Scandal , Shakeup At Penn State

The ever widening child sexual abuse scandal at Penn State University involving former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky has resulted in the ouster of both University President Graham B. Spanier and long time head football coach Joe Paterno.  With 496 wins, more than any other coach in college football, Joe Paterno had announced his retirement at the end of the current season just yesterday.  However when the Board of Trustees met yesterday afternoon, it was decided that due to their mishandling of the allegations which first surfaced 15 years ago, Paterno would not be allowed to finish the last of his 46 seasons as head coach.  All together Paterno has been at Penn State for all 62 years of his professional career and his legacy is now severely tarnished by the scandal.   You can get more details on the scandal and the firings from the New York times here and here.  I cannot find much sympathy for either man if indeed they knew but did nothing about the allegations, much like the hierarchy of the Catholic Church ignored their own child abuse scandal.  No charges have been filed on either Spanier or Paterno as yet, but the investigation continues. 

Moving on into more pleasant avenues of thought, I have not featured any videos of late by the Spadecaller, so I thought I would remedy that oversight today with a play list entitled A Spadecaller Serenade.  The visual artistry of Matthew Schwartz in this series of videos from the Spadecaller is combined with the music of Simon and Garfunkel singing Bridge Over Troubled Water; Roberta Flack singing The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face; The Memory of Trees combining the music of Enya and the poetry of the Spadecaller; and finally the Westminster Cathedral Choir performs Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina's Sicut Cervus Desiderat.  These videos are as visually stunning as the music is beautiful.  After the play list I have gathered a daunting array of denim with these masculine Men In Jeans for us all to drool over and lust after.   Thank you for spending a little time in my corner of the world today, be sure to stop back by tomorrow for this week's edition of Naked or Nearly So.  Until next time as always, Enjoy!

Musical Roots

Contrary to the somewhat popular belief, I did not grow up listening to Classical Music, which I came to appreciate as an adult.  When I was growing up, the music I remember hearing the most of around the house in the 1950's was Gospel (of course), Tennessee Ernie Ford and the Platters as well as the infamous Elvis Presley.  On Saturday nights, that was a whole other story with the evening reserved for the Saturday night country music shows such as Porter Wagoner and the Grand Ole Opry which features many artists including Hank Williams Sr. and Patsy Cline.   I started playing clarinet in the fourth grade and when I got into Junior High and its marching band in the early 1960's, I fell in love with the marches of John Phillip Sousa.  The 60's also spawned a great deal of wonderful folk/protest music from such artists as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Paul Simon (of Simon and Garfunkel).  I was reminded of my musical roots when I saw the You Tube video of Paul Simon at the Ground Zero 9/11 Commemoration yesterday afternoon.  I was definitely in love with his music and I must have owned every record album Simon and Garfunkel ever produced at one time or another. After watching the 9/11 video, I went looking for more of Paul Simon's music as Paul Simon is one of the great song writers of our time and heavily influenced my life in many ways. In this retrospective for today's musical interlude, I begin with a rare recording (in two parts) of his Queen's College performance in 1964 which encompass many of his earlier writings, note in particular his iconic "Sound of Silence" which was my class song when I graduated from high school in 1969. After this archival recording I have the 1975 Saturday Night Live performance of "The Boxer" with his longtime singing partner Art Garfunkel who is also singing with him on the next video which is the Grammy Award winning "Bridge over Trouble Water" from the album of the same name which came out when I was a freshman at Baylor University. I conclude this play list with Paul's evocative rendition of "Sound of Silence" at the 9/11 Memorial Commemoration at Ground Zero in New York on 9/11/2011.  All of the above links and the videos below will give you a glimpse of the music that influenced me as I was growing up.  As an adult in my mid 20's, I listened to and fell in love with the classical music I share with you on a regular basis here at Nichevo.  Last but certainly by no means, least is this week's edition of Monday's Undies with all those marvelous men  in minuscule bits of cloth guaranteed to get your heart to pumping and your heat to rising.  Thanks for stopping in for this trip down memory lane, come again tomorrow to see where I head then.  Until next time as always, Enjoy!