“Dear Commissioner Beebe:

As you know, the Texas A&M Board of Regents has authorized me to take action relating to Texas A&M University’s (“Texas A&M”) conference alignment. While this letter is not a notice of Texas A&M’s withdrawal from the Big 12 Conference (the “Conference”), we are exploring our options. There has been a great deal of speculation and comment in the media about Texas A&M leaving the Conference, including discussions of other institutions joining the Conference.

If Texas A&M withdraws from the Conference, we want to do so in a way that complies with the Bylaws and is supportive of your efforts to seek a new member of the Conference. We would appreciate your conferring with the other member institutions and outlining for us the process to be followed by Texas A&M should it withdraw from the Conference.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
R. Bowen Loftin
President“

My interpretation reads as such:

Dear Commissioner:

As you know, the people who make decisions at Tayhahs A&M have told my people to tell you to tell your people to tell you that we’re looking elsewhere for a conference. While this letter is not a notice of the Aggies leaving the Big 12 with 10 schools (the “University of Tayhahs and pals”), we are desperately trying to get out of here. Like we really, really badly want out. We aren’t insinuating that the SEC will let us dwell in their cellars, However, we’d like to at least go somewhere else- anywhere, really. We’re not even ruling out the Southland Conference if we can’t find somewhere to play. There has been a great deal of speculation and comment in the media (especially the places that we may or may not have leaked information to) about us leaving ‘Tayhahs and pals’, including discussions of other institutions joining ‘Tayhahs and pals’. We assure you, it’s not as much about you guys (minus the burnt orange team), than it is about us. We feel smothered and we just don’t see a future with y’all.

If we leave (and God knows we will because we really, really hate Tayhahs), we want to do so in a way that will cover our backsides legally. We would appreciate a meeting, poker game, hunting outing or whatever of your choosing between you and the heads of the pals as well as the big wigs from the school we hate who decided it’d be a great idea to continue to grow the shadow that casts down on us because they’re still better than us. We’d like a step-by-step booklet to learn how to abandon you and your Longhorn TV-having nonsense properly without getting sued for large amounts of money.

We know this hurts, and we’d be lying if we said we didn’t get some amount of enjoyment out of it. Okay, maybe a lot of enjoyment out of it.

Sincerely,
Some Guy
President

We at the San Francisco 49ers hope everyone has had a good summer despite all the tenuous CBA talks. It feels good to be back on the field, am I right?! Here in Frisco, we’re swamped trying to keep up with Seattle, St. Louis and Arizona (you wily dogs, you!) and our new coach Jim Harbaugh is learning the ropes.

Jim’s doing his best, but he’s still getting used to this whole ‘players don’t view him as a father figure and don’t care what he has to say’ type deal. It’s rough for him. I think he keeps in constant contact with his brother for guidance. Because Jim doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing, we’ve decided to act the same way to make him feel comfortable. We have done very little in terms of free agency, but we’re waiting for the right opportunity. At least we tied up Alex Smith, which was a huge relief.

But allow us to be more direct in reference to what this mass email to every team in the NFL is about. We want to trade Taylor Mays to you! Any one of you! Think of him as the young kid at USC with the high draft stock, not the player who plummeted due to concerns about his ability to play safety on the professional level. If you look at it that way, you’d be stealing from us! Jim doesn’t know much about defense, but as you all well know, the USC/Stanford thing can be a bit too much to overcome. To each his own.

Look, we’ll give you Mays, just reply. And don’t ‘reply all’ because we’d like to keep this thing as professional as possible. If we get some similar offers, we may open this thing up to Ebay, who knows?!

May the best franchise win, can’t wait to see you all out on the turf this year!

Sincerely,
San Francisco 49ers

Saturday night, a part of me died with him.

For those of you who don’t know who Clarence was, he was the saxophone player in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. The beauty of that band was that they had an all-star at every position. And the beauty of Bruce was that he knew how to accentuate the talent of each and every one of them.

But none more than Clarence.

My personal experience is simple. I liked Bruce’s radio hits from the time I was young enough to remember them. Born to Run, Born in the U.S.A, Dancing in the Dark, etc. But when I lived alone at one point in Roanoke, Virginia, I got to know Bruce’s music much closer. I liked each song I heard more and more each time I heard it. My best friend and I would listen to the music on weekdays, then meet up and listen together on the weekends. Bruce climbed among my favorite musicians, and the E Street band was right there with him.

And then I fell in love with Jungleland.

I remember where I sat the first time I listened to that song. I remember the passion that I felt when I heard it. Clarence’s solo hits the track almost as hard as it ends up hitting you right between the eyes. The audience feels what he puts through the speakers. There are no words, just notes, yet it makes no difference.

Everyone that listens to the song feels. They have no choice.

There hasn’t been a time since those days when I haven’t had the hair stand up on my arms when I hear the solo. It’s my favorite song of all time, yet it would be much further down the list if not for Clemons. That song vaulted Bruce and E Street Band to the top of my charts, forever. It enhanced every other song I had heard before, because I knew that a band and an artist capable of creating such beauty had done it all along. I just wasn’t hearing it clearly enough until now.

And the best part about the solo was that it epitomized what music’s supposed to be about. It should make you want to call someone you haven’t spoken to in years. It should push you to remember the best of times. It should take you away until there are no notes left to hear. It should do that. Many times, it doesn’t do that. And many of us take that as par for the course. But Clarence reminded me that if a song doesn’t do that, it may not be worth playing.

I could write a book on that song and what it means to me. But that solo is enough to tell you the story. That solo is enough to make me tear up. It’s enough to make me feel. It’s enough to make a part of me die on Saturday night.

And maybe that’s the best tribute I can give to Clarence, the Big Man.

(Solo begins at the 4:01 mark, but listen to the whole song please)

And when I write, ‘if you can’, I’m not saying that the song stinks. It’s just extremely different. I find ‘different’ to be extremely liberating. Because a friend from college recommended this jam, I gave it the benefit of my doubts and stuck with it until the end.

As soon as it ended…..

First thought: ‘What the hell was THAT?’
Second thought: ‘Maybe listen to it again?’
*Refreshes the song*
Third thought: ‘This is weird. But it’s growing on me’

And that’s all she wrote. I was hooked. Why?

Do I love this song? No.
Do I love that this song makes me feel like I’m listening to stuff that expands my horizons? Yes.

Extremely interesting format to this jam. In fact, it’s one of the few that I didn’t focus in on the lyrics the second it started. It feels like 83 different things are going on in the song. Thus, the first thought I had.

Goodness, even as I write this I am replaying that first thought throughout the song. Plus one for fun. though, I’ve never heard anything like it. However, that can be a double-edged sword. I don’t really want to listen to more fun. because it may be like this song. I like the song, but I grew into it because of how interesting it was. If all their music sounds this way, then I won’t even like this jam anymore, because there’s nothing interesting left to like. It’s would become just another fun. song.

Also, after a few listens…I finally got back to my lyric-noticing ways. Love the line + delivery towards the end of the song:“So I left/ That is it/ That’s my life/ Nothing is sacred/ I don’t keep friends/ I keep acquainted/ I’m not a prophet/ But I’m here to profit, that’s all.”

Loved the way that flowed, and the wordplay that was incorporated.

The bottom-line on this jam is that it gets you far away from wherever you are for 4:07. Sometimes that’s perplexing and sometimes that’s just awesome. Even if there is no real reason to listen to ‘At Least I’m Not as Sad’, that may be reason enough. Diversity of rhythm and interesting vocal patterns make the song worth finding out what the hell THAT was. THAT is unique.

Unique is different.

Different is liberating.

(Thanks Mo)

Yesterday, I saw that ‘Bon Iver’ was trending on Twitter, so I decided to click the topic…which I never do. And I found out that their latest single, ‘Calgary’ was released yesterday. At least, I think it was. It used to be simple understanding when a song was released, but who knows…there may be some hipster that reads this and tells me the unplugged and underground version was found on some mixtape in Bangladesh and circulated online over 2 months ago.

I found out about the song yesterday.

I guess I should talk about the song now.

It has a really neat sound to it in the beginning, and at first it irritated me. It kind of reminds me of ‘Love Like a Sunset’ by Phoenix. I don’t know why, the only reason I can come up with is that they both start slow and eventually introduce some remnant of what sounds like a song. But I can dig both jams. In fact, I love that Phoenix song, parts one and two alike.

Another thing that jumped out to me about this jam is the similarity that it has to a lot of Coldplay’s stuff. Or maybe that’s just the vibe I get from it. The guys voice reminds me of Chris Martin a great deal. I may be way out in left field with that, but it’s my blog so I’m not too worried. As I wrote before, I’m no music teacher. I’m just some guy.

Love the slow stuff, wish the song was longer. At some point, the lyrics will mean something to me, but at this point I don’t even know what they are.

It’s always cool when you get to know a song. You can weave it into your own life in one way shape or form. I guess that’s part of the beauty of music, and in another way the simplicity of it. Songs like this one may end up being the background music of my memories of this summer. Or not.

It may just remind me of Coldplay and Phoenix. But for me, that ain’t so bad either.

I went with an old faithful for the first ‘jamography’. I’ve been stuck on it lately, which is funny because for a summer blog…well you get it. One thing about my focus on music is that it’s really not so much on the music at all at times. Many of my favorites are all about the lyrics, probably in part because I write. And that’s the first thing I pay attention to when I listen to a song.

For the sake of lyrics, ‘A Long December’ ranks among my favorites. Instrumentally, I love the piano, and the way the jam starts is a tone-setter for me. The very beginning makes it sound like some guy is just playing his piano. Not playing a great piano in a popular rock band. But for all the piano does to the song, the lyrics are what makes it.

I can feel this song. Sure, there’s a universality to it for anyone that listens (something I always appreciate), but it feels like you feel the words. This guy is looking back and looking forward. And he’s got regrets and he’s got hope. As do you. As do I.

When I went to SongFacts, I read about the song and the story behind the song really brought it all home.

“During the taping of a VH1 Storytellers performance, lead singer Adam Duritz talked about the song:
‘In the middle of December of ’95 my friend Jennifer got run over by a car, just creamed; and I spent that whole month, while we were just beginning the record and most of January and February in the hospital. Each morning and early afternoon then I’d go to the studio, the house where we were recording, and we’d play all afternoon and all night. It was a very weird time because there is a lot of stress, not that it’s a big deal being a second album, but any album. They’re just not that easy to make. It’s a very stressful process, especially when you’re first starting out. I spent a lot of time in the hospital which is pretty weird. But one day I just left the studio about 2 in the morning, and I went to my friend Samantha and Tracy’s house which is Hillside Manor, that’s what we call it anyway, it’s just a little house and I sat there talking with them. I woke them up, got them out of bed and made them talk to me for a couple hours, then I went home to my house. I wrote this song between about 4 and 6 and then went to the hospital the next day, and came to the house and I played it for the guys before dinner and taught it to them after dinner. We played it about 6 or 7 times. It was take number 6. We just stopped, that was it. We recorded the song, it was done. We all went into the kitchen and had a cold beer, I grabbed Brad our engineer and ran back out about 5 minutes later, had him play the tape three times, just recorded all the harmonies, and we’ve never touched it since, that was it. It’s a completely live song except for the harmonies. It’s a song about looking back on your life and seeing changes happening, and for once for me, looking forward and thinking, ya know, things are gonna change for the better – ‘maybe this year will be better than the last’ – and so, like a lot of songs on the end of an album it’s not about everything turning out great, but it at least it is about hope… and the possibilities…’”

The raw emotion of the song is evident in this story, and it only supplements the emotion of the lyrics in their own right. Duritz writes this thing and records it just like THAT. That’s incredible. In my experience, some of my best work (IMO) is when it just happens. This song just happened for the Crows. And, without having read the story behind the song, I had a hunch that was the case.

THAT. JUST. HAPPENED.

The lyrics of this song make me feel the song. Because it was real. It is real.

Lines in the jam that set it off:

“The smell of hospitals in winter, and the feeling that it’s all a lot of oysters…but no pearls”
Hospital smells suck, and everyone has felt hopeless when looking for something.

“I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower, makes you talk a little lower”
This is a great observation, it’s true…but this song is the only time I’ve ever heard it put that way.

“I can’t remember all the times I tried to tell myself to hold on…to these moments as they pass”
Two things about this line:
1. This happens. All. The. Time.
2. Irony. Beautifully written, encompasses his problem entirely with a few words.

“It’s been so long since I’ve seen the ocean….I guess I should”
I always felt like the first part of this line had a tone of regret to it, then deciding to leave regret behind.

“…and there’s reason to believe…maybe this year will be better than the last”
‘There’s always next year’…with a dash of ‘Everything will be okay’

Deep and thought-provoking.

Real.

Amen.

For those of you that know me or have come to know me through my writing, I cover the Philadelphia Flyers in every second of free time that I have.  Now that their season is complete, the offseason beckons.  However, there will be many more seconds of free time without the team actually playing.  So, I set out to have some type of therapeutic offseason writing.

I’m no music expert.  I don’t play an instrument.  It seems silly for me to write about music.  But, that’s why I’m not going to give ‘reviews’.  Another reason I want to stay away from that form is that often times, reviews aren’t up my alley.  When I’m told that I should listen to a song or buy an album, the safe bet would be that I’ll never do either.  Just because you told me to.  Well, I trust a few people when it comes to music, but they’re few and faaaaar between. (And if you are reading this and fall into that category, pat yourself on the back)

To cut to the chase, I’ll be ‘exploring’ music, I guess.  Whether it be some of the old faithfuls on my 2650 song iPod (which holds about 2k songs that I don’t listen to) or a random click on YouTube, I’m just going to vibe with it and let you know what the vibing was like.

This is a blog in the truest sense of the word.  This will be my random thoughts, and maybe you’ll learn a little bit about me through my observations.  I hope to write as often as I can.  If you think there’s a song I should jam, comment. Or tweet it to me.  This is the lone exception to the ‘avoiding all advice’ law.

Also, I’ll listen to just about anything (Yea I know, count the number of times you’ve heard THAT before).  From Beethoven to Wu-Tang Clan, Carole King to Metallica, the Boss to Johnny Cash, I”m all over the board.  My theory has been and always will be, ‘If it moves me, I’ll jam it’.

So here’s to a summer of moving.  I hope my lyrics of the season sound alright.

Coach of the team I love dearly.  Part genius, part conundrum.  Your brilliance and stupidity have made me love you so.  As a philosophy student, how I have desired to critique you in a philosophical way.  You have the brashness of Nietzsche and the stoicism of Aurelius.  I can never pinpoint what you are, so as a good philosopher would do, I will offer what you aren’t.  I will agree with your theory that you are not Plato.  Furthermore, I will offer a critique as to why this is so.

The first comparison between Andy Reid and Plato must revolve around how we as measly humans have come in touch with their ideas.  Plato wrote dialogues, many of them chronicling what Socrates’ did, but the gist of the dialogues was to enlighten readers to the point where the truth of life was revealed.  Andy Reid has press conferences, many of them chronicling the evolution of the cough and the gist of them is to do everything possible to avoid enlightening everyone that listens.  Plato sought the light of truth.  Reid loves the darkness.

In an extension of the dialog/press conference example, it is important to know that in Plato’s dialogues the Socratic Method is often used.  This method involves asking a person questions so that they may come up with their own conclusions, thereby realizing what it is that they truly believe about human nature as it pertains to life.  Andy Reid hates questions.  He gets bristly and disturbed whenever anything is called into question and simply deflects the questions away until he reaches a point where he can cough which is supposed to signify, “Next question, if you really have the intestinal fortitude to ask one.”

Another sharp contrast between the two men relates to how unique their ideas truly were.  For Plato, this is sometimes called into question.  It’s not known whether Plato actually had any dialogues which were unique to his own mind, many feel that he simply plagiarized whatever Socrates did and took credit for it.  With Reid, there is no questioning where his ideas come from.  Although he too is a pupil of a great teacher in Mike Holmgren, there is little doubt that his theory of holding onto all of his timeouts so he can spend them at halftime are his and his alone.   

Plato believed in the idea that human beings have a recollection of ideas and forms.  The human mind in his opinion, could recall things that they may never have learned, a type of knowledge independent from experience (a priori is the philosophical term).  This is a bit tricky.  Reid seemingly has no recollection of things that have happened in the past.  For instance, he has been a head coach for over eleven seasons.  In all of those seasons, his approach towards any type of short yardage situation is one that is unsuccessful.  Yet, the same situations seem to pop up at the most inconvenient times and the same answers are applied.  It would seem that his recollection is flawed.  However, an objection to such an idea could be easily made.  It could be assumed that Reid has all knowledge without experience, and was born with an innate sense of ignorance to the running game, therefore leaving him without any type of reasoning to change his approach.   While the argument is certainly compelling, I will stick to my belief that Reid has no capability of recollection.  Especially not in reference to the form of third and short.

Although these are only some of many possible illustrations to show the differences between Plato and Andy Reid, they produce a compelling argument.  “I’m not Plato”, Andy said.  Got that right.

Please feel free to contact me at mtrible@thecheckingline.com or follow me on twitter.

And now, we want him back in his cage.

This all dates back to the monster’s high school days.  He seemed innocent enough, dunking on every poor little prep academy player in the nation.  Triple doubles came like free throws.  They were supposed to happen.  The monster was declared the ‘chosen one’, and then later, ‘King’.  We ate it up, all of us. 

Whether we liked or disliked the monster, we tuned in.  We perpetuated his fame, his greatness, his freakish ability the likes of which none of us had ever seen before.  We loved that he was bringing his ’hometown team’ to the forefront of the National Basketball Association.  He did it with ease and grace.  He seemed like the love of our lives. 

He took a terrible team to the NBA Finals one year.  He won a NBA Most Valuable Player Award.  He would go on to win another.  We added more and more to his hypothetical resume.  We loved it. 

The monster declared that he wanted to pursue free agency.  We loved that even more.  That was awesome!  We figured he deserved the chance to be wooed, he had never been wooed out of high school by any colleges.  This was because, well, he was the monster.  Monsters don’t go to college.  They are above men, therefore they play with the greatest men and embarrass them.  They demonstrate their ability and flex their monster muscles on the largest stage.  Our monster wanted to bask in his value, he wanted to hear it directly from the franchises that would trample their mothers to get his autograph.  No harm done, we thought.

Then, we saw what we never thought the monster was capable of doing.  He quit.  In fact, he quit twice.  Both times he quit were times when his team needed him most.   But alas, he simply couldn’t go the extra mile.  He embarrassed the droves of people who supported him.  The embarrassment was even bigger because men tripped up the monster.  Two of the men were on their last legs.  The monster seemed vulnerable like he never had before.  So did we.

But given his situation with free agency and his injured elbow (he made sure to show us the pain by shooting a left-handed free throw), we could understand.  The monster was more man than we had made him out to be.  Men get hurt, men get tired, men can’t always do it alone.  We felt for the monster.  We saw that even our greatest monsters can have man-like attributes. 

Free agency arrived.  It was unclear where the monster would call home.  He waited out his fellow semi-monsters, he needed to narrow his options.  That’s permissable, we thought.  The monster should be able to choose his best situation, he is the monster.  Then, cruelly, the monster decided to be the last one standing.  He decided to have an ESPN-produced special announcing where he would playing next season.  At first, there were some ’Ooohs’ and ‘Ahhhhs’ (probably because we felt he deserved to choose a hat from three on a podium, remember, he never got the chance to announce his college choice, college is for chumps), but then it turned on the monster.   People realized that the monster got too big for his own good.  Maybe even too big for our own good!  His hedonism had exemplified Robert Nozick’s idea that the philosophy was “fit only for swine”.  He over-indulged in his monster persona, he rolled in it, he basked in it, and he became fat.  The monster had become miserably fat with hubris and greed.

We are tired of the monster holding us hostage.  Yet, it is difficult to call ourselves ’hostages’, because quite simply, we gave ourselves to the monster.   We propped him up.  We gave him all the media attention.  We showered him with our love.  If we didn’t love him, we showered him with our ratings.  We declared him a ‘King’ before he had lived a day in the kingdom.  In history books, we see that Kings often become a victim of their own arrogance.  This is no different.  We’ve allowed our hostage situation to last a decade (give or take), and now we realize that our Stockholm Syndrome has disappeared?  Now we don’t want to live in the palm of the King’s hand?  Now?

 We gave the monster his power.  Now he’s abusing it.  Good luck stopping him before he stops himself.

Want the monster back in the cage?

Too bad.  We are the cage.

If there is any truth to the rumor that the Washington Capitals shut down their message boards last night, welcome to the punchline that keeps on giving.  Just because a few of your star players are Russian doesn’t mean you have to hire Stalin to run your http.

Could someone email me Mark Recchi and Miroslav Satan’s obituaries, that would be great.   I’d say they had ice water in their veins, except it’s embalming fluid.

Dear Magic, if you would like to return to the NBA Finals, it would probably be advantageous to keep Dwight Howard on the floor.  Keep your hands to yourself Superman, for God’s sake.  And the whining doesn’t help.  You’re a superstar, act like one.

Man, Dana Altman must feel awesome about being Oregon’s 53rd choice to be their head coach.  Even Kevin Broadus turned that gig down.  Phil Knight Just Did It.

The Seattle Seahawks really ‘did work’ in this past week’s NFL Draft.  The problem is that Pete Carroll in the NFL ‘doesn’t work’.

Anyone with suggestions on how to completely obliterate the American public with NFL coverage?  It would probably work.  And it’s probably already in the works.

The Lakers are in trouble with the Thunder.  If you thought Kevin Durant would be a monster coming out of Texas, join the crowd.  If you thought Kevin Durant would be a monster coming out of Texas and for some strange reason your entire life is dedicated to proving it to everyone, join Bill Simmons.

Dirk and Mark Cuban were made for each other.  Duh.  The combination of them is made for gullible NBA fans to believe in.  Apparently, everyone forgot Gregg Popovich coaches the Spurs and Rick Carlisle coaches the Mavs.  I didn’t.

I could go on, but it would jeopardized my mental stability, and furthermore, yours.