Turkey Week Begins...

Free Advice

This week a lot of people will be getting together for traditional family gatherings, which means
the tiresome progressive set is once again offering "advice" for how to interact with family members who hold "wrong" (read: not progressive) political views.

I have some advice of my own: Don't be that person. Occasions like these aren't supposed to be political seminars. They're supposed to be about great food and football and family stuff.

"Plenty of pumpkin pie, zero politics?"

That would be my strong preference, yes...

Playing Like Turkeys

Heading into yesterday's game against Tampa Bay at Arrowhead Stadium, my beloved Kansas City Chiefs had won five straight games, and ten straight at home going back to last season. The five-game streak included important road wins at Oakland and Carolina that positioned the team to contend for the AFC West Division title. All of that hard work was squandered when the Chiefs were upset 19-17 by the Buccaneers yesterday.

The defeat drops the team's record to 7-3 heading into difficult road games against Denver (7-3) and Atlanta (6-4). They won't play at home again until December 8 against Oakland,
a game that could well be a must-win contest if the team hopes to make the playoffs.

"You don't think they'll make it this season, do you?"

With the offense playing the way it has been lately, they have no chance at all...

Moving Always Sucks

From the delightfully off-kilter webcomic xkcd, by Randall Munroe, which you should read every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Until Next Time...

Between 1990, when I began a hiatus from classroom teaching, and when I returned to teaching in 1995 the music industry had basically abandoned the vinyl 45 rpm single in favor of a compact disc alternative, known as the CD single. This was an interesting period, as bands would usually include two or three extra songs on these singles, often recent live performances of their earlier hits. With the arrival of digital formats, though, it became possible to purchase and download individual album tracks online, and the CD single all but disappeared by the turn of the 21st century.

When I went back to teaching high school I immersed myself in the music popular with teenagers, the first time I had listened to much of that music for several years. One of the rock groups popular at that time was Seven Mary Three, whose album American Standard was released just a couple of weeks after I began teaching again in 1995. The album earned a platinum certification from RIAA, fueled by the success of its first single release, "Cumbersome," a song that was quite popular with the angst-y teenagers in my classroom. As it turned out, my favorite song of theirs was the follow-up release.

Original 1995 CD single

On November 21, 1995 the band released "Water's Edge" as a CD single, and while it didn't quite perform as well as "Cumbersome," it did peak at No. 7 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.

I liked it a lot the first time I heard it on the radio, and it was one of my first CD single purchases. 

The song itself is interesting lyrically, a first-person narrative about someone who witnessed
a horrific crime but dares not say anything for fear of retribution.

Today's send-off is the official music video produced to accompany the single's release, which for a change was actually related to the song's lyrics. Enjoy...