Infospigot: The Chronicles

Words and Music

I've been working on pulling together the story behind the writing of "Bear Down Chicago Bears"--a mystery of perhaps less significance than, "What happened to the WMDs?" Still, you work with what you got.

Along the way, I called the song's current publisher, Mark Spier, of Larry Spier Music, in New York City. He says he's getting lots of requests for the sheet music. Alas, there is no currently published sheet music. So his firm has made a PDF copy of the 1941 sheet music and is selling it online. In the 10 days since the Bears beat the Saints to get into the Super Bowl, Spier has sold 200 to 300 copies (including one copy to me; Dad, it'll be in the mail soon). The first thing I learned from the sheet music, beside the Bears' 1941 address (37 S. Wabash), is that the song is to be played at a "bright march tempo."

You can buy the song from Spier here (it's three bucks; the company is selling several other Bears-related musical items, too). If you're not satisfied with a virtual copy, I found at least one copy of the 1941 original for sale on eBay (the seller has timed it so that the auction will end near game time on Sunday.

One last thing: The graphic on the "Bear Down" cover page: It looks familiar; it's looks similar, in some way, to Chicago Cubs scorecards, which always seemed to have an abstract quality to the cover art (that's the 1941 scorecard here, part of a great online collection assembled by a "die-hard Cubs fan" (poor soul). I wonder if the same illustrator worked for both teams?

Technorati Tags: chicago, chicago bears

That'll Do, Jack

I'm aware the world has been awaiting a verdict from this corner on the new season of "24." Without looking, I'm sure whatever I have to say has been anticipated and stated in much more eloquent and forceful terms than I could ever summon. The same is true of those who might dispute my view: their number is legion and their positions are flawlessly articulated.

Whatever.

For my money, "24" is just more of the same over-the-top sop it's always been. Same soap opera. Same "Batman" (Adam West version) writing. Same hollow characters. Same senseless cruelty. Same hysterics. The president is different this season, but on "24," a president trying to do the right thing is always just half a man; he's never fully self-realized until he decides to do something he knows is really, really wrong; that tradition continues this year.

It was interesting that tonight's episode, the sixth, mostly stayed away from the rough stuff and made some room for characters to get in a word or two between episodes of gun- and fistplay. It actually gave the hour a little more edge than most. But it's just a digression. Jack Bauer, the world's toughest, most vulnerable counterterrorism agent, will be removing lungs barehanded again next week.

Tonight's episode did contain a development that might be very promising for those who want to see some real acting, though. Jack's father appeared on the show. James Cromwell, whose name and face always bring two lines to mind: "That'll do, Pig," from "Babe," and "Have you a valediction, boyo?" from "L.A. Confidential." I don't think the script's been written that he can't make better. Here's hoping.

Technorati Tags: 24, tv

Today's Entry

At the Berkeley marina, just before sunset this afternoon. You know, it's staying light a lot later here--the sun's not going down until 5:30 p.m. Spring--only seven weeks away (or three or four months on the other side of the Central Valley).

My day-after-ride agenda (a.k.a. my contribution to the gross domestic product): Sleep late (after staying up late to go see a kid up the street play a club date with his rock-blues band over in San Francisco). Take a walk. Miscellaneous online noodling. Clean the road gunk off my bike, drivetrain and all (still not done). Take a walk (at the marina) and take a few pictures. Buy dinner groceries. Call my dad to tell him joke heard during yesterday's ride from Swedish-American-Chicagoan Jack Holmgren: "Did you hear the one about the Norwegian farmer who loved his wife so much he almost told her?" Perform marginally unpleasant household plumbing chore. Miscellaneous online noodlng. Eat dinner and watch "Wordplay," the movie about puzzle geeks who make you feel entirely inadequate (a guy solves the New York Times puzzle in 2 minutes and 3 seconds, while discussing what he's doing, on camera). Miscellaneous online noodling. Do the Sunday Times crossword (52 minutes, which is fast, for me; I screwed up on one answer). Watch sports highlights and try to pronounce Sunday news anchor's name (Gasia Mikaelian). Online noodling, includiing the present noodle.

That is all.

Technorati Tags: berkeley

On the Bike (Again)

Maybe there will be another blog, just for matters of the bike.

Until then, there are items like this: Today's 200-kilometer brevet, from the Golden Gate Bridge out to the coast on Point Reyes (the very end of the point, a mountain rearing up at the southern tip of a 25-mile long promontory) up along a tidal estuary to the town of Marshall, which you'd never know was a town unless someone told you -- you know those two or three oyster places? -- and then back down to the bridge.

The ride was damp and un-rainy and un-windy and a couple riders I know put in amazingly fast performances, by my standards. I did OK, too -- more than an hour faster than my previous fastest time on this course because of the perfect conditions.

More later. But bottom line: Got home in one piece.

Technorati Tags: cycling, randonneuring

Worth Noting

Listen, Democrats: From Bob Herbert's column in Thursday's New York Times (unfortunately, the column resides in the site's paid TimesSelect area). After a somewhat predictable battering of Bush's State of the Union talk, Herbert turns his attention to the opposition:

"The Democrats, delighted by the wounded Bush presidency, believe this is their time. Like an ostentation of peacocks, an extraordinary crowd of excited candidates is gathering in hopes of succeeding Mr. Bush.

"But such a timid crowd!

Ask a potential Democratic president what he or she would do about the war, and you’ll get a doctoral dissertation about the importance of diplomacy, the possibility of a phased withdrawal (but not too quick), the need for Iraqis to help themselves and figure out a way to divvy up the oil, and so on and so forth.

"A straight answer? Surely you jest. The Democrats remind me of the boxer in the Bonnie Raitt lyric who was 'afraid to throw a punch that might land.'

"There’s a hole in the American system where the leadership used to be. The country that led the miraculous rebuilding effort in the aftermath of World War II can’t even build an adequate system of levees on its own Gulf Coast.

"The most effective answer to this leadership vacuum would be a new era of political activism by ordinary citizens. The biggest, most far-reaching changes of the past century — the labor movement, the civil rights movement, the women’s movement — were not primarily the result of elective politics, but rather the hard work of committed citizen-activists fed up with the status quo. ...

"... The candidates for the most part are listening to their handlers and gurus and fat-cat contributors, which is the antithesis of democracy. It’s not easy for ordinary men and women to be heard above that self-serving din, but it can be done."

Also noted:

Snowing: On this day in 1967, McCormick Place in Chicago burned down. While it burned, snow started to fall. A heavy, quick-piling snow. It snowed all day. Out in the suburbs, my dad caught (or did he drive?) his carpool to work. I caught the bus for the six-mile ride to junior high; nobody did anything but look out the window at the snow, which you could see piling up. At 11 a.m., the teachers said the buses were coming back for us. They took a long time to get there, and by the time we drove, very slowly, to the stop at the end of our road, there must have been eight or nine inches of snow to walk through. Some kids didn't make it home that night because the buses couldn't negotiate the dirt roads. My dad didn't make it home that night. It was still snowing, and kept going until early the next mornng, when we had two feet on the ground. Later that day, the second day, we heard that the Apollo astronauts had died. It didn't seem like a big deal next to all the snow.

What a holiday. No school -- we were out nearly two weeks because the roof of the gym at the high school collapsed and the boiler that heated the building there blew up; without the high school open, the district didn't want to run the buses. So we all stayed home and played in the snow and marveled at the mountains of plowed snow and talked about the snow until we were sick of it. I was very temporarily happy to get back to school; but when things shut down a week or so later with another foot of snow, I was only to glad to stay home and play in it again.

Walking: From "The Places in Between," by Rory Stewart (a man's walk across Afghanistan at the tail end of 2001; it's a great book):

"I thought about evolutionary historians who argued that walking was a central part of what it meant to be human. Our two-legged motion was what first differentiated us ffrom the apes. Itt freed our hands for tools and carried us on the long marches out of Africa. As a speices, we colonized the world on foot. Most of human history was created through contacts conducted at walking pace, even when some rode horses. I thought of the pilgrimages to Compostela in Spain; to Mecca; to the source of the Ganges; and of wandering dervishes, sadhus, and friars who approached God on foot. The Buddha meditated by walking and Wordsworth composed sonnets while striding beside the lakes."

Biking: Tomorrow I'm off on a 125-mile ride, from the Golden Gate Bridge out to Point Reyes Lighthouse, up the coast a little to Marshall, then back to the bridge. It's a 200-kilometer brevet, the first qualifier for the 2007 Paris-Brest-Paris ride in August. More on what all that means later.

Technorati Tags: bush

Thursday Dribblings

Bear music: While pursuing my researches into the origins and history of "Bear Down Chicago Bears," I happened across "Bear Fight Songs," a new compilation of tunes celebrating the invincibility of the Monsters of the Midway. I haven't heard it, but I don't see how any Bears fan could live without it (for instance, it features the version of "Bear Down," performed by Bill Archer's Big Bear Band, played at Soldiers Field; can you live without that?). You can buy it online here; or if you live in Chicagoland, it's reportedly for sale at Jewel-Osco and White Hen stores and at Best Buy.

Ditka: Redeyechicago.com, the website of the Chicago Tribune's hip, young paper (or whatever it is), is collecting home-recorded versions of "Bear Down Chicago Bears." It's hard to imagine a better version than that delivered by the Chicago Lyric Opera's Bryan Griffin, singing in "Die Fledermaus" costume. It's hard to imagine a worse one than Mike Ditka's (though the more I hear the line, "We'll never forget the way you thrilled the nation/with your T formation," the more I love it).

Encounter with the Weather Guy: I went out for a short midday ride today with three other guys. We did one of the standard loops in the area: up Tunnel Road (a long-ish but mostly very gentle climb), then over Grizzly Peak Boulevard to Claremont Avenue. The others were heading down Claremont for lunch, but I wanted to head home, so I continued over the top of Grizzly. About halfway up the last climb, I noticed another cyclist was coming up behind me. When he got to within about 20 or 30 feet, he stopped gaining, and I turned and said, "How's it going?" He said, "Just trying to hang on." Uh-huh--sure. A couple minutes later he came up alongside and said he'd pull me for a while. I commented on the fact he was wearing summer riding gear in the chilly weather. "I'm just ready for it to be spring," he said. When I looked over at him, I realized it was Bill Martin, the KTVU weather guy. I'd heard he was a serious cyclist. So I said, "Hey, you're Bill Martin," a line he must have heard a thousand times from similarly star-struck encounters. He said, "I am," and we shook hands as we rode. Nice guy. He turned off shortly thereafter, to take the precipitous descent down Lomas Cantadas into Orinda, I guess. End of encounter.

Technorati Tags: chicago, chicago bears, music, video

Bush Is Right: Failure No Longer Optional

"Waist deep in the Big Sandy. The Big Fool says to push on. ..."

--Lydell*

Just this about Bush and the State of the Union and Iraq: He's right, after all. Failure's not an option. It's a certainty. It's a certainty given the way he and his team designed and executed the project. It's a certainty given the terms he's set--a nation that will stand on its own and defend itself and provide a beacon of sweet democratic light and liberty to a region and culture starved for it. We can send 20,000 troops, or 200,000, or start up the draft and send all our boys and girls over there. We can spend another trillion dollars (the minimum bill coming due for this catastrophe). We can give everybody over there iPods or Escalades or whatever we think will turn the tide. But a people that won't cohere, somehow, of their own accord won't be turned into a nation, let alone a model political culture, by the force of our arms, our vast wealth, or our eagerness to show the rest of the world the light. None of this is a secret, and it hasn't been since before we started this war.

What all that means is that if we're to have a change, someone's got to step up: not to pass symbolic, nonbinding resolutions that do nothing but provide cover for the next election cycle, but to stop the president from continuing his disastrous course and to somehow refocus both our military and diplomatic priorities (I think Webb's speech tonight heads in the right direction). It will be a fractious, ugly fight, but it won't be worse than what we've gotten ourselves into.

*Channeling a Smothers Brothers guest.

Technorati Tags: bush, gwot, iraq, war on terror

'You Thrilled the Nation ... with Your T Formation'

The Bears' fight song--it holds up better than "The Super Bowl Shuffle" (not that I'm volunteering to give up my vinyl original of the "Who Knew Steve Fuller Would Try to Rap?" classic). It was actually pretty cool to hear the Soldier Field crowd singing it (the old tune) the other day. Right now, I can't find anything about the song's history beside the fact it was written by Al Hoffman, now a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and that it debuted in 1941. Nothing on who commissioned the song (George Halas, no doubt), how Hoffman got the job, or anything else (the Tribune ran a story in August '41, "Bears Put a Punch in Their Football Song," that talks about the team singing it at an event during training camp).

"Bear Down, Chicago Bears"
Written by: Al Hoffman (aka Jerry Downs), 1941
MP3 audio file (allegedly featuring the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Sir Georg Soli conducting)

Bear down, Chicago Bears,
Make every play clear the way to victory.

Bear down, Chicago Bears,
Put up a fight with a might so fearlessly.

We'll never forget the way you thrilled the nation,
With your T-formation.

Bear down, Chicago Bears,
And let them know why you're wearing the crown.
You're the pride and joy of Illinois,
Chicago Bears, bear down.

(Not to spoil the classic mood, but here's a more contemporary take on the Bears: "Black N Bruise Crew," by "the Chicago-based hip-hop group The Sausage Committee.")

Technorati Tags: chicago, chicago bears, music, sports

On the Bike

Was out of the "office"--and away from the television for yesterday's snowy Bears-Saints tilt--to go on a Grizzly Peak Century ride in the mountains and along the coast of northern Sonoma County. One of the things that still surprises me about California is that despite our vast and growing population (going on 36 million), huge tracts of the interior are still isolated if not exactly wild. Yesterday's ride was a case in point: from the Russian River just a few miles from the coast, up King Ridge Road to the northern Sonoma highlands, down into one deep, cold canyon of the Wheatfield Fork of the Gualala River, where we saw ice and frost on the road, then over some more hills and down to Highway 1; from there we road down to the mouth of the Russian River, then back up the north bank to our starting point. We spent the day on narrow one- and two-lane roads until we got to the coast; we saw very little traffic, very few homes, and very few obstructions to mountain ridges 50 or 100 miles away to the north and northeast. In short, a stunningly beautiful day in stunningly beautiful country.

(Oh, yeah: The rest of the pictures are ... here.)

Technorati Tags: california, cycling

Guest Observation

I'm out on my bike, or out and about, or just out. Will be back soon. In the meantime, this From The Writer's Almanac the other day:

What's in My Journal
--William Stafford

Odd things, like a button drawer. Mean
Things, fishhooks, barbs in your hand.
But marbles too. A genius for being agreeable.
Junkyard crucifixes, voluptuous
discards. Space for knickknacks, and for
Alaska. Evidence to hang me, or to beatify.
Clues that lead nowhere, that never connected
anyway. Deliberate obfuscation, the kind
that takes genius. Chasms in character.
Loud omissions. Mornings that yawn above
a new grave. Pages you know exist
but you can't find them. Someone's terribly
inevitable life story, maybe mine.

And here's the Almanac's little writeup on Stafford:

"... William Edgar Stafford, born in Hutchinson, Kansas, in 1914. During the Second World War, he was a conscientious objector and was interned as a pacifist in civilian public service camps in Arkansas and California, where he fought fires and built roads.

"In 1948, Stafford moved to Oregon to teach at Lewis and Clark College. His first major collection of poems, Traveling Through the Dark (1962), was published when Stafford was 48. It won the National Book Award for poetry in 1963. He said, 'At the moment of writing ... the poet does sometimes feel that he is accomplishing an exhilarating, a wonderful, a stupendous job; he glimpses at such times how it might be to overwhelm the universe by rightness, to do something peculiarly difficult to such a perfection that something like a revelation comes. For that instant, conceiving is knowing; the secret life in language reveals the very self of things.'

He published more than 65 volumes of poetry and prose. He remained a professor of English at Lewis and Clark College until his retirement in 1990. He died on August 28, 1993, at his home in Lake Oswego, Oregon.

About his own works, Stafford once commented, 'I have woven a parachute out of everything broken.' "