Random Thoughts before Kickoff...

Eagles Opening Day from Jim Harris Images on Vimeo.


Eagles, Cowboys, Monday Night Football. I've told anybody that would listen to me this week that it's too early for this. I'm not ready for a Birds/Cowboys clash in week 2. Why couldn't we do the Cardinals or a quiet AFC match-up. Even a division rival warm up with the Skins or the Giants would have been better for my health and the collective health of our brotherly city.

After we saw a pleasant season opener thrashing of the Rams last week, we have to go straight to a playoff type game. I know as well as anyone that a win doesn't mean we're in the Super Bowl and a loss shouldn't mean the fastest route to the Walt Witman Bridge, but it will seem that way. Yeah, last week was what I would call a perfect game. We won by 35 points, no penalties, no injuries and I didn't swear once. My wife and I both enjoyed a football game. Why can't it be this way every week?

When I think of the Eagles-Cowboys prime-time rivalry I recall many many games and most of them didn't have a happy ending. The Eagles have done well in recent years, but it hardly fades the memories of all those losses to the Cowboys of the nineties.

I've watched many of these games with my Dad and my Uncle Bobby. We've all been long suffering, but at least my Uncle has the comfort of that championship back in 1960. It's been a lot of years since then, but I'm still jealous that he has such a memory.

I remember a game back in '96 when we gathered at my folks place on Sterling Street where I grew up in Wilkes-Barre. My Uncle was in visiting from El Paso. He showed up in his usual Eagles wardrobe, head to toe. New this year though was his inflatable Eagles helmet. I don't see much of these anymore, but they were pretty popular 10 years back. My uncle loved this helmet and was proud to add it to his game-day uniform. Earlier that day, he was transporting the helmet from the car to my Grandmother's house where he was staying. He caught the helmet on the rose bushes out front and his prized helmet deflated before he got to the door.

My Grandmother took out her sewing kit and a First Aid kit and patched the helmet in time for the game that Monday night. He showed up with his repaired baloon helmet and we watched one of the most enjoyable first halves I could remember. The Eagles were leading the Cowboys after so many seasons of losing to them. The tides turned quickly as the second half began with a season ending injury to our quarterback, Rodney Peete and the Birds ended up losing 23-19.

The memory of my Uncle walking back to his car after that game sums up so many Eagles Cowboys games for me. It was dark and I could see him under the one single street lamp on Sterling Street fumbling for his keys. His head was hung low and his patched over-sized inflatable helmet was nearly out of air.

YouTube, Whitney and the Art of the Point and Shoot Video Clip

Last night my friend Joe and I went to see The Fratellis at the TLA in South Philadelphia. Kristen decided not to go because of the two opening acts and the 11pm start time for the Fratellis and it being a work night. When Joe told his wife we were going she asked him if he was still in college?

Joe and I have been going to concerts for almost 25 years. Our first was The Hooters at Wilkes College in Wilkes-Barre. One of the best may have been Billy Idol at the Allentown Fairgrounds just before we went off to college. The most memorable may have been Whitney Houston at Hershey Stadium (what?, we thought she was hot...and she was in 1987!) Joe harassed Whitney by shouting out the same request for an hour. Whitney eventually walked back to the band, called an audible, came back to the front of the stage, knelt down and proceeded to sing a one verse ballad to Joe. It was a long drive back from Hershey that night and twenty years later I still hear about it. Joe went on to be an attorney, Whitney went on to be a crackhead.

Since moving to Philadelphia Joe and I have seen a couple more shows. Last night was the Fratellis. We arrived on South Street to find a line of kids around the corner waiting to get in and claim their position at the front of the stage. It was 8 o'clock and there was no way we were going to go in and suffer through two opening bands with a bunch of kids. So we went to the bar next door, ate a hamburger, drank some beers and managed to watch half a football game. We then made it over just in time for the Fratellis at 11. We walked upstairs with the rest of the over 21 old heads and claimed our space. Eventually, a spot opened up in the balcony where the house videographer just vacated. We jumped in there and had the best spot in the joint. It was move that only a couple grizzly vets could have made.

Now I nearly had my camera confiscated at the door, but somehow made it through claiming that I wouldn't take pictures. But what was I going to do now that I had the best vantage point in the house?

My first YouTube clip was last summer after seeing the Fratellis at our XPN Festival in Camden. It's a great clip and I decided on the ferry trip back to Philly that I was going open up a YouTube account and post this clip. If all the kids could do it, so can I. I posted it and have posted several since. I've got a couple subcribers to my account, but I think Joe is my biggest fan. We saw the Hold Steady last year at the same place and were buried in the back. I was too far away to take still pictures, but made this clip of their closer. Sometimes it's just luck and you really capture a moment. I think this is one of those times.

At this point of the game, Joe is always curious to see if we could do better. If you like the Fratellis, you should like these clips. Flathead is the song from the Itunes commercial and
Baby Frattelli was the closer.

I'm amazed at the traffic that these clips get. I compare it to some of my photography exhibitions where I put these pictures on the wall, put a guest book at the door, and over the course of a month you may get a couple hundred people to look at your work. Now I'm not comparing the quality of work of Jim Harris Images to a point and shoot video clip, but that Hold Steady clip has had 3,500 hits. The Flight of the concords clips have had almost 10,000.

It wasn't until watching these new Fratelli clips this morning that I started thinking of those kids in the front rows. They are awesome. They stood there since 8 o'clock for that very moment five hours later. Joe and I had that moment watching Billy Idol a million years ago. I still get in there from time to time.

We almost didn't make it though. After hanging at the bar for three hours we talked about just going home. It was only a fifteen dollar ticket. It wouldn't be a great loss. I don't think we seriously discussed it, but it did cross our mind. I told Joe that if we went home we could mark down September 4th, 2008 as the night we officially got old.

Besides, I owed it to my minions of YouTube fans to get these clips online.