O, Lord, keep your “thrillers” far away from the Crimson Tide!
’Bama spotted Tennessee a 28-10 first-half lead, but then Heisman Trophy quarterback Bryce Young led the Tide back to tie it 28-28 early in the third quarter. Alabama only punted once in the second half, scoring touchdowns on three of its five possessions, and adding a defensive touchdown when linebacker Dallas Turner scooped up a Tennessee fumble and ran it in. That gave ’Bama a 49-42 lead with less than eight minutes remaining, but Tennessee quarterback Hendon Hooker then led the Volunteers on a 75-yard touchdown drive that included two pass interference penalties against Alabama. The second penalty saved Tennessee after a fourth-down interception that would have — should have? — clinched the victory with four minutes left to play.
Now the game was tied, but Young led the Tide downfield again, reaching the Tennessee 32-yard line with 34 seconds left. Alabama still had one timeout left, and you might think they could have RUN THE DAMNED BALL at least once, but instead they threw three passes, all of them incomplete. With 15 seconds on the clock, Will Reichard came on to kick what would have been the game-winning field goal, but it went wide right, and it seemed we were headed to overtime.
Alas, Hendon Hooker may be the best quarterback Tennessee’s had since Peyton Manning. He connected on two passes that put the Vols at the Alabama 23 with two seconds left and Tennessee won on a field goal.
It was the first time Tennessee has beat ’Bama since 2006. Their fans tore down the goal posts and, of course, UT alumnus Glenn Reynolds was celebrating. Someone in the comments at Instapundit said, “Imagine scoring 49 points and losing!” To which I replied, “Unfortunately, we don’t have to imagine it.” A dreadful nightmare. “Thriller,” my ass.
Much of the blame for this defeat will fall on Bryce Young, perhaps unfairly. He threw for 455 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions, spreading the ball around to nine different receivers. The real problem for Alabama was that they got 17 penalties for 130 yards.
And where the hell was the defense, huh? Since when does Alabama’s defense give up 52 points to anybody, let alone Tennessee? The last time the Crimson Tide gave up this many points was 1907.
If Bear Bryant was alive, he’d have them boys running wind sprints until they died. Fifty-two points! That’s not a defeat, it’s a humiliation!
One of the problems with being America’s Greatest College Football Team is that there are really only two kinds of seasons for ’Bama: National Championships and failures. Since Nick Saban became the coach in 2007, the Crimson Tide has won six National Championships and, in all but two of those years, they did so with at least one regular-season loss on their record. So it is too early to say the Tide can’t come back this year, although they face a difficult schedule down the stretch, with the Nov. 12 game at Ole Miss looking especially tough.
’Bama fans will therefore remain hopeful that somehow Saban can get the team back to the SEC title game and we’ll see how it goes from here. For now, however, a dark cloud looms above Tuscaloosa, and in the hearts of Crimson Tide fans everywhere. There is no joy in ’Bamaland.
A decent week for the Senators. True, we lost two out of three to the Twins, who have a disgusting number of left-handed hitters and pitchers, but we began the week with two wins against the Yankees. So we’re .500 for the week. Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.
Congress has now adjourned until after the election, which Democrats will lose, and so, while we might see some further theatrics during the lame-duck sessions before the 118th Congress convenes in January, this was their big finale: “Let’s subpoena Trump!”
It so happened that I decided to switch my home-office TV to MSNBC on Friday (I watch MSNBC so you don’t have to), and on Morning Joe, they featured this interview with Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland):
“… the terrible violence … scrambling to get more police and military reinforcements on the scene … the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers and insurrectionists … the attempted political coup and violent insurrection … the mobilizing of a domestic violent extremist movement …”
Listening to that, I was struck by how easily these hyperbolic phrases tumbled out of Raskin’s mouth, as evidence of how insulated inside the echo chamber Democrats have become and, of course, the “journalist” Willie Geist is part of that echo chamber. He is as objective about the J6 Committee as my teenage daughter is objective about Harry Styles.
The predicate of the J6 “investigation,” the fundamental tenet of the belief system in which the Capitol riot was an “attempted political coup,” is that there is no reason to believe that the 2020 election was fraudulent. If no reasonable person could suspect that the election was stolen, then what happened on J6 was an illegal “insurrection,” an attempt to overthrow the legitimate government. Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) are unwilling to hear the arguments made or to examine the evidence cited by those who claim that Biden was not legitimately elected. The bedrock assumption of Democrats is that Biden was elected in a landslide — 81 million votes! the most popular presidential candidate in history! — and thus they view any expression of doubt about Biden’s legitimacy as “insurrectionist” crazy-talk.
This is not how discourse in a democratic society is supposed to operate. Controversies over public policy would never occur, if we all shared the same set of beliefs, and so the fact that there is controversy about any subject (in this case, the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election) requires a public hearing of arguments on both sides of the dispute, so that the electorate may be fully informed. The J6 Committee deliberately avoided such a discussion. Indeed, the whole purpose of this committee (which, by the way, lacks legitimacy under the normal rules of House procedure) was to criminalize doubt about the 2020 election.
It is one thing, when partisans on either side of dispute are seeking to rally their supporters, to make a one-sided argument in favor of a particular policy. This is entirely normal in politics. Yet the proceedings of a congressional committee are not supposed to be partisan rallies. Pelosi’s charade of phony “bipartisanship” — handpicking Trump-haters Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger as “Republican” members of the select committee, over the objections of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy — cannot disguise the one-sided nature of the J6 Committee’s business. At no time in the operations of this committee has there been any fair consideration of the views of 74 million Americans who voted to reelect President Trump, 77% of whom think cheating affected the 2020 election.
Now, it may be that, after hearing everything that election skeptics had to say on this subject, most Americans would still conclude that Biden was legitimately elected, and therefore would believe that the protest of the January 6 certification of Biden’s election — which is what the rally at the Capitol was supposed to be, a peaceful protest — was inspired by erroneous (but sincere) beliefs. There is a world of difference between a protest motivated by a sincere sense of grievance and an “attempted political coup,” and yet at no time did the J6 Committee ever allow any consideration of the election doubts that inspired the events of J6.
Furthermore, and this is equally crucial, Democrats and the media absolutely refuse to recognize that the outbreak of violence at the Capitol in January 2021 was clearly inspired by the months of “Black Lives Matter” riots that broke out in May 2020 — riots that the Democrats enthusiastically applauded. Many millions of dollars of damage were inflicted, and many people killed or injured, during the weeks of arson, vandalism and looting which CNN reporter Omar Jimenez infamously described as “fiery but most peaceful” protests.
CNN ran the chyron tonight: "FIERY BUT MOSTLY PEACEFUL PROTESTS AFTER POLICE SHOOTING" while a fire raged in the background. pic.twitter.com/nEIKhTrepE
By applauding this destruction, Democrats thereby legitimized violent “protests,” and if the Capitol rioters believed there would be no repercussions for their actions on January 6 — well, why shouldn’t they believe that? Antifa thugs and mobs of urban looters had gotten away with criminal activity which everybody saw happening live on television throughout the summer of 2020, and Democrats never objected to those “mostly peaceful” protests. Yet here was Jamie Raskin on MSNBC Friday morning, speaking of Republican voters as “a domestic violent extremist movement,” and Willie Geist did not object to this partisan smear.
Well, this will all be fading in our rearview mirror soon enough. Anyone who looks at the poll numbers can see that Democrats are going to get wiped out in the midterms, and the proceedings of the J6 Committee will be remembered as symptomatic of Orange Man Bad Syndrome.
All we have to do is Keep Calm and Vote Republican.
Joe Biden has often invoked his late son Beau Biden.
For example, after his botched withdrawal from Afghanistan he evoked his late son in a shameless effort to avoid criticism of his actions. . . .
It was grossly inappropriate for him to constantly invoke his son who died of brain cancer as though it was the same thing as if he had lost his life while serving our country. But on Wednesday while giving a speech in Colorado, Biden claimed that Beau actually lost his life in Iraq. . . .
Biden’s brain might be Swiss-cheesed, but it’s hard to wrap my head around the idea that he would have forgotten how his own son died. So this naturally begs the question as to whether Biden was confused because of how often he brings up Beau as though he was a war casualty or whether he just thinks it makes him look better to say he was.
And frankly I don’t know which answer is worse.
President Biden falsely claimed that his son Beau Biden “lost his life in Iraq” during a speech in Colorado on Wednesday. pic.twitter.com/ZSoUHOE6yL
Ace compiles other examples of Biden’s less-than-truthful habits, including the false claim — which he made repeatedly, even after he was criticized for it — that the truck driver involved in his wife’s fatal auto accident was driving drunk. Biden deliberately slandered Curtis Dunn: “Not only was he not drunk, he wasn’t even at fault in the collision — Biden’s wife blew through a stop sign at an intersection, precipitating the collision, which the truck driver tried to avoid.”
Do you need me to repeat that? Can I make it any clearer? The truck driver was sober, Biden’s wife was at fault and yet Biden — WHO CERTAINLY KNOWS THESE FACTS, WHICH HAVE BEEN WIDELY REPORTED — continued to defame Curtis Dunn.
This was not an innocent mistake. It wasn’t stuttering, or a momentary lapse of memory. It was straight-out deliberate slander.
A powerful politician deliberately endeavored to smear the reputation of an honest, hard-working citizen, and why? Because Biden was seeking pity. He wanted people to feel sorry for him, to view him as a disadvantaged victim, so that he could posture (as he always does) as courageous — BRAVE JOE BIDEN, HERO OF THE COMMON MAN!
The man craves admiration so desperately that this craving has warped his entire personality, leading him to tell falsehoods — blatant lies that he knows to be false — in his pathetic efforts to make himself seem virtuous and deserving of admiration. And the weirdest part of it all is that Biden apparently expects to be admired for his honesty:
So deeply convinced is Joe Biden of his own honesty that he thinks his very name is synonymous with truth-telling:
“I give you my word as a Biden: I will never stoop to President Trump’s level.”
— Nov. 20, 2019
“I give you my word as a Biden: If I am elected president I will do everything in my power to protect our children from gun violence.”
— March 10, 2020
“I give you my word as a Biden: When I’m president, I will lead with science, listen to the experts and heed their advice, and always tell you the truth.”
— March 18, 2020
When I first noticed him using this “my word as a Biden” phrase during the 2020 campaign, I was puzzled. Has the Biden family been so prominently associated with honesty that when Joe says this, most Americans say, “Well, that settles it”? Of course not. In fact, Biden’s first presidential campaign, in 1988, collapsed in disgrace specifically because of Joe’s dishonesty, when he was caught plagiarizing others — most notably British Labour leader Neil Kinnock — in his speeches . . .
The lack of self-awareness expressed by that phrase “my word as a Biden” is remarkable, and yet the “Democratic operatives with bylines” simply don’t wish to acknowledge what an infamous liar Biden is.
What does a car made in Wolfsburg, Germany, have to do with a novelty hit from 1961? It’s a strange tale, with musical connections to Dolly Parton, the Mamas and Papas, a children’s cartoon and an iconic scene from a famous 1980s movie. It’s about a boy from Brooklyn.
Last weekend, I had my home office TV tuned to a football game, and a commercial came on that featured a song I remembered fondly from back in the day. “Make Your Own Kind of Music” was a Top 40 hit for “Mama Cass” Elliot in 1969, after she went solo following the breakup of the Mamas and Papas. The lyrics are an optimistic ode to individualism:
Nobody can tell ya There’s only one song worth singing. They may try and sell ya, ’Cause it hangs them up To see someone like you.
But you gotta make your own kind of music, Sing your own special song. Make your own kind of music, Even if nobody else sings along.
You’re gonna be nowhere, The loneliest kind of lonely. It may be rough going, Just to do your thing’s the hardest thing to do.
Pardon the Sixties hipster talk about “hang ups” and “doing your thing,” but I always liked the message of that song and, from a musical perspective, I appreciated the emphatic triplets in the last line of the chorus. Do you want to see Mama Cass introduced by none other than Sammy Davis Jr. as “the most fantastic lady of the now sound”?
Mama Cass (néeEllen Naomi Cohen) was a wonderful entertainer, and that was a wonderful song, so when I heard “Make Your Own Kind of Music” on TV, I was prompted to Google it and learn more. When I began enthusiastically telling my brother Kirby what I’d discovered, he said, “I’m going start calling you Rabbit, ’cause you’re always going down these rabbit holes.” A compulsive researcher — I can’t help myself, folks, I was born that way — I was surprised to learn that this hit for Mama Cass was co-written by the same guy whose only hit record as a performer was “Who Put the Bomp (in the Bomp Bomp Bomp)”:
Who put the bomp in the bomp bah bomp bah bomp? Who put the ram in the rama lama ding dong? Who put the bop in the bop shoo bop shoo bop? Who put the dip in the dip da dip da dip?” Who was that man? I’d like to shake his hand. He made my baby fall in love with me.
In this song, Mann sings about the frequent use of nonsense lyrics in doo-wop music, and how his girl fell in love with him after listening to several such songs.
Examples of the type of song referred to include the Marcels’ version of “Blue Moon” (in which they sing “Bomp bomp ba bomp, ba bomp ba bomp bomp” and “dip-de-dip-de-dip”) and The Edsels’ “Rama-Lama-Ding-Dong”, both of which charted earlier the same year.
Brooklyn native Barry Imberman, known professionally as Barry Mann, was just 22 when “Who Put the Bomp” reached No. 7 on the Billboard charts, but he was already a successful composer, having co-written hits with lyricists Mike Anthony, Hank Hunter and Howard Greenfield. The lyrics of “Who Put the Bomp” were written by a guy named Gerry Goffin, who with his wife Carole King became famous as half of the powerhouse Sixties songwriting duo Goffin-King (“Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” “Song Kind of Wonderful,” etc.). Paul McCartney and John Lennon once said their dream as songwriters was to be as big as Goffin-King.
The same year “Who Put the Bomp” was a hit, Barry Mann married lyricist Cynthia Weil (both of them were working in the Brill Building), and from their songwriting partnership came some of the most memorable hits of the next three decades. Remember I told you that this story involved an iconic scene from a famous ’80s movie?
Yes, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,” performed by the Righteous Brothers (Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield) was co-written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, along with famed “Wall of Sound” producer Phil Spector. It’s been praised by critics as “one of the best records ever made” and “the ultimate pop record,” and in 1965 became the first No. 1 for the Mann-Weil team. A year later, they repeated the feat with “(You’re My) Soul and Inspiration,” also by the Righteous Brothers. Mann and Weil also wrote hits for the Drifters (“On Broadway”), the Animals (“We Gotta Get Out of This Place”) and Paul Revere and the Raiders (“Kicks”). And, hey, didn’t I tell you Dolly Parton was involved in this story?
Yep — Dolly Parton won a Grammy in 1979 for “Here You Come Again,” written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, who continued making hits into the 1980s. Who could ever forget this classic slow-dance love song featuring James Ingram that made the Top 10 in 1981?
Man, it just doesn’t get any better than that, does it? But wait a minute — remember I told you there was a children’s cartoon involved in this story? You see, a guy named Steven Spielberg found himself as executive producer for an animated feature based on the historic experience of Jewish immigrants to America. This movie about the “Mousekewitz” family was conceived as a musical, because Spielberg “said he wanted a ‘Heigh-Ho’ of his own (referring to the popular song from Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs).” By now I think the reader can guess which songwriting team they brought in to deliver this tune.
Somewhere out there, beneath the pale moonlight,
Someone’s thinking of me and loving me tonight.
Somewhere out there, someone’s saying a prayer,
That we’ll find one another
In that big somewhere out there.
Did I mention that “Somewhere Out There,” from the 1986 animated film An American Tail, won not one but two Grammy Awards? It wasn’t the squeaky-voice mouse version that did it, though. Instead, the producers brought in James Ingram and Linda Ronstadt to sing it as a duet over the final credits. “Somewhere Out There” made it to No. 2 on the charts.
Mann and Weil wrote so many wonderful songs, there’s not enough room to mention all of them, but I can’t omit the tune that producer Rick Beato called “the most complex pop song of all time”:
“Never Going to Let You Go,” which was a hit for Sergio Mendendez in 1983, changes key (from F-sharp to G minor) before the lyrics even begin. “I’d never seen a song that went through so many chord changes,” Beato says of his first effort to learn it. Keep in mind that Beato majored in music in college, got a master’s degree in jazz from the New England Conservatory of Music, and taught music theory for a living. In praising the complexity of “Never Gonna Let You Go,” Beato pays quite a tribute to The Man Who Put the Bomp in the Bomp Bomp Bomp.
Ah, but have you forgotten where this long trip down the musical rabbit hole began? I was watching TV and there was a commercial for a car made in Wolfsburg, Germany — the Volkswagen Tiguan:
That commercial, by the way, was directed by Bryce Dallas Howard, the daughter of Ron “Opie” Howard. Volkswagen is sending royalty checks to Barry Mann for the song he and his wife wrote in 1969. Not a bad deal for the boy from Brooklyn, who has truly made his own kind of music.
Now 83 years old, Barry Mann is still married to his 81-year-old wife and lyricist, Cynthia Weil, and the couple live in Beverly Hills.
Who was that man? I’d like to shake his hand. He made my baby fall in love with me.
