LIve Aid at 40: Personal Reflections from the Day Pop Music Reached Its Pinnacle: Part 1

As we reach the 40th anniversary of Live Aid, many articles are being written and CNN is planning a multi-episode documentary about what was inarguably the greatest day in the history of pop music. Ahead of that documentary, and before I or anyone else is prejudiced by what we learn and how it's presented, here's my first-hand account of how the event went down and recollections (and recordedings) of someone who was completely immersed in the event from the moment it was announced:

This was going to be BIG

I'll begin by recalling the scant (by today's standards) coverage of the show's announcement. Remember this was the mid 80's so there was no internet; there were only three TV networks; and even basic cable (which many households still did not have) only provided about 40 channels. Still, it soon became clear that Live Aid (with its overlapping concerts at Wembley Stadium in London and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia) was going to be something huge. Both Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas", the charity record for famine relief in Africa that Bob Geldof had organized in December '84, and the American recording industry's answer, USA for Africa's "We Are the World", were both massive hits that generating millions. Now Geldof was announcing he'd be continuing that momentum by joining forces with American organizers and artists for a one-time music event taking place on two continents. An event that might quite literally include every relevant music artist in the world of pop and rock.

Indeed, Live Aid's lineup read like a who's who of the Top 40. Case in point, the week that Live Aid was announced, George Michael, Billy Ocean, Bryan Adams, Howard Jones, Simple Minds, Madonna, Phil Collins, Sade and Duran Duran all had songs in the Top 20. All would go on to appear at Live Aid. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. Queen, Hall & Oates, The Pretenders, Adam Ant, Black Sabbath, Lionel Richie, The Cars, U2, Mick Jagger... The ever-growing lineup was so much of a wish list and so hard to keep track of, I felt the need to document it in one of my college notebooks and for this article, I went to the Pop Culture Fiend Archives and dug up this old momento. 

Note that the "L's" and "P's" specify which venue the artist apeared (London or Philadelphia) and the check mark indicates it was a performance I actually got to see. Looking back now I realize that I most likely copied this list of scheduled acts from one the early announcements in Rolling Stone magazine or an MTV news report. And it's clear it most have been an early announcement, as multiple acts lsted (e.g. Culture Club and Tears For Fears) dropped out and/or wound up not appearing.

MIAs

In addition to Tears for Fears, Huey Lewis and the News were one of the big names that wound up not appearing. Lewis apparently had questions about mismanagement of the "We Are the World" funds and whether the money raised was actually being used to feed the starving Africa. This created controversy with the organizers and Lewis and his band were soon struck from the Live Aid bill. Other notable artists who failed to appear included:

Prince - The purple one was scheduled to be a part of "We Are the World" but missed the recording session, with excuses ranging from his bodyguard getting into a scrape at the American Music Awards earlier that evening, to rumors he just flat out hated the song. Why Prince missed Live Aid is not clear but it's also not very surprising as he was always aloof and mercurial. 

Michael Jackson - One of the creative forces behind We Are the World, MJ would miss Live Aid with his publicist giving the excuse that Jackson was "immersed in heavy projects." (Tina Turner would go on to replace him in a planned duet of "State of Shock" with Jagger.)

Cyndi Lauper - Lauper almost took some bad advice and turned down her "We Are the World" invite. In the end, she was talked into by Lionel Richie. Apparently no such persuasion took place for Live Aid, and it's likely Lauper was asked to participate but passed.

Billy Joel - Geldof had a number of counter-intuitive and downright strange ideas for the Live Aid shows. He almost didn't ask Queen, foolishly figuring that their time had come and gone. As for Billy Joel, even with a storied career that at the time already included 11 studio albums, 10 Grammy noms and 5 wins, for Live Aid Geldof purportedly only wanted him to play piano. Joel and his management rightly felt this was a silly waste of his talents and no deal was ever made.

Eurythmics - The popular British duo was set to play but had to bow out of the show when Annie Lennox developed a throat infection.

Yes and Foreigner -- Both bands reportedly wanted in on Live Aid but by the time they asked to participate, the shows were booked solid and the organizers had to start turn them away. It's worth noting that as it grew in size and scope, Live Aid, despite being a charitable endeavor, lost its "come one, come all" vibe. After a slow start, momentum began to build and several artists who had been asked to play changed their answer from "maybe" to "yes". Additionally, more and more artists who hadn't been personally approached were now making calls asking to join. Some of this was fueled by genuine desire to do their part for such a good cause; some no doubt by record companies and artists' reps worried that their clients not being part of the show would diminish their perceived importance in the music world.

One who didn't have to plead for a spot was Bruce Springsteen. Geldof and company wanted him bad, but the latest leg of the Born in the USA tour had recently ended and the E Street Band was enjoying its first break in over 5 months. Springsteen felt it wasn't fair to reorganize everyone on such short notice so he politely declined.

In addition to Prince and Michael Jackson, it's also worth mentioning the multitude of other acclaimed black artists that for one reason or another were not at Live Aid. This list includes Earth Wind and Fire,  George Benson, Grandmaster Flash, James Brown, Chuck Berry, DeBarge, Rick James, Kool and the Gang and Donna Summer, as well as "We Are the World" veterans Ray Charles, The Pointer Sisters, Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross, Al Jarreau, Jeffrey Osborne, Sheila E., James Ingram and Stevie Wonder. Chaka Kahn was also notably absent and in the weeks leading up to the event, publicly questioned the lineup's lack of diversity. Geldof fired back, implying that among the black artists he had asked to play the show, there seemed to be a lack of enthusiam and a general "I already gave at the office" attitude. In the end, the show's organizers did feel the need to include more black artists and Run-DMC (who curiously had initially been turned down), Ashford & Simpson, Patti Labelle, and Teddy Pendergrass secured spots.

The Broadcast

In America, coverage of Live Aid was split between MTV and ABC. MTV would begin its broadcast at 7:00 AM (ET) with the Wembley performances; ABC coverage would kick in late in the day and continue through prime time. At least one major New York radio station would simulcast the entire event, which pleased me no end, as in the days leading up to Live Aid, my plans to attend the Philadelphia concert were threatened.

And no, attending Live Aid in person wasn't some pipe dream for me. Philadelphia was just a short two hour ride down the turnpike from my home in north Jersey. What's more, I had tons of family living in Philly and had visited and stayed in the city (sometimes for weeks at a stretch) more times than I could count. Point being, I was familiar enough with the city that it wasn't an intimidating idea to plan on waking up early and making my way to JFK. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to secure tickets, not because they were too expensive (the $35 - $50 cost for a lineup of this magnitude was super cheap even for 1985) but because the process and logistics of buying concert tickets in the mid-80's were perhaps even more frustrating than the fiasco it often is today. First, just knowing when and where tickets were going on sale was a challenge. With no internet/social media, you relied largely on local radio to clue you in, which meant you needed to constantly be tuned in to your favorite station. Then, if you did hear that a record store or other venue would be selling tickets, there was often the rather time consuming and chaotic process of lining up (sometimes days in advance) just to receive a bracelet that would only make you eligible to buy tickets once they went on sale. When that day came, you had to return to the venue, line up all over again and hope tickets didn't sell out before it was your turn. The whole thing was as frustrating and unpalatable as it sounds, and somewhere along the way I missed a step. Live Aid quickly sold out and I was left ticketless.

But not to worry; I had a backup plan. Drive to the Philly show, purchase tickets from a scalper and witness music history.

It didn't quite work out that way. As I anxiously counted down the days to the concert, I waffled and wondered, "What if I drive all the way to JFK and can't find a scalper?" I had never scalped before and didn't know any tips or tricks to purchase tickets this way. Plus, I figured everyone was viewing this show the same way I saw it -- as a once in a lifetime event. In that case, anyone with tickets to sell was going to have a quick and easy job. What if I got to the venue too late and even the scalpers were sold out? Plus the drive from New Jersey to Pennsylvania was going to take at least two and half hours. With the drive back, this meant missing six or seven hours of the concert if I failed to score tickets. The idea of that made me nervous. Add that to the fact that attending the Philadelphia show, as great as that would be, would be at the cost of missing the entirety of the London acts. I pondered my decision and debated making the trip all the way to the night before the show, when by chance, I happened to be out with friends til around 3:00 AM... That settled it. I decided to forego my plan to see Live Aid in person, made it home, set my alarm clock for seven o'clock and hit the sack.

The Live Aid Tapes

Waking up early the next morning for the start of the London show (after barely three hours of sleep) I switched on the small 13-inch black and white TV in my room. I knew from the announced schedule that the first several acts included no one I was particularly excited to see. Status Quo, Style Council, Ultravox, and Geldof's band Boomtown Rats. I dozed for the next couple of hours and finally fully woke up in preparation to see one of my favorite artists at the time, Sting. I tuned in the simulcast, loaded the first of the brand new Maxell cassette tapes I'd purchased especially for this purpose, and started recording. It would be the first of over four hours of live performances I would capture and keep to this day. For literally decades, stereo recordings like this made by me and others would be the only way to relive Live Aid and enjoy these performances again. It would take nearly 20 years (2005 to be exact) before a DVD set of the event would be released. Rather curiously to this day, it seems there's still no CD or other digital audio format release. In light of that, I often weigh my decision not to make more of an effort to attend the concert in person. Seeing the Philadelphia show would have meant sacrificing seeing the London show (until 2005) as well as never having an audio recording to play back. As memorable as actually being there may have been, it would have been a tremendous loss to go through the remainder of my youth (and into my 30's) before getting to enjoy any version of the Live Aid performances again.

London

And so the acts rolled through and scores of memorable moments began. 

Sting performed a subdued, acoustic set of Police hits and introduced saxophonist Branford Marsalis, part of his new heavily jazz-influenced band that played on Sting's just released The Dream of the Blue Turtles album.

Phil Collins joined Sting halfway through his set and was equally subdued in his renditions of "Against All Odds", "In the Air Tonight" and "Long Long Way to Go".

Sade stood out with a sultry performance highlighted by "Your Love is King". Though by all accounts she hit the stage before Sting and Phil Collins, MTV's coverage made it appear that her appearance was much later. This was perhaps explained by something I'd learn weeks later:  as part of its deal, ABC had purchased the right to block live coverage of several acts — including David Bowie, Elton John and others — until later in the day. This meant that in some instances, artists performances on television were not taking place in treal time.

As morning gave way to afternoon, the London show hit its stride with back-to-back performances by Paul Young (at the time riding high on the charts with "Every Time You Go Away"), Alison Moyet, U2, Dire Straits (their soon to be #1 hit "Money for Nothing" had been released just two weeks earlier) and (drumroll please...) Queen.

Queen

So how great was Queen?...  Why are they getting a section of this article all to themselves?... Well, as  Queen's participation may have difficult to secure, but once they hit the stage, it was apparent from the start that the band's perfomace was absolutely iconic. Forty years removed, everyone from music historians to casual music fans agree on this. 

The best way to describe Queen at Live Aid?... It was like Michael Jordan in his prime. Anyone (even someone who knew nothing about basketball) could watch Jordan for a few minutes on the court and be able to point at him and say with confidence, "Yeah, that guy's the best one out there." That was Queen performing at Wembley that day. Even in a setting where they were measured against the best the music world had to offer, their performance stood above all others. Their set included some of their more recent cuts ("Radio Ga Ga" and "Hammer To Fall") along with signature songs "Bohemian Rhapsody", "We Will Rock You" and "We Are The Champions". Queen is absolutely revered in England (maybe even moreso than the Beatles) and the fans at Wembley proved this yet again. Their energy during the band's performance reverberated over the airwaves, across the Atlantic, and through television screens like mine all over the U.S. If you haven't seen this performance, stop reading and watch it below.

Philadelphia and the Back and Forth Coverage

By the time Queen finished their epic performance, the Philadelphia show was already well underway. Joan Baez had kicked things off by rather ridiculously proclaiming to the crowd, "This is your Woodstock!" Sorry Joan, Woodstock was a seminal event in music and concert history, but Live Aid played out on a world (not just an American) stage, reached a far greater audience of 1.5 billion, had a much more important cause fueling it, and greater participation (i.e., more acts). You measure Woodstock by who was there; you think about Live Aid and ask, "Who wasn't there?" No offense Joan, but compared to Live Aid, Woodstock was just a backyard hootenanny.

As I went about swapping in fresh cassette tapes into my stereo, I knew I was recording something historic. Something to be kept and treasured for all time. One of the first Philadelphia acts I captured were the Beach Boys, who finished their fun set with "Surfin' USA". With the Philly show going and now two concerts to cover (plus the aforementioned ABC deal that blocked coverage of some acts until later in the day) MTV's hand was forced and the network began taking libertties with regard to performances on two continents overlapping and how to cover them. This resulted in times when only part of an artist's set was broadcast before the network would cut to someone (or something) else -- a fact I discovered with the 2005 DVD release. I along with millions of viewers around the world never knew that we missed songs by Sade, U2, and others. Even more disappointingly, some artists' performances (like Run-DMC, George Thorogood and REO Speedwagon) received little or no coverage at all. 

But back to the show... Shortly after the Beach Boys, I was able to catch the entireity of David Bowie (back at Wembley), The Pretenders (who, after Queen, might have given my favorite performance of the day) and Elton John. The latter was quite memorable for his reunion with Kiki Dee on "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" and his team up with George Michael on "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me". This was one of, if not the, first time the two had performed the popular power ballad in public. Michael's soaring vocals took the song to a different level, and six years later a studio version would be released that hit #1 on charts across the world.

And this brings us to back to U.S. for Madonna.

Oh yes, Madonna... I have some interesting backstory and distinct memories to share regarding her appearance at Live Aid... but I'll save that for Part II.

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Proof That Even Really Bad Comedies Usually Have At Least One Good Laugh: Ishtar Edition

Translation scene.

Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman may have been huge stars but they flounder trying to execute this type of comedy and also seem miscast in their roles. Writer Elaine May's script is often painfully old fashioned, like one of the old Bob Hope/Bing Crosby "On the  Road..." movies minus the subtle charm and wit. And as far as the supporting cast goes, Carol Kane's talents are wasted, Jack Weston feels like a fossil and Isabelle Adjani (Beatty's girlfriend at the time) has zero comedic talent.

Those are some of the nicest excuses I can make for Ishtar, a notorious flop of a movie whose production problems, cost overruns and bad press rival Heaven's Gate and Waterworld.

But to drill down a bit more, another reason Ishtar is so achingly unfunny is due to the performances of the film's co-leads. Beatty has done plenty of comedies but if you examine them (Heaven Can Wait, Bulworth, Shampoo) you'll find the scripts of these films require him to mostly just stumble through looking confused and play off the comedy happening around him. Hoffman also has an iffy track record in the comedy genre, his biggest hit being Tootsie where most of the laughs are found in the performances of Bill Murray and Teri Garr.

Ishtar's story plays like a lesser version of Spies Like Us. Hoffman and Beatty are Chuck and Lyle, a pair of aspiring singer/songwriters who get unwittingly mixed up in North African espionage and a CIA coup attempt. The plot is sometimes confusing; the locations and set pieces are uninspired, and our two bumbling protagonists aren't particularly amusing or sympathetic. (Beatty in particular appears stiff and thoroughly inept at comedy.) As a result, this film just trudges into its third act where we finally come to its one funny scene.

Chuck and Lyle, hiding out in the desert, stumble into a gunrunning deal, so Chuck poses as a local. The gunrunners are suspicious and threaten his life unless he's able to speak to a group of berbers and translate for them. So with a gun in his back, Chuck panics and begins spitting out a ridiculous mix of Spanish, Yiddish, nursery rhymes and just plain old gibberish. Aside from a scene featuring a blind camel repeatedly crashing through a marketplace this is pretty much Ishtar's high water mark. "A hatz foy-a!"... "Kareem Abdul! Kareem Abdul!" 

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John Hughes Already Explained Everything You Need to Know About Trump's Tariff Plan

In a frighteningly uncanny case of life imitating art, this well-known scene from John Hughes classic Ferris Bueller's Day Off features an economics teacher (real-life economics commentator Ben Stein) monotonously explaining the Hawley-Smoot Tariff of 1930 to his class.

Though it's now more famous for the lines "Bueller?... Bueller?..." and "Anyone?... Anyone?...", the dialogue in this scene does a pretty tidy job of explaining the tariff, which raised taxes on imports to the United States. The goal was to protect American farmers and businesses by making foreign goods more expensive. This would, in theory, encourage Americans to buy domestically made products and help pull the country out of the Great Depression.

Sound familiar?... This is one hundred percent what the Trump administration is attemptingright now (albeit in a much more clumsy, illogical and random way.) After details of Trump's tariff plan were announced this week, the global economy was disrupted, U.S. markets sank and 401(k) and other investors experienced substantial losses, including significant decreases across portfolios, retirement funds, etc.

As Stein explains in painfully boring fashion, the Hawley-Smoot Tariff did not work. Foreign nations didn’t like it because it made their goods more expensive for American consumers and those nations responded by raising their own tariffs on American goods. This created a trade war and the result was international trade decreased, hurting businesses in both the U.S. and abroad. Instead of helping the economy, the tariffs exacerbated the Great Depression by reducing trade and making it harder for businesses to sell products overseas.

All of this is either explained in (or serves as the backstory for) Stein's dialogue in this scene, so as a student of history, I'll pick up the story from here.

The decline in international trade plunged some foreign nations, including Germany, into economic hardship because they could no longer easily sell their products to the U.S. In Germany, this in turn led to massive unemployment, poverty, and widespread discontent with the German government. Many Germans felt betrayed by their government and turned to extremist political movements, including the Nazi Party, led by Adolf Hitler. Hitler promised to restore Germany’s economy, bring back national pride, and provide jobs for the unemployed and by 1932 (just two years after Hawley-Smoot) the Nazis were the largest political party in the country. In January of the following year, with no other leader able to command sufficient support to govern, President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor of Germany. 

Once in power, Hitler began dismantling his country's democratic institutions and weaponizing the government against all who opposed him. The Enabling Act of 1933, for example, gave him the power to make laws without the approval of the German parliament and he subsequently began manipulating the law to suit his agenda while ignoring any judicial orders that were in opposition to his policies... I'll ask again -- any of this sound familiar?

So when you follow the trail, it's not a stretch to say that tariffs had quite a lot to do with the rise of one of the most diabolical dictators in world history -- one who would go on to persecute foreign nationals and political opponents, threaten to (and successfully) seize strategic territories belonging to other nations, and ultimately ignite the greatest global conflict in world history.

Just something to think about.

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5 Films Hollywood Needs to Get to Work On

Back in 1990, my friend Steve and I were riding down the New Jersey Turnpike in a rented truck, delivering furniture to his parents' new home in Pennsylvania. The experience was memorable for two reasons. First, an 18-wheeler traveling right next to us blew a tire and scared the crap out of us. And second, we spent a good portion of the two hour drive reminiscing about one of our favorite childhood animated series, Speed Racer. Steve and I then proceeded to discuss how the show was a cult favorite, how the protagonist and premise (a young race car driver with a unique, high tech automobile) were ideal for the big screen, and the chances of us ever seeing a live-action Speed Racer movie. We then shared ideas about casting, including Johnny Depp as Speed (remember, this was 1990), Depp's former real-life girlfriend Winona Ryder as Trixie, Alec Baldwin as Racer X,  Fred Savage (The Wonder Years) as Spritle, Wilford Brimley as Pops and Michael Jackson's pet chimpanzee "Bubbles" as Chim-Chim.

Keep in mind, this was more than a decade before an ACTUAL Speed Racer movie would even take its first steps into production. Which is why, as ridiculous as we know it is, Steve and I still consider the Speed Racer movie OUR baby. So when the the Wachowskis gave us that hot mess of a picture back in May of 2008, we were both sorely disappointed and extremely bitter. A movie that we had wished and waited so long for, had been ruined. 

So there's nothing left for me to do now but move on and as I do, consider the other fantastic properties we need to see made. It's baffling to me how the Hollywood studios can't seem to get out of their own way and ink the deals needed to get these films into production. If they ever do, each of the following is a potential blockbuster that could earn huge dollars at the box office.

The Six Million Dollar Man

  

The premise of the 1970's series starring Lee Majors sees a test pilot/astronaut critically injured in a crash, fitted with bionic implants and turned into a government operative. I'm thinking Ryan Gosling -- who coincidentally recently starred in the movie adaptation of another Lee Majors series (The Fall Guy) -- for the role of Colonel Steve Austin.

Status Update: Several years ago, there were rumors of a Six Billion Dollar Man (Inflation's a bitch -- ain't it?!) being developed by the Weinstein Company, directed by Bryan (X-Men) Singer and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. More recently, there have been ongoing efforts to create a movie version with Mark Wahlberg attached to star. That project has been in development for almost a dozen years. Despite various delays and changes in filmmakers, Wahlberg remains committed to the project, stating that he's "still grinding every day to get it made."

The Warriors remake

The 1979 original was a low-cost surprising moneymaker for Paramount. Though the idea of New York City gangs dressed as mimes, wearing Yankee uniforms and Kiss-like makeup, and sporting silk purple vests and fedoras is light years beyond hokey, subsequent to its initial theatrical release, the film garnered huge cult status via cable and home video. In 2005, we even got a Warriors video game. As we near its 50th anniversary, a proper, more modern big-budget remake would be spectacular in the hands of a master of gritty violence like Breaking Bad writer/producer/director Vince Gilligan.

Status Update: Plans for a remake go at least as far back as 2005, when the Scott brothers (Ridley and Tony) were reportedly set to produce and direct. In 2016, the Russo brothers (The Avengers) were reportedly developing a TV adaption for Hulu but that project seems to no longer be on the radar.

The Donner Party

The Donner Party was a group of American pioneers in the 1840's who set out to California from Missouri. Through an incredible series of circumstances and misfortunes, the group was trapped by snow and forced to winter in Sierra Nevada, where members of the party succumbed to starvation, exposure, disease, and trauma before resorting to cannibalism. It's an absolutely riveting story and although the disaster movie genre that gave us classics like The Poseidon Adventure, Towering Inferno and Airport, has largely died out, here's a perfect opportunity to bring it back. I'm thinking an all-star cast featuring Kit Harrington, Emma Stone, Tom Holland and Tobey Maguire in key roles.

Status Update: In 1978, there was a TV movie titled Donner Pass that recounted the story and in 2009, Crispin Glover starred in The Donner Party, a straight-to-DVD thriller in the vein of Alive, that takes certain liberties in retelling the actual events. Then in 2011, a feature film also titled Donner Pass was released. Billed as "a twisted take on the legend of the Donner Party", it was a historically inaccurate and pedestrian slasher pic about teens stranded in one of the Donner Party's old cabins who (rather predictably) get mysteriously killed and eaten one by one. There have also been multiple documentaries and made for TV movies about the Donner Party, such as Dead of Winter: The Donner Party (2015). 

The last real attempt to tell this story onscreen seems to be an adaptation of the novel The Hunger which purportedly incorporated the story of the Donner Party with a "Walking Dead-style twist." That project was being developed by 20th Century Fox, with Luke Scott (son of Ridley) set to write and direct -- but that was nine years ago and since then, nothing.

Logan's Run 

The 1976 thriller Logan's Run is set in a future dystopian society where people live a care-free, hedonistic lifestyle... until they're ceremoniously death-rayed at the age of thirty in order to control the population. As science fiction, the film has a cheesy, 1950's-type perspective of life in the future. But at the same time, it offers sobering Orwellian perspectives on totalitarian rule, how much humans should entrust to technology, and the dangers that come with blindly accepting the status quo.

Status Update: A proposed Logan's Run remake has bounced around Hollywood for years with various above the line talent attached, including screenwriter Will Beall (Justice League) and directors Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) and Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick). Ryan Gosling was once rumored to star but he's far past 30 now. I'm thinking Timothy Chalamet, with directorial duties handled by Christopher Nolan, if you want to go big screen, but I can also picture Logan's Run as a multi-year Max or Netflix series that takes its time revealing the backstory of how exactly our culture and society went so far off the rails.

The Go-Go's 

The fact that a Runaways biopic was produced and released and we're still waiting for a Go-Go's movie is bizarre. Yes, when it comes to girl bands, the Runaways were trailblazing female rockers but the Go-Go's sold more records, were the first to have a number one album, had more hit singles, are members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, are still performing together forty-seven years after they formed, and quite simply, are more iconic.

I had the idea for a Go-Go's film no later than 2001, and even started work on an extended treatment. For casting, I suggested the following (at the time) young, up and coming actresses: Christina Ricci as Jane Weidlin, Eliza Dusku as Kathy Valentine, Leelee Sobieski as Charlotte Caffey, Tara Reid as Gina Schock, and Charlize Theron or Kate Hudson as Belinda Carlisle.

Status Update: Over the years, the band has kicked around the idea of commissioning a script, but it's never happened largely because members of the band are hesitant about relinquishing rights, giving up creative control and airing their dirty laundry. Additionally, on multiple occasions, disagreements over compensation and royalties owed have created issues within the group. None of this seems to matter anymore though, as the poor performance of The Runaways all but killed any chance of a Go-Go's film ever seeing the light of day. Still, it's fun to imagine Lily-Rose Depp as Carlisle and Jenna Ortega as co-founding member Weidlin.

Belinda Carlisle and Lily-Rose Depp

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Shout Out to: Sidney ("Woim") Kibrick

Former child actor Sidney Kibrick is one of the last living cast member of the Our Gang (aka, "The Little Rascals") comedy short film series. He is among a handful of surviving cast who appeared in the classic Hal Roach productions and is certainly the only one who had significant screen time or would otherwise be remembered. 

The freckle-faced Kibrick primarily played the character of "Woim" (perhaps a Brooklyn pronunciation of "Worm"), sidekick to bully "Butch," played by Tommy Bond. After threatening or clashing with the main Our Gang characters (usually Spanky and Alfafa) Butch would make his exit and deliver the catchphrase, "Come on Woim!" The Butch-Woim duo were recurring antagonists in the series and in total, Kibrick appeared in approximately 27 Our Gang shorts between 1933 and 1939. Kibrick later stepped away from acting and pursued a career in real estate and today he is 96 years old. Notably, just three years ago, he attended an exhibit at the Hollywood Museum honoring the 100th anniversary of the Our Gang series.

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Comeonahyeehaaaa!... It's Official: Saving Silverman Just Reached Cult Status!

Defining Films of the 70's

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The 80's Will Never Die #6 (Hellman's Mayonaisse/When Harry Met Sally)

Super Bowl commercials always lean heavily into pop culture and this year's crop was no exception. Check out this parody of the iconic deli scene from 1989's When Harry Met Sally featuring the reuniting of Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan.

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Flashdance: The Surprise 80's Hit...That Would Never Get Made Today

April of 1983 saw the release of Flashdance, a film that became a sleeper hit and finished as the third highest grossing movie of the year. Artistically, Flashdance's visual style, combined with its music video-style editing and presentation of key scenes, established a paradigm used throughout the decade in hits like Footloose, Breakin', Beverly Hills Cop, Rocky IV and Dirty Dancing. Yet despite Flashdance's unquestioned appeal, success and influence, it's safe to say that this is a movie that would never in a million years get made today. 

To begin with, the star of the film, Jennifer Beals, was a student at Yale and a complete unknown at the time. Co-star Michael Nouri had only a thin resume with mostly soap opera credits. With no big names in supporting roles or cameos, Flashdance, essentially had zero star power -- something that would be a big strike against getting any film project off the ground in modern Hollywood. Additionally, today's film industry execs would likely judge Flashdance's potential at the global box as being quite limited. This is because the film offers a story that appeals mainly to American sensibilities. For example, Flashdance is set in what is one of our nation's most distinctive metropolises -- the blue collar, steel city of Pittsburgh. Plus, if there's one thing blue collar Americans love, it's an underdog story. That beloved "I've probably got no shot and no one believes in me but I'll just work harder than everyone else and show them all" theme. Rocky III, which was a massive hit just a year earlier is a great example. That film, maybe not so coincidentally, was also set in a uniquely American Pennsylvania city,  Philadelphia. Flashdance's Alex offers that same Rocky-esque type protagonist who bucks the odds, rises from anonymity and finally realizes their dream. 

Also contributing to Flashdance's Americentric feel is its music. Flashdance's dance scenes are some of the most iconic in cinema history. The music featured in those scenes (tracks like "Maniac" and "What a Feeling") epitomized the very contemporary and rapidly growing American synth-pop genre of the early 1980's. The Flashdance soundtrack, incidentally, would spend six weeks at #1 in the U.S. and earn a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year. "Maniac" and "What a Feeling" both went to #1 and both were nominated for Record of the Year.

On top of this, the scope and story of Flashdance, though appealing, are both very small. Sure there could have been a sequel exploring what happens after Alex joins the dance company, but the source material is certainly not expansive enough for today's Hollywood execs to view it as something that could birth a franchise or a streaming series -- something that's practically required to get a film greenlit these days. Studios simply do not make small budget movies like Flashdance anymore, instead opting for stories with far larger scope. "Can it be a trilogy?... Or better yet a Netflix series?... Or better yet, a franchise that will let us crank out multiple movies AND provide source material for a streaming series?" These are questions that need to be answered in the affirmative before a major studio shows interest nowadays. Indeed, if you examine the smaller budgeted movie that do manage to get made today, you'll find they are typically pet projects championed by big stars or other power players in the industry. In these cases, such films are usually only backed in order to appease said big star and/or fulfill a multi-picture contract with them.

Despite Flashdance earning $90 million at the box office (a 13x return on investment), today's studios wouldn't be interested in that kind of a take. A $10 million movie that makes $100 million doesn't interest them. They're looking to make a $100 million film, pour another $100 million into marketing, and then gross a billion worldwide. (That's right, I'm looking at you Barbie!) Flashdance was in fact a studio pic, but 40 years later, small budget films that make it to the big screen are almost always independently produced and financed. Sure, an indy that happens to catch fire at a SXSW, Toronto or other prestigious film festival can still gain a studio distrubution deal, but small projects are much more often viewed today as having no pathway to the kind of paydays studios require. Thus, they have little or no chance of gaining production deals.

Despite Flashdance's stellar office performance, Beals chose to return to college and couldn't be persuaded to star in a follow-up. A stage musical based on the film debuted in the UK in 2008 but to this day as a film property Flashdance remains a one-off. Even so, I wouldn't put it past the "geniuses" who run Hollywood today to come up with the brilliant idea to produce a sequel -- one that effectively misses its window by decades. (That's right, I'm looking at you Gladiator II!) A better course, however, would be to forget about sequels or remakes and simply appreciate those more, open-minded days long ago when artists and executives had more vision and a small project like Flashdance could gain the development and backing it needed to be successfully realized on the big screen. 

The 80's Will Never Die #5 (Roxette/Repatha)

 

The music in this commercial for Repatha, a drug used to treat high cholestrol, is a cover of the 1988 power ballad "Listen to Your Heart" by the Swedish rock duo Roxette. The song reached #1 on the U.S. pop chart in 1989.

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Michigan Just Got Reminded How Hard it is to Win Football Games WIthout Cheating

 

I guess it's not so easy when you don't have spies on the other team's sideline.  @CoachJim4UM @UMichFootball

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Steph Curry and the Ugliness of a Long Distance Shooter

...Turning to news from the Olympic games, in heroic fashion, Stephen Curry hit five 3-pointers in the final eight minutes of play to secure a win in the gold medal basketball game against France. 

Curry, as he often does during his NBA play, then proceeded to skip down the court, pop his jersey and scream at the crowd, all while posing, taunting, and otherwise embodying the stereotype of the "ugly American."

If that wasn’t enough, Steph also treated everyone to his signature (and rather corny) two-hands-on-the-side-of-his-face "Nite-Nite" gesture which was backed up post-game when he donned a t-shirt reading "Nuit Nuit" ("Nite-Nite" in French) and celebrated with cigars and champagne.

All of this underscores the sad truth about Steph Curry:  the fact that since he entered the NBA in 2009, he's gone from being the elite-shooting skinny underdog that everyone was rooting for, to an obnoxious, unsportsmanlike, cocky little showboat who enjoys embarrassing his opponents... 

#whatajerk

Why St. Elmo's Fire Still Matters

In discussing Andrew McCarthy's new documentary about the Brat Pack with a good friend, he began rather aggressively maligning the movie Saint Elmo’s Fire. Over a span of ten minutes, he ranted about how boring the plot was, how Mare Winningham was miscast, (rather randomly) why McCarthy's character in the film is such a "turd", and just how bad a movie St. Elmo's was to begin with when it was first released thirty-nine years ago.

Okay, I admit it; St. Elmo's Fire is not a great film. It wasn’t back in 1985 and it’s not today. But that’s not really the point. Few claim that Saint Elmo's is a masterpiece of filmmaking. In truth, it's not even above average or, by many measures, even particularly entertaining, But it’s by no means a "bad" film either. On the surface, St. Elmo's is a very average drama with no real highs or lows, featuring competent but not exceptional acting and a thin story that falls well short of captivating. 

However, what St. Elmo's Fire offers is a take on some very common themes -- friendship, coming of age, secret crushes, finding your place in this world, etc. Certainly all of these themes had been explored on film previously, so St. Elmo's broke no new ground in that way. But what the film undeniably does is offer perspectives through the unique lens of the 1980's -- ultimately presenting keen new examinations of 80's youth by reflecting their psychology, pressures, problems, and world view.

Because Saint Elmo’s Fire applies a unique, extraordinarily contemporary (at the time) 80's filter, it stands out as one of the most emblematic movies of that decade. Think about it -- when you consider the most representative movies of the 1980's, you don’t think of Oscar winners like Platoon, Terms of Endearment, Amadeus or Rain Man. You think of ones that captured the zeitgeist of the time, whether that means films with Cold War overtones (Rocky IV, Top Gun, No Way Out, Rambo), 80's excess (Less Than Zero, Wall Street), a frivolous, fun-loving vibe (Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Footloose, Police Academy), a distinct but somewhat undefinable 80's aesthetic (Flashdance, Lost Boys, Fatal Attraction, Risky Business) or a focus on youth culture (Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Valley Girl, The Breakfast Club -- and its sister movie released the same year, Saint Elmo's Fire.) 

Indeed, if you examine the characters and plot of St. Elmo's Fire, you clearly see the social conventions, attitudes, mores and struggles common among 80's youth:

• Billy Hixx (Rob Lowe) is a portrait of hedonism and apathy as he's dragged unwillingly into adulthood.
• Coke sniffing, party girl Jules (Demi Moore) -- with her hot pink, neon apartment decor featuring a floor to ceiling mural of Billy Idol -- is a study in 80's glam and overindulgence. 
• Alec Newberry (Judd Nelson) shamelessly pursues promotion in the political world and perfectly captures the Gordon Gekko-esque materialism and aspirations toward upward mobility of 80's yuppies.
• Kevin (Andrew McCarthy) is Alec's antithesis -- cynical, introspective and dismissive of conventional thinking.
• Kirbo (Emilio Estevez) is fancifully pursuing things he only thinks he wants (a law degree and Dale Biberman.)
• And finally, Leslie and Wendy (Ally Sheedy and Mare Winningham) both wonder how they became stuck in lives they never chose -- Leslie as a trophy girlfriend caught in boyfriend Alec's wake and fearing she'll never carve out her own identity, and conflicted Wendy yearning to choose her own path and break away from the life her parents want for her.

In its exploration of all of this, St. Elmo's Fire demonstrates the aforementioned unique 80's aesthetic, and in this way, St. Elmo's Fire is a movie that speaks for its generation.

And that’s why it’s important -- not because it’s a great movie, but because it’s a snapshot of 80's young adulthood. So for me and so many other Gen X-ers, St. Elmo's Fire is a film that still speaks to us today... because it spoke for us back then.

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Streaming Wars: Episode 6

 

In this latest episode of my ongoing audio blog on the Streaming Wars I examine:

• Dealing with churn
• A shift toward programmed content on streaming channels 
• Streamers' plans to push into sports, gaming and betting
• The upfronts: WBD shines, NBCUniversal underwhelms
• Netflix's rationale for no longer reporting subscriber numbers

Listen to this episode on YouTube.

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Return of the Streaming Wars! (Episode 4)

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1984's Breakin' Brought Urban & Inner City Art Forms to the Big Screen

I have a tremendous memory when it comes to things pop culture related (hence the name of this blog.) So even though it was 40 years ago (to the day in fact) I still remember what was playing at Loews Wayne Sixplex (the flagship theater located near the Willowbrook Mall in the suburbs of Wayne, NJ) on the first Friday in May of 1984. Firestarter and the Mel Gibson/Anthony Hopkins version of The Bounty alternated showings in one of the big houses; Weekend Pass and My Tutor (the latter on a re-release); Footloose; Moscow on the Hudson; and opening in the other big house was a curious new movie with an unknown cast of black and Latino rappers and street dancers called Breakin’. At the time, breakdancing, b-boys and hip-hop culture was a part of black, inner city culture exclusively. Walls, however, were about to come down and Breakin’ would be the battering ram.

The origin of breakdancing

In New York City throughout the 1970’s, DJ Kool Herc, one of the architects of hip-hop, developed deejay techniques that would serve as the paradigm for many of the most important records of the first generation of that musical genre. One of Herc’s techniques involved isolating the most percussive and/or infectious part of the record, also known as the "break". Armed with two turntables and two copies of the record, Herc would let the break beat play on one turntable then “crossfade” to the second turntable where he had the same break beat already cued up. He then repeated this technique over and over, effectively extending these funky drum solos and bass grooves for as long as he wanted. Hearing the prolonged breaks inspired dancers to show off their moves and this ritual was soon dubbed “break dancing.” Herc’s innovation would go on to inspire the early recording technique of “sampling”, which began when artists and producers -- in efforts to simulate Herc’s innovation -- would copy and loop portions of a record to serve as the foundational bed of a new recording.  

A pop culture phenomenon

Just about ten years after Herc pretty much invented breakdancing, it and other forms of urban artistic expression finally began entering the American pop culture zeitgeist more broadly. To this point, breakdancing was largely underground and undocumented, gaining perhaps its greatest national attention via the cult film Wild Style and the Los Angeles based dance group The Lockers, who had showcased their talents on shows like Soul Train and Saturday Night Live. Three of the group’s founding members were Fred Berry who, as “Rerun” on the ABC show What’s Happening, would sometimes show off his “pop-locks” and other street dancing moves; choreographer/singer Toni Basil, later known for her hit single “Mickey”, and future star of Breakin’ Shabba-Doo Quinones. But Wild Style and The Lockers were not widely known. What breakdancing needed was a main stream showcase. 

It would take pretty much the first third of the 1980’s but interest in breakdancing and other urban artistry would continue growing. Jean Michel-Basquiat was by this time well known in Manhattan art circles for his raw, graffiti-style paintings; breakdancing was featured in the hit 1983 hit Flashdance and in music videos by Chaka Khan, Billy Joel and others. Run-DMC’s first album, released in March of 1984 would become the first gold-selling rap album and the group would join forces with Whodini, the Fat Boys and others in what would be rap's first successful live concert tour. The small cultural circles in which these novel types of creative expression were found would soon widen.

Breakin’s legacy

Breakin’ earned almost $40 million on a budget of just $1.2 million. The film’s profitability caused studios and film producers to view the breakdancing “fad” (as it was judged in many of their eyes) as a something worth investing in. A sequel was rushed into production and, in almost unprecedented fashion, that follow-up would arrive less than six months later. More significantly, Breakin' helped expose white America to new art forms – ones that, like jazz and blues, had their origins and for a long time were only appreciated in minority communities. Breakdancing, pop-locking, graffiti art, MC-ing, deejaying and rap music would finally open bourgeois eyes – along with movie producers’ wallets.

Breakin’ was followed by several similar releases including Beat Street, Krush Groove, Body Rock and Rappin’. Two years after Breakin’, 1986, was another breakthrough year for rap music, as the Beastie Boys debut License to Ill and Run-DMC’s take on Aerosmith’s "Walk This Way" officially legitimized rap for white kids. Soon after, Hollywood began “discovering” talented black writers and directors like Spike Lee and John Singleton and allowing them to tell stories that shined spotlights on black life and the urban experience. This resulted in a type of Afro-centric New Wave – a revival in Hollywood’s interest in films featuring black protagonists and perspectives not seen since the heyday of “blaxploitation” in the 1970’s. This wave reached a high water mark in the early nineties. Boyz n the Hood, Menace II Society, Juice and New Jack City told harrowing tales of gang life and communities besieged by drugs and violence. Above the Rim, Hollywood Shuffle, Poetic Justice and Jason’s Lyric explored themes of love, art, betrayal and emotional abuse through the eyes of filmmakers painting portraits of the minority experience. 

All of the aforementioned films are better scripted, produced and acted than Breakin’ and all are of higher quality overall. But many of these movies would not have been so easily green lit had the appetites of studio execs not been whetted by the box office receipts of Breakin’, which demonstrated once and for all that the urban experience, creative sensibility and culture had a place in contemporary film. 

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A Quick Word on the Ridiculousness of May the 4th Being Star Wars Day

Star Wars was released in 1977 on May 25th -- that's the day everyone should recognize and celebrate. Switching from the film's true anniversary date to May the 4th just because it rhymes with "May the force..." may create a cute pun but its painfully contrived, completely misleading, and just plain dumb.

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R.I.P. College Football: How Corporate Interests, Greed and Defiance Killed the Game We Loved -- Part II

Below is Part II of an examination of the decades-long series of events, decisions, compromises and money-grabs that led to the end of college football as we know it. I strongly recommend reading Part I before continuing.

Obsession to Crown a Champion 

Certainly, the aim of practically every college athletic squad is a championship but for college football that quest required the glorious winning of your bowl game. With the new system, bowl games seemed like they would be getting in the way of the new aim -- chasing an undisputed title and gaining the biggest payday along the way. 

By 1990 there were nineteen bowl games and both schools and coaches considered it an honor to play in them. For players, your collegiate career simply wasn't complete unless you played in and won a bowl game. But as the nineties moved forward, with realignment taking place and big corporate dollars entering the game, the NCAA and college football's power brokers began to wonder if the bowl system had run its course. Football had long been the only college sport where the champion was not determined by some form of tournament or playoff. In addition, since 1968 (when the Associated Press began crowning a national champion) the two top-ranked teams had faced one other in a bowl game only six times. For a time, United Press International also crowned a champion -- sometimes a different one than the AP. In 1978, for example, USC and Alabama each won their bowl game and both finished with one loss. The result was a split national championship -- UPI selected USC and AP chose Alabama (despite the head-scratching fact that Alabama's lone loss was to USC.) Further complicating matters was that many conferences had contractual agreements with bowl committees that bound the conference champion to play in a specific bowl, regardless of any other circumstance. Thus, it was common for the two top-ranked teams at the end of the regular season to never have the opportunity to meet and decide a unanimous national champion. This obviously created lively debate in years where there was no consensus single best team in the land. The situation went on for decades until the early nineties when, after two straight years of controversy (1990 and 1991) the call for a #1 vs. #2 national championship game could, in the eyes of some, no longer be ignored.

College football began experimenting, first with a "Bowl Coalition" and then the "Bowl Alliance", whose rules and structure mandated a meeting between #1 and #2 to be contested in one of the major bowls. The Bowl Championship Series combined polls with computer rankings to determine the two best teams so they could be pitted against one another; the NCAA secured big dollars from sponsors and broadcasters for these games; and all of the top football schools in the country had dollar signs in their eyes more than ever. Unfortunately, there were two major problems with BCS. First, the computer rankings were both convoluted and often called into question. Second, because the goal now was to have a definitive determination after the end of the season rankings, it meant that bowl games would have to defer and forgo years of tradition so that teams that previously had been playing for berths in specific major bowls would now be free to play in others. For example, if the PAC 12 champion was one of the top two teams, it wouldn't necessarily be playing the Big 10 champion in the Rose Bowl, as had always been the case. Similarly, the SEC winner was no longer bound to the Sugar Bowl. Other traditional tie-ins were also affected and the free for all that resulted became yet another indicator of how unmanageable college football was becoming. Certainly, the aim of practically every athletic squad is a championship but for college football that quest required the glorious winning of your bowl game. With the new system, bowl games seemed like they would be getting in the way of the new aim -- chasing an undisputed title and gaining the biggest payday along the way. 

A series of selection controversies ensued and itsoon became apparent that the BCS was fundamentally flawed. 

• In 2001, Oregon, ranked second in the AP poll, was bypassed for the championship game in favor of Nebraska -- despite Nebraska's 62-36 blowout loss to Colorado in its final regular season game. 

• In 2003, three BCS Automatic Qualifying (AQ) conference teams (LSU, Oklahoma and USC) finished the regular season with one loss. Three (Non-AQ) conference teams also finished with one loss (TCU, Boise State and Miami of Ohio) sparking the argument that the BCS was unfair to Non-AQ conference teams. LSU beat Oklahoma in the BCS Championship game and USC beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl and ended up No. 1 in the final AP poll, resulting in yet another split national championship.

•  In 2008, Utah was excluded from the BCS championship (despite being the only undefeated Division 1 team) and finished second in the final AP poll behind Florida. 

• In 2009, five schools finished the regular season undefeated: Alabama, Texas, Cincinnati, TCU, and Boise State. The BCS formula selected traditional powers Alabama and Texas as the top two teams, which again fueled cries of bias toward the traditional powers.

• In 2010, three teams -- Oregon, Auburn, and TCU -- all finished the year with undefeated records. While TCU statistically led the other two teams in all three major phases of the game (1st in defense, 14th in offense and 13th in special teams) Oregon and Auburn were selected for the national title game. 

Clearly the BCS was just as controversial and no better than the polls previously used to determine a champion. The call for some sort of playoff format grew increasingly louder. But a playoff wouldn't be easy to execute. Football wouldn't be able to mimic the NCAA basketball tournament where teams play every other day. Football players needed recovery time, so unless teams were willing to play into late January and February, anything other than a four team playoff would be unfeasible. So that's where things landed. Today we essentially have a four team football championship tournament with (presumably) the four highest ranked teams in the final regular season poll as the participants. 

I say "presumably" because the selection committee, as it did this past season, is free to choose whomever they deem to be the four best teams, regardless of their record, if they won their conference championship, or any other factors. So this entire system solves nothing. The four teams selected continue to be second guessed the same way they were when the national champion was subjectively named subsequent to the bowl games. We witnessed this just this past season when Florida State was left out of the top four despite being undefeated and winning its conference. This type of controversy led the NCAA to expand the playoff to 12 teams beginning with the 2024 season. But of course this won't solve anything either, as the teams that finish 13th, 14th, 15th, etc., will almost always have a case for why they should have been chosen over another program. The expansion also serves to further diminish the prestige and tradition of the bowl games, essentially making them simply the venues or "containers" for the series of playoff games. 

Moreover, with the bowl games so devalued, players have begun sitting out. Many of them no doubt question why they should play in something like the Duke's Mayo Bowl when it means risking injury and jeopardizing a fat pro contract. Not long ago, passing on your bowl game would have been unheard of but in the 2003, University of Miami running back Willis McGahee took a brutal hit in the Fiesta Bowl that destroyed his left knee. McGahee was a Heisman finalist and top pro prospect expected to go in the top five of the NFL draft -- but after the injury his stock fell and he wasn't selected until the 23rd pick. 

Jaylon Smith's story is similar. The former Notre Dame linebacker was projected as a top pick in the 2016 draft before tearing ligaments in his knee and sustaining nerve damage during the Fiesta Bowl. This led to a steep fall in Smith's draft stock -- one that cost him an estimated $10-$20 million. 

Smith's and McGahee's stories became cautionary tales for players. With bowl games now having no real significance unless they are part of the college football playoff, top players today often opt out of their bowl games and begin preparing for the draft. (Christian McCaffrey, Bradley Chubb, Anthony Richardson, Kenny Pickett, Breece Hall and this year's number one pick Caleb Williams are good examples,)

Defiance and Concessions

The tide of public sentiment, pushback, criticism from every direction, and now lawsuits have become too much for the NCAA to navigate and still operate as an effective governing body.

Over the last few decades, America has become increasingly (dare I say excessively) litigious. Didn't get into the college of your choice?.. File a lawsuit claiming discrimination... Don't like the state telling you to close your business during the pandemic?... Take it to court... Madonna concert started two hours late?... Sue her. 

It's emblematic of what our nation has become -- unwilling to do the hard things and unaccepting of circumstances and judgments that don't go in our favor. It's famously said the the U.S. is a nation of laws... but that only works when its citizenry recognizes and submits to some type of authority. This doesn't mean we should all swallow whatever the powers that be hand out. Certainly there are injustices we suffer and manifestations of idiocracy that are foisted upon us. It's right to challenge things like this. But the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction and we've lost our sense of being members of a society. Every single thing that goes against us is now falsely labeled as being an infringement on our civil rights.

The NCAA serves as a organization that regulates student athletics for over a thousand member schools and close to half a million student athletes. But the NCAA can only accomplish this when its constituents operate under -- and yes, submit -- to the NCAA's rulings. Somewhere along the way, it became the norm to not only criticize the NCAA but also question its authority to prescribe the guidelines and regulations to which its member schools must adhere. 

 

As a result, we've seen an abundance of federal (and even Supreme Court) cases targeting the NCAA -- challenges to rulings on player eligibility, appeals for reversal of sanctions levied for recruiting violations, and more. This past season was a great example. The University of Michigan, after preliminary investigation by the Big Ten conference, was deemed to have violated an NCAA rule that prohibits off-campus, in-person scouting of future opponents. Allegedly, this was part of an elaborate scheme to steal opponents' signs. As a penalty, Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh (who had run afoul of the NCAA more than once prior) was suspended for three games. What was Michigan's response? After penning a letter that first contested Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti's jurisdiction in punishing the program, the school issued a lengthy statement that condemned the conference (and the NCAA) for rushing to judgment before a full investigation could be completed. Significantly, no where along the line did Harbaugh or anyone else connected with the school expressly deny that cheating had taken place -- the video evidence of Wolverines off-field analyst Connor Stallions clearly visible on the sideline at a Central Michigan game was too damning for that. Yet that didn't stop Michigan heading further down the legal path and securing a temporary restraining order against Harbaugh's suspension.

Again, governing bodies -- in any sector of society but particularly sports leagues --- can only operate effectively when those governed willingly abide. This is how societies and other entities are able to function. We all agree to pull our cars to the side of the road to let an ambulance go by. We all stand in line and wait our turn at the post office. We all accept the determinations of our teachers as they dole out grades on our math tests. In each of these instances, there's agreement to stipulate to the judgement a higher authority. But the grievance and litigiousness that now permeates American society in general has made its way into college football: 

Coach got suspended for stealing signs?... Find a judge to issue a stay... NCAA penalized your school for recruiting violations?... File a lawsuit... Star wide out got ruled ineligible?... Rip the NCAA in the media and conduct a public relations war until they cave.

What makes this even worse is the indignance that often accompanies it. ESPN commentator (and Michigan alumnus) Desmond Howard came to Harbaugh's defense. Eleven members of the Michigan House of Representatives penned a letter to the Big Ten expressing outrage. Still, what we didn't hear from either of those parties was a flat out denial or even a plausible explanation for the preponderance of video and other evidence against Stallions and the Michigan program. At no point was anyone at Michigan willing to own up to what most deemed obvious. Instead, the conference and the NCAA got slammed for supposedly denying due process. It was a very Trumpian response, in that the perpetrator of wrongdoings turns to legal challenges, injunctions, claims of unfair treatment and delay tactics. In Michigan's case, it seems to have worked. The NCAA agreed to drop its investigation of Harbaugh; he served his three game wrist slap suspension and the team went on to make the college playoff and win the national title. Now, with Harbaugh having left the university for the greener pastures of the NFL, the entire matter will likely be forgotten, even though its entirely likely that what transpired is grounds for Michigan's championship to be vacated.

It's all because the tide of public sentiment, pushback, criticism from every direction, and now lawsuits have become too much for the NCAA to navigate and still serve as an effective body. The association has lost significant portions of its respect and its power in recent year and has acquiesced to this pressure by changing many of its most longstanding and necessary rules... even those critical to maintaining fairness, parity, and competitive balance in the sport. Which brings me to the final factor that has led to the degradation of college football.

The transfer portal

Prior to the NCAA's rule change, very few transfers would have been permissible without the player having to sit out a year. Today these kinds of ridiculous musical chairs scenarios are happening en masse across the NCAA each and every season.

Facing a tidal wave of negative press, rebellion in the ranks and what seemed like an endless string of lawsuits, the NCAA's capitulation continued. Cries of hypocrisy were launched, this time against the rules surrounding the eligibility of transfer athletes. 

 

The transfer portal launched in the fall of 2018, so it's not as new as many believe. It was implemented to bring more order and process to the mechanics of student athletes seeking to change schools. Windows were established where players could formally enter the portal, schools and coaches could view statuses, and player compliance to all requirements needed to transfer could be tracked. But in 2021, due to the disintegrating power of the NCAA, it once again made concessions to longstanding policies and ratified a new rule that allowed athletes in all sports to transfer without sitting out a year. (Previously, with regard to the five traditional “revenue sports”, upon transferring, players were required to sit out for a season before they were eligible -- except in instances where the athlete was moving from FBS to FCS, or unless they were granted a special waiver.) This concession pleased players and most of the NCAA's critics who were failing to understand (or didn't care) that the "sit out a year" rule was one of the last tools the NCAA had to prevent under the table payments that could entice players to leave one program in favor of another. It also was one of the only ways to dissuade them from leaving a school just to chase bigger and better NIL money. 

The rule change effectively turned the transfer portal into, in the words of one NCAA official from the SEC, "chaos." Players today  are transferring schools at an alarming rate simply because they believe they're not getting enough playing time... or because their position coach left... or because the team underperformed or isn't on TV enough. Take the case below.

In 2018, JT Daniels was the starting quarterback for USC. He played a year and then in the opening game of the 2019 season, tore his ACL Kedon Slovis became the new starter and played so well that rather than staying and trying to win his job back, Daniels decided to transfer Georgia. He was granted immediate eligibility to play and in 2020 he started four games and shared the position with Stetson Bennett that season. Then, in 2021 spotty play and injuries saw Daniels lose his job to Bennett so Daniels took advantage of the new NCAA transfer rule and switched schools again, this time moving to West Virginia for the 2022 season. Halfway through the year, he was benched and on Dec 5 of that year (you guessed it) Daniels entered the transfer portal a third time and wound up at Rice. 

Meanwhile, back at USC, Jaxson Dart replaced Slovis who wasn't playing well. Slovis, having lost his starting job, transferred to Pitt. But the next off season USC hired Lincoln Riley as head coach and it was rumored that QB Caleb Williams, who played for Riley at Oklahoma, would follow Riley to LA so Dart entered the portal and transferred to Ole Miss. Williams departure from Oklahoma left the starting job there vacant and it could have been filled by Spencer Rattler, who was the starter prior to Williams... except as soon as Williams took Rattler's job the previous season, Rattler transferred to South Carolina... Chaos indeed.

Prior to the NCAA's rule change, very few transfers would have been permissible without the player having to sit out a year. Today these kinds of ridiculous musical chairs scenarios are happening en masse across the NCAA each and every season. A year ago, 456 scholarship players appeared in the portal on Day 1 and 780 total players from FBS, FCS and Division II went in. This non-stop program hopping severely injures the competitive balance of the sport, as high caliber players at every position now transfer at the mere hint of losing their starter status, to follow a coach, or for potentially larger NIL payments. The latter two almost certainly had a lot to do with the University of Colorado's 2023 season. New coach Deion Sanders brought in an astonishing 53 transfers --  that's close to half of the team's total roster. Sanders' celebrity, relatability to the modern athlete and the type of culture he fosters had a lot to do with this -- but so did NIL. Sanders had numerous endorsement deals in place long before he made it to in Colorado and upon his arrival his celebrity and star personality shined a spotlight on the program among sponsors and advertisers looking to attach their brand to a team that was increasingly gaining national attention. And as we know, more advertisers equal more NIL opportunity for players.

Illustration of the very first college football game -- Princeton vs Rutgers, 1869

Thus we can all say goodbye to the game we once loved. America's second oldest team sport in fact, played since 1869. College football is more of a "showcase" now than a sport. It used to be the name on the front of the jersey that mattered -- now it's the name on the back. Players used to play for the honor of winning the PAC 12 championship, or Bedlam, or making the All-America team and being introduced on a Bob Hope Special. Now all of those things are extinct and players aspire to star in the next Dr. Pepper "Fansville"  commercial. The NCAA, once a steadfast authority that oversaw all aspects of the game, is accused of being out of touch with the modern athlete and is now ridiculed by coaches and university presidents at every turn. No longer is there any allegiance to conference or to school. Those things are mere niceties best left to us simple, naive and wistfully nostalgic fans.

So long college football. We'll miss you.

Related Posts:

R.I.P. College Football: How Corporate Interests, Greed and Defiance Killed the Game We Loved -- Part I