Attention! TEN-HUT!!! Present ARMS!!! (I'll do anything to attract attention, won't I?) I have made my Super Bowl prediction; it's in this blog, also printed in red. Why red? To be totally obnoxious, I guess. If this had been an emergency, your computer would have shut down by now. Back to our regularly scheduled blog...already in progress...


...A Super Bowl revelation of sorts...
No MOTOWN in MOTOWN?

It has come to my attention (I could kick myself for not having realized it before) that the musical entertainment at this year's Super Bowl, which will be held in Detroit, will feature absolutely NO "Motown" musical entertainment, either in the pre-game segments, or during halftime! Of course you remember "Motown"...the Detroit-based record label that featured such acts as The Supremes, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Mary Wells, Martha and the Vandellas and so many more immortal artists...

Here's a picture of the "Motown" label, one of the most beautiful record labels ever. Motown was such a "home-based" organization, that on its earlier singles, even the PHONE NUMBER was on the label, which I found highly unusual.

Of course, Motown had many subsidiary labels; among them, the yellow-&-brown "Tamla" label, the purple "Gordy" label, the blue-&-purplish "Soul" label, and even the quasi-psychedelic "Rare Earth" label. Although Motown was primarily home to black recording artists, the "Rare Earth" label was a more rock-oriented label.

Sadly, in the early '70s, Motown moved to Los Angeles, leaving behind their great studio musicians in Detroit, and as a result, "The Motown Sound" was largely lost. Some say the acoustics of the little Motown studio building in Detroit had a lot to do with the way the early Motown records sounded, and of course, the Motown Musicians (informally dubbed "The Funk Brothers") had a very distinctive style of playing. This individuality was basically lost when Motown moved its operations to California.

Anyway, Detroit is losing a golden opportunity to demonstrate to the world what "The Motown Sound" was all about. It is one of the most immortal-ever musical styles, and the Motown Artists continue to influence musicians today. My favorite Motown record? (Including the Motown subsidiary labels) I would have to boil it down to two: "Come See About Me" by the Supremes, and the immortal "Shotgun" by Jr. Walker & The All-Stars. Good stuff indeed!

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Another Super Bowl Prediction dept.: A sports columnist in today's Spokesman-Review, Norman Chad (who writes an ultra-hilarious column) predicted the outcome of the Superbowl thusly: Pittsburgh 29, Seattle 11 and a half. Huh? What? Chad said he once predicted the score of a chess match between Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer, and from what I gather, "halves" are used in tallying chess scores. Me, I'm still trying to figure out how to do the 4-move checkmate!

UH OH! RED TYPE! MUST BE IMPORTANT! dept.: So, regarding this years' Super Bowl , I might as well be like the chicken who crossed the road half-way. Why? Cos she, the hen, wanted to "lay it on the line", ha ha. My prediction wasn't arrived at lightly (well, it did come about in a fit of insomnia)...If the Seahawks aren't "blown away" by the end of the first half, they've got a chance. Duh, huh? All of the 'Hawks' losses have been 'away' games. Detroit will definitely 'feel' like an away game to Coach Holmgren and company, Detroit being closer to Pittsburgh than Seattle, more Steelers fans in the stands than 'Hawks fans.

Pittsburgh runs an offense pattern that Seattle hasn't encountered a lot. I don't doubt the 'Hawks will score points; the question is, can the defense hold the Steelers? I know who I WANT to win, but I know who'll probably win...at best, I'm looking for the Steelers to win by a score of 31-21. A prediction like that, is like a TV weatherman being wrong when he predicts rain! If the sun shines, if the 'Hawks win, GRREAT!!! Blogger StebbiJo and I were discussing all this in the "comments" section of this entry. So I thot I might as well bring my views "out front", as a certain interactive-blogmeister would say. So, there it is. PUNT!!!

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Ninety minutes of the toughest TV I've ever watched dept.: I tuned in A&E last night, for the debut of their 'original' movie, "Flight 93", and it was hard to watch, knowing what the outcome would be. Not only does the movie showcase the terror the passengers and their loved ones experienced, it also paints a horrific picture of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, before flight 93 itself crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. If you want to experience the "vibes" during 9/11, watching this show is a good way to do it. It's on A&E again tonight, and the network will probably show it a few more times during the next week or two.

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The kind of gas that doesn't require "Beano" dept.: ConocoPhilips corp.'s 4th quarter earnings rose 51% to 3.68 BILLION dollars. Obviously the strategy of these big companies is to keep the shareholders happy, while at the same time not giving a damn for the average motorist out there. The combined 2005 PROFITS for the 3 major-integrated oil companies? Only $63 BILLION. I think I'll stop buying gas and instead buy FUEL STOCKS!

Something to "stew" over dept.: You might wanna check out your canned soup before you serve it; in Pennsylvania, a NEEDLE was found in a can of Progresso Minestrone Soup. So, if you had soup at dinner and you feel a "tickling" sensation in your throat, you might wanna head for the nearest metal detector. Remember a long time ago during the Tylenol poisoning scare, when someone put poison in Tylenol capsules? Around that time, "National Lampoon" magazine released a "spoof" of the whole product-tampering issue; one page showed a picture of nuclear bombs inserted into cereal boxes. BOOM!!!

Cutting the Cheese is never nice dept.: Kraft corporation is cutting 8,000 jobs and closing up to 20 of its plants in SPITE of 23% HIGHER 4th-quarter earnings. Let me get this straight, the company is showing signs of life and still, people are getting laid off? Oh, right, they're in the middle of a long-term "restructuring" plan. I suppose they'll lay off several thousand more people in order to get the profits up where they want them. Am I the only one who thinks there's just something wrong with this picture?

Too old to cut the mustard anymore? dept.: Two OLD-TIMERS are considering retirement: Roger Clemens, the pitcher who'll mow ya down if you get in his way; he's at the ripe old age of 43, and Brett Favre, the Green Bay Quarterback who's seen better days. He's all of 36! These guys have been around forever, and they're STILL THAT YOUNG? Now I really feel like an ancient artifact!

For once, I value their opinions dept.: Tonight is the President's "State Of The Union" message, in which cunning-linguist George W. Bushed will prop himself up behind the podium and try not to implode as he smirks and stutters his way through all of the nation's problems, all the while attempting to look like an intelligent human being, all the while knowing he's "faking it", hoping no one catches on. Usually I find network-news "talking heads" bitter and shrill, but this time around, I'll leave it to them, to tell me how Bush did, because I just can't bear to watch him myself. If I wanted to watch LOONEY TUNES, after all, I'd tune in to the Cartoon Network!

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It ain't "Jonah's Whale" but it's close dept.: Yeah, I know I've posted pictures of this before, but this one's a little bit different. Yep, the FISH INN, which was located just off the St. Maries exit on I-90, east of Coeur d'Alene.

This is another old Ebay-merchant photo, probably taken in the '50s, and evidently one of the "strong points" that sells old documents such as this one is the inclusion of old automobiles, which establish a "time frame" in which the photo was taken, and enhances the collectability of a particular photo or photo-postcard.

I think that's an old Studebaker out in front of the "Fish"; at the left of the photo, you can see what was then the old highway as it headed east toward Wolf Lodge, and up and over Fourth of July Pass. Of course, "behind" the "Fish" was a quite large campground, and of course at that time, there was no interstate highway between the Fish's "tail" and the east end of Coeur d'Alene Lake, so one could catch their limit, and then hike back up to the Fish, I suppose. Ah, days gone by, eh?

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And so another posting ends. I know I'm very rough on President Bush. I'm sorry if my views offend you, but I am so frustrated with the way this administration (and our country) is going, and I don't see much hope until this administration is OVER. I just can't help thinking, when I see him on TV, that "something's just WRONG with this guy." Or, maybe something's wrong with ME...which is also possible.