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Friday, April 23, 2004
Fact vs. fiction
It's almost a tad creepy that the same week B.D. from Doonesbury loses a leg in Iraq that we get the real story of Pat Tillman's death in Afghanistan, nearly two years after left the Arizona Cardinals to join the Army Rangers.
In a strange way, through his service and his death, Tillman is finally getting the respect and the accolades he so deserved during his brief life. In the cruel world of the NFL, Tillman appeared to a "but" player. He was a vastly underrated DB in the NFL, piling up lots of tackles ... but, he played for the Cardinals and only really close followers noticed him until he left to join the Army Rangers. He was a standout linebacker in college ... but since the NFL often slaps star college players with the amusement park "you must be this tall/big" signs, he slipped to the Cardinals in the draft. There were no "buts" now. He left the NFL to join the Army and was killed in the line of duty. He can't be underrated anymore. In fact, he'll probably fall into a similar category as Nile Kinnick -- a sports star who really was an "American hero" (no matter how you feel about the war).
posted at 3:47 PM
Back in action
It's about dang time I actually posted an entry, don't you think? Anyways, much of the time was spent working on TRASHionals 007 stuff, which went very well, although it took me a couple of days to really decompress from the whole thing. Most people thought it went well, so that's a good sign.
Plus, it was good to see everyone and even have a bunch of people stay at my place (after months with practically no one coming to visit). Despite the utter lack of space, people are welcome to come by and crash -- especially if it involves side trips to Distant Replays, and it always seems that way.
More adventures in Nerdular Nerdence
But to wrap up my week of geekdom (although you could argue my final fantasy baseball draft of the season on Saturday is it), I went to see Weird Al. It's hard to believe that it's been 4 1/2 years since he was here in Atlanta. But here he was again, doing a good job in a half-full Tabernacle (the third deck was practically empty, and I got a seat in the first row in the second deck just off to the side of the stage).
It seemed like the Poodle Hat stuff wasn't received as well as I might've thought, but he was definitely energetic (that's how the woman, who wasn't familiar with Al's stuff, sitting next to me described him -- although she just showed up to see a concert at the building before she returned to England). And I was impressed how he got the videos synced up for "Angry White Boy Polka," which was his opener.
Al did have his stretch in the middle where he went through his numerous costume changes, but it often seemed like many of the video montages he shows during the wardrobe switches were really just filler, not to mention more chances for the Al-aholics in the crowd to recite lines from UHF. (Speaking of video filler, I'd never seen the MTV ad where Al does "unplugged" versions of his biggest hits. It's definitely a riot seeing him play "Like A Surgeon" with the acoustic guitar in a coffeehouse setting.)
I still think my favorite part of the show, though, was his mega medley (probably 15-20 minutes long) of about 10-12 parodies pretty much in a row, starting with "Trash Day" and hitting things like "Theme from Rocky XIII," "Eat It," "Lasagna" and "Jurassic Park."
Yes, I'm almost finished
Now that TRASHionals is finished, I feel a little better linking to things (since they won't be questions, thus they won't be favoring my friends who read this site). First off, here's a trivial, yet fascinating Slate article about the underside of baseball caps. Secondly, here's a great Salon piece about one of my favorite bands, The Minibosses, who were featured in an audio bonus at last year's TRASHionals.
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