Show Prep #33

Greetings and Salutations, people. It’s the show whose motto is “Over-Produce and Under-Deliver” this is Vertically Striped Radio, I am your host Craig Dodge aka the Hedgehog! VSR is brought to you today, as always, by VerticallyStripedSocks.com, but I am pleased to announce that we have a new sponsor who has purchased some ad time, we’ll get to them in a little while, but first…Today I am pumped even if it is tinted with a twinge of sadness, for this is a great period of time we are living in and it will be over all too soon. It’s playoffs, baby! NFL playoffs have arrived with a series of four games this weekend which have already kicked off with the Bengals and Jets…and if my attention is somewhat lacking today, please know it’s because the game is most definitely on in the background. I love the NFL, and even though my beloved Broncos are sitting this one out since they decided like putting forth an effort in the second half of the season was beneath them…I’m still very excited about the fact that the best football of the year is here. The hors d’ oeuvres that are the NCAA season are behind us, and we are entering a time that may be my favorite of the entire year. We’ll talk a little playoffs today, to be sure, but before we get to that…I was at the local grocery store called King Soopers yesterday when it struck me…

(Anti-Math at the Grocery Store) – I’ve got a beef with grocery stores. I’m not sure why they need to make everything so annoyingly confusing. Perhaps not all grocers do this, but the store I frequent has taken to pricing everything in a manner that requires me to do complicated mental math if I want to know how much I’m paying per item. 17 yogurts for $6.75? Great, how much for just one yogurt? I’m not buying 17 of them. I don’t care how much it costs to buy 5 rolls of paper towels, I’m only buying 1. When I become King of all the World…I’m pretty sure that’s about to happen, by the way, I will decree that all stores across the land will be forced to list prices per 1 item. I don’t want to have to be packing a calculator when I go to the grocery store. Drives me crazy…anyway…



Today on Vertically Striped Radio:
We’ll talk about the NFL playoffs and ask the question, “If you HAD to bet your life on one Wildcard team this weekend, who would it be?” and I’ll break down what I want to have happen this weekend in the NFL wildcard playoff games, not necessarily what will happen, though. And seriously, Only 11 more games remain in the NFL season, let’s take a moment this Wild Card Saturday and appreciate what we have before it’s vanishes into the thin air of the longest and worst offseason in sports. I have a story about the spiritual ancestor of William Huang and the assorted non-talents who dominate the first few weeks of American Idol. This week, I will actually play the spectacular rant against neck-ties that I spoke of last week, but never got around to actually playing last week. Mike Shanahan is officially the latest Redskins savior, we can talk about that a bit, maybe. Plus, while I did talk a few weeks back about people apologizing for things they don’t need to apologize for, I have an apology to the world that I absolutely must offer for a transgression that I need to be absolved for. I’ll bear my soul and pray for forgiveness on the show today…All that, plus your calls if you are bold and courageous enough to dial in.

Could you bet EVERYTHING on one spin of roulette? We’ll talk a bit about one guy who did.

Give out the phone number - (646) 716-6831 OR 6-HOP-1-MOVE-1
Email address: radio@verticallystripedsocks.com


Let’s get to the news…
(Play News Music – Clip 03)

ROME (Reuters) – A Sicilian man stole sweets and a packet of chewing gum so he could get arrested and spend New Year's Eve in a jail cell rather than be with his wife and relatives, Italian media reported on Friday.
The 35-year old Sicilian first showed up at a police station on Thursday asking to be arrested because he preferred spending the night in prison rather than with his family, but was rebuffed because he had not committed a crime, the Agi news agency said.
The man immediately went to a tobacco shop next door, where he threatened the owner with a box cutter as he grabbed a few sweets and a packet of gum. He then waited until police arrived to arrest him for robbery, the news agency said.

LONDON (Reuters) – A United Airlines pilot admitted in court on Tuesday that he had turned up at London's Heathrow Airport to fly a plane to Chicago while three times over the alcohol limit.
Erwin Washington, 51, of Lakewood, Colorado, had been due to captain a Boeing 767 bound for Chicago last November with 124 passengers and 11 crew members when a colleague smelled alcohol on his breath.
The flight was "imminent" when police arrived and arrested him. A breath test recorded a reading of 31 micrograms of alcohol per 100 milliliters of breath. The legal limit is nine micrograms.
When arrested Washington, who has a military background, replied: "Okay, fine."
He pleaded guilty at London's Uxbridge Magistrates' Court on Tuesday to being above the alcohol limit for flying a plane, the Press Association reported. His lawyer Chris Humphreys said the pilot was "remorseful."
Humphreys told the court that legislation relating to airline staff over the legal alcohol limit for flying had only been used seven times. "There are, thankfully, very few cases of this sort," he said.
Washington will be sentenced on February 5 and was released on unconditional bail.
United Airlines said he had been suspended pending a full investigation.

MADRID (Reuters) – Spanish police have uncovered at least 25 kilos of heroin hidden in boxes of plantains destined for the shelves of Madrid supermarkets, local media reported on Sunday.
A worker at the low-cost Lidl supermarket found a brick of the drug as he unloaded a box of the fruit, which is related to the banana, on Saturday morning.
Police were alerted and hunted around all the Lidl branches in the Madrid region as well as the main city market. Sniffer dogs found up to 25 packets of the drug.
"Two or three police cars came and they went straight to the bananas to search them," said an employee at one Lidl store.
Lidl has removed all the plantains, which had come from Ivory Coast and Ecuador, from its shops.

I’m Craig, and that’s the news…(Play News Music – Clip 03)
Before we kick off the main discussion of the day…let’s take a moment to hear from our new sponsor. We’ll be right back after this short but important message! (Clip 19)

MAIN TOPIC:

NFL Playoffs:
Bengals-Jets:
New York Jets at Cincinnati – (Sportsbook.com Line: Bengals by 2.5) I feel like Vizzini in the “Princess Bride” trying to discern whether the Jets or the Bengals contain the Iocane powder. “On one hand, the Jets have a rookie quarterback and got lucky with the schedule or else they would never have made the playoffs, So I can clearly not choose the Jets in front of me. On the other hand, the Jets have a ton of confidence after just lambasting the Bengals only days ago, so I can clearly not choose the Bengals in front of you. Of course, only a great fool chooses a rookie quarterback on the road in the playoffs, I am not a great fool, so I clearly cannot choose the Jets in front of me!” Cue the Man in Black, “So you’ve made your decision then?” Me: “Not remotely! Because the Bengals come from Cincinnati, as everyone knows, the Cincinnati Bengals are entirely populated with criminals. And criminals are used to having people not trust them, as the Bengals are not trusted by me. So clearly, I cannot select the Bengals in front of you! (Truly I have a dizzying intellect.) If you think I’m just stalling right now, you’re absolutely right, although I don’t think that the teams are going to give anything away in the next few days leading up to this game so I choose…“What in the world can that be!” Okay, so I am clueless on this game. I have no feel at all for what I think is going to happen in this game but I’m taking New York. Truth be told, I hate both of these teams, and I’m playing the Jets on a slight hunch. Although, I suspect that the Bengals and the Jets both contain Iocane Powder. Jets 17 Bengals 14

Cowboys-Eagles: Cowboys 37 Eagles 20
Patriots-Ravens: Patriots 23 Ravens 13
Packers-Cardinals: Packers 30 Cardinals 23

I love playoffs, but this is a pretty weak group of matchups, isn’t it?

If you’d have to pick one team to bet your life upon…who would it be out of this group of 8? For me, probably the Cowboys, MAYBE the Packers.

I have to apologize…for wearing a Yankee hat.

Dan LeBatard hates ties – (Clip 20) If you spend any time around me at all, you’ll know that I hate tradition for tradition sake. I hate it when people do something just because it’s the way it’s always been done. Also, I hate dressing up…which is why I found so much to enjoy in this rant from Dan LeBatard on his show a while back…



Florence Foster Jenkins (July 19, 1868 – November 26, 1944) – Clip 17 - Her infamous rendition of "Der Holle Rache" - Mozart's "Queen of the Night" aria from "The Magic Flute". This woman was simply born too soon, she was clearly decades ahead of her time, as her high lack of self-awareness would have her perfectly at home on American Idol or Jersey Shore.
Born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Jenkins received music lessons as a child, and expressed a desire to go abroad to study music. Her wealthy (and reasonable) father refused to pay the bill, so she eloped to Philadelphia with Frank Thornton Jenkins, a medical doctor. The two divorced in 1902. She earned a living there as a teacher and pianist. Upon her father's death in 1909, Jenkins inherited a sum of money which allowed her to take up the singing career that had been discouraged by her parents and former husband. She became involved in the musical life of Philadelphia, and later New York City, where she founded and funded the Verdi Club, took singing lessons, and began to give recitals, her first in 1912.

From her recordings, it is apparent that Jenkins had little sense of pitch and rhythm and was barely capable of sustaining a note. Her accompanist can be heard making adjustments to compensate for her tempo variations and rhythmic mistakes. Her dubious diction, especially in foreign language songs, is also noteworthy. Nonetheless, she became tremendously popular in her unconventional way. Her audiences apparently loved her for the amusement she provided rather than her musical ability. Critics often described her work in a backhanded way that may have served to pique public curiosity.

Despite her patent lack of ability, Jenkins was firmly convinced of her greatness. She compared herself favorably to the renowned sopranos Frieda Hempel and Luisa Tetrazzini, and dismissed the laughter which often came from the audience during her performances as coming from her rivals consumed by "professional jealousy." She was aware of her critics, however, saying "People may say I can't sing, but no one can ever say I didn't sing."

The music Jenkins tackled in her recitals was a mixture of the standard operatic repertoire such as Mozart, Giuseppe Verdi and Johann Strauss among others (all of which were well beyond her technical ability and songs composed by herself or her accompanist, Mr. Cosmé McMoon, who reportedly made faces at Jenkins behind her back to get laughs.

Jenkins often wore elaborate costumes that she designed herself, sometimes appearing in wings and tinsel, she would throw flowers into the audience while fluttering a fan and sporting more flowers in her hair. After each performance Cosmé McMoon would collect these flowers from the auditorium in readiness for redistribution at the next one.

After a taxicab crash in 1943 she found she could sing "a higher F than ever before." Instead of a lawsuit against the taxicab company, she sent the driver a box of expensive cigars.

In spite of public demand for more appearances, Jenkins restricted her rare performances to a few favorite venues, and her annual recital at the Ritz-Carlton ballroom in New York City. Attendance at her recitals was always limited to her loyal clubwomen and a select few others – she handled distribution of the coveted tickets herself. At the age of 76, Jenkins finally yielded to public demand and performed at Carnegie Hall on October 25, 1944. So anticipated was the performance that tickets for the event sold out weeks in advance. Jenkins died a month later.

Her career was the subject of the 2004 play, “Souvenir”, written by Stephen Temperley; the Broadway singer Judy Kaye commented that "It's hard work to sing badly well. You could sing badly badly for a while but you'll hurt yourself if you do it for long."

She had a Posthumously released album titled “The Glory (????) of the Human Voice.” Its liner notes recount the history of Florence Foster Jenkins, "the first lady of the sliding scale." The socialite appears on the cover in one of her many recital costumes, "Angel of Inspiration."




NEW YORK (Reuters) – The "Peanuts" comic strip character Snoopy was named the top dog in pop culture by the American Kennel Club on Tuesday as part of its 125th anniversary celebration, beating out a college sports mascot.
Nearly 76,000 online voters chose their favorites from a list of pop culture dogs drawn from television, film, literature, sports and art, the kennel club said.

Snoopy was the pensive dog whose best friend was a bird and who seemed to be smarter than his human master in the comic strip created by the late Charles Schulz, who died in 2000.

"Peanuts," which for close to five decades served as a mirror for the baby boom generation, appeared in 2,600 newspapers in 21 languages. Its daily readership was believed to be the most of any comic strip in history.
Second place went to Texas A&M University's mascot Reveille, followed by Scooby Doo, the television cartoon character.

The top 10:

1. Snoopy
2. Texas A&M's Reveille
3. Scooby Doo
4. Eddie from the TV show "Frasier"
5. Pound Puppy toys
6. Painting "Dogs Playing Poker"
7. Song "How Much is that Doggie in the Window"
8. Georgetown's Jack the Bulldog
9. The song "Who Let the Dogs Out"
10. Brian Griffin from the animated TV show Family Guy



Ashley Revell - (born 1972) is a London resident who briefly achieved fame for selling all his possessions (including all his clothes) and gambling US$135,300 on a single spin of a roulette wheel in Las Vegas, Nevada in 2004.
Revell won his bet (on Red; the result was 7 Red) and left with $270,600. The event was filmed by Sky One as a reality mini-series. Ashley used his winnings to set up his own online poker company called POKER UTD.


Movie reviews: “The Road” and “The Princess and The Frog” (and “Almost Famous”)

Who is the best opponent in Mike Tyson’s punchout?
Is Washington a good place for Mike Shanahan?

Pete Carroll leaving USC for the Seahawks?

Is the Rooney Rule a good idea?

The Vertically Striped Music Recommendation:
Against Me! – New Wave

This album was released in 2008, and at the time Against Me! Had build up a pretty good following as a punk band. This new album was much more produced and had a totally different musical feel than their previous stuff…which actually led a lot of their fans to get angry. They felt betrayed, as if Against Me! Had violated their previous ethic and sold out to the man trying to get a bigger audience and more money. The band acknowledged that this music was different than what they had done in the past, but that they were changing as people and musicians and wanted to grow. So know that this album has some controversy, as many of their early fans dislike this new direction. I however, found it to be some really good stuff. It can be angry and edgy in a lot of their stuff, but it’s some solid music that I truly enjoy.

I’m going to play their most famous song on the album, “Thrash Unreal” but there is a lot of other stuff on here that is worth checking out, so if you get it, get the WHOLE album. Which of course is how I usually roll with artists anway.

I’d like to thank (mention any callers here) AND Major Minority for his gifts and

Shalom and Good Evening to you all! (Clip 17 – The Perfect Space)