Counseling from Coach Lombardi

As the BC Lions peer into the abyss, it is time to remember the words of Vince Lombardi, the Green Bay legend.  Coach Lombardi said "Winning isn't everything--it's the only thing."

Lombardi claimed never to have lost a game.  If a game ended with the Packers on the short end of the score, he would say "We didn't lose--the time ran out," confident that if the clock had kept running, his team would have triumphed. Memo to Wally Buono:  These words may work in the next post-game media scrum.

P.S.:  When Richard Nixon was US President, he often would telephone the Washington Redskins coach to suggest plays.  The coach would politely thank him, and then throw the plays away. A thought: Is it possible that Stephen Harper is phoning in plays to the Lions--and they're using them?

Rumble in Sin City

Hello, sports fans, this is Bob Slaigh speaking to you from the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas, scene of this weekend's "Sin City Rumble," a joyous exhibition of martial arts and sport karate.

We have just watched a demonstration by Pointless Digressions' own Karate Kid, a petite miss who weighs probably 98 pounds in her hiking boots.  With a cunning and lightning-fast move, she felled a six-foot, seven-inch  bruiser weighing 350 pounds. As medics were carrying him away by stretcher, she performed a charming curtsey.

Black Belt Ben of Vernon told us that as this event is set in Las Vegas, Elvis impersonators may be taking part, and indeed, here they come! Shades, sideburns, glossy pompadours, rhinestone-studded suits, blue suede shoes--the works! 

This may be the Tropicana, but for the losers, it's gonna be Heartbreak Hotel.  Ha ha--little Elvis humor there. (Oof! Just took a karate chop to the head.)

So I guess that's it for now, from Sin City Rumble. This is Bob Slaigh, saying "thank yuh veruh much."  

Far Right in Far North

A spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced today that the Conservative leader, on his trip into Canada's Far North, met with the Abominable Snowman and had a "meaningful exchange."

The legendary Snowman turned up on karaoke night at the Churchill Sip 'n' Strip and joined the Prime Minister in a rendition of "Baby, It's Cold Outside."

"I was delighted to learn," said the Prime Minister, "that the Snowman is a Conservative, and a fierce defender of Canadian sovereignty in the north.  He said, and I quote, 'If any Russians penetrate our territory, I will have them for blubber.'  He'll be the ideal backup for John Baird."

It is expected the Abominable Snowman will be the Conservative nominee for Nunavut in the next federal election.  Pressed for comment, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff said "Frankly, I'm surprised. I thought the Conservatives were already abominable enough."  

Cue the Cantaloupes

Tune for the day, from our Musical Meteorology Department:  

Herbie Hancock's "Cantaloupe Island."

(Excellent performance by HH and Pat Metheny can be Googled.)

Hey, Big Spender!

The New York Times recently ran an article headed "How to be Frugal and Still Get Dates."  This is a topic that has long puzzled us, as we wonder why dates seem unenthusiastic when we suggest going Dutch, or, better yet, having them pick up the whole tab.

Apparently women generally find men whose wallets are zippered and cobwebbed less than captivating. According to the Times, a survey asking women how they would regard a blind date prospect described as "frugal" found that 15 percent would expect the male in question to be boring and 27 percent thought he would be stingy.  There is some hope, however:  three percent of those surveyed thought "frugal" meant "sexy."

To show that attitudes have not changed, the Times reprinted this advertisement which appeared in an 1860 personals column in the Herald Tribune:  "A young lady, rather good looking, of good address, desires the acquaintance of a gentleman of wealth.  None other need apply."  

Our advice:  Next time you ask for a date, have your accountant with you. 

Caught Between Vinyl and the iPhone

As the Apostles of the New Technology push onward, those of us who remember 78 rpm records ("stacks of wax," disc jockeys liked to say), typewriters (now in the Smithsonian) and reel-to-reel tape recorders (some with wire, some with paper, which would inconveniently begin to burn in the middle of a program) feel strangely isolated, strangers in a strange land (thank you, Exodus and Robert Heinlein).

Some of us remember the arrival of television, 12-inch black-and-white screens in furniture store windows, curious passersby pressing their noses to the glass.  Some of us are trying to forget the programs.  

Then there were the first computers--machines roughly the size of a Sherman tank.  Now teenagers everywhere carry electronic devices the size of baseball cards which can send messages, take photographs, contain as much information as exists in the Oxford English Dictionary, do the laundry, cash cheques, and mix a mean mojito. 

Here at Pointless Digressions we are experimenting with an earlier, but still effective, means of communication:  smoke signals.  Please hand me my iBlanket.

A Tip of the Hat

News story in the Vancouver Sun declares that the snap-brim fedora is back.  We are so pleased. Until recently, the only persons wearing a snap-brim fedora were Don Draper, Fearless Fosdick, and the proprietor of Pointless Digressions.

Next, dare we hope? The porkpie and homburg may return.  And this would constitute--wait for it--a hat trick.

Okay, sorry. 

TransLink Etiquette

The current wave of +30 temperatures reminded us of one of David Letterman's lines:  "I was riding in a cab this afternoon, and the driver said to me 'Man, is so hot!  If I used a deodorant I would have used it today.'"

What really brought this to mind was a tip on personal hygiene and daintiness from TransLink, broadcast, for some reason, on the People's Radio Network.  The message from TransLink was something like this:  "It's very hot and sticky, sweaty, out there.  So think of the person sitting next to you, and ride as you'd like your fellow passengers to ride." 

Listeners may have found lessons in etiquette from TransLink to be needlessly intrusive, but at least the company backed away from the original slogan proposed by its ad agency, Banal & Tryte: "TransLink says Don't Stink!"

Other handy tips for bus and SkyTrain riders:

* Keep box of tissues handy in case passenger next to you breaks up with boyfriend/girlfriend via cell phone, and begins to weep.

* If gentleman sitting next to you eating 12-inch submarine sandwich drops dill pickle into your lap, resist temptation to eat it.

* Should passenger beside you begin talking to himself/herself, do not enter the conversation.

Heaven and Hy's

"I believe," said one of our company, "that there have been more changes at the Vatican in the past four decades than at Hy's."

We--several members of the Pointless Digressions Irresponsible Brigade--were at Hy's Encore on Hornby Street in Vancouver.  Nothing had changed since we first lunched there, in the 1960s.  The dark wood paneling, the oil paintings, the cosy bar resembling the reading room in a gentleman's club, the heavy-on-steaks menu, the elegant cocktails, the cheese toast, the fireplace, even the background music--Miles Davis, Paul Desmond--was the same.

The remarkable thing was that, as we sat to table, our present ages vanished, and we were once again the people we had been forty years ago.  Instead of ages sixty to seventy-seven, we were twenty to thirty-seven.

Alas, once we stepped onto the street, in the bright noonday sun, we reverted to our current years.  

Hugh Pickett, for decades Vancouver's dominant impresario, once said that when he shuffled off this mortal coil, he wanted to go not to Heaven, but to New York's Plaza Hotel.  

Our group wants to go to Hy's Encore.

And in this corner...

This date in 1937:  Ernest Hemingway tore open his shirt in Max Perkins's office at Scribner's to display his luxuriant mound of chest hair, and then punched Max Eastman in the nose.

The previous year, Modernist poet Wallace Stevens ("The Emperor of Ice Cream," "The Man with the Blue Guitar," etc.) declared to friends at a Key West bar "I wish I had Hemingway here right now.  I'd knock him out with a single punch."  Unfortunately for Wally, Hemingway just then did appear at the door.  Stevens threw his one punch and broke his hand on Hem's jaw.

That Wallace Stevens should have initiated a brawl with Ernest Hemingway seems as incongruous as Woody Allen picking a fight with Mel Gibson (or, to put it in Canadian literary terms, John Ralston Saul swinging at Jim Christy).

Meanwhile, for those wishing more on Hemingway the Pugilist, the critic in this corner, wearing purple polka dot trunks and weighing in at 475 pounds, recommends "Shadow Box" by George Plimpton.

Dog Days of Summer

It is reported that last week a woman arrived at the Victoria SPCA kennels and asked if they might accept a few small dogs.  When the answer was yes, the woman opened her Mustang convertible and out ran 43 chihuahuas.

The SPCA staff was only briefly nonplussed, and happily took the cheery little (1.5 to 3.0 pounds) dogs under their care.

They were grateful a pickup truck hadn't pulled up to deliver 43 Irish wolfhounds (90 to 120 pounds).

Sandy says "Arf! Arf!"

Wherever Sports News Takes You

Rumors that Richard Stursberg has been signed as the BC Lions new offensive coordinator turn out to have been unfounded, according to Pointless Digressions sports reporter Bob Slaigh.

Slaigh says "Wally Buono told me that Stursberg has an impressive track record in offence, but Buono could not accept his idea of replacing the present Lions backfield with four hip-hop singers and a rap artist."

One football analyst disagreed, saying "A rapper at quarterback calling signals could have given the team a great boost in ratings."  

Everywhere Music Took Him

For the past several months, CBC Radio 2 has pushed the line "Everywhere music takes you." Last weekend, it apparently took Richard Stursberg out the door.

Stursberg was executive vice-president, English language services, covering both radio and television.  And while one can bemoan the state of CBC-TV, or simply avoid it, which most of us do, the most wrenching change under Stursberg's watch came to Radio 2. Almost overnight, what had been an eminently civilized haven on the dial sought to recreate itself in the image of a so-so 1970s pop-rock station.  Arts reports were dropped, news came in bite-size chunks, "featurettes" were thrust at us, new program hosts, some of whom seemed to be learning on the job, began giving their names every fifteen seconds, and there was a relentless torrent of promotion announcements. 

So Stursberg's departure (which sounds as though it could be an episode in a made-for-tv drama) has encouraged some longtime Radio 2 listeners to hope for a return to what was once listenable.  But be warned: Charlie Smith of Georgia Straight suggests that CBC staffers who embraced the Stursberg formula remain in key positions, so his influence may linger on.  And on.  Everywhere music takes you.

Meanwhile, attempts to bring back Bob Kerr have been unsuccessful.

Writer's Condition

August 7, 1804--William Blake writes to William Hayley:  "Money flies from me. Profit never ventures upon my threshold."

It's the writer's condition.  (Unless you're Nora Roberts.)

Changes at the top

Recent polls indicate that in national and provincial politics, both the governing federal leader and British Columbia leader are in disfavor with the electorate.

This is not to say their parties could not regain control in the next election, which both leaders hope will take place sometime in 2011, when most voters will be nonfunctional. 

However, some changes have been recommended.  On the national scene, it has been noted that PM Harper could be defeated by Stompin' Tom Connors, Rita McNeil, or several deceased prime ministers.

In British Columbia, polls show that a new government could be formed by a party led by Dal Richards, Smokey the Bear, Stanley the dog, or a holograph. 

A good evening to politicians everywhere.

Mitch and Bird

We were surprised, this week, to read an obituary for Mitch Miller; surprised because we assumed the spade-bearded A&R giant and singalong maestro had departed this planet decades ago.  He had not. Mitch Miller was on the scene, if not actually seen, until age ninety-nine.

Probably few persons under the age of sixty would have known who Mitch Miller was.  The obituary writers made up for that.  But they left out what was, for some of us, the most interesting part of his long and varied career:  the fact that he had played oboe on the initial recordings of Charlie Parker with strings.

The year was 1949, and Parker--Bird--recorded six 78 rpm tracks. With him, and a group of classically-oriented string players, were Stan Freeman, piano; Ray Brown, bass; Buddy Rich, drums; and Mitch Miller, oboe.  Apart from Parker, only Freeman and Miller got solos, and Miller's were significantly large.    

Parker was not only the leading figure in post-1945 jazz, he was, in the opinion of New York music educator and "Metronome" writer Barry Ulanov, "the greatest improviser since J.S. Bach."  Many of his admirers thought recording Parker with strings was an artistic vulgarization.  Stan Kenton said Parker's playing was like "a pearl in a puddle of mud."  But those recordings have stood up remarkably well, and one of them--"Just Friends"--is among the best of Parker's legacy.

Mitch Miller was a secondary figure on these recordings, but a perfect balance for Parker and the strings.  Most people who remember Miller will remember "The Yellow Rose of Texas," "Come On-a My House" and "Sing Along with Mitch."   We'll remember "Charlie Parker with Strings"--Bird and Mitch.

Cool off with Herbie

Song of the week:  Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man."

Missed Invitations

Events to which we were not invited:

* Chelsea Clinton's wedding

* Michael Ignatieff's bus tour

* Conrad Black's coming out party

Breakthrough for US Auto Industry

A report today from the Highway Loss Data Institute is being hailed as a victory for the US auto industry in its attempt to regain the edge over Asian auto makers.

According to the institute's study, the most popular vehicle for auto thieves in 2009 was the Cadillac Escalade, with more than ten vehicles out of every 1,000 stolen.  The Caddy was, in the words of an institute spokesman, the vehicle "most preferred by thieves."

Number Two on the list was the Ford F-250 Crew Cab.  The spokesman declared "Thieves are after chrome, horsepower and Hemis." 

This is a dramatic turnaround from 2008, when the most popular vehicles for thieves were the Honda Accord, Honda Civic and Toyota Camry. 

Asian manufacturers are said to be huddling with engineers and designers, hoping to return to first place among felons.  "But for now," said one US auto industry titan, "we're Number One!" 

BC Day explained

We have arrived at BC Day--August 2, brought into law as Bill 61, which states, in part, "Whoa, it's been a long time since Victoria Day! Let's get some beer and sit in a ferry lineup for 48 hours!"

Bill 61 was introduced in 1964 by Provincial Secretary Ernie Hall, but the true author of Bill 61, the creator of BC Day, was that feisty East Ender and pride of the NDP, Premier Dave Barrett.

And that is how BC Day was given its name.  Most people assume that "BC" stands for British Columbia.  It does not.  It stands for--wait for it--

Barrett's Coup. 

BC Day explained