Operation AXIOM

Happy Hallowe'en to one & all! Even I, The Last Angry Man who finds fault in nearly everything & nearly everyone, take no issue with the contemporary American rituals commemorating All Hallows' Eve. 'Tis good, clean fun dressing up as someone or something else for a night of merrily threatening one's neighbors; the extortionary nature of the ultimatum, "Trick or treat," exposes the true nature of this wicked world, an excellent lesson for children to learn, even if it goes over most of their heads in their mad pursuit of sugary oblivion. It is also gratifying to see that for one night at least we, a culture that pretends to immortality, not only recognize but indeed celebrate the closeness of death, the intimacy of death to every life. Death cannot be avoided & it should not be ignored; one day we shall each of us journey to the Bard's "undiscovered Country," whether we wish to or not.

Happy Hallowe'en, everyone!

"Trick or treat,
Smell my feet,
Give me something good to eat!"

The Rebel Black Dot Song of Hallowe'en
Soundtrack & Theme Orchestra, "Bewitched Theme" via iTunes (T.L.A.M.)

The Explorers' Club, № CCCLXIV

The War of the Worlds, directed by & starring Orson Welles (1915-1985), & adapted from the novel by H. G. Wells (1866-1946)—the infamous 30 October 1938 episode of The Mercury Theatre on the Air.

The Rebel Black Dot Hallowe'en Song of the Day
The Atomic Fireballs, "Man with the Hex" from Torch This Place (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary:

"You remind me of a man,
(What man?)
O, the man with the power,
(What power?)
O, the power of voodoo,
(Who do?)
O, you do, you do,
(Do what?)…

"O, winkum, tinkum, nodimus rex,
Save us from the man with the hex,
Save us from his evil curse,
It's gonna get bad, yeah, it's gonna get worse.

"Hocus-pocus, alakazam,
Save us from that evil man,
With hairy legs and heavy feet,
He cracks the pavement as he creeps…"

The Rebel Black Dot Hallowe'en Song of the Day
The Aquabats!, "Cat with 2 Heads!" from The Fury of the Aquabats! (Captain Thumbs Up!)

Commentary: The Hallowe'en-themed series of R.B.D.S.O.T.D. plain slipped my mind this year. I thought about it earlier in October, but as we entered the last third of the month I got caught up in other things, day-specific R.B.D.S.O.T.D. & the general excitement around Ki-El's wedding & the ersatz reunion with dear friends & vague acquaintances of old. But better late than never, I say. I see no compelling reason to end on 31st October, not when things are just getting rolling; so, prepare yourself for our standard eight-day celebration of the spooky, the bizarre, & the mischievous; of Samhain, trick-or-treating, & All Hallows' Eve. Boo!

"Cat with 2 Heads!" is a cautionary tale about my contention that mad science is the best science & an oddly poignant commentary on the responsibility that accompanies a life of privilege.

"Society has been so good to me,
My parents paid for my college education,
Majoring in biotechnology,
Created a beast and now it's after me!

"I was in my laboratory,
Creating what I thought would be,
Well, something great for the world:
A two-headed cat!
You could pet one kitty's head,
And pet the other kitty's head,
But little did I know the power of atomic energy
Would create a two-headed, man-eating monster!…"

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Less Than Jake, "Hell Looks a Lot Like L.A." from Borders & Boundaries (K. Steeze)

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day After the Wedding
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, "Sunday Morning Coming Down" from Love Their Country (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary:

"Well, I woke up Sunday morning
With no way to hold my head that didn't hurt,
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad
So I had one more for dessert…"

It has been said many times before & it will be said many times to come:

A short skirt,
A Gimmes shirt,
A Jones soda,
Ain't life grand?

Project MERCATOR

B.T.Wedding! Just as B.T.West was pronounced "B-T-W-West" & B.T.WesTwo was pronounced "B-T-W-West-Two," B.T.Wedding should be read as "B-T-W-Wedding." That's right, another member of Blue Tree Whacking is joining the ranks of the Marrieds. Of course, much as was the case of The Guy's & The Gal's nuptials, this membership in the Marrieds is a pure formality, as the Blue Tree Whacker & his ladylove have been together for years, including cohabiting for longer than many marriages last. Hip hip! Hooray! Hip hip! Hooray! Hip hip! Hooray! For he is a jolly good fellow, & so say all of us.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day of the Wedding
Less Than Jake, "Pete Jackson Is Getting Married" from Borders & Boundaries (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: I was tempted to choose Thin Lizzy's "The Boys Are Back in Town," in commemoration of the too-rare gathering of the old gang, but, no, "Pete Jackson Is Getting Married" is the better choice, nay, the best choice, for the R.B.D.S.O.T.D.

"I can smell his cousin's Polo
Mixed with his grandpa's Old Spice,
The Swedish meatballs look so tempting
That his two fat aunts might even fight…

"…The mashed potatoes look so tasty
That his two fats aunts might even—
Nah nah nah nah nah…

"And on that day, what else could I say?
I'd say, 'Here's to you stayin' drunk,
Here's to all your good luck,
You're gonna need it!'"

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Marty Haugen, "Shepherd Me, O God (Psalm 23)" via iTunes (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: This has been one of my very favorite hymns ever since I first heard it as a lad.

"Shepherd me, O God,
Beyond my wants,
Beyond my fears,
From death into life…"

Autobahn

I espied the distinctive Sonic the Hedgehog-themed Chevrolet Sonic yesterday: Wayback Machine. 'Twas parked, so I made two quick circles in the Lumi, the Distaff Son of the Mousemobile to confirm the details of the decal scheme. There are white outline decals of a running Sonic the Hedgehog on each front fender, betwixt the wheel well & the side mirror, & a white outline decal of a standing Sonic the Hedgehog, arms akimbo*, on the rear hatch, above the SONIC LT badge. (Alas, it is an LT, not an RS, as was hoped.) There is also a small Sonic the Hedgehog figure dangling from the rearview mirror. All in all, I give the owner/driver kudos for a well-executed theme; I considered leaving a note to that effect underneath one of the Sonic's windshield wipers, but deemed that to be too intrusive into a stranger's life. This otherwise comprehensively-themed Sonic would have been an excellent platform for a vanity plate, but 'twas not so.



Commentary: This is the hue of the Sonic Sonic, though the Sonic shown is in RS, not LT, trim.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
MxPx, "My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes to Bitburg)" from On the Cover II (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: One does not have to agree with a song's politics to like the song. Even if it is a cover.

*In the final, not-yet-produced finale to the Smith and Winkler film saga, Smith & Winkler face a villain—the chief henchman, in fact—named Arms Akimbo.

The Explorers' Club, № CCCLXIII

Frank "Bring 'Em Back Alive" Buck (1884-1950).

Autobahn

I espied yesterday three motorcars driving in formation, nose to tail, each more identical than the last. The three autos' noses & tails were wrapped in some unknown material, all insignia & badges literally under wraps, while the bodies were painted in a white & black dazzle scheme (I've always preferred the more showy name "razzle-dazzle"), to obscure the fine details of the bodywork. Based on previous experience & the close proximity of Chrysler's world headquarters, I suspect the trio to belong to the larger Fiat Group fleet of vehicles, but what precise manner of Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, or Alfa-Romeo they might have been I cannot say.

Speaking of Chrysler products (remind me to relate the story of Where's Teddy?'s hilarious turn of phrase, "Speaking of canteens..."), when I approached the Lumi, the Distaff Son of the Mousemobile later that same day what should I see parked near my aging but still anonymous Lumina but that rolling embodiment of the ludicrous & the cool, the Dodge Viper. (An older-model Viper, so still a Dodge, not an S.R.T.) Not just a Viper, but a track-ready A.C.R. version, replete with enormous rear wing & carbon-fiber splitter & strakes up front. The "Snake" was painted black with a preposterously broad strip running the length of the mad machine, a stripe of the most hideous shade of neon green. There was a shiny snake-motiff border running around the vanity license plate, HAWLASP. (I presume this to be a play on "haul ass," the asp bit being both a successful bid to avoid foul language & a nod to the Viper's serpentine nature. I am puzzled as to why haul would be misspelt as "hawl." If there is already a HAULASP license plate out there, O.K., but if "HAWL" is purely a stylistic choice, then I narrow my eyes & shake my fist at the driver.) This was not the first Viper I've seen out in the wild, but it was the first of my experience to be equipped with so useful (on a race track) an aerodynamic device as that comically large rear wing. Not a rear spoiler, but an honest-to-Gurney rear wing.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Less Than Jake, "The Ghosts of Me and You" from Anthem (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: The lyrics of "The Ghosts of Me and You" say both "the ghosts of me and you" & "the ghosts of you and me," depending on the need of the following line.

The Rebel Black Dot Songs of the Day
Ray Charles, "Shake a Tail Feather" from The Blues Brothers: Original Soundtrack Recording (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: Never in a million years would you guess what motion picture I watched last night.

Montag, 21 Oktober
The Blues Brothers, "She Caught the Katy" from The Blues Brothers: Original Soundtrack Recording (T.L.A.M.)

The Explorers' Club, № CCCLXII

Mount Fuji.







The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Les Italiens, "Ottomania" via iTunes (T.L.A.M.)

Urbi et Orbi
It is quarter after eleven in the morning on a Saturday & you are already returned home after spending three-plus hours at your church. Something in your life has either gone really, really wrong or really, really right. Getting out of bed before 7:00 A.M. on a Saturday isn't fun, but being at a 7:30 A.M. Bible study/fellowship group sure is. Also, I've now completed the exhaustive (read: minimal) training to be a lector, just in time for the fiftieth anniversary, as I was reminded, of the Church's decision to allow the laity to proclaim the Scriptures as part of the Mass. So, woot!

Yes, I'm more involved in my church than ever before, but I am still the same guy I always was, both for good & for ill.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, "You Can't Win" from A Jackknife to a Swan (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: "You Can't Win" seems to be principally concerned with the excesses of capitalism, especially the notion of unscrupulous fat cats profiting by the ignorance &/or apathy of the everyman. From the frequent sleep imagery in the lyrics, I cannot help but think of the title of the surprisingly useful & worthwhile film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

"They're wide awake while you're still in bed…"

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Letters to Cleo, "Sparkle Girl" from Go! (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: The Insane Clown Posse would agree with me that there are times when exactly what you want to hear is Kay Hanley's voice.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
They Might Be Giants, "Damn Good Times" from The Spine (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: Unlike the narrator of "Damn Good Times," your humble narrator is a natural dancer. In all modesty, I'm a living legend at wedding receptions.

"I'm not much of a natural dancer,
But I've got a friend who's a natural dancer,
You could call her a jumping bean,
She's got ants in her pants and she's gonna dance…"

The Explorers' Club, № CCCLXI

The Early Cold War, Part X: The detonation of the first Soviet atom bomb, R.D.S.-1, on 29 August 1949—code named/nicknamed "Article 501" or "First Lightning" by the U.S.S.R. & "Joe-1" by the U.S.A.









Cross-reference: The Early Cold War series, with addenda.

№ LXXXII—The Berlin Blockade.

№ LXXXIII—The Berlin Airlift.

Commentary: I know a fellow who was an Air Force pilot during the Berlin Airlift & flew relief flights into West Berlin.

№ CCCLI—The Yalta Conference.

№ CCCLII—The Potsdam Conference.

№ CCCLIII—The Long Telegram.

№ CCCLIV—The "Iron Curtain" speech.

№ CCCLV—The Truman Doctrine.

№ CCCLVI—The Czechoslovakian coup.

№ CCCLVII—The Marshall Plan.

№ CCCLVIII—N.A.T.O.

№ CCCLIX—"Who lost China?"

№ CCCLX—The Tito-Stalin split.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Michael Bublé, "Haven't Met You Yet" via iTunes (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: "Promise you, kid, that I'll give so much more than I'll get…"

A very introspective episode of "This Week in Motorsport" is coming as soon as I can cobble it together, reflecting on the most bloodstained year of my experience. If this isn't an especially cursed year, it certainly feels that way.

The Victors
I posted the following to the FaceSpace & thus far it has been well-received by my fellow Wolverines:

Al Borges must be fired with immediate effect. Michigan's offense under Borges is so inept that I cannot help but recall the lyrics from Jason Segal's "Dracula's Lament" (from Forgetting Sarah Marshall):

"It's getting kind of hard to believe things are going to get better,
I've been drowning too long to believe that the tide's going to turn,
And I've been living too hard to believe things are going to get easier,
I'm still trying to shake off the pain from the lessons I've learned…"

Go Blue!

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Icon for Hire, "Theatre" from Scripted (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: To-day's R.B.D.S.O.T.D. dovetails nicely with a bit of Scripture I stumbled upon (or was lead to?) last night just before retiring. First, some lyrics from "Theatre":

"What happened to the girl
Who could overlook the world?
She never gave a second thought
To what the other people thought.
What happened to the dream
Of rejecting their routine?
'Cause it never worked for me.

"I'm gonna burn this theater down,
I pray to God for the strength to help me face the crowd…"

Now, the Second Letter to Timothy, chapter four, verses one through five (2 Timothy, 4:1-5):

I charge you in the presence of God & of Christ Jesus, Who will judge the living & the dead, & by His appearing & His kingly power: proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience & teaching. For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine but, following their own desires & insatiable curiosity, will accumulate teachers & will stop listening to the truth & will be diverted to myths. But you, be self-possessed in all circumstances; put up with hardship; perform the work of an evangelist; fulfill your ministry.

The world would have us behave one way (not the world alone, but the world, the flesh, & the devil), but for myself I have never felt at ease with this path. Throughout my life this discomfort has manifested itself as weirdness, as awkwardness, as a sadly prideful non-conformity. As no lesser an authority than Mrs. Skeeter, Esq. once remarked, "Since when do you care what other people think?" Not to no useful purpose was my struggle: I find myself, as do we all, confronted by a world that will not tolerate sound doctrine, by persons who have been diverted by myths, but, conditioned not to care a whit for the world's corrupt & fallen teachings by a lifetime of not fitting in, I find myself prepared & equipped to put up with this hardship, to be persistent, to work as an evangelist, to fulfill my ministry.

I remain a jolly fat man (still grappling with the deadly sins of sloth & gluttony) who strives always to overlook the world, to never give a second thought to what other people think, to reject their routine.

The Victors

Saturday, 12 October 2013
Penn State 43-40 Michigan (№ 18) (4 O.T.)
5-1, Big Ten 1-1

No one should be surprised by our loss. We have played so poorly, so apathetically, that we should have lost three games by this point; we didn't win against either Akron or U.Conn., we simply managed not to lose. Against Penn State, the offense's propensity for turnovers, the defense's inability to pressure quarterbacks & general vulnerability to the aerial game, & the coaches' ineptitude all came home to roost. The ferocious Nittany Lions tried to give the game away, & made nearly as many mistakes as we did, but they played to win, whereas too often we played not to lose. We had the opportunity to attempt a long field goal with approximately a minute left in regulation. At the time, we led by seven & a field goal would have sealed the victory. Instead, we punted the ball into the end zone for a net gain of maybe fifteen yards, & Penn State marched down the field in no time at all to score the tying touchdown. Capricious fortune gave us the chance to kick an even longer field goal in the dying seconds, but our place kicker chocked under the pressure & kicked the ball short. (His kick was long enough to have counted from the earlier field-goal mark, the one at which brilliant Brady Hoke & his crack offensive staff decided to punt—not even pooch punt, but kick a regular, long distance punt—to set up Penn State's game-tying drive.) In overtime time, we never played for a touchdown, always relying on the field goal to carry the day. In the second overtime time, when Penn State went first on offense & fumbled the ball, any score would have carried the day. We didn't make even a perfunctory attempt to score a touchdown, we played solely to kick a field goal, which the ferocious Nittany Lions promptly blocked.

I am incapable of insightful analysis, so full of rage & despair am I. Never before, not even during last year's atrocious quintet of losses, have I had so little faith in Coach Hoke & his staff (my long-standing opposition to our incompetent offensive coordinator Al Borges being the most prominent exception). On Saturday, we played as if Rich Rod was still our head coach. Doom, doom, doom. How many games will Michigan lose this year? The back half of the schedule is Indiana, Michigan State, Nebraska, Northwestern, Iowa, & Ohio State, & the valiant Wolverines club that played so poorly against Akron, U.Conn, & Penn State is fully capable of losing four of those six games. Brady Hoke came to Michigan with a 47-51 record as a head coach, & a reputation for turning clubs around. He's certainly turned Michigan around—we're getting worse every year! The '12 valiant Wolverines were worse than the over-achieving '11 valiant Wolverines, & '13 is shaping up to be a much worse year that '12. Maybe I'm overreacting. As I said, I am incapable of insightful analysis right now. But we looked so bad against Penn State, the same way we looked bad against U.Conn. & Akron. Devin Gardner turned the ball over three times——three times!—again. We are not making any tangible improvement as the season goes on.

It is time to start thinking about firing Brady Hoke. I'm not saying that we should do anything as panicky or foolhardy as firing him midseason, or even at the end of this year, no matter how bad things get. What I am advocating is that we start to have a conversation about concrete targets for growth & improvement within the program, targets that he & his bumbling staff must meet next year, or in 2015 at the latest. Al Borges must be fired with immediate effect, because his offense does not work.

Next: Indiana, a club that defeated Penn State by a score of 44-24. The jackals (sports reporters) who decide the A.P. poll have been smart enough to boot our sorry hides out of the Top 25, but those boobs the coaches still have us ranked № 24, the fools.

Go Blue!

The Rebel Black Dot Songs of the Day
The Hold Steady, "Massive Nights" from Boys and Girls in America (T.L.A.M.)

Sonntag, 13 Oktober
Topol, et al., "To Life" from Fiddler On the Roof (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: L'chaim!

Samstag, 12 Oktober
Less Than Jake, "Bad Scene and a Basement Show" from Borders & Boundaries (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: I've always been fascinated by the fact that the title of the song is "Bad Scene and a Basement Show," not "Bad Scene at a Basement Show." A song selected with the Penn State game foremost in my mind.

"It gets worse before it's all over,
I know I'll get through this somehow,
It gets worse before it's all over…

"It gets worse before it's all over,
It gets worse before it's all over,
It gets worse before it's all over,
Nothin's gonna change your mind for now!…"

The Queue

I found Ross Douthat's conclusions in Bad Religion to be insightful, well-argued, & well-supported. The great oversight of the book is a lack of analysis of the New Atheism. It is sprinkled throughout the chapter on Christian accommodation & the chapters on the various 21st century heresies, but never confronted directly. Mayhap Douthat thinks it too small, too much the preserve of a genuinely tiny minority, to be addressed in greater detail, but I was slightly disappointed. I recommend the book to all, believers & non-believers alike, & would be only too happy to loan out my own copy. The Guy? I'm looking at you. California Dreamer?

Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics
Prologue: A Nation of Heretics

Part I: Christianity in Crisis
One: The Lost World
Two: The Locust Years
Three: Accommodation
Four: Resistance

Part II: The Age of Heresy
Five: Lost in the Gospels
Six: Pray and Grow Rich
Seven: The God Within
Eight: The City on the Hill

Conclusion: The Recovery of Christianity

I am drawn to several of the non-ficton books that I was gifted for my birthday, but remain convinced that I must adhere to the queue as given below, in no small part because so many of those books have sat there for so long & been so often the victims of line-jumping by other more immediately-favored books. They deserve their chance.

Recently
Thor Heyerdahl, translated by F. H. Lyon, Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft
Washington Irving, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" & "Rip Van Winkle"
Ross Douthat, Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics

Currently
Matthew Kelly, The Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic: How Engaging 1% of Catholics Could Change the World

Presently
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Swords of Mars
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Synthetic Men of Mars
Sir Ernest Shackleton, South: A Memoir of the Endurance Voyage
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Llana of Gathol
Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Carter of Mars
Richard Price, Clockers
Sir Richard Francis Burton, translator, "Sinbad the Sailor" from The Arabian Nights
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill ***shelved***

Autobahn
I had occasion on Thursday to drive into the heart of Grand Blanc, my hometown, & what should I spy? A Maserati GranTurismo cabriolet, styled the GranCabrio. A Maserati, perhaps the only automobile in the world as beautiful as an Aston Martin. Grand Blanc, I love ya!

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Echosmith, "Cool Kids" via iTunes, (free) Single of the Week (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: 'Twas a very liberating moment for your humble narrator, as a lad, when he realized he would never be one of the cool kids.

The Rebel Black Dot Blue Tree Whacking Song of the Day
Murky Transport Disaster, "The Gummi Bears Theme Song" from The Murky Transport Disaster Disaster Transport Transport Disaster (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: The Murky Transport Disaster Disaster Transport Transport Disaster is dedicated "in loving memory" of The Guy, who has yet to meet his demise. Murky Transport Disaster was the second B.T.W. band, & the first of which The Last Angry Man was a part. Mike Wilson was a member of neither Murky Transport Disaster nor Real Can of Yams; that honor fell to The Last Angry Man.

Comeuppance
Murky Transport Disaster
Real Can of Yams
Super Boat Warp (?)

The album's title does make sense, if one takes a second to break it down to its constituent elements. Murky Transport Disaster, the band, were transporting Disaster Transport, the erstwhile roller coaster, when there was some manner of disaster. Like so:

The
Murky Transport Disaster
Disaster Transport
Transport Disaster.

Zooey Deschanel Appreciation Day

I include the following tragically hip hyperlink because items № 23 & № 26 feature images from New Girl, another of which also accompanied the hyperlink when initially spied on the FaceSpace, in my "feed" courtesy of a distaff acquaintance in her mid twenties who resembles, ever so slightly, a blonde Miss Deschanel: Buzzfeed-link. (Of course, it is entirely possible than the slight resemblance extends no further than this acquaintance's thick-framed spectacles, her penchant for summer dresses, & my lust for her.)



The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Icon for Hire, "Up in Flames" from Scripted (T.L.A.M.)

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
James Brown, "The Old Landmark" from The Blues Brothers: Original Soundtrack Recording (T.L.A.M.)

The Victors

Saturday, 5 October 2013
(№ 19) Michigan 42-13 Minnesota
5-0, Big Ten 1-0

The Little Brown Jug, the oldest rivalry trophy in college football, will remain in Ann Arbor for another year, & the valiant Wolverines prevailed on Homecoming (every home team should win their homecoming game); those are two grand reasons to celebrate. Woot! Quarterback Devin Gardner was also less monumentally dreadful than he had been in the previous two games, against Akron & U.Conn., & that too is a reason for, if not celebration, at least good cheer. Alas, that's pretty much the end of the good news. The game was much closer, the contest much tighter, than one would glean from a casual glance at the score. The luckless Golden Gophers aren't a very good football club, but they gave the valiant Wolverines nearly everything Michigan could handle. Gardner was still hesitant & panicky when pressured, & his passes were frequently inaccurate, though not as disastrously so as in September. The receiving corps did an excellent job of helping to rebuild the shaky Gardner's shattered confidence, coming back to catch a number of badly under thrown balls. The defense showed flashes of dominant brilliance & flashes of absolute ineptitude; better clubs, those to be faced deeper in the Big Ten season, will slash the valiant Wolverines' pass defense for scores & scores of both yards & points, unless there is rapid & radical improvement by the secondary. The interception for a touchdown—referred to, to my great annoyance, as a "pick six"—in the dying seconds of the game notwithstanding, the best defensive play was a broken up touchdown pass in the fourth quarter; the Minnesota receiver was in position & their quarterback threw the ball well, but defensive back Raymon Taylor did a magnificent job of getting his hand on the ball & knocking it away. If that is a sign of things to come, rapid & radical improvement might just be possible.

I would be grateful just for the win, except that we are supposed to be "back," we are supposed to be Michigan again, a club that expects to dispatch lesser opponents with a minimum of effort & drama. The days of being grateful for a win, any win, are supposed to be behind us. Still, I suppose I should be glad for the very first game Gardner has started in which he did not throw an interception, did not account for a single turnover; strike that, given the near-disasters against Akron & U.Conn., I am glad for Gardner's first turnover-free game. He still doesn't deserve to wear Tom Harmon's number, 98, & the valiant Wolverines don't deserve to be ranked in the Top 25, much less № 19 (№ 18 in the new A.P. poll released Sunday night), but there is hope that September's duo of near-upsets might yet become just amusing footnotes to a successful 2013 campaign.

Next: On the road, against the fearsome Nittany Lions of Penn State.

Go Blue!

Urbi et Orbi

I strive mightily not to hate the stupid, but they make it so very hard sometimes. I do mean the mentally impaired or developmentally challenged, I mean the stupid. In my usage, stupidity is not the same as a general lack of intellectual sophistication; stupidity is that lack paired with delusions of grandeur about one's own intelligence. Those who aren't very bright are not stupid, only those who aren't very bright & yet think themselves blindingly luminous.

To-night, I was confronted with a very stupid man preaching hatred in the name of the Almighty. He confesses himself to be a man of no great intellectual heft, & yet he qualifies as stupid because he repeats as Gospel truth every self-described Christian apologist's opinions, no matter how half-baked or anti-Scriptural. His latest gem: all Jews are atheists. The Jews are the world's greatest atheists, because they deny the Christ. He repeated discarded & discredited late Mediaeval & early modern anti-Semitism as if it was new & novel, as if the beastly fellow from whom he cribbed the idea had thought it up all on his own—the first man in history to have the divinely-inspired notion. For the last six months I have been involved in a retreat organization called Christ Renews His Parish (C.R.H.P., or "Chirp"). This man, this self-denying anti-Semite, had been appointed to a position of some authority within "Chirp" by our pastoral vicar, our parish priest. I only hope that Father does not know what truly lies in this stupid man's heart. C.R.H.P. has been a marvelous, sacramental experience, but now I am questioning whether my involvement in it is moral, or if I've been horribly deceived into being a part of something evil & ungodly.

The Explorers' Club, № CCCLX

The Early Cold War, Part IX: The Free Territory of Trieste (1947), the "Cominform" (Communist Information Bureau) (1947), & the split between Marshal Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union & Marshal Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia (1948).







Commentary: This series, "The Early Cold War," has progress roughly chronologically, & so the episode on the Tito-Stalin split was meant to precede the episode on the People's Republic of China, as happened chronologically. But we had a strong desire to publish that latter episode on or near the 1 October anniversary of the P.R.C.'s founding & our running behind schedule (it's like we're an Italian railroad—as soon as we catch up we cannot resist falling behind schedule again) prevented us from doing so in chronological order, with China as Episode № CCCLX; so, the P.R.C. was moved up to № CCCLIX & the Tito-Stalin split was bumped to to-day's № CCCLX. I know, this is inside baseball, but such is my persnicketiness that I thought you were owed an explanation.

Also, there is only one more episode of "The Early Cold War," replete with a collection of useful hyperlinks to the whole series & beyond.

The Rebel Black Dot Songs of the Day
Undeclinable Ambuscade, "Not Again" from Short Music for Short People (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: Like all the other songs on Short Music for Short People, "Not Again" is but half a minute long (thirty-one seconds). Short, short, short, but in the shower this morning I started singing, "…against the world…" over & over again, not precisely remembering the rest of the brief lyrics, presented here in their entirety.

"No, not again,
Against the world,
Why always us against the world?
No, not again,
Not us again,
Why always us against the world?"

Sonntag, 6 Oktober
Mike Park, "Korea Is So Far Away" from Mailorder Is Still Fun!! (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: Chosen in honor of Sunday's running of the F1 Korean Grand Prix. This is a wildly inappropriate choice, since "Korea Is So Far Away" is a serious song about interracial romance & the resistance to assimilation in immigrant populations, but there you go. Sometimes that's just how the R.B.D.S.O.T.D. works.

"Korea is so far away,
Korea is so far away,
And this is my special friend,
We'd meet secretly in the park
And wonder why we couldn't share ourselves.
Korea is so, is so far away—

"Well, I want to share my round-eyed devil with you,
And she's not so different from you…"

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Less Than Jake, "The Science of Selling Yourself Short" from Anthem (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: If I had a theme song, it would be "Simmer Down" by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, but that really might be more entrance music than a real theme song. My truly thematic theme song might well be "The Science of Selling Yourself Short," because I am a superlative scientist.

Bier!
The Yuengling I am drinking, after returning home sweaty & grease-stained from the first K. of C. fish fry of the season (we do one a month through the fall to get us ready for the weekly grind of Lent's meatless Fridays; think of it as the pre-season or spring training), is one of the most delicious libations I have ever imbibed. Rather, it is one of the most delicious beverages I have had of any kind, hard or soft. There are sublime moments in which exactly what you wanted is exactly what you needed & it turns out to be every bit as great, if not even better, than you'd hoped. This is one of those moments, & I am happy.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
King Apparatus, "Tom Metzger's Big Plan" from King Apparatus (T.L.A.M.)

Operation AXIOM

Twenty years ago to the day, 3 October 1993, the First Battle of Mogadishu was fought between special operations forces of the United States Army & the khat-fueled militia of Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. The battle is sometime known by the name of the book written by Mark Bowden, subsequently made into a major motion picture, Black Hawk Down. It is difficult to remember now, after thousands were murdered on 9/11 & thousands more gave the last full measure of devotion in a decade of war in Afghanistan & Iraq, the shock & trauma of nineteen American soldiers killed in the streets of a faraway, benighted city; of some of their bodies being desecrated & dragged through those same streets; of American helicopters shot out of the sky by rocket-propelled grenades. This came only two years after the glorious, almost bloodless triumph of the Gulf War, of Operation DESERT STORM & "These colors don't run." The U.S.-led U.N. mission in Somalia was humanitarian in nature. Amidst widespread chaos & famine, the warlord had hijacked & otherwise obstructed the delivery of international relief supplies, of food & medicine; in one of his last acts in office, the first President Bush sent in the United States Marine Corps to ensure the smooth delivery of the international aid (Operation RESTORE HOPE). Once the flow of food was restored, the Marines were withdrawn & a much smaller contingent of special operations forces—the Rangers, Delta Force, & the 160th S.O.A.R.—stayed behind to arrest the warlord Aidid & bring him to some form of international "justice" (Operation GOTHIC SERPENT). Within six months of the First Battle of Mogadishu, all U.S. armed forces were withdrawn from Somalia, which was allowed to fall further & further into anarchy. (Somalia is still a failed state, & the world is still reaping that particular whirlwind, as illustrated by last week's brutal siege of the Westgate shopping mall/office complex in Nairobi, Kenya, by al-Shabaab, a jihadist militia affiliated with al-Qaeda.) Eighteen American soldiers, a Malaysian peacekeeper, & upwards of a thousand Somali militiamen were killed in the First Battle of Mogadishu; the Medal of Honor was awarded, posthumously, to Delta Force snipers Master Sergeant Gordon & Sergeant First Class Shughart; Secretary of Defense Les Aspin resigned amid criticism that he has denied U.S. forces in Somalia the armed fighting vehicles & heavy air support that might have forestalled or at least saved numerous lives during the battle. Black Hawk Down, twenty years ago to-day.

Project GLOWWORM
I really should be used it by now, after all these moustachioed years, yet I still find myself discouraged when a hair over an inch long simply falls out of my moustache. Hairs come & hairs go, this I learned long ago, & the success of the array of whiskers is not contingent upon any single hair. Yet when a hair gives up the ghost, I fear that my moustache has reached its zenith, that it's all down hill from here. That wouldn't be so bad, if this was all there was. I enjoy my moustache & the smiles it puts on the faces of strangers. Yet in my vanity I yearn for more, I yearn to sport a moustache of heroic proportions. Stay the course lad, & count your bewhiskered blessings.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Flogging Molly, "Selfish Man" from Swagger (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary:

"I don't eat I just devour,
Everyone and every hour,
All is me is all I need
And that's all that I care.
Propelled through all this madness
By your beauty and my sadness,
I'll never change or rearrange
'Til I've finished what I've started.
And life it leads me here,
It showed me I have never really loved no one but me,
Like the time that slipped through my hand
And I'll never understand
Why I'm such a selfish man…"

The Explorers' Club, № CCCLIX

The Early Cold War, Part VIII: The final phase of the Chinese Civil War (1945-1950), the founding of the People's Republic of China (1949), & the "Who lost China?" debate.







Commentary: Yesterday, 1 October, was the anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, sixty-four years since Chairman Mao stood atop the Gate of Heavenly Peace (the Tiananmen) & declared that "China has stood up." Scores of millions of Chinese would die of violence or starvation in the twenty-seven years Mao misruled the Middle Kingdom.

The Rebel Black Dot Songs of the Day
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, "You Left Right?" from Pin Points and Gin Joints (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary:

"Are you regretful? Are ya?
Are you remorseful? Are ya?
Are you successful? Or are ya
Just tryin' to make it through?
Did your whole world just shatter?
Are you happy or sadder?
Does it really matter?
Did I matter to you?"

Dienstag, 1 Oktober
Marty Haugen, "Shepherd Me, O God (Psalm 23)" via iTunes (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: Yesterday was the feast day of "the Little Flower of Jesus," Saint Thérèse of Lisieux.

Autobahn
I spied two noteworthy vanity license plates this morning, one on the way to my new dentist's office & one on the way from my new dentist's office. The first, F1REDUP, is presumably meant to be read "Fired Up." I wonder if elsewhere in sacred Michigan there is a motorcar with the vanity plate FIREDUP, or if the driver of F1REDUP replaced the "I" with a "1" for purely stylistic reasons. (Or, the motorist could be a Formula One fan, who is fired up about F1.)

The second vanity plate was HORSE32. The owner is presumably an aficionado of heroin.

4,600

This is a four thousand six hundredth published post of The Secret Base of the Rebel Black Dot Society. 4,600 is not a particularly noteworthy number, like, say, 1,000 or 5,000, but it is round enough & large enough to justify this commentary. Of late, I've been much more interested in the metrics of The Secret Base. I've always championed quality or quantity, & still do, but in some ways that it a false dichotomy. (And I don't just mean in Stalin's famous formulation that, "Quantity has a quality all its own.") What I mean is that over the last several years I'd grown increasingly dissatisfied with The Secret Base, ruing plaintively that things weren't the way they used to be. The Secret Base had in many ways ceased to be a joy, ceased to be an inspiration in & of itself. Many days "The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day" was the only thing that prompted me to blog, & increasingly even those would be packaged into sprees of days' or even a week's worth of songs. This was in large measure a problem of my own creation; the fewer posts I published, the more pressure I imposed upon myself to stuff those posts to the gills with features, opinions, & amusing turns of phrase. This desire to make each post both massive & an event in & of itself lead to fewer & fewer posts being published, as each required more work, more inspiration, & more time to prepare. The less frequently I published the more The Secret Base felt like a job, & the less frequently I published as a result. This negative feedback looped looked & felt like a death spiral.

Numbers proved a life preserver to this sinking blog, this drowning blogger. The latest technological overhaul to the Blogger interface required a change of template; I was displeased by the arbitrary nature of this mandate, but if the fiends at Blogger weren't going to support The Secret Base's template then my only choices were to switch templates or give up the ship. The new template included not only a permanent archive, but publication metrics built into that archive. Lamenting that the enterprise was sick, that the good old days were the days of old, it did not take me long to realize one crucial difference 'twixt the salad days of yore & the present morass: Back in the day, The Secret Base was published a lot more often. I published three hundred eighteen (318) posts in 2012, the fewest since our foundational tear, 2002, when the interwebs were more primitive, "social media" was only just being invented, and The Secret Base had two hundred seventy-five (275) posts. There was a clear downward trend in the second decade of the 21st century, with 2011's three hundred twenty (320) posts, '10's three hundred twenty-three (323), & '08's three hundred twenty-two (322). The two most outstanding years of this blog's existence, as determined by volume of publication, were 2007, with five hundred ninety-one (591) posts & 2004, with an astonishing six hundred seventy-five (675) posts. That's a pace of almost two posts per day (1.85 posts per day), & almost a whole post per day more than '12 (0.87 posts per day). Quantity is not the same thing as quality, but my impressions & memories of the periods involved reveal that satisfaction with The Secret Base is directly proportional to the volume of publication; the more posts I published, the more posts I wanted to published, & the happier I was with what I published. There was correlation there, even if not causation.

As to the question of quality versus quantity, methinks my annual Mass-attendance goal provides a useful case study. The danger in counting the number of Masses I attend is that the goal of attending Mass could become to meet a quota rather than worship the Holy Trinity of the Father, the Son, & the Holy Ghost. Experience shows this to be an empty concern, a snare set by a devil to dissuade me from being more observant; the more Masses I attend, the better a Christian I am, the more tolerant & forgiving of my fellow man, the more generous in both spirit & action, the more cognizant of & joyful in the peace of Christ. In a similar way, though publishing the R.B.D.S.O.T.D. as an independent post could be dismissed as empty number-chasing, as cooking the books to impress the bosses; this, however, is rightly viewed as a trick, a snare of the dark bastard, a trap into which I'd been falling for years & years, to the detriment of The Secret Base & this disappointment of my treasured readers. No, publication breeds more publication. Publishing the R.B.D.S.O.T.D. as an independent post is not pulling rubes in off the streets & paying them to bulk up the audience in an second-rate magician's theater, it is the gateway to publishing two & even three posts per day. It is the path to a more persistent, more satisfying Secret Base.

After a rough start to the year, with five of the first six months of '13 failing to see an average even one published post per day, the last three months have seen a deliberate effort to raise the post-count & accompanying increases in your humble narrator's interest in The Secret Base & satisfaction with the blog being published. The salad days are not back again, not quite yet, but we're definitely back on track for the first time in years, since at least '07. This will be the forty-second post of September, the year's most productive month yet. This will also mean that through the first three quarters of 2013, two hundred seventy-three (273) days, two hundred eight-four (284) posts will have been published, an average of 1.04 posts per day. Nowhere close to '04 or '07, but better than any other years since that second peak in '07. Through the first six months of the year, one hundred eighty-one (181) days, one hundred sixty-eight posts were published, a 0.93 posts per day average. Over the last three months, ninety-two (92) days, one hundred sixteen posts have been published, an average of 1.26 posts per day. The road back to respectability (even if only self-respectability) & readability requires persistence & intentionality. Quantity is not the same thing as quality, but quantity appears to be necessary for quality.

Urbi et Orbi
Through the end of this month, I have attended Mass forty-four (44) since 1 January, well on the way to our annual goal of fifty-two (52) Masses, even without Advent & the Christmastide's flurry of Masses. I've also partaken of the Sacrament of Reconciliation (confession) thrice this year, twice in the last week due to unusual circumstances.

This Sunday's first reading (the Old Testament reading, expect for a few special, all-New Testament Sundays a year), was a delightfully angry outburst from the Book of Amos. The following selection does not quite match Sunday's reading, but it amuses me more—Amos 6:1-3:

Woe to the complacent in Zion,
to the overconfident on the mount of Samaria,
Leaders of a nation favored from the first,
to whom the people of Israel have recourse!
Pass over to Calneh and see,
go from there to Hamath the great,
and down to Gath of the Philistines!
Are you better than these kingdoms,
or is your territory wider than theirs?
You would put off the evil day,
yet you hasten the reign of violence!

The Rebel Black Dot Party Song of the Day
The Aquabats!, "Pool Party!" from Myths, Legends, and Other Amazing Adventures, Vol. 2 (Captain Thumbs Up!)

Commentary: Not to be confused with the altogether darker "Pool Party" by Mu330.

"Pool party, baby,
It was a cool party,
Cool pool party,
La la la la.

"The ratio of girls to guys is five to one,
There hasn't been a party like this since 1981,
Come to my party, let the games begin,
We've even got floaties if you can't swim.

"(Your pool rips!)
I cleaned it yesterday,
(Girls look cute)
In their swimming suits,
(Holy guacamole!)
We've got chips,
So come and take a dip,
'Cause my pool rips!

"It was a pool party for the cool kids at my school!
It was a pool party for the cool kids at my school!
It's so cool in my pool,
It's so cool in my pool,
It's so cool in my pool,
It's so cool in my pool,
Yeah yeah yeah…

"There's no pool at my school,
There's no school in my pool,
Well, there's no pool at my school,
So it's cool in my pool,
Yeah yeah yeah yeah!"

The Rebel Black Dot Party Songs of the Day
Sam Cooke, "Having a Party" from Portrait of a Legend, 1951-1964 (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: Sam Cooke!

Samstag, 28 September
Lyle Workman, "Flashback Party Weekend" from Superbad: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: If you visualize my weekend as having been like the flashback montage sequence from Superbad, you'd be both very, very wrong & ever so slightly right.

What's Eating The Last Angry Man?

I hate it when my time is wasted. Why was it necessary for all of us to be so there early if we didn't really start working 'til hours later? Why was it necessary for ten of us to sit around twiddling our thumbs while two persons went over paperwork to which the rest of us had no access? I waste plenty of time, but that is my time to waste, dash it all. I hate it when others waste my time through managerial ineptitude. I am struggling to measure up to Kipling's words, "If you can wait and not be tired by waiting…" I hate it when something worthwhile becomes a burdensome waste of time when it should be fulfilling & invigorating.

That's what's eating The Last Angry Man.

The Rebel Black Dot Party Song of the Day
Reel Big Fish, "Party Down" from Monkeys for Nothin' and the Chimps for Free (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: "We just came to party hearty, hearty, hearty, hearty…"

The Rebel Black Dot Party Song of the Day
Fountains of Wayne, "Janice's Party" from Out-of-State Plates (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: Standard Secret Base practice used to be to specify whether a song came from Disc One or Disc Two of Out-of-State Plates & similar double albums/collections, though this has ceased. I see no reason beyond pedantry to specify from which disc a particular song hails unless that listing provides additional entertainment value, as in the case of the two discs of the Reel Big Fish's double live album, Our Live Album Is Better Than Your Live Album, both of which are separately subtitled, in the R.B.F.'s inimitable style.

"Well, I came this far and
Now I know that I won't sleep well tonight,
Drunk out of my mind at
Janice's party's alright, alright…"

This Week in Motorsport

Formula Fun!
Formula One World Championship
Round 13
Singapore Grand Prix
Sunday, 22 September 2013

Reigning triple World Champion Sebastian Vettel ('10, '11, & '12) of Red Bull (Renault) dominated the Singapore Grand Prix as I'd never before seen, not even during his virtually unchallenged romp to his second world title in 2011. Starting from the pole, Vetel was overtaken by second place qualifier Nico Rosberg of Mercedes A.M.G. into turn one, but only because Rosberg carried too much speed into the corner; the Mercedes man overshot the turn, allowing Vettel to slide back into the lead, one he would never again relinquish. Vettel's opening stint was long, meaning he kept running longer than than anyone else on the softer option tires before diving into the pit lane, retaining the lead because all the challengers had already ceded time by pitting earlier.

He had built up a ten-plus second lead halfway through the grand prix when his future teammate, Daniel Ricciardo of Toro Rosso (Ferrari), crashed into the tire barrier, bringing out the inevitable yellow-flag safety car period. (The Marina Bay Street Circuit has concrete barriers lining the track & almost no runoff; there is no grass to sailing into harmlessly, meaning almost every crash brings out the safety car. There has been at least one safety car period in every running of the Singapore Grand Prix.) The Ferrari factory team & Lotus (Renault) both took advantage of the safety car period to dive into the pits for fresh rubber, intending to run to the end on the harder prime tires. The Mercedes A.M.G. & Red Bull duos stayed out. Vettel's gap was erased by the safety car, though he quickly pulled away again. The problem, though, was that those who had not pitted under the safety car would never be able to stay out 'til the end of the race; inevitably they'd have to pit again, allowing the cars behind to leapfrog them into the lead. Vettel's only hope was to build up a large enough gap to be able to enter the pit lane, stop to have his tires changed, & exit again without giving up the lead; so, that's what he did. Vettel pushed like mad, burning away his tires, while his pursuers had to conserve their rubber in order to make their strategy work. Even so, what Vettel did was extraordinary. For lap after lap after lap he drove two second faster than the rest of the field. He had won the pole over Rosberg by one tenth of a second, such is the relative parity of the F1 field; to lap two second a lap faster than any other car, & to do so over a sustained period of laps, was unique in my experience.

His Red Bull teammate Mark Webber & the Mercedes A.M.G. duo of Rosberg & '08 World Champion Lewis Hamilton had to pit for fresh tries, allowing double World Champion Fernando Alonso ('05 & '06) of Ferrari & '07 World Champion Kimi Räikkönen of Lotus to leap ahead. Vettel pushed & pushed & pushed, his lead growing & growing & growing. The pit lane delta at Marina Bay being around twenty-six second, Vettel built up a half minute lead over Alonso, pitted, & emerged three seconds ahead of the charging Spaniard—& while Alonso was on older primes that he still had to nurse to the end, Vettel emerged on a new set of softer, faster options, tires he hadn't had to use during qualifying. Vettel charged ahead, pulled away, & never looked back. By the drop of the checkered flag, Vettel was thirty-two seconds clear of the rest of the field; for reference, a lap around the Marina Bay Street Circuit takes, on average, one minutes forty-five seconds.

Vettel was really & truly in a league of his own; the rest of the field, which includes four past world champions (Alonso, Räikkönen, Hamilton, & '09 World Champion Jenson Button of McLaren [Mercedes]), were left to fight over second place, which every competitor knows is just the first loser. Vettel has won three consecutive Singapore Grands Prix, & three consecutive grands prix in '13; he has prevailed in seven of this season's thirteen grand prix, having won five grand prix a season during his '10 & '12 championship-winning campaigns. He leads his closest challenger, Alonso, by sixty points, with six grands prix remaining, meaning Alonso has to outscore Vettel by an average of more than ten points to prevent the German from his fourth consecutive world championship. (For reference, to this point Vettel has outscored Alonso by an average over over four & a half points per grand prix.)

Next: The Korean Grand Prix, which Vettel has won two of the last three years; the Japanese Grand Prix, which Vettel has won two of the last three years; and the Indian Grand Prix, which Vettel has won both times it has been run. Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Formula Fun!

By Endurance We Conquer
American Le Mans Series
Round 8
International Sports Car Weekend
Saturday, 21 September 2013

Three weeks after the crummy street circuit of the Baltimore Grand Prix (that's not a generic knock against street circuits, Baltimore's is bar none the worst street circuit I've ever seen), the A.L.M.S. shared the new Circuit of the Americas (C.O.T.A.) with the World Endurance Championship, the F.I.A./A.C.O. partnership that includes the 24 Heures du Mans. C.O.T.A. is less than a year old, its first race being last November's F1 United States Grand Prix, but it has already become one of the world's favorite circuits; it is simply fantastic.

The most important racing news is that not only did the № 3 Corvette of Jan Magnussen & Antonio García win the race, but they extended their G.T. class drivers' championship lead over Dirk Müller of B.M.W. The № 4 Corvette duo of Oliver Gavin & Tommy Milner suffered a severe blow by dropping out of the race with gearbox troubles well short of 70% total race distance, thus scoring no points, though they hung on to third in the drivers' standings. In the G.T. class manufacturers' standings, Corvette Racing (Chevrolet Corvette) holds a comfortable lead over B.M.W. Team R.L.L. (B.M.W. Z4), who are under intense pressure from third place S.R.T. Motorsports (S.R.T. [formerly Dodge] Viper).

United SportsCar Championship
coming 2014

The merger of the American Le Mans Series & the Grand-Am (sponsor) Sports Car Series was initially named United SportsCar Racing, which was not only aggressively dull but also awkward, leading commentators to talk about next year's United SportsCar Racing series. The name has since been amended to the (sponsor) United SportsCar Championship (U.S.C.C.). So much for their mantra "Getting it right, the first time."

The calendar for the inaugural 2014 season of the U.S.C.C. has been announced. It is a mixed bag, not the disaster I'd feared but not the triumph it could have been. The truly awful Baltimore race won't be returning (it is scandalous to confine prototypes meant to fly down the Mulsanne Straight at Le Mans to the concrete canyons of a street circuit) & the boring roval at N.A.S.C.A.R.'s Kansas Speedway has been deleted, but the boring roval at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway remains from this year's Grand-Am calendar. The loudest complaints have been over the non-inclusion of Mid-Ohio & Lime Rock, two of this country's classic racing circuits. In response, the existing series' lame reply has been, to paraphrase, "This is only the first season's calendar. Those tracks might return in 2015 & beyond," once again putting the lie to "Getting it right, the first time." Still, there will be four genuine endurance races: the season-opening 24 Hours of Daytona, the 12 Hours of Sebring, the 6 Hours of the Glen (Watkins Glen), & the season-concluding ten-hour Petit Le Mans (Road Atlanta). That is welcome news indeed.

So, things could look better, but they could easily look worse (especially considering that the U.S.C.C. is owned—lock, stock, & barrel—by N.A.S.C.A.R.). Here's hoping they hew to the reputed last words of Harry "The Breaker" Morant: "Shoot straight, you bastards! Don't make a mess of it."

Commentary: Acknowledging that some of this blog's most long-standing readers would scarcely shed a tear over the final demise of "This Week in Motorsport," we here in editorial have resolved to adhere firmly to the title & publish not more than once per week. Thus, the summary of the remainder of the A.L.M.S. season will have to wait 'til next week at the earliest. We published the C.O.T.A. analysis in the firm belief that the first step to catching up is not allowing oneself to fall any further behind.

The Rebel Black Dot Party Song of the Day
The Wombats, "Party In a Forest (Where's Laura?)" from The Wombats Proudly Present A Guide to Love, Loss, and Desperation (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary:

"Am I in a scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream?
I thought raves like these died in the '90s…
This is not my scene,
I should not be here tonight…"

The Rebel Black Party Song of the Day
The Hold Steady, "Party Pit" from Boys and Girls in America (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: Things go horribly amiss at the party pit, as they nearly always do in the songs of The Hold Steady.

Autobahn
Yesterday, I exited the green grocer's to find the Lumi, the Distaff Son of the Mousemobile parked opposite a Holden—Holden, General Motors's Australasian subsidiary. Holden's are sold here in the U.S. but rebadged; the late Pontiac G8 was a rebadged VE Commodore while the new Chevrolet SS is a rebadged VF Commodore. I'm going to chock this up as one of the myriad benefits of being a citizen of sacred Michigan, still the heart of the American automotive industry, even after all that's happened. (A "This Week in Motorsport" aside: I root for the Holden Commodores, especially the works Holden Racing Team [H.R.T.], against the dastardly Ford Falcons in V8 Supercars.)

This afternoon, I saw my very first Chevrolet Corvette Stingray (the brand-new seventh generation Corvette, or C7) in the wild. I fought the madding crowd to snatch fleeting glimpses of the Stingray at the North American International Auto Show last winter, & I've seen many, many photographs as the car has received extensive & fawning coverage in both Car and Driver & Road & Track, but this was the first time I'd really seen one for myself. Holy smoke, that is the very motorcar of my dreams.

The Rebel Black Dot Party Song of the Day
That Loser That Always Shows Up at the Party with a Guitar, "Oh Sherrie" from Take Me Home Tonight: Motion Picture Soundtrack (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: Sometime after midnight, some loser on the porch produced a guitar & proceeded to play the greatest hits of the Beatles. I had murder on my mind, but the better angels of my nature prevailed.

Dialogue from after the mercifully brief performance of "Oh Sherrie":

That Loser: "How you like that?"
Girl: "That was awesome."
Other Girl: "Was really good."
That Loser: "Yeah."
Girl: "I've got goose bumps."
That Loser: "I know."
Other Girl: "I love your sweater."
That Loser: "Thanks."

The Rebel Black Dot Party Song of the Day
MxPx, "Party II (Time to Go)" from The Renaissance E.P. (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: Friday's party was not a seminal event in my life, but it was a fun party, & got me thinking about the number of fun party songs there are—not necessarily songs suited to being played at a party, but songs about parties. Thus, this brief series.

Long before the party drew to a close (& I really have no idea when it drew to a close, but it was still going when I departed at 3:00 A.M.), Super Mario, one of the residents of the Chevy House, expressed concern of how many of the guests he did not know, & voiced a desire for them to leave so that he could go to sleep.

"It's time to go,
I don't care who you are or who you know,
It's time to go,
I don't care who you are or who you know…

"This night is spent,
You're out the door if you're not paying rent,
This night is spent,
You're out the door if you're not paying rent…"

The Victors

(№ 15) Michigan 24-21 Connecticut
4-0, Big Ten 0-0

Abandon all hope. The valiant Wolverines are arrogant, lazy, & stupid. Twice now they have entered a game unprepared, have failed to respect their opponents, & have been all but defeated. We will fail to win the Big Ten title again this year. We do not deserve to be ranked in the Top 25, & I hope the voters concur. Back to the drawing board.

Next: A bye week, followed by the conference opener against the luckless Golden Gophers.

Go Blue!

Also, have I mentioned how much I hate night games? I hate night games like the cancer, & I say that as a man whose darling mother is what they call a cancer survivor.

The Queue
I watched the pilot of the new series Sleepy Hollow & was fully prepared to be outraged by the deviations from the father of American literature's classic tale, variations of such breadth & substance as to render the show not just an imaginative expansion of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," but a cynical attempt to cash-in on the short story's enduring fame while borrowing naught but the most insignificant of details such as names & locations, & jettisoning entirely the story's spirit. Before I could be so outraged, I needed to re-read "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" for the first time in twenty years or more; having done so, from a slim volume titled The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, I am now duly outraged. Unsurprised, but outraged nonetheless.

I am halfway through Bad Religion, having finished "Part I: Christianity in Crisis" & standing on the cusp of "Part II: The Age of Heresy."

Recently
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
Thor Heyerdahl, translated by F. H. Lyon, Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft
Washington Irving, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

Currently
Ross Douthat, Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics
Matthew Kelly, The Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic: How Engaging 1% of Catholics Could Change the World ***paused***

Presently
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Swords of Mars
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Synthetic Men of Mars
Sir Ernest Shackleton, South: A Memoir of the Endurance Voyage
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Llana of Gathol
Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Carter of Mars
Sir Richard Francis Burton, translator, "Sinbad the Sailor" from The Arabian Nights
Richard Price, Clockers
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill ***shelved***

The Rebel Black Dot Party Song of the Day
Blink-182, "The Party Song" from Enema of the State (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: At Friday night's party at the Chevy House, from which I am newly returned, I heard some vile tales of fornication & debauchery, many disclosures that began, "I wouldn't be saying this if I wasn't drunk…." I did not experience the exact scenario described in "The Party Song's" lyrics, but a nineteen-year-old did lift up her dress—unbidden, I must stress—& expose her panties to my friend (code name: the Ginger, a sojourner in sacred Michigan) & me. Like most nineteen-year-olds, she possessed virtually no self-awareness but vast, baseless reserves of self-assurance.

"And then I saw her standing there
With green eyes and long blond hair,
She wasn't wearing underwear,
At least I prayed that she might be the one,
Maybe we'd have some fun,
Maybe we'd watch the sunrise,
But that night I learned some girls try too hard.

"Some girls try too hard,
And some girls try too hard to impress
With the way that the dress,
With those things on their chest,
And the things they suggest…"

"So when you see her standing there
With green eyes and long blond hair,
She won't be wearing underwear,
And you'll discover this girl's not the one
And she'll never be fun,
You should just turn and run,
Because you'll find out that some girls try too hard…"

Project MERCATOR
King Tot (Red Patton) was defeated, but not dethroned. Shenanigans are suspected, but relatively innocent shenanigans, more in the realm of ineptitude than corruption. The weighing procedures used by the staff of Bar Louie are neither consistent enough nor precise enough to justify a 0.1 gram margin of victory (roughly half of one tater tot), but it is what it is. Defeated, but not dethroned. King Tot! King Tot! King Tot!

There is a going away party to-night at the Chevy House, involving most of the rascals from last night's Rock the Tot competition. Judging by the last party at the Chevy House, a welcome home party, this should be fun.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Icon for Hire, "The Grey" from Scripted (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary:

"How cold have I become?
I didn't want to lose you by what I done…"

This Week in Motorsport: Formula Fun!

Formula One World Championship
Round 4
Bahrain Grand Prix
Sunday, 21 April 2013

All Renault, all the time; Renault-powered cars owned the podium, with reigning triple World Champion Sebastian Vettel ('10, '11, & '12) of Red Bull the victor & the Lotuses of '07 World Champion Kimi Räikkönen & Romain Grosjean in second & third. This was the exact same podium line-up as at the 2012 Bahrain Grand Prix.

Round 5
Gran Premio de España
Sunday, 12 May 2013

A very good day for Ferrari as double World Champion Fernando Alonso ('05 & '06) won & Felipe Massa finished third. The two Red Bulls were consigned to a relatively modest fourth & fifth; it is a tribute to the dominance Red Bull has displayed in winning the last three Constructor's Championships that finished fourth & fifth, scoring a boatload of points but putting neither driver on the podium, must be considered a relatively modest result. I can only ask you to take me at my word when I tell you that though I am a Red Bull fan & Red Bull has been one of the best teams since I started watching F1 in '09, I am not a fair weather fan of Red Bull Racing.

Round 6
Grand Prix de Monaco
Sunday, 26 May 1013

The "Silver Arrows" of the Mercedes A.M.G. factory squad, piloted by Nico Rosberg & '08 World Champion Lewis Hamilton, locked out the front row in the Principality. This was an ominous sign for the rest of the grid, since it is notoriously difficult to pass on the narrow, twisty streets of Monte Carlo. Vettel & Mark Webber of Red Bull (Renault) started third & fourth. The race was red flagged twice due to crashes & the necessity of repairing derangement of the protective trackside barriers. Both Red Bulls managed to pass Hamilton on the restart after the first red flag, but they could not find their way around Rosberg. Much was made of Rosberg's victory, as it cam thirty years after this father, 1982 World Champion Keke Rosberg, won the Monaco Grand Prix.

Vettel set the fasted lap of the race in the dying laps, even though it was clear he has no realistic chance to pass Rosberg. He was scolded by his race engineer for pushing harder than necessary, for taking an unnecessary risk. This is a common occurrence & a common dialogue, even when Vettel is leading grands prix by a mile. After the team told him there was nothing to gain by setting the fastest lap, Vettel replied, "But satisfaction."

Round 7
Grand Prix du Canada
Sunday, 9 June 2013

Vettel dominated around the Circuit Gilles Villenueve, finished over fourteen seconds ahead of the pursuing Alonso & Hamilton. The story of the weekend was Finnish rookie Valtteri Bottas of Williams (Renault), who qualified his generally uncompetitive car third, ahead of Rosberg, Webber, & Alonso, et al., & behind only polesitter Vettel & Hamilton. Of course, in the grand prix Bottas was eaten alive, finishing a lowly fourteenth. (Though, really, that isn't that lowly a result of the nine times Constructors' Champions Williams. O how the mighty hath fallen!)

Round 8
British Grand Prix
Sunday, 30 June 2013

In the five years I've watched racing, this year's British Grand Prix was uniquely disastrous. In four separate incidents, on four separate chassis made by four separate constructors, a tire failed catastrophically all on its own. A racing tire, a highly stressed instrument always pushed to the limit of its performance, will often fail catastrophically if punctured by a piece of debris encountered on track (modern race cars are made of super lightweight carbon fiber, which shatters into razor-sharp shards), but here the tires were failing without any external cause. Pirelli, the exclusive "control" tire supplier, are simply incompetent. There's no way around it. They produced a substandard tire & then they gave the teams permission to use that tire in a manner that was almost guaranteed to cause a loss of, in '90s Star Trek parlance, structural integrity. I am aghast that the F.I.A. has not cancelled Pirelli's contract for 2014; it is too late to make a change for this year, but such ineptitude cannot be tolerated going forward.

Rosberg won the race after Hamilton suffered one of the four catastrophic tire failures & Vettel retired with gearbox troubles.

Round 9
Großer Preis von Deutschland
Sunday, 7 July 2013

Such has been the dominance of Vettel since his first full F1 season in '08 (he drove half of the '07 season, for the then B.M.W. Sauber & the Red Bull "B" squad, Toro Rosso [Ferrari]), that there are only three grands prix he had never won, the United States Grand Prix (run last year for the first time since, I think, '06; Vettel finished second), the Hungarian Grand Prix, & his home German Grand Prix. Germany & Hungary being scheduled when they are, Vettel had curiously never won a race in July. That changed this year as Vettel prevailed at the Nürburgring, barely holding off Räikkönen's Lotus. Grosjean's Lotus finished third, exactly recreating the Renault-dominated podium from Bahrain. (Vettel has yet to win at the Hockenheimring, the location of the German round in even-numbered years.)

Round 10
Magyar Nagydíj (Hungarian Grand Prix)
Sunday, 28 July 2013

There is a saying in auto racing, "Horses for courses," meaning different cars are best suited to different kind of circuits & a car that dominates at one track might be hopeless at another. The same is true of drivers. Hamilton is imperious at the tortuous, dusty Hungaroring, winning four of the seven Hungarian Grands Prix he's contested, '07, '09, & '12 for McLaren (Mercedes) & '13 with the Mercedes works team.

McLaren had been dominant in Hungary, winning five of the last seven races (Hamilton's triple; '09 World Champion Jenson Button prevailing in '11; & Heikki Kovalainen in '08, his only win in two years with the team), but they have fallen off the pace this season. Button & "Checo" Pérez finished seventh & ninth in the Magyar Nagydíj, & McLaren remain mired in sixth place in the Constructors' Championship standing, behind Force India (Mercedes). I am enjoying McLaren's tribulations as long as they last, for those crafty bastards will surely find their way back to the front of the field soon enough (next year or in '15, when they will be the first team to use the returning Honda's engines).

Round 11
Belgian Grand Prix
Sunday, 25 August 2013

In Formula One, most passes happen not on the straightaways but in the corners, not on the throttle but on the brakes. The exception to this is when one car passes another on the straightaway using the Drag Reduction System (D.R.S.), a gimmick that increases a car's straight line speed. Qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix was held in mixed conditions, with rain waxing & waning. This, combined with the four-plus-mile length of the magnificent Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, made tire selection & timing very difficult decisions. Vettel qualified second, being pipped at the line by Hamilton. At the start of the race, Hamilton held the lead through the first corner, La Source, & lead the field toward the daunting Eau Rouge corner & the Kemmel Straight. Then Vettel drove right past him. D.R.S. isn't activated 'til after the second lap of the race, but there Vettel was on the first lap passing Hamilton's Mercedes as if it was standing still. It was a rare & incredible display. After that, Vettel utterly dominated the race, finishing ahead of the second place Alonso by almost seventeen seconds. (That is a lifetime in F1.) Hamilton finished third, another ten second back from Alonso.

In the Drivers' Championship stakes, Räikkönen's chances of a second world championship took a hit when he retired halfway through the race with brake troubles, dropping him from second place to fourth in the standings. Alonso climbed one spot to second & Hamilton was up one spot to third. Webber maintained fifth place in the standings.

In the Constructor's Championship, Vettel's win & Webber's fifth place finish (yes, mirroring their overall Drivers' positions) netted Red Bull thirty-five points. Mercedes scored twenty-seven with Hamilton in third & Rosberg in fourth. Ferrari raked in twenty-four off of Alonso's superlatively drive to second & Massa's seventh. Red Bull thus increased their lead while at the same time giving their competitors one less grand prix in which to make up that difference. A fourth consecutive Constructors' crown is looking more & more likely. McLaren outscored Force India by enough points to overtake the Indian team for fifth, with Lotus in little to no danger of losing fourth place.

Round 12
Gran Premio d'Italia
Sunday, 8 September 2013

Vettel dominated at Monza, the site of his first F1 victory, with Toro Rosso in '08. He easily lead from Alonso, who was flying the flag for hometown favorite Ferrari, even as the reigning triple champion's Red Bull was plagued by tire problems in the first half of the race & gearbox woes in the second half. Webber finished a strong third for Red Bull & Massa a solid fourth for Ferrari, further increasing the Austrian constructor's lead over the Italians. (Austrian because the team owner, Dietrich Mateschitz, is Austrian; Red Bull Racing's factory/home base is in England, one of eight of the eleven F1 teams to be so situated. Only Ferrari & Toro Rosso, in Italy, & Sauber [Ferrari], in Switzerland, are based outside of the U.K. Coincidence or no, they are all three of the Ferrari-powered teams.)

Despite Vettel's dominance, the drive of the day had to have been Nico Hülkenberg's, who qualified his uncompetitive Sauber third & held off the Mercedes A.M.G. "Silver Arrow" of twice-in-'13-race-winner Rosberg for fifth in the grand prix. Hülkenberg is rated by many as one of the most promising younger drivers on the grid, & a potential world champion, but he has yet to be given a competitive car. More on this in "The Silly Season." His work at Monza was highly impressive, reminiscent of his great drive at last year's season finale in Brazil.

On the podium, the highly partisan Italian crowd booed Vettel, displaying all the class & sportsmanship for which Italians are so well known. Vettel smiled throughout, surely stung, but also knowing that they booed only because he so thoroughly defeated the crowd's beloved Ferraris. For shame, Italy.

Next: The Singapore Grand Prix in the concrete canyons of the Marina Bay Street Circuit, this coming weekend, 20-22 September. A greater contrast to Spa & Monza is hard to envision, which is not to say that Singapore doesn't put on quite the spectacle. The race is run at night, under an artificial sun of thousands of lights that make the sponsorship liveries on the cars sparkle as they do nowhere else. Formula One? Formula fun!

The Silly Season
It was announced in the summer that this would be Mark Webber's last season in F1, that he was retiring from grand prix racing in favor of Porsche's new-for-2014 L.M.P.1 car, to challenge for victory at the 24 Heures du Mans & the World Endurance Championship. Said "Mr. Le Mans," nine-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Tom Kristensen, "Mark's always been a sports car guy, we just loaned him out to Formula One for a number of years." Partnering Vettel in the the reigning triple Constructors' Championship-winning Red Bull instantly became the best opportunity available to any F1 pilot in search of glory. Vettel had been promoted to Red Bull from Toro Rosso, so both current Toro Rosso drivers, Daniel Ricicardo & Jean-Eric Vergne, were contenders, as was Kimi Räikkönen. The point of Toro Rosso, beyond acting as rolling billboards for Red Bull Energy Drink, is to be the Red Bull junior team, to train up the next generation of Red Bull champions. While no one questioned the Kimster's superiority as a driver, some wondered what the alue was of even operating Toro Rosso if neither Ricciardo nor Vergne was given the seat vacated by Webber. Vergne was the first one announced to be out of the running, which I thought odd; yes, he doesn't qualify as well as Ricciardo, but in the races he generally finishes in a higher position than he qualified, & in the drivers' standing the Frenchman has only one fewer point than the more experienced (though only by half a season) Australian. In the end, young Ricciardo earned the golden ticket, but also the weight of expectations; everyone knows next year's Red Bull, the RB10, will be a superlatively racing machine, & the broadly smiling Ricciardo will have no excuses if he doesn't produce the required results. I wish the lad well, & look forward to cheering him on in place of the grizzled, forthright Webber.

So, both Red Bull drivers, Sebastian Vettel & Daniel Ricciardo, will be graduates of Scuderia Toro Rosso, which next season will switch from Ferrari to Renault engines. It is widely expected that Red Bull junior driver António Félix da Costa, currently competing in Formula Renault 3.5 (centerpiece of the World Series by Renault & roughly equivalent to G.P.2, F1's official feeder series), will partner the disappointed Vergne at Toro Rosso. The Toro Rosso seat is not that highly coveted on its own—though they do lie seventh in the Constructors', ahead of Sauber, Williams, Caterham (Renault), & Marussia (Cosworth)—but is now more than ever seen as the stepping stone to Red Bull. Will Buxton describes young Félix da Costa as "blindingly fast."

Though Felipe Massa came within one heart-breaking point of being world champion in '08 & the hearts of the entire F1 world went out to him after his devastating crash in '09, the cold, hard fact remains that he has run more consecutive races for Ferrari without a grand prix victory than any other driver in the history of the Scuderia. Thus, with the well-wishes of his teammate Fernando Alonso & the engineers, mechanics, & strategists of Ferrari at his back, Massa is now looking to join another F1 for next season. Räikkönen, who drove for Ferrari from '07-'09, winning the Drivers' Championship in '07, will move over from Lotus. "The Iceman" is a supremely talented driver & will surely score more points than the fragile & inconsistent Massa, but I am uncertain how Alonso will react. After he won two world titles with Renault in '05 & '06, Alonso made the jump to McLaren, where he immediately clashed with rookie sensation Hamilton. They fought & bickered all season, & wound up tied in points at the end of the season, one point behind Räikkönen. Since arriving at Ferrari in '10, it has been vitally important to Alonso that he is № 1 & Massa is a very clear № 2. There's not a lot of ego to the taciturn Finn, but he is also not one to be pushed around. Has Alonso learned to share his toys with an equal, or will he fume & sulk when Kimi refuses to kowtow to his raging egotism? Ferrari have upgraded their driver lineup, but have they sacrificed team cohesion? My hope is that Alonso has grow up; if that is the case, one would have to judge Ferrari as having the best pair of drivers on next year's grid.

After winning the ticket-to-F1 G.P.2 title in '09, Nico Hülkenberg drove the piggish Williams in '10 before being kicked to the curb in favor of Pastor Maldonado & the late, unlamented Hugo Chávez's petrodollars in '11; "the Hulk" spent that season as Force India's third driver before being given a race seat in '12. The Sauber was much superior to the Force India in '12, so for '13 Hülkenberg switched seats, only to have the teams' roles reversed, the Force India being competitive in the early races & the Sauber being rated as alternately the worst of the midfield cars or the best of the back markers, either way being solidly ensconced in eighth place even as Force India played Icarus by soaring up to fifth (being demoted to sixth in favor of the improving McLaren after Belgium). Some commentators, most notably the great David Hobbs, opined the McLaren would have been better served, between '12 & '13, in signing Hülkenberg to fill the departing Hamilton's seat, instead of Pérez. With the Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren, & Mercedes A.M.G. lineups now set, the ride at Lotus vacated by Räikkönen is viewed as the most desirable drive left for 2014. Many are arguing that Lotus would be wise to sign Hülkenberg. It would be fascinating to see what the young German could do in a genuinely competitive car.

Project MERCATOR
To-night, Red Patton defends his unofficial title as "King Tot" in Bar Louie's annual tater tot eating contest. Many tater tots will be eaten, many tater tot will be thrown back up, 'tis hoped out of sight, out of hearing, & out of scent. Why cheer on a friend as he does something so pointless, so infantile? If you have to ask, you'll never know.

Autobahn
I've never liked the retro-styled eleventh generation Ford Thunderbird, but yesterday I spied the best-looking example of my experience. 'Twas painted a whitish cream with a broad red stripe running the length of the vehicle, from bumper to bumper. This was not enough to overcome to bug-eyed, port-holed T-bird's deficiencies, but it was less uglier-the-sin than the rest of its ilk.

On the same drive, I saw a Buick Rendezvous with the vanity license plate EXOTICL. I presume this is meant to be read "Exotic L," possibly a reference to its owner? I presume this because "exotical" isn't a word. The vanity plate is well named, as all is vanity, & most are unfortunate.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
The Proclaimers, "I Know" from Notes & Rhymes (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: An anti-war to which I was listening last night as I prepared the latest episode of "The Explorers' Club." I found it amusingly subversive to do so. I find fault principally in the bridge. Does it say anything about me that I often enjoy listening to music with which I disagree? Am I broadminded or just pudding-headed? Perhaps it says nothing at all. The crack against patriotism is particularly galling, since The Proclaimers have written more than a few songs about Scotland that could only be described as patriotic. Rank hypocrisy is par for the course.

"You'd lay your life down for this country,
Lay it down for fools like me,
I know, I know, I know you would,
You'd make the ultimate sacrifice,
Lose yourself on the throw of a dice
I know, I know, I know you would—

"'Cause the line you come from stretches back
In an unbroken chain other countries lack,
Every single corner of the world
Has seen our banners be unfurled,
You've won and lost and battled on
Whether the cause was right or wrong,
God knows what you do to the enemy,
'Cause you scare the living hell out of me.

"He'd lay his life down for his country,
He'd like to kill fools like me,
I know, I know, I know he would,
He'd make the ultimate sacrifice,
Blow himself to Paradise,
I know, I know, I know he would.

"And the line he comes from stretches back
In an unbroken chain other countries lack,
To the farthest corners of the world
Where they watched our banners be unfurled,
He's won and lost and bottled on
Whether his cause was right or wrong,
He's this generation's enemy
And he scares the living hell out of me.

"No more war, it's not gonna happen,
Not while there's men willing to fight in 'em,
No more war, it's not gonna happen,
Not while there's patriotism,
Not while there's patriotism,
No more war, it's not gonna happen,
Not while there's some saying
That this is the last one,
No more war, it's not gonna happen,
Not while religious nuts
Are willing to spill there guts.

"And the line we come from stretches back
In an unbroken chain no country lacks,
To the darkest corner of a cave
Where there's a weapon made to save,
Or gouge or choke or cut or kill,
In a hundred years we'll be fighting still,
I know, I know, I know we will."