re: #154 First As Tragedy, Then As Farce

You used to say (maybe still say) that the reason behind the name of the blog is a secret.

I have a goofy, probably-wrong hypothesis.

You were/are a professional musician. I haven’t bothered to “investigate” your entire career (because I’m not completely insane), but I imagine that you’ve either done some studio gigs, or are at least familiar with the industry. I’ve been around professional musicians all my life, and I’m a somewhat lapsed and half-assed non-professional (and unprofessional) musician myself.

I have been led to believe that among professional studio musicians, a slang term for whole notes is “footballs”. As in, “it was an easy gig, nothing but footballs.” You get to the gig and the piece of music they put in front of you is a not-very-demanding piece, requiring you to play nothing but droning whole notes.

In my crazy hypothesis, “green” is the color of money. So if you are a musician who gets paid by contract to play whole notes, it could be said in a slang-sorta way, that you’re playing “green footballs”. A page full of “little green footballs” would be a piece of music beneath your skills that you are paid to play. Maybe for a mouthwash commercial or something.

My hypothesis falls apart at the point of the website, because I doubt the website is as effortless as a page full of whole notes.

A most awesome conjecture! Not very close to the real secret explanation, but a compelling extrapolation nonetheless.