those cardinals. those stupid st. louis cardinals are in the world series. again. yea! for them. do you realize that they blew a 3-1 lead in the nlcs last year to the giants? so they could easily have been in 3 straight world series. do you realize how unlikely that is? trust me, it is. go back and look at world series history and see how many times that has happened. not many. the only consultation i can take from this is that we (the astros) poached jeff luhnow to be our gm. he came from the st. louis organization. i think we poached a few people which is great because as tough as it is to admit it, they are one of the best run organizations in sports. not just baseball. in sports. they passed on albert pujols. which to the rest of us made perfect sense but it had to be hard in st. louis to say," hey, we let albert pujols go and we're going to get better. oh, also, we hired a manager with absolutely no managerial experience. on any level." and guess what? they did get better. it was the smart move. most organizations don't make the smart move. they make the easy move.
anyway, either it's the tigers, which is a rematch of the 2006 world series which the cardinals won, or it's the red sox, which is a rematch of the 2004 world series which the cardinals lost. it's like old times. except in both of those years, the astros were competitive. and now the texans are in turmoil. i sure hope it works out for the rockets. things could get ugly in houston.
also, i finally broke down and bought volume 5 of the bob dylan bootleg series which is him live in 1975 with the rolling thunder revue. it's so good. today while i'm getting my office unpacked, i'm going to crack it up. bob live! redoing old 60s folk songs. can't wait. soon as i get the computer hooked up, i'll be able to get back to uploading pictures. mostly of the house.
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
oh mercy
i've always had a line in the sand with bob dylan. i've had it for a long time. i wasn't going to invest in any of his work post the 1976 album 'desire'. i'd heard a few things and didn't feel like it was for me. i've read plenty of articles that confirm the output was not up to par and this includes all the material from the latter half of the 1970's and the entire 1980's and much of the 1990's.
the album 'oh mercy' first came to my attention in the book 'bob dylan: chronicles'. the book is his first hand account of several important points in his life. the recording of oh mercy is one of those stories. it's hard to imagine bob dylan with nothing to say. but this is where he was at in 1989 when the opportunity to get back into the studio was broached to him. you listen to his output from the 1960's and it's unlike anything you've ever heard. the stream of conscious lyrics somehow plant themselves right in your brain and you understand what he's saying even if you can't totally explain it or understand it. the dropoff actually begins earlier than the late 1970s. it starts with the albums 'new morning' and 'planet waves'. these were the first bob dylan albums i listened to that i thought, what is going on here? nothing is really being said. they just exist. but for what?
he turned up the effort for 'blood on the tracks' and 'desire'. but it was gone after that. songs here and there turned up. but the misguided production efforts turned much of this material into the obvious work of a confused artist. oh mercy however comes to life. he worked with daniel lanois, famous for working with u2. the songs have strength. they breathe. these are bob dylan songs.
i'm going to keep exploring this material. i've already heard some of it that i know i'll probably never listen to again. but maybe 'infidel's', 'street legal' or 'slow train coming' have something i'm missing. it's bob dylan. it's worth the effort.
the album 'oh mercy' first came to my attention in the book 'bob dylan: chronicles'. the book is his first hand account of several important points in his life. the recording of oh mercy is one of those stories. it's hard to imagine bob dylan with nothing to say. but this is where he was at in 1989 when the opportunity to get back into the studio was broached to him. you listen to his output from the 1960's and it's unlike anything you've ever heard. the stream of conscious lyrics somehow plant themselves right in your brain and you understand what he's saying even if you can't totally explain it or understand it. the dropoff actually begins earlier than the late 1970s. it starts with the albums 'new morning' and 'planet waves'. these were the first bob dylan albums i listened to that i thought, what is going on here? nothing is really being said. they just exist. but for what?
he turned up the effort for 'blood on the tracks' and 'desire'. but it was gone after that. songs here and there turned up. but the misguided production efforts turned much of this material into the obvious work of a confused artist. oh mercy however comes to life. he worked with daniel lanois, famous for working with u2. the songs have strength. they breathe. these are bob dylan songs.
i'm going to keep exploring this material. i've already heard some of it that i know i'll probably never listen to again. but maybe 'infidel's', 'street legal' or 'slow train coming' have something i'm missing. it's bob dylan. it's worth the effort.
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