Big Data – "Dangerous" (2014)

How could they know? 

How could they know

What I’ve been thinking?

Here’s one of the questions from my pub trivia game this week: 

While it might seem to be impossible, this major-league baseball team actually postponed a game due to rain after flooding from a tropical storm caused a 1976 game to be rescheduled.  For your wager, what was the name of that team?

To say that my teammates and I were nonplussed by that question is an understatement.  Baseball games get rained out all the time – why would you describe one particular 1976 rainout as seemingly “impossible”?

We wondered if the fact that the flooding that necessitated the postponement was the result of a tropical storm was significant.  Perhaps the rainout seemed like an impossibility because it took place in a city that was so far from the usual route of tropical storms – say, for example, Minneapolis or Kansas City.

But even if we had been on the right track, we needed to identify the specific city that had an MLB team in 1976 to get our wager – and there are a number of cities in the middle part of the United States that would seem equally unlikely to have been within range of a tropical storm.

So we kept talking, getting more and more desperate as the time allowed for us to respond to the question ticked away.  Finally one of my trivia teammates wondered whether the answer might involve a domed stadium – and the penny dropped.

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I was a law student in 1976, and spent the summer of that year in Houston, interning with a large law firm.  At that time, Houston was home to the world’s only domed baseball stadium – the Astrodome, which had hosted the Houston Astros’ home games since 1965:

When my teammate said “domed stadium,” I thought about the Astrodome, where I had attended a number of baseball games.  And suddenly I remembered that there had been an Astros game rained out while I was there in 1976. 

I hadn’t thought about that bizarre incident in almost 50 years, so it’s not surprising that I didn’t immediately recollect that event. 

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Houston summers are characterized by high temperatures, high humidity, and afternoon thunderstorms.  On June 15 of that summer, a torrential storm hit Houston around noon and dumped over ten inches of rain on the Astrodome.  

The Astros players started arriving for the 700p game with the Pittsburgh Pirates about an hour after the rain started falling.  The Pirates’ team bus showed up shortly thereafter.  Both teams assumed the game would start on time – they were playing in a roofed stadium, of course, so why would they think any different?

The stadium’s original roof had been replaced before the 1976 season, and the new roof performed flawlessly.  But the parking lots were under water, and the streets leading to the Astrodome became impassable hours before the game was supposed to start:

At about 500p, the Astros decided to call off the game.  Given that the umpires for the game had been unable to get to the Astrodome – they had abandoned their cars when they stalled out in the high water, and waded back to their hotel – they really had no choice.

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The Astros set up tables in the vicinity of second base and treated players from both teams – who were in uniform by that time – to a buffet dinner.

The handful of fans who had somehow made it to the game were treated to a meal in one of the stadium’s restaurants.

The rain started slacking off about the time the game was supposed to begin but it took hours for the flooding to subside.  The Pirates’ bus was able to get back to the team hotel, but it was a very slow trip through the submerged streets.  Some of the Astrodome employees and Astros players drove home while others chose to spend the night at the stadium.

The 1976 Astros uniforms

One Astro who slept in the clubhouse described what things were like the following morning:

The drive home was surreal.  No one was on the roads.  As I got on the interstate by the ’Dome, I had to weave through abandoned cars [that had been] left right where they stalled the night before.  I couldn’t shake the feeling I was in some kind of world-ending disaster flick.

Click here to read more about the 1976 Astrodome rainout.

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I seriously doubt that any of the other trivia teams who competed that night knew the answer to that question.  (What are the odds that any of the other players playing trivia in suburban Maryland that night had spent the summer of 1976 in Houston?)

It astonishes me that I was able to dredge up the memory of that rained-out baseball game.  I didn’t attempt to go to that game, so any knowledge I had of what happened would have come from watching the local news that night or reading the next day’s newspaper.

If I had recounted the story of that game to friends and family members over the years, it wouldn’t be surprising that I remembered it.  I’ve told a lot of stories about other events that took place when I was a law student, but I’ve never told anyone about that game – I would have guessed that it was so deeply buried in the inner recesses of my brain that it was irretrievable.  But somehow I came up with it in the two minutes that are allowed for us to answer trivia questions.

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Today’s featured recording was brought to the attention of 2 or 3 lines by one of its many devoted fans.  (Most of the recordings those fans suggest that we feature are pretty lame, but even a blind pig finds an acorn every once in a while – and this is one of those times.)

Big Data is an electronic music “project” that is best known for its 2014 single, “Dangerous.”

Here’s how the man behind Big Data described the “Dangerous” music video described it to a interviewer:

The video follows the launch of a fictional sneaker by Big Data Shoes, from its initial conception and testing, through its marketing phase, to the actual TV commercial advertising the sneaker, and cutting back and forth seamlessly between each world.  The central twist is that the lifestyle being marketed along with the Big Data Shoe is one of pure evil – the shoe subconsciously encourages its wearers to head-butt unsuspecting victims, causing their brains to explode in a Scanners-style orgy of blood and guts.

But the fictional TV commercial doesn’t rely solely on violence.  The creative team behind the commercial also throws in plenty of sexy slow-motion shots of women running in the shoes before ending it with some serious lesbian kissing.   

Click here to watch the “Dangerous” music video.

Click here to buy the recording from Amazon.

Molly Hatchet – "Flirtin' With Disaster" (1979)

I’m traveling down the road

And I’m flirting with disaster

I got the pedal to the floor

Have you seen the new Tesla Cybertruck?

Here’s one that was in the garage where I park most Saturdays before taking my weekly post-farmers market bike rides:

I’m not sure if realtor Nwabueze “Eze” Okwodu drives that Cybertruck or simply pays the owner of the vehicle to advertise his business.  

After seeing that ad-covered Cybertruck, did I jot down Eze’s phone number so I could call him the next time I needed a realtor?  

Actually, I did not.

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When I rode back to the parking garage at the end of my bike ride, this Cybertruck was parked next to my car:

Cybertruck exteriors are made of unpainted stainless steel.  Tesla will sell you urethane-based film “wraps” in a variety of colors – including Tactical Green, Rose Gold, Abyss Blue, and Iridescent Purple – for a mere $6500.  Bu it looks to me like the owner of the Cybertruck that parked next to me opted for the clear wrap that Tesla offers for only $5000.

I don’t care whether you choose the clear wrap or one of the colored ones: the Cybertruck is the stupidest-looking thing in the history of the world.

The cheapest Cybertruck model that’s currently available costs almost $100,000.  It’s mind-boggling that anyone would pay that much money for something that looks like it was designed by an eight-year-old Minecraft prodigy.

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Here’s what the Internet thinks of the Cybertruck:

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Molly Hatchet is sort of a poor man’s Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Both groups hailed from Jacksonville, Florida.  At one point, rumor had it that Skynyrd frontman Ronnie Van Zant was going to produce Molly Hatchet.

“Then the worst possible thing happened,” Bruce Crump (the band’s original drummer) told an interviewer in 2008.  “We were coming back to Atlanta after playing a gig near Lynchburg, Tennessee.  When we pulled into the hotel parking lot, Pat Armstrong, who had become our manager and had gone with us, went inside the hotel to check us in.  All of a sudden, he walked onto the bus, white as a sheet, and said that the Skynyrd plane had crashed.”

Molly Hatchet’s founder, the late Dave Hlubek, once offered this explanation of how the group chose its name:

We took a John Deere Tractor hat and everybody  came up with three names apiece and put them in the hat.  We did  it  like the lottery.  We said that whatever name was pulled out of the hat, by God, was going to be the name of the band, and that's it!  Well, the 18th name, the only one left, was Molly Hatchet!  We said, ‘What the f*ck is that?’  It started out, ‘Molly F*cking Hatchet.’  Everyone was saying, ‘Who’s the  girl  in  the band?’  People of Jacksonville took it upon themselves to start making bumper stickers.  We just kept the name.

According to the the group’s website, Molly Hatchet was a 17th-century woman who decapitated a number of her lovers with an axe.  Another source says that “Hatchet Molly” was a Civil War-era prostitute who had a penchant for beheading her customers.

“Flirtin’ With Disaster,” the group biggest hit single, peaked at #42 on the Billboard “Hot 100” in 1980.  I think it deserved better than that.

Click here to listen to “Flirtin’ With Disaster.”

Click here to buy that recording from Amazon.

Joe Tex – "Show Me" (1967)

Show me a man

That’s got a good woman

I’ll show you a man 

That goes to work hummin’

It’s become an annual tradition for 2 or 3 lines staffers to surprise me by getting up at the crack of dawn on a random summer Saturday to chalk messages of encouragement on my favorite bike trail.

As usual, they started off this year with a couple of fairly generic exhortations:

My staff is nothing if not creative.  This year, they drew a hopscotch diagram near a spot where I customarily take a break:

They also came up with this “Pop the Bubbles” challenge.  (The object here is go as fast as possible while steering my bike so that my front wheel “pops” each bubble.)

There were a few somewhat hippy-dippy messages, including this one:

Finally, there was this somewhat curious message:

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I wasn’t sure what that last one meant at first, but I think I’ve figured it out.  I’ve long suspected that the leader of the crew responsible for these chalked missives is a comely young female 2 or 3 lines executive who seems to have a bit of a crush on yours truly.  (You can hardly blame her, can you?). 

You may have read that Elon Musk had twins with Shivon Zilis, the director of operations at one of his companies.  The twins were conceived (allegedly) via in vitro fertilization – perhaps to avoid a violation the company’s employee code of conduct, which says supervisors and their subordinates can’t be in a relationship of a romantic or intimate nature.  (A Reuters reporter interviewed five corporate governance experts about the situation, and none of them believed that Musk and Zilis had necessarily violated the employee code of conduct by having children via IVF.)

The 2 or 3 lines employee responsible for the “We love strollers” message apparently sees me as something of an Elon Musk, and wants to be my Shivon Zilis.  I’m not saying “no” to her, and I’m not saying “yes” – but I am open to having a discussion with her.

Fortunately, 2 or 3 lines has no code of conduct prohibiting employees from being romantically involved with me.  So we won’t need to hide behind some IVF subterfuge.

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Elon Musk has been concerned about declining birth rates since at least 2017, when he tweeted, “The world's population is accelerating towards collapse, but few seem to notice or care.”

“The biggest issue in 20 years will be population collapse,” Musk said two years later. “Not explosion. Collapse.”

Elon Musk has had 12 children by three different women.  So he not only talks the talk when it comes to reversing the trend of declining birth rates, he walks the walk . . . or whatever.

I have four children and nine grandchildren (so far), so I have a long way to go to catch up to Musk.  But I’m not counting myself out of the race just yet.  (As my old Latin teacher used to say, “Dum spiro spero”!)

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Joe Tex was born Joseph Arrington, Jr., in a small town in Texas in 1935.  He signed a record deal in 1955 with what must have been the world’s most patient record company but none of his first 28 singles cracked the Billboard “Hot 100.”

Despite the failure of his records to sell, Tex quickly made a name as a stage performer – he opened for Jackie Wilson, Little Richard, and James Brown, among other artists.

Tex later accused Brown of stealing some of his flamboyant stage moves, and the two became bitter rivals.  After Tex divorced Bea Ford in 1959, Brown recruited her to his band.  The “Godfather of Soul” quickly tired of Ms. Ford’s charms, and wrote a letter to Tex that said he was welcome to have her back if he wanted her.  Instead, Tex recorded what may have the first diss record ever, “You Keep Her.”

Joe Tex busts a move

In 1963, Brown got all worked up when he witnessed Tex parodying Brown’s stage show at a Macon, Georgia concert that was headlined by Otis Redding.  Brown left the club and returned with two shotguns.

According to Tex’s biographer, Jason Martinko, here’s what happened next:

Suddenly, someone fired at Brown and then he fired back, spraying buckshot throughout the bar, missing his target, but allegedly injuring seven people.  Pianist Johnny Jenkins and Otis Redding hid behind the piano, while drummer Charles Davis continues playing through the commotion, initially unaware of the gunshots.  Joe Tex escaped out a back door and was running through trees and bushes.  James Brown’s tour bus quickly pulled up and Brown jumped in, driving away in a hurry.  A member of Brown's entourage briefly stayed behind, handing out hundred-dollar bills to the injured, asking that they keep quiet about the incident.

Tex converted to Islam in 1966, changing his name to Yusuf Hazziez.  He died of a heart attack when he was only 47.

“I Gotcha” – which was his biggest hit single – was my favorite Joe Tex record, but “Show Me” is pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.

Click here to listen to “Show Me.”

Click here to buy that record from Amazon.

Porno for Pyros – "Pets" (1993)

Children are innocent and

Teenagers f*cked up in the head

Adults are even more f*cked up

Back in my San Francisco days in the early eighties, I had a bachelor friend who lived in a very sparsely furnished two-bedroom apartment – we’re talking bare floors, bare walls, and minimal furniture.

“D” referred to his second bedroom as his laundry room.  But there was no washer or dryer in that room – it was basically a very large dirty-clothes hamper.  (Every night he would open the door to that room, toss in the clothes he had worn that day, and then close the door and climb into bed.)

I was watching TV with D one evening when his mother arrived for a visit.  

“Is this the apartment of a 28-year-old single man who doesn’t have a flair for interior decoration?  It is not!” she said after completing her walk-through of his apartment.  “This is the apartment of a 28-year-old man with a severe emotional disturbance!”

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Here’s a photo of the immaculate front seat of my SUV:

Here’s a photo of the less-than-immaculate back seat – quite a contrast, isn’t it?

But I don’t think that’s the back seat of a man with a severe emotional disturbance – no siree Bob!

Rather, that’s the back seat of a man who has nine grandchildren (hence the two car seats, which take up an inordinate amount of space), who is a serious biker (hence the bike helmet, gloves, and floor pump), and who likes to be prepared for many contingencies (hence the baseball caps, the windbreaker/rain jacket, and the crossword puzzles torn out of the newspaper – you never know when you’ll be in need of a way to pleasantly kill a little time).

I really need a new SUV.  (Which is to say, I really want a new SUV.). But the prospect of cleaning out my back seat is so daunting that I’ve been putting the purchase off.

I’ll get around to it eventually.

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When Jane’s Addiction broke up, two of its former members – frontman Perry Farrell and drummer Stephen Perkins – formed Porno for Pyros.  “Pets” is the very successful second single from the group’s eponymous debut album. 

Click here to watch the official music video for “Pets.”  (That video was directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who later directed the 2006 film, Little Miss Sunshine.)

Click here to buy “Pets” from Amazon.