Betting the Super Bowl: Which side is the right side?

….. Another two weeks, and more Rock stars fall by the wayside.

…. Scottish bass guitar player Jimmy Bain dead at 68, likely from pneumonia. He played bass on the truly groundbreaking record “Rainbow Rising” and in the first touring version of Rainbow with Ronnie James Dio, Cozy Powell, Tony Carey & Mr. Rock and Roll Hall of Famer himself, Ritchie Blackmore. He then went on to play with Dio’s solo band for over 20 years and 8 albums. He also co-wrote a lot of Dio’s best material, including “Rainbow in the Dark” & “Holy Diver.”

…. He also sessioned, toured & recorded with a who’s who of rock and roll. These included: Phil Lynott ( Thin Lizzy ), John Cale, Gary Moore, Ian Hunter and many more.

…. We also lost founding member of Jefferson Airplane & Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Paul Kantner. The guitarist/singer died from heart failure at age 74. Paul saw the wildest side of the 60’s first hand and was a seminal part of the San Francisco Psychedelic Scene. In an effort to make money he oversaw the name change to “Jefferson Starship” in the 70’s and more commercial material. However, when the band went too far in that direction, he left the band and sued them, forcing them to become just “Starship.”

….. At the infamous concert at Altamont, California, Jefferson Airplane singer Marty Balin went into the crowd to breakup an altercation between fans and the designated Security Detail for the concert, …. The Hells Angels.

…… Kantner took the microphone, and announced to the massive crowd that he would “Like to thank the Hells Angel who just knocked our lead singer out.”

…. Then he bravely stared down a member of the MC who took the stage and another mike to challenge Kantner’s assessment of the situation When they finally finished their set, the Grateful Dead were backstage ready to go on next. When Paul Kantner explained to them how crazy & violent the situation was and what had happened to Kantner, Jerry Garcia of the Dead famously deadpanned:

“Bummer, man.”

……. Things of course went downhill from there. By the end of the show the Rolling Stones were trying to restore order in the dark. The final tally was four deaths, and dozens of serious injuries including a Hells Angel killing an armed fan.

…. Coincidentally, on the exact same day as Kantner’s death, January 28, 2016, the original female lead singer of Jefferson Airplane, Signe Anderson also passed away at the same age of 74. She left the band in 1966 and was replaced by Grace Slick.

…… Two weeks ago we ranted about the ridiculous Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame. The object of our derision was not the conception, but the manifestation its self and the people behind it.

….. Thanks to Rolling Stone Magazine, the nomination, induction & narrative process is as transparent as the legal user agreements we all don’t read before every software update on our computing devices.

….. After years of seething criticism from fans of ignored artists and less and less obvious big artist inductees available to hog the headlines & backburner the malcontents, the magazine was forced to react. Even other members of the “Know nothing about Rock and Roll” press started to consistently question the Hall’s motives, politics, inconsistencies & obvious biases.

….. So by 2012, Rolling Stone decided to “Open the Voting up to the Fans.” …… Are they not generous? ……. Of course this was meant to silence the critics & maybe rescue themselves from becoming irrelevant as their collective committee continued to ram through trendy choices & their personal favourites.

…… This resulted in a needlessly and purposely convoluted voting system that allows the fans some say for the top votegetter or votegetters, depending on the mood of the committee, but reserves the right for the pointed heads at Rolling Stone to veto other picks and slam in their favourites. As a result of this fan participation factor, Rush overwhelmingly ( and deservedly ) was finally put into the Hall. Before this, the third greatest selling band of all time was not even considered for nomination by the egg brains on the committee.

……They also put an unannounced temporary suspension into effect. That would be the tactic of finding ways to put certain artists in multiple times. This was being done because it would lead to more easy publicity from the morons in the mainstream press and the public. Since they generally start to drool whenever they see a “Celebrity” name that they recognize, they are more likely to mention it on newscasts, podcasts, write it into articles or start trying to karaoke popular songs on the air when the nominations & inductees are announced.

…… Rolling Stone, HBO & the Hall know this means television & internet ratings. They feel they always need “Star Power” to drive the annual event. Legitimacy, openness & a coherent historical narrative and teaching that to the public are an afterthought.

…… This is why Eric Clapton [ is God ] is in the Hall three different times!

1.) He is in as a member of Cream ( definitely deserved ).

2.) He is in as a member of the Yardbirds ( the band certainly deserves to be in, but Clapton as one of three famous lead guitar players to apprentice in that seminal band { with Jeff Beck & Jimmy Page } wrote very few if any of their songs and didn’t play on their most famous hits.

……. It is odd that all the members of the Yardbirds are in the Hall of Fame, ……. but Nick Simper, original bass player in Deep Purple { spoiler alert, Hell has frozen over at the offices of Rolling Stone in Manhattan, they have been inducted this year } has been left out.

……. Simper was a member of the hard rock legends just as long as original vocalist Rod Evans ( who will be inducted ) from the Mark I Deep Purple lineup, co-wrote as much material as Evans, but has been snubbed just like the late American guitarist Tommy Bolin from the DP Mark III lineup.

…….. Another great American guitarist & current DP Mark V six string player Steve Morse ( Dixie Dregs, Kansas, Living Loud, Angelfire, Flying Colours ) has been left out even though he has been a member of DP Mark V since 1995, …. along with versatile, turnkey keyboardist Don Airey ( Rainbow, Michael Schenker, Ozzy Osbourne, Wishbone Ash, Whitesnake, Judas Priest, The Who, Electric Light Orchestra, Jethro Tull and countless others ) who has been in the group since the retirement of the legendary Jon Lord in 2002. Even one album DP Mark IV Redux stop gap vocalist Joe Lynn Turner. { Rainbow, Fandango, Yngwie Malmsteen } warrants consideration.

…… All of these guys have multiple credentials from their other work that would easily qualify them more than most of the other tag-a-long band members in acts currently in the Hall. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is nothing if not inconsistent.

…… We realize true collaborative rock bands are not easy to dissect and attribute individual worthiness assessment reports. They are not the same as sports teams. In those cases, even though 98% of the players won’t get into their sports’ Hall of Fame, they at least get their name on the championship trophy or receive a ring if they are part of the title winning side.

…… Attempting to do so when inducting a rock group is pointless in most cases. Put them all in, document all the writing/publishing/recording/performing details, provide a written explanation of the history, video concert & documentary footage and let the fans figure it out for themselves as to who was or wasn’t most deserving/important when they visit the damn Hall.

…… If Major League Baseball did the same with Pete Rose, our long National Nightmare would be over!”

….. True Rock Bands are also different than individual musicians/singers/artists. There is chemistry, groove, balance & symbiotic comfort that comes from playing together for a long time. All these factors are involved and they are all extremely hard to define or explain but are pertinent to the final product.

….. but we have hopelessly digressed.

3.) Eric Clapton as a Solo Artist ( well, probably, maybe, with some asterisks ….. a couple of great songs, a couple of covers that are more famous than the originals, a trite hit with an even more trite title “Tears in Heaven,” exploiting the death of his own son ), ….. but yes he did sell an awful lot of records, …… but then, the Hall of Fame claims massive record sales are not a criteria for consideration. { except when it suits them to do the exact opposite and declare that it does }

….. We await the day that Eric Clapton is inducted at least 4 more times into the Hallowed Hall of Musical/Ratings/Commercial/Name Recognition Convenience for his work with:

i.) “Derek and the Dominoes”

ii.) “Delaney and Bonnie & Friends!”

iii.) “Blind Faith”

iv.) ….. and of course, his beyond minimalist, use-my-name-I-collect-the-cheque movie soundtrack to the 1991 movie “Rush.” The movie has its flaws, but is well acted & features a lot of good music by multiple artists.

……. Unfortunately, …… none of that good music by those quality artists appears on the soundtrack, ……. a virtual ego project of Eric’s transitory musings. Mostly Clapton sustaining slide guitar notes with no melodic progression through various mood pieces & featuring yet another version of “Tears in Heaven” to sell the damn soundtrack, even though the grating, manipulative tearjerker isn’t germane to the plot of the film or anybody can remember when or if it appears during the movie.

….. Another multi-inductee Rolling Stone favourite, Gordon Sumner ( Sting ), has been put in twice, as a member of The Police and for his solo work.

…… { The critics love this guy, no matter what pieces of over-produced, over-praised, under-selling crap he grinds out featuring his patented nasally vocals, dozens of guest artists & pretentious themes. This is because the Greenwich Village Intelligentsia want Sting to show up at their art gallery openings, Crowdfunding campaigns for artisan Inughuit jewellers in Northern Greenland and charitable breakfasts at the Manhattan Four Seasons to raise money/awareness to offset the rising costs of Pop Warner equine polo leagues in the Hamptons.}

…… We fully expect that shortly after the multi-inductee moratorium is lifted, ….. Mr. Sting will be inducted in a special new category for his upcoming NBA All Star Game Halftime semi-live performance in Toronto.

…… In our Post Super Bowl column next week, we will review this year’s five brand new inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and whether or not they deserve this exalted honour.

The Super Bowl

6:30 pm Eastern Standard Time

Santa Clara, California

Sunday, February 7, 2016

Carolina Panthers (-5.5) @ Denver Broncos 45
[ 15-1 ] [ 12-4 ]

…… Glad to see Cam Newton play the race card before the big game.

Yes, Cam the only reason people don’t like you personally and/or your celebration antics is because you are a big, African American who threatens the status quo.

….. I am sure that is true with a lot of people. Racist & bigoted behaviour rises to the surface when it is confronted with gregarious, atypical & outspoken behaviour from people who look different than them. Their fallback assessment is that this is impolite, boorish & an insult to the status quo. Of course they are just relying on the power of stereotypes, when confronted with those characteristics in people of their own ethnicity, they claim some ignorance of the facts or employ pathetic mental grasping exercises to claim it is somehow different.

….. However that is not why we don’t particularly like you Cam.

We don’t particularly like you because so far as we have witnessed you during your amateur and pro career, your behaviour, personality & self serving antics have been off-putting. This is regardless of your race and more anthropologically correct, your haplotype, genotype, ethnicity or the colour pallet distribution of Melanin in your skin cells.

….. Your somewhat classless behaviour at the end of the “so-called” National Championship Game in 2011 provided a window into your true essence. That is where you attempted to score a late TD for the personal glory rather than follow HC Gene Chizik’s instructions to kneel down for the game winning field goal.

….. We don’t hold the scandals of monetary & material compensation leveled against you during your collegiate career very much. That whole system is a corrupt farce and we are loathe to blame athletes or their families for attempting to cash in like the big name schools, the TV Networks, the athletic directors, the alumni and the big name coaches do on a never-ending and expanding basis.

……. Cam, we wouldn’t even mind your stupid touchdown celebrations if they weren’t so contrived, lengthy and completely devoid of originality.

….. We hated the whole Superman-Associative stupidity when Shaq adopted it, even more when Dwight Howard tried hopelessly to exploit it. Now that you are plagiarizing it, along with that inane “Dab Dance” routine it only shows that you more devoid of original thought than we ever considered.

…… Yes, Cam you don’t have as many endorsements yet as J.J. Watt, Peyton, Aaron or Tom. They will come. By the way Cam, before you claim anybody and everybody who disagrees with you is either racist, threatened or nurses a double standard, let us clarify.

We are on record as thinking:

…… J.J. Watt is a publicity hog who we were bored with the minute he opened his mouth to expound upon his philosophical approach to rushing quarterbacks or started dancing one of his attention seeking sack dance jigs.

….. Peyton is not very funny in his ads, and he will pitch any piece of crap that comes down the pike like Ed McMahon or Hank Kingsley. We have always despised his self serving politics, preoccupation with his image of self importance and think hiding behind his wife’s body stocking on the HGH front is pathetic.

…….. We have always found on the behavioral front that Tom Terrific Brady is a prima donna who reminds us more of Celine Dion than Johnny Unitas. He is a chronic whiner, complainer & calculating image conscious obsessive. …… He also keeps creepy political friends and is less than honest when it comes to football inflation issues. The smokescreen crud he floats about his “Holistic” approach to training and diet being behind his longevity and effectiveness on the field is truly disingenuous.

…. Brady’s health regimen preemptive strike to shoot down HGH rumours, ……. is as see-through as a Ted Cruz appeal for proper Christian Values to guide the political process in the Excited States of America.

…… Aaron Rodgers has always been given way too much of a free ride by the media. His stupid crotch chop/big grappling belt around the waist TD celebration is offensive for the same reasons as your stupid dance routine. It is unoriginal, irrelevant in theme, semi-tasteless and a direct ripoff of certain wrestlers and ten pin bowlers who were all trying to be remembered for something when they did it first.

…… Now we actually did like some celebrations by others in the past, so we weren’t against them on principle.

….. The only TD celebrations we ever liked were the Ickey Woods “Shuffle” because it was so truly bad, and the original; ….. courtesy of Mr. Billy “White Shoes” Johnson. These routines were initially creative, funny, they weren’t originally created to make a lot of money and the progenitors didn’t take themselves too seriously. In other words, they were not total preconceived, commercial endorsement contrivances. They were certainly from a different era.

…… They did however, still irritate fans & players from the other team, just like you do Cam, both black and white.

….. But be careful, when you play the race card & lecture people about social history without possessing any comprehensive background in it.

…. You only cheapen the subject and give ammunition to the real racists. Cam, let’s face it, this is mostly about you trying to maximize your personal brand as an elite athlete capitalist. You are not Ralph Abernathy, Thurgood Marshall or Julian Bond.

…… Your complaints are not the equivalent of putting your butt on the line in Selma, touring the deep south with the Freedom Riders or coming to the aid of abused sanitation workers in Memphis.

…… Maybe if you would have attended more Social Studies classes at Auburn, things would be different and your perspective would be more enlightened.

Here’s a video of the Ickey Shuffle that the No Fun League won’t let us embed in this post.

…… Notice that we didn’t mention Mark Gastineau of the New York Jets who gave us the “Sack Exchange” dance in the 1980’s. This clown is the reason we had the original “taunting” rules brought into the league, ruining it for everyone else. Los Angeles Rams’ massive OT Jackie Slater { or was it Dennis Harrah? } decked him after he went into his epileptic convulsion celebration after sacking the Rams’ quarterback. This game was on National Television and the NFL decided right then to curb excessive celebration behaviour.

……. Everybody comes at you with varied, plentiful & different stats for the Super Bowl.

…… Here’s one that might matter. In the last 10 years, the Sharps have won 9/10 Super Bowls by betting against the public. That doesn’t mean that they always love the underdog, but the underdog if most of the Square money is piling onto the favourite, which it usually does.

….. Well the favourite here is the Carolina Panthers.

…. No Question

…… The spread has been rising since they won the NFC Title Game and almost 70% of the total individual side/parlay/teaser wagers made so far in Las Vegas have been put on the Panthers. America and the world loves the Panthers, they are the Squares’ bet of choice.

…… There will be money coming in on the Broncos, but the Sharps, the Peytonoids, the Cam Haters and the Bronco fans will mostly wait till late in the week when the spread reaches its apex. The smart, THC medicated good citizens of the Rocky Mountain State should be able to curb their antsiness better than most and be patient before grabbing that number as it tops out, possibly, but not likely around the magical +7 point touchdown level.

…… Frankly, the “Under” is probably the number to play here as this game features two great defences in a high profile game where the Public always loves the Over. That number has been steadily rising for two weeks, so a wager near game time will likely attain us a maximum bye.

….. But the big suits at “Trending Buffalo” pay us the A-Rod bucks to make picks on the side, not the total.

The Carolina Panthers are, of course, favored to win the Super Bowl with 10/21 odds over the Denver Broncos.

…. so, …… We have watched an awful lot of the Panthers all year & watched a lot of their games live, as they ran out the clock with long drives playing boring football and throttling offenses with their top tier defense. As the year ended and into the Playoffs, the boring games were gone, the Panthers started to blow people out and the public got on board.

…… As long as Peyton Android does not disintegrate or lose effectiveness in his robotic limbs due to flaky iron oxide buildup, he should be able to handle this game. It is unlikely rust will be a problem because the weather will be warm & relatively humidity free in Santa Clara, California. Our one bad omen, the elephant in the locker room, is Peyton and the Bronco’s meltdown two years ago in the loss to Seattle in New York. This mild weather might make the difference to the old man, who in the cold New York February first started to look past the due date.

…… Peyton has also had half a season off to rest his arm as Osweiller took over, so arm fatigue shouldn’t be a factor. We also love Peyton’s preemptive Psyche Ops where he moans this week to the media how he will need a hip replacement after he retires. This is designed to throw off the Carolina Panthers.

……. Denver & Peyton to win, cannot commit turnovers. Manning must become a conservative cost accountant for the afternoon, unleashing surprise throws to open receivers when Carolina inches too many men into the box. He is up to that task.

…… Bronco Defensive Coordinator Wade Phillips had the number of the Patriots two weeks ago, but they didn’t have a running game like Carolina. However, the Broncos didn’t get the number one defense by being hopeless against the run. Phillips will need pressure from his front four without a lot of blitzing to get Cam to try to force throws into coverage & interceptions.

…… The wildcard of course is Cam Newton, the most effective scrambling machine ever in a much bigger package than Steve Young, Doug Flutie or Fran Tarkenton.

…… He is a slightly larger Vince Young with a much higher football IQ, a stronger & more accurate arm and good instincts.

Cam & the Panthers however, are not very good on third down & especially on third and long. It will be Wade Phillips’ call as to whether he designates a “Spy” to shadow Newton, but if they can stop the Panthers from big plays on first and second down they will have the edge.

…… This game is on neutral turf, so the Panthers might not be as dominant as they were in their last two home playoff wins that have intoxicated the public, many of whom had never watched them play previously all year.

…… A tight, low scoring game, Denver keeps it close and we collect off the Broncos & the Android. We will go with the 90% record of the Sharps.

….. The only thing to perform better than that number in the last decade was Bernie Madoff’s premium investment fund. It was estimated that his performance over the last decade of that fund was the equivalent of batting .960 for an entire Major League Baseball season.

…… That number was way too high, it was complete fantasy and why the Sharps in Vegas would never touch any of Madoff’s investments. The Broncos are a much sounder choice.

Pick: BRONCOS (+5.5)
Bob: Denver +5.5