The Red Sox tie it at 3-3 in the ALCS. Reminds me of 2004 and this vid about their series win, “Red Sox vs. Mastercard:”:
Recently on NPR Day to Day— Like his father before him, Michael Scott breeds “primo” pigeons, trained athletes, in his native Brooklyn. One of his coops is in Canarsie, on top of his grandmother’s house. By producer Owen Agnew, for HV and SALT.
“Breeding Brooklyn Pigeons” (3:14 mp3):
Photos © Allison Lucas:
Up Mount Blackmore the other day, 10,128 ft (Hyalite Range, Gallatin Forest). That’s me, Pogo, and Gus, with Capt. James Ortman workin’ the Nikon. Walked in snow the whole way. At the top guys were skiing. Fall equinox everywhere else, but here high in MT it’s the first taste of winter:
The Fly Boys have a new excerpt from their fish-porn film, landing steelhead in BC:
Raising The Ghost (5 Min Cut)
An interactive (flash) Olympic Medal Count Map/chart/list, from the 1896 Olympic Games in Athens to 2008 in Beijing, on NYTimes.com. Screenshot:
Circles are sized by the number of medals that countries won in summer Olympic Games. Use the slider to view past Olympics, or click on a country to display a list of its medal winners.
via Ben- Comma Q.
Trailer for new fish film w/ (my kid) Jess Atkins and some great music— “A new fly fishing documentary, ‘Raising the Ghost,” chronicles 7 epic days of fly fishing in a remote region of British Columbia’s Skeena River system. The Fly Boys team attempts to catch Steelhead eating dead-drift dry flies.”
Father and son spend a week together traveling and hiking America’s Grand Canyon. Aired on NPR Day to Day; by producer Scott Carrier, “Walking Grand Canyon” (4:07 mp3):
The ethanol-injected Noise comes burning down the NPR airways today on Day to Day. Joe Skyward and myself capture the sounds of engines, drivers, and fans at this year’s Long Beach Grand Prix, an ocean-side street race with top pro race-car drivers from around the globe. One-hundred-and-eighty thousand aficionados around a two mile course of Fast & Loud in downtown LB — 186mph avg and 200+ on the straightaways.
Here’s the long version, “Long Beach Grand Prix 2008” (6:16 mp3):
Driver in an open-wheel, open-cockpit Champ Car.
C’mon, bait your line. Let’s go smelt fishin’ on the ice. Ten shacks on a frozen river are filled with ice fishermen for ten weeks each year. Owner Steve Leighton provides the bait; his patrons bring the beer; and the fish take care of the rest. Produced by Grant Fuller of the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, premiered on Weekend America, “What Are You Gonna Do with 400 Fish?” (5:13 mp3):
While you’re listening, check the photos of Sarah Breul, also of SALT, who tagged along to Leighton’s Smelt Camp on the Abagadasset River in Bowdinham, Maine, and took these Image of Ice Fishing…
© Sarah Breul
Wilfrid Charles Heinz, sportswriter and M*A*S*H co-author, passed away at 93. Sez WSJ: “Bill Heinz Was a Writer to Relish.” A memorable W. C. Heinz excerpt:
There were 39,827 people there and they had paid $342,497 to be there and when Graziano’s head came up out of the dugout they rose and made their sound. The place was filled with it and it came from far off and then he was moving quickly down beneath this ceiling of sound, between the two long walls of faces, turned toward him and yellow in the artificial light and shouting things, mouths open, eyes wide, into the ring where, in one of the most brutal fights ever seen in New York, Zale dropped him once and he dropped Zale once before, in the sixth round, Zale suddenly, with a right to the body and left to the head, knocked him out.
–The Day of the Fight, 1947
Day 1 of the Iditarod is tomorrow. One of the qualifying races was held a few weeks ago, is the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon, named for the son of a Chippewa chief who delivered mail by dog sled along Lake Superior’s rugged North Shore in the late 19th century. Launched in 1981, the Beargrease draws world-class sled dog teams from around the globe. The Beargrease is the longest, and most challenging, of sled dog events in the lower 48: almost 400 miles and 4000 spectators, starting in Duluth, Minnesota on the last weekend of January. Field-recordist Curt Olson gathered the sounds of the dogs, the mushers and the fans, “Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon” (7:00 mp3):
Curt has more sounds at Track Seventeen. And a shorter version ran on Weekend America with a photo gallery. 
(Photo: © Kit Larson) Keith Ali on the trail on the second day of the 2006 Beargrease Sled Dog Race.
“Basketball is a wonderful thing for a community because it is a warm place where everyone can go and it isn’t a church or a bar.” – Phil Jackson
Apathy was thick as I approached the theater for a screening of Class C. Five minutes in, I was completely converted. Class C, a documentary film produced by Bozemanite Mark Zetler, follows 5 Montana Class C girls basketball teams as they make their way to the State tournament. Instantly engaging and entertaining, it’s a beautifully crafted story about Montana and basketball; an interview with coaching legend and Montana native Phil Jackson is deftly intertwined. Go out of your way to see it!
Free screening at the Alberta Bair Theater in Billings on February 23rd at 8pm.
Airs on MontanaPBS:
Wednesday February 27th at 8pm
Monday March 3rd at 7pm
More on Class C
Regardless of whether this guy gets to compete in the Olympics, you have to be impressed both by him and the advancements in prosthetics technology (not a bad primer on running mechanics either): New York Times, A double-amputee seeks to compete in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, “An Amputee Advantage? Comparing An Amputee And An Able-Bodied Runner.”
This was scheduled to run on last Friday’s NPR All Things Con, but got canceled last minute — we’re still not sure why. That’s no reason y’all shouldn’t hear it, tho.
So here’s something for those who think this week’s “Super” ends not in “Tuesday” but in “bowl.” A gay man crosses the line into unexplored fields, “For once in my life I wanted to watch an entire football game intently.” Mark Allen (from his “The Homosexual Brain” blog-post) with “Gays & Football” (2:05 mp3):
NPR webseries, Biking the Iditarod:
“Jill Homer, of Juneau, Alaska, is training to ride her bicycle in the Iditarod Trail Invitational — 350 miles of wintry pedaling over tough terrain. It’s the same course used by the famous sledding race.”
Her blog: Up in Alaska- Jill’s Subarctic Journal:
“Jill is an Alaska journalist who likes to bicycle in horrendous conditions and eat goldfish crackers and Pepsi for breakfast. Jill records her daily adventures in pictures and words.”
Jill encounters a Juneau native: NPR: Wolf Versus Pug.
Big blow-out memorial down the road in Butte last weekend for Evel K, with fireworks, evangelists and thousands of mourners. Leave it to WFMU’s Blog to have Evel Knievel’s LP Always Wear A Helmet with his poem “Why” (5:26 mp3):
Otis Fodder (365 days Project) also has an VIVA KNIEVEL page with intervu clips, some of which he used with his band Bran Flakes on their CD I Don’t Have A Friend. The song is
“Evil Knievel” (2:34 mp3):
Did you know about these things? BASE jumping, or really flying, with a “Wingsuit”:
Born in Butte, Montana; died in Clearwater, Florida. Robert Craig “Evel” Knievel, Jr., October 17 1938 – November 30 2007:
Everywhere in this world I go
No matter who or what I know’
The people they look and most of them stare
And I wonder if they really care
They see this king with his golden crown
Some of them smile but most of them frown
Each time I was hurt they all said
That guy is lucky that he’s not dead
(And they were right.)
But I wanted to get up and try it again
I kept telling myself that I knew I could win
So I’d close my eyes and to the Lord I would pray
Oh help me God… let me walk someday.
And He did.
Every stitch on every scar
Just brought me closer to my dream afar
To be a man and to do my best
To stand alone is my only quest
Success is a term that has broad use
For you and I to have none in life there is no excuse
For YOU to do what I do is not right
But for ME it’s not wrong
What I’ve been trying to tell you all along
Is that it’s got to be
So, if you wonder why
The answer to that is
That just like you… I gotta be me.
–Evel Knievel, 1974
via Ben- Comma Q.
My niece-in-law, Chase Sbicca, has a new blog, Puddles of Thought. So far she’s linked to 4 vids and I’ve liked ’em all (even her fren’s wedding demo): ie, she’s batting 1000. She’s fresh outta Eugene J school w/ a broadcast degree, an encyclopedic knowledge of several major sports, and an interviewing prowess that’s even bent Beckham. Won’t someone give this future TV sports-reporting star a job?
Today’s most pressing news is not from Iraq, Wall Street, or the Presidential campaign; rather it can best be expressed as music, specifically some ancient hippie crap from the 60s Boston band Earth Opera (w/ Peter Rowan and David Grisman) whose song-title sez it all— “The Red Sox Are Winning” (3:32 mp3):