I Apologize, I've Been Incognito...

   I just read a post written several months ago on this site, in which I promised to p-Review  the Phish Summer 2013 dates (my coined term describing the bulk of my posts). That never happened. In fact, there have been three tour announcements (four if you include the '13-14 MSG shows) and 18 attended shows since my last p-Review. I also talked of writing additional sports p-Reviews, as well as a "2012 Year in Review", where I would describe not just the previous year's bounty of Phish and sports, but outline my personal year, which would likely explain my absence from blogging. Nothing. So here it lies before you, in outline form, from the summer of 2012 until now. Phish...sports...me.

September 2012: I Missed Dick’s I sat at 3,600 feet somewhere in the Emerald Triangle (no specifics) contemplating my next move. I had recently ditched Dick's plans for work duties, even after witnessing a sort of re-revival of the boys via the inaugural Bill Graham shows. Now a few short weeks after my decision said work prospects look bleak. A series of miscommunications led to an early exit from the dynamic mountaintops to the annoyingly stable, foggy indoor settings of Humboldt County, and we realized we could raged the Denver shows after all - too late. All it took was a simple webcast to conclude the inevitable: We should not have missed Dick’s. The Bill Graham shows were widely considered some of the best shows of 2012, and the 2011 Dick’s run provided quite possibly the best shows, if not at least jams, of that year…and we skipped Dick’s. We’re living in Humboldt County 3,500 miles from most of our family, friends, phriends and phamily. We’ve been forced into the life of a West Coast Phish fan: thousands of miles away from most of the consistent venues. And we skipped Dick’s…

October 2012: Warm Up the Cah The Red Sox completed their historical collapse. The city of Boston reeled and I could feel it on the other side of the country. Good. Valentine was a horrible hire, and fulfilled our worst nightmares as our manager, evident after years removed from the game and softened by television. The organization signed awful, over-valued contracts and then purged the fat in the most white-flag-waving, fan-unfriendly way. This was of course put on full display as they completed this historical collapse, missing the playoffs after leading the division by 7 games with less than two months to play. Never had the city of Boston, more specifically the Red Sox, pink, red, and navy blue hats alike, needed a wake up call more. Worst yet, the Sox brass tried to blame the collapse on Tito’s alleged opiate addiction, which was the straw the broke the proverbial camel’s back for me. The Red Sox became an organization not worth respecting, let alone following, primarily due to the disgusting aftermath of the worst collapse in modern-day baseball history. Stay tuned…

December 2012: I Lose It @ MSG (and Phish kind of does, too…) All I’ll say about this MSG run is that a bottle mishap resulted in me having ~3-10x as much fun as intended Night One, causing me to be removed from my first Phish show ever (16 years). Why? I was on stage asking Trey why the band was ignoring the fact I was screaming on stage in the middle of a show. According to multiple sources, I was, in fact, not on stage, but screaming within earshot of the band by the rail informing them of how much they sucked. In my defense they were playing Funky Bitch. Even if you love the tune, come on…it’s been, like, a million times. That night I became the wook I’ve ridiculed for years, and my “That NEVER Happens To Me” card was taken from me, quite forcefully. The good news? I missed The Little Drummer Boy because I was screaming that my family was missing. Yeah. So on to the actual music - nah. I’ll review the shows as such: Phish played Garden Party to open NYE in response to fan grumblings (Phish, you mad, bros?), and the show ended with the annual band gag being golf-themed, something never even imagined with these four geeks. The LSD was telling me something: you might not want to hear this as much anymore.

January 2012: Alabama wins the National Championship Just kidding, no one outside of the South gives a shit about this, certainly not me.

February 2012: The Baltimore Ravens win the NFL Title I actually wrote about this in one of my last posts. I predicted them to lose, and although many of my Super Bowl prediction came to fruition, my predicted winner clearly did not. Lucky for me my gambling predictions are still at ‘paper’ status. I hate the Ravens, I’m indifferent to the 49ers, and I couldn’t care less about the brothers Harbaugh, but what I do care about is the fact that the Patriots weren’t in a position to destroy those 49ers and then-rookie QB Colin Kaepernick. Instead we dealt with another post-season let down versus those Baltimore Ravens we’ve grown accustomed to here in New England. Even our 2011 victory came with controversy - the “dropped” TD pass. After destroying the Houston Texans in the Divisional Game, the Raven’s pass rush got to Brady once again, especially in the fourth quarter, and the Patriots lost for the only the second time in seven AFC Championship games during the Brady Era (11+ years, ten playoff runs). I still blame the knee injury.

Spring 2012: Every Season is the Same In Humboldt…So I’m Leaving I’m sure you’d be shocked to hear that Humboldt County didn’t work out, so we moved back to our home in the woods on the VT/MA/NH border. Before leaving beautiful Northern California we went on an exit-tour hitting all the appropriate spots, some longer than others, including a three-week stay with Grand Daddy Dabs outside of Sacramento. As we traveled across the country home seeing friends along the way the city of Boston embraced the Boston Bruins’ success, while also trying to embrace the Celtics’ demise. LeBron’s headband took a slight vacation just long enough for its owner to shake his hairline insecurities and become the Finals monster most everyone in the world assumed him to be. Our recently re-embraced Bruins coughed up a 3-2 Stanley Cup Finals lead to Chicago for a horribly disappointing end to the 2012-2013 NHL season. The Celtics…well, they ended up trading away Garnett and Pierce, so we know how that story ends.

Summer 2013: The Phish Are No Longer Farm Raised East Coast Phish fans again. Doesn’t have the same ring. After being in the woods away from the boys for most of the year my obsession had no choice but to wane. I was able to reflect and come to terms with the fact that my touring days were probably over, most certainly the coast-to-coast touring, unless of course Phish came on stage and blew us away with ridiculous type-II jams, endless funky grooves, and peppered new tunes throughout the summer. Almost. Bangor, the tour opener, was expectedly mediocre, and the SPAC run was full of magic, meh, and mayhem, with bad weather once again haunting update New York’s Phish run. I hopped off and kept traveling, working here and there, and attended an epic wedding of best friends as we waited for the heralded West Coast Run...heralded as in Gorge-Tahoe. The 2011 shows at these venues were keepers, and the perfect scenes were mellow and beautiful. This run did not disappoint; it may have strengthened the position. From Wildhorse Campground to Lake Tahoe, the Gorge-Tahoe Run has become a phan phavorite for both setting and music, as all four shows ended up being some of the best of the year.

Fall 2013: Wait, the Red Sox Won the World Series? I missed Dick’s. AGAIN. Know why? I was sick of traveling. That was my excuse. I also managed to convince myself that because Phish had already dropped Fall Tour dates, their first since 2010, the now-annual Dick’s Run wouldn’t be nearly as sick this time. Wrong. Again. Although many would agree the 2012 Dick’s Run ranked third among the three Dick’s Runs, it remained one of the better runs of the year. Most shows spell something, so you know, there’s that. In the meantime, the Red Sox enjoyed the swiftest of revivals – one year. Amazingly Boston not only improved their squad from one season to the next, most notably with the hiring of John Farrell, they actually won the World Series, quite possibly being the first true “worst-to-first” team in modern baseball history. A perfect mixture of top-notch coaching, heady veterans, sound young pitching, a Japanese relief team, and the return of the true core of the Red Sox (Papi, Pedroia, Ellsbury, Lester, Buchholz) didn’t give the pink hats one full season to understand what it was like before 2004. In basketball news the Miami LeBrons are again favored to win the NBA Title (I have the Thunder), while the Celtics are expected to be one of the worst teams in the Association. At least Brad Stevens is our coach. If you know basketball you’ll see some hope there for the future of a team led by a brat. The Patriots have several issues to deal with (Hernandez’s release/imprisonment, Grownkowski/Amendola injuries, rookie/undrafted FA WRs), but an easy schedule gives them the ability to go 12-4 and make another playoff push until a team with a pass-rush destroys us. Just kidding. I actually have New England beating Denver (12-4), giving us the tiebreaker for the first seed in the AFC and subsequent home field advantage throughout the playoffs. The Ravens will go nowhere near repeating, despite people placing them back in the Super Bowl in 2014, while their opponents will return to face us. That was my Super Bowel prediction*, by the way (New England v. San Francisco).  *Note: This claimed in August*

Fall Tour 2013: Who Dresses As Themselves For Halloween? Fall Tour 2012 was much anticipated. The first of its kind in three years, Fall Tour could not have been served up any better, with dates at Phishistoric venues like The Mothership (old) and Boardwalk Hall (new), old-school phavorites like Rochester, Glens Falls, Worcester and Hartford, and even a new spot in Reading, PA (hard to believe it was a first). Depending on your perspective Phish hadn’t really changed much at all over the past year or more, which could be viewed as good or bad, or Phish was blasting off to new heights. I’m with the former. Although for the first time in years I wasn’t at a bulk of the shows, with the aid of eyewitness accounts and webcasts I was able to form a pretty objective opinion: Phish was badly in need of some new material. This segue couldn’t be more appropriate as I jump directly to reviewing Atlantic City shows. Rumors abound about the cover album Phish would play leading up to AC, and although I had predicted Slow Hand (Clapton) for reasons such as conquering drug addictions, writing new albums, and the death of J.J. Cale, respected heads had convinced me it would be Traffic, either The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys or another shot at crushing a live album, this time Welcome to the Canteen. Sounded epic. I only had the chance to tell a few people they were crazy before the proof was undeniable: the Playbill. The album would be Wingsuit, Phish’s yet-to-be-debuted album, admittedly constructed of “some old material, new jams, and lyrics about coffee mugs”. They forgot to add ripped off lyrics from a nursery rhyme. I was sober when I watched the webcast. I’ve been sober every time I’ve listened to it since. Save ‘555’, the jam in Fuego (which are basically evolved Ocelot and Light jams) and the funk jam from Wombat (which could have been any funk jam from Tube or Suzy Greenberg) I thought the album was terrible. The acoustic songs were low-energy and badly placed, the Wombat rapping/dancing was an embarrassing joke that these sudden Broadway geeks seem destined to haunt every recent “big” show, and every jam sounded like something they had played before. If you think the energy was crazy at the show, you should have seen all the confused looks via the webcast…lots of awkward looks from side to side and even more awkward “dancing”. Many came to see the famous “musical costume” (although Phish never did actually promise anything of the sort), but saw the antithesis. They didn’t see their beloved band revive and conquer another band’s complete album, as has become customary on Halloween, but instead playing their own never-heard-before music. Experimental? Sure. Ballsy? I guess, but to who? We all know that 8,000-22,000 people will find enough Molly or boomers to claim what they’re hearing is “epic” or “legendary” at every single show. Just read 3.0 reviews, many so full of phluff (or sometimes hate) that I developed Trigger31.com to add perspective. The Phish crowd – full of many of my life-long friends and family - is full of people who wouldn’t have the balls to tell someone they were cut in line, let alone voice their displeasure at Phish for copping out on Halloween in the worst way – by forcing 12 never-heard-before mostly highly uninspiring tunes sandwiched between two sets they already played at the Worcester and Hartford shows the nights before. Scotty Bernstein of YEMBlog once told me perhaps I was getting too old (I’m 35, basically still the median age), had seen too many shows (180…shouldn’t be the case), and that it was time to pass the torch (To my rig? Never!). I’m starting to realize he could be right as my utter dislike for the perpetually bombed, chain-smoking, low-quality-BHO-ingesting crowd is getting to “These People Are Unbearable” status. As for the music, the catalogue in 2012 left something to be desired: the jamming had its moments, but much of what they did or how they did it was predictable, new tunes like “Say Something” weren’t played nearly enough, yet most of the other new tunes they played often I could stand to never hear again. Bottom line is that I will not be in attendance for the inevitable Wingsuit gag for NYE…I guess I’m “passing the torch”. Whatever that means. These aren’t your older brother’s Phish. That statement makes no sense, it just sounds cool.

NFL Mid-season Review: Incognito the racist…or scapegoat, whichever you believe. Last week as I sat inspired by the developing Incognito/Martin (Miami Dolphins) story and I was thinking of what to write for this post, most of my opinion was that of  “Incognito is a typical oversized football bully pushing his sexist, racist 315-pound frame around intimidating other players”, most notably Jonathan Martin, the second-year tackle from Stanford at the center of this story. An alleged voicemail using profane, vulgar, racist language you typically don’t even see joking friends use with each other, highlighted by aggressive use of the word “n” word and a threat to assault Martin’s mother, is the main evidence against Incognito, who Martin claims bullied and harassed him to the point where he had to leave the Dolphins due to emotional stress. There’s also a text from an unnamed teammate in which this anonymous player threatens sexual assault against Martin’s sister, including gang rape. It all sounds horrific, but similar things have been said amongst friends since the beginning of time, especially in athletic locker rooms, albeit not necessarily rape or the “n” word. Most anyone hearing such language out of context would be appalled, but this wasn’t intended for anyone to hear, especially the public. Regardless, it’s hard to side with Incognito based on the alleged context of the content, however the story got much stranger when it was revealed by teammates that Incognito and Martin weren’t only joking with each other, but the closest friends on the offensive line. Things were only complicated in the past few days as Martin continued his silence, while Incognito pleaded his case, outlining not only the joking manner in which his taken-out-of-context comments were intended, but offering proof of Martin sending similar texts to Incognito! The story is getting to Te’O status. A friend of mine turned me on to an interesting theory gaining traction: that Martin is suffering from a mental illness, and the manner in which he left the team was the only way to ensure he would continue to get paid. If he had just walked away on his own accord due to mental illness, he might not be eligible for pay under the CBA; however, if he claims harassment or an unsafe workplace as this reason for leaving, he continues to get paid. Seems under this theory Incognito would be one of the most unfortunate scapegoats in history, especially if they were truly close, as many teammates have stated. What a weird situation. As for an actual mid-season report, the Patriots look like the weakest 7-2 team in NFL history, but remain in good standings shape; the 49ers are rounding into form, despite last night’s hiccup to the emerging Panthers. So my prediction is right on track. Denver and a surprisingly resurgent Kansas City threaten in the AFC, while the Saints and Seahawks remain threats in the NFC. As for clown factories, the Ravens are reeling (as I predicted), while the Giants have had to win three straight to manage a 3-6 record. They’ll probably still win the pathetic NFC East and then go on to beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl again. That would be par for the course in my life this year.

Stay tuned as I deliver a weekly NFL Game Prediction column complete with Vegas lines (every Saturday morning) and always check back for my signature pReviews, whether about Phish or sports (including fantasy and betting).

Thanks for reading -

Phaulkner

Trigger31.com