Sky of Blue and Sea of Green

It was a sky of blue and a sea of green.  No, we weren’t on a Yellow Submarine but at a home game of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, arguably the most successful franchise in the Canadian Football League. In 2010 the Roughriders are celebrating their 100^th anniversary. The Riders have 3 Grey Cup titles to their credit as well as a number of memorable appearances.  However, it isn’t their success on the field that makes them great.  It is the overwhelming support they receive from the entire province of Saskatchewan.

Other CFL franchises have had their troubles.  The worst examples being the Montreal Alouettes folding and then returning as the Montreal Concorde before resuming as the Alouettes and the namesake Ottawa Rough Riders.  The Ottawa Riders folded, reformed as the Ottawa Renegades and folded again.  The Toronto Argonauts have struggled with attendance and relevance issues.  After all, the Americans have the NFL and it just has to be better.  However, the Roughriders continue to fill Mosaic stadium in what is the most amazing example of fan support in Canada and perhaps the world.

Interestingly, the Roughriders are the only team named after their home province, not their city.  That’s appropriate since the whole province supports the team.  How else could a city, smaller than Windsor, not only support a CFL franchise but support a profitable one at that?  Tickets are at a premium.  Game day tickets went on sale on June 1.  Later that day we were only able to get tickets at the goal line for the September 17^th game.

Sporting Rider green in the workplace on game day is considered acceptable in Regina and perhaps elsewhere.  Attendants at the RCMP Heritage Museum and Royal Saskatchewan Museum wore Rider colours even though they probably have their own uniforms to wear. There is obviously tacit approval of management to support the team.

The fans are fanatical.  Almost everyone wears some Rider green and many take it to extremes with faces painted, hair coloured, and very creative costumes. There may be alcohol involved but not as much as you might think.  There were a few fans of the archrival Calgary Stampeders in the stands near us but there was no sign of a Calgary contingent. It was truly a sea of green.

The game itself was a prairie classic with the Stamps taking an early lead and the Riders fighting back, missing a chance to win it on the last play of the game, and then taking it in overtime.  Watching the Stamps take the early lead and seeing the Riders trying to restore some confidence in an offence that did nothing in a humiliating loss to the lowly Winnipeg Blue Bombers the previous week, I couldn’t help but think that the Riders would have lost this game without their fans. Down 10-0 in the first quarter as a result of a horrible pass interception run back for a touchdown and general lack lustre play, many fans would have gotten down on their team.  Not Rider fans, they kept cheering them on and the tide turned.  The nearly invincible 9-1 Stamps began to falter as the 6-4 Riders started playing like the Grey Cup contenders they were last year.  I am convinced that the Riders would have lost in McMahon stadium and perhaps lost big without that sea of green behind them.  Kudos to the Saskatchewan Roughriders and their fans and congratulations on their centennial

Promotions or Not and Discrimination

I read with considerable dismay in Saturday's Windsor Star that University of Windsor Law Professor Emily Carasco is suing the university and a colleague because she has been rejected in her bid to become the new dean. Sexism and racism are alleged. Can this be the same University of Windsor that I worked at for 10 years?

Professor Carasco's claim would seem to have some validity on the surface. Had a woman of colour applied for a deanship 30 or 40 years ago there is no doubt that she would not have made the cut. However, the University has bent over backwards during the last 20 years to be inclusive. This is the same university that hired the first female Dean of Engineering in Canada and a minority woman at that. Have the University's policies regressed in the last 5 years or so? This is the same university that established one of its pillars as 'social justice'. Has University of Windsor done a 180?

According to the Star the issue of plagiarism was raised by a colleague of Prof. Carasco's. A book which Carasco co-authored had to be recalled from the publisher to properly reference a chapter written by her. As described this appears to be a very serious academic failure for a student, let alone someone seeking a senior academic position at a university law school.

Additionally, Carasco refers to her "...decades of advocacy on behalf of equity at the University of Windsor.." It would seem that if the claim is creditable then her statement indicates that her career has been an utter failure. If her "decades of advocacy" have not helped create an environment where the best candidate is chosen then that speaks to her lack of success. Would the University want to appoint a Dean whose career by her own admission is a failure?

Surprisingly, there is an elephant in the room. Sexism and racism were cited by Carasco. However, agism was not. The Star article lists Carasco's age as 63, an age when many people are retired and those who are not enter the home stretch. If Carasco were to receive the Five-Year renewable term she seeks then she would be 73 when she stepped down. It would seem reasonable that the University and its Law School would want to hire a younger dean with newer ideas and a fresher agenda rather than a dean who is mired in identity politics and grievances of the past.

Perhaps there will come a time when people who identify themselves as belonging to any group that was previously suppressed will accept a rejection with the understanding that their skill set was not what was required. I fear that that time is still far off.

Most Consistent 9 Holes Ever

This week I shot the most consistent 9 holes of my golfing career which consisted of a 41 on the front 9 at Lakewood.  I once shot a lower score (39) on the back 9 at Wildwood but that round consisted of a hole-in-one and eagle.  That round included a lost ball on hole 10 and some unmemorable shots along with the two or three memorable ones.
At Lakewood I birdied one hole and double bogeyed one.  All the others were pars or bogeys.  So, the round was pretty consistent.  In every round I have played before I have always had at least one meltdown hole that resulted in a triple bogey or worse.  There was always a hole where nothing worked; shanked drives, flubbed fairway shots, topped chips, and the inevitable botched puts.  This past week I had bad shots but didn't string two or three together.

What was the secret?  I got over my urge to kill the ball.  For years I have tried putting everything into my drives to get an extra 10 or 20 yards.  Sometimes it worked but for the most part I ended up with a wicked slice that left me with a difficult second shot at best and a lost or unplayable ball at worst.  For most of this round I tried just easy 3/4 swings and surprisingly I didn't lose much distance.  I did make a much higher percentage of shots.  Also, for the last couple of weeks I have gone out to the driving range; not with the vain attempt to solve all my woes before I went out on the course but just to determine what was working on that day.  My irons seemed good so I just tried to get my drives in play.

There's always one shot that keeps you coming back and that was my second shot on 18.  I had an uphill lie at just over 100 yards.  Normally I would use a 9 iron.  However, with the uphill lie I used a 7. The ball arced beautifully, landed on the green, and rolled about 12 feet past the hole.  I sank the put and ended the round with a birdie. I'm itching to get back out.

Ten Greatest Guitar Solos of the First British Invasion

Guitars were front and centre with the first British Invasion that began in 1964 with the Beatles American debut on the Ed Sullivan Show. The boys played them louder and up front with the vocals. However, the guitar solos of that era were largely bridges between the 2nd and 3rd verses. It wasn’t until Eric Clapton with Cream and Jimi Hendrix began stretching out the solos that much more was expected. Extended solos took off for broader audiences with the release of ‘Disraeli Gears’ and ‘Are You Experienced’. However, some guitarists got the jump ahead of time and really let it out, albeit briefly. The following are my picks as the top 10 guitar solos from the first wave of the British invasion era.




10. George Harrison- Taxman. Harrison was a quintessential bridge guitarist. Under Lennon and McCartney’s leadership and George Martin’s musical direction he was constrained to play what they wanted on their songs. In this case he wrote his own song and let out all the anger at having 95% of his earnings taxed away.



9. Keith Richards- Heart of Stone. The Stones lead guitarist has never been a premiere soloist. His strength has always been in great chords and repeating lines. He did let loose on this one, however. Besides what is any rock and roll list without the Stones.



8. Jim McGuinn- Eight Miles High. This is the first song to feature an extended solo that expands on the song. Several groups including later versions of the Byrds would use this song as a platform for extended jams but McGuinn led the way.



7. Zal Yanovsky- Night Owl Blues. Kingston Ontario restaurateur Zal Yanovsky proved that the Lovin’ Spoonful didn’t have to be so nice all the time. Some great pre-Cream wired out blues.



6. Dave Davies- You Really Got Me. Davies’ solo sounds like a jail break with an early and Kinky shot across the bow to bridge soloists.



5. Jim McCarty- Devil with the Blue Dress On/Good Golly Miss Molly. Detroit area rock n’ rollers were often one step ahead of the rest of the world in the 60s. McCarty both wired it out and provided a bridge between the two songs for Mitch Ryder.



4. Jeff Beck- The Train Kept a Rollin’. Actually, an entire top 10 could be constructed of Beck’s Yardbird solos. Every garage band in the world had to play this tune. It was the first song to feature not one but two guitar solos both with superb Beck construction and phrasing.



3. Dave Davies- All Day and All of the Night. I know. This song sounds like a redo of You Really Got Me but the solo works better. In YRGM the solo just runs out. This one builds up and finishes nicely.



2. Eric Clapton- I Ain’t Got You. Eric explodes out of an otherwise forgettable song; pure electricity from the master. This is the second entry for the Yardbirds and the list ain’t over.



1. Jeff Beck- Shapes of Things. The feedback line that runs contrapuntally with the main line has to have been overdubbed. This solo is so good that even Jimmy Page couldn’t play it very well in his Yardbirds’ years. There is a clip of Beck playing it live and he did better. However, he failed miserably when trying to improve on it with the Jeff Beck Group. The original solo synthesizes all the dread and pathos that the song tried and largely failed to capture.



This list is subject to change. As noted, I could easily pop in 4 or 5 Jeff Beck solos from his year and change of recording with the Yardbirds. At any one time I could do some shuffling. However, I am sticking with my number one selection. It’s the greatest short solo of any era.

The Age of Classic Rock

I am a big fan of classic rock, having grown up with it.  The era between the early 60s and mid 70s was a golden era that featured a meld of great new tunes, terrific covers, great vocal harmonies, and the rise of electricity!  This is the era when the amplifiers were turned up to 11!  The guitars went from the background to the forefront and never stepped back.

There is no clear agreement on the classic rock period.  So, I have my own milestones.  Those are the appearance of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964 and the tragic death of Stevie Ray Vaughan 20 years ago in August 1990.

Why the Beatles and why the Ed Sullvan Show?  A case can be made for the Beach Boys.  They are definitely classic rock artists riding the surfing craze of the early 60s and hanging ten alongside the British invasion.  'Surfin' USA' was a rework of Chuck Berry's classic 'Sweet Little Sixteen'. However, the surf music didn't last and the Beatles took rock and roll music one step forward, bringing the guitars up front and centre with the vocals.  The Fab Four covered a lot of older Rock and Roll songs by artists like Little Richard and Chuck Berry.  They also wrote their own songs in the same style and played hard.

The Beatles were popular before their famous appearance on Ed Sullivan.  They had concurred England beginning with Love Me Do in 1962 and were on the charts in the US before they got off the plane in New York.  However, their Ed Sullivan performances with the girls screaming sent shock waves throughout North America.  Just as we all remembered where we were a few months before when JFK was assassinated so too we could never forget the 'four moptops' opening salvo. The Rolling Stones and The Animals would come a few months later playing covers of American Blues but they would bring the same hard charging style that the Beatles first showed on the Ed Sullivan Show.

At the other end of the spectrum, Classic Rock's demise was much like the end of the Roman Empire.  It's hard to define a point at which Rome no longer existed although 476 AD is generally considered to be the end.  For me, it was the death of Stevie Ray Vaughan who re-energized the blues in the early 80s.  SRV's 'The House is a Rockin'' was the last classic rock and roll song to climb up the charts.  It's a great song in the tradition of 'Rock and Roll Music' and 'Rock Around the Clock'.  That it didn't sit on top of the charts for 16 weeks is an indication that an era had ended. Rap, alternative, grunge, and other forms would take over for a newer generation.

On the other hand as Pete Townshend so aptly put it:
'Rock is dead they say,
Love Live Rock'.