does is bad, but watching him perform his new single "Shelter In The Rain" on CNN yesterday floored me. There are so few voices that are as distinguishable, powerful and magnetic as his.

Further to that, he is likely the only person in this world who could have pulled off what he did at the NBA Finals this past summer. He was announced to be performing the national anthem before one of the games, forcing me to drop what I was doing and wait for him to come on and sing ... Only thing was he did the entire thing on harmonica and it was more gripping and engrossing than most vocal renditions. Simply amazing.

That's Stevie. And so, because he is that guy, he gets today's

Lyric of the Day:
Heaven help the child who never had a home,
Heaven help the girl who walks the street alone
Heaven help the roses if the bombs begin to fall,
Heaven help us all.

Heaven help the black man if he struggles one more day,
Heaven help the white man if he turns his back away,
Heaven help the man who kicks the man who has to crawl,
Heaven help us all.

Heaven help us all, heaven help us all, help us all.
Heaven help us, Lord, hear our call when we call
Oh, yeah!

Heaven help the boy who won't reach twenty-one,
Heaven help the man who gave that boy a gun.
Heaven help the people with their backs against the wall,
Lord, Heaven help us all.

Heaven help us all, heaven help us all, heaven help us all, help us all.
Heaven help us, Lord, hear our call when we call.

Now I lay me down before I go to sleep.
In a troubled world, I pray the Lord to keep, keep hatred from the mighty,
And the mighty from the small,
Heaven help us all.
Oh, oh, oh, yeah!
Heaven help us all.
Heaven Help Us All

New season

On September 14, 2005, I became an uncle. For the first time.

"Became" is probably a strong word because it sounds as though I did something to gain the status, the title, or that I earned it in someway. Pretty much the uncle is like the equipment manager on the New England Patriots getting a Super Bowl ring. I mean, you didn't do anything but hang around and try and be supportive but when it's all said and done people are congratulating you.

Someone even said to me today: "Good for you."

Um, ya I know, thanks. Good for me? Hey, don't think I don't appreciate the goodwill toward family, but good for me? Hell no. The only thing I bring to this kid's life is an understanding — one day — of beating a 2-3 zone, what an inside blitz is or why a group he's never heard of called Run DMC helped keep alive whatever music he is listening to in 25 years.

So I'm excited about the new addition to the family, don't get me wrong, but it'll be a learning curve for me. Probably be at least six months before I stop holding it like I'm rushing for the endzone. (Jokes, jokes). But I do feel envy towards Aidan Larkins. After all he gets to grow up his entire life not having experienced the atrocity on humanity that is the 2005 Winnipeg Blue Bombers. (Not jokes, not jokes.)

But nevertheless I told everyone I know that I was officially an uncle and took in the unwarranted "congratulations" and "way to go's" with open arms. I didn't get overly poetic or nostalgic about it when I got the announcement called into me at 3 a.m. and haven't particularly all day. After all, it's not a moment for me. It is my brother and my sister-in-law who have been — what do you call it? — blessed. I'm just in the viewing lounge.

It's a realiztion to me that some people have their life together far more than me and, because of that, I will live somewhat vicariously through my brother and sister-in-law and my new nephew.

It could be the 200 kilometres between us that has made it so that it hasn't quite sunk in yet or still the cynicism that I feel about how marriage and kids will play (or rather not play) into my own life. I'm happy and I'll do what I can to get over the learning curve. For all the times I think of my life in a rut, maybe my new granted familial position shows me a different perspective.

A retrospect for life.

I might not have done anything to earn the ring, but I am glad to have it around and you better believe I'm gonna show it off.

Nothing's ever promised tomorrow today/They say people in life are seasons, and everything happens for a reason.

"I shouldn't have left you ..."

Eric B. and Rakim get us started off because it's been a long time since I dropped blog (is that a term?). It is now kids. (Side note: That could become a term for performing a sort of bodily function).

In honour of this post being a trip to the Googleplex, if you don't understand the reference in the subject line, do a google for yourself. I can't be doing all the work around here.

Without further adieu, here's a trip down Googling lane. In this segment of What Got Googled:

• Springfield Isotopes slugger. Reason: Hendo is working on an MJHL feature and turned away from his work to inform us that he thought it would be a cool idea to be able to have a 'Topes jersey of that big-time hitter the team had when Dancing Homer riled up the team in the episode known conveniently as "Dancin' Homer". We figured he could get a Flash Baylor uni and I'd grab me a Bill McClosky shirt.

Which leads us to...

• Albuequerqe Isotopes. Reason: Inspired by the fictional Springfield team (specifically the episode in which the owner threatens to move the team to the New Mexico city) the PCL's AAA real-life team made its name the Isotopes.

• Tom Brady's offensive line. Reason: That credit card commercial in which his entire offensive line surrounds him no matter where he goes. Who's the guy that hits on Tom's girlfriend while they're out to dinner. No answer because I lost interest quickly. After all, "they're figurative metaphors."

This post gives you a double-bill. While staying at the Googleplex, catch the feature-length rambling: "Since You Asked.."

Tagline: When opinions are a dime a dozen, two men will be worth their two cents.

A David Larkins and Julio Garasa Production.

Since You Asked: Hurricane Katrina

On the verge of being outdated, but nonetheless of interest.


--- "Garasa, Julio: OPS" wrote:

From: "Garasa, Julio: OPS"
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2005 13:39:45 -0400
To: "David Larkins \(E-mail\)"
Subject: Topic

DL,

US response to Hurricane Katrina. Listen to the mayor's interview below.
A pretty heart-wrenching piece of radio. Now, I could go into a rant
of my own, mainly dealing with how America's (and the western world's)
dirty secret of poverty, homelessness and hard lives is now out in the
open. These are issues that we have swept under the rug. Well, when
the call went out to evacuate the city, the rug (ie: those of us who can
afford to go and have the means to do so) left. And what we're seeing
is what's under that rug: poor, dispossessed and not-very-white. And
the response to help this segment of society, not only by the state and
the Federal government, but by the rest of the nation, has been pathetic
(at best) to downright disdainfully negligent. Not a spectrum to be
proud of. And where are the "leaders"? Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton,
Barack Obama even. Men who have called news conferences for much lesser
things? It's a frightening wake up call the nation is getting, and the
world is witnessing. Too bad it seems most have already hit the snooze
button.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/09/02/ray_nagin20050902.html

JG

-----Original Message-----
From: David Larkins [dlarkins@steelersfan.org]
Sent: Friday, September 2, 2005 7:19 PM
To: Garasa, Julio: OPS
Subject: Re: Topic

As I mentioned before, it was like a punch in the face that watching the
news yesterday the realization that the masses that had been shepherded
to the Superdome or stranded at their homes are distinctly non-white.

And Nagin's pleas are bang on, along the lines of someone finally waking
up and saying "wait a second, this is bull****". He's right.

However, instead of waiting for the likes of Jesse or Obama (one of the
great new leaders that country has) and Sharpton, the attentions
certainly need to be focused squarely on Bush who seems to have just sat
back and watched while saying "we're trying." No one there, I would
wager, wants to hear that or believes it's nearly enough. Bush earned
rave reviews for his handling of post-9/11 when essentially all he did
was glad-hand and get through a crisis that was — as bad as it is to say
it — tailor-made for a leader to shine.

I think one reason why you're not seeing the aforementioned African-American
leaders front and centre is that would be a tacit agreement that, yes,
black people in the deep south are marginalized and are a part of what
you referred to as the "dirty little secret."

You would hope this would provide some sort of wakeup call, but
unfortunately the reality is that most Americans are still sound asleep
to it. And we all know Bush is simply waiting a couple years before a
new administration comes in and it — along with Iraq — becomes their
problem.

-----Original Message-----

From: "Garasa, Julio: OPS"
To:  
Subject: RE: Topic
Date: Mon 09/05/05 10:01 AM
I finally saw Jesse. The good reverend must have been busy visiting
with his illegitimate daughter (yes, cheap shot but he's earned it).

I would suggest that the "tacit agreement" that blacks in the deep south
are marginalized and part of the "dirty little secret", would be, in
fact, the reason for black leaders to come out and essentially tell the
US population (and the rest of industrialized society that has its own,
similar secrets) a collective "I told you so". After decades upon
decades of SAYING there is a class problem, this disaster is actually
SHOWING the problem in stark black and white (pun intended). As callous
as it is to say, you can't buy this sort of "advertising".

And speaking about the shamefully privileged ... I'm off to the
Stratford Festival for the next few days. Going to take my Mom to see
some Shakespeare. We were at the Shaw Festival last weekend. I got
back to the campus too. You wouldn't believe what they've done to your
newsroom. It's even smaller than before. But wow, the new phys-ed
complex and residences are first rate. Almost makes me wish I was back.
Almost.

JG


Finally tonight, Kanye West performed on the Oprah Winfrey show last week from his new album which I've pimped once already in Lyric of the Day. This time around a song that is smart and touching at the same time and carries a bit more meaning when you know West was almost killed in a car accident years before his career ever got going.

Lyric of the Day:
I want to tell the whole world about a friend of mine
This little light of mine, I'm feelin' let it shine
I'm feelin' take y'all back to them better times
I'm feelin' talk about my momma if y'all don't mind (Hey Mama)
I was 3 years old when you and I move to the Chi
Late December, harsh winter gave me a cold
You fix me up something that was good for my soul
Famous home chicken soup, can I have another bowl (Hey Mama)
You work late nights just to keep on the lights
Mommy got me training wheels so I can keep on my bike
And you would give me anything in this world
Michael Jackson leather and the glove, but didn't give me a curl (Hey Mama)
And you never put no man over me, and I love you for that mommy can't you see
Seven years old, caught you with tears in your eyes
'Cause a nigga cheat and telling you lies, then I started to cry (Hey Mama)
As we knelt on the kitchen floor, I said mommy I'm a love you 'till you don't hurt no more
And when I'm older, you ain't got to work no more
And I'm a get you that mansion that we couldn't afford (Hey Mama)
See your unbreakable, unmistakable, highly capable, lady that's making loot
A living legend too, just look at what heaven do, send us an angel, and I thank you

[Chorus]
Hey Mama, ahhhhhhhhhh, I wanna scream so loud for you
'Cause I'm so proud of you, let me tell you what I'm about to do (Hey Mama)
I know I act a fool, but I promise you I'm going back to school
I appreciate that you alive for me, I just want you to be proud of me (Hey Mama)
Kanye West, Hey Mama