Wildlife: A small group of what appeared to be hawks or eagles were sailing on the winds over my neighborhood. We got out the bird-identification book, and it seems like they were vultures.

Weather: Rain overnight, still blustery and cloudy today -- GOOD!

Charity Alert: Do SOMETHING -- even if it's just a click -- The Rainforest Site: Help Save Our Rainforests

Media Watch: The book Metal to Mozart is almost done. There were two movies on the satellite about The Who -- Ken Russell's Tommy, and The Kids Are Alright. I remember reading Paul William's magazine Crawdaddy, about 1967, where he said that all Peter Townshend needed was one good album to turn The Who into the stars they deserved to be. About a year and a half later, Tommy came out, and The Who started to get bigger, and bigger, and bigger -- well you get the point. I remember a Royal Albert Hall performance with guest stars like Rod Stewart singing Pinball Wizard around 1972, and at least two more quality Who albums -- Live At Leeds, and Who's Next.
I will also mention some solo albums by Townshend, Daltrey, and Entwhistle that got scathing reviews, although some hits came out of them -- Smash Your Head Against The Wall by Entwhistle did alright, I was fond of Whistle Rhymes, even though nobody else seemed to like it. These two albums featured Peter Frampton on guitar, with Humble Pie's rhythm section.
Daltrey's first solo album was all songs by Leo Sayer, who did very well in the late 70's. I never heard his second, Ride A Rock Horse, with production, songs, and arrangements by one of my favorite musicians, Russ Ballard. Townshend had some real success on his own at the dawn of the 80's, but heroin addiction, and other problems, almost killed him.
Russell's Tommy had to be a strange "top of the mountain" for the members of The Who. They had been performing these particular songs for almost six years, and were often doing them as a quickly-paced medly in an encore set. While the Tommy movie re-kindled Ann Margaret's star, Russell's follow-up, Liztomania, sank Daltrey's newly-launched movie career -- that WAS an awful film, and I hesitate to blame anybody but the producer(s).
The Kid Are Alright shows a lot of unresolved tension within the band. Townshend makes a very canny statement about The Who potentially becoming a "circus act," meaning "doing what we already know we can do." He goes on saying, "Nothing wrong with that, as long as that's what we really want."
Well, that's what The Who became, but I'm very unsure if that's what the individual members really wanted. As a teenager, I was impressed with The Who's originality as they kept making single after single. I thought that "getting big" was a just reward for their good work, even though it may have ended up as a curse of sorts.
I would call them a "Power Ensemble," eveybody played their part with outstanding ability. Moon was a uniquely talented drummer. Bassist Entwhistle was a sophisticated musician and sound engineer, in a field that underemphasized, but needed, those skills badly. Daltrey was a indefatigatible front man who was able to sing over the loudest (measured) trio in the world.
Townshend not only wrote hit songs, but they got better over the years, and his guitar playing got progressively stronger as his audience demanded more. His first solo album's jacket (circa 1971) shows him standing on eggs -- methinks he was under absurdly intense pressure.
Entwhistle and Moon both died from substance abuse that was, in my opinion, triggered from the pressures of being part of The Who. I'm glad that Townshend and Daltrey are still around. I've also enjoyed Daltrey's acting on Rude Awakening, with Sherilyn Fenn, Lynn Redgrave, and Tim Curry.