Cutler's Last Stand

On the one hand, I'm surprised the new Bears regime has named Cutler their starting quarterback. On the other hand, what choice did they have? They certainly didn't hitch their wagons to him, but rather made it sound just a tad better than being saddled with him.
The idea that Cutler hasn't won anything while he's been here is correct, but unfair. I'm not saying that he's the second coming we expected when he pouted his way out of Denver, but he's also not the pariah everyone makes him out to be. It is fair to focus on his turnovers, especially on bad decisions, but consider what he's been up against since he's been a Bear.

1st year - new team, terrible line, terrible receiving corps. Defense was solid.
2nd year - still no real support beyond Matt Forte, and the offensive coordinator was Mike Martz - a guy who had been critical of Cutler in the media previously and had left the league after having become a non-factor. He is out of football completely as far as I can tell. Defense was solid.
3rd year - more Martz, same line (or much worse), lots of yards but not enough wins. Defense was solid.
4th year - Mike Tice becomes OC. WTF. J'Marcus Webb. WTF. Marshall joins the team and Cutler can call his own plays, but that's only because the OC can't. Defense is okay.
5th year - new head coach, new OC, new offensive line that shows promise. Rookie WR that makes Marshall that much better, new TE from outer space. Stars align for offense, Cutler gets hurt. Defense sucks. Lovie guys must have been sabotaging Emery.
6th year - new HC is figured out, OC talks shit to press about Cutler, defense is made up of players who wouldn't make practice squad on most other teams. Hell, special teams sucked.
7th year - this year - yet another new HC/OC. Marshall traded away. Bennett might be butthurt that his pal/mentor was let go (he wasn't super cooperative last year in camp). The Bears needs are mostly at defense, which is no guarantee of improvement, but it also means that the offense might not improve significantly, either.

Each of these failed OCs has tried to put their mark on the offense (except Tice - not sure what he actually did), and the entire offense was upgraded around Cutler under Emery and Trestman. But the rest of the team fell apart. The offense didn't perform as anyone would have expected, but the defense was historically bad, and the special teams was laughable.

Balance is key in football. All three phases need to be average to good to stand a chance in any game. You can start getting into playoff talks by moving one of your phases from good to great, and sometimes having a great group lifts the rest of the team. Conversely, when two of three phases are floundering - and just two years previous were great - it's an anchor for the whole team.

I feel like nobody mentions the number of times Bennett dropped easy passes early in games, where it would have been nice to start with a long drive and a score, but they ended up kicking the ball away instead. For every interception Jay threw, I'd be curious to learn how many drops occurred on catchable balls.

I'm not hitching my wagon to Cutler, either, but I really don't think he's the liability he's been made out to be in Chicago media. I have thought and agreed that he could jog out to the receiver who just scored and pat him on the helmet, but I'm not basing his value as a QB on his celebrations. If John Fox and Adam Gase are the seasoned veteran coaching pair that I think they are, they might use Cutler like Denver did back in Jay's halcyon years. He can run and he's sometimes more accurate outside of the pocket. That's hard to defend.

More importantly, my hope is that the new regime brings balance back so that the losses are not so embarrassing, and the wins don't feel like losses. If Jay's part of it, I hope the haters can find a way to lose the Jay-face.

Cheaters Sometimes Prosper

I have a hard time with cheating in professional sports. I'm conflicted with the morality at play. "Deflate-gate" is just the latest in a long series of issues (not the first for the Patriots, either) that sully the most basic concepts of sportsmanship. Or do they?

As far as deflating a football goes, I am aghast that both teams don't use the same ball in a game. This seems less like cheating and more like the league missing an opportunity to add more parity. The NFL should provide any and all balls, and they should never be in the hands of equipment personnel from either team. Simple enough. I believe that the only way the playing field is actually level is if everyone has the same access to performance enhancement.

Performance-enhancing drugs? If I understand them correctly, many of them are meant to assist in recovery after exertion. I would allow those immediately. Yes, there's the concern of health issues down the road, but any professional athlete is risking life-altering injury every time they compete. Hell, a 25-year-old cricket player just died after being hit by a ball. Doesn't matter if he was on the juice or not. Besides, who can say that steroids are worse than Splenda in the grand scheme of things?

I want to see my favorite basketball/baseball/football/hockey/soccer/tennis/etc. player do what they do best. If that means Adderall to focus or HGH to recover and hit the field faster, how is that more dangerous than telling football players they can only tackle knees? Concussions are a bigger concern, in my opinion.

The bigger travesty than Lance Armstrong getting caught for using PEDs is that he essentially buried the guy who originally outed him. It's pretty well known that everyone in cycling does some kind of performance enhancement; the crime here was slander, and Armstrong was the villain. I could have forgiven him for getting caught doping, but ruining another person's life to maintain his ridiculous lie is unfathomable.

It's worthwhile to consider the concept of cheating within the realm of professional sports. The ultimate draw of sports is competition, but professional sports is also entertainment. The key word is "professional". At the point when sports becomes a career, I believe any advantage an athlete can gain to win or be the best in their position should be available to them, with the exception of substances that are illegal in general.

This is Rich

I know I've discussed the alternate universe scenario where instead of firing Lovie Smith, the Bears actually hired a competent offensive coordinator* instead. The result would have been at least one more year of Lovie ball, but that would have meant that Rod Marinelli would have stayed, and likely Brian Urlacher as well. Cutler would have gotten his wish, Emery would have fixed the offensive line, and who knows where the limit would have been.

Well, we're in this dimension and it's much messier than that. Our cast-off head coach and backup quarterback are floundering in Tampa Bay, and our freshly dismissed head coach is palling around with the two of them on the beach. The conjecture in this primary universe is that McCown and Trestman will rekindle their relationship and prop up the miserable Buccaneers offense.

Keep in mind that this dream team racked up a mediocre 3-2 record in Chicago. Despite his high passer rating and record-breaking performances, it's situational plays that have always eluded Chicago. My guess is that less-than-killer instinct will find its way to Tampa, too. (See what I did there?)

I wish McCown the best. Seemed like a good guy with medium skill and extraordinary personality - the kind of guy radio audiences would like to see at the helm. Until he loses, of course - then you need a gunslinger. Where would we find one of those?

Finally, word on the street (network?) is that Rex Ryan is all but hired for the Atlanta head coaching position. I'm not sure he's the answer here, but he's universally seen as the best candidate currently available. They haven't even talked to him yet.

My level of hope is significantly lower than it was this time last year. Maybe I'll check back in for the 2016 season. I think the slogan has to change from #beardown to #bearit.

A Bitter Bears End

Well, the Cubs and Hawks have been able to revitalize their franchises. I'm very much hoping that they Bears can do the same. Everyone (myself included) thought they had enough talent on the roster to be competitive this year. I still think that's true on the offense.

I'm a little surprised that they got rid of the GM. I had trepidation about the head coach, but there were pieces that needed to be put into place and the GM got them, mostly. I guess there was never as meteoric a shift in the defense, though. That was a difficult position, with all of the aging pro-bowl players trying to play out their contracts under a new defensive scheme.

I think they have to hold Cutler (and anyone else) until there's a new GM and head coach - especially since they're on the hook for so much guaranteed money - but draft a future QB.

Regarding Cutler, it's hard to ignore his numbers - he's the best QB for stats in my lifetime, but this is the worst Bears team I can remember. That might become Cutler's legacy. He performed well individually in Denver, but almost never got to the playoffs. The intangibles (leadership) are missing, and could be the difference between a Jay Cutler and a Brett Favre.

When Lovie got fired, the goal was to put the staff in place to give Cutler the chance to succeed he hadn't yet gotten since choosing to come to Chicago. It sure looked like they did that. The expected attrition in the defense also occurred, but when the offense floundered, there was essentially nothing left on which to hang a hat.

When the search for a head coach to replace Lovie was underway, I really hoped they would talk to Dave Toub to fill his shoes. I still believe that moving Toub to HC and somehow holding on to Rod Marinelli would have meant that Urlacher could have played another year and retired on his own terms. I think there wouldn't have been the drop off in defensive play that we saw last year, and then Toub and a new OC could have focused on updating the line and the overall offensive scheme.

In fact, with Toub as HC, they still could have hired Joe DeCamillis and there probably wouldn't have been as much of a drop in production. Instead, Toub has continued his thorough coaching style in Kansas City. Just a thought - Mike Ditka was a special teams coordinator before taking the reigns with the Bears.

One more thought - the Bears might want to find a GM, coach, or coordinator from Boston. Tom Thibodeau and Theo Epstein seem to be working so far...

The Cherry on the Poop Sundae

An interesting postulate was posed on the radio this morning - if you swapped Cutler for Rodgers, would the Packers suck and would the Bears be elevated? Seems like a pretty obvious answer (yes to both), but it's predicated on other stuff, like the connection with coaches, management, and fans, for example. And really, it's a moot point now.

This was the "no excuses" year for Cutler, but if that's how it was presented, and we already know him to be a little sensitive and hot-headed (that's why he's in Chicago in the first place), then I can see why maybe having all of the tools he needed still didn't pan out as expected.

And so this morning, they announced that Cutler would not be the starting QB this week. I had already benched him in my fantasy league, because he was a liability last week, and not for lack of ability. This has become a mental issue.

Shame on the Bears for letting it get to this point, too. I don't doubt that Aaron Kromer was right in what he leaked to the NFL Network reporter. And if that's true, shame on him for not taking action instead of whining about it to the press. That stuff should have been weeded out in the pre-season.

Worse, Cutler is the highest-paid QB in the league right now. His numbers have been good - impressive, even - but the big one that keeps evading him is playoff wins. Instead of rewarding him, make him earn the money with playoff wins. Make him gamble on himself - especially since the Bears rigged the deck in his favor.

Now, you have a highly-touted and respected coach making a roster change for garbage games. Some possible reasons:

1. They are genuinely interested in seeing what Clausen can do. I find this to be the least likely scenario. If they were truly interested, there were blowout games where he could have seen a few minutes during the season. Plus, the rest of the team has already checked out, so his supporting cast will be limited in effort.
2. Deferred punishment. Possible - there is conjecture that they planned to bench him last week but the Kromer debacle put that on the shelf so as not to appear to pile on. As I said above - the timing on the Kromer thing could not have been worse. This option makes sense based on Jay's play and demeanor during this past game.
3. Indictment of Emery. I have been amazed at the pieces Emery has put together on the offense. There are few weak spots, but they're not gaping holes, and they've even withstood injury this year. This was done to give Cutler the tools he needed, but the cost was neglect on the defensive side of the ball, but more importantly, at backup QB. With all those things in place, what happens if Cutler gets hurt? There's a placeholder at best, not his successor, in the wings.

If Clausen comes out swinging and looks good in some garbage time, there is the possibility that he plays himself into a supporting role next year. If they ultimately part ways with Cutler (or he takes a walk), Clausen's suddenly the de facto starter. And then we're back to the dumpster fire of an offense from previous years, but no defense to mop up the mess.

From a macro perspective, what head coaching candidate would want to stick his neck out and take a shot at running this team in the current state it's in? What pro-bowl safety would want to come in and call plays and align players in a scheme that has no personality, and mostly broken personnel? I'm averse to change, but I am having a hard time seeing the light at the end of the tunnel here.

Pre-Post Mortem on the Bears

As if losing wasn't enough to manage, now there's internal strife, with the OC taking shots at the QB to an NFL journalist. Sure, he may not have meant things in the way that they were taken ("buyer's remorse" only makes sense - I'm sure that even Jay Cutler has it to a degree), but Aaron Kromer should know better. Especially after witnessing bounty-gate first hand.

But, Doug Baffone (former Bears teammate to Butkus and Sayers) said what we all know is true, but hate to admit: the grand tradition of Bears football is a sham. The team has been nearer to the bottom of the pile than the top for most of my life. We've had great players - sometimes a few at a time - but only one great team. And even that team underachieved considering the talent it had on board. Hell, even the year they did go all the way, they didn't give Walter the ball at the goal line.

I realize that that last point is just an emotional gripe, but maybe that's my issue with the team (perhaps the game) in general. It's a business now, and the emotional connection is obscured by the opportunity to earn lottery-level money. When an under-performing Jay Cutler is the highest-paid quarterback in the league, that is troublesome on a number of levels.

1. He's not the best QB in the league, but he's the highest paid. Other players would then naturally assume that they should be paid more than they're worth, but they're not, because all the money is going to Jay. A fertile field for resentment - especially once games start slipping away on QB miscues.&
2. On his radio show, in the year before his contract extension, Jay talked about taking a "home town discount" to be here and ensure that the proper pieces were around him. Weeks later, on his show, he backed off of that notion. I'm guessing his agent got to him and corrected that, but that's the issue. I don't think Jay sought the biggest QB contract in the league, but if it was offered, why would he not take it? He might not want that extra pressure and scrutiny, but he's where he wanted to be and that's a boat load of money.
3. Paying him so much means that other areas of the team are neglected. They drafted Kyle Fuller, but that was clearly not enough to overcome serious deficiencies in the rest of the defense. No pass rush leads to shaky linebacking, which means that even if the secondary was average, they'd look horrible on this squad. I have my suspicions that they're not average in the first place, however.
4. I've not met a person who thinks Josh McCown was a long-term answer at QB for the Bears, but he showed flashes of being as good as Jay, and he was a significant bargain in comparison. If I remember my history correctly, he was more of the reclamation project material that Trestman was known for (Rich Gannon, for example) than Jay Cutler. It could be the difference between someone giving themselves over to the system vs. someone thinking they know better than the system (with the paycheck to back up the bravado).

I'm not a Jay hater, but he's got protection and receivers and still makes bad decisions. When I watch Aaron Rodgers, I see confidence and accuracy. When I watch Cutler, I see fear and mistrust. Again, an assessment of emotions, which are pretty difficult to quantify.

Radio listeners tend to focus on Jay's facial expressions (or lack of) and demeanor. They don't like Trestman's seeming lack of concern or Marshall's outbursts in the locker room. On paper, everything pointed to a deep run into the playoffs at a minimum. In reality, it seems like there's none of the camaraderie or trust that was discussed in the off season. Trestman might be helping to turn the players into better men, but he's certainly not showing his work on the football field.

Phil Emery is taking some of the heat because his draft picks are performing at around 50% (some good, some very bad) and his choice of coaches seems to be an abject failure. The team went from a 10-6 record to 8-8, and now they're looking at 8-8 as a best case scenario with some record-breaking losses on the books. Baffone thinks the issue starts higher than Emery.

It's possible that the grand tradition of the Bears during my lifetime is actually to underachieve and squander the talent they are able to acquire. Sometimes, fixing a football issue doesn't require the guy with the best stats, but the guy with the biggest heart. Again, that's hard to quantify, and risky. The less risky move is to go with the stats, but then they've built a paper team, not a real one. To paraphrase Buffone, they're not supposed to be playing chess, they're playing football. It's possible that the McCaskey family is better at chess.

Bye Bye Briggs (Redux)

I won't lose any sleep over the departure of Lance Briggs. He was a great individual player, but benefited from playing next to one of the all-time greats in Brian Urlacher. He was fast, nimble, and a sure tackler, but also pretty selfish. And that's not new: http://fledglingtimes.blogspot.com/2007/03/bye-bye-lbriggs.html
In a nutshell, he was a rookie phenom and held his own next to Urlacher in what was probably the best linebacker tandem in the NFL for quite a while. He existed in a system that was focused on the defense, so aside from Ulacher, he also had pro bowl-quality support on the line and in the secondary. His play spoke for him, which became an issue when Urlacher retired and the coaching staff he had been with for many years was ousted.

As a fan, I expected him to be the de facto leader and take the reigns in the locker room. Even if his play or ability to stay healthy was diminished, he could still lead. Turns out he had no interest in that. He had enough interest in starting a restaurant in California that he missed time with his team to attend the opening. This is not new for him; in 2007, he announced that he would not play another snap for the Chicago Bears because he didn't like the offer they gave him on a new contract. He demanded to be traded. The illusion of any kind of allegiance to the Bears or their fans was out the window way back then. (For reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lance_Briggs)

In the meantime, his agent couldn't find him a better deal anywhere else (surprise, surprise) so he came back to the table more amenable to nearly the same offer he got the previous year. So, $33 million over 7 years, if I recall correctly. Nothing to sneeze at, but I think his ingratitude toward the Bears was not only ill-conceived, but also helped to cement a reputation that the organization was cheap and didn't value its players. In the case of Lance, I side with the organization. He was good, but Urlacher was the great one.

A quick aside: don't forget that the first thing Lance did when he finally got the big contract was to buy a Lamborghini and wrap it around a telephone pole, leave the scene of the accident, then call police and make up a story about his new car being stolen. What a colossal waste of money and resources. Read this article to see the kind of sway the Chicago Bears had over city infrastructure, too: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/bears/2007-08-27-briggs-car_N.htm

In 2011, he asked to be traded again, and again was offered an extension. That runs out at the end of this season, and on top of all the other negativity this year has brought, if management re-signs him or extends him again, it better only be ceremonial (so he can retire as a Bear) or fans will respond.

All told, I'm glad Briggs was a Bear. I wish he would have been more of a team guy and a leader - especially once Urlacher left the building. The Bears are the oldest team in the league right now and it's time to start correcting that stat. My hope is that they draft more players like Urlacher and less like Briggs.

Back to the Past (The Future is Here)

In the past few weeks, I've had multiple projects hitting deadlines, and then a long weekend in the Wisconsin Dells, where I was able to unwind most of the accumulated stress. In that time, I basically lost track of what was happening around me, and this little nugget of information got past my filters: THERE'S AN INTERNET ARCADE.
I've had a version of MAME and lots of ROMs for quite some time now (I saved the first versions on floppy disks and a Zip drive!) but I've had difficulty making it portable. Truth is, I end up playing a few favorite games for a week or two, then burn out and forget about it, but today, I'm excited again.

The Internet Archive already has a number of insanely cool projects (legal bootleg music, old program emulation, the wayback machine, etc.) but this might be my favorite. It's all of the arcade games I grew up with (and hundreds more) with some background information, cabinet art, and playable in a browser. Insane. This is my payback for all those quarters all those years ago.

Here's the link to the Internet Arcade: https://archive.org/details/internetarcade
And here's a link to a very helpful troubleshooting article: http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4423

It's hard to imagine what other stuff I only imagined in the 80s will be available for free or very little cost in the next decade. I already have a camera that doesn't require film in the same computer that also plays video games and music (and fits in my pocket). Oh yeah, and I can use it to call anyone, anywhere, too. And now I have an entire arcade with no lines, no smoking, and no jerky employees.

Amazing!

Whipped and Gassed (2014 Bears)

This past summer, I bought a new Bears cap and shirt. Last year, I put the shirt that lasted through most of the Lovie Smith era out to pasture (too many holes) and was excited to see the promise from last year's inaugural season in the Trestman era take the next step. My assumption was that the newly contracted QB and the hand-selected offense around him would put the Bears into the playoffs for the first time in a while, and they'd have a shot at advancing for a change.

What I got for my investment was two embarrassing games against the rival Packers. They were not only terrible games on the field, but a very clear display of two different methods of running a football organization. I'm not convinced the Bears can win another game this season, and worse, they're locked in with a number of components. Rebuild is not an option, so we'll see the same futile micro-adjustments (Mel Tucker as sacrificial lamb, for instance) that don't address the fundamental organizational issue. 

I'm not sure what the core issue is, honestly, because in the off-season, I thought they made some decent acquisitions again. It wasn't a total transformation like the offense in 2013, but they got a good corner and brought in a number of safeties. One or two of them should have converted into good players. I believe they still could be, but I think the biggest issue is a lack of clear leadership on the team. 

It's exacerbated by the lack of a permanent captain. The Bears rotate the "C" on the jerseys; they say it's to show how many leaders they have, but I get the impression that it's more about a dearth of actual leadership. In the past, it was pretty clear who the leaders were. Not now. And that extends to the coaching staff. 

Defensively, I've never seen a Bears unit less prepared. There's talent on the roster, but also some significant deadwood. At two very important positions lie failed experiments. Chris Conte runs very quickly, but it's always late and he can't finish a tackle. He's the safety - his job is to make sure nothing bad happens, but everything bad happens. Then there's Shea McClellan: another "looks good on paper" player who either doesn't have the drive or the smarts to be either a defensive end or a linebacker. Athletic? Sure - so is Conte. Running fast is like doing all your homework. You ultimately get graded on your tests, though, and these two are consistently failing on Sundays. 

I want to like Phil Emery, but he might be a big part of the problem. I can't blame him - I was excited about most everything he's done, except for the extension of Cutler, where even Cutler seemed nonplussed by it on his radio show. I still think the players he's amassed represents a lot of talent and upside. What he might have missed is the killer instinct. It's more than just leadership - it's a fearlessness and a willingness to do anything to win, including holding people accountable. Brandon Marshall has it, but his history and position marginalize his leadership potential, whether that's fair or not. 

Even if the Bears win out this season, there's virtually no way they could make it into the playoffs now. 2014 is a disappointment after so much excitement. The pundits shared fan enthusiasm and ranked them pretty highly before the first regular season game. Going into week 11, at least one outlet ranks them at 28 of 33. I think that's generous at this point.

The worst part of it is wearing my new Bears cap in Wisconsin and being pitied instead of jibed. Painful stuff.

TCB (Those Craptacular Bears)

What I didn't see coming was the defense playing better than the offense this year. I was so used to that under Lovie Smith, and when the new management team took over the Bears front office, the word on the street was that they were going to build around Jay Cutler and become more of an offensive-minded system.

They brought in a coach with a killer pedigree (for quarterbacks, anyhow - not sure how he became the head coach), then did a pretty amazing job of getting top-flight receivers and solidifying the offensive line with an odd mix of rejuvenated castoffs and newcomers. On paper, this offense should be scoring on every drive. There should be a much better mix of plays available. It's not like it's everyone's first year together anymore, either.

I used to joke around about Lovie's "Prevent Offense" which would come into play the second they got a lead. It wasn't politeness or sportsmanship, it was a fear of failure. And when you focus that much effort on something (failure), you set up blockades for yourself. Then the other team shows up.

There's been wishy-washy coaching decisions, play calling meant to keep Jay Cutler upright (interspersed with plays meant to gain yards), and a defense that's gassed by the end of the 3rd quarter. I'm not sure where Matt Forte ranks with rushing yards, but as of this morning, he led the league in passing receptions. He's the running back, but this is nothing new for Bears fans.

There's the possibility that the issue is the turf, but opposing teams seem to be able to adjust. What I'm more concerned about is that we're stuck with another coach that would have been better off as a coordinator under someone with a more killer instinct. We didn't get the inverse Lovie Smith - we got another Lovie Smith. The scores end up being pretty much the same despite the shift of emphasis to offense.

After the game today, the twitterverse and sports media machine churned up some dirt about the Bears locker room, saying guys were sniping at other guys, and turning on the fans. I'm not sure it's fair to make headlines out of the stuff being said in semi-private after a loss like that; I'm not surprised the players weren't singing Pharrell songs, either.

I do wish that when they have 8 minutes to score 21 points, they'd go into some kind of "hurry up" offense. I've never seen a team (the Bears or otherwise) with such a lax approach to crunch time. Forget controlling the clock. You can worry about that once you're in the lead by a few scores (although the Dolphins didn't relent for 60 minutes).

Maybe it's time for Trestman to stop worrying about his team being better men and start focusing on getting them to be better at football. Maybe he needs to get a little Ditka crazy. Maybe yelling would help. Hugging hasn't.

Shave and a Haircut - 40 Bits

I remember being in high school when my mustache finally made an appearance. I was fully into the soccer rocker, rode BMX, wore a hip pack, etc. The 'stache was icing on the suburban dirt bag cake. In high school, there was no reason to shave.

In college, I started looking like a mountain man. I didn't cut off the mullet, but I did let the rest of the hair catch up until it was all about shoulder length. I hadn't shaved, and while I did have a beard, it was closer to peach fuzz than a wire brush. It wouldn't take long before I was retiring razors at an astonishing pace.

There are many distinct zones on my face:

1. Cheeks: these are easy to shave. I can pull down (with the grain) or up (against it) without causing trouble.
2. Upper lip: always shave down here, but you can feel the stubble if you run your finger low to high right after I shave. I nearly always forget the corners of my mouth, too, and a single hair there can drive me nuts.
3. Lower lip: for the entirety of my 30s (and a little beyond), I had what people who like to label everything call a "soul patch". I never referred to it as that, myself. It was there for a little something extra, style-wise, but mostly because I hate shaving that spot.
4. Under the chin: on my right side, I have to pull the razor from back to front, not up/down or down/up, or else I might as well not shave. Long whiskers are preferable to the stubble in that spot if I miss it.
5. Neck: right at the adam's apple, I have to shave up to down here, or I get bumps like crazy.

My facial hair is pretty sturdy. I go through razors pretty quickly. My current setup has been serving me well for nearly a year, and I believe it bridges the gap between longevity and frugality (for my tastes, anyhow).

These are the shaving tools I use:

1. Harry's orange handle, refill cartridges every six months or more. They're much cheaper than the Mach3 refills I used in the past. I have friends who vouch for Dollar Shave Club (and I love their ads), but I took a shot at Harry's and have been very happy with the experience.

2. Kiss My Face shave gel. It's not foamy, but it works better than any other shaving cream/gel I've tried. I gave Harry's shave stuff a shot, and it was not bad, but it's too expensive. Likewise for Alba and Burt's Bees. They're natural and different, but prohibitively expensive. Kiss My Face offers more stuff per container, it works better, and it costs a bit less, too.

3. Suction mirror on the tub wall. It's a little excessive, but I like to shave in the shower. I have a fog-free mirror at my face level.

That's basically it. Harry's site (liked above) has lots of thoughts on shaving if this little primer didn't get through to you, or if the images of the Kentucky Waterfall stopped you from getting into the subtle nuances of my chin hair.

What do you use?

State of the Bears - Four Games In

Here's the problem - I have no idea what to expect going in to week five. I have a pretty strong feeling that Jay Cutler will bounce back, and if Brandon Marshall is able to recover at all, he'll have some touchdown catches. I'm also sure that Matt Forte will run a solid ground game and Martellus Bennett will make some tough catches in traffic.

On the defensive side, I can predict that we will not get a sack, our high-end draft pick might get an interception or he might not, and that's about it. Oh, the other team will score basically at will. I guess it was a little less humiliating when I could rest easy knowing that the defense would hold a team down; there weren't such lopsided scores, usually. But now, if the opposing team has a decent defense, the game can get out of control pretty quickly, as evidenced last Sunday.

I don't know what Mel Tucker has done that would warrant another year of questionable preparation and poor execution. His squad is inconsistent at best. Losing Tillman and Allen sucks, but they can't play forever. If there's no depth, that's hard to fathom considering all the movement in the off-season.

The common thought going into this season was that the defense didn't have to be great, just good. They have to be able to stop some drives cold. So far, we've only really seen that in one game. Willie Young and Kyle Fuller show flashes of great, but they remind me of the wide receivers we had before Marshall and Jeffery - good, but not great. Level two players.

Unfortunately, upgrading to great doesn't guarantee wins. My biggest concern in bringing in Marc Trestman was that we'd have an inverse Lovie. Even then, I thought it would be nice to be able to score touchdowns and possibly get into a shootout and win.

I was reminded that Trestman was an offensive coordinator candidate while Lovie was here, but we ended up with Mike Martz instead. Talk about a night and day difference in styles. The idea of Smith and Trestman together is interesting, but there was also the old GM in play, and he had been misfiring on draft picks and free agents for years. I think Trestman and Marinelli would have been even more intriguing, especially since that might have changed the negotiations with Brian Urlacher.

No sense crying over spilled milk, though. Can't let the ghost of Urlacher affect the present. The defense is still in flux - no identity and depleted. The offense has equal or better upside than any other team in the league, but no real rhythm yet, and so the outlook for the rest of the year remains the same - the defense needs to be serviceable, and the offense needs to become automatic.

The Panthers are a similar team with lots of upside but lots of obstacles. The Bears have plenty of tools to stop them, but if they let a broken QB (or his backup) walk all over them, then my hope for the remaining 11 games will be dashed. However, if they contain the Panthers and start scoring, I'm already on the bandwagon - just need to adjust my seat.

GO BEARS!

Little Dragon - Klapp Klapp

I'm not sure what I'll think of this song or band in a year, but for right now, it's in hot rotation on all the music sources I use. I've watched the concert video 3 or 4 times by now, too.

I first became aware of Little Dragon as part of the Gorillaz track called Empire Ants. The music could be attributed to Gorillaz, but with the context I now have, it certainly sounds like a bigger Little Dragon influence. There's no mistaking Yukimi's vocals here, and I remember thinking that she could probably hold down a record of her own.



And sure enough, a few years later I got a notice on Spotify that Little Dragon had a new album on their service. I had heard a few earlier tracks on the Hiatus Kaiyote-based Spotify station, but none had piqued my interest. Then I heard Klapp Klapp.

There's a musical device where a song starts with limited instrumentation and establishes the theme, then the rest of the band kicks in later to great effect. This song has that build and catharsis in a big way, and every time it arrives, I want to crank whatever speakers I'm listening through at the time. Beyond that, I'm not sure I can explain exactly why this song grabs me - it's funky, it's melodic, it's bad ass.



Dig in, friends. Turns out they have lots of music to discover and it'll get your toes a-tappin'.

High On Fire - Devilution

I've always liked heavy music. The Who were the start of it, I think, and later on the Jesus Lizard and Melvins kind of took over my attention. Clutch was there all along, too, but I think there was a lull in the early aughts. Then, B-rad played me some High On Fire. This was the first song I heard by them, and you can maybe see why I was smitten:



The album version is better than the live versions or even the chopped up official video version. The extended intro is pretty crucial. And it's worth noting that at a live show, he plays drums like that the whole time. I'm breaking a sweat just thinking about it.

Felt Pilotes - Never Satisfied

This took me by surprise, although I'm not sure why I didn't look for it before - Bandcamp is awesome for this exact purpose.

This EP represents the first trip I ever made to a recording studio. The Felt Pilotes were a band helmed by John Porcellino, normally featuring legit drummer Don Ogilvie (forgive me if the spelling is off - it's been a few years). For this EP, I had the feeling that John needed to get it out and done but didn't have the resources to connect with Don in Colorado.

It was a short project from beginning to end, but pretty magical. The studio was in a well-traveled section of Schaumburg, but cloaked in trees. Even in the leafless winter, it wasn't easy to find. Once inside, it was like a flophouse, but the whole main floor was wired up as a studio. No real furniture to speak of, but I'm not sure the engineers lived there.

We did a few takes of each song, mostly burning off my nervousness. John was not interested in perfection, but rather in capturing the essence of each song, which was perfect for me. Not too much pressure. I learned a lot that day.

Anyhow, I will always remember this record fondly. Check it out for yourself:

Taking Applications for a Backup Team

The Chicago Bears might end up being what I hoped they would not be after all. Maybe they are what the pundits thought they were. I've been letting them off the hook. I've been crowning them. But, that hopefulness was as on paper as the upside of the 2014 Chicago Bears.

I expected to see some excellence, or at least improvement, during training camp. They say that they don't play those games to win, but rather to determine the ultimate composition of the team. They might try a few new plays, but they go vanilla and worry more about avoiding injury. That said, they were 2 for 4 in the pre-season and only scored more than 20 points once.

Yesterday against the Bills, they came out strong in the very first drive, and I thought it was going to be a quick, decisive win where the biggest concern was how much the defense could keep the Bills from scoring. Turned out to be a struggle through the end of regulation. From there, it was the opposite of the Lovie Smith era, where he'd defer on the coin toss and let his defense get the ball back in OT. Mentally, that had to be crushing for the opponent when it worked.

Unfortunately, when the Marc Trestman offense gets the ball, it's less of a sure thing that they'll drive enough to hit a field goal. And even if that was the outcome, the new rule would allow the Bills a chance to match. Based on what we saw yesterday, I'm fairly certain they would have scored.

Lovie's old coaching philosophy seemed to be "don't let their offense beat us" and the new Trestman philosophy appears to be: "we're playing to not lose". This has to become more mercenary if the Bears are going to get into the playoffs at all. The offense has to be able to score at will. There need to be more plays like the first drive. If it worked once, they should keep doing it until the other team can stop it.

Overall, I know it's just the first game and probably a little early to panic, but the next seven games should be more difficult than the one they just lost at home, at noon. They fly to SF for a Sunday night game this week, to NY for a Monday night game the following week, then they face the Packers, Panthers, and Falcons before facing the Dolphins (the next game they should be able to win). Then back to NE to face the Pats before the bye. Tough stuff.

Just to leave on a positive note, I saw some great stuff from Willie Young on defense and the replacements on the o-line. No real drop in production there after the starters went out with injuries. And, as usual, Matt Forte was consistent and excellent.

Bands You May Have Missed

In the 90s, during my 20s, I lived music - listening, making, and discovering it with a fervor. There wasn't an internet like there is now, so learning about new stuff hinged upon your network: what you read, who you talked to, and whether someone surprised you as an opening band.

Some excellent bands got through the cracks and didn't become the national treasures that they deserve to be. Here are a few:

1. Hum - These guys made it to the national level, but are still mostly forgotten (except for the incessant Cadillac commercials featuring their biggest song a few years back). Pity, because they were both an excellent band, but also really nice guys. I met them on one of their first tours (I think) at Otto's (my stomping ground back then) supporting their first release - a cassette called Filet Show. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Their songs undulated like waves. They didn't follow typical song structure, but even with odd time signatures, there was something comfortable about the music. And the heavy was awesome.

A year or two later, I got to open for them (and Shiner) at an outdoor festival. I stood with the drummer from Hum (Bryan St. Pere) through the entire Shiner set, talking gear, music, and what a beast Tim Dow was. ("Dude's a weapon!") By then, they were locally huge, getting national attention. Hell, I saw them on MTV playing live in studio. I'm not sure what happened, but after their last record in 1998, they disappeared.



2. Shiner - Similar to Hum, they made music that spoke directly to me. I'm not sure if it was some kind of communal lexicon of local source material that spawned this Midwest wave of post-punk (not grunge), but whatever it was, I loved it. Where Hum seemed to have 10 guitarists on the stage, Shiner was a power trio that exemplified the term, although eventually they added another guitarist. Out of Kansas City and contemporaries with Hum, they never really got the exposure they were due. Two of their records are two of my all-time favorites. This is a pretty inventive, solid band that also basically dissolved, but apparently they went out on tour a couple years back:



3. Riddle of Steel - I'm late to the game on these guys. Too late, it seems. But they made a record that I have recently discovered based on some mix somewhere that contained the song Aquiline. There's still something transcendent about the way that song hits my ears. I'm not sure how to describe it, but it doesn't really sound like the rest of the album, and it casts some sort of spell on me. After finding a few other songs, I realized that I should just buy the whole thing. That wasn't so easy. Not only did they not become a household name, but their excellent record (Got This Feelin') was nowhere to be found. I bought the CD used from an online seller and it turned out to be in nearly perfect condition. Then I found the Riddle of Steel bandcamp page. Seriously, check them out.



4. Clockhammer - This is kind of an anomaly, even by the standards of this post. I accidentally discovered this band while moving LP racks in the record store I worked for in the very early 90s. It was a demo CD sent by First Warning (part of BMG) that literally slipped through the cracks. I picked the disk up off the floor and had no idea who they were, but gave it a spin in the store stereo. I was stunned. It was beautiful. How had I never even heard their name before? Why were these not flying off the shelf? (Did we even have it in stock?) They seem to have suffered the fate of many bands who didn't have a strong, built-in following before signing with a major.

They were another power trio, getting maximum sound from minimal instrumentation. (This is probably a concept worthy of its own post.) The music is also melodic and interesting - maybe that's the common thread here, but I don't understand how that doesn't translate to "popular" somehow. Try to see past the quality of this video and dig what they're doing musically:



5. Jawbox - this is one that got through my radar field undetected. I've known about them since the 90s but had been ignoring them. Possibly, I heard a song or two that didn't inspire me to research further, and now I'm catching up. These guys might not be such a revelation as they got some notoriety along the lines and level of Hum. Still, though - not a household name, and there's really no good reason for it.




P.S. - Metroschifter.

Cutting the Cord on Wireless (Not Really)

Since June of last year, I've had three Motorola Droid Razr M phones. The first one had some odd manufacturing troubles, although I already can't remember what they were. The replacement had a shudder that affected the entire phone. The display would shift when it happened (randomly - couldn't detect a pattern) and I once captured it in a double-exposed photo. Very odd.

The replacement for that phone was a refurbished one which came to me with a limp on/off button and scratches on all the corners. Not only had it been used before, but it was pretty worn out. On the other hand, it's a device that runs faster than the first three or four computers I owned, loads things from the Internet quicker than our home DSL, takes better photos than our first few digital cameras, plays every song under the sun, shows feature films from every era, and fits in my pocket.

So, in keeping perspective, as long as it would turn on and off and do the basics (phone calls, texts, camera), then I could live with some of the other stuff. Then they updated the software, which broke wi-fi and bluetooth. It's a tricky issue because there are layers of culpability.

Layer 1: Android. Owned by Google, this is the operating system that rivals Apple's iOS. The major difference between the two is that iOS only appears on Apple devices, where Android appears on many manufacturers' phones. So, when Android updates their kernel (base software), the OEMs need to retrofit the changes in the software to the hardware they've developed.

Layer 2: Motorola. I jumped in with Motorola (now also owned by Google) with my first smartphone, which I loved. That was a giant leap from a flip phone to the world of smartphones. From that first smartphone to the Razr M, it was more of a refinement in what I wanted, and the Razr M covered everything. Small form factor, minimal bloatware, solid performance across the board. However, there must have been manufacturing issues, or maybe the size/performance ratio was too good to be true. Either way, I have had three already with a fourth on the way.

Layer 3: Verizon. The juggernaut. We'd been on AT&T and T-Mobile in the past and neither came close to the coverage that Verizon has. We figured that since the cost was so similar, we might as well be on the best network, and we've been with them for quite a few years now. The Razr M would have been my choice on any network, but as luck had it, they were very inexpensive coupled with a 2-year contract on Verizon. And, when the first two went awry, Vz was very good about issuing replacements (although they also had defects).

Earlier this year, Android put out an update to their kernel to address a security issue they had discovered. In the meantime, they also tidied up some other things, including their bluetooth implementation. After having some work done on my car where the power was disconnected for a while, I could no longer pair my phone to the car anymore. Worse yet, wi-fi barely worked, and if an app didn't have the directive to only use wi-fi, it would revert to network data. I first noticed the difference when our bill arrived the month after the update.

There were clearly numerous issues, but it was hard to pin down who would be responsible. My first point of contact is Verizon, since I got the phone through them. Since my warranty was up, their primary directive was to sell me an extended warranty, but really, a warranty would only cause them to send me a new phone with the same software, and thus the same issue. (Until there's an update to the car stereo or the phone's OS bluetooth implementation, nothing will change.) So, I'd be spending more money to not have a phone that would be constantly in transit.

Second contact was to Motorola, who seemed to be much more contrite and offered to send me another replacement "just in case" it works. My hopes are low, but I figured I might as well get a newer phone in the short term. However, since it's out of warranty, they're not taking any chances with me; my options are to send out my phone and wait for the replacement to arrive, or let them hold $100 on my credit card and ship the replacement first.

I opted to send my phone out first and take a few days off from smartphones. It's a little startling how embedded it has become in my daily routine. I can't check the traffic en route to work. I can't quickly access the weather. I can't dictate a quick message to Jennie.

On the other hand, I read a whole article in Wired (the paper version) this morning, was able to call my folks from the car on my old flip phone (battery lasts forever!), and I looked up the weather when I got to work. Maybe I need to be more conscientious about when and where I'm using it when I get it back. I feel like I had been using it less, but not having it in my pocket leaves me feeling exposed. I can't call up an answer at any given moment.

Maybe that's not the worst thing. I've toyed with the idea of going back to a standard phone (man, that sounds like an addict talking, doesn't it?) but I think I get enough value out of the smartphone on a regular basis that I'll keep it. It's changed how I get places, find my car, track my fitness, and other things I didn't have options for in the past. Mostly, though, I think I had an inclination that this day would eventually come when I was selling modem attachments for Palm Pilots around Y2K. The utility of a smartphone is everything I had hoped for back then and much more, but it's the coolness factor that will probably keep me hooked. 

Mark Lanegan Band - 4AD Sessions

This dude is the real life analogue to Tom Waits and his persona. That grindy voice? It's earned. That growl? It's fair warning. I've been a fan of the guy since my friend Bill played Orange Airplane for me back in the day. Got to see the Screaming Trees live in the tiny Eagles Club and then was pretty excited to recognize his voice as part of Queens of the Stone Age years later. And now this:



He's been mostly off the mainstream radar, but making music that I love all along. Thanks for the tip, Brad!

Doctor Werewolf - Trololo Man Remix (Doctor Werewolf Troll Face Mix)

This is at once everything that's wrong with music these days and also something I can listen to for days on end. It's a Youtube-generated meme coupled with dubstep, but then there's that basic, simple beat appended - totally makes the song. I don't really go for the idea of "guilty pleasure" because if I like it, I like it. This song stretches my boundaries - I feel a little guilty.

Decide for yourself: