To a Neighbor, Obama’s Hawaiian Drive-In Choices Explain a Lot

During his week of vacation in Hawaii, Barak “5-0" Obama has kept a low profile and added to his reputation for being in the right place at the right time–in this case, given the John Edwards affair, out of the headlines. Always a great place to vacation, Hawaii has an extra advantage for a politician, because of the six-hour time difference between Honolulu and New York City. Unless it’s a pack of Zeros coming in over the Wai’anae Mountains at 7:00 a.m. on December 7th, it’s hard to make media waves, something the candidate and his handlers probably counted on.

But that doesn’t mean Obama didn’t leave analysts something to chew on. You just had to know where to look–and be able to think “local.” This humble word, so popular now in organic food circles, is the key signifier in Hawaii, a land of many visitors, many migrants and immigrants, and many ethic groups--and thus in need of one way of denoting who is from “here” and who is from “there.” In Hawaii this week Barak gave clear proof that he is indeed a local, despite the Chicago community activism, despite the sharp silhouette he cuts in a suit, despite looking, yes, different from all those other presidents.

Barak went local in a Friday statement, as reported by many sources, including Michael Falcone of the New York Times, in a time-honored way for a politician–by evoking food, the ur-indigenous reference point. “I might go to Zippy’s. I might go to Rainbow Drive-In. I might go get some shave ice,” the candidate said, adding, “I’m going to go body-surfing at an undisclosed location.”

Aside from the undisclosed beach, which every local bodysurfer could identify with a 90 percent degree of certainty–but will never tell Fox News--“5-0-Bama” was delivering a specific message. He was locating himself in a specific neighborhood, Kapahulu-Diamond Head, where my wife and her family grew up, and where the candidate’s half-sister lives. That he did it by his choice of drive-ins is most appropriate to Hawaii.

Hawaii has a glorious tradition of drive-ins, sadly diminished over time by development and mainland franchises, but Zippy’s and Rainbow, both located a few blocks apart on Kapahulu Avenue, are two of the great remnants. Up until the early Reagan years Honolulu seemed like a place where clocks had stopped in 1956, and you could get a teriyaki burger and a frosted mug of root beer delivered to your Chevy’s window by a carhop.

A local franchise, Zippy’s is the more upscale by far of the two Obama mentioned, offering indoor seating and a diabetic coma-inducing dessert menu to go with its saimin noodles, Portuguese sausage and egg-over-rice breakfasts, and the Island standby, chili rice. Rainbow is the funky spot, with a tricky parking lot and a lunch crowd of construction and state workers who order massive cholesterol-laden plate lunches that typically include double scoops of macaroni salad and rice to go with the entree: teriyaki or katsu chicken or beef, hamburger patties in gravy--and, of course, more chili rice.

Thus the brief quote by “5-O-B” is, when you parse it further, a masterpiece of nuance and concision. By coupling Zippy’s and Rainbow, he went high-low, and earned the candidate points from all income, ethnic and cultural levels. Mentioning shave ice, the favored local dessert of flavored syrups poured over a mound of snowy shavings, connected to the kid in everyone.

Furthermore, by specifiying that he “might go for a Zip Min,” Zippy’s saimin noodle bowl loaded to the max, he dismissed an issue that has plagued his campaign: that he is someone who lacks a serious appetite. The steaming noodles in the Zip Min come topped with crispy shrimp, fish cake, egg and wun tun (or as they call them on the Mainland, won ton dumplings). The Zip Min is a Hawaiian Whopper, the kind of meal that mandates an appetite such as might be raised by a morning bodysurfing run to Sandy Beach. Since this is exactly what Barak Obama says he’s going to do on his vacation, his street credibility here goes off the scale:

I just know the dude has been there, like me, standing in line at Rainbow’s, no shirt, wearing flip-flops, with sand in his ears, jellyfish stings in his baggys, and sea-snot running out his nose from going over the falls and getting thrashed in Sandy Beach shorebreak. After that, only chili rice and a root beer float will do.

While it’s just one quote, it’s a masterpiece of local cool, the equivalent of Abe Lincoln’s pose as the “rail-splitter from Illinois.” It’s an affirmation that, far from being an elitist carpetbagger who cares only for his waistline, Obama is a real guy. Thanks to the above, I now feel, beyond a doubt, that I know who Barak Obama is–a bodysurfer in more ways than one, capable of riding this wave all the way to the biggest bowl of saimin of them all.

How to Murder Someone and Get Away With It

Thought that would get your attention! First, FBI and local authorities, rest assured there is no evil intent here--more in the nature of a warning for first responders at sea. In particular, the Coast Guard and local marine police.

Second, consider the way the Western world has ritualized and merchandised murder: not just Murder Inc (the mob) and Murder Ink (the bookstore), but all the Law & Orders, CSIs, Homicides, alphabetical-titled serial killer novels and their ilk. It's really the one industry America can't out-source.

We're murder-mad. The writing is a form of scripture. The meager plot is always the same: serial killer, maverick cop, pissy superiors... What we like is the drapery hung over the bones of the deceased.

Ian Rankin is a writer I'm very fond of, but I admit I'm a sucker for his serial killer plots because a), they take place in a grunge universe called Scotland, which suits my mood; and b) he drapes the bones of his plots in great songs and lyrics drawn from the dour 60-ish English-Scots-Irish-American-depressed-drinkers songbook. Oh, and c) nobody on the police side in his books carries a gun until it's too late.

Would've saved Sean Bell, that last.

Not a total digression, and no, I haven't forgotten the promise of the title: How to Murder Someone and Get Away With It. In my last post, I wrote of the stupidity of landlubber criminals who think that stealing a boat (and murdering the owners) is a ticket to paradise. See: John Fitzgerald Kennedy (the murderer in Long Beach, CA not the dead President). See: Palmyra Atoll Murders (a story I worked to get in print, unsuccessfully, years before Vincent Bugliosi's very good book).

Well, I was partly wrong in thinking only meth addicts and the spawn of those raised on reality television would call this boat-stealing business a plan. It turns out that it is very hard to successfully prosecute those who commit murder at sea so long as a) they dispose of the body so that it cannot be found; b) do the deed outside the 12-mile limit; and c) call in a Mayday so that the Coast Guard or other responder muddies up the crime scene before they know it is a crime scene.

I found this out in the process of following and editing a story about the Joe Cool, a yacht that was hijacked off Miami (by quite a pair: a former Guantanamo prison guard and his now-gay former prisoner! jeez!). My writer on the piece, Vince Daniello, himself a boat captain, was appalled at what he discovered about the loopholes for crime at sea. He says he's going to be extra-careful checking out bona fides for any who want to charter the yachts he works on...

Check out Vince's story: Who Killed Joe Cool? (It was one of my last before Yachting cast me adrift in a skiff with a jug of water, a bowl o' haggis and a parrot who likes talking dirty...)

Anyway, this dirty little secret about crime at sea is apparently folklore in stir: reaching a lot of criminals and petty cons and grifters looking for a dream score. So they aren't so stupid after all. Depressing thought, but inescapable as this has been going on a good long while, and nobody on the right side of the law has made much of a fuss about it.

Indeed, that's why you had Miami Vice--the real version--filling the news in the 80s with so many crimes and smuggling exploits in the Caribbean. Nobody stayed in jail for long.

The new motto: What happens outside the 12-mile limit, stays outside the 12-mile limit.


P.S. Here's our 18th Century (or earlier) word of the day: Ilk.

As in "serial killer novels and their ilk." Well, turns out this is a Scottish clan name--like the Campbells and the MacDonalds--and, yes, there is a chap who calls himself Lord of the Ilk. It must be hard for his scribe not to sign off on all his proclamations with the linguistic equivalent of the 120 places of pi: "Lord of the Ilk and all their ilk and all their ilk and all THEIR ilk and all their ilk...."

Something in the sea that sings of murder

What is it about petty criminals that when they get desperate they always seem to dream up a plan that involves something about which they know absolutely nothing--so the plan inevitably goes wrong, and ends up in murder...?

Why does it always seem to involve a yacht and a girl--and an escape plan that depends wholly on an Automobile Club map of Mexico...?

That was the one in Los Angeles a couple of years ago--3 bored punks (one bizzarely named John Fitzgerald Kennedy) pretended to want to buy a boat from a nice couple. So they all went for a test drive and killed the retired pair without a thought. And for what? They didn't know enough about boats to even point it the right way...had to call the Coast Guard to be rescued!

Same kind of story just happened in Miami this year aboard the Joe Cool. It's always the amateurs who think all they have to do is go to sea and the world will reward them with coconuts and the policia will forget them. These guys killed a young couple and the captain, then, yup, had to call the Coast Guard when they ran out of gas near Cuba.

Something in our psyche makes us stupid around great waters... Or maybe makes the stupid lethal...

LB Poly takes Southern Calif title for 17th time

So Long Beach Poly won another title, which makes it sound easy. It wasn't. Ranked as high as fifth in the nation pre-season, the team lost its opening game, 20-7, and was thereafter unranked and underestimated. Though always feared.

Following from afar, distracted by more pressing matters, I still was gratified to check in on Sunday mornings by reading the LA Times and the Long Beach Independent Press Telegram for the score of the previous night's game. I saw Poly marching on. Getting stronger, playing defense more cohesively, relying on a ground game as is the Jackrabbit tradition.

Last week Poly took on Orange Lutheran, who'd they lost to last year by a missed extra point with seconds left. On a rain soaked field, Orange was forced to punt on its first possession. The snap went over the kicker's head, into the end zone, where the punter ran it out for a safety. 2-0 Poly, with two minutes gone.

Orange, averaging 30 points a game, never scored. Poly pulled off two goal-line stands, in the last seconds of the first half and at the end of the game. Final score, 2-0.

In the final game, last night, Poly defeated Crespi 13-3, in the rain. That's 3 points allowed in two championship games: congratulations to coach Raul Lara and defensive coordinator Jeff Turley. These were tense games (Poly led Crespi by 6-3 at half and through most of the third and fourth quarters). High school kids playing without a letdown in the biggest show of their lives.

Thanks to Poly for allowing me to wear my colors - green and gold - on a cold wet Sunday in New York, far from Long Beach, Calif. Below are some game stories:

Stars pass along winning tradition
Article Launched: 12/08/2007 11:41:42 PM PST


As impressive as Long Beach Poly High's championship football legacy may be, it's the continuity of the program that leaves one marveling.

One attends a cold, wet CIF Southern Section Pac-5 Division title game at Home Depot Center in 2007 and memories of past stars pop up in the course of Poly claiming its unprecedented 17th CIF title, 13-3 over Crespi before 14,898.

Vaughn Telemaque dives here for one interception, and dives there perfectly parallel to the ground for another, and then clinches the game with a leaping interception in the end zone on Crespi's last gasp drive.

He threw a virtual shutout of Crespi's Notre Dame-bound tight end Joseph Fauria, and it's almost impossible to not think of Mark Carrier, the former Poly and NFL standout. Or Marques Anderson, Chuckie Miller, Marquez pope, Omar Stoutmire and Darnell Bing, because Telemaque may be as good as any.

He certainly was the difference Saturday, on a defense that deserves credit for this title more than most. The Jackrabbits allowed just 106 points all season in a 13-1 season, and just 24 in four playoff games.

The lone touchdown Santa Margarita scored in the first playoff win came on a fumble return.

Newport Harbor scored a touchdown on a short drive set up by a turnover, and their last versus the second team. In the semis and finals, Poly allowed one field goal.

Then on the other side of the ball there was Melvin Richardson, a stout, quick 5-10, 195-pound junior running back who is reminiscent of former Georgia standout Herschel Walker in size and style, but for Poly fans will now join the same company as Herschel Dennis, Kirk Jones, Willie Brown and Dee Andrews as a classic difference-maker.

Richardson turned a run to the left into a 69-yard touchdown on Poly's first offensive series for a 6-0 lead, and then carried for gains of 7, 6, 19 and the scoring play of four yards in the fourth quarter to give Poly a 13-3 lead and the game.

That doesn't even include the 50-yard run that would have made it three touchdowns and a larger margin called back by a penalty. Richardson finished the night with 148 rushing yards.

Poly's 17th title is the third for Raul Lara since becoming Poly's head coach in 2001, adding to the titles he claimed in 2001 and 2004. He moves closer to the cr me of Poly lore, one behind Orian Landreth, who won four in 1929, 1930, 1934 and 1936, and one behind Jerry Jaso (1985, 1997, 1999, 2000), the first coming as co-coach with Thomas Whiting.

Dave Levy won back-to-back titles in 1958 and 1959. Ed Kienholz (1919), Art Schuettner (1923) and Jim Barnett (1980) also won titles, and Poly also claimed a lower weight CIF title in 1927.

Of course, nothing comes easy for Poly. As good as they are and as stout as the program may be, they always seem to take the rockier path to championships.

Only one of the titles since 1997 - they've won six in 11 years - came by a significant margin, the 21-6 win over Los Alamitos in 2004 that was also won in the final quarter like Saturday's. Poly beat Mater Dei by three in 1997, earned a co-title with a 1999 tie, and beat Loyola by three points in overtime in 2001.

The losses were close, too - a touchdown loss to Mater Dei in 1998, a one-point loss to the Monarchs in 2002, and a four-point loss to Loyola in 2003. Last year's semifinal loss to Orange Lutheran was by a point.

Poly couldn't have begun the game with more momentum. Richardson found a seam in the Crespi line and then split two defenders on the way to a 69-yard touchdown run just 64 seconds into the game.

But despite several opportunities and good field position, most of them coming courtesy of Telemaque, Poly was unable to build on that early score.

For starters, Jonathan Heinze's kick after Richardson's score hit the post so the lead was just 6-0.

Telemaque followed with two diving interceptions of Crespi quarterback Brian Bennett on the Celtics' first two possessions, the first setting Poly up at midfield, but the Jackrabbits went three-and-out.

Telemaque's second pick, a full out dive in front of Fauria, put Poly on the Crespi 30. Four runs later, Poly had a first-and-goal at the four, but Richardson lost the ball when hit at the two and Crespi recovered.

Poly drove into Crespi territory again on their next possession, and a 29-yard screen pass to fullback Iosefo Mikaele should have put the ball on the Crespi 15. But a holding penalty away from the play pushed Poly back to the 29, and another penalty put them further back, and Heinze's 50-yard field goal attempt was short.

Crespi went on their best drive of the night from there, converting six first downs to set Christian Nastos for a 32-yard field goal. The drive was aided by a third down holding penalty by Poly deep in Crespi territory.

Poly had the ball for only eight minutes in the first half but held a 6-3 lead.

But despite the squandered chances, Poly's defense never broke. After a bad punt snap set Crespi up at the Poly 34, the defense fought off the Celts and forced a field goal attempt. Romeo Robinson blocked a potentially game-tying field goal that wasn't ever going to reach orbit.

After Poly made it 13-3, Sheldon Armstrong and Telemaque broke up passes on Crespi's next drive. By the time Crespi got the ball again, there was just four minutes to go and it took almost all of the time for Crespi to get close - at which time Telemaque stepped up again with the game-clinching pick.

And 17th title, and more memories for the Poly vault.

**********

Players' future also a priority for Poly
By Bob Keisser, IPT

Walking through the Poly gym to the office of head coach Raul Lara provides the atmosphere of a blue-collar museum, every nook opening to a different location for the football team.

Film room. Meeting room. Locker room. Plastered on the walls are championship plaques and pictures of former Jackrabbits now performing in college or the NFL.

Then you get to the room adjacent to Lara's office, and sitting there is Lara's assistant, Monica, with all kinds of collegiate stuff on her desk, and a white grease board behind her with the name of every Poly player.

It doesn't list them by position. It has columns indicating what SAT or ACT test they've taken, written in code and different colors to indicate when the student passed the test or when he's due to take it. Then there's another column indicating what schools have made earnest contact with Poly players about a scholarship.

As the season comes to an end after tonight's CIF Southern Section Pac-5 title game against Crespi at the Home Depot Center, and perhaps a state title game next weekend, that board will begin to fill up with more numbers, codes and names as colleges come Jackrabbit hunting.

"It's been a great asset," said Lara, who was on the phone talking to a college coach about a player when I walked in his office Wednesday. "Having an aide who handles all of this is such a great resource for me and the kids."

A former Poly standout made it happen. Lara was attending an NFL Summit for high school coaches and heard Gene Washington, the former Poly, Stanford and NFL standout and now one of the NFL's top execs, talk about the league's Play It Smart program.

This is the program. The league helps set up schools with the essentials to run its own academic clearinghouse and help steer kids to college.

I can remember how Jerry Jaso always had a clipboard in his desk with a list of players and notations on test scores and what schools were interested. He would often get on the phone and start calling smaller schools looking to get some of his lesser-known or smaller players an opportunity.

This system makes it much easier for everyone. It also underscores that for all of our fascination for Poly athletics, the school's motto about "academics" is taken seriously in the gym and on the field.

************
Eric Sondheimer: LA Times

Poly beats Crespi for Pac-5 title

Defense again is the key for the Jackrabbits as Richardson's running and Telemaque's three interceptions lead the way.

December 9, 2007


On a rain-drenched field at the Home Depot Center, Encino Crespi and Long Beach Poly engaged in an all-out defensive struggle, each team daring the other to find a way to succeed.

Poly junior running back Melvin Richardson took on the challenge and delivered, scoring on touchdown runs of 69 and four yards to help the Jackrabbits defeat Crespi, 13-3, to win the Pac-5 Division title Saturday night.



It was the 17th Southern Section championship for Poly (13-1), which last week also used its defensive superiority to defeat Orange Lutheran, 2-0, in the semifinals. Richardson finished with 157 yards in 17 carries. Senior defensive back Vaughn Telemaque had three interceptions.

Now it's up to the 10 section commissioners from the California Interscholastic Federation, high school's governing body, to decide at a gathering today in Carson which six schools will be selected for the CIF state championship bowl games next Saturday at the Home Depot Center.

The toughest decision involves trying to choose the Division I representative from Southern California. It's a likely choice between City Section champion Lake Balboa Birmingham and Inland Division winner Corona Centennial.

Birmingham defeated Poly during the regular season, so the Patriots are hoping a victory over the newly crowned Pac-5 champion sways the voters. But Centennial owns a win over Crespi, a team Birmingham lost to.

*****
Eric Sondheimer: LA Times

Long Beach Poly: secondary to none

December 7, 2007


Long Beach Poly has produced more NFL players than any high school in California, and the position that college coaches count on for the Jackrabbits to deliver a top prospect every season is defensive back.

Former Poly defensive backs are scattered around the nation, from Donovan Warren at Michigan to Vincent Joseph at USC, from Rodney Van at UCLA to Byron Davenport at Washington.

In the past, there was Mark Carrier, Darnell Bing, Marquez Pope, Marques Anderson, Anthony Cobbs, Omar Stoutmire, Darrell Rideaux. . . .

"We can go on and on," Poly Coach Raul Lara said. "We can probably name 30 guys."

So it should come as no surprise that as Poly (12-1) prepares to take on Encino Crespi (11-2) in the Southern Section Pac-5 Division championship game Saturday night at the Home Depot Center, defense remains the Jackrabbits' specialty.

Their senior safeties, Vaughn Telemaque and Herman Davidson, form the best safety duo in the Southland. Telemaque has offers from USC, Michigan and Oregon. Davidson is being recruited by Michigan, North Carolina, Mississippi and San Diego State.

Telemaque could be a better safety prospect than Bing, who was a standout at USC. The senior is 6 feet 1, is fast and hits people with tremendous ferocity.

"The bigger he is, the harder he falls," Telemaque said of his upcoming assignment: stopping 6-8 Crespi tight end Joseph Fauria.

Both safeties have six interceptions. And Poly's two senior cornerbacks, Jeffrey Johnson and Sheldon Armstrong, can more than hold their own.

The Jackrabbits pulled off one of the most memorable goal-line stands in school history last week in the second quarter of their 2-0 semifinal victory over Orange Lutheran.

Four times the Lancers tried to score from the one-yard line on running plays. Four times they were stuffed inches short of the goal line.

"It's got to be right up there at the top of anything I've ever seen," Poly defensive coordinator Jeff Turley said.

Then, in the final 30 seconds, Poly came up with another goal-line stand from the one, recovering a fumble to preserve the victory.

There's so much pride Poly players have when they wear their green jerseys.

"That green is golden," Telemaque said. "It really means something when you put on the Poly uniform."

Then there's the tradition established by the all-star players of the past from a school that has won 16 Southern Section football championships.

"We want to live up to everybody," Telemaque said. "We love the tradition."

It's no secret why Poly's secondary is good on a yearly basis. Players show up with lots of athletic ability, and the coaches do the rest.

"We're fortunate to get great athletes at that position and they get college coaching," Lara said. "They're sound, technique-wise."

Of course, with so much talent come high expectations, and Poly is probably the only team in the Southland whose fans expect to win every game no matter the opponent.

"It's a lot of fun," Telemaque said. "At the same time, it's a challenge."

Long Beach Poly & De La Salle Footballers in NFL

The Magnificent Seven?

When Long Beach Poly played Concord De La Salle in 2001, it was billed as a mythical high school football national championship game. Today, seven players from that contest are in the NFL, which raises the question: Was Poly-DLS the most talent ever arrayed for a non-all-star game?


SEPT. 28, 2007 -- One Great Game (Atria, paperback 2005; hardback 2003) chronicled a modern high school football national championship game that took place in 2001, but the repercussions aren't over yet.

The long tail of a remarkable sporting event continues with the announcement by USA Football that the two schools involved, Long Beach Poly and Concord De La Salle, each have the most players in the NFL this season--six.

*Of the 12 players, 7 played with or against each other in that one "great game," which tested the marketability of televised high school football to a national audience. Today high school games are routinely screened coast-to-coast.

*The odds are this may have been the greatest number of potential pros on a high school field at one time for a non-all-star game. (In addition to the 7, at least one other player in the game has played an NFL season.)

*Two of the stars of the game have endured setbacks and hardships that scouts and fans could never have predicted.

The quarterback of the winning team, Matt Gutierrez, never lost a high school game during four years as a starter at De La Salle. He went to Michigan, where he never started a game or played a significant role. Yet this year he is a member of the New England Patriots, backing up all-pro Tom Brady--whose uncle was Gutierrez's high school principal.

The star of the Poly team, Hershel Dennis, was part of USC's shared national championship team but suffered two knee injuries in succeeding seasons. After the NCAA granted an almost unprecedented sixth year due to hardship, Dennis is a senior at USC and one of a half-dozen all-star tailbacks. This season he has carried 4 times for 15 yards.

*Long Beach Poly, also credited with having the most NFL players from any high school, was selected California's "School of the Century" in 2000 for overall excellence.

*De La Salle owns the record for most consecutive victories by any football team at any level: 151. It was broken by Bellevue High School on Sept. 4, 2004.

Contact: Don Wallace at donwallace212@hotmail.com

USA FOOTBALL release:

Two High Schools Share Lead for Most NFL Players; California Leads All States; Miami Tops Hometowns

USA Football Staff
Two California high schools –– De La Salle in Concord and Long Beach Polytechnic in Long Beach -- top the list of high schools with the most 2007 NFL players with six each.

The totals are based on the 1,693-man 2007 NFL Kickoff Weekend rosters (September 6, 9-10).

NFL players from Kickoff rosters hail from 1,384 high schools in 48 states and the District of Columbia, three foreign countries and one U.S. territory (American Samoa).

Two high schools –– DeMatha Catholic in Hyattsville, Maryland and Dillard in Fort Lauderdale, Florida –– had five players apiece on Kickoff rosters.

De La Salle, Dillard and Long Beach Poly have traditionally been among the annual leaders in NFL alumni. This is the first time that DeMatha Catholic has had players in the top two positions since 1998, when NFL high school rosters were first computed.

The NFL players from the most productive schools have fond memories of their high school days, and respect for how the schools’’ football programs are run:

•• JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS QB QUINN GRAY (Dillard): ““The big thing about going to Dillard was the tradition. It started back when my dad was a coach there from 1979-90. He started a real tradition as far as winning football games and excellence in the classroom. It was a pleasure to go to the school and be a member of the football team at Dillard. You had guys like ISAAC BRUCE, CHRIS GAMBLE and people like that who played there. The tradition continues because you have guys coming out of there now going to college and then to the NFL. They will continue to do that.””

•• CLEVELAND BROWNS LB WILLIE MC GINEST (Long Beach Poly): ““Long Beach Poly means a lot to me. The school is a melting pot of ethnicity, and you not only got a great education, but you also learned about life. The coaches and administrators made sure you focused on your schoolwork. It is not a surprise to me that so many people who went to Poly have gone on to do great things. They prepare you for the next phase of your life.””

•• NEW YORK GIANTS WR AMANI TOOMER (De La Salle): ““The thing I learned from high school football was the focus it takes to be successful. We had a very successful run at De La Salle and what I remember most about it was that everybody was really focused about playing every week. It was just a good feeling that you knew the guy next to you was going to try his hardest to be the best and you could trust him. The other thing that was great was working with a coaching staff that consisted of really good people -- people who really wanted you to do well. It’’s just a good feeling to have their support and have people behind you who want to get the best out of you.””

•• PHILADELPHIA EAGLES RB BRIAN WESTBROOK (DeMatha): ““My high school coach (WILLIAM MC GREGOR II, the 2004 NFL High School Coach of the Year) continues to be an inspiration and source of support for me.””


HIGH SCHOOLS WITH MOST NFL PLAYERS



High School, Town, State Number NFL Players
De La Salle, Concord, CA 6 Matt Gutierrez, NE; Maurice Jones-Drew, JAX; Derek Landri, JAX; Amani Toomer, NYG; Demetrius Williams, BLT; D.J. Williams, DEN
Long Beach Polytechnic, Long Beach, CA 6 Winston Justice, PHI; Marcedes Lewis, JAX; Willie McGinest, CLV; Samie Parker, KC; Pago Togafau, PHI; Manuel Wright, NYG


Two high schools have five players each:


High School, Town, State Number NFL Players
DeMatha Catholic, Hyattsville, MD 5 Jacob Bender, NYJ; Quinn Ojinnaka, ATL; John Owens, NO; Brian Westbrook, PHI; Josh Wilson, SEA
Dillard, Ft. Lauderdale, FL 5 Isaac Bruce, SL; Chris Gamble, CAR; Quinn Gray, JAX; Jovan Haye, TB; Stanley McClover, CAR


Sixteen high schools have four players each in the NFL this year. Twenty-nine high schools boast three NFLers, while 185 schools have two players:




High School, Town, State Number
Angleton, Angelton, TX 4
Aplington-Parkersburg, Parkersburg, IA 4
Blanche Ely, Pompano Beach, FL 4
Crenshaw, Los Angeles, CA 4
Deep Creek, Chesapeake, VA 4
Glades Central, Belle Glade, FL 4
Glenville, Cleveland, OH 4
Hazelwood East, St. Louis, MO 4
Lower Richland, Hopkins, SC 4
Miami, Miami, FL 4
Miami Beach, Miami Beach, FL 4
Norland, Miami, FL 4
Provine, Jackson, MS 4
Ruston, Ruston, LA 4
Tustin, Tustin, CA 4
4


HOME STATES: California topped the list of states with most NFL players in 2007 (209), followed by Texas (184) and Florida (178):

State NFL Players State NFL Players
California 209 Virginia 53
Texas 184 Alabama 51
Florida 178 Michigan 49
Ohio 92 Pennsylvania 49
Georgia 77 Illinois 43
Louisiana 71 Mississippi 43
South Carolina 53 North Carolina 43


HOMETOWNS: Miami, Florida heads the list of hometowns with the most NFL players (37), followed by Houston (32), Detroit, Los Angeles and San Diego (13 each).

LOS ANGELES TIMES
Subject: Long Beach Poly boasts six former players in the NFL
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2007 11:30:49 -0700 (PDT)


--------------------
Long Beach Poly boasts six former players in the NFL
--------------------

School is tied with Concord De La Salle among high schools nationally with the most representatives in the pro league, according to a report by USA Football.

By Lauren Peterson
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 28 2007

Perennial high school football powerhouses Long Beach Poly and Concord De La Salle are making an impact on the sport that reaches well beyond the prep level, according to figures released Thursday by USA Football, the sport's national governing body.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-preps28sep28,1,3872346.story?coll=la-headlines-sports

Visit latimes.com at http://www.latimes.com

Nude Beach in Central California

The big question is, how do you tell these guys that this is a Family Beach and they're, like, you know, ruining it for those of us who don't have, like, perfectly carved washboard abs and buns of steel?

In the case of the Salty Blogger, all we could do was lift our shirt and give them a dose of their own medicine. Not pretty, but at some point you just have to draw a line in the sand--even at a nude beach.

We'll let you guess (if this photo ever returns to its previous state of living color) who won this little showdown.

Location: Central California north of Cambria. January 7, 2007.

Los Coyotes Diagonal at the Olive Pit

This is the Olive Pit, where our house band sets up and hosts musicians and sessions. It has been going since 1964! Most of the equipment you see here is of more recent vintage, but we still have a few tube amps, etc. Only now, instead of an 8-track reel to reel recorder, my brother Alex has a computerized mixing board and records digitally.

One of the many lineups to play here is Los Coyotes Diagonal, which is me, Alex, Carlos Cooper, Ana Ipanema and Sean "Rocketman" Wallace, our 16-year-old Swedish Death Metal speed guitarist (who, however, would let it be known is against any and all "mindless shredding"). As soon as I can figure out how to upload an audio clip, I will.

We will be releasing our own CD soon, whether or not the world is ready for such songs as "I Soiled Myself," "She Carries the Gene," and "Black Widows in the Mexican Room." All original, by the way.

I've been trying to write a Yachting Song that will come up to the standards of "My Captain" by Grand Funk Railroad but the rest of the band keeps laughing at me.

BEST YACHT SONG YOU CAN’T GET OUT OF YOUR HEAD (DUMB VERSION)

The notion before us: music and boats, yachts, the sea. (For your NFL draft junkies, I promise that there will be a football entry soon. The Poly 5--how they stack up in the draft--looks to be interesting. Very interesting...) But for now, the crew wants music. Let the categories begin...

BEST SONG YOU CAN’T GET OUT OF YOUR HEAD (DUMB VERSION)

From the office pool, the nominees are:

Brandy? ("You’re a fine girl, what a good wife you would be...")

Ride, Captain Ride ("17 men set sail out of San Francisco Bay")

Arbitrary Judgment No. 1: No, those both have something of a story to them, and are suspiciously musical. This category is for a song both pretentious and dumb, and profoundly unmusical, but gifted with some kind of hook (probably rusty, probably a treble).

The envelope, please...omigod, it’s...

You’re My Captain by Grand Funk Railroad!

Heard this on the radio the other day. It is horribly unmemorable. (Really? Can't get it out of your head? So why does it win?) It triumphs, at least until something else comes along, because they keep playing it on Oldies, Classic, Countdown, "Jack" playlist radio.

It is a terrible song, hardly that. Just grating. Devoid. And it was popular, one of those "this is why the Sixties failed" kind of numbers, like Charlie Manson and the word "groovy."

The brilliant thing is that if you just repeat the title about a gazillion times in a sour, tuneless, squeaky wheel voice you are actually improving on the classic. You can reproduce the neat seagull effects by pinching a newborn kitten on its tender belly.

Up next: football. I promise.

Best Yachting/Boating Songs

It has been (ahem) a long time since writing here. When a blog falls in the forest, does anybody hear? In this case, we fell silent. Too much, too too much: work, family, cares, chores.

Now that we're back, one subject of this blog, as originally intended, was to touch on the sea now and then. I seem to have gotten sidetracked on that a bit. But let's try again... The subject of today's missive?

Best Yachting/Boating Songs

Now that we’ve entered the age of the customized songlist via iPods and other music players, the final step in the evolution of the yacht into a floating entertainment center may take place. This is not good news for lovers of solitude, peace, quiet, and the creak of the rigging–although noise-cancelling headphones can help and the new sound-beam technology holds promise for holding down noise pollution.

For lovers of yacht music, however, all the above caveats are moot–no, not mute–because the ability to rock the boat as never before also offers the potential for the ultimate yachting songlist, customized to fit conditions (Hendrix in a Force 10 gale? If only he'd sung about the sea!), and steeped in nautical lore, phrases, instrumentation as well as killer guitar hooks and bagpipe riffs.

Here are the first three that came to mind:

Row Row Row Your Boat
Rolling on the River
Ship of Fools

When others in the office were asked, impromptu, there was a suprising unity of opinion:

Brandy

You know: "She's a fine girl, what a good wife she would be..." I had to agree, it sticks in the mind like a yard of saltwater taffy. About as sickly sweet too, but that is no reason to hate it. There is something cynical and callous about how the lyrics progress: yeah, she's a fine girl, she's pining for her guy, but, let's face it, the sea is his mistress, gee, she's a fine girl, let's have another round...

Which makes me wonder if they aren't all singing about brandy the booze. Except sailors prefer rum, tis said. Neil Diamond wrote "Crackling Rosie" about cheap red wine beloved by winos--but at 14 I hadn't yet figured out levels of meaning and so missed that one.

Brandy? Probably a Top 10.

I don't think Row Row Row Your Boat will make the list. But we shall see.

To be continued...

New Paperback of One Great Game on sale now--9/9/05

Just got word that the paperback of my football book, ONE GREAT GAME, is available--with a new Afterword that details the end of football's longest-ever winning streak. Publisher is Atria, a division of Simon & Schuster.

Already some coverage in Boise, where the Poly High fieldgoal kicker in the game, Jeff Hastings, is playing. And Calif governator Arnold Schwarzenegger has just sent me a nice letter praising the book's lessons!

Several players profiled in the book have gone on to college and playing on Saturdays, including at USC, UCLA, Notre Dame and Arizona State. Two made Sports Illustrated's All America preseason team: safety Darnell Bing at USC and tight end Marcedes Lewis at UCLA, both former Poly teammates. Both Bing and Lewis, and UCLA's Maurice Drew, had big opening games. USC offensive tackle Winston Justice has reclaimed his starting spot, and Notre Dame nose tackle Derek Landri is again the heart of the defense for the Irish.

It's wonderful to see the kids I knew four years ago succeeding, some despite steep challenges and setbacks, but I also think of how many haven't gone on to NCAA glory. It's sobering, and a reminder that sports success shouldn't be the goal of high school. Also, future success often comes hand in hand with personal discipline and self-control--those who partied late and avoided class rarely make it, despite the stereotypes we read and see in the media.

I do wish the best to all the players who made up the season portrayed in One Great Game--I hope they can keep going at the same level of committment, whatever they are doing now.

The Death Star & the Religious Right

Star Wars is coming to an end with the release of the last in the series, thank heavens. But the real Death Star is taking shape above us, thanks to the US Air Force, which today announced its plans to "weaponize" space.

What's truly scary about this is that it comes on the heels of weeks of articles about how the US Air Force Academy has quietly been turned into an evangelical Christian bastion, with an estimated 90% membership in some sect or other that can be called part of the religious right. That includes faculty as well as students.

The spectre of our bombers flown by folks who believe in their divine right to survive Armageddon--even to provoke Armageddon--is not comforting at all. No sir.

So it's even scarier to read the comments below in the NY Times article about the new space weapons:

"The Air Force believes "we must establish and maintain space superiority," Gen. Lance Lord, who leads the Air Force Space Command, told Congress recently. "Simply put, it's the American way of fighting." Air Force doctrine defines space superiority as "freedom to attack as well as freedom from attack" in space."

Ah, yes, the American way of fighting. And is his name really Lance Lord?

Oh, Lord.

Schiavo, DeLay, Leon Russell and The Sea Within

What an Easter parade of hysterics, scoundrels, posers and hypocrites...the whole sad Schiavo mess is not profound nor is it new. You can tell the Supreme Court doesn't want to touch it. As Randy Newman sang in his almost unbearably bleak and beautiful song Goodbye Old Man:

"Everybody dies."

It isn't nice and it isn't going to change, much as we want to try with ever more invasive techniques and equipment. The real question is why the religious right, which allegedly believes in an afterlife, wants to prolong this life. There is a serenity in accepting that it's time to go. Closing time, gentlemen! Drink up, head out into the night.

Instead we have grandstanding Tom DeLay exposed as pulling the plug on his own Dad, not allowing for a moment any sort of tube, ventilator, etc, despite there not being a living will. The court documents show him and his family saying, "Dad would never want to go on like this"--in a coma. Which is exactly what Schiavo's husband said she said. DeLay never even tried to extend his father's life. And he sued and won a big judgment even as he was denouncing trial lawyers.

DeLay is the perfect riposte to the writhing prayer-lawn-jockeys we've seen in the news. Happy Easter! Christ and the Dow are both risen, what's your problem? If you believe, death is just a way station on the golden road. Does this frenzy reflect a lack of belief?

So around Friday afternoon--Good Friday--amid this pious nonsense, what should come on my iTunes shuffle but Leon Russell's great religious rocker: Roll Away the Stone. Of course you'd never hear it on the radio, but check it out if you can. First, great song. Great arrangements. And consider a time when it could be a hit--what a great country we were then (1970) that this song could become popular. Some lyrics:

What a strange time we are passing through
I thought you'd tell me when your time was through
I guess you thought I knew

What a strange time that we are living in
I thought she was my woman and you was my friend
But I was wrong again

[Pssst--don't tell Tom DeLay, but the speaker/singer, whom we don't yet know is Jesus, has just said that he has been cuckolded by Mary and one of the disciples. Do you think Dan Brown was listening to Leon?]

Chorus:
Roll away the stone
don't leave me here all alone
don't neglect me/don't forget me
don't leave me laying here

what will they think in two thousand years?

Finally, on Saturday night before Easter, I gave in to the wife's request to see a movie that was about something other than fireballs and fast cars pinballing around. We went to The Sea Within, mostly because of Javier Bardiem, who is great in just about everything he does. And here was a paralyzed Spanish sailor trapped in his Galacian family's farmhouse for 26 years, trying his best to talk somebody, anybody into helping him kill himself. I felt pretty strange watching it given the holiday and the Schiavo background noise, but it's a serious and even beautiful movie, despite some didactic moments, which seem, however, honest. Funny too. The character Ramon has had it: He's always wanted to die because he was wrongly saved from dying the first time around--he'd seen his life run past his eyes, he'd broken his neck and had even drowned, then whoosh! Saved. For what? To lie in bed and learn to write with his tongue?

Somehow the movie is sexy too. Two women vie for his favors--such as they are, as he reminds both. There is a calming effect, despite the terrible subject matter, to seeng someone take their best shot at an impossible subject with honesty and dignity. Too bad we can't say the same for certain of our compatriots.

Gary Snyder + Robinson Jeffers, Easter 2005

Introducing a new feature: The 18th Century Word of the Day. Drawn from period dictionaries and other sources. My interest -- a novel in progress, The Log of Matthew Roving, that takes place in the 1770s.

HUBBLE-BUBBLE, Confusion. A hubble-bubble fellow; a man of confused ideas, or one thick of speech, whose words sound like water bubbling out of a bottle. Also an instrument used for smoaking (sic) through water in the East Indies, called likewise a caloon, and hooker. [Reduplication of course: on which word, uncertain.]

from A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Captain Francis Grose, ed. Eric Partridge.

Modern useage: "I'm also mindful that man should never try to put words in God's mouth. I mean, we should never ascribe natural disasters or anything else, to God. We are in no way, shape, or form should a human being, play God."—President Bush, Appearing on ABC's 20/20, Washington D.C., Jan. 14, 2005. From Slate, Bushisms.

A poem from Gary Snyder's latest book, Danger on Peaks. (Shoemaker & Hoard, 2004).

Loose on Earth

A tiny spark, or
the slow-moving glow on the fuse
creeping toward where
ergs held close

in petrol, saltpeter, mine gas,
buzzing minerals in the ground
are waiting.

Held tight in a few hard words
in a dark mood,
in an old shame.

Humanity,
said Jeffers, is like a quick

explosion on the planet
we're loose on earth
half a million years
our weird blast spreading--

and after,
rubble--millennia to weather,
soften, fragment,
sprout, and green again.

--Gary Snyder

Happy Easter? My wife's comment: "I wished people Happy Easter and they looked at me to see if I was making a right-wing statement. The religious right has ruined Easter for everybody!"

Surfabout (a movie by Jennifer Hedley) + Link Wray

SURFABOUT (a film) Link Wray (a guitarist)

My niece, Jennifer Hedley, has had her movie, SURFABOUT, about her experiences in New Zealand and Australia, accepted to the IFCT, International Festival of Cinema and Technology, a film festival down under. (Details to follow.) SURFABOUT is Jenny's own digital journey through a year of exploration among surfers, aboriginals, deer farmers, and others. One whose star emerges is Pauline Metzcer, who ends up winning the World Championship by the film's finish. It's professionally edited (Jenny is now working in Hollywood and attending the USC Film School Extension program) and scored: a real breakthrough. Congrats, Jenny.

You can see Jenny surf at www.yachtingnet.com in a story called Surf Patrol, which features a boat called a Protector 40.

A MUSICAL NOTE (Link Wray, + worst pop songs ever)

In last week's Slate, James Sullivan dissects "We had seasons in the sun," as the possible worst pop song ever. It's been getting lots of covers, some folky, some punky, because it's-just-so-bad. Worst songs are in a category all their own, and this one certainly qualifies for an award of some kind. I think of Melanie's "I have a brand new pair of roller-skates (you have a brand-new key)" as belonging up there.

What caught my eye, though, was the assertion that Link Wray contributed the guitar intro on the original No. 1 English version (the song was originally a morose French tune). Link Wray is one of my obsessions, so thanks to Sullivan. The fact that it's the intro that he contributed lends support to the theory-Link's intros and TV movie theme work feature a lot of short expressive stuff that makes the guitar almost seem to talk (he did the TV Batman hook, Rawhide, etc, in addition to the first fuzztone in Rumble).

Sullivan's piece is modest and very astute. Just the way we like 'em. It is not, however, the way to be introduced to Link Wray's work. Most people today first got him in Pulp Fiction, where his instrumental Jack the Ripper sets a certain tone.

I first heard Link in my bedroom as an 11-yr-old listening to Rev Ike on the radio in Los Angeles. He played Link's single Fire and Brimstone--Link was in a holy-roller backwoods phase, necessitated by being dropped by his label.

I met Link at Santa's Village in Los Gatos, Calif. on a summer night in 1974. Someday I'll tell that story. Not now.

A POLITICAL NOTE (Blogging and Catallus in an age of decline):

In the poem Be Not Angry At The Sun (see earlier), Jeffers tries to jolt me/us out of anger at our low era by saying there's nothing new here. It comes to me he also cautions against doing a blog:

"You are not Catullus, you know/...You are far from Dante's feet..."

And yet, to say nothing corrodes morale. Even if we embarrass ourselves, it's still better to stick up for something.

A Mile Down by David Vann (review)

A Mile Down by David Vann

Just skim-read A Mile Down by David Vann (Thunder's Mouth Press, June 2005), a story by a former Stanford Writing Fellow and adjunct who, following in his Dad's flawed footsteps, threw over his career to become captain of his own boat.

Vann's father was a dentist turned fisherman turned failure and, after a return to dentistry, a suicide. Vann falls into the same déjà vu-like pattern, buying and losing a yacht off Guatemala, then convincing himself and his friends and partners to stake him to a 90-ft charter yacht built in Turkey. He's going to offer upscale Aegean visits to Ulysses' old haunts, combining his love of lit and boats. Everything goes wrong. The Turkish boat starts to fall apart at the seams by the second charter. Everyone rips him off. He's like one of those dumb Englishmen in Eric Ambler's novels who blunder into danger and somehow blunder out-except Vann does not get out. He almost loses the boat in an epic battle with a storm and a greedy freighter captain who sets out to exploit the laws of salvage (and helps to put Vann and his friends in peril in order to force them off the yacht).

There's a whole other half to the tale, when he gets his boat out of bankruptcy and puts it into charter in the Caribbean. The Bird of Paradise runs into more trouble. Everybody seems to have it in for Vann. Customs officials, shipyard men, his oldest friend. Maybe with good reason, he admits. While the honesty is refreshing, it doesn't diminish the suspicion that indeed what we have here is a failure to communicate. Or, as Vann himself says, "Perhaps I'm just an asshole."

The Bird ends up sinking, too-in an unexpected near-hurricane--helped along by the Coast Guard's lame first attempts to assist, perhaps, but more by the fact that Vann is just not a very careful sailor. He's always trying too much with unskilled crew and a mindset that asks for fatality. So it isn't so much that bad luck dogs Vann. After all, he has an interesting ability to tap wealthy friends for money. The Bay Area thing, I guess (speaking as a former denizen). But it really makes me snort at times-"Gee, if this fool's friends would just stop writing him checks, maybe he'd use his brain in ways that would anticipate the problems that keep arising on his boats."

But, as a lower-case ocean person myself, I know that we're all extremely vulnerable in the water or on it. It's easy to end up under it, too. A Mile Down is very well written, perhaps too well given the authorial revelations.

Be Angry at the Sun - Robinson Jeffers vs Bush

Beginning should not a problem. Yet beginning is a problem. The ego thing.

I know. Here’s a poem sent to me by my friend Ralph in Squaw Valley, with whom I took a RIB (rigid hulled inflatable boat) down the California coast in November. It was two days after the election. We were in beautiful, rare surroundings in perfect weather. Off Pt. Lobos I mentioned Robinson Jeffers, or maybe Ralph did. Anyway, he recited one of Jeffers’ poems, his head poking out of the boat’s sunroof, as we watched fog and kelp beds and ocean swells blend and heave.


Be Angry At The Sun

Robinson Jeffers

That public men publish falsehoods
Is nothing new. That America must accept,
Like the historical republics, corruption and empire
Has been known for years.

Be angry at the sun for setting
If these things anger you. Watch the wheel slope and turn,
They are all bound on the wheel, these people, those warriors.
This republic, Europe, Asia.

Observe them gesticulating,
Observe them going down. The gang serves lies, the passionate
Man plays his part; the cold passion for truth
Hunts in no pack.

You are not Catullus, you know,
To lampoon these crude sketches of Caesar. You are far
From Dante's feet, but even farther from his dirty
Political hatreds.

Let boys want pleasure, and men
Struggle for power, and women perhaps for fame,
And the servile to serve a Leader and the dupes to be duped.
Yours is not theirs.

A bleak vision which pretty much summed our mood up. Nuff said.

It did bring back memories of haunting the Special Collections of the library at UC Santa Cruz as a junior, back in 1972-3, reading Brother Antoninus’ (William Everson) unpublished thesis on Jeffers.

I was looking into the sources of the California literary myth for a paper in a class taught by Jim Houston. I also had taken Everson’s Birth of a Poet class in an enormous teepee, snickering, as we all did, at this 67-yr-old in buckskin bearclas lavaliere mic his fourth wife too sexy for me! How Santa Cruz. But the old guy pulled it off, day after day. Brave and embarrassing—like a blogger.

Jeffers read like a cross between a mountain man and a classical Greek. The long narrative forms he liked, novels in stanzas, feels dated, the scenes are sometimes way over the top, or just obvious, but boy, is there some strong stuff—Tamar, condors and grizzlies, harsh violent images and sometimes spare, sometimes thundering language.

Out of fashion, until you read something like Be Angry at the Sun. Like Yeats, you toss out the drivel and mysticism and save the pure hard nuggets.

Anthony Powell Gets Me Going

Consider this quote as the Prolog to a Blog, perhaps also as a mea culpa. It is from the long, long novel A Dance to the Music of Time, by Anthony Powell:

"He too should have harnessed his gift, in early life, to an ever renewing art from which there was no retiring age. To exhibit themselves, perform before a crowd, is the keenest pleasure many people know, yet self-presentation without a basis in art is liable to crumble into dust and ashes. Professional commitment to his own representations might have kept at bay the melancholy.... Sometimes, after a day’s racing, for example, he might return to the old accustomed form. Even then a few misplaced bets would bring the conviction that luck was gone for good, his life over."

(Of character Dicky Umfraville, p 2, Temporary Kings)

Now, if that isn't a good reason to exhibit one self, on stage or on line, I'd like to hear why not.

Tomorrow, the story begins.