Jet Packs:Top On My Hannukah Wish List

 

Remember Sean Connery as James Bond in Thunderball. He had the coolest jet pack ever. Except it wasn’t real. Well now they are.

Now there is Jet Pack International marketing your very own jet pack. It uses three small jet turbine engines, powered by jet fuel, and a pack constructed with lightweight carbon fiber. Flights are short but flight it is. 

The next great holiday gift. Not made in China.No lead paint. So I am sure it must be safe. 

The Philosophy of the College Football Championship

I start with an admission. I am not a college football fan. Not that I dislike the game, I just do not care much. This may color what I am about to say but I don’t believe so.

Once again much is being written about how imperfect the BCS bowl system for choosing a national championship. This year there are no clear power teams. In fact there are several 2 loss teams that could be playing in the official championship game. Several sportswriters that believe the only way to determine a true national champion would be to have a playoff system comparable to the pros. They may be right. That is they may be right if determining a “true” national champion is the right thing to do.

I am not naive or unaware that major college sports are money makers making them something less than combat for the pure love of sport. Yet…this is college. Why can’t there be, shouldn’t there be, some controversy around the national championship. It makes for great conversation, at least for those that care about college football.

I am old enough to remember a time before the BCS system that it was referred to as the mythical championship because there was no system for ensuring the 2 top ranked teams played for the right to be champ. There were 2 polls which did not always agree.

I like that college sports are not the pros. We have pro football league. We do not need two.

Steve Martin: A Wild And Crazy Guy

If you polled my peers asking for the top comedians of my generation, Steve Martin will in everyone’s top 2 or three. He was not just funny but funny in a different way. In the early years of his success he would come out in a white suit looking quite dapper and then make you laugh uncontrollably through the mix of wit and absurdity of both his words and movements. To get the full effect of a Steve Martin gag it had to be seen as well as heard.

I saw him live in the late 1970s at the height of his popularity as a stand up performer.  He was not so well known at that moment that people would call out the punch lines before he could say them. Phenomenally funny was he. Like many of the best of his day I quietly mourned when the comedian felt a need to move on to greater things, starting as a comic actor in movies and then eventually feeling the need to prove themselves as a great actor by doing something serious. Like Woody Allen and Robin Williams, Steve had success but it was no longer all about the laughs. (Woody more than the other two provided uproariously funny movies for awhile.) I liked some of the Steve Martin movies such as Parenthood and Roxanne. However for pure funny his best work came in sketches on SNL.

He has recently written a book titled, “Born Standing: A Comic’s Life”. This book describes his years as a stand up comic and why he chose to move on at the height of his fame. Here are a couple of quotes from an interview on NPR that I found interesting:

“I just believe that the interesting time in a career is pre-success, what shaped things, how did you get to this point?”  “I think it’s somehow an American story in a strange way, because I started untalented. I didn’t have any gifts except perseverance.”

And from his book:

“My most persistent memory of stand-up is of my mouth being in the present and my mind being in the future: the mouth speaking the line, the body delivering the gesture, while the mind looks back, observing, analyzing, judging, worrying, and then deciding when and what to say next. Enjoyment while performing was rare…” (emphasis added)

I am going out to read this book. I do not like to analyze what makes something funny– that tends to take the funny out of it. I do however like to know what makes certain people funny especially those able to make a career and a life out of it. (One of the lives I lead in some alternative universe.)

So whether as King Tut, the pairing with Dan Akroyd as the Wild and Crazy brothers on SNL or as the highest paid balloon artist of all time, think of Steve Martin. It is sure to make you laugh.

All That Jazz

Last night I was coaxed away from my usual Friday night routine– coming home and crashing on the couch. Instead my wife and I went to a jazz concert at a local high school. A good friend has been telling us for 2 years how good the jazz performed by these high school students really is. I have been assuming that she was listening with rose colored–damn I got no analogy for this but you know what I mean. Her son is a drummer, now with the top level school jazz band.

Well it turns out she was right. The frosh and sophs were just OK but once the top 3 levels came on stage real music appeared. I was surprised at not just the proficiency of the performers but the maturity in the sound coming from several of the soloists.

I am a jazz fan, have been for years. I prefer to listen to good jazz rested. Really good jazz should be experienced when all the senses are at the ready, your awareness is heightened and your imagination open. Only then can you hear, feel, sense and dream the music as the notes surround you and take you on their journey.

This Friday like most. I was dog tired. Yet the bands were good enough that much got through. Far better than the date with my TIVO I had planned.

This event was more than a concert to impress parents with the progress their sons and daughters have made so far. These kids are raising money and collecting instruments to be donated to schools in New Orleans that lost theirs in the aftermath of Katrina. In my are like many well off locales the instruments are owned by the students. In the poorer areas of NOLA the schools owned the instruments. What better connection for a group of budding jazz musicians than to bring jazz back to the home of jazz. Several students will also be spending their spring break building homes in NOLA with Habitat for Humanity. The portion of last night’s concert we witnessed was just the beginning of a 16 hour marathon session. They raised over $25,000 last night. As impressive as the music.