Playing This Week in the Kevmobile

This week's entry will by much shorter than usual, since--thanks to Snowpocalypse, which caused me to drive a grand total of 14.8 miles between Monday night and Saturday afternoon--I wasn't in the car very often. But here's a rundown on what did play when I was driving (and didn't have the radio on for weather forecasts):

• MONDAY: Deep Schrott, One. As I said on Twitter, there's nothing like a bass saxophone quartet to get you through morning rush hour.


• TUESDAY: Nothing. The ice was at its worst on this day, and I only went as far as the corner.


• WEDNESDAY-FRIDAY: Synergy, Cords. Larry Fast, known to some as the Godfather of Techno for his early work in synthesis, gave us this 1978 gem which still holds up well all these years later. (And this was done before MIDI, when every track had to be laid down one at a time; it took about 9 months to make an album!)


• SATURDAY-SUNDAY: Jonathan Kreisberg, South of Everywhere and Donny McCaslin, Perpetual Motion. Two serious up-and-comers here; Kreisberg, the New York-based guitarist (who seems to be a favorite of all my jazz friends at UNT) and McCaslin, the tenorist known for his work with the Mingus Big Band and Dave Douglas. (I also met him on a hotel elevator in Greeley, Colorado a few years ago.)

Here's hoping for a more normal week of driving and listening, especially with TMEA on the horizon.

(All of the CDs listed above are also available through eMusic. Thinking of subscribing? Show the blog some love and let me refer you; we'll both get some free tracks out of the deal.)

North Texas Can't Handle a Super Bowl? That Idea Needs to Be Put Back on Ice

I've watched the local TV news more during the past week than I have since Christmas, when I'm at my parents' and they watch it every day. So I've had to put up with all the smack that a lot of the national sports reporters' smack talk about how this area supposedly can't handle a Super Bowl just because the weather this week is colder than either of the home cities of the teams in the game. I know that Jim Rome (whom I've largely ignored over the years) said, "6 inches of snow? Really, Dallas? Good luck getting another Super Bowl." And Sports Illustrated's Peter King, whom I used to respect, tweeted, "I'm telling you: I-30 between Dallas + Fort Worth is a plow-less, snow-windswept moonscape. This is officially a debacle." And there are more at the link above.

My reaction? Eh, put a(n athletic) sock in it, guys. It's not like this sort of thing happens every week here; it's just an unfortunate convergence of events. (Though even I'll admit that I'm amused by those who are saying that this is obviously proof that God hates Jerry Jones. Heh.)

But the thing that really got my dander up was a column by a Fox Sports writer whom I'd never heard of before--and now have no interest in reading again--named Alex Marvez, who came up with this clunker of a statement:

Let it snow.

Let there also be sleet, freezing rain and an avalanche.

Anything that will convince the NFL that plopping Super Bowls in cold-weather locales is a brr-brr-brr-brutally bad idea.

Umm, dude...Dallas/Ft. Worth isn't exactly a "cold-weather locale." Neither is Atlanta, which had a similar thing happen when it hosted Super Bowl XXXIV back in 2000. It's just a freak of nature over which nobody has any control. Bad timing? Yes. But a reason to exclude all but a few cities from Super Bowl consideration for the future? Not at all.

OK, I agree with the guy that it might get, umm, interesting in a few years when Super Bowl XLVIII is played in the New Jersey Meadowlands--outdoors. And even though he notes that "such a cold-weather site is better equipped to deal with the elements than an area like Dallas-Fort Worth," at least the game here will be played with the roof closed.

It appears that, if this Marvez character had his way, the Big Game would only be played in two places: Southern California and South Florida. It hardly seems right to let those two areas hog all the attention (not to mention the economic impact from the big week), especially when other areas have new stadiums that they want to show off on the big stage (and especially when L.A. doesn't even field a team at the moment).

Look, I'm sure everyone wishes that the weather was a little more typical of the area this week. If it had been a week ago, the high today would be 75 (and how much do you want to bet that a few Northern reporters would be griping about the heat?). Yes, the bad weather couldn't have come at a worse time, but it's not like anybody could help it, and--apart from a few debacles like the rolling power blackouts and DART dropping the ball on having its trains ready to run on Tuesday)--everyone handled things as best they could.

Here's hoping for nicer weather for the next two days and a game that goes off without a hitch tomorrow; if the big day itself leaves a good taste in everyone's mouth, maybe those same mouths will finally stop slamming us.

Obligatory Snow Picture 2.0

Yeah, I know--I posted my obligatory annual Texas snow picture here a few weeks ago...but I had to post another one, because this snowfall is far superior to the previous one:


Last night's snowfall, on top of the remaining ice (and taking place during a time when we've been below freezing for over three days) was certainly nice-looking, but it threw a complete monkey wrench into anyone's driving plans today. I did take my own trek to the outside world this afternoon, but I stayed much closer to home this time, and the biggest challenge was getting back up my own driveway. (It's hard to differentiate the driveway from the yard in this picture, but take a look at the height of the railroad ties at the front of the yard and you'll get an idea; my driveway is pitched at about a 45-degree angle.)

This has been one of the strangest weeks of winter weather in the entire time I've been in North Texas; I can't remember there being four missed school days at any time. But, as Annie says, the sun will come out tomorrow, and long-delayed errands will get done. I for one can't wait!

Daily Snow Trek Report #3

And now, the latest report from Nanuk of the North, freshly returned from his daily trudge through the tundra: On the one hand, some of the roads are considerably better than yesterday, and more people are out and about. But on the other hand, bridges are still quite packed with ice, as are many parking lots and places that are completely in the shade.

I was able to hit a top speed of 30 MPH on the main road by my house, which is almost completely clear today. But the aforementioned bridges and shady spots (one of which is still so icy that it doesn't have a full set of ruts in it) caused the speed to go back down to yesterday's 20 MPH, which is fine; it's not like I'm in a hurry or anything. (But today did mark the return of a few overconfident idiots who think it's OK to go the regular speed limit, no matter the weather. I try to stay as far away from those people as possible.)

I won't bet on the status of school for tomorrow quite yet. I do have a few brave souls coming over for lessons, but the mad scramble to get everyone in before Solo & Ensemble will be all for naught if school is canceled again tomorrow; the contest will then be postponed for three weeks.

And they're saying there could be snow tonight. That would certainly make things look nicer than they have been, but it would also cover up all the ice. Here's hoping that a similar trek tomorrow afternoon is still possible.

A Most Unusual Groundhog Day

It's a good thing that Punxsutawney Phil didn't see his shadow this morning, because if there were ever a time when we needed an early spring, this year would certainly fit the bill. With schools closed for a second day (which is threatening to turn into a third), we're running out of bad weather days, and everyone's starting to get cabin fever in a big way.

I got a little bit of relief from that earlier this afternoon. Thankfully, local hamburger chain Scotty P's decided to open today and trumpeted that fact on Facebook. With one of those just up the road, I decided to venture out farther than the corner store today, and it was great to get out of the house for an hour or so. (Others had the same idea, of course; Scotty P's was nearly full.) The roads were much better than they had been yesterday, although the bridges are still pretty much a sheet of ice. I didn't drive any faster than 20 MPH, nor did anyone else seem to be going faster than that. The most treacherous terrain I encountered was the sidewalk, so walking was much more dicey than driving.

There's a chance that schools will be closed again tomorrow, so I'm bracing myself for a very busy day on Friday if we get to go back. This has definitely been the strangest winter ever in the whole time I've been in North Texas, and it's not even halfway done yet.

Snowmageddon/Sleetpocalypse

So they've just announced a second snow day for both my public schools and the college. I can't say as though I'm surprised, because I took a quick trip down to the corner to get a newspaper, and a morning commute tomorrow would have been adventurous, to say the least.

I'm not exactly happy about this, of course; my high school students have Solo & Ensemble contest on Saturday, and it will be a major scramble to get everyone's lessons rescheduled between now and then. But I'll do what I need to do, because there's really no other choice.

It is pretty crazy that we're using up both of our designated "bad weather days" in a single week like this, because there's no saying that this will be the end of the wintry weather (anyone remember last year's spring break snowfall last year?). Still, safety has to be the primary concern, so they'll deal with any extra missed days as best they can.

And there could well be more missed days, as it's not supposed to get above freezing until Friday. This could get interesting...

Today's Pseudo-Scientific Question: Do iPods Hibernate?

I've had my iPod since Christmas of '06, which I realize makes it ancient in gadget years. But it's served me well throughout this entire time, especially compared to some friends who have been through two or three of them in the same duration. I was really happy when I got a new car adapter for Christmas (the old one having given up the ghost in August) and could listen to all my newest music in the car again (my computer's CD burner also having bitten the dust about a year ago). There were times when the 'Pod seemed to freeze up a bit, but it was usually because of a Very Low Battery, which would be fixed by a full-length charge.

So I was somewhat alarmed last Wednesday when it froze up and wouldn't be revived by any method. Plugging in into the computer for 2+ hours? Nothing. Plugging it into the car for the entire outgoing trip to Stephenville on Friday? No response. I busted out my CDs for the whole trip and was almost resigned to not hearing anything new in the car until I could afford a new iPod, which would be a while.

And then yesterday, I decided to give it one more try, plugging it into the computer again. It took about ten minutes, but sure enough, it roared back to life, white Apple logo glowing on black background. I let it charge for quite a long time, and so far, so good at this point.

So my question is: Has anyone ever had an iPod "hibernate" like this? And if so, has it ever taken longer than three tries to revive?

Playing This Week in the Kevmobile

Even though I was sick for most of this week, I still taught every day and thus listened to music in the car. But when my iPod got sick as well, the nature of the music changed a bit...

• MONDAY/TUESDAY: Christian Scott, Yesterday You Said Tomorrow. The young New Orleans-born trumpeter came up with his most complete effort to date earlier this year. And while the subject matter of the tunes is often dark and controversial, the music is an enjoyable listen, melding various styles and eras of jazz with rock and pop influences (even covering a tune by Radiohead's Thom Yorke).


• WEDNESDAY: Le Boeuf Brothers, House Without a Door. As I noted on the Twitter post, this is not some sort of celebrity vanity band, as neither Le Boeuf Brother is named "Shia." Rather, identical twins Remy (saxophone) and Pascal (piano) lead their New York-based band through a collection of innovative original compositions that showcase their varied influences (Debussy and Radiohead among them). Notable band members include Marcus Strickland and Clarence Penn.


• THURSDAY: Pat Metheny Group, We Live Here. On Thursday afternoon, the iPod froze up and stayed that way for several days, which meant I didn't get to listen to my typical indie jazz that I acquire via eMusic. Still, I do have CDs in the car, and I dipped into the Wallet of Old Favorites for a couple of days. This particular Metheny album, from '95, is one that most listeners either love or hate, since it started his "I'm having fun with electronics" period. But the songwriting is as strong as anything he's ever done, and the playing is beautiful as always (if you haven't figured it out by now, I'm in the "love" camp with regard to this CD).


• FRIDAY: Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, Winterwood and They Might Be Giants, Factory Showroom. Being a roadtrip day, I listened to more than one CD. The former, from a group that I've blogged about in the past, is an enjoyable mix of originals and remakes of the likes of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington (and, best of all, it's still a free download at their website). The latter is from a longtime favorite and includes some of the usual wacky TMBG stuff, such as a tune recorded completely on an Edison cylinder.


• SATURDAY/SUNDAY: Snarky Puppy, Tell Your Friends; Freiheit, Fantasy; and Brecker Brothers, Return of the Brecker Brothers. Quite a potpourri for yesterday's roadtrip: The newest live effort from the Pups; the English-language classic (at least to me) from my favorite Beatlesque band from Germany (and the subject of a recent blog post); and wrapping it up with the first CD from Michael and Randy's early-90s reunion.

And the iPod sprang back to life again today (I'll discuss that tomorrow), so the offerings should go back to their usual indie flavor during the week ahead.

OK, I Think I'm Back

Made it through an entire long teaching day with few issues for the first time all week. This has really been a strange illness for me, spread out over an entire week as it has been. While there's still a bit of a cough going on, I seem to have shed the general "malaise" of the past several days, and I should be good to go for the workshop that I'm running over the weekend. This is still really odd for me to get sick both for this long and this early in the year; it's usually an early-spring "change of seasons" period that will spawn the sinus distress that I'm having. But it's nice to be on the upside of things for once.

Blogging should resume on a regular basis once the workshop is over.

Points to Ponder

I don't have time to elaborate on it right now (as I'm still using the bulk of my energy to stay well, and I spent the bulk of this evening helping a student with an upcoming college audition), but there were some interesting quotes in this article at the Insider Higher Education blog about the importance of restoring the voice of the faculty in higher education, especially as schools face unprecedented cuts to their budgets at the state level.

As one might expect, the article suggested that perhaps the cuts should start within the administration, which is a bit top-heavy at some schools. Here's the main quote:

Some argued that cost efficiencies could be better realized in places other than the classroom, such as administration. When colleges put less than 50 percent of their budgets into what goes on in class, it is, said [Lillian] Taiz [president of the California Faculty Association, which prepared the document discussed in the article] , "plain, flat-out crazy."

This was met with agreement by many faculty who posted comments; I found these quotes to be particularly interesting:

"It might be time to consider Hardt and Negri's insight:" “people don’t need bosses at work. They need an expanding web of others with whom to communicate and collaborate; the boss is increasingly merely an obstacle to getting work done” (Commonwealth 353). I think the same applies to upper (and perhaps middle-) administration at colleges and universities."
--commenter Janet Nhese

"What is needed for an education?

1) Someone to learn
2) Someone to teach

The rest is support!"
--commenter "MnProf"

As I mentioned earlier, I don't have time to elaborate on this right now, but feel free to discuss it in the comments. (And I guess I'll look up the Hardt and Negri study at another time as well. It sounds a bit more extreme than my position; I'm not saying we don't need bosses, but rather that the bosses should themselves be teachers...but you knew that already if you've read this blog for a while.)

Thud

About once per school year, I have a day that just hits me like a ton o' bricks--run down, usually a touch of sinus crud, all of that. Today was definitely that day, as I took my first partial "sick day" since my knee surgery. I'll be doing the early-to-bed thing, and hopefully things will be better in the morning; the afternoon and evening off has already done wonders for me.

Blogging should hopefully resume tomorrow.

Playing This Week in the Kevmobile

I love all the different forms of "new media" with which I'm involved. But as someone with no "office time" and no computer beyond an iPhone during the business day, it's impossible to come up with fresh content for this blog, Twitter and Facebook. I'm a consistent Facebooker, and I've recently tethered Twitter to it so that I can post my shorter statuses in both places, and every once in a while, something from either of the other two sites finds its way to this blog as well.

Since I regained the ability to listen to my iPod in the car over Christmas, one of the things I've started doing on Twitter is making note of what I'm listening to in the car that day; most of the stuff on the 'Pod is material that I've downloaded from eMusic, which means there are a lot of "indie" jazz artists that deserve wider recognition. So to further integrate my sites (and since I've often had little "what I'm listening to" blurbs at the bottom of other blog posts in the past), I decided to use Sundays as the day when I'd recount what I listened to all week. These blurbs can be slightly expanded, since they're not limited here by Twitter's 140-character count, and I'll also provide links to the artists' website that can be accessed by clicking on their names. So sit back and enjoy the first weekly edition of this feature, and if you're curious, be sure and visit the artists' sites.

• TUESDAY: Kneebody, Kneebody. How would one describe this band? They're set up like a traditional jazz combo, but their music is anything but that. Critic Nate Chinen described them as "a band that inhabits the borderland abutted by post-bop, indie-rock and hip-hop, without seeming to give much thought to the borders," and that's pretty accurate. I want to see these guys live...


• WEDNESDAY: Myra Melford's Be Bread, The Image of Your Body. The pianist leads a group that's heavily into electronics, featuring Cuong Vu (of the Pat Metheny Group), among others; the music varies between pretty and skronky, but it's an interesting fusion.


• THURSDAY: Nils Petter Molvaer, Khmer. I've written about this Norwegian trumpeter in a previous post, and his music is still in my regular rotation to this day.


• FRIDAY: Bobby Watson, Tailor Made and Tokyo Leaders Big Band, Live at Someday in Tokyo. The amazing alto saxophonist, composer and honorary patron saint of my evening combo (since we've played so many of his compositions) gets together with his post-Horizon combo and a top-notch Japanese big band to stretch on several of his tunes. Includes extended versions of "In Case You Missed It" and "Karita."


• SATURDAY: Anne Paceo Triphase, Empreintes. A creative trio led by the French drummer, with world-music influences that give it a guitar-less Metheny-ish vibe, or possibly a less-electronic Esbjörn Svensson Trio.


• SUNDAY: Austin McMahon, Many Muses. Another creative drummer/composer who leads a one-horn quartet (only in this case, the one horn is clarinet or bass clarinet) through a set of enjoyable tunes. And according to his website, a new release is on the way shortly!

I'll try to do this every Sunday from here on out.

Music Hath Charms to Soothe Repel the Savage Beast(s)

Via Dave Barry's Blog comes this unusual story: A kid in Norway managed to repel a pack of wild wolves he encountered on his way home from school by blasting some music through the headphones of his cell phone:

Walter Eikrem listened to music on his mobile phone as he often does as he made his way home from school in the southern Norwegian town of Rakkestad earlier this week. The path leading from the stop where he catches the school bus to his family's farmhouse traverses a gently sloping hillside. All of a sudden, he made out something gray on the hillside. "At first, I thought it might have been the neighbor's dogs," he later told TV2, Norway's largest commercial broadcaster. What he actually encountered, though, were four wolves.

"I was afraid they would attack me," Walter told the Norwegian tabloid VG, describing the incident, which took place on Monday. But he didn't let his fear show. Remembering his parents' advice, Walter pulled the earphones out of his mobile phone, turned the volume all the way up and blasted heavy metal music over its miniature speakers. At the same time, he yelled as loud as he could while flailing his arms about wildly to scare off the pack of wild animals.

[...]The plan worked. Eikrem said he was able to drive away the wolves by playing the song "Overcome" by the American hard-rock band Creed. "They didn't really get scared," Walter said. "They just turned around and simply trotted away."

I'm not sure that Creed qualifies as "heavy metal" (as the story describes it several times), but hey...it worked. There's one more example of the power of music. (And I guess it's good that the wolves weren't drug dealers or gang members, or Walter might have had to use classical music to repel them.)

Tonight's Region Concert Was Lights-Out Good

Every year, I happily spend a Friday night listening to my students and other outstanding young musicians perform at the All-Region Bands concert; this year's edition took place tonight. As I say every year, this post is not by any means an attempt to liveblog the concert or even do a traditional review of same; rather, it's just the things that popped into my head while I was listening:

• As always, the concert runs like clockwork; each band is given 45-minute slots to play 30 minutes of music or less, so ample time is allowed for seating changes between bands, and the families and friends of the performers always know an exact time to arrive for a particular band's portion of the concert. In less than four hours, four high school bands and one ninth-grade band are heard, and the night goes more quickly than one might think. And while the fixed schedule does provide for some long lulls if a band runs less than half an hour, it also gives me the opportunity to schmooze with parents and directors. (And this year, if none of them were around, I had Facebook on my phone as well. Yes, I was that guy...but only during the breaks.)


• This year, I had seven people from my studio make the bands, which is one shy of last year. (Although it must be said that a pretty decent saxophone section could be made out of people from my studio alone who didn't make the band.) The distribution was two seniors, two juniors, a sophomore and two freshmen, so things look good for the future.


• The concert started in a rather unique manner: As the freshman band started its first number, someone in the light booth made an attempt to dim the house lights...and managed to douse nearly every light in the place, including those onstage. The band continued on valiantly from memory for a few bars, but they eventually stopped and waited for the lights to come on again; it would take a few more bands before the proper balance was achieved. Nothing like a good tech-crew FAIL to get things started.


• Musically, there wasn't a "dud" piece programmed all evening, which was a pleasant contrast from last year. While most of the music was of the newer "wind ensemble" variety (more on that shortly), even the older pieces were played well and with lots of enthusiasm; it was easy to forget that 1) everyone on stage is in high school, and 2) they had about nine hours of rehearsal over the past 24 hours to put everything together. My proverbial hat is off to all the performers and clinicians.


• Speaking of the clinicians, each one of them talked to the audience at least once this year, which hasn't always happened. Sure, in my perfect world, the programs would either list the pieces in their concert order (rather than saying "program to be selected from..." as they do now) or each clinician would back-announce anything that deviated from what was printed. (And the programs would also go into a bit more detail: First name of composer, if the piece is divided into movements, etc. But I'm probably being picky here..).


• One less-than-pleasant surprise was the large showing exhibited by the Dorky Parents' Brigade this year. It's one thing to clap for your kids, but there were way too many people making spectacles of themselves by either shouting, "[insert kid's name here], we love you!" or standing up and waving incessantly at the stage (one guy was so bad that a few kids--whom I assume didn't even know him--stood up and waved back just to mess with him). These are the same people who ruin graduations for everyone else, and I've never seen quite so many of them at this concert before tonight.


• But those folks aside, we had more proof tonight that audiences can in fact be trained: If the conductor left one hand up between movements of a piece, the audience would get the signal and refrain from clapping; if he didn't, inappropriate clappage would occur.


• One thing that's never happened before, at least in my memory: The auditorium really brought out the sound of the saxophone section. (I wonder if the fact that I was seated dead-center instead of off to one side made a difference.) Sure, the bands are big--the Concert Band had six altos, three tenors and two baris, and the sections got smaller as the bands did as well--but I've never heard saxes quite so "high in the mix" as I did tonight. (I always wondered what it would have been like if balance between the saxophone sound and the clarinet sound were reversed in the band, and I got a small picture of that tonight. Need I say that I liked it?)


• I always use this occasion to restate my belief that the newer "wind ensemble music" (with its film-score influences, reliance on interesting tonal colors and expanded percussion sections) is far superior to the older "band music" (which was written in a more tonally homogeneous fashion). And while I do prefer the newer stuff (represented tonight by the likes of Brian Balmages, Samuel Hazo and birthday boy Frank Ticheli), an old chestnut like Gustav Holst's Second Suite in F is always welcome when played well, and a Sousa march is still two or three minutes of perfection.


• After the above discussion, this is where I state that I really need to write my blog post on "how film scoring saved classical music." Someone please hold me to it this year.


• Every band played extremely well tonight--in no way, for example, did the Concert Band sound like a "fourth" band (and I'd say that even if several of my guys weren't in there)--but the top two bands, the Wind Ensemble and the Wind Symphony, were at another level altogether. These two bands are traditionally conducted by college directors (and lately, that's meant two from the same school; tonight's came from UTEP), and no matter what they play, the music crackles with new energy from the get-go. The Wind Symphony had a cool bit of programming by pairing Sousa's The Fairest of the Fair with a newer fantasy written on the theme of that march, and the Wind Ensemble had me from the first measure with their opener, Clifton Williams' The Sinfonians (featuring a couple of my fraternity's beloved songs), followed by one of my favorite pieces from my own Region days, Howard Hanson's Laude (which, after listening to it with new ears, may have been the first film-score band piece).


• And finally, the obligatory "it's nice to be recognized" part: It's always cool when they recognize the teachers before every band (by having all the directors and private teachers of the students currently on stage stand up for a moment). Most of the work that my colleagues and I do is behind the scenes, and that's OK; the real reward is watching them progress over the years and develop a love for music that will hopefully last far beyond their public schooling, no matter what their major will be in college. But I'd be a liar if I said it wasn't nice to be among those standing up every year. (Wow--looking back, this post is almost as long as the concert itself!)

As I've said before, I try to make this a must-see on my calendar; I may not get to attend too many individual schools' concerts, but I like to be at this one to support the students who have put in the extra work to earn the chance to play on this night. (And it's crazy to think that I began the tradition of blogging this concert in 2006, when tonight's seniors were in seventh grade.)

Previous Region Band concert posts: 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006.

Quoteworthy: The Wind Ensemble conductor, Dr. Lowell Graham, used to direct the top Air Force band. In an age when educational budgets are being slashed, leading some to call for reductions in arts education, Graham left us with five great qualities found in...fighter pilots:

• Personal responsibility


• Teamwork


• Multitasking


• Looking ahead over the horizon


• Real-time problem solving

Guess what--all those qualities were exhibited by the musicians onstage tonight as well! And all the aesthetic pleasures of music are just the frosting...

Another Money Quote from Lileks (Music Edition)

As Thursdays have become 14-hour teaching days again, I'll rarely have time to write a blog post of substance on this day of the week. But my favorite blogger, James Lileks, comes through again today with this gem from the part of this morning's Bleat where he's talking about piano lessons:

I kick myself for not being harder, but I’ve never thought you should take piano so you can learn piano. You should take piano so you get a feel for music from the production side, as a participant, not an onlooker.

Beautiful. We music teachers have to keep an arsenal of profound statements around to battle with those who would try to diminish our programs because they (falsely, IMHO) claim that music is not a "basic" subject. And the above is a nice, fresh angle on the subject, and a nice departure from the usual "music makes you smarter" idea.

Is College Tuition Weighing Heavily on the Minds of Students? Let's Literally Find Out

I'm a fan of creative thinking, and this story--like yesterday's "school prank" episode--fits the bill. A University of Colorado student, wishing to make the point to school administrators that tuition might be a bit too expensive--decided to pay his spring balance in person using only $1 bills:

Nic Ramos wanted to send an eye-grabbing message about the rising cost of tuition at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

So, the 20-year-old economics major paid his $14,300 tuition entirely in $1 bills.

[...]Ramos packed the 33 pounds of cash into a big duffle and was ready when the CU business office opened Friday morning.

"I walked in there and put it on the counter and said: 'I'm here to pay my tuition,'" Ramos recounted.

The bursar's office employees, to their credit, took the situation in good humor; they accepted Ramos' unusual payment, even though it took three clerks almost an hour to count the cash.

College certainly has gotten a lot more expensive in the past several decades, and hopefully, that point is reinforced by Ramos' outside-the-box thinking and the attention being drawn to this story. And it also hit home in a different way with one of his classmates:

Ramos' buddy, Dan Order, chimed in: "It makes me not want to skip class." They calculated it costs $65 for each hour of missed class, Order said.

As they say, read the whole thing.

The Greatest School Prank Ever!(Even Better--It Was Done By a Parent)

Via Dave Barry's Blog comes one of the funniest stories I've read all week: A school district in Maryland used the common practice of sending a robo-call out to parents to alert them to a late start on a snowy day recently. But thanks to a glitch of some sort, the calls came out at 4:30 in the morning! One parent in that district, Aaron Titus, annoyed by the early wake-up, plotted his revenge: He got a list of publicly-available phone numbers for every district official that he could find, and he set up a program to robo-call them at 4:30 a.m. as well:

"This is a Prince George's County School District parent, calling to thank you for the robocall yesterday at 4:30 in the morning. I decided to return the favor. While I know the school district wanted to ensure I drop my child off two hours late on a snow day, I already knew that before I went to bed. I hope this call demonstrates why a 4:30 a.m. call does more to annoy than to inform.''

It ended: "Quit robocalling parents at 4:30 in the morning or at least allow us to opt out of these intrusive calls."

Thankfully, the message was duly noted in fairly good humor by school officials:

School board member Edward Burroughs III said he had not personally gotten one of Titus's robocall rebukes, but considered it "very clever."

"I definitely appreciate his creativity," he said.

On a more serious note, Burroughs said that "I think, in the future, if we know the night before, we need to make the call the night before." Ten o'clock or so may seem late, he said, "but 4:30 in the morning?"

The robocall, he concluded, made a point. "It's certainly something that I welcome all parents to do - communicate with us, by any means necessary," he said.

I'm sure that Titus is a hero to anyone who thought about pulling off such a prank, but was afraid to do so. Chalk one up for the little guy...

I Won't Even Try to Top This Quote Today

I looked out and saw nothing, but then I shielded my eyes and leaned over and waited . . .

. . . and all the stars came out.

James Lileks has been blogging aboard a cruise ship all week, producing little gems like the above. Read the whole thing, and just keep scrolling for his earlier entries.

I Could Listen to This Masterful Mash-Up All Day

Who says the newspaper's not good for anything anymore? In yesterday's Dallas Morning News, I found, courtesy of its sister publication Quick, a brief Q&A with mash-up artist Gregg Gillis, who plies his craft under the name of Girl Talk. His newest effort, All Day, references 373 songs in just a little over 70 minutes. And musically, it's all over the map:

Ludacris raps over the power chords of Black Sabbath. Dallas rapper Dorrough's verses from "Ice Cream Paint Job" are made warmer by the backing track from "Strawberry Letter 23." Rick Ross, Bananarama and Lady Gaga work together during a few seconds of danceable bliss. And so on.

And how in the world did he license all those songs? Well, he didn't:

Gillis has managed to get around any major copyright-related setbacks by contending that what he does with the samples constitutes fair use. And it doesn't hurt that many of the artists sampled are thrilled they've made the latest Girl Talk mix. North Texas rockers the Toadies even posted and tweeted about the use of "Possum Kingdom" in a key section of All Day.

I downloaded it last night--hey, why not? It's free!--and I'm listening to it as we speak. So far, I'm quite impressed; Gillis does a great job of mixing everything together, and it's amusing how seamlessly a lot of these songs go with each other.

If you want to download it yourself, go here. (And be happy that the big rush is over; evidently, listeners pretty much broke the Internet downloading this on the day it came out.) If you just want to read the staggering list of tunes sampled, it's here.

Cariversary

Today is the third anniversary of my purchase of Kevmobile 2.0 (as noted here on the big day itself), and once again, I couldn't be happier with my decision of which car to get. As I noted a year ago,

Really, I have no complaints at all. The gas mileage is really good (even if the smaller tank sends me to the station a bit more, the MPG itself is superb), the capacity to haul various combinations of people and stuff has worked out really nicely (take note of the time I was able to haul 17 cases of laminate flooring in a single trip), and it's a lot of fun to drive. (I missed this a great deal when I was recovering from knee surgery and couldn't drive a stick; nothing else was quite the same.)

I also got in on this during a good model year. To me, there's something not quite as appealing about the design of the newer ('09 and later) models; the older ones have more personality, I guess. (My buddy Coop, who got me into this whole Fit thing in the first place, concurs with this, and we've noted in the past that neither of us anticipates buying a new car until ours are around ten years old or so.)

Again, here's to many more years of trouble-free driving.

And do I have a picture from today? Why, of course I do:


Blowing out the candles: Happy birthday to my protege and li'l bro, Aaron. He shares his day with a lot of well-known people, including radio hosts Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern, as well as prolific blogress Ann Althouse.

As They MIght Say at Band Contest, This Day Got Straight "Ones"

It's 1/11/11 at 11:11 p.m. Why am I posting this? Because I can (and because all the cool kids are doing it.)

I'm sure I'll do this again on Veterans Day, when there's one more One to add to the proceedings.

[Insert Obligatory Snow Picture Here]

I meant to post this yesterday when similarly doing so on Facebook, but I had to get the picture off the phone before doing this. Anyway, in honor of the (at least) once-a-year snowfall that seems to hit North Texas, here's my seemingly annual picture of Casa de Kev in the snow:


That is all. You may now resume your snowball fight, if anything is left in the yard.

And in Heaven, They're Calling Out, "Play Ball!"

I'm just catching up on the past two days of newspapers this afternoon, and I noticed something from yesterday's article about the memorial service for former Arlington Mayor Tom Vandergriff that really made me smile:

At the start of the memorial service for Tom Vandergriff – the former Arlington mayor, congressman and Tarrant County judge – an announcement was piped over the loudspeaker: "Please remove your caps for the singing of our National Anthem."

Baseball and the Texas Rangers were a constant theme as hundreds gathered Friday in Texas Hall at the University of Texas at Arlington to pay tribute to Vandergriff, the man who helped turn a small town into a North Texas destination.

The baseball theme was certainly fitting, because without Vendergriff's tenacity, there's a pretty good chance that the Metroplex wouldn't have landed the then-Washington Senators and turned them into the Texas Rangers we know and love; at best, it would have been a much longer time before that happened.

I meant to mark the passing of Vandergriff when it happened last week. He certainly did a lot for the city of Arlington, helping it become, as he was fond of saying, the hyphen between Dallas and Ft. Worth. He also helped the city land the GM plant and Six Flags, and he was instrumental in UTA becoming a four-year school. (Additionally, he owned an auto dealership which resided for years at Division and Collins streets, and I wish they'd been able to keep the iconic "V" sign at that corner after the dealership moved south to I-20 and was replaced with a QT station.) He certainly deserves to be remembered for a lot more than just being "that other guy with a statue at the Ballpark besides Nolan Ryan."

The ceremony ended on an appropriate note as well:

[A]t the end of the memorial, the crowd was asked to sing along on a Vandergriff favorite – "a sacred hymn."

The Arlington Community Band then struck up with "Take Me Out the Ballgame."

Perfect. My (baseball) hat is off to whomever decided to do that.

R.I.P., Mayor Tom. The Metroplex owes you a great deal.

This Music Has Been Given Its Freiheit from Out-of-Print Purgatory

A few weeks ago, I made note of the German pop band Freiheit (known as Münchener Freiheit in Europe) as I rejoiced upon discovering a video of their biggest (only?) English-language hit, "Keeping the Dream Alive." I noted that the album containing that song, Fantasy, had been out of print of a long time, so my copy was considered a rarity; I was glad that I got it when I did, because most of the songs hold up really well in a Beatlesque sort of way.

And now, after a bit of research, I've discovered that the group's three English-language albums have been re-released in a "three-in-one" format, and--at least at Amazon--it's a very reasonably-priced import.

Again, I have no idea if any other Musings readers share my enthusiasm for this band, but I just thought I'd pass it along. (And by the way, Freiheit is German for "freedom," in case you're wondering about the cryptic title of this post.)

The 'Boys Will Be Back

As I noted a few days ago, I was pulling for Jason Garrett to have the "interim" stripped from his title and to be named the next head coach of the Cowboys. And now, it's been announced that this has now happened.

Well done, Jerry Jones. As I said earlier, the team didn't need a high-profile retread this time; they needed the guy who had turned around a really lousy season and gave them some things to build on for the future. And it's a great story, too; no former Cowboys player has ever ascended to the head coaching position here before.

He'll have to deliver, of course. But for today, Cowboys fans can smile a little bit.

Gerry's Iconic Melody Echoes from City to City

And believe it or not, the Gerry I'm talking about is, for once, not Mulligan...

Yesterday morning, commenter sonicfrog asked the following:

Hey Sax Man - I know you're a jazz man, but any thoughts on the death of Gerry Rafferty? Baker Street had one of the great sax lines ever laid down on a rock record.

Agreed; the sax part is basically the "chorus" of the song, and, while it's not really complex, it's certainly etched in the collective memory of all kinds of music fans.

You do remember the song, right?



I was on a Gerry Rafferty kick for a while; his first solo album, City to City, which contains "Baker Street," was a pretty solid outing through and through. And although "Baker Street" (with the iconic sax line provided by the wonderfully-named Raphael Ravenscroft) has stood the test of time, it wasn't my favorite song on City to City. This was:



It's such a happy, bouncing, uplifting song. And the tag ending (starting at 2:32), with its simple arpeggiated melody and unpredictable harmonic flow, never fails to make me smile.

Like most people, I'd become acquainted with Rafferty as part of the duo Stealers Wheel, who produced a huge hit in the '70s called "Stuck in the Middle With You," which still turns up in various places today. And while I liked a few things on his second solo album, Night Owl (most notably the opener, "Days Gone Down (Still Got That Light in Your Eyes)"), he sort of faded out after that for all except the most die-hard fans.

But even if the star flickered over time, the contribution of "Baker Street" cemented Rafferty's place in popular music history. It's been covered successfully (by Foo Fighters) and less so (by Maynard Ferguson, sorry to say), and as sonicfrog noted, it certainly pushed the saxophone to the forefront of a rock song in a very memorable way.

RIP, Gerry, and thanks for the music.

It's Time For Jerry to Grin and Garrett, or Others Will Be Chasin' Jason

A disappointing season for the Dallas Cowboys came to an end today, but the last nine games with Jason Garrett at the helm definitely showed an improvement, as far as I'm concerned.

Will Garrett get the "interim" removed from his title in the next week or so? The smart money says yes. Jerry Jones has noted that he'd like to make a decision sooner than later, and a lot of us out here feel like the younger guy deserves a chance instead of a big-name retread. (And does anyone really think that Bill Cowher or Jon Gruden would work for Jones?) I realize there are a few things that need to happen, such as satisfying the Rooney Rule, but I'm pretty sure that Jones won't make the mistake of letting Garrett go, only to watch him shine on someone else's sideline.

What do you think? Does Garrett deserve the full-time gig? Chime in by hitting the comment button.

Welcome to Twenty-Eleven

First of all, Happy New Year to all! I hope the year will be enjoyable and rewarding for all of us.

Last year at this time, we discussed the burning question that arose as the 21st century hit its teen years: Is it time to switch over from "two thousand and..." to "twenty..." when pronouncing the name of the year? If one is looking for economy of syllables, the former certainly makes sense, though casual listening to personal conversations and various media showed a split between "twenty-ten" and "two thousand and ten" for the year that was just completed. Still, I noted that the problem might solve itself today, since "twenty-eleven" rolls off the tongue much more easily than does "two thousand and eleven," and if worse comes to worst, we're bound to return to the "classic" (i.e. pre-2000) pronunciation by 2020, just because that number is so strongly associated with both the TV show and perfect vision.

An informal poll on Facebook earlier today seems to bear this out, as nobody who responded was strongly in the more-syllables camp, and the vast majority were in complete agreement with me. So what do you think; will the classic pronunciation finally take hold this year.

And again, Happy New Year, no matter how you say it.

2010: The Year in Blogging

It seems a little odd to do the traditional end-of-year blog review when I've admittedly been such a slacker at blogging lately; it really has come in fits and starts throughout the year, and it was almost certainly made worse over Easter weekend when I finally caved and joined Facebook. But this blog is still a great outlet, and it's very different from the day-to-day Facebook stuff (not to mention that it's mostly a different audience), so even though I'm not a big resolution-making type, it's a goal of mine to be more consistent with blogging in 2011.

Once again, this is a month-by-month list of posts that either got the most comments of any post at the time or just stand out in some other way on second glance. So here we go:

JANUARY: Metheny Deserves a Pat on the Back For His Latest Effort
FEBRUARY: Another Great Way to Fix Congress
MARCH: Performing for a Less-Than-Perfect Audience?
Perhaps Keith Should Just Grin and Jarrett
APRIL: For Many of Us, This Program Was a Real Clunker
MAY: Today's Situation in a Nutshell
JUNE: Music Meets Art--In the MIddle of the Sidewalk?
JULY: Straight from the Funny Pages
AUGUST: Advertising As Art (or, The Greatest Song You Can't Download...Yet?)
SEPTEMBER: Extreme Makeover: Concert Hall Edition
OCTOBER: Words to Live By
NOVEMBER: Farewell to Fouts
DECEMBER: Kids Say the Darnedest Things About Geography

As always, thanks for stopping by; I'll try to have a lot more for you to read in the year ahead.

Let There Be Even More Lights

I'm back from my trip to Houston (in record time, mind you; I can't believe I made it back from the old neighborhood in three and a half hours while maintaining the speed limit, but I guess that's what stopping only one time will do) and will save a bigger post for later, but I had to make a quick addendum to my annual holiday lights review. Tonight, I checked out the nearby neighborhood Woodbridge, which encompasses parts of Sachse and Wylie. In the Sachse portion, just off Country Club Drive, check out Hillview Lane, where the first- and second-place winners in the lighting contest are right across the street from each other. The first-place house has its lights synced to music, and its neighbor's lights appear to at least partially go in time to the music as well. If you're in that part of town, it's well worth a look.

Christmas Greetings

SUGAR LAND--Merry Christmas to all! I'm chilling with the whole family this year, though that means I'm typing this from the quiet comfort of my hotel room. (As I noted on Facebook and Twitter, when my sister and her family are down, I get to spend Christmas as a sort of reverse Nativity scene; there's no room at the house, but there is room at the inn. And the inn is very quiet.)

I hope you get to spend today with family and/or friends in as relaxing a way as possible. And as always, I salute those who aren't able to have the day off today--public safety and emergency personnel, a few in retail and broadcasting, and of course those on active duty in the armed forces. Have a blessed day!

A Sweet Explosion of Sorts

SUGAR LAND--I'm writing from my traditional perch at Mom and Dad's, where I get to stay for one night before my sister and her family arrive tomorrow. Being in Sugar Land, the former home of a large Imperial Sugar refinery (more on the city's history here, from my first Christmas visit as a blogger), the big news item from the past few weeks was that a couple of the buildings at that former refinery were imploded last weekend to make way for a mixed-use project. (The most iconic of the buildings, the old char house, was left standing and will be incorporated into the project.)

Check out the video at the link (where, as you can see, it took one of the buildings quite a bit of time to fall down on its own, well after the charges were detonated), and there's a good amateur video here as well, made from still photographs in succession and a lot of before-and-after shots at the end. And here's some background info on the redevelopment project itself.

Tour de Lights

Now that I've finally had some time off, I've been able to enjoy one of my favorite holiday traditions: Going out to see some of the amazing light displays that are found all over the DFW area. That means it's also time for Kev's Annual Lights Post*, where I run down a list of my favorites:

• Deerfield in Plano: For my money (which pretty much involves only the gas to get there), this is the best all-around neighborhood in the area for lights. It has a wide variety of streets that are easy to traverse once you've done it a few times, most of the neighborhood participates (there were fewer "Scrooge" houses this year than before), and now it features the Zephries house on Old Pond Drive, which now has 104,000 lights synchronized to music. There's also the Gordon Lights on Quincy at the north end of the subdivision that has a very nicely-synchronized display as well. (Both the aforementioned houses also serve as drop-off points for various charities, so, if the spirit moves you, bring a new unwrapped toy for Toys for Tots or a non-perishable food item for the North Texas Food Bank to the Zephries display, or cash/gift cards for Operation Homefront to the Gordon display.) The carriage and limo rides make this area an even bigger attraction, and I've always thought it would be cool to park nearby and do a walking tour like many of the neighbors do. (When I went Monday night, the weather would have been great for that, but I thought I was short on time. Hats off to the homeowners for keeping everything on well past ten.


• Frisco Square: Although it's a newcomer in comparison to the other sites mentioned here, Frisco has become one of the top attractions in the area, with even more lights to its amazing display from last year (among the highlights for me are the lights that go across the two main buildings, which totally surrounds the viewer with light). As before, everything is synchronized to music, which can be heard either from a low-powered FM radio broadcast or from speakers near the buildings. (For some pictures of last year's display, go here.)
  
  And if you make it to Frisco, be sure and drive a few miles east to see the Trykoski house, where the designer of the Frisco Square lights calls home. This year, they have 85,000 lights in their display, which is also synchronized to music. (And I probably don't need to point out that nearly all of the displays with synced music include the song that's become the unofficial theme of such displays: "Wizards in Winter" from this CD by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. I think the entire genre started with Carson Williams in Ohio, whose display became the subject of a beer commercial a few years ago.) Incidentally, the Trykoskis are collecting canned goods for Frisco Family Services.


• SpringPark in Garland/Richardson: The classic neighborhood of mostly cul-de-sacs, each with a different theme. Among my favorites are the displays on Silver Maple and Buckethorn, as well as the continuous train motif along Lake Shore Drive, and Debra Court was full of win this year with its "12 Days of Redneck Christmas" theme (though they should have gone in reverse order like the song does; you'd have to drive on the wrong side of the road to sync with the song. Quite a few of the streets were more sparsely lit this year, which has been a trend for a while now; I wonder if I was just there on a night when a lot of people were on vacation.


• Interlochen in Arlington: I haven't been here in a few years (though I'll try this year, as it's been extended through Dec. 31), but this neighborhood is unique in that several streets back up to a large canal, so the backyards as well as the fronts are decorated. This area is not too far from Six Flags, and, like the amusement park, there are signs along Randol Mill Road listing estimated times until you get to the lights. I need to make this one again soon. (And check out this heartwarming story about the generosity of UTA professor Allan Saxe, whose generous donation allowed the lights to go on when the city could no longer afford to pay police officers for traffic control.)


• There are also two houses in Rowlett worth seeing: One on Dogwood Trail that's all done up in neon (evidently, the homeowner also owns a neon sign company) and the Belcher house on Faulkner Drive; there's also a perennial favorite in Carrollton on Timberline at High Sierra that always goes all out, even decorating the garage as a Santa's Workshop.

As always, if I've missed anything, please let me know in the comment section. I'm a big fan of Christmas lights, so I'd always be interested in seeing something new.

*I discovered when searching for some of the old text to copy and paste that I actually forgot to do the 2009 post. D'oh!

UPDATE: A few days after Christmas, I discovered some more cool houses in the Sachse/Wylie area.

Well, It Looks LIke Katz's Does Klose After All

I received some unfortunate news on Facebook from a friend who's a UT-Austin alumnus: Katz's Deli, the iconic Sixth Street restaurant known for being open all night (its slogan, "Katz's Never Kloses," is even reflected in its website), will be shuttered just after New Year's:

Katz's Deli, the longstanding popular restaurant on West Sixth Street, will shut its doors for good after more than three decades of being a 24-hour Austin icon.

The restaurant filed for bankruptcy in July after some difficulties with the property owners. Owner Marc Katz, considered relocating but has since changed his mind.

"I saw Brett Favre on your station this morning getting beat up," said Katz. "I think I'm going to quit while I'm ahead."

The 63-year-old was upbeat about his 31 years on Sixth Street. "It's a great time to leave," he said. "Reminds me of a gambler who leaves while he's winning."

I haven't been to Katz's in quite a few years, but I was turned onto it a long time ago by some UT friends, and it became a regular stop for a while when I was taking sax quartets to State Solo & Ensemble on an annual basis. Not only was it always open, but the food was really good and quite plentiful; I usually enjoyed a Reuben sandwich that was bursting at the seams with meat. It was probably as close to a New York deli as you could find in Texas.

They'll stay open until January 2. I don't know if I'll be out that way before then, but I'll definitely remember some good times.

I'd Better Post This Before My Thoughts Get Eclipsed By Other Things..

A few thoughts on last night's eclipse:

• My cheap old binoculars work a lot better than I expected them to.


• I said "boo!" to the wispy clouds that came in and messed everything up right when it was about to hit "maximum eclipse point."


• I was amazed at how many people (of all ages) stayed up to watch it. Yay for being on vacation!


• I'm really glad it was in the 50s instead of the 20s or 30s outside last night.


• I think that was the first time I'd used my patio furniture in the entire time I've lived in this house.

Did you stay up for the eclipse? Post your thoughts (and links to any cool pictures you may have taken) in the comments below.

Fall Has Fell

The academic calendar says there's one more day left, but for me, the fall semester came to a close at around 10:30 this morning. Since the college is out this week, I was able to squeeze the bulk of five days' worth of students (save for a few taking exams) into just over three days. I have some teaching-related errands yet to run (most notably, finding an ensemble for a larger-than-usual group) and one more school concert tonight, but otherwise, Fall 2010 is in the books.

It was a busy, busy semester, without a doubt. Even a lot of the weekends weren't particularly "weekend-y" at times. But everything that's been occupying my time falls under the category of Good Stuff, so it's all been time well spent.

The public schools don't resume until January 4, and the college is off until the 18th. Commence relaxation. Oh, and happy Beethoven's Birthday! He would have been 240 today.

Years Later, the Dream Is Still Alive

For the past several months, I've been without the use of my iPod car converter, so I've had to kick it old-school and rely on CDs for my listening while driving around. And although I have a certain "regular rotation" of favorite driving music, I've also taken advantage of the opportunity to bust out some music that I haven't listened to in a long, long time, which includes this great old song from my college days:



The group Münchener Freiheit, known simply as Freiheit over here, came to the attention of U.S. audiences when the above song was featured in the soundtrack to the movie Say Anything. That movie starred John Cusack, who was a favorite actor of my sister's when she was in high school and college. She decided she wanted Freiheit's entire album, Fantasy, which I bought for her for Christmas. And after a single listen, I was also hooked and promptly bought another copy for myself.

This song, "Keeping the Dream Alive," was by far my favorite; with its Beatlesque harmonies and sweeping orchestral accompaniment, it has been described by a YouTube commenter as the "best Paul McCartney song Paul McCartney never wrote," and I've always found it to be very uplifting. A lot of the other songs on the album (which is still available in its German-language version but sadly out-of-print in English) are also quite reminiscent of the Beatles, but even the other songs are perfectly serviceable Europop that has stood the test of time reasonably well.

By the way, Münchener Freiheit is still very much a band, having released 17 albums since they started in 1981, though the (shameful, in my opinion) lack of enthusiasm over here for their English-language version of Fantasy meant that all their subsequent recordings have only been recorded in German. (Listen to their vocals, and you'll marvel at how well they sing in a foreign language; only a few words of one song, "Diana," gives any indication of an accent.)

One other note of interest: Evidently the wintertime release of this song in the U.K. has turned it into a minor Christmas classic over there, where it still gets a lot of airplay at this time of year. (And it reached a few more American ears a few years ago when it was featured on American Idol, a show I've never watched.)

Enjoy this blast from the past, which is a great song deserving of more recognition over here.

The Phantom Tollbooth (Modern Version)

When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was The Phantom Tollbooth, the story of a kid named Milo who had all kinds of unusual adventures when he drove his toy car through a magical tollbooth that he receives mysteriously one afternoon as a gift. But now, the title takes on a new meaning; as of today, there will no longer be such a thing as a "tollbooth" in the North Texas area, as the North Texas Tollway Authority completes its transition to cashless tolling.

It's not exactly a new thing; tolls on the Bush Turnpike has been all-electronic for over a year now, but it took a while for some of the older facilities, like the Dallas North Tollway and the Addison Airport Toll Tunnel, to get retrofitted. The big, clunky buildings that stretched across the highway have either had their cash lanes eliminated or been replaced by the new, smaller "gantries" that adorn the newer roads in the system. And while the NTTA went to great lengths to retrain its toll collectors for other positions in the agency, it still marks the end of an era in local transportation.

There's been pseudo-automation in the toll road industry for decades, of course, ever since the first coin-operated toll baskets were installed in, what--the '50s? As a little kid, I always liked the "throw in the basket" tolls more than the "pay the man" tolls, mostly because Dad would let me toss the coins in the former. But I wonder if anyone imagined even two decades ago that everything would be automated at this point in time. (Yeah, they probably did, and they also likely thought the toll plazas would be elevated to accommodate our flying cars, LOL.)

I guess my only question for the NTTA is if/when the big hulky plazas on the Bush will be replaced by gantries; as it stands now, there's a lot of excess concrete out there where the cash lanes used to be, and it's a little annoying that the onramps start out wide and narrow to a single lane to enter the highway. But I guess that will all happen soon enough.

So if you drive through a toll plaza today--not having to slow down at all to do so--think back for a moment and remember the folks whose jobs have now been assigned to the pages of history.

KIds Say the Darnedest Things When They Make Mistakes

Another Wednesday, another round of funny-kid stuff in lessons...

ME: Oops--you played that quarter note like a half note again.
KID: Poop!
ME: Not in here, please; I have to teach in this room for several more hours.

(And it's even funnier when you realize that the kid who said it is a sixth-grade girl, and that she did so as daintily as possible.)

A Dandy Time Was Had By All Who Knew Him

I hadn't really thought about Don Meredith for a while until news of his passing came in yesterday. But after reading this column by the Dallas Morning News' Brad Townsend, I felt more than a little sad. Despite all the fame (both from being the Cowboys' quarterback and his later stint in the Monday Night Football booth), he remained grounded until the end. From a 2009 DMN interview:

"I'm very thankful," he said in a reflective moment that day, retrieving a photo of his parents from a bookcase. "I'm very thankful about where I'm from and who I am."

When his broadcasting career was over, he mostly stayed out of the limelight, and, as noted in the linked article, most of today's young people don't even remember him in the broadcast booth, much less wearing the starred helmet. But some say that "Dandy Don" has a latter-day counterpart in Tony Romo, and there's no doubt his influence on the franchise is still felt today. Rest in peace, #17; you will be missed.

Notes From the Road (East Texas Edition)

I spent over 375 miles on the road this weekend, all of it "local" (as in within an hour or so of home). My trip to Commerce yesterday included a lot of unusual observations along the way:

• I've seen a drive-thru beer barn many times in the past, but today was the first time I saw a drive-thru feed store. I wonder if you can keep animals in the back of your truck and just toss the feed right in there with them...


• Favorite store name: A custom bike shop called "Knucklehead and Sons."


• Favorite store name #2, in the "say this ten times fast" department: Pippin's Propane.


• I still can't believe they have the Watergate Apartments in Greenville. That name just seems...scandalous.


• I-30 was simply swarming with state troopers today, for no apparent reason. The most unusual sighting was the car that appeared to be giving someone a reverse escort--as in, the patrol car drove behind this pickup truck with its lights flashing, all the way until the truck exited the freeway. After that, the trooper turned his lights off and continued on. I have no idea what that was about...


• The construction area in Greenville featured nearly every warning sign possible, all lined up in a row like a little sign army: UNEVEN LANES, TEXTURED PAVEMENT AHEAD, ROUGH ROAD, NO CENTER STRIPE, SHOULDER DROP OFF. (I think we got the idea.)


• On Hwy. 24 up to commerce, there was an extraordinary amount of roadkill on Hwy. 24, with birds feasting at every turn. But as I drove near them, they naturally dispersed, forcing them to "carrion" about their business a little later. (And most of the roadkill appeared to be skunks...eww.)

I'm still a bit weary from the long weekend of trips, but I won't have to drive that much again until Christmas.

BBF Is My New BFF Band These Days

Here's one more video from Brandt Brauer Frick, this time with orchestral instruments added to their trio setup:



I've just found out that these guys are playing SXSW in March; a trip to Austin may now be on the schedule for spring break.

Fascinating Rhythms

I just got turned onto this group in the past hour, and they're quite intriguing to me:



(If you want to avoid the cheesy--and fake?--German talk show intro, skip to 1:00 for the beginning of the tune.)

Brandt Brauer Frick plays dance music almost completely on acoustical instruments, though sometimes in unusual ways (screws in the strings, etc.). They also come from an interesting background: Daniel Brandt and Jan Brauer met in their high school jazz band, and Paul Frick is a classically-trained composer. The result of their collaboration is like nothing you've heard before.

(Thanks to eMusic for featuring this group on their frontpage today. I guess I'll still be discovering great indie artists on that site even as I gobble up all the ECM they just acquired in the past week.)

KIds Say the Darnedest Things About Geography

World geography, from the mind of a sixth-grader:

(During a lesson, I have just taken a few seconds to adjust the day/date function on my watch, since there's no November 31. The student notices what I'm doing.)

KID: Your watch shows the date? That's cool. (Looks at watch.)
ME: What's really cool is the place where I bought it.
KID: Where's that?
ME: Switzerland.
KID: Switzerland...that's in Germany, right?

And of course, this reminded me of the summer when I went to Switzerland and procured said watch; many of the students I taught at the time, after being advised of my absence for the trip, asked me if I was going to have to learn to "speak Swedish" to go over there.

(Pardon the rerun if you're my friend on Facebook, but I've been blogging funny kid stuff for years.)

They Did It. They Really Did it!

This happy tweet from @MeanGreenSports made my day:

Mike Canales named Associate Head Coach of the Mean Green!

That's right, despite my concerns from the other day that Coach Canales was getting the shaft, if appears that the Mean Green brain trust has pulled off the unthinkable, getting the "name" coach with college experience that they desired in Dan McCarney, while also keeping the popular and inspiring interim coach of the past five weeks on board. And evidently, Associate Head Coach is not Canales' only title; he also retains his old job as offensive coordinator and will coach the quarterbacks as well.

As I noted on Facebook this afternoon, I was kind of lukewarm regarding the McCarney hire (and more than a little upset that Canales appeared headed elsewhere), but my enthusiasm just went up 500% with today's news, which undoubtedly sent a huge message to the Mean Green fan base.

So, welcome, Coach Mac! Congrats, Coach Canales! And let's hit the recruiting trail and give the new stadium (which is bound to be a sellout next September 10 against Houston, with yours truly in the stands for sure) a team that will be fun to watch and will pile up the wins in fairly quick fashion.

I Like Mike. Too Bad the Higher-Ups Don't Agree

As I mentioned yesterday, I have been quite impressed with the job that Mike Canales has done since being named interim head football coach at UNT last month. He added a couple of wins to an otherwise dismal season, and his energy and enthusiasm captured the hearts of the fans and the team itself. At Saturday's game, one of the biggest cheers being led from the student side was "MIKE-CA-NA-LES! (clap! clap! clap clap clap!)," and at game's end, several team members joined in and pointed toward the man as he headed to the sideline. Even if the wins weren't all there, the team played with a new sense of purpose and determination that hadn't been seen in a while. From this fan's standpoint, it sure seemed that Canales had done enough to earn the permanent job.

But the "powers that be" don't seem to see it that way. As I noted last night, some of us at the game had barely sat down to dinner when reports started to surface that former Iowa State coach Dan McCarney had been offered the job...which seemed to leave Canales, who had openly expressed his desire to be a head coach somewhere, out in the cold. I know that neither the fans nor the team can play too active of a role in the choice of the next coach, but it seemed that something was wrong here. And from reading the GoMeanGreen.com forums deep into the night last night, I was starting to see a troubling picture, if any of the following scenarios are true:

• Athletic Director Rick Villarreal wanted to give Canales the head job, but he was vetoed by university President Lane Rawlins and/or the Board of Regents.


• McCarney is an old crony of Chuck Neinas, the head of the consulting firm hired to assist with the head coaching search.

But that's the hearsay; here is what we know for sure: McCarney may have been the winningest coach in Iowa State's history, but his overall record was 56-85 in 12 seasons at the helm. (And an Iowa State fan on the forum said that McCarney should get the Mean Green to a bowl in 4-5 years, as if that was a good thing.)

Look, I understand that RV and company probably feel burned by what happened (or, more correctly, what didn't happen) in the Todd Dodge era, and I know that they wanted a proven college head coach. But still, I can't get past the 56-85 thing right now. Didn't Canales do enough to prove himself at this level over the past month? Isn't it time to keep the outstanding coach who's in your own backyard, rather than go for a retread who's sort of well-known?

There's only one way this could end happily at this point: If McCarney offers Canales the chance to stay--offensive coordinator again?--and Canales takes it. I don't know a thing about McCarney; is he a confident enough man to retain the most popular coach who's been at UNT in a long time, knowing that there would be calls for Canales to take over if McCarney can't right the ship in time? And would Canales settle for the consolation prize, knowing that he might have been able to get the top job at another school?

I'm still not a very happy alum right now, but I guess I need to suck it up and give "Coach Mac" a chance, if this deal does indeed go down in the next few days. And I wish Coach Canales (clap! clap! clap clap clap!) all the best, no matter what happens.

Farewell to Fouts

It may still be Thanksgiving break at UNT, but the campus was full of people today for a momentous occasion: The final football game ever to be played at Fouts Field.

It was also the site of a ginormous alumni reunion for the UNT marching band, the Green Brigade, of which I was a member for four years during undergrad school, and around 150 alumni showed up to that gathering. Even though we went through a whole season of weather today (from the upper 30s when I woke up to the 60s to--seriously--a sunburn in the stands during the first half of the game), it was a day I won't soon forget.

Was it weird to march again? You bet! Considering that I hadn't been in a marching band of any kind since late in grad school (and even that was a fake band, assembled for a movie that was shot on campus at the time), or marched for real since my first senior year of undergrad--yeah, it was quite an unusual experience. (And the march into the stadium has been greatly expanded, leading me to tell the guy next to me, "I see why they also get P.E. credit for this class.")

A lot of things have improved with regard to the game-day experience since I was in school: the evolution of tailgating has been a welcome change; the Hospitality Deck--to which a friend of mine always has access for himself and guests--is a great hangout for alumni which I will miss at the new place; and the support of alumni has grown immensely in the intervening years (when I was in school, the students would show up really late--they still do--but they used to outnumber the alumni by a large margin, but now, the only reason the alumni side isn't full is that some of the seat-holders are out on the Deck).

If you've read the various posts I've written in the past few years regarding the new stadium, you might be surprised at what I'll say next: There's a part of me that will really miss Fouts Field. Sure, in my enthusiasm for the new stadium, I've often described Fouts in less-than-glowing terms (the words "white elephant" and "eyesore" are frequent choices, and there's no denying that every 4A and 5A high school in Texas plays in a nicer venue), but I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a pretty big twinge of sadness when the UNT alma mater, "Glory to the Green," was played within its walls for the last time tonight. It may well be a white elephant, but it's our white elephant, and a lot of memories were made inside a place that I've visited at least once a year since I was 18. The new place will be fun and classy and shiny, but it will take some getting used to, that's for sure.

Now, as for the game itself? Well, we lost. But not by a lot, especially considering the opponent was a Big 12 team with a winning record. Still, I was very impressed with the work of interim head coach Mike Canales, who would seem to have been a favorite to take over the permanent job after two more victories and a very impressive job against 7-5 Kansas State. The team played with more energy than I'd seen all season, and they have definitely bought into what he's doing. Yet it appears that it was decided a few days ago to the job has been offered to someone else (but I'll save that topic for tomorrow).

So long, Fouts; I've spent a lot of time within your walls. Next year's experience will be different (and quite possibly more expensive), and it will be a great thing for the program long-term. But the memories created for UNT fans for the past 59 seasons will not soon be forgotten.

Notes From the Road

I had a quick little trip to Austin to spend Thanksgiving at my sister's; as always, I have thoughts from my time behind the wheel:

• The designers of the interstate highway system, had they been more forward-thinking, should have designed separate, parallel roadways for cars and trucks; the two don't mix well a lot of the time.


• I-35 should be six lanes wide all the way from D/FW to San Antonio.


• The number of people I saw shivering on their shorts and flip-flops when I stopped for a break proved that it's always good to check the weather before you leave on your trip.


• Wednesday night in Dallas, it was in the 70s. When I left yesterday morning, it was in the 40s. I eventually got ahead of the cold front by the time I hit Round Rock, and it rejoined me in Austin shortly after the big meal. I felt like I'd been through a whole year of seasons in about 18 hours.


• In the Waco/Temple area, I saw a couple different locations of a used-car dealership called "Aaron's Autos." It's too bad they didn't use the double-A in both words; "Aaron's Aautos" would have been very catchy.


• Speaking of car dealers, there's a multi-brand dealer on the Round Rock/Georgetown border named Don Hewlett; it's too bad that some of the old nameplates from early last century aren't still on the market, because it would be awesome in this day and age if Hewlett sold Packards.


• Random occurrence of the trip: Running into one of my colleagues from school at Fazoli's in Waco. Evidently, he misses them being in the DFW area as much as I do.


• And finally, the Czech Stop still rules.

Tomorrow, I'll do something I've never done as a blogger: Talk about my experience that day in a marching band.

Thankful

Here are just a few things that I'm thankful for today:

• My Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ; I wouldn't be anywhere without Him.


• Family. My parents just left for a long-awaited trip to Germany, but I get to spend Thanksgiving with my sister and her family. And it's great that all of us are within a short day's drive of each other and don't have to mess with flying, buses, etc., to see each other.


• Friends. I have some of the greatest friends that anyone could ever want. Even though we're getting a bit more far-flung now (I'm pretty sure that, for two of them, this is the first Thanksgiving they won't be spending at home with their families), we're always in each other's hearts, and when we get together next, it will be like no time has passed at all. (And a special shout-out to my brothers in Sinfonia, an amazing extended family from coast to coast.)


• Health. A lot of people I know have had various health challenges this year; I'm grateful not to be one of them, since I spent a bit too much time in doctor's offices in '09.


• Mobility. A year ago, I was five months out from my knee surgery, having ditched the cane and brace and finished physical therapy. But I was still a little gimpy for a while, and I'm happy to have regained my full stride and to even be able to run if I needed to do so.


• Music. Few other things have the ability to uplift the spirit the way that music does. And I get to play and teach it for a living!


• America. With all her faults, she's still the greatest nation that's ever been in existence. Where else would you want to live?

May this be a blessed and joyful day for you and yours.

This May Not "Fit" My LIfestyle, But It's Intriguing

As has been noted in these pages, I'm very happy with Kevmobile 2.0, which is a 2008 Honda Fit. And since I tend to drive cars a long time (I had the original Kevmobile for 11 years and 338,000 miles and its pre-owned successor for five), I won't be in the market for a new one anytime soon. Still, I'm intrigued by the electric version of my car that Honda is developing, the Fit EV Concept, which the company introduced me last week in an email. There's more info about it here and here, including lots of pictures.

But besides the fact that I have miles and miles to go before even thinking about a new car, there's another reason why I'm not sure that one of these could be Kevmobile 3.0, and it's found in this paragraph from the company announcement:

The Fit EV will achieve an estimated 100 miles driving range per charge using the US EPA LA4 City cycle (70 miles when applying EPA's adjustment factor), well more than the average number of miles driven daily by most commuters.

And while I don't usually drive that much in a given workday, there are certainly times where I'd surpass the 100-mile range (especially when visiting one of my far-flung fraternity chapters), and the EPA-adjusted 70-miles wouldn't even get me to Denton and back (so when I visited UNT, I'd have to find a good parking place and a plug for the car? Not likely...). Still, the technology is intriguing to me, and I'll be following this car as it prepares to hit this country in 2012.

Youre Not Even Going To Think About It, UNT? That's WAC!

An open letter to UNT Athletic Director Rick Villarreal:

Dear Rick:

I"m a long-suffering UNT alum who has been attending football games for many, many years. I struggled along with the team during all kinds of losing seasons, and I rejoiced during the New Orleans Bowl years, making my way out to the festivities on two occasions. I've endured the ribbing of my friends who went to school in the old Southwest Conference about our anonymous opponents in the old Southland Conference ("We're playing Tech this week, Kev; who's UNT playing?" "Umm, I think it's Northeast Louisiana. Or maybe Northwestern State. Not sure."), only to have some of those same anonymous schools turn up again in the Sun Belt.

Like most alums, I'm psyched about the new stadium; I drove by it last night when I was in town, and I was pleased to see that the "wing" section of the north end zone has been framed (even if I can't imagine anyone sitting in that one seat up at the very tip). And one of the things I was really hoping for was a chance for UNT to join a more prominent conference--one where us Joe Average Fans have actually heard of the schools. Conferences are in flux right now, and an article a few months ago said that UNT could certainly benefit from this. The WAC, for example, has come calling a few times; that would certainly be an upgrade.

So needless to say, I was really disappointed to read today that the WAC has indeed approached you, but you flat-out turned them down right away. What's up with that? Don't they at least deserve a listen?

Let's look at their lineup for a second. Sure, Boise State is leaving next year (but who needs an annual pummeling anyway?), and they'll be followed a year later by Nevada, Fresno State and Hawaii (dang, no awesome away game!). But the conference still has San Jose State, Utah State, Idaho and New Mexico State, among others, and--here's the kicker--they're adding UT-San Antonio and Texas State in 2012. (Yes, never mind the irony of UNT playing Texas State--née Southwest Texas State--since "Texas State" was the name of the school "played" by UNT in the movie Necessary Roughness, and one of their opponents was Southwest Texas. Heh.)

Do you get that, Rick? We could have two in-state opponents instead of the closest one being in Louisiana! Don't you think some of our football recruits would like to play against their old high school friends at some other Texas schools? And some of the other WAC schools are at least places that most fans would recognize (sorry, we could be in the Sun Belt for another 20 years and I'd still get Florida Atlantic and Florida International mixed up.)

The article that I referenced quotes you as follows: “We made a commitment to a conference that we want to try to help continue to grow. We feel that there is a little more stability in the situation we are in today.” But Rick, doesn't stable equal boring sometimes? I don't see this as the same as leaving your stable, faithful spouse for a trophy wife or anything. And you talk about helping the conference grow; maybe it's time for the situation where the conference helps UNT a little more than the other way around. Do you know something we don't know about the WAC's future, or are you just afraid to make a bold move?

Sure, my pipe dream would be to have UNT in a conference with all Texas schools: SMU, Rice, Houston, etc. (TCU may well be out of reach now). But wouldn't a conference with at least some Texas schools be an upgrade?

I'm not sure how the fan base will react to this, Rick. I can only hope you know what you're doing in this regard, because, with the great steps forward being taken with the new stadium, not even giving the WAC the time of day sounds at best like spinning your wheels, and at worst perhaps a step backwards.

One final thing: I realize that it's possible that there is something even better on the horizon that you just can't talk about quite yet. If so, I'll retract the bulk of this letter in due time. But know that I'm not likely to be the only one who's frustrated right now.

Sincerely,
Kev
Just another concerned alum

Fraterniversary

On this day, lo these many years ago, I became a brother in Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity. During that time, I've had some unforgettable personal and musical experiences, met some amazing people, and gained an extended family that stretches from coast to coast. Tonight, I'll celebrate my fraterniversary with my home-bros at Gamma Theta at my alma mater, the University of North Texas, but my salute goes out to Sinfonians everywhere who have impacted my life. All Hail!