Awaiting football justice

As I watch the New England Patriots go for it on 4th-and-1... with a 32-point lead... in the 4th quarter... I am starting to wonder about Bill Belichick. He's an enigma. We know he's a football genius, we know he cheats, and we know his son is a criminal. But I'm starting to suspect he's insane: He's having his star quarterback, who's kind of a prettyboy to start with, drop back into the pocket when the game is long over. He's having his star receiver (Moss), who's already had two seasons shortened by injuries with two different teams, run routes across the middle when the team has a 40-point lead.

I have news for Mr. Belichick: Not every coach is a gentleman like Joe Gibbs or DIck Jauron. If Belichick demonstrates his lack of class against, say, Pittsburgh, Mike Tomlin will send 11 men on a blitz, have two of them do it offsides, and take out Billy's golden boy. This is, after all, the team that made Kimo von Oelhoffen a hero for deliberately taking out Cincinnati's Chris Palmer in a deliberate, post-play, attack-the-knee, cheapest of cheap shots.

Oh, and as long as we're at it, WTF is with the field at Gillette Stadium? Their artificial turf always looks like a wet parking lot during night games. Why any team with an outdoor stadium would chose artificial turf for a football stadium is a mystery to me anyway, but you'd think that for $325M, they could put together a field that isn't shamed by the local high schools.

We'll see how this goes. The 72 Dolphins were an amazingly talented team, led by one of the greatest coaches in history. It would be a shame if their perfect record was eclipsed by this crew of no-class cheaters.

Where's the love?

So when your home teams are pretty bad (Orioles, Redskins, Nationals) you try to live vicariously through other games. Often, it's not a matter of rooting for someone else, but rather rooting against the disliked teams. As I've said before, I really dislike the Steelers. Even though Cowher is gone, that stupid corporate logo remains on (one side) of their helmets. And their thuggish, classless tendencies remain. So last week I found myself cheering for a team about which I am completely neutral: The Cleveland Browns. A final second, 52-yard field goal by the Browns came up short, and the Steelers once again backed into a win.

So what happens this week? Same kicker, same length, same situation, and he hits the upright, it bounces behind the crossbar, then back into the field. The officials look at each other, the Ravens start to leave the field, and I'm saying "Wow, never seen that before." The officials finally sorted it out, and imho made the right call: When the ball crossed the plane of the upgrights, it was a completed field goal, and what happened afterwards was immaterial.

Still. A hard way to lose a game. As I type this, the Redskins are up 7-0 in Dallas. So maybe my week won't be a complete loss.

Rediscovering Vinyl

What to do with the old records? I hadn't owned a turntable in years. And while there is a lot of sentimental value to those old discs, when you live in a little Baltimore rowhouse, storage space is a premium. And 250+ LPs take up a precious amount of space.

So. The Girlfriend and I went through our collective discs. We tossed the dupes, and those that we had on CD. Those all went to my old friend Rick, who can never have enough music.

The rest? Well I bought a $100 USB turntable, and have been using this very cool freeware called Audacity. And I've been ripping these old discs into iTunes, reliving some of the early 80s. The Cars. ZZ Top. Stanley Jordan. Stuff that I haven't heard in years. The Audacity software is a little intimidating at first, but it's surprisingly powerful. The "click removal" effect has earned its keep on some of my scratched-up discs. If only there was a way to tell it to only record for a set amount of time... I tend to set a disc a-recording, go off and do something else, only to remember a few hours later... and Audacity has been merrily recording silence for hours...

Speaking of which, I started recording "Building the Perfect Beast" before beginning this blog entry. Gotta go.

(Ghost in the) Time Machine

In August 1983 I didn't know the Synchronicity tour was to be the last by The Police. None of us did. But it was the show I was looking forward to, a chance to see the boys at the Capital Centre, this time from the vantage of a skybox. My band, DV8, had had a decent summer, and our closing song had almost always been an extended version of "So Lonely." Driving home from the Cap Centre, we were talking about their new album.

24 years later, I get to see The Police again. The Cap Centre is long gone, replaced by a shopping center. Now we're downtown at the Verizon, and from the opening chords of "Message in a Bottle," it's clear that the Police haven't spent those 24 years counting their money. Sting is still lean and lanky and the most confident man in the world. Stewart Copeland still has that intensity coupled with the suggestion that he's having the time of his life. Andy Summers has never used a facial muscle in his life, and that hasn't changed.

But man, they sounded good... better than they did in 1983, in fact. Some of the experiments with old material worked well, like the mashup of "Voices Inside My Head / When The World Is Running Down." Stewart had an elaborate percussion kit that would rise up behind his drums, complete with timpany, vibes, congos, and other gadgets. It was fun to watch him, do one verse on that setup (for example "Walking in Your Footsteps") then jump onto the drummer's throne and hit the beat perfectly with the regular kit.

Andy played a red Strat for most of the sets, and went with a more straightforward rock phrasing on a number of songs -- it's weird to hear Andy Summers play power chords, but I liked it. It transformed "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" into something rather fresh. Andy also had a mic in front of him, but I'm not sure why... he'd barely mouth a few syllables of a chorus, before wandering off. Yet the chorus vocals were still there. Hmm. They're looping backups. Stewart had a headset mic but never really used.

And as long as I'm picking nits, "King of Pain" was a disaster. I'm not even sure all three of them were playing the same song.

But overall... fantastic. "So Lonely" was breathtaking. "Invisible Sun" was accompanied by a photo montage of 3rd world children, not necessarily in peril, but the message seemed to be "Think about whom you bomb next. "Every Breath" was tight as one of Stewart's Tama's, and it was saved for the encore. A second encore gave us a rousing version of "Next to You," which is kind of fun when you think back and remember it was the first track on their first album...

24 years is a long time between gigs. Even by my standards.

Well I got me a gun / and she's ready for shooting

(With apologies to Patrick Simmons.)

Is it ironic that the head of Blackwater is named "Eric Prince?" I mean, Prince of Blackwater? You can't write this stuff.

What's funny is that everyone assumes the name comes from some covert ops term. Nope. It references the swampy area near the North Carolina/Virginia border. I found this out from a Blackwater employee, four years ago when I was working on the television series "Spymaster." We took ten candidates down there and taught them to shoot. In the pouring rain. Then we put them into Blackwater's Hogan's Alley and had some SEALs shoot at them with wax bullets. Which, apparently, hurt like hell. So I'm told; I wouldn't know, my job was to put laser sights on their guns, greek the signs, clean up a little bit of the glass, then hang out in the props truck and fall asleep.

So yeah, I'm a civilian who's been to Blackwater, and even know the code at the front gate (I'll bet it's changed). It was kind of a dump. The waiting area has some very uncomfortable furniture, and the room is dominated by a giant stuffed black bear. One of the cardinal rules of film and tv production is that you feed your crew, and try to feed them well. Even low-budget basic-cable shows like Spymaster try to adhered to this rule, but at Blackwater we were forced to eat in their own "cafeteria." And since there were groups of ATF agents, air marshals, and civilians dressed in black sharing the facility, the crew was alloted exactly nine minutes in the chow hall. And you know what? It was more time than I needed: It was without a doubt the worst food I ever had. Even Taron, our camera tech, who would eat just about anything you put in front of him, pushed away the last few bites.

I guess I didn't expect the place to be front-page news. And I never expected this little company, which has exactly one owner, to receive almost one billion dollars worth of no-bid contracts from the federal government.

Clearly I'm in the wrong business.