Football Counter-Programming 2023: Week 2

I know that I am posting a Counter-Programming effort late in the day today. And maybe it is too late for you. Maybe you've spent the first half of your day watching college football and posting about it on social media.

To which I ask . . . is your day better for having done this?

What did I do today? Well, I haven't watched college football, because I'm a man of my word and convictions. I spent several hours this morning at what I sometimes like to call Counter-Programming headquarters (a high school band room). Why do I call it this? Because: 

1. it is about the opposite of football
2. it serves as a training ground to adjust the brain into noticing the brainwashing of football culture and provides a counteragent against said culture.
3. its fun and gets me out of the house
4. it provides fun people  to hang out with
5. the arts is good for you.

What did I do while at Counter-Programming HQ? I helped others outfit the inside of a semi trailer. I bought (and rebought) some wood. I ate a doughnut or two. I helped straighten up the band room before Monday classes. 

All of these things can be yours if you just choose NOT to devote all of your Saturday to college football!

***

But if that didn't sway you, how about this?

Do you remember Sufjan Stevens? 

Do you remember how he PROMISED that he was going to create fifty state-themed music albums. And how he only every really did two? (Or was it one-and-a-half?)

I ran across this article and it dredged it all up again. And it made me sad.

Naturally, I wanted him to write albums for Georgia and for Ohio, my two favorite states. But I would also be quite happy with a Kentucky album as well.

What I definitely DON'T need are any more albums about California. (There are already too many songs for that state.)

Random thought: What would a Idaho album look like?

If you could convince Sufjan to reignite this 50-State project, what states would YOU want to be first on the list? 

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I urge you to click the link above and read the article. Naturally it would be a better use of your time than watching football today.

So, until next week--keep thinking of new things to do. And don't make it about gridirons, or pigskins, or goalposts, or anything like that.

Football Counter-Programming 2023: Week 1

 

What time is it?

It's Counter-Programming time!

College Football is on the air this week--trying to sneak games into the weekdays and thinking I wouldn't notice. But the jokes on it. I'm once again beginning my ever-successful efforts to make you do/think something other than watch college football. 

Don't think I've been successful over the last few years? 

Well, look at what my efforts have actually done! I've single-handedly destroyed the conference structure that governed college football for generations. Who did it? Me, that's who. College football is an operation in name only. It's just football. I'm whittling it down bit by bit with slow and steady and unrelenting pressure. Just like a tiny drop of water working it way through a crack in a concrete dam. Soon I'll bust it open from the inside and the whole superstructure will come fall down and the attention span of millions of sports fans will sweep across the national landscape like floodwaters searching for new level ground. And who will be their new messiah in their time of need?!

***

Lynda walked in a few moments ago and asked what I was "looking at." I told her that I was writing a blog post. She made a surprised noise and then said "Huh. Can't remember the last time you did that." But she has fallen asleep like everyone else. I'm still here and still pushing. The dam is weakening!

***

Remember in the earliest days of WWYG?! when I tracked celebrity deaths. Just as a thing to do. And I usually made a comedic (??) reference to whether or not the death in question was part of some master plan of Tom Cruise. Because in the end, there can be only one. And let's be honest. I'll probably be Tom Cruise.

Well, what do you think Cruise had against Jimmy Buffett? (Not that I am any sort of fan of Margaritaville the restaurant chain or Buffett's particular version of Anglo-Caribbean kick back and drink music. (Is that it's genre?) 

My working theory on a Saturday morning? The plot for the next James Bond movie somehow involved a stop over in the Caribbean. And the film's producers had already gotten the necessary tax breaks and government approvals from the various nations of the region. 

But everything still had to be rubberstamped by the main Parrothead himself. And Cruise heard that the final approvals were imminent. So he stepped in (in the most Cruise-like extreme way) to single-handedly derail the movie's progress. Because just as their can be only one celebrity standing, there can be only one spy thriller movie franchise standing. 

And Cruise will make sure that it is Mission: Impossible. He's literally killing himself to make it possible. And if he is willing to do that to himself, then what will he do to others to get what he wants? Broccoli family, you should have been on notice long before now. But keep one eye open at night going forward. 

Cruise is out there.

So . . . that's it for this week.

Have you been sufficiently Counter-Programmed?!? 

What else will you be doing today instead of cheering on the team that has already spent your tuition/alumni money. (It won't even pay for the towels in the weight room these days.) Go pick some apples, drink a bit of iced cider. Dig out the sweater vests you stored away in April. You're gonna be needing them soon.

And remember that your alma mater doesn't need you. It just needs to stay of Mr. Cruise's good side.

Until next week!

Goodbye . . .

 . . . forever?

Accidentally, maybe. But also no. That title was only an eye-grabbing tease. Did I tease you?

Actually, this is just goodbye to #HatofSummer2023.

See below (please click as Jeb Bush might tweet).

(I apologize for sounding like Bilbo after the barrel ride to Lake Town.)

#HatofSummer Voting Update

 

Sorry that I have not created a voting update video in a few weeks. 

But Memorial Day is approaching very fast and so I wanted to give you an update on the voting for #OfficialHat2023 at this point.

(Remember that you can still vote for a few more days. The Google Form will close at 9 pm on Sunday, May 28th. The form is available here: https://forms.gle/SM3eh3m6HKtvr4Fz7) 

I will do my best to announce the winner--in either video or written fashion--on Memorial Day, Monday May 29th.

Here are the totals as of this blog posting:

Let's Talk About Beginnings and Endings

 Since we got rid of cable I rely on streaming services for the majority of my passive media. And one drawback of that is that I tend to dip back into things that I have already seen because . . . well, the library of entertainment is large and the output of new things is slow. Reruns and rewatches of familiar things is sort of the inevitable end result of such a situation.

But that is not always bad. And it led to an interesting thought for today.

I sat down and decided to begin rewatching J.J. Abram's Star Trek (2009). And if you like this movie, as I do, you remember how it begins. The U.S.S. Kelvin is minding its own business out in space when a mystery ship appears from an anomalous "lightning storm in space" and summarily kicks the shit out of the Kelvin without so much as a how-do-you-do. The Kelvin's captain is killed and acting captain George Kirk does his best to keep the remaining crew alive by evacuating shuttles and shooting down torpedoes before heroically colliding with the mystery ship. The Kelvin's crew survives--including his wife who just gave birth to one James Tiberius Kirk. The scene begins with a rousing orchestral variation on the movie's theme and after the battle is done, the movie jumps from space to Iowa, Earth where a young James T. steals a Mustang convertible and does his best Thelma and Louise to "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys.

A great ten minutes of sadness, action, and thrills.

Do you remember that George Kirk is played (briefly) by a pre-Thor Chris Hemsworth? Did you know that two of the Chrises were possibly on set that early in their rise to movie dominance? 

But let's shift to endings.

Specifically the ending scene of another of those Chrises. Evans, this time . . . in his own moment of movie glory that began this new phase of his own career. As Steve Rogers, in the final heroic moments of Captain America: The First Avenger.

Do you remember? 

Cap has defeated Nazis and rescued the Howling Commandoes from Red Skull.  But Red Skull has launches his massive Flying Wing bomber and has plans to drop those bombs on New York City, Chicago, and D.C. (maybe?) But Steve gets on the plane, defeats Red Skull (or lets Red Skull's hubris defeat himself) and prepares to get back home to Peggy and post war freedom. Unfortunately the bomber malfunctions and Steve has to intentionally crash the plane to save people.

So, two Chrises . . . early in their MCU (or pre-MCU) trajectory . . . intentionally crash their craft to save others. And both of them, in their pre-crash last moments have heartfelt good-bye speeches with their partners. Hemsworth's Kirk talks to his wife mid-labor and gets to help name James and say goodbye before the Kelvin collides with the Romulan mining vessel. Evan's Rogers talks to Peggy Carter and tries to keep it light. He promises Peggy that he will survive and will meet up with her in Europe to go dancing. They both know that it is false. But they get to say goodbye in a fashion.

I'd like to imagine Hemsworth and Evans swapping set stories about those moments on the set of The Avengers movie.

Beginnings and Endings.