Under the Bridge

There's an old Rodney Dangerfield routine that goes something like this:  "He worked for the bank for 30 years, Vice President - very adjusted man...church goer, never smokes, drinks or, gambles. Then you read about these guys. One day they pick up an axe, and wipe out the whole family. The next day the cops come around, 'What happened here? What kinda man was he?' 'He was a quiet man, a very quiet man'."

Because of the political dichotomy in the country, the majority of Americans stay silent, yet boil under the surface, ready to explode. We're in an environment where the preponderance of people can't say anything anymore without getting shouted down by the fringe minorities of both sides. The politically correct Left will shut you down if you aren't woke enough. The MAGA (Make America Great Again) Right acts like guests on the defunct Jerry Springer Show. Although many members of the GOP aren't "deplorables" as Hillary Clinton referred to them, some MAGA are. The same could be said about ANTIFA. Both sides are confrontational with no room for discourse, in person or online. It also seems as if everyone talks relentlessly about politics these days which is much different than thirty years ago. It puts me on the defensive. 

If somebody tells me that they're a Democrat, I wonder if they vote for candidates that represent the Squad's values. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the shining light of the movement. She doesn't characterize my values nor does Bernie Sanders, although they have some good ideas such as Universal Health Care and make the billionaires pay their fair share of taxes. They are Socialists. It says so on Bernie's party affiliation. Conversely, if somebody tells me that they're a member of the GOP, I wonder if they're RINOs (Republican In Name Only), or, MAGA. Either or, it doesn't make me happy that out of over 300 million people, we can't get better candidates running for higher office. Like the presidency. 

I hated the 1990s. I was in my thirties for most of it, and as the country went through radical transformation culturally, so did I personally. As the dominance of three media networks with all of their influence on society eroded into the niche broadcasting environment we have today, I too was morphing from early adulthood to something that was supposed to be more mature. At almost 70, except for the aches and pains, I still feel like I'm in my teens mentally. But in my thirties, I was tired of myself, especially my career as a scribe, and needed a break. If you didn't live through the 1990s, or want a retrospective of it, look no further than Chuck Klosterman's The Nineties. It's an outstanding book. 

Bill Clinton was the 42nd President from 1993-2001. Except for a few peccadillos, I thought he was an excellent Commander in Chief. Especially the way in which he balanced the budget. He was a fiscal conservative while ushering in a centrist political agenda. In the early part of the decade, MTV in the classic music video format was dying. So was I from self-inflicted psychological and financial wounds. My friends were moving on and I wasn't because of poor choices. What always kept me going was listening to music. A year before Bill and Hillary moved into The White House,  Red Hot Chili Peppers released their fifth studio album, Blood Sugar Sex Magik. I had the Compact Disk and used to listen to it while on the Stairmaster.

One track on the album is "Under the Bridge", written by frontman Anthony Kiedis. It's a song about loneliness, homelessness and drug abuse. Despite its dour subject matter, it's a great song. Kiedis has been significantly influenced by writer Charles Bukowski, and I don't know this for a fact, but he may have created the song title from a Bukowski line from his novel Women: "Many a good man has been put under the bridge by a woman." It sounds like something "Slick Willie" should have written. Although I liked President Obama, I preferred the leadership of Clinton. I didn't mind Bush the Elder either, but never voted for him. I've never voted for a Republican, and the way things are going, I doubt I ever will. 

Walk on the Wild Side

I still use AOL as my primary email provider. I'm not trying to be retro cool. It's the same address I've had for over thirty years and it's good enough for me. I have a Gmail account for professional purposes, but seldom use it. There's not a lot of interest in a writer almost 70 years old. When I access my email on my Chromebook, I go to the AOL homepage and the first thing I usually do is check out the rotating slide show that highlights the important news of the day. Recently, the big celebrity story was about Cardi B deciding not to have her butt implants removed. She took Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back" to the next level. 

Cardi B is one of the top performers in the music industry and has been so for almost a decade. You may be familiar with her from her duet "W.A.P." (Wet Ass Pussy) with Megan Thee Stallion. I prefer double entendres such as Blondie's "The Tide is High". Same meaning. Same message. Just a different way of saying it. Last week, the AOL homepage carousel featured a story about a dustup in the music industry between Moby and Kinks founders Ray and Dave Davies. In a recent interview, it appears that Moby takes umbrage with the lyrics to "Lola" and calls it transphobic and unevolved. It was 1970. Why the animosity? Dave Davies took to the music media to rebut in places such as Rolling Stone magazine. Now it's front page news. So much for current events.

"Lola" was controversial in 1970 and temporarily banned from the airwaves by the BBC in Great Britain, not for the trans references, but because of commercial product placement. The lyrics, "Well I'm not dumb but I can't understand why she walked like a woman and talked like a man", were deemed okay. Mentioning Coca-Cola was too much for the censors and it was taken off the air. Only after the Kinks changed Coca-Cola to cherry cola was the song able to reclaim air time. "Lola" was an international success, with a peak position of #9 on the U.S. singles charts soon after release. Although some British radio stations banned "Lola" for its lyrics, it remains one of the top songs in Rock and Roll history. I wonder how Moby holds up?

In 1973, Lou Reed had an AM radio hit with "Walk on the Wild Side". Off his second solo LP Transformer, it was a top 20 single of the year. Produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson, it was groundbreaking and risqué, according to Wikipedia. I wouldn't know. It was just a catchy tune to me. The first stanza goes something like this: "Holly came from Miami, F.L.A., Hitchhiked her way across the USA. Plucked her eyebrows on the way, Shaved her leg and then he was a she." The song's name was derived from the 1962 movie Walk on the Wild Side, which itself was an adaptation of a Nelson Algren novel. Jane Fonda was one of the actors in her second starring role playing Kitty Twist. 

Renée Richards is the first transgender person I was aware of. Renée made headlines in the 1970s from being the first trans athlete competing on the professional women's tennis circuit after sex reassignment surgery. Before the transition from male to female, Richards was an incredible multisport athlete - in high school, in college, and in the Navy. I was in high school and didn't really know what to make of it all when Richards made the nightly news from taking her case to the New York State Supreme Court. Richards wanted to play tennis, professionally as a woman, and won. As a result, Richards played in both singles and doubles competition at the U.S. Open. She went on to a brief but successful professional tennis career. 

This past week, the International Olympic Committee banned transgender women athletes from women's events. “Eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females,” is the official statement from the IOC. The sex of the athlete will be determined by a mandatory gene test. I agree with this ruling. Once in a while, you get an outlier such as Olympic swimming phenom Katie Ledecky that can compete with men on a limited basis, but it's few and far between. It's not a level playing field. I don't like to side with the Trump agenda, but I do with this issue. In my opinion, trans people can serve in the military, can be a good parent, but can't play women's sports. It's not fair to women, who were born women. It's a stacked deck and just not fair.

I downloaded the MP3 file of "Lola" from iTunes. It's in mono sound. That's the way we used to listen to music on the AM radio. It has some sagacious lyrics: "Girls will be boys and boys will be girls, It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world, except for Lola.". Maybe Moby should give it another listen.

Living on a Thin LIne

The last time I heard The Kinks perform "Living on a Thin Line" was when it piped over the soundsystem at Bada Bing, Tony Soprano's strip club in the HBO series The Sopranos. It's an incredible song by an incredible band. The critics claim it's one of their best. I know I like it. When I was in college, The Kinks had a big album, Low Budget. It was their 18th LP and they cranked out records for almost two more decades. I forget who sat at the bar during the episode, but they knocked back drinks as topless women with pasties danced to the tune about the death of a culture and the changing of a nation. I get a sense of déjà vu now when I listen to it.

The current political climate in the United States is reminiscent of the Spanish Civil War from 1936-1939. A precursor to World War II, it pitted The Republicans (socialists, anarchists, and communists all backed by the Soviet Union) against The Nationalist rebels (an alliance of fascists, conservatives, monarchists and traditionalists supported by Nazi Germany). Although over 35,000 anti-fascist volunteers from the International Brigades (including George Orwell) joined The Republicans, they lost from a variety of factors that are too vast for this brief. At the end of the war, Francisco Franco became dictator of Spain and remained in power until his death in 1975. 

I don't have the apolitical blues. I'm angry. I'm a registered independent, lean left of center, and caucus with the Democrats. It's the lesser of two evils, but I believe in voting because I believe in The Republic. I voted for Jimmy Carter my first eligible presidential election and haven't missed one since. I was a card carrying Democrat for thirty years until I got fed up. They're a circular firing squad, and because of their blunders, a narcissist white nationalist masquerading as a real estate mogul was elected Commander in Chief. For the second time. Plus, Trump got the popular vote this past election. Nice job DNC. You bungled the job. As a result, the MAGA movement remains strong, running on an agenda fueled by Project 2025. 

According to Google, "Project 2025 is a political initiative published in April 2023 by the Heritage Foundation with the goal of reshaping the U.S. federal government by consolidating executive power in favor of right-wing policies." Russ Vought, the lead architect of the project is currently head of the Office of Management and Budget. This is the office that executes Trump's agenda among other duties. Pam Bondi, the U.S. Attorney General supports Project 2025. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller is also in the fold. The left compares him to Heinrich Himmler. I don't go that far. I don't see any gas chambers, only detention camps. Kurt Vonnegut once wrote: "True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country." Most aren't my high school classmates. They're much younger.

If you follow the "fake news", Project 2025 is probably familiar to you. If you follow Fox News, you're probably familiar with it, too. After all, Project 2025 is the agenda of the White Christian nationalist movement. Only 10% of the country identifies with this crusade, but do they ever pack a punch. With an additional 20% of the country agreeing in sympathy, they're still a minority, but growing by the day. I'm not a hardliner on the issues. Closing the Southern Border is a good idea. Concentration Camps are not. 

I live in crunchy granola Ithaca, New York. Ten square miles surrounded by reality is the tagline for our liberal community. Lots of tie-dye shirts and black socks with Birkenstocks. The electorate here prefers communists and socialists to candidates with agendas that actually work. We finally have a Democrat legislator in Congress after years of GOP rule. Josh Riley is our representative. I voted for him twice and believe he's doing a great job. If you read the Ithaca subreddit, all the protesters and agitators want to vote him out. You get voted down if you dare say one thing positive about him. Why? Because Riley reached across the aisle on a couple of issues and also supports Israel. I know it's a small sample size, but it's a microcosm of bicoastal elitism. Snap out of it. 

The musical Cabaret takes place in Berlin circa 1931 during the decadent years of the Weimar Republic as the Nazi Party gained power. Most of the play is set in the Kit Kat Club, a popular nightclub. According to Google Gemini, "the cheerful music often underscores the bleak political reality, serving as a chilling reminder of how easily people can become complacent as totalitarianism takes hold." Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey starred in the film adaptation in 1972. I remember watching it when HBO was called Home Box Office. The end of the story "culminates with tragic consequences to those who ignored the danger."

Life is a Cabaret, old chum. 

Left of the Dial

"Left of the Dial" is a song by The Replacements off their album Tim. It's also hipster slang for where College Radio stations are found on your radio. You can stream just about any radio station you want nowadays, so it's an antiquated expression unless you still listen to terrestrial radio like I do. I'm fortunate that I live in a college town, Ithaca, NY, where both Cornell University and Ithaca College are located. Both academic institutions have radio stations, WVBR and WICB, and I have them pre-programmed on my favorites list in my car. I've stopped trying to keep up with modern music, but still enjoy some of the newer indie artists. What I've discovered on both of my local alternative college radio stations, is that it depends on the DJ as to what the playlists are, and how much I enjoy them. It's hit and miss.

I'm having a difficult time warming up to the popular recording artists of this era. I don't know if the music is inferior to decades past, or maybe it's me. I enjoyed music from as far back as the 1930s while I was growing up, and as I got older, I listened to bands much younger than my contemporaries. It was about 2010 that I noticed a big change where everybody started sounding the same. 

With female singers, it seems like there's a chanteuse of the month, one hit wonders that are like Madonna on steroids. I have no complaints with Madonna. If you haven't listened to her singles, you don't know what you're missing. She's a bona fide superstar and rightfully so. Just listen to "Borderline", or ,"Material Girl". Madge started it all. They don't call her "The Queen of Pop" for nothing. Yesterday I saw a photo of Dua Lipa in a sequined string bikini. I know she's won some Grammys, but I don't know if she's just hanging onto her career, or this is de rigueur for all the singers and starlets. She's great looking, but posing near naked in your twenties or thirties is no feat. Try doing it in your sixties. 

I've tried watching the Boy-Bands that top the charts and I just don't get it. It's like watching a futuristic version of The Osmond Brothers. Back in the day, when New Kids on the Block and N'SYNC debuted, I thought it was the end of Western Civilization. I was wrong. They've had staying power and catapulted some members to movie stardom, along with continuing to fill arenas. But I never enjoyed The Osmond Brothers. When they first hit the scene, I was listening to Led Zeppelin II, Who's Next, and Alice Cooper's Killer. "Sweet and Innocent" didn't quite cut it. They can sing and dance and fill the theaters in Las Vegas, but I'm staying on the sidelines. 

Some family bands from the 1960s were great. The Cowsills, The Jackson Five and The Beach Boys. The only song the Osmonds did that I liked was a cover of "Deep Purple" by Donnie and Marie. Originally performed in 1963 by Nino Tempo and April Stevens, Donnie and Marie had a rendition for their television show back in 1976. It hit #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. At the time, the only Deep Purple I was listening to was "Smoke on the Water". 

About fifteen years ago, my late father and I did a road trip to Ohio. We made a stop in Canton at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. When we were finished, we drove to Cleveland and toured the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. My father wasn't musically inclined because of a hearing impediment. Most of his musical tastes stemmed from his high school and college years: Johnny Mathis, Julie London, Frank Sinatra and The Platters. The only album he ever owned that I can remember was Ray Charles' Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame wasn't his thing, but he knew my proclivity towards it. Another sacrifice he made for me.

When we got into the museum, there was one huge wall festooned with album covers of the 100 best Rock albums by their estimation. I've owned 85% of them at one time or another in various formats: 33 1/3 RPM Vinyl, 8-Track, Cassette, Compact Disc and MP3 files via iTunes. Many I've bought multiple times as each format became obsolete. I spent a small fortune on music industry offerings throughout the years. It was money well spent.

The Spirit of Radio

We're in the shutterbug era. It's not just Gen-Alpha, Gen-Z, Millennials, or Gen-X, it's Baby Boomers, too. Everyone has to document everything and share it with the world on social media posts. It's easy when you have an iPhone with you at all times. 4K Dolby Vision video recording, Action mode, and macro video. That's all in your pocket. On Steely Dan's second album Countdown to Ecstasy, there's a not so great song with a refrain of "Show biz kids are making movies of themselves and they don't give a fuck about anybody else". Prescient for the current environment.     

A big parody song in the sixties and seventies was "The Comet Song". It never made the airwaves, but was big on playgrounds. Although it sounds like something straight out of MAD Magazine, it's not. It originated organically from  kids on a Jungle Gym. The ditty goes something like this: "Comet - It makes your teeth turn green! Comet - It tastes like gasoline, Comet - It makes you vomit, So buy some Comet, and vomit, today!" It was sung to the melody of the "Colonel Bogey March" made famous in the movie The Bridge on the River Kwai. Kids today would take it verbatim and make a TikTok video of it. 

I went fifty years without a smartphone, but now that I have one, I don't know how I'd live without it. I wasn't an early adopter because I didn't know what to buy, the upstart iPhone, or, the more established  Blackberry. Plus, they were expensive. If you go back twenty years, Blackberry was the number one communication device, but Apple ate their lunch after launch. I'm glad I went with the iPhone. 

Apple sucks you into their ecosystem, but it's the best out there in my opinion. This is not a slight to Android, but most everyone I know has an Apple phone. I had a Palm Pilot Personal Digital Assistant in the late nineties and spent too much time playing DopeWars and Space Trader, but I was excited for what was coming in the future. We're a society of digital natives and digital immigrants. I'm definitely a digital immigrant. I had to learn everything from scratch beginning about 1990. I haven't had a landline in about ten years, but in my apartment, there's a wall-mounted rotary dial phone to remind me that things are in perpetual motion. 

Although I frequently check my email, financial accounts, text messages, stock watch lists, and social media feeds, I primarily use my iPhone as a jukebox. Give or take a few songs, I've got about 500 singles I've bought from the iTunes Store for almost twenty years in the palm of my hand. Dick Clark, who was once known as "America's oldest teenager", famously said "Popular music is the soundtrack of your life." I get flashbacks listening to some of the tunes ranging from the 1950s to now. Reminds me of good times and friends gone too soon. Clark hosted American Bandstand on Saturday mornings for decades, sandwiched in between cartoons and Soul Train. I watched all three. Don Cornelius was the emcee of Soul Train. The program's tagline was: "Sixty nonstop minutes across the tracks of your mind". It was a great way to grow up.

Kids these days stream cartoons 24/7 on The Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, and The Disney Channel. If you prefer music, you can watch videos all day long on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Music. Although more convenient and accessible, I liked it better in the old days when you did things together, with your friends or family, in a group. Soul Train and American Bandstand had significant ratings reductions when MTV was introduced and they both went off the air about the turn of the century. I should know. I was part of the problem. Video killed the radio star, but I haven't watched MTV in decades. I still listen to radio.  

You Went the Wrong Way, Old King Louie

Song parodist Allan Sherman cut his teeth on the Borscht Belt circuit in the summers of the 1950s. Although his day job was a television producer for the Mark Goodson-Bill Todman show I've Got a Secret, it was on the stage that he really shined. After years of developing his craft, he released the album My Son, The Folk Singer in 1962, which catapulted to gold. Over one million copies sold. Another album soon followed, My Son, The Celebrity. The parodies of public domain folk songs paid off in spades.

In 1963, Sherman released another LP, catering to a national audience, My Son, The Nut, which included the novelty hit "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah". "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah" reached #2 on the charts for three weeks that summer.  Most Baby Boomers are familiar with the song about Camp Granada. Novelty songs were big in the 1960s."They're Coming to Take me Away, Ha-Haaa!", by Napoleon XIV comes to mind, or "Snoopy vs. the Red Baron", by The Royal Guardsman. "Lady Godiva" by Peter and Gordon was a big hit, too. 

This weekend I fired up YouTube on my Chromebook and played select songs from My Son, The Nut. Some are just audio clips and others are videos from performances on television shows. My favorite is "You Went the Wrong Way, Old King Louie". Unfortunately, there's no footage of Sherman performing the song, just a photo of the album cover and the audio. 

"You Went the Wrong Way, Old King Louie" runs a little over three minutes. The first minute of the recording sounds like a spoken word poem to give a little background - how Louie was the King of France in 1789 and whatnot. After the intro, the piano begins playing in a manner reminiscent of Henry Mancini's "Peter Gunn". The first three stanzas go like this: 

You went the wrong way, Old King Louie
You made the population cry
'Cause all you did was sit and pet
With Marie Antoinette
In your place at Versailles

And now the country's gone kablooie
So we are giving you the air
That oughta teach you not to
Spend all your time fooling 'round at the Folies Bergere

If you had been a nicer king,
We wouldn't do a thing,
But you were bad, you must admit
We're gonna take you and the Queen
Down to the guillotine,
And shorten you a little bit

European history buffs know Louis the XVI only made it to age 38. Allan Sherman didn't fare much better dying in 1973 at the age of 48. When listening to the song, it occurred to me that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Hard Knox: The Life of an NFL Coach

Before the advent of ESPN, Sports-Talk Radio, podcasts, online sports betting, fantasy football, predictive markets and social media, there was NFL coaching icon Chuck Knox. Knox, nicknamed 'Ground Chuck' for his three yards and a cloud of dust style offense, had few peers in the 1970's, 1980's, and early 1990's on the gridiron. He was the Associated Press NFL coach of the year three times during his tenure as head coach of the Los Angeles Rams, Buffalo Bills, and Seattle Seahawks. When he retired in 1995, he was tenth on the all-time wins list. Knox also had numerous playoff wins and competed in four conference championship games, but came up short all four times, which puts a damper on his induction into the NFL Hall of Fame. The powers that be want you to win the Lombardi Trophy to get a bust in Canton. Tom Coughlin and Mike Shanahan won the Superbowl twice and they're still not in. It's a longshot for Knox. To this day, he remains on the short list of potential NFL Hall of Fame candidates, but always a groomsman, never a groom.

Hard Knox: The Life of an NFL Coach by Chuck Knox and Bill Plaschke, covers Knox's life from his hardscrabble childhood until 1988, the year the book was published. You can infer from reading the introduction that Coach Knox dictated the narrative into a tape recorder and Plaschke was the scribe that organized and edited the manuscript. The book is peppered throughout with snippets of excerpts of interviews with friends, family, ex-players and former colleagues of the coach. I imagine Plaschke was responsible for this, too. You may be familiar with Plaschke with his work as a sports columnist for the Los Angeles Times, or nationally as a frequent panelist on ESPN's now defunct Around The Horn. He's an excellent writer. Published almost forty years ago, the book is an artifact of a bygone era, but gives us great insight into a man that should be given serious consideration for Canton. Not for his record, but what he did for African Americans in the NFL. 

Knox grew up dirt poor in the mill town of Sewickley in rural Pennsylvania near the Ohio border. A hotbed for football players. His parents emigrated from Europe through Ellis Island - his mother Scottish and his father Irish. His father would be considered abusive in today's world, or any world. Chuck took beatings and as a result, took refuge in the street to escape the wrath of his "old man". It was here that he developed a kinship with his Irish, Italian and African American neighbors, and became colorblind wherever race is concerned. Knox also began using "Knoxisms" at this time. An oratory style that he's famous for. Knoxisms are clichés such as, "Play the hand you're dealt", or, "Don't tell me how rough the water is, just bring the ship in". It's just the way he speaks and it works. It didn't detract from the narrative and is reminiscent of days of yore. 

The first third of Hard Knox documents the coach's upbringing in Sewickley, college ball at Juniata College, his time as a high school coach, and his tenure as an offensive line coach for both Wake Forest and Kentucky. The description of his Division I coaching and recruiting experience is a relic of the past well before the Transfer Portal and Name Image and Likeness contracts. Football fans will get a lot out of this even though the recruiting techniques are outdated. It's a slice of the Eisenhower Era in collegiate athletics. Although a player's coach, Knox put the fear of God in his teams and had a confrontational teaching style that is emblematic with old school coaches such as Bobby Knight of Indiana University basketball fame. It wouldn't fly in today's world, but was very common decades ago. I grew up with it. It doesn't bother me.

Knox gets his big break professionally in 1963 with the New York Jets of the American Football League. The old AFL was in a bidding war with the NFL before the leagues merged later in the decade. He made a lot of contributions to the Jets such as developing innovative blocking techniques, and was instrumental in stealing Joe Namath from the Saint Louis Cardinals of the more established NFL. It isn't until Knox moves to the Detroit Lions in 1967 that we get a glimpse of his contributions in race relations. Even though it wasn't publicized, the NFL still had a Jim Crow mentality in the late 60's. African American quarterbacks, middle linebackers and centers were almost unheard of because it was believed they were too dumb to play the positions. That didn't sit well with Knox. He believed that the best athlete should play. His first season in The Motor City, he took Bill Cottrell, an African American guard and moved him to center to anchor the line. That was the catalyst of turning a ragtag group of linemen into an elite corps of blockers. This is a familiar theme throughout Knox's coaching career.

Although Marlin Briscoe is recognized as the first starting African American quarterback in the AFL, it was James Harris in 1974 that shattered the glass ceiling in the NFL. This was under the leadership of Knox as the head coach of the Los Angeles Rams. Knox traded the All-Pro John Hadl to the Packers for five draft picks, one of the most one-sided trades in NFL history, and started Harris in his place. The Rams were a playoff calibre team and starting a Black quarterback was verboten until Knox came to town. Harris had a successful run with the Rams despite constantly receiving death threats and racist mail from Rams fans. This is in liberal Los Angeles. Harris was eventually benched for Pat Haden because of pressure from  Rams owner Carroll Rosenbloom. Rosenbloom wanted things his way and the whole team knew it. As Knox put it, "Assistant coaches can smell the house burning before the match is ever struck". He saw the writing on the wall and resigned in 1977. 

Knox cemented his reputation as a master deal maker when he pulled off another blockbuster trade with the Forty-Niners soon after he joined the Buffalo Bills in 1978. He dealt O.J. Simpson for a boatload of draft picks. Simpson was on the decline, but by far the best running back in a running back league. It wasn't until years later when Dallas sent Herschel Walker to the Vikings that NFL fans witnessed a trade of this magnitude. Like with the Los Angeles Rams, Buffalo Bills and later with the Seattle Seahawks, Knox was considered the ultimate turnaround strategist in his era. Taking teams "from hopeless to hell-raisers" in only the way that Coach Knox could say it. Unfortunately, although he was the maestro of motivation, the expert at deal making, one of the most winning coaches of his generation and broke down the doors of racial inequality, he's primarily remembered for coming up short in the big games. This is a mistake.

First and foremost, Chuck Knox belongs in the Pro Football Hall of Fame for eliminating roadblocks restricting African American players. I'm not suggesting he's as revolutionary as Brooklyn Dodgers executive Branch Rickey who was instrumental in Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in the MLB. Nor is he as important as LBJ signing The Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, but his deeds are important to the NFL's African American population which consists of about 70% of the league. He was an influencer. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts influencers. For example, DJ Alan Freed is enshrined for amalgamating both Caucasian and African American artists over the same airwaves. Knox did essentially the same thing on the football field.

Jalen Hurts, Lamar Jackson, Dak Prescott, Caleb Williams to just name a few of the current African American quarterbacks owe a lot to Chuck Knox. In fact, the majority of the NFL owes a lot to him. Coach Knox died of complications of Dementia in 2018. Although he couldn't remember, let's not forget the contributions he made.

  

Blue Moon

In filmdom, sometimes you need a break from what's popular. I have no beef with the superhero pictures, and in fact believe Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy is a stroke of genius. People much younger than me swear by Marvel movies, and it shows at the boxoffice. That said, just as FM Radio played "Stairway to Heaven" into oblivion, I believe the cartoon characters we see on the silver screen are past their prime. Yes, there will be more Batman films, and I'm looking forward to Robert Pattinson acting in another gem as the Caped Crusader. But if you watched the Oscars this year, you'll notice the omission of nominees donned in spandex for their roles. One such performance was Ethan Hawke portraying lyricist Lorenz Hart in Blue Moon. Although Hawke didn't win Best Actor, he did an incredible job in a crowded field of blue-chip actors.  

I've been a big fan of The Great American Songbook since I was a child. Whether it was The Beatles covering "Till There Was You" on With The Beatles, or Cass Elliot singing "Dream a Little Dream of Me" on her first solo effort after the breakup of The Mamas & The Papas. Lest not forget all of those Frank Sinatra records in the 1960's. Old Blue Eyes permeated our household for a stretch. In the 1990's, a group of musicians featuring James White, Adele Bertei, Alex Chilton and Angel Torsen released a CD called Medium Cool - Imagination. I listened to it relentlessly. Packed with Jazz standards such as "That Old Feeling" and "How Long Has This Been Going On", it gave me a break from the Grunge sound that was so popular back then. I listened to both.

Lorenz Hart is the epitome of songwriters during Jazz's Golden Age. Hart, along with his composer and partner Richard Rodgers created some of the most memorable songs during the Swing Era. For over two decades they ruled the roost. Over 500 tunes and 28 musical theater productions are prominent on their collective résumé. "The Lady is a Tramp", "My Funny Valentine", and "Blue Moon" are some of their most famous songs. Many of these songs are familiar to Baby Boomers from being covered by famous artists in the 1950's and 1960's such as Frank Sinatra and Chet Baker. In 1961 The Marcels did a Doo-Wop rendition of "Blue Moon" and put it on the map for a new generation of listeners. Fast-forward to 2025 and filmmaker Richard Linklater attempts to catch lightning in a bottle again cinematically, but comes up short in the feature film Blue Moon. 

Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater have partnered as actor and director numerous times and it shows. The "Before" trilogy with Julie Delpy as Hawke's romantic partner are probably the most renown of the collaborations. I haven't watched them. I really enjoyed Boyhood and most notably Dazed and Confused (Hawke wasn't in this Linklater directorial). Dazed and Confused depicts high school in 1976 like you were there. And I was there. It's realistic and I could identify with it. Linklater is an outstanding director and draws out the best in Hawke. Blue Moon is no exception. It must have been difficult for Hawke to get into character being almost six feet tall while Lorenz Hart was short in stature at only five feet. In most of the scenes, Hawke sits at the bar, and for the standing sequences, he's filmed from the waist up.

Films or movies are also called moving pictures for a reason. You're supposed to show movement. Blue Moon in its basic form is a teleplay. It takes place in three settings in the famous Manhattan Theater District restaurant Sardi's. In the bar, in the large foyer and in the coat check room. This is not to say you can't have a successful play translate into a successful movie. Glengarry Glen Ross and Twelve Angry Men come to mind. Both excellent movies, with incredible ensemble casts. Blue Moon is primarily a one-man show, with an almost continuous monologue by Hawke playing Hart. Sure, there are interactions with the bartender played by Bobby Cannavale, and also Hart's unrequited love interest played by Margaret Qualley, but it's just not enough to carry the film. It is written by Robert Kaplow who was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars, and although he did an outstanding job, the subject matter is art for art's sake. You have to be well versed in literature or the theater to pick up on all the subtleties. It would have been better to be seen live on a stage.

The entire production is about the opening night for Oklahoma!, and the smashing success Richard Rodgers experiences with his new collaborator Oscar Hammerstein. It's a sad moment for Lorenz Hart and he compensates by smoking stogies and drinking shots of bourbon. What we discover throughout the movie is that this is Hart's M.O. for most of his professional life. This was common for the day, especially during wartime. Hard smoking and hard drinking. Unfortunately, it caught up to him. Although Lorenz Hart had a USPS commemorative stamp dedicated to him in 1999, and now is enshrined in a feature length film, he died very young at 48 years old. A few months after Blue Moon took place, Lorenz Hart passed away from complications of pneumonia and alcoholism. That's show biz.

Paul McCartney: Man on the Run

Documentary film Paul McCartney: Man on the Run was released last month on Amazon Prime. Before I go into my review of the movie, I would like to state without hesitation that I am very biased towards McCartney and his original band The Beatles. In 1964, when I was five years old, my mother brought home a copy of With the Beatles. I was instantly hooked. It didn't sound anything like Peter, Paul and Mary or the New Christy Minstrels that occupied the turntable in our living room. From there, I would watch the original Beatles performances on The Ed Sullivan Show, and also convinced my parents to take me to the drive-in movies to watch their first feature-length film A Hard Day's Night. 

You've probably heard of generational talents. That's not McCartney. He's a centenary talent, if not millennial. Very few recording artists can write songs in the manner that McCartney, either as a solo act, with his Beatles songwriting partner John Lennon, or with his 1970's bandmates in Wings can write. It's all about turning a phrase and playing a catchy riff. The thing about McCartney/Lennon songs is that you can sing to them, you can dance to them, and if you want to jump into a mosh pit, you can listen to "Helter Skelter". Musically, most generations have a leading cultural phenomenon. Currently, it's Taylor Swift. Before my time was Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby in descending chronological order. But for younger Baby Boomers and older Generation X, it's The Beatles.

Directed by Oscar winner Morgan Neville, Man on the Run begins in 1969 with the breakup of The Beatles and ends in 1980 with the termination of Wings. Both bookends are sad stories because they end great eras of popular music coupled with the assassination of John Lennon about the time Wings dissolved. Make no question about it, this is a solid documentary, chock full of archival footage of which is bountiful. From the press, paparazzi, or from McCartney's own home movies. Also, let's not forget that Linda Eastman McCartney, Paul's wife, was a prominent still photographer. Many sources contribute to a tight, visually appealing presentation. That said, I don't believe this is a great documentary because it's too much of a niche production and may not appeal to younger viewers that didn't experience the era first hand.

One thing that was noticeable to me throughout the presentation is it lacked music, except for cuts from Ram. I wanted more. Sure, there's a lot of jam sessions, but not polished products. Many times the director would give you a tease which left me flat. As an example,  Linda played a couple chords on her keyboard of "Venus and Mars/Rock Show", and that was it. I ended up streaming Wings' songs on YouTube after the movie ended because I wanted to hear them in totality. If I wasn't familiar with the songs, I wouldn't know where to start and can't believe a Gen-Z or Gen-Alpha would get the short and subtle riffs. One option is to stream Wingspan: Hits and History. That's the greatest hits compilation. 

Wings was one of the defining bands of the 1970's with 27 Top 40 hits, including six Number One songs. Wings had five consecutive number one albums during their run. George Harrison's All Things Must Pass is considered the best single album of the Fab Four's solo projects, McCartney had the best overall career based on the mosaic of the musical output. Although the documentary shows Wings winning multiple Grammy Awards in 1973 for Band on the Run, it really doesn't delve too far into the music the way other documentaries such as HBO's Yacht Rock does. What the movie does do, in a spectacular manner, is tell the story of Paul, his relationship with his wife and family, and his friendship with John Lennon. This is the selling point of the film.

As a Beatles and Wings fan, I learned a lot from Man on the Run. McCartney has experienced success without a dedicated ensemble, too. "Maybe I'm Amazed", "It's Just Another Day", and the entire Ram album were accomplished primarily with McCartney as a one-man band. He's an incredible musician. Piano, guitar and bass. He even played the drums on "Back in the U.S.S.R." on the White Album. I believe that Sir Paul's fans will get a lot out of the documentary. You can get a deeper understanding of what makes him tick. A fanatical fan base will surely fill the arenas when he goes on tour again this year. That said, there are holes in the picture, which is why I think this is a good and not great presentation. 

Solana: Total Addressable Market and Revenue Growth Make it Worth a Look

Introduction

Warren Buffett's mentor Benjamin Graham is famous for teaching, and I paraphrase, a stock can go down fifty percent for no reason whatsoever. Solana (SOL-USD), the seventh largest cryptocurrency based on a market cap of $48 billion, meets that criteria, but not without just cause. First, most cryptocurrencies are experiencing Crypto Winter. Secondly, software in general is in a free-fall. Third, so goes Bitcoin (BTC-USD), so goes the crypto market and Bitcoin is down close to 50% from the all-time high. There's a correlation with digital assets and Bitcoin. Fourth, and in the short-term, Operation Epic Fury is putting a lot of pressure on stocks and digital assets. Fifth, the S&P 500 corrects 10% every 14 months based on historical data. We may be in the midst of a garden variety pull back. Painful, but necessary to consolidate the market. Finally, it was extremely overvalued after momentum traders bid up the price in the Fall of 2025.

At the time of this writing, Solana trades at $85 a token, down 65% from $247 five months ago. Prone to boom/bust cycles, it's descending, going in the wrong direction if you're long the Solana Blockchain. My opinion is that this a good time to dollar-cost-average if you own it, or an even better time to take a position in it.

Some Background and Total Addressable Market

Anthony Scaramucci recently wrote Solana Rising: Investing in the Fast Lane of Crypto. Scaramucci gives a one sided report of Solana's history and attributes with evangelical zeal. He also gives a succinct description of what Solana does: "it's a programmable blockchain that enable users to borrow, lend, trade, or earn interest on their cryptocurrency, all outside the traditional banks and financial intermediaries that comprise the TradFi [Traditional Finance] landscape." If you're looking for in depth information about Solana in layman terms, Solana Rising is a good place to start. 

Solana has a humongous total addressable market [TAM] ahead over the next four years because of the tokenization of all things financial. This includes equities, derivatives, commodities and real estate. Tokenization is turning analog assets into digital assets that can be traded and transacted over a blockchain. Depending on the source, tokenization of assets is projected to grow from $250 billion today to $4-16 trillion by 2030. Boston Consulting Group has the rosiest projection at $16 trillion. Citigroup (C) is much lower at $4-5 trillion. ARK Invest is between the two at $10 trillion. No matter who is correct in their projections, it's a tremendous opportunity to increase revenues for utility blockchains. 

The Competition

Currently, there's a battle between the more established Ethereum (ETH-USD) and the newcomer Solana to capture the lion's share of tokenized assets flowing through their blockchains. Other players in the cryptosphere, such as Avalanche (AVAX-USD) and Cardano (ADA-USD), have promise but lag in market dominance. Although Cardano and Avalanche have outstanding growth rates, revenues are in the millions of dollars, not billions of dollars, as are Solana and Ethereum. Ethereum is the industry standard in DeFi, with 56% market share last year. Most of Solana's revenues are derived from the gaming, social media, and meme coins. Solana's market share in DeFi varies on the source, but a ballpark figure is approximately 12%. Clearly a distant number two to the leader, Ethereum. 

Blockchain	2025 Revenue	2026 Est. Revenue Growth	Key Growth Driver for 2026
Solana	$2.39 Billion	40% – 55%	Firedancer upgrade & Perp DEX expansion
Ethereum	$5 Billion	15% – 25%	L2 Interoperability & Institutional RWAs
Avalanche	$207 Million	30% – 45%	Real World Asset (RWA) Subnets
Cardano	$18 Million	50% – 70%	Ouroboros Leios & Midnight Privacy Layer

I believe the estimated 2026 growth revenue on the table above can be misleading because it's not an apples to apples comparison between Ethereum and Salona. Ethereum is still in pole position with DeFi tokenization and has a huge lead. Although Ethereum is slower than Solana in processing transactions, it's much more secure and has first-mover advantage. Established financial institutions prefer Ethereum. After all, when you're dealing with money, security is the name of the game.

Solana receives a majority of its revenues via the retail trade, not DeFi. This means meme coins. A joke to many on Main Street, but no laughing matter to Solana. In 2025, trading and meme coin activity constituted about 50% of Solana's revenue.  Ethereum isn't going anywhere, either. It's the number two crypto in a universe of thousands of digital assets, right behind Bitcoin. Ethereum has the same Total Addressable Market as Solana to capture. Both should experience tremendous growth in the next five years. Currently, it's a Coke (KO) and Pepsi (PEP) battle. Coke, like Ethereum, dominates in the global market in DeFi. Solana, like Pepsi, is the clear runner-up but has terrific products. Neither Solana nor Ethereum are meme coins such as Dogecoin (DOGE-USD), Trump ($TRUMP-USD), or Bonk (BONK-USD). 

Although buying cryptocurrency can be considered gambling, I think of it an investment if you choose the right tokens. Solana and Ethereum are the plumbing for the infrastructure of WEB 3.0. In the not-so-distant future, both of these blockchains, along with crypto oracle Chainlink (LINK-USD), will be in the lexicon of Main Street investors. The utilitarian aspect of crypto is in a current period of consolidation. This is similar to the turn of the Twentieth Century, when there were over 100 automobile manufacturers, only to be dwindled down to a handful by 1920. This is happening now to crypto that actually does something. 

Why Solana?

Solana is a high risk, high reward investment. Even at the depressed price, it's still expensive by utilizing traditional metrics on an absolute basis. On a relative basis, it appears to be less expensive than competitor Ethereum and most in the cryptosphere. Ethereum has a market cap of $240 billion, with 2025 revenues at $5 billion and only projected to grow 15%-25% this year. Solana has one fifth the market cap, and although it has half the revenue of Ethereum, it is growing close to 50%. Both are over their skis in traditional value investing, but we're in a bull market and investors will pony up for growth. Like Benjamin Graham, I prefer a margin of safety, but Graham lived way before the technological revolution. 

Metric	Solana	Ethereum
Current Price	~$85.30 - $88.89	~$1,900 - $1,980
Developer Activity	~2,500 - 3,000+ active devs	~5,000 - 6,000+ active devs
Monthly Revenue	$245 Million (Jan 2026)	$89 Million (Jan 2026)
Daily Active Addresses	~2.17 Million	~682,000
Total Value Locked	~$6.4 Billion	~$52.4 Billion ($65B+ incl. L2s)
DEX Trading Volume	~$108 Billion (last 30 days)	~$63.7 Billion (last 30 days)

Solana has 3,000 active developers on the network and that figure is growing. The additional programmers could help Solana chip away at Ethereum's dominance in DeFi. One example is BlackRock's (BLK) blockchain money market token, the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL-USD). Originally on Ethereum, it's now on Solana and other blockchains, too. More could follow in jumping ship, and go with the upstart Solana. As reported in MEX.CO "As of early 2026, the competitive landscape between Solana and Ethereum has shifted from a theoretical debate to a data-driven rivalry. While Ethereum remains the "reserve currency" and institutional bedrock of DeFi, Solana has aggressively captured market share in terms of retail engagement, transaction volume, and capital efficiency." 

In the opening paragraph, I gave a list of reasons why Solana has depreciated in price recently. Most of these reasons investors have no control over: war, market corrections, or overvaluation. Investors also have no control over government intervention. However, a legislative act that's up for vote in The Senate, could be a major catalyst to boost, or, buoy the price of Solana and crypto in general. This is the Clarity Act which has already passed in Congress. The Clarity Act aims to put guardrails on cryptocurrency, strengthening oversight and protecting investors. This past week, President Trump posted on Truth Social, that he supports the Act, and crypto prices rose 5%-7% in one day unison. If it becomes law, we may be off to the races. No matter how you feel about The Commander in Chief, his posts can move the market.  

Another thing to consider is what's happening in the Artificial Intelligence space with Open AI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's (ANTHRO) Claude, and Google's (GOOG) Gemini. They change leads by the day. Technologies leapfrog each other in the bat of an eye. This could be the situation with Ethereum and Solana if developers continue flocking to Solana to develop DeFi. However, Ethereum's developer community is growing, too.

How To Invest in Solana

In the early days of crypto, the only way to invest was through a digital wallet on crypto exchanges such as Coinbase (COIN) and Binance. They can get hacked, tokens can get lost, and they are far from plug-and-play in terms of ease of use. Crypto purists prefer to use them. In the past few years, discount brokers such as Robinhood (HOOD) and Interactive Brokers (IBKR) introduced crypto trading on their exchanges. Not all discount brokers allow crypto trading, so check with whoever it is you invest with.

More recently, the way I prefer to play it is by using spot-priced ETFs. These ETFs have only been on the market for a few months and are very risky, just like buying cryptocurrencies in general. Spot-priced crypto ETFs are regulated under the Securities Act of 1933, which means they are registered with the SEC and subject to anti-fraud provisions. One caveat is that these ETFs are not registered under the Investment Act of 1940, and therefore are not subject to the same regulations and protections as 40 Act ETFs and mutual funds. You could lose everything, but if you're venturing into cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC-USD), you probably are already aware of that. If the Clarity Act, which aims to regulate the digital asset market, passes in the Senate, then these ETFs should be much safer investments.

Here's a list of some of the many Solana spot-price ETFs:

• Grayscale Solana Staking ETF (GSOL), 0.35% expense ratio.
• Bitwise Solana Staking ETF (BSOL), 0.2% expense ratio.
• VanEck Solana ETF (VSOL), 0.3% expense ratio.

The list includes both staking and non-staking ETFs. Non-staking ETFs trade at Solana's spot-price. Staking ETFs generates interest, just as in a banking account or money market fund. ETFs trade only during market hours, unlike buying tokens on crypto exchanges. The ETF parent companies will adjust prices once the market opens to compensate for any discrepancy in after-hours trading. As an example, if Solana is up 2% overnight, it will open 2% higher at the opening bell. The principle holds true if the token is down in overnight trading. 

Conclusion

This is a heavyweight fight. Just like Muhammed Ali vs Joe Frazier back in the day. Not just a boxing match but a clash of cultures. The whole world is watching, too. The global DeFi market is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate [CAGR] of 21.8% to 68.2% in the coming years, with 2026 appearing as a key year of high growth. With a huge Total Addressable Market, this is a place you can make a lot of money, especially at these distressed prices. Solana has near-term momentum in the cryptosphere and is gaining market share. The Clarity Act is set to become law. Solana's price is under pressure. For 2026, Solana is projected to experience a 40%-55% revenue growth rate. Because of these factors, I believe that Solana is a good bet for the next year and beyond.