Pigskin Prognostications, Week Seventeen

Last regular week of the season, all the games are today (yes, rock!), and quite a handful are meaningful.

Falcons 31, Rams 13 - Atlanta's playing for a first-round bye, and St. Louis is playing for their coach's job. Motivation for both is almost equal. Talent, of course, is not.

Patriots 34, Bills 16 - The past five weeks, New England has looked like it did during the regular season last year, and--with a playoff spot on the line--I expect no different this week.

Chiefs 28, Bengals 17 - KC might blow another close one, but I really admire their quarterback, so here's hoping...AND that shutout Cincinnatti took from Cleveland was one taken from an offensively-anemic team with a fourth-round QB starting.

Bears 17, Texans 10 - I give this one to Chicago based on motivation, because with Houston--especially after last week's whodathunkit loss to Oakland--it all depends on...man, I don't know.

Vikings 20, Giants 18- New York will rest Brandon Jacobs and--after the first quarter--most of their starters.

Panthers 35, Saints 28 - The Panthers are still trying to secure that first-round bye and not drop from second seed to fifth seed, but Brees is only 402 yards away from Marino's passing yards record, so this one should be good.

Steelers 21, Browns 0 - The Steelers will probably rest prominent starters after the first half (or first quarter), but even then....

Buccaneers 24 , Raiders 10 - Is JaMarcus Russell finally starting to bloom? Maybe so, but I believe the Bucs--hoping for a playoff berth--will stunt his growth this week.

Titans 19 , Colts 17 - They'll both rest starters early, so this will essentially be like a pre-season game, and Tennessee's deeper on D than Indianapolis is, therefore....

Lions 17, Packers 16 = I think Green Bay will win, but I'm not betting any money on any of my picks, so here's hoping that Detroit will avoid the biggest one-season donut in the history of the NFL.

Ravens 20, Jaguars 10 - Baltimore's fighting for a playoff spot, and Jacksonville's had some internal goings-on this week.

Cardinals 27, Seahawks 20 - Yeah, Seattle's been playing great lately, and this is Mike Holmgren's last game, but I just don't believe Kurt Warner and the Birds will lay yet another stinker the week before they host their first playoff game in over forty years.

Redskins 17, 49ers 13 - If last week's Washington team--and specifically their defense--shows up, this one's theirs. If not, then with the way Samurai Mike has his team primed, it could turn the other way.

Dolphins 19, Jets 18 - I'm pulling for Pennington.

Cowboys 27, Eagles 24 - DeMarcus Ware may not set the single-season sack record in this one (for surely he'll be at least double-teamed), but with enough O-line devoted to him, the Eagles...nah. They won't have a prayer if they pass all day. Their only hope is to run right at Ware, and we all know how much Andy Reid likes to run.

Chargers 30, Broncos 23 - Rivers has been playing the best ball of his career these past five weeks, and his best ball is as good as anyone else's this season.

Fifth Down, Week Sixteen

Really late this week, but--hey--I can be forgiven this week, right? Right. My original predictions in italics:

Colts 26, Jaguars 12 - Win. Colts have been keeping the games close until the fourth, and I don't believe that'll change this week. Actual score: Colts 31, Jaguars 24

Cowboys 14, Ravens 9 - Loss. Even though the final score doesn't reflect it, Baltimore's D rose to the occasion in spectacular fashion. Actual score: Ravens 33, Cowboys 24

Bengals 19, Browns 9 - Win. Cincinnatti actually shut out an opponent. Actual score: Bengals 14, Browns 0

Lions 20, Saints 19 - Loss. I think Brees might have read all those predictions--including the one from yours truly--stating that this game would be the one that would keep Detroit from going winless. Actual score: Saints 42, Lions 7

Dolphins 21, Chiefs 19 - Win. Miami's been keeping their games close, too, and I don't believe this week'll be any different. In fact, KC will probably find some way to lose this one in the last two minutes. They've done so at least four times this year already. Actual score: Dolphins 38, Chiefs 31

Patriots 31, Cardinals 17 - Win. I have a feeling that Warner's going to throw a couple of picks more than Cassel, and that we could see a repeat of the Jets/Cardinals game. Actual score: Patriots 47, Cardinals 7

49ers 24, Rams 12 - Win. Samurai Mike's swordsmen have to win this one--and maybe next week's--for him to have a chance at retaiing his job next year. Actual score: 49ers 17, Rams 16

Steelers 14, Titans 13 - Loss. Haynesworth and Vanden Bosch were out, and Tennessee just kept on pushing back the O-line. Tremendous game from their defense. Actual score: Titans 31, Steelers 14

Buccaneers 24, Chargers 13 - Loss. San Diego doesn't have to run with the way Rivers has been playing lately. The lad is on fire. Actual score: Chargers 41, Buccaneers 24

Broncos 21, Bills 12 - Loss. This game, Buffalo decided to let the other team choke. Actual score: Bills 30, Broncos 23

Texans 28, Raiders 6 - Loss. Who knew?. Actual score: Raiders 27, Texans 16

Jets 31, Seahawks 12 - Loss. Hopefully, for Jets fans out there, Farve got the choke game out of his system with this one. Actual score: Seahawks 13, Jets 3

Falcons 24, Vikings 20 - Win. Three words: Pat. Williams. Out. Actual score: Falcons 24, Vikings 17

Eagles 27, Redskins 10 - Loss. Again: who knew? Actual score: Redskins 10, Eagles 3

Panthers 17, Giants 13 - Loss. I've heard numerous people stating that even though they lost, Carolina played a great game in this one. Great game? They gave up over three-hundred-yards rushing! How is that great by any stretch of the imagination? Actual score: Giants 34, Panthers 28

Bears 27, Packers 21 - Win. Orton maid the plays when it mattered. Actual score: Bears 20, Packers 17

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #214

#214: "A Lot of Good Ones Gone" (2002) - Peter Wolf

Christmas is over
And we have gotten fat
Please let's now recall the ghosts of Christmas past

J. Geils' singer feels
The passing of the time
Please to hear the sweet soul and his mournful rhymes

R.I.P. 2008:

Jody Reynolds – fifties' singer/guitarist/one-hit wonder for the marvelous "Endless Sleep"
Earl Palmer – seminal soul drummer (Professor Longhair, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Ritchie Valens, and oh-so-many others)
Buddy Miles – jazz/fusion drummer
Jeff Healey – blues guitarist
Isaac Hayes - Stax/Volt songwriter; soul singer
Danny Federici – Springsteen keyboardist
Al Wilson – soul singer
Eddy Arnold – country music singer
Jerry Reed - countery music singer/songwriter
Bo Diddley - progenitor of rock and roll/creator of the Bo-Diddley beat
Norman Whitfield – psychedelic soul songwriter & producer
Jimmy Carl Black – Zappa/Captain Beefheart drummer
Mitch Mitchell - phenomenal Hendrix drummer
Eartha Kitt - jazz singer
Richard Wright – keyboardist for Pink Floyd
Edie Adams – Broadway singer
LeRoi Moore – Dave Matthews Band saxophonist
Nathaniel Mayer - soul singer
Danny Dill - songwriter ("Long Black Veil", "Detroit City")
Nick Reynolds - Kingston Trio singer
John Stewart - Kingston Trio singer
Mike Smith - lead singer of the Dave Clark Five
Israel Cachao Lopez – pioneering Cuban bass player, seminal in inventing the mambo
Earle Hagan - composer ("The Andy Griffith Show")
Jerry Wexler - Atlantic records (Aretha Franklin; Led Zeppelin) producer/head honcho
Larry Levine - producer, often worked with Phil Spector

Odetta - '60s folk singer

and several other musicians that I'm sure I've overlooked...this one's for you.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #215

#215: "Jerusalem" (2002) - Steve Earle

The title track from the most controversial album of his career (much more on that--and Earle himself--later in the countdown), Earle takes Nick Lowe's cynicism and tempers it with honest optimism, because peace, love, and understanding are nothing to be sneered at--you have to have some hope. On Christmas day today, the Pope will send to the world over the same message Earle sends here, and though his voice is just as ragged, the Pope just can't hold a tune the way Earle can. So, I'll mirror that sentiment: Peace on Earth, goodwill to men, and keep on rockin' in the sectarian cease-fire world while you can.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #216

#216: "Who's Gonna Save My Soul?" (2008) - Gnarls Barkley

"Who's Gonna Save My Soul" is an elegy to James Brown and a personal call to action from Cee-Lo to himself. A few years ago--after Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" had hit worldwide--the Godfather of Soul asked Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo (the two members of Gnarls Barkley) to be guests at one of his concerts; however, they were unable to attend, as they had a concert of their own to perform. A couple of months later, Brown died. Cee-Lo sat down and examined the incidents and then peered inside himself, deciding to no longer look to others for inspiration, that he had to depend upon himself. And he doubts. That's what this song's about. But the first several times I heard it (on Gnarls' second LP, released this past March), that's not what I heard. Not exactly.

Then, I didn't know of the James Brown connection; I heard the song as Cee-Lo examining himself and not liking the results of the examination. I heard it as his "Notes from Underground;" a soul/hip-hop Dostoyefskian joint, but with the narrator so distraught--or not distraught enough--that he's lost his sense of humor (as "Notes from Undeground" is nothing if not funny) as well as his sense of direction. I saw Cee-Lo as a modern-day Scrooge at the point when he's just been shown his own grave by the Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Come. Cee-Lo's looking into his own personal abyss, and he finds he's been greedy and selfish, and wondering if he'll be damned to eternal torment, ready yet scared to die. It's a sobering record; it's not fun; you can't dance to it. It's a cry of despair, one coming straight from the midnight hour. Soul music rarely delves this deep (well, at least not since the heydey of the Four Tops) into introspection. And I understand why--it's a downer. It's depressing. It's harrowing. And it's emotionally intense drama that ranks with the greatest soul records ever produced.

Two questions then--

One: if it's so great, why have I ranked it so low? Answer--because it's Christmastime, and this list will be finished before Christmas rolls 'round next year, and since this is a blog and not a book, relevant timeliness matters.

Two: Other than the (tenuous-at-best) Scrooge allegory, why is this song a Christmas song? Well, I'm a somber and morbid (and at times morose) sort (if not a bit Dickensian in my sentiments), and--I don't know about you--but late on Christmas Eve, after all the presents from Santa have been constructed, arranged, and displayed, I linger upon the night, wondering if I've forgot anything, and this wondering leads to worrying, and the worrying over Christmas gifts leads to pondering over Christmas past, and--though the memories should bring joy--I'm left ruminating over thoughts of my parents, and about how much love they've shown me, and about the multidinous ways I've disappointed, saddened, and angered them over the years; I then think about how in the world would I ever attain the ideal they had imagined me when I was my son's age, about how I've done so much wrong, about how I've underachieved and lived in fear of failure, and about what my son will think of me? Will he be disappointed, too? What would my late maternal grandparents think? I live in their house, and at times--times like these, the witching hours--I can still see the house as it once was, and I can see my grandmother smiling at me like I was the best boy in the world...and I know I'm not that boy...not now, not anymore. Were their expectations too great? Were they unfair?

I wait for an answer. It doesn't arrive. It never does. Just the silence. And the big, colored lights on the tree, the only illumination in the dark house. I stare, and the lights glow, and they daze, and my tired eyes glaze over, and I start to nod, and my head jerks me awake, and I look around, and I'm alone. Is this what it will be like? I listen again for an answer, and again nothing, and I head to bed, and my wife wakes me early, and the children are happy, but a feeling still lingers--as it always has--that what I'm seeing is even more fleeting than it truly is. I try to blink the sleep away, and I'm in that dark room again with the Christmas lights, alone. Only for a moment, though. It's only the Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Come just brushing me on the shoulder on his way out of my house. He turns and winks at me on the way out the door, though. And then the smiles and cheer return.

Merry Christmas, kiddies. God bless us, everyone.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #217

#217: "The Christmas Song" (2004) - The Raveonettes

Christmas comes early at the Atomic Blawg this week, as I've listened to your pleading (to the tunes of over one-hundred e-mails and messages a week for the past month) to give you a hint as to at least one song that's in my top forty somewhere. Well, here it is. It's "The Christmas Song" by that Danish duo the Ravonettes (but more about them later on in the chart--much later on). Originally, this record--the best Christmas pop song I've heard in the past ten years--was slated in my top forty (though I won't tell you where), but as a special Christmas bonus, I've decided to let you open just one present early by bumping this one down 175 notches or so, just so that this Christmas, we can all sing and remember the time(s) when the one(s) we loved were not with us when we wanted and missed them the most. This song is for you, and it's for them, and the Raveonettes have covered it for us in the monochromatic wrapping paper that Phil Spector gave them a few years ago, and they tied some reverb in with the sleigh bell bows, and they sing with typical reserve to underscore the lonliness in the lyric, and then they turned out the lights in the house, so that the lights from the Tannenbaum would remind us of the fading stars in our memories where some of our lost loved ones still linger.

So...what are you waiting for? Here's your present? Open it!

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #218

#218: "The Way It Is" (2007) - Nicole Atkins

It's a jazz song, it's a torch song, it's a power ballad, it's a girl-group love song, and it's powered by the most powerful, most controlled voice anywhere on the charts: Nicole Atkins's voice. The gal can wail like nobody's business--deep, full-throated alto, forceful enough to shatter glass--and then as quick as you can say "David Lynch," she can bring it back down to a whisper, a sultry vibratto, riding the notes and the scales like Liszt on his keys, with expert pitch and a master thespian's sense of dramatic timing. She counts Angelo Badalamenti and Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash and the Ronnettes as influences, and they all show up here, on this perfect vehicle for Atkins's vocals, and the ghost of Phil Spector shows up, too, with sleigh bells--just in time for the Christmas season, kiddies--and chimes and strings and electric guitar all over the place, and even then, the kitchen sink approach doesn't overwhelm her, her vocals strong and adept enough to overcome whatever her producers throw at her. Crank up the speakers on this one, loud enough to drown out the sound of your own voice as you sing along with her. Heck, you could even go caroling around the neighborhood with this one. I know I'm going to (if my wife lets me).