It's Election Night

If 2020 couldn't get any more surreal, consider this:

- Today is Election Day and by all reports, the turnout of in-person voting coupled with mail-in, early voting and absentee voting will set a modern-day record. All in an environment where we're COVID-19 restricted and coping with social distancing, staying at home and quarantining.

- The presidential candidates are an incumbent that has called into question any ballots not counted today and a former Vice President whose home state is considered the key to this race.

- State races in places like Montana and Kansas are commanding national attention.

- Texas might actually flip into blue state territory.

- Retail establishments and businesses are proactively boarding up windows in major cities in preparation for the possibility of civil unrest.

- And, media outlets of all types are acknowledging their planned caution in prematurely calling state-by-state winners in the presidential race. 

I've heard more than one colleague today say "this is my Super Bowl." While I understand the sentiment, this actually feels more like the Super Bowl and the former military draft lottery day all rolled into one. This Election Day has the visibility and interest of the Super Bowl with the anxiety created by whether your number would be called for military duty...and a four-year commitment. (Yeah, I know--one has to be of my vintage to remember draft lottery days. But, hopefully, you get the idea.)

What are your plans for the evening? I'm on cocktail number one and a fat Cohiba cigar in anticipation for a very long night and morning of channel surfing with my primary outlet being CBS. 

If tuning in isn't in your plans, may I suggest curling up with a good political book of campaigns past or perhaps a movie about our democratic process?

- The Making of the President 1968, Theodore White

- The Boys on the Bus, Timothy Crouse (1972 campaign)

- Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 1972 (Hunter Thompson)

- The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Netflix)

- The Best Man (Henry Fonda; screenplay by Gore Vidal)

- The Candidate (Robert Redford)

- Shampoo (a cop-out given that the movie is set on the day of the '68 election; stars Warren Beatty)

- All the President's Men (Redford, Dustin Hoffman and the late, great Jason Robards)

- The American President (Michael Douglas)

- Primary Colors (John Travolta)

- The Campaign (Will Ferrell)

However this election ends, my hope is that we applaud the democratic process and use this as a turning point toward a more united democracy. 

Gale Sayers

Gale Sayers. The Kansas Comet. Gallopin' Gale. Magic (as his late teammate, Brian Piccolo, described him.) I Am Third. Brian's Song.

Given Sayers' death today, the tributes are justifiably rolling in via news coverage and social media posts. It's been a bit hard to process because, yet again, one of my heroes has past.

Sayers was the most exciting running back that I've ever seen play. I was a kid who attended Kansas games with my parents and watched 48 leave tacklers in his wake given his fluid and elusive running style. It was amazing that a guy wearing high top leather football cleats could be that slippery.

He then went to the Chicago Bears where I remember watching the six touchdown game against San Francisco. And, I remember my heartbreak at his knee injuries, which cut his career short way too early.

I Am Third, Sayers' book, was the first book that I remember reading by a black author. The book was about being third behind God and family. I still have it in my library.

And, Brian's Song. I'm sure I cried at some movie growing up but this movie was the one that caused grown men everywhere to do it. The story, of Sayers' friendship with Piccolo, who is dying of cancer, is as meaningful today as it was in 1971.

I had the good fortune of meeting Sayers at a University of Kansas event many years ago. It was very brief but I remember the grace and elegance of the man. As I look back at the YouTube clips of him at Kansas and Chicago, that grace and elegance is displayed on the field as well.

2020 has claimed another victim. RIP Gale Sayers.

10 Albums: Kind of Blue

The final installment in my "10 Albums" is Kind of Blue by Miles Davis. It is, without question, the greatest jazz album of all time and one of the greatest albums, of any kind, ever.

I rekindled my love affair with vinyl records about four years ago and it was in that shift that I realized I'd never truly investigated jazz. I was in a record store, collecting my first few vinyls, and happened to be in an outlet that has a huge jazz section. I knew Davis, of course, and had heard about Kind of Blue. It was there, I bought it, and the rest is why this album is the last record in my list of 10 albums.

Kind of Blue is, truly, a religious experience. There is a haunting element to the sounds that come from the  sextet of Davis, the amazing John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb. (This assemblage of talent is akin to some weird, time-altered combination of Michael Jordan, Lebron James, Wilt Chamberlain, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.)

From the opening bass line of "So What," the album pulls you in and takes you to a place of rapt attention. This isn't an album that I listen to as background--it absorbs you and commands you to listen. And, every time I listen, I feel something new.

Kind of Blue is Davis' greatest work and his most acclaimed achievement. It is a must have on anyone's "10 Albums." 

Thanks for indulging me on this journey with my "10 Albums." Kind of Blue--one of the best albums, ever, in any genre.

"We've lost the traditions"

 I settled in yesterday to watch a very different College Game Day on ESPN given the all-too-known issues that you're aware of as relates to live sports, social distancing, on-air personalities and the constantly altered landscape of sports programming.

The Game Day crew cut away during the program to Chapel Hill, NC and interviewed Mack Brown, head football coach of the North Carolina Tarheels, before his squad took the field to play Syracuse. Brown talked of the challenge of leading and coaching his team in these odd times and made the prescient comment, "we've lost the traditions" associated with college football.  

Brown's comment was spot on. In 2012-13, I was part of a team that helped launch the College Football Playoff. This cross-functional group (Premier Sports Management, marketing representatives from various college conferences, and ESPN) was tasked with naming, positioning, branding and launching the playoff, which had been announced in April 2012 and was set to begin in 2014.

I led the effort to implement focus group research to interview college football fans (avid and moderate) to ensure that we had directional insights from that important audience. I attended the research in Kansas City, Dallas and Atlanta and watched groups of 10-12 people arrive adorned in their team's colors and all-too-ready to talk football and why they loved the game. In the Dallas session, a middle-age man wearing an Oklahoma sweatshirt sat next to a female recent Texas graduate who was wearing the burnt orange of the Longhorns. What enmity they shared as rivals was overshadowed by the passion they felt for college football.

To a person, each fan talked of the importance of the traditions of the sport--the cheerleaders, mascots, marching bands, tailgating, campus environments and other school-specific rituals, whether touching Howard's Rock at Clemson or planting the spear at Doak Walker Stadium at Florida State.

Football is back. But, let's be real--college football as a game is back. College football as a sport, pastime and passion point for thousands across the U.S. is not. Our traditions--the things that make us love college football--are, at least for this year, lost as we deal with the ongoing impact of the pandemic.

Traditions are why I love college sports. And, the loss of those traditions is just one more reminder that life is very, very sad right now. 

I miss the sport of college football. 

10 Albums: The Joshua Tree

 I have a confession to make--it took me too long to discover (yes, I said "discover") U2 and, specifically, this album. 

The Joshua Tree (released March 1987) was the album that moved U2 from being a band to being rock superstars. The album was critically acclaimed and became the fastest-selling album in British history. Three singles were released from the album; "With or Without You" and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" became the group's only number one singles in the U.S.

I was lucky to see the band perform the album, in its entirety, on their Joshua Tree tour of 2017 in Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City, MO. While the sound was muddy that evening, the craftsmanship of this iconic album was on full display. 

The Joshua Tree. The best album by the best band of the past 35 years.

10 Albums: Rumors

In February 1977, Fleetwood Mac released Rumours--arguably the best album ever to deal with love, loss, strife and relationships gone awry. The album would go on to reach #1 on both the U.S. and U.K. album charts and win a Grammy for Album of the Year. It remains one of the best-selling albums of all time.

Mac's lineup for Rumours was Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood. Four cuts from the album were released as singles and all made their way into the top 10 of the song charts.

The album followed Fleetwood Mac, released in 1975, with "Rhiannon" providing the band with major radio exposure in the mid-70's. Between the release of Fleetwood Mac and Rumours, the band endured:

- The divorce of the McVies.

- The on again/off again relationship of Buckingham and Nicks

- Fleetwood's discovery that his wife, Jenny, had an affair with his best friend

In all cases, the five only seemed able to co-exist when writing, producing and performing music together.

The songs "Dreams," "Don't Stop," "You Make Loving Fun" and "Go Your Own Way" were the singles but the best song appeared on the 2004 re-release of Rumours, that being "Silver Springs." ("Springs" was not part of the original release given tension in the band, which is understandable if you watch Nicks sing this song on the band's video concert release, The Dance. It's an amazing performance of an amazing song.)

Rumours--the album that produced songs saturating AM-FM radio in competition with The Eagles' Hotel California in the mid-to-late 70's.

10 Albums: Hotel California

"You can check out any time you like. But you can never leave."

So goes the lyrics to the title tune of Hotel California the lead in to perhaps the best dueling guitar back-and-forth of any rock song ever, featuring Don Felder and Joe Walsh of The Eagles. Hotel California is the band's magnum opus.

Hotel California was released in December 1976, just months before Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. Cuts from those two albums would saturate the AM-FM radio airwaves for 1977 and beyond, setting the stage for the back-and-forth commercial competition in the late '70s between these two groups.

I saw The Eagles at Kemper Arena in Kansas City, MO in November 1976 when they were touring to promote the upcoming release of the album. I then saw them in summer of 1978--the tour where they played stadiums and headlined a show with Dan Fogelberg and Linda Ronstadt. That shift in concert venue and size indicated the impact of the album on the band's success.

Hotel California is, undoubtedly, The Eagles' best work. It was the first album to feature Walsh and soared to number on on the Billboard album charts. It lost the Grammy for Best Album to Rumours but won for Best Record with "New Kid In Town." Two other singles from the album, "Life In the Fast Lane" and "Hotel California," made the Billboard top 100.

The album is associated with southern California but Don Henley stated, in an interview about Hotel California, that the LP is a "concept album...but it's not set in the old West. It's more urban this time..." and used California as the the microcosm for the United States, opining in the lyrics about themes of innocence, the perils of fame, of excess, idealism and the American Dream.

Randy Meisner, bassist, left the group during the making of Hotel California and was replaced by Timothy B. Schmit. This iteration of the group--Henley, Glenn Frey, Walsh, Felder and Schmit--would be the band's most successful fivesome and would release The Long Run in 1979. In 1980, the group disbanded before reuniting for Hell Freezes Over - the album and tour - in 1994.

Hotel California--truly an amazing piece of musical work.