Nurse the Hate: Of Jefferson Airplane and the Championship Games

 

As I often do now in these "unprecedented times", I have taken a listening detour and become consumed with a particular band.  Now if you had swung by my minimum security prison a couple weeks ago, you would have discovered I had fully embraced Australian garage rock from the 80s.  Back in the good old days of January 6th, it was all about Radio Birdman, Beasts of Bourbon, and the Lime Spiders.  I started listening to Celibate Rifles "Roman Beach Party" LP and realized things had gone too far.  Once I saw myself clicking through Discogs trying to mentally justify the cost of a New Christs LP, I had to stop and give myself a long hard look in the mirror.  I retreated.

Last week, before I even knew what was happening, I started deep diving on the Jefferson Airplane.  When the pandemic first started, I found myself listening to a lot of old psychadelic rock music.  I was in deep.  I'm not talking about the entry points like old Pink Floyd, Grateful Dead's "Aoxomoxoa" or even the Thirteenth Floor Elevators.  I am talking about old Quicksilver Messenger Service concerts, Fifty Foot Hose, Moby Grape outtakes, Ultimate Spinach, and Bubble Puppy.  I was peering out my window looking for spores listening to "Maggot Brain" and West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band.  When things are getting weird outside, I found some sort of solace with freaky late 60s bands.  This led to me re-listen to Jefferson Airplane's "Surrealistic Pillow", by any standard a great record.  

I have had my brushes with Jefferson Airplane in the past.  One of the very first records I ever owned was Jefferson Airplane "Flight Log", an odd Greatest Hits comp that cobbled together some of the Airplane hits with the groups that splintered out of them like Hot Tuna, Jefferson Starship, Slick-Kantner, etc.   Now you might be asking yourself, what eleven year old goes out and buys a Jefferson Airplane retrospective to add to his already impressive record collection of The Jackson 5's Greatest Hits, The Osmonds "Crazy Horses", and Partridge Family "Up To Date"?  I can understand why you might think that the Osmonds "Crazy Horses" record is a logical stepping point to a live "Somebody To Love" from "Bless Its Pointed Little Head".  However, I did not buy that LP on my own.  No, my super square parents bought it for me for my birthday, which leads me to speculate that one of them went walking into a record shop and asked the dope smoking teenage clerk what "the kids" were listening to nowadays.  They had no interest or understanding of rock music whatsoever despite being in their early 20s during one of the most fertile periods in rock history.  They just didn't understand rock music at all.  I see old footage of The Summer of Love and know for a fact my parents were digging the soundtrack to "Bye Bye Birdie".  That makes that Jefferson Airplane LP purchase for me even weirder.  Seriously, what fucking parent buys an eleven year old a Jefferson Airplane double LP retrospective for their 11th birthday?  Were they sold out of John Coltrane "Ascension"?  No Captain Beefheart records?

I tried a number of times to get into that record over the years, putting it on every few months.  For the next few years, it was one of my only records, so I was bound to at least try to get into it.  You can only listen to Led Zeppelin IV so many times before you need something to break the cycle.  In time, I developed an appreciation for Side 1, though then, as now, I have steered clear of the Jefferson Starship tracks on Side 4.  I would try to give it a spin every now and again though.  It's odd.  That band has always just been lurking around me.  I have just always seemed to have a Jefferson Airplane record in my orbit, despite feeling largely ambivalent about the band for most of my adult life.  

Last week I got really crazy and went to a used book store.  What a big treat!  This is considered a big trip out in my hermit-like existence.  For $7, I bought a used copy of "Got A Revolution:  The Turbulent Flight of Jefferson Airplane".  I read it in three days.  That did it.  Suddenly I had a rekindled interest in the band, and started listening to the discography in order until having to jump off the train at "Long John Silver", a record even the band didn't seem interested in.  A few quick points about the band...  They all seem like complete assholes, with maybe Jack Casady or possibly Jorma having been OK people.  Paul Kantner was some sort of drug fueled anarchist with delusions of grandeur.  Grace Slick was a total poison spitting train wreck.  Marty Balin was a Vegas singer trapped in a flower power package.  They all had egos so far beyond their actual impact it's off-putting, and this comes from a book where the author was an unabashed fan and friend of the band!  They admittedly also made some really great music.  The first four records are all interesting.  However, they also made some absolutely cringe worthy stuff that might have made sense in the late 60s/early 70s, but not so much now.  "The toad's name is Lightning/He's 10 hands at the shoulder/And if you give him sugar/You know he'll whinny like a boulder."  

How's your mind, man?  Blown?

While I should have been paying attention to Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs ignoring the concussion protocols to get him on the field, instead I have been listening to "Jefferson Airplane Takes Off" and the extended version of "Bless His Pointed Little Head".  How am I going to get an edge on betting these Championship games this Sunday when my head is getting filled with lyrics like "the electrical dust is starting to rust/her trapezoid thermometer taste/all the red tape is mechanical rape/of the TV program waste"?   I mean, my mind is totally blown over here man!  I am definitely going to bust out that copy of Flight Log.

So, I am betting on the Packers.  It's still winter, it's still Lambeau, and it's going to be cold.  Aaron Rodgers is playing like a man on a mission, at the top of his game.  I don't see how the Bucs can go up to Wisconsin and win that game.  The victory over the Saints was a bit of an illusion.  All of the Bucs points came courtesy of New Orleans turnovers.  The Bucs could not move the ball from their end of the field and score.  Tampa realized that the New Orleans offense existed only in a twenty yard box indented in from the sidelines and shut down the Saints.  The Pack isn't New Orleans.  Rodgers uses the entire field.  The Packers are going to score points.  Let's be fair.  Brady and the Bucs will keep firing the ball around, which will lead to points or points for Green Bay on turnovers.  The Bucs should score, they just won't score enough to win.  I love Green Bay and I love the over.  Green Bay -3 and Green Bay/Tampa OVER 51.5.  

I believe that The Public is overrating the Kansas City Chiefs.  They are 0-8-1 against the spread in their last nine games, but STILL The Public throws money at the side.  Patrick Mahomes is a great player.  He is also a great player with an injured toe and a concussion.  The Browns should have beaten the Chiefs last week, but bungled it on that scramble from Chad Fucking Henne.  Yes, Chad Henne's middle name will always be "Fucking" to me and everyone in NE Ohio from last Sunday on.  However, the Bills are much, much better than the Browns.  The Bills have the defensive backfield that can slow down Kansas City.  Hell, the Browns held KC to 22 points, so why not the Bills?  I think the argument can be made that Buffalo has been the best team in the NFL all season with the exception of that two game blip where the league screwed them on covid re-schedules.  I like the Bills straight up, but am taking the points to hopefully help mitigate whatever great shit groggy Mahomes pulls out of his ass.  Buffalo +3.     

Season Record: 27-23-1