Broadcast Football Rankings 9.19.17

Welcome to the third installment of the BFR – Broadcast Football Rankings – September 19, 2017

1. Clemson Tigers

2. Penn State Nittany Lions

3. Oklahoma Sooners

4. Alabama Crimson Tide

5. Washington Huskies

6. Wisconsin Badgers

7. Oklahoma State Cowboys

8. Virginia Tech Hokies

9. Georgia Bulldogs

10. South Florida Bulls

11. Florida Gators

12. Washington State Cougars

13. Ohio State Buckeyes

14. TCU Horned Frogs

15. San Diego State Aztecs

16. Michigan Wolverines

17. Louisville Cardinals

18. Oregon Ducks

19. Southern California Trojans

20. Texas Longhorns

21. Mississippi State Bulldogs

22. Notre Dame Fighting Irish

23. Vanderbilt Commodores

24. Miami Hurricanes

25. Florida State Seminoles

It was an exciting week in college football (aren't they all) with a little more definition—though, really, at this point, you can tell just about nothing. Here in the BFR rankings, very little change on the top and the bottom (Miami and Florida State still not playing, drag! And another hurricane on its way). A lot of changes in the middle, though, teams in and out. Next week, sure to be more upheavals. We predict some huge upsets (you'd be a fool to not predict upsets—but who, exactly?) —best, H. Houndstooth

THROUGH WITH SPORTS

It has long been my mid-July tradition to enjoy two of my favorite activities at once on Wimbledon finals weekend: watching sports on TV and morning drinking. I usually prepare a bowl of fresh strawberries and chill the finest bottle of Champagne $10 will buy and tune into the live coverage of the women's final, mid-morning on Saturday. As the women's final, in recent years, rarely goes beyond two sets, I normally don't consume more than a glass or two, but on Sunday, the traditionally marathon-length men's final allows me to get through the bottle and then conveniently miss church!

I was fortunate enough, through the generosity of a special lady friend, last year, to attend Wimbledon in person, something I'll never forget. SLF has since moved on to deeper-pocketed pastures, so this year's tournament has been bittersweet, and also sad that I haven't been able to see a single match—so how much was I looking forward to this morning's final, featuring my favorite ass-kicker of all time, Venus Williams. Traditionally, regardless of the broadcast of matches throughout the tournament, the men's and women's finals have been network broadcast on this weekend, as they have the universal stature of the Super Bowl, World Series, Indy 500, and Kentucky Derby. So imagine my disappointment to find that the tennis is only available in ESPN—thus, not available.

Believe me, I have looked into what it would cost to have cable TV in my life, and even if it was something I wanted in my life (which I adamantly don't, except for sports broadcasting, as I don't need a thousand channels of garbage) I found that the cost of it would be more than the cost of a second car, which is ridiculous, seeing how I can't afford a first car (I mean one that, like, runs). If you haven't noticed, the money that's being allowed to separate itself from the wealthiest one-tenth or hundredth percent of the fat pigs has drastically reduced in recent years. That means less for us who enjoy baseball, which is also no longer on broadcast TV in my hometown (the Major League team having their own cable channel). When the people finally get around to burning down the government buildings throughout this country, maybe the fat pigs will all gather in a pathetic circle and mutter, “Hmm, maybe we should have kept using TV as the opiate of the masses rather than trying to switch over to the more profitable (for us) opioids as the opiate of the masses.”

As for me, I'm a sports fan, but that means sports on TV. I used to be collage football fan, but then they had to ramp up the greed, with each conference having their own cable network, and broadcasting almost all the bowl games (certainly all the good ones) only on cable. So fuck collage football, I said, and that was the last straw. But there was still collage basketball, and the NCAA Tournament used to be the best sporting event on TV all year, until they switched it to where 75 percent of the games are on cable TV. 25 percent is actually worse than nothing, in this case, so fuck the Final Four, and that was the last straw.

Then there is (was) the NBA, which used to be my favorite. It is now all but unwatchable. No, let me rephrase that, it's unwatchable. I have no interest, and maybe it's not the NBA's fault, because after watching these few great years (Celtics/Lakers, Pistons/Bulls) how can anything match up. But I'd still try to watch the playoffs, until they decided to put all of the playoffs (except for the finals) on cable TV, so I said fuck the NBA, and that was the last straw.

Except, as a (as I said) hopeless, massive sports fan, I still watch nearly anything. Well, I've never been able to get into ice hockey (maybe I should try) and things like bicycle tricks and crashing trucks in the dirt don't count, to me, as sports. But I actually watch NASCAR and golf, though both have gotten increasingly boring (and that means, booooring). And now, half the NASCAR season is on cable TV, so I said fuck NASCAR, and that was the last straw. Which pretty much leaves golf, a sport which currently musters its most excitement from Tiger Woods DUI reports. I have some nostalgia for Monday Night Football, which I'd never miss as a youth, but now since that is on cable (or was, or switched to Thursday Night or Saturday Night football, who can keep up?) and I can pretty much never see the games of teams I want to see anyway, the NFL is just not enough for me. And my favorite two sports, soccer and Formula 1, have never been on TV in this country.

So is that four or five last straws? How many more chances can I give to sports? No more. I'm sad to say it, because I want to be a regular guy, and I like the idea of sports as a live event in which the outcome is not known, but I'm afraid, for me to enjoy sports, it's all about the TV coverage. I must see it happen. I don't even care who wins or loses, I don't give a shit about stats. I like the game, visually (with sound—which is why sports bars playing silent TV with a moronic music soundtrack does not work for me). Sports IS sports on TV, for me. And since it's all now become, like a Lamborghini, a vacation in Hawaii, or dinner at a steakhouse, something I can not afford, it is over. I am officially through with sports, and if ESPN wants to interview me about it, fine, but I don't think they will, because I will say “fuck” on the air.

Stranded

"(I'm) Stranded," a 1976 song by Australian punk band The Saints, is arguably the greatest rock song ever recorded. It also raises a lot of questions, and more oddball facts and myths than you can shake a snake at. Check this out!

First of all, when you see pictures of the The Saints from that time, on say the cover to this record, "The Saints" and "(I'm) Stranded" is painted on the wall behind them in a red scrawl (meant to evoke, no doubt, blood). Not spray paint, but definitely graffiti-style. But who ever used a parentheses in graffiti? The answer is NO ONE.

The band name itself, The Saints, is an odd choice, and one must presume, ironic. The 1976 New Orleans Saints were a lackluster affair, with one strange exception. The team happened to be graced by a defensive bench warmer named Robert Pollard, who then went on to become the greatest American pop/rock songwriter of his, or anyone's, generation. But that's another story.

Perhaps The Saints, growing up "Down Under," were fans of the 1960s TV show The Saint, as they were unable to import the classic American fare, lost in translation as is was, like All in the Family and Sanford and Son. The Saint, nearly forgotten now, was the training ground for actor Roger Moore to later become James Bond. And The Saints, a band that over the years has had more members than the UN, no doubt was graced at one point or another by a musician named Simon Templar.

But back to "(I'm) Stranded," the song. It's one of those songs, when you think about it, you say, ehhhhhh, pretty good song, but so-so. But then when you actually listen to it again you're astounded by its energy, its catchiness, and its perfection. There are songs that rate very high in one's memory, when heard again, pale and buckle under the weight of expectations. "(I'm) Stranded" is the opposite. It's a song that always surprises you, and has stayed fresh and vital for nearly four decades.

But what does it mean? "Like a snake calling on the phone," it starts out, and then goes on to make even LESS sense. My theory is that the lyrics are deliberate nonsense, just meant to fill space between the crucial word: "stranded." Even the brief chorus ("on my own/so far from home") is just filler, as is the "(I'm)" of the title. The crucial word here is STRANDED. This is, essentially, a one word lyric.

And so, what does "stranded" mean? It means everything, or if not quite everything, it means A LOT, and that is the beauty of this song. First of all, though Australia is a happening place, with its own vibrant culture, music scene, blah blah blah, it is STILL far from London, New York, Hollywood. It is, essentially, a desert island, though a big one-- as big as a continent, in fact it IS a continent, last time I checked. Yet for a band with the talent and lofty aspirations of The Saints, it must have seemed to some degree like a desert island on which they were "stranded."

Another meaning of the term "stranded" is when you find yourself, immediately post-defecation, with no toilet paper, preferably (as in preferably NOT) a public toilet stall. This happens to me at work all too frequently. High and dry. Though, unfortunately, NOT dry. These moments are only made bearable by launching into an A CAPPELLA version of "(I'm) Stranded."

Finally, the most likely meaning of "stranded," and the one most often evoked by this song, can be summed up with one word: BLUE BALLS. And while there have been countless, over the years, odes to that somewhat uncomfortable state, including many songs actually NAMED "Blue Balls" (and indeed, bands named Blue Balls), this song is the ultimate blue balls song (and, as the greatest rock song ever recorded, why not?). What is the cure for blue balls? Write a song like "(I'm) Stranded."

Best Television of 2007

Note: I find nothing so addictive and depressing as sitting with a TV remote and hundreds of stations on cable and going through them one by one. It makes me terribly afraid of the end of civilization and also long for it.

I decided, finally, what I needed to do is go on a marathon TV binge, see what is out there, and then never watch TV again. Here is a list, in no particular order, of the best, the worst, and since I don't have to decide, I won't.

Scratching Post
City Desk
American Meltdown
Pack Rats!
your dumber then a stump
A Roll In My Wool
Agony of Defeat
19 Century Viceroys
Uma Makeovers
Hangin' Judge
Eat Bugs 4 Buck$
Youtube Theatre
Fuzz Busterz
Nancy Drew (hearts) Scooby-Doo
Marlin Perkins Smackdown
American Mess
Crotch Busters (Caught On Video)
From The Jaws of Victory
Tale of Two Dorms
This Old Box
Angela Lansbury Always
Judge Reinhold
Lottery Follies
Fashion No-No's
Crack Neighbors
Busted Again! (On Tape)
Anal Nightingale
Married 4-Ever


--Randy Russell

DVD review: The Time Tunnel

I was looking forward to getting the same freaked out feeling I had when I was a little kid watching this TV show, from 1966, on DVD, but this was definitely a case of: whatever had enhanced my memory was gone now. I suppose it was just that I was young, so maybe I focused on that really cool oval shaped tunnel, which still looks pretty great, but you rarely see it. The production is just too transparent for an adult-- it looks like an excuse to use available historical studio sets, and you almost feel like they wrote the episodes based on whatever set they could get use of cheap.

The show is about these two guys who go into a time machine and get lost in time, just kind of thrown from one historically relevant event to another. They usually land on something like a hay bale instead of a picket fence, which is good. Then they interact with the events, using their knowledge of history to make sure nothing really changes. The basic problem with time travel stories always seemed to be that you could take one of two approaches. One is that nothing can really be altered-- you go back, screw things up, threaten to change the course of history, then work your ass off to make things stay just as they are. Which would have somehow happened anyway, even if you just sat there and smoked a pipe-- because that idea is like destiny-- everything is fixed. The other idea is that there are infinite strands of possibility and you might affect one, but not all of them, so essentially you could get bounced into a situation countless times, do something different each time, and it would just mean pretty much nothing. Both of these ideas are just a big drag as far as a story goes. The one good time travel story I ever saw was the movie "Primer" which takes a practical, and close to believable, approach to time travel, and is fairly gritty, scary, and mind blowing.

I watched one of these Time Tunnel episodes-- one with space aliens, because I thought that might be interesting. The two travelers, Doug and Tony, end up on an alien ship traveling to Earth in the 1800s-- so they end up dealing with aliens AND some cowboys and old codgers in the American West. The funny thing is, the aliens are gathering "protein" for their starving planet, and they do it by getting Earthlings to round up supplies that they can take back. So they're like gathering up boxes with cans of beans and loading them on the ship, and you're thinking, No, No, NO! That's going to take forever!

Really, the best thing about this show is Doug and Tony's wardrobe. They go through all of the world's history wearing the same thing-- Doug has pretty square, or hip (depending on what time period YOU'RE in) wool suit, with a sewn on belt! It's pretty great. And a tie, I think it's orange, but tasteful. And he has a great haircut. Tony is supposed to be considerably more hip, but he isn't-- his hair is long, and he wears some tight slacks and a dark green turtleneck. Now if the whole show was about fashion, rather than wars and disasters, that might have been really interesting.