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While future Meat Loaf songwriter Jim Steinman was staging his student rock musical in Massachusetts (see below), the future members of Steely Dan were getting busted in a police raid at Bard College that spring in 1969.  The incident would be recounted in the song ”My Old School” four years later on the album Countdown to Ecstasy.  Here’s a 2006 interview with Donald Fagen about the incident, along with memories of a young Chevy Chase backing Fagen and Walter Becker on drums, and of a professor’s young wife who might have been the inspiration for “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number.”

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1174152,00.html

 1. Hair – The Original Broadway Cast Recording

2. The Beatles (a.k.a. The White Album) - The Beatles

3. Abbey Road – The Beatles

4. Blood, Sweat & Tears – Blood Sweat & Tears

5. Wichita Lineman – Glen Campbell

6. Green River – Creedence Clearwater Revival

7. Johnny Cash at San Quentin – Johnny Cash

8. Blind Faith – Blind Faith

9. Led Zeppelin II – Led Zeppelin

10. TCB – Diana Ross and the Supremes and The Temptations

Wow, I just found this great page on a musical called The Dream Engine, which Jim Steinman (later of Meat Loaf, Bonnie Tyler, and Celine Dion fame) wrote and starred in at Amherst College and then Mount Holyoke in the spring of 1969. The story centers around a Manson-like character named Baal, the revolutionary poet and leader of a tribe of wild boys on the California coast.  

http://www.jimsteinman.com/comeinthenight.html

American Revolution, 1969. The beast lives forever. The creatures are behind you! The universe is in a state of triumph. I am meat. I am muscled space. I am electrified nerve ends! I am colored light! I am chemical blood! I am the meat of the universe! I am the muscles of space! I am the colored light of a god! I am the nerve end of a star. I am the chemical blood of the future.

Dig it.

Here’s the Amherst Student review from April 28, 1969:

http://www.jimsteinman.com/dreamengine/defckcum.htm 

A piece from Steinman himself for the paper on “Nudity in Theater – A Metaphor for Revolution”:

http://www.jimsteinman.com/dreamengine/deltr.htm

And great description of Joe Papp’s aborted New York production, from cast member Bob Sather:

http://www.jimsteinman.com/dreamengine/dereaction.htm

Last week I posted a link to a theologian’s blog, in which he listed 1969: The Year Everything Changed among his best books of the year.  Today, I just came across this posting on An Atheist’s Answer, where the book is listed as one of five nonfiction books to buy instead of the Bible:

http://atheistsanswer.wordpress.com/2009/12/16/good-books/ 

Wow.  No pressure there.

It had me wondering: If I made like John Lennon and declared myself “bigger than Jesus,” would the ensuing book burnings help drive sales?  Whatever helps move stock…

As we close out the decade and radio stations are doing their countdowns of the top recordings of 2009, here’s Billboard magazine’s Top 20 for 1969:

1. “Sugar, Sugar” – The Archies

2. “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” – 5th Dimension (Other sources have said this was the top-selling single of the year, but radio play probably helped give The Archies the top spot in Billboard.)

3. “Honky Tonk Women” – The Rolling Stones

4. “Come Together/Something” (double-sided hit) – The Beatles

5. “Everyday People” – Sly & the Family Stone

6. “Crimson and Clover” – Tommy James & the Shondells

7. “I Can’t Get Next to You” – The Temptations

8. “Get Back” – The Beatles w/ Billy Preston

9. “Someday We’ll Be Together” – Diana Ross & the Supremes

10. “Dizzy” – Tommy Roe

11. “Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye)” – Steam

12. “Leaving on a Jet Plane” – Peter, Paul and Mary

13. “In the Year 2525 (Exordium & Terminus)” – Zager and Evans

14. “Wedding Bell Blues” – 5th Dimension

15. “Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet” – Henry Mancini

16. “Hair” – The Cowsills

17. “Wichita Lineman” – Glen Campbell

18. “Sweet Caroline” – Neil Diamond”

19. “Suspicious Minds” – Elvis Presley

20. “Crystal Blue Persuasion” – Tommy James & the Shondells

For the complete Top 100, visit this link:

http://www.chairborneranger.com/top100/top100-1969.htm

Lots of classics on this list: “Son of a Preacher Man,” “Hot Fun in the Summertime,” “Time of the Season,” “And When I Die.”  Big year for Creedence, and for acts covering songs from the hippie rock musical Hair.

If you have a Kindle, you can put 1969: The Year Everything Changed on it.

Order the Kindle Edition at:

http://www.amazon.com/1969-Year-Everything-Changed-ebook/dp/B0031Y7O5G/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2

I’m not a Colts fan.  Truth be told, I don’t much care about whether they win or lose. But I’m moved to write a post about yesterday’s game because I hated to see what I saw yesterday, I’ve been listening to commentary on it ever since last night, and I’m astounded at the logic used to defend coach Jim Caldwell’s decision to pull Peyton Manning and other starters in the second half of yesterday’s Jets game. 

The Colts held a narrow 15-10 lead when Manning was pulled in the third quarter, and behind third-string quarterback Curtis Painter—who almost immediately surrendered the lead on a fumble that was returned for a TD and did nothing to help his team regain that lead—Indianapolis crumbled and lost 29-15, thus killing the team’s storied drive for a perfect season.

Caldwell’s decision is certainly debatable, but what’s frustrating to hear are the reasons given for supporting his decision.  Football, perhaps more than any other sport, has both fans and commentators who say stupid things in an attempt to sound smart. As a Broncos fan, I had to listen to a fair share of this when I heard so many people say Kyle Orton would make the Denver offense better because he was a conservative “game manager” and not a risk-taking “gunslinger,” and you couldn’t win championships if you depend upon a strong quarterback.  (Apparently, Brett Favre, John Elway, Kurt Warner, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Ben Roethlisberger never won any Super Bowls.)  Last year, Denver scored 23 points a game and finished 8-8. This year, despite a vastly improved defense, Denver stands at 8-7. Why?  Because they’ve scored just 20 points a game. Those three points can make a huge difference in close games—like in yesterday’s 30-27 loss in Philadelphia.

Now this week, I hear a lot of “expert” wisdom about how Caldwell was smart to bench Manning because he needs to focus on winning a Super Bowl.  Okay, great.  If you think so, fine, but here are ten reasons why Caldwell’s decision was the wrong one.

1. The Colts had a chance at history.  Don’t tell me that people don’t remember that the Patriots went 16-0 in 2007.  Everyone remembers it.  They also remember the Pats didn’t win the Super Bowl.  The Colts could have been the first team ever to go 16-0 and win the Super Bowl.

2. There’s no guarantee that Manning would have gotten injured if he had finished the second half.  He’s not exactly a brittle quarterback.  In fact, he’s never missed a start.  Let me repeat that: He’s never missed a start.  In 12 years.

3. If it would have been so risky to let Manning finish the game…what was he doing playing the first half and part of the second?

4. Let’s deconstruct this “perfect regular season” vs. “winning the Super Bowl” argument: Contrary to what many Caldwell apologists might have us think, not letting Manning finish the game doesn’t actually guarantee the team will now win the Super Bowl.  In fact…

5. Now that Caldwell essentially threw in the towel at home against a .500 team, and will most likely do so on the road in Buffalo next week, the team that just yesterday morning was 14-0 and eyeing a perfect season now suddenly faces the possibility of going into the playoffs on a losing streak.  Meanwhile, San Diego hasn’t lost since before the leaves turned and are headed into the playoffs with a head full of steam.  Who looks like the strongest team now?

6. Not to get all Ralph Nader here, but…professional football is a spectator sport, and the fans who bought tickets to Sunday’s game thought they had a chance to witness history.  I’m assuming their tickets did not come with a consumer warning that said: “The Indianapolis Colts organization will not try their best to win today’s game because they consider it insignificant.”

7. Tanking yesterday’s game now puts more pressure on the Colts players.  They woke up yesterday morning thinking back on their hard work in the 14 preceding games and how they had put themselves in a position to become the most heralded team ever.  Now that they’ve blown that, you can’t tell me that at least some of the players aren’t thinking, “Now that we’ve lost the perfect season, what if we lose the Super Bowl?”

8. Although they’re all saying the right things and espousing the company line, Manning and crew will now have to answer questions from now until the Super Bowl—if they make it that far—about squandering the chance for a perfect season.

9. Haven’t the Colts learned from their own history?  In 2005, the Colts pampered Manning in the final week of the season, entered the playoffs with a bye as the no. 1 seed…and were upset at home by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Divisional Playoff round. In 2006, they had to fight in their final regular season game to earn the conference’s no. 3 seed, and they went on to win the Super Bowl.  Similarly, in 1996 the Broncos earned home-field in the AFC early on and went about a month without playing a meaningful game. They rested John Elway and other starters players, lost momentum, and were stunned by Jacksonville in an upset that people still talk about in Denver. The following season, the Broncos had to win the hard way, playing tooth and nail until the final week. They entered the playoffs as a wild-card but built momentum and rode it all the way to the franchise’s first Super Bowl title.

10. People say time will tell if Caldwell and the Colts were right.  Wrong.  Even if they go on to win the Super Bowl, we—and they—will think back and wonder “What if…?”  It would be the first tarnished Super Bowl championship in NFL history.

(And a bonus: 11. I hope Colts management doesn’t hope to get much value out of Curtis Painter in the future because, thanks to the position he was put in yesterday, he’s done in Indianapolis, forever branded as the quarterback who blew a perfect season.)

1969: The Year Everything Changed got an honorable mention of sorts in fellow Huffington Post blogger Laurence Hughes’s tongue-in-cheek list on The 10 Best Years That Are Books:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laurence-hughes/the-10-best-years-that-ar_b_397174.html

Nice idea re: 1964, but he must have missed Jon Margolis’s The Last Innocent Year.

And here’s 1969 in someone’s “best of 2009″ list – admittedly a more surprising inclusion, but also appreciated:

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2009/12/19/sam-stormss-top-10-books-of-2009/

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) posted an interesting Q&A with multimedia artist Sam Durant and documentary filmmaker Sam Green, who discussed 1969 and their work inspired by the Altamont Free Concert. Curator Jenée Misraje mentions my book and asks about the cultural resonance of 1969:

http://blog.sfmoma.org/2009/12/altamont/

I appreciated Misraje’s observation that “Artists, curators and historians have been placing a greater amount of attention to this time in history [1969]” and Durant’s suggestion that “1969 haunts the U.S. more than 1968.”  I especially appreciated their discussion given Carlos Lozada’s recent piece in The Washington Post, in which he argues I had to ”outdo 1968″:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/11/AR2009121102590.html?hpid%3Dopinionsbox1

Perhaps for some people, the amazing slew of events from 1969 to which we still look back is not that big a deal. This Post writer seems to imply 1959 was the more momentous year, yet strangely I did not see many 50th anniversary celebrations this past year. 

The quote he cites from my Introduction is presented out of context, but I have a letter into the Post about this…

Just got a kick out of this.  Ran across a blog called Friday Night Is Killing Me, in which the author lists Magic in the Night next to Blood Meridian as the two books he’s currently reading:

http://danmaxwell.tumblr.com/post/271887557/and-so-begins-my-self-imposed-incentive-program

I doubt I appear on many lists together with Cormac McCarthy, so figured I’d enjoy it while I can.

This blogger also lists the latest Eels album under his current listening rotation, which also has relevance to me as I published Mark Oliver Everett’s (“E” from the Eels) memoir at St. Martin’s Press – currently available in paperback from Picador:

http://us.macmillan.com/thingsthegrandchildrenshouldknow