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Is it time to raise the rim in the NBA?

Last week’s record-setting flurry of 40-point-plus games by individual players made me wonder. What if the rim, through which you must shoot to score a basket, was higher by 12 inches?

This move would make it harder to dunk and also, one would suspect, make it more difficult to score from outside, especially from the ever popular 3- point shot line, located 23.75 feet from the basket at its longest point.

Let’s face it, athletes are getting stronger, faster and bigger. Dunking at one time was a rarity, not the norm. Now, everybody on the team including the towel boy can throw it down.

Of course, it’s all part of the show. Something about slamming the ball through the hoop with emphasis makes the crowd go wild.

There are no style points, ladies and gentlemen. A dunk is worth two points, just like a simple lay-up.

It’s obvious that the dunk is the most popular play in the game. Hence the flexing, the primal screams and human electricity that ensues. My argument is now is the time to get ahead of the curve. Future ball players can start practicing on 11-foot hoops.

Adding 12 inches may not deter young dunkers like Ja Morant of the Memphis Grizzlies, who looks like he’s been shot out of a cannon on his moves to the net.

Even older dunkmeisters like LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers probably wouldn’t have many problems. At 38, LeBron, may be old by pro basketball standards, but anyone who has watched him lately can see the 6-foot-9 inch superstar still has enough hops, it appears, to put his chin on the rim.

How would Golden State Warriors guard, Stephen Curry, who is one of the game’s top scorers, fare trying to dunk at 11 feet? It would change his offensive approach for sure. I suspect Curry would adjust; he’s going to get his.

Some may argue the 10-foot dunk has stood the test of time. Unlike other rules in the game. My argument is now is the time to get ahead of the curve. There are basketball players in other parts of the world who are 8-feet-tall who can grab the rim while standing.

Damian Lillard, with the Portland Trail Blazers, and Curry have been known to be logo shooters — that is, shooting and making shots from the logo painted in the middle of the court. It is a ridiculous shot from 35 feet or more. But Curry and Lillard make it enough to keep doing it.

Donovan Mitchell, Cleveland Cavaliers, rained in 71 points this week on dunks, 3-pointers, foul shots, you name it.

It was the highest scoring outburst since Kobe Bryant’s 81 points against the Toronto Raptors in 2006. Wilt Chamberlin, the 7-footer from the 1960’s and 1970’s still holds the all time record, an astonishing 100-point game. Wilt also holds the highest average record, averaging 50 points a game for the year.

Mitchell’s 71-point performance this past week came on the heels of a 60-point, 21-rebound, 10- assist night from Luka Doncic, of Slovenia, a rising star in the NBA.

The next day Luka dropped 51 points on the San Antonio Spurs. Coach Gregg Popovich joked before the game that his team’s strategy would be to hold Doncic to 50.

Maybe if they had raised the rims.

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The future of drug sniffing dogs and other random thoughts

Be patient. It takes a while to wile away the hours. (Actually, it only takes an ‘h’.)

To be honest, I’m tired of Lewy body dementia. Thinking about it. Talking about it. Writing about it. Living with it.

And what have I learned in the six years? That it’s good to have a few pairs of stretch pants with an elastic waist band. Constipation and bloating are some of Lewy’s most uncomfortable symptoms, and you will be more comfortable with pants that stretch nicely at the waist. You know, the kind pregnant women wear. Two of my daughters have just had babies and I remember thinking at one point that golly gee I look more pregnant than they do.

A reminder tip to stay attuned to the affects of low blood pressure, hypotension, to avoid passing out.

I believe I’ve warned about this before in this space, but it’s important. That dizzy feeling you get when you stand up too quick. Over the years, I’ve learned to catch myself. In one fall I wasn’t so lucky. I got stitches after hitting the first couple of stairs. I’ve lived and learned to take deep breaths now when I go up the stairs and beforehand. Also, before your journey, put your head between your legs and kiss … oops, that was an adolescent intrusion into my brain.

Seriously, put your head down and feel the blood come back to your brain before you stand up. w

Or while doing stand-up comedy even. Take my brain, here literally take my brain. It’s got a lot of wear and tear on it, so go head and take it.

Another tip, while we are on tips: Increase salt intake. But please, consult your doctor first. High salt levels increase the chances of stroke.

What else is there? Oh right this is a random thoughts column so I can go anywhere I want. How about Maine. About six weeks ago I went there for some R&R with my wife, Catherine. We saw gorgeous fall colors, and ate delicious lobster.

Did you know that Maine is the only state in the U.S. with a one-syllable name. And those who make Maine their home are called Mainers.

‘Mainers’ are looking forward to great weather this weekend. chirped the weather woman on a local channel.

We stayed in the Bar Harbor area close to Arcadia National Forest. One observation: the roads were incredibly smooth, an indication that Mainers are on top of the quality road thing. Only downside is that we had to single-lane it and slow down several times due to road construction and repair.

You get what you pay for I suppose. Except for when it come to lobster. We bought two freshly steamed lobsters for a total of just over $25. Total! We got the lobsters in a grocery story, steaming while we waited. One and half pounds of meat is on each lobster they told us.

Speaking of animals. I said speaking of animals, what about drug sniffing dogs. Are they going to be unemployed as more and more states legalize marijuana, which is by far the main substance that has led trained dogs to turn a traffic stop into a crime scene.

Guess the dogs can put in a transfer to the tracking lost humans department.

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Musings about the end of my vinyl countdown

The headline is a little on the click-bait side. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not shutting down this blog or my website myvinylcountdown.com.

But I am giving everyone a heads- up that I will within the next seven days publish the last three reviews of my vinyl record collection.

I counted 678 records when I began the blog in 2017 after getting the diagnosis that I had Lewy body dementia. Right now I am at 675. The blog was a way for me to spread awareness of the disease, which has no cure and its cause is unknown.

Likely I will write a story highlighting the best-of or most popular posts and other things I learned.

But raising awareness wasn’t the only benefit.

Spoiler alert: I will proclaim and explain my belief that without this blog, I would either be deceased or in much worse condition than I am now.

To say the blog has been therapeutic is a big understatement.

More soon.

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Talking Heads — 65

ALBUMS: Stop Making Sense (1984)

MVC Rating: 4.5/$$$$$

This is the soundtrack to the movie some critics have called the greatest rock concert movie of all time. They aren’t far off base, although I think the Martin Scorsese film featuring the Band and many others, ‘The Last Waltz,” is a worthy adversary for that ‘best’ title. Some might say Woodstock.

The movies are similar only in that rock music was being played.

Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme, is a concept performance that totally works. It makes the Talking Heads seem better than you thought they were. And they were good.

Filmed live over four nights in Los Angeles, the movie starts with David Byrne, the Heads’ lead singer and chief songwriter, walking on stage with a ‘boombox,” setting it down and seeming to turn it on. It’s the song Psycho Killer and Byrne sings solo with the beats. For each song another musician joins Byrne on stage so by the time they get to ‘Burning Down the House,’ the entire group is playing.

Byrne is wearing a ridiculous oversized business suit as they go through their songs. This whole thing wouldn’t work if it were not for the song quality. Songs like ‘Once in a Life Time,’ ‘Life During Wartime,’ ‘Slippery People,’ and the Al Green cover ‘Take Me to the River.’

A song about living in violent times, Life During Wartime, is just as relevant today:

This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco,
This ain’t no fooling around
No time for dancing, or lovey dovey,
I ain’t got time for that now

There are many more great lyrical lines: ‘This is not my beautiful house, this is not my beautiful wife … Hey how did I get here ‘ from Once in a Lifetime.

Every song is a winner and played live so perfectly that it sounds studio produced sometimes on the record where you can’t see the performance.

If you are to buy only one format, I’d probably buy the DVD. I didn’t do that because I rarely buy DVD’s, especially movies I have seen.

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Choose Life, Choose Peace (poem)

How do we stop killing each other? We’ve seen the bodies. We’ve wiped the blood. We’ve shined the knives. We feed the chambers and do it again.

Death isn’t life. It’s smashed bones and hot bullet holes, a backpack or a loaded Cadillac.

It’s just a shot away.

War is hell, peace is heaven. Life isn’t death.

A mother’s pain like fire, first, then ice. A father’s anguish a squeeze around the chest; tears not seen in 22 years.

Life and death tied together.

Woven into the fabric that must be worn.

Life and death aren’t the same. In fact they are opposites, yet they exist entirely dependent on the other.

Symbiotically.

Peace be with you

And also with them

\\

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Frank Sinatra — 71

ALBUM: The Best of Frank Sinatra

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$$

Now here’s a bit of a switch. Frank Sinatra. He’s arguably one of the best or best known singers of the 20th Century.

I picked this re-issue up in Birmingham sometime in the 1980s. I can’t remember exactly why — I may have heard a Sinatra song in a movie. Or, I may have just wanted to be able to field a request. If someone’s at my house listening to music — which was a common pastime — and said, ‘Hey got any Sinatra? I could say, ‘Of course.’

For me, his music was ‘easy listening or jazzy easy listening. Critics often cite his ‘effortless’ singing style and phrasing as to what made him so good. I see that. The songs come out fully baked, casual, effortless and you are left wondering ‘how did he make me like this song.

I have little awareness of the days when he was in his prime. This greatest hits captures some of his best and best known songs like ‘Young at Heart,’ ‘High Hopes,’ and ‘Chicago.’ Noticeably absent however is ‘Strangers in the Night,’ which supposedly Sinatra hated. Also ‘My Way’ is not here. I’m going to dock the grade a point for not having those iconic songs on a ‘Best of.’

When I was a kid I knew a little about the Rat Pack. I liked Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin the best; I actually didn’t see Sinatra on TV as much as Davis and Martin.

I even read Davis’ autobiography, how he lost his eye and all of that. I knew Dean Martin through the Jerry Lewis movies and and his own variety TV show. Martin always had a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. And that was while he was singing(:

I did pick up some Frank Sinatra on 78 records but I still need to sift through a stack of these to see what I have.

It was a whole different world of popular music back then —1940s and 50s. Sinatra, however, in the 1960s must have been listening to newer stuff. He called the Beatle George Harrison’s song, “Something,’ the ‘greatest love song of the past 50 years.’

Sinatra covered that song as did about every crooner around the world, from Liberace to James Brown to (more recently) Billie Eilish.

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Feargall Sharkey — 75, 74

ALBUMS: Feargall Sharkey(1985); Wish (1988)

MVC Ratings: Feargall 4.0/$$$$; Wish 3.0/$$$

Feargall Sharkey in the 1970s was lead singer of the northern Irish punk band The Undertones. I believe I still have my CD anthology of this influential group best known for its song ‘Teenage Kicks.’

The band eventually split over differences in musical direction, according to Wikipedia’s bio. It’s easy to figure out the differences upon listening to Sharkey’s solo albums. His music was glossy and very poppy. Feargall was going for the big commercial score.

His bandmates updated their punk-pop sound of the Undertones by launching the hard-edged band That Petrol Emotion. I will review that album later (if I can find it.)

Sharkey’s albums are overproduced and inoffensive shmears of big band, balladeer and dance. I know what your thinking. If they are bad, why do you have two. OK, the first album got me with its two inexplicably catchy singles: ‘A Good Heart,’ and ‘You Little Thief,’ songs that had a little oomph to them. So, I bought the second album on the basis of those two songs on the first album. (Maybe there would be four or five good songs this time? But, eh, no.)

‘You Little Thief’ does have a great line in a break-up song: ‘There’s no hard feelings, there’s no feelings at all.’

‘A Good Heart’ was written by Lone Justice singer Maria McKee.

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Tonio K. aka Steve Krikorian — 80, 79, 78, 77, 76

ALBUMS: Life in the Foodchain (1978); Amerika (1980) La Bomba (1982); Romeo Unchained (1986); Notes From the Lost Civilization (1987)

MVC Ratings: Life 5.0/$$$$$; Amerika 4.5/$$$$$; La Bomba, 4.0/$$$$; Romeo 4.5/$$$$$; Notes 4.0/$$$$

Well, it’s finally time. Time for one of my favorite artists. Tonio K. (Real name Steve Krikorian; He takes his moniker from Tonio Kroger, a novel by Thomas Mann.)

I fell for Tonio K. the first time I heard the song ‘Life in the Foodchain’ at a watering hole/hamburger place in Athens, Ga., about 1980, or somewhere in that vicinity. I remember it took me a while in those days before Google to find anything about Tonio K. You couldn’t just find bios and histories and contact information with a few keystrokes on a search engine.

I ended up finding Tonio K. through my record expert Chuck at WUXTRY Records. Readers of this blog know I bought a significant amount of used records from WUXTRY, both in Athens and Chuck’s spinoff in Birmingham and Cahaba Heights.

Tonio K. was right up my alley. He was glib, cynical, angry and funny. I mean funny. I go back and listen to the records sometimes and marvel at the wordplay.

“Baby don’t leave me here alone, don’t break up our happy home, think of the children,’ Tonio sings. ‘I know we ain’t got no kids, but think of if we did, it would surely upset them.’

Another song, he sings she’ll be waiting for him ’till the cattle come home.’ He changes cows to cattle. One word change and he sets up some ‘t’s.’ so he can punctuate his angry delivery rat-atat-tat. That’s the small stuff.

His debut album was alternately a punk metal precursor to a group like the Bay Area’s punks Rancid and the already crazy Warren Zevon going more crazy. His first band while a teen was called Raik’s Progress, a psychedelic punk band worth seeking out a recent re-issue.

The opening lines tell you about the harsh realities faced in a survival-of-the-fittest world.

‘Well your mother was there to protect you’ (Wham a one-chord punctuation mark)/Your papa was there to provide (wham)/So how in the world did the excellent baby wind up in this hotel so broken inside.’

Then a little later: Cause it’s dog eat dog/and it’s cat and mouse/it’s watch your step and cross yourself and get back in the house/and it’s do or die/it’s push and shove/because everybody’s hungry and there just isn’t quite enough.

Beyond this survival theme, broken relationships seemed to be his inspiration. Here’s from the not-so-subtle H-A-T-R-E-D.

‘I wish I was as mellow, as for instance Jackson Browne, but ‘Fountain of Sorry’ my ass $%^&***/ I hope you wind up in the ground.

But then Tonio K. got religion, or at least his music did. From ‘You Will Go Free’ with T-Bone Burnett on back-up vocals.

You can call it the devil/call it the big lie/call it a fallen world whatever it is, it ruins almost everything you try … But in the midst of all of this darkness, in the middle of the night/The truth cuts through like a razor, a pure and holy light.

Tonio was in the Buddy Holly band, the Crickets, after Buddy Holly died in a plane crash. He has also collaborated with Burt Bacharach and has written songs for numerous other artists.

I see his musical career in two parts. The angry Tonio of younger years, hurt in relationships, wounded in love. That would encompass the Life and Amerika albums. Then La Bomba was kind of a transitional piece. The guitars were less grungy — just as loud — but not the same as amped up Earl Slick, Nick Van Maarth, Albert Lee and Dick Dale.

After the hard (but clean) rock of La Bomba, Tonio K. moved into a slicker 1980s sound with Romeo Unchained and the Lost Civilization that to these ears almost pushed the music to boring. Couple standouts though, ‘You Will Go Free,” and ‘Perfect World’ on Romeo and ‘You Were There,’ — which always makes my wife cry — and ‘Children’s Crusade on Notes.’ The records had talent to burn with the entrance of T-Bone Burnett. The albums appeared on an A&M subsidiary that promoted Christian artists.

  1. Life in the Foodchain (Life.)
  2. Funky Western Civilization (Life)
  3. Cinderella’s Baby (Amerika)
  4. You Will Go Free (Romeo)
  5. H-A-T-R-E-D (Life)
  6. Fool’s Talk (La Bomba)
  7. One Big Happy Family (Amerika)
  8. Perfect World (Romeo)
  9. You Were There (Notes)
  10. Children’s Crusade (Notes)
  11. Say Goodbye (Amerika)
  12. Trouble (Amerika)
  13. Willie and the Pigman (Life)
  14. American Love Affair (Life)
  15. La Bomba

This is not the full extent of K.’s discography. Go to his website www.toniok.com for more. I highly recommend getting Ole’ which has songs to match many on this playlist.

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T. Rex., The Turtles — 82, 81

ALBUMS: ‘T.Rextasty — The Best of T. Rex, 1970-1973 (1985); The Turtles Greatest Hits (1983)

MVC Rating: T. Rex; 4.0/$$$$$; Turtles, 4.0/$$$$$

Again, another package deal in the ‘T’s. Note: I feel like I will be in the U’s in the next week barring the occasional ‘S’ that keep popping up. From the U’s we have UVWXYZ. Don’t get too excited, I snuck a peek and I have a fair amount left (83 is what is registered (that number beside the title) But I will most certainly have surplus. More on that later.

The Turtles and T. Rex. Seems like a mismatch to me but don’t underestimate a turtle. Both of these groups were light psychedelia/pop/folk. Both had one song each that was career defining.

For T. Rex it was Bang a Gong (Let’s Get It On.) Fun Fact: Members of the Turtles played on some T. Rex songs, including contributing backing vocals on ‘Bang a Gong.’

For the Turtles, their career song was ‘Happy Together,’ a spectacularly catchy and hummable song that spent three weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100.

T. Rex were huge in the UK where Bang a Gong was atop the charts for weeks. In the US, the song ‘Bang a Gong’ reached No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Bolan was killed in a car accident in which he was a passenger in 1977. Members of the Turtles joined Frank Zappa’s band for a time in the 1970s.

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Edwin Starr — 83

ALBUMS: ‘War & Peace’

MVC Ratings 3.5/$$$

War! Good God, y’all! What is it good for?

Absolutely nothing!

That slam-bam line by Edwin Star on his War & Peace album is probably known by more people than the opening of the Beatles ‘Hey Jude.’

It’s been on movie soundtracks, commercials and radio shows and samples. The song was the US No. 1 hit for three weeks on Billboard in 1970. Bruce Springsteen covered the song and it became a concert staple for Bruce for many years. Motown originally gave the song to the Temptations but thought it needed a grittier treatment for success. Starr was there to oblige.

Well, I wanted to know what else this singer did so I bought the album sometime in the mid-1970s with the Vietnam war still fresh on everybody’s mind.

What I found were some tuneful soul songs sung by a man in the shadows of James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Joe Tex, and Otis Redding.

‘War,’ though, changed everything by becoming a worldwide hit.

Other standouts on the album: ‘All Around the World,’ ‘I Just Wanted to Cry’ and ‘She Should Have Been Home.’ There’s also a surprisingly straightforward version of ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.’

Some of Starr’s earlier work is considered part of the ‘Northern soul’ subgenre and is quite collectible. The Northern soul songs were especially popular in England and Germany. Starr moved to England in 1971 and died there at 61 in 2003.

25 Miles was a minor hit for Starr before War.