How did I spend my 9/11? By celebrating the invasion. The British Invasion.

When it was announced that Herman's Hermits were coming to town, Mom bought tickets. (She thinks lead singer Peter Noone is cute.) She needed a companion, and I was recruited. She said I'd be the youngest person in the room. She was right with the possible exception of Mr. Noone himself, who clearly really, really enjoys performing to a live audience. He was charming, funny, and a talented impressionist in addition to sounding pretty much the same as he did sixty years ago.

Now, I did a little research. I was familiar with many of Herman's Hermits' hits, and I knew that the backing band for Noone in Newnan consisted of none of the other original Hermits (some of whom still perform as such in Europe). So this was really Peter Noone and "a band that they call Herman's Hermits for promotional reasons." But that doesn't really matter as much as it might for some other long-running acts because almost all of the original Hermits' songs were themselves covers of previous recordings. (Not so uncommon for many acts of the era. Even the Beatles started with covers.) You go to a Peter Noone show to hear Peter sing songs that you associate with Peter Noone, and that's exactly what we got.

For future reference, this was the set list. The asterisks identify songs first recorded by Herman's Hermits.

• I'm Into Something Good
• What a Wonderful World
• Love Potion No. 9
• Ring of Fire (impersonating Johnny Cash)
• Dandy
• A Must to Avoid*
• Leaning on the Lamp Post
• Daydream Believer
• Sea Cruise
• Listen People*
• Barbara Ann (chorus only, as "New, New-nan")
• Bennie and the Jets (chorus only, impersonating Elton John)
• Start Me Up (intro only, impersonating Mick Jagger)
• Just a Little Bit Better
• Silhouettes
• The End of the World
• Jezebel
• Can't You Hear My Heartbeat*
• Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter (false start first line as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer)
• I'm Henry the VIII, I Am
• There's a Kind of Hush

As I said, I did a little research. You'll notice that the final song is There's a Kind of Hush (which was performed tonight with a synthesized horn section). As it happens, that's the same song that Noone sang to close their act exactly 55 years ago, September 11, 1970, (with real horns) when Herman's Hermits played for Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. If it was good enough for the Queen Mum, it's good enough for my Mom.

Full disclosure: One Herman's Hermits song I was not familiar with was A Must to Avoid, and my malfunctioning ears thought I heard Peter singing "A Muscular Boy." Which probably means the crowd wasn't that much older than me.

The Ed Sullivan Show, June 6, 1965

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: family hermans hermits mom music youtube

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: comic strip havanese strip poodle strip

Not so long ago, qz.com reported a statistical analysis of broadcast NFL games revealing that an average broadcast of 3 hours and 12 minutes contains only 11 minutes of actual action. One hour of the broadcast is commercial breaks, about 20 in all with a total of 100 commercials.

So about two full hours of NFL broadcasts are players just standing around. Somehow, that was the best part of watching the Dolphins lose their opening week game 33-8 to the Indianapolis Colts.

It also bears mentioning that the Colts hadn't won a season opener since 2013, and even more impressively, according to ESPN, no team had scored points on all 7 of their offensive possessions since 1978. (The last team to do it? The Baltimore Colts.)

Another year, same old shitty Dolphins.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: dolphins football nfl

After 30 years, the spring in the Jeep's driver-side seat belt buckle finally gave out, and I replaced it this weekend with an OEM part from Quadratec. After a trip to Home Depot to buy a selection of TORX bit heads (the largest I had was 40, and it wasn't big enough), the only thing difficult about the swap was cleaning under the carpet to find the connection for the dashboard seatbelt warning light. (That light has been out so long, I had honestly forgotten it was even a thing until its wire kept me from pulling up the old buckle holder.) In the process, I found a bunch of dirt, two pennies, one dime, three very rusted screwdriver bit heads I lost circa 2005, and the above paper inspection certificate for the original seat belt. Pretty sweet, right? I'm just giddy thinking what I might find under the rest of the carpet!

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: jeep

Earlier in the week, Kirby Smart was goaded by the press into essentially saying that UGA football fans lacked greatness for leaving last week's Marshal blowout by the fourth quarter.

"I think people should love to be at a Georgia home game because there's only so many of them. It's limited opportunities."

He has a point. How dare we not sit in the sun for three hours to watch our third string players scrimmage against an inferior opponent to extend a 31-game home winning streak? The coaches do it every day. Never mind that they're paid to do it whereas UGA fans are charged $80 per ticket for the opportunity. Yeah, fuck us.

And then today, five hours before kickoff, because of the weatherman's prediction of a 66% chance of thunderstorms before the end of the game, Georgia moved up their game against Austin Peay, an FCS school UGA was beating so badly in 2018 that they decided to not even play the last 5 minutes. So even the die-hard Georgia fans had a hard time making the kickoff of a "game" that history tells us won't even go the distance. How dare we? I mean, I was never intending to travel 4 hours to attend this beatdown, so I'm part of the problem, but man, our fans (me included) are the worst!

The good news is that starting next year, SEC is mandating that teams play an additional SEC opponent for a total of 9 of 12 games. Georgia will certainly keep playing Tech (of the ACC), meaning there will be no more than two cupcakes a year for the foreseeable future. That certainly can't hurt fan enthusiasm and attendence, which is great. We can use all the help we can get because as Coach Smart will tell you, we're shitty.

UPDATE: As I type this, the lightning "weather delay" that was declared at halftime has now started its second hour. I'm sure Kirby will have some choice words for those fans who will choose to go home as opposed to continuing to wait out (undefeated) Mother Nature. Quiters.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: football georgia

Almost a whole week in, and so far this Wriphe.com Football and Superman month is a little light on both.

Why is that, you ask? I have to admit that's partly because right now I'm pretty sure everything in the world sucks. And if the NFL's 2025 "You Better Believe" Kickoff Campaign bandwagon "Ride the Float" commercial is any indication, I'm right.

Now, the NFL won't let me embed their shitty AI-generated commercial here, but here's a screencap and the top rated comments on the video so far:

youtu.be/N7auEg6XUOI

That's what 2025 has driven me to: reading (and agreeing with) the comments on YouTube. Sigh. To paraphrase Billy Joel, "we'll all go down together."

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: commercials football nfl youtube