Saturday, January 2, 2021

Fiesta Bowl

Oregon is wearing yellow helmets with silver wings, white jerseys with green numerals, and yellow pants.  Iowa State is wearing black helmets with a white logo, black jerseys with white numerals, and black pants.  (I have no idea when Iowa State decided to drop their historic colors and go with all black, but they went 8-3 this year, so I suppose it's working for them.)

76 comments:

  1. The 80's countdown continues:

    Number 124: George Michael, "Faith."

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  2. Number 122: John Waite, "Missing You."

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    1. The first time I heard the Gin Blossoms' "Hey, Jealousy" on the radio in the 1990s, I thought to myself, "Good for John Waite, making a comeback!"

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  3. Number 121: Bananarama, "Cruel Summer"

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  4. Number 120: Billy Idol, "Rebel Yell."

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  5. Number 119: Madonna, "Borderline." One of my very favorite Madonna songs.

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  6. Number 118: Heart, "Alone" Heart had two number one hits: this song (from 1987) and "These Dreams" from 1986. "Magic Man" peaked at number 9; "Barracuda" peaked at number 11.

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  7. Number 117, Rick James, "Super Freak"

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  8. Number 109: U2, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For."

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  9. Number 108: Moody Blues, "Your Wildest Dreams." I was, and am, a huge fan of this song.

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    1. Justin Heyward wrote and recorded this song when he was about 40. It captures basically the same energy as "Auld Lang Syne" by Dan Fogelberg. This sort of mourning for youth takes up a lot of male energy -- at least it took up a lot of mine -- between the ages of 30 and 45. Ever since I turned 45, I've spent a lot more time being grateful for the time I have left instead of missing the time that is past.

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    2. Me, too!

      I also loved this song and fell in love with the woman in the video. As a teen-ager when this came out, I actually pined to be a middle-aged adult with all sorts of interesting and kissy nostalgia and longings. For quite a while, I pitched forward so frequently into that imagining of a future that I was not investing in the at-hand moments that would ultimately produce the nostalgia. Once I settled down enough to experience the now, it was too soon before I accelerated into the nostalgia. The whole period was exhausting and not satisfying, and even at the time I knew it was ill-advised. But I find I have to aim a little left of center into commitments and prescribed activity to actually hit the now target.

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  10. Number 107: Elton John, "I'm Still Standing." Bernie Taupin wrote the lyrics for this song when he was 33. See the note on "Your Wildest Dreams" above.

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  11. Number 106: Air Supply, "All Out Of Love." In 1980, I was too young to worry about being overly sentimental, so I was a big Air Supply fan. Now I'm too old to worry about being overly sentimental, and I enjoy them still.

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  12. Number 105: Murray Head, "One Night in Bangkok." Someday I will actually spend enough time to figure out what Chess the Musical is all about. But today will not be that day.

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  13. Number 104: Guns 'N' Roses, "Welcome to the Jungle." A rare entry from the late 1980's.

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    1. One tree-lined area of the too-few parking areas at the bottom of the hill near the dorms at WKU was nicknamed "The Jungle" in the 1988/89 range by some guys who were big fans of this song.

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  14. Number 103: Dream Academy, "Life in a Northern Town." This song is exactly the type of song you were supposed to like if you wanted to be an Anglophile hipster, and I just didn't like it at all. So the closest I ever got to being an Anglophile hipster was in the mid-1990's when I was reading Nick Hornby and following the English Premier League.

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    1. I absolutely loved this song. It was the video that really got me--reminded me of the 1960s home movies my dad shot of our family before I was born.

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  15. At halftime, Iowa State leads Oregon 28-17. The Big XII has made a good showing in the Bowl Games so far.

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    1. "Touchdown Terry" Wilson, formerly of Oregon, quarterbacked UK to victory in the Gator Bowl earlier today.

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  16. Number 102: Pat Benatar, "We Belong" This song and "Love Is a Battlefield" both reached number 5 on the U.S. singles chart, which was the best performance of any Pat Benatar song.

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  17. Number 101: Bruce Springsteen, "Dancing in the Dark." I watched a lot of TV that featured Courtney Cox, and I still think this video was the best thing she ever did.

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    1. They were playing "Born in the USA" in the gym at Mississippi State a few minutes ago.

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  18. Number 100: The Go-Go's, "Our Lips Are Sealed."

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  19. Number 99: .38 Special, "Hold On Loosely"

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  20. Number 98: Madonna, "Into the Groove." I still think "Desperately Seeking Susan" was a good movie.

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  21. Number 97: Dead or Alive, "You Spin Me Round." In the words of someone I once read on the Internet, I don't listen to this song very often, but when I do my neighbors do as well.

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  22. Number 96: Loverboy, "Working for the Weekend." This song was released in October 1981, and was my favorite song in the world from October 1981 through New Year's Day of 1982.

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  23. Number 95: Michael Jackson, "Rock With You." I have always associated this song with college basketball season, and in fact it was released in November 1979 -- just before the 1979-80 season, which was extremely memorable to me.

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  24. Charlotte gets revenge for yesterday, beats Western 75-71 in OT. It's really hard to win college basketball games in North Carolina if you're not from there.

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  25. Number 94: Flock of Seagulls, "I Ran." A song I have never liked.

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  26. Number 93: Billy Idol, "White Wedding." Back when I used to attend dances, I never saw another song get more people to start dancing.

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    1. "Walk Like an Egyptian," "Safety Dance," "In a Big Country," "You Spin Me Round" and "I Am Superman" by R.E.M. would be among those that would outscore "White Wedding" in my experience, but I hear you.

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    2. I think that by the time those other songs became hits, I had quit going to dances.

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  27. Number 91: Rick Springfield, "I've Done Everything for You." Does anyone else remember when he was on General Hospital?

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    1. I've got to go listen to this. I don't remember it, but I do remember him on General Hospital.

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    2. Oh, sure. I know this song. Except I always figured it was called "You've Done Nothing for Me."

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  28. At the Mississippi State/UK game, MSU has painted "STARKVEGAS" in the end zone of their basketball court. Good for them. They have also painted what appears to be the names of Mississippi towns all around the court. No, wait! They are actually the names of Mississippi counties. What a great idea! Of course, Mississippi only has 82 counties -- we have 120.

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  29. Number 90: Duran Duran, "The Reflex."

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  30. I was thinking it was at Starkville and at Tuscaloosa where UK lost in 1978, but it wasn't--it was at Tuscaloosa and at Baton Rouge. This is the model of clock radio on which 9-year-old I listened to those games. I can still remember the sound of the numbers flipping.

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    1. After they lost in Baton Rouge, I was absolutely devastated. I was convinced not only that they were going to lose the tournament, but that no team I rooted for would ever win a title in any sport.

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  31. I'm so happy to see Daymeon Fishback of Greenwood H.S. in Bowling Green, Ky., on ESPN.

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  32. It's not just that Kentucky loses all of these basketball games, it's that they are so bad that they really aren't competitive. They are currently trailing Mississippi State by 9 points with 11 minutes to go, and if you have been watching the game, it's hard to believe that UK could ever beat MSU, no matter how many times they played.

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  33. Number 78: Pat Benatar, "Hit Me With Your Best Shot."

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  34. People keep saying, UK should do this, or UK should do that, or Cal should play this guy or Cal should play that guy. None of it matters. They are terrible. If you brought John Wooden back, and he got all of these guys to buy in, they would still struggle to win more than five games in the SEC. You have to have a certain ability to play basketball to beat SEC teams.

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  35. Number 77: Journey, "Anyway You Want It."

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  36. Think about it like this. Western Kentucky would struggle to beat Mississippi State. And Western would run UK off the court. No matter how hard the players try, or no matter what buttons Calipari pushes, there is simply a lack of basketball skill that cannot be overcome.

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  37. Rex Chapman tweeted today, and said something like: I've seen these guys play, and I know they can shoot from the outside. The problem is that all of their games have been played indoors. That's about as much analysis as this team deserves. They're terrible, and no amount of hustle can overcome such poor talent.

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  38. Number 76: Hall & Oates, "Private Eyes."

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    1. This song felt like a whole new era of music the first time I heard it.

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  39. I really like these county names on the MSU floor. We should absolutely do something like this at UK. You could fit two lists of 60 names each, with one list stacked on the other.

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  40. Number 75: Van Halen, "Panama." The pop culture version of the 1980's may have ended when David Lee Roth left Van Halen. Or it may have ended on May 8, 1986, when Tracy Pollan made her last appearance as Ellen Reed on "Family Ties."

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    1. We've been watching a fair amount of Family Ties in my house, and I'm surprised that I remember pretty much every episode.

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  41. Number 74: Def Leppard, "Hysteria." Anyway, I'm pretty sure it ended sometime in 1986.

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  42. Number 73: Kenny Loggins, "Footloose." At some point, someone had the idea to turn "Footloose" into a musical, and about five or six years ago I took my daughter to see one of the local high schools do the musical. I thought the kids were OK, but the songs written for the musical just weren't very good. At least three times during the course of the evening, however, the kids got to do this song -- and every time they did, they brought the house down. What a great song.

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    1. To me, this is exactly what's missing from pop culture now. Everything is just too depressing, especially for young people. Young people need to have fun.

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  43. Number 72: Rick Springfield, "Don't Talk to Strangers"

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  44. Number 70: Modern English, "Melt with You." This is another one of those English hipster songs that I didn't like as much as I wanted to.

    Onto the Orange Bowl!

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  45. "Love Shack" and "Melt with You" also were huge dance songs in my WKU days. I don't believe I had heard "Melt with You" until I got there.

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