Vannie previews The New Beginning in his blog. I suspect this will be a different team altogether. The kids have at least partially grown up, the talent level is burgeoning underneath and the Irish are set for a four-year run at the title. In fact, this is the only year of the next four where Irish probably won’t be in the title hunt. The talent wave doesn’t crest two years from now.

The perfect storm of last season has given way to a sunshine. The Irish will open with San Diego State, which has lost so many players it’s starting to look the de-limbed Black Knight from the Holy Grail.

Unlike the Georgia Tech castration last year, tomorrow’s game doesn’t appear to be any matchup at all for the Irish. So Notre Dame will get a warmup before meeting Michigan, which will likely be vastly improved from its first game (a loss to Utah), but still not exactly a powerhouse.

Michigan still has a formidable collection of talent on defense, so no one should put this in the win column. I can’t really guess how the rest of the Irish’s opponents will look after that, but only North Carolina, Michigan State and BC (other than USC) have the talent to play with Notre Dame on paper.

The perfect storm has dissipated, and we can expect a completely different Irish team tomorrow and for the next four years. Here’s the video intro from the pep rally.

Go Irish!

“Several gate entry areas have changed since last year,” said FSU Police Chief David Perry. “Gates G, L and M are designated for students only; students must have their FSU ID with them to enter with a student ticket. In addition, for security purposes, all football tickets now have bar codes that will be individually scanned before each fan is permitted to enter the stadium, and no one will be allowed to re-enter the stadium once he or she exits.

“With these and other changes, we encourage FSU football fans to arrive early so they don’t miss any of the action on the field,” Perry said.

Perry added that university police will begin closing off roads and posting “no parking” signs in various locations around the stadium the afternoon prior to each home game. Fans who park in prohibited areas, such as landscaped areas and sidewalks, are subject to being ticketed or having their vehicle towed. Westbound traffic on West Jefferson Street before, during and after FSU games will not have access to stadium parking; all stadium parking traffic must use Pensacola Street.

In addition, Doak Campbell Stadium will be closed at 2 p.m. on the afternoon preceding each game; Stadium Drive will be closed down at 5 a.m. on each game day; and Coyle E. Moore Athletic Center will be closed to fans two hours before each home game.

Football fans are encouraged to park at the Tallahassee-Leon County Civic Center or neighboring state parking garages and take the Spirit Express shuttle to the stadium. The shuttle costs $3 per person for the round trip, and children under 12 ride free. The shuttle service begins two hours prior to kickoff.

A link containing helpful game-day information and maps can be found on the FSU Police Department’s Web site, www.police.fsu.edu.

Perry reminded fans that once inside the stadium, they must abide by the following rules:

No coolers, ice chests, ice bags, large backpacks, umbrellas, large flags or banners on sticks will be allowed.

No smoking is permitted except in designated outdoor areas (including gate areas B and L).

No baby carriages or chair backs too large for a single seat are allowed.

No alcohol is permitted. Possession of alcoholic beverages in the stands will result in ejection and possible criminal charges.

No beach balls or passing people over fans’ heads will be allowed.

Should fans attending the game have any problems with unruly or abusive behavior in their section, they are encouraged to call a special number, (850) 645-JERK (5375). Law enforcement officers will respond promptly and take appropriate action if needed.

Once inside Doak Campbell Stadium, FSU fans will notice a number of new changes. Among them:

Two enormous new scoreboards featuring high-definition video screens and several LED message boards will make their debut.

A new introduction of the football team, featuring the FSU Marching Chiefs as well as Osceola and Renegade, will be unveiled.

A new spot in the North End Zone stands will be reserved for six former FSU players each year.

Five automated teller machines will be located inside the stadium. (See the game-day link above for locations.)

“As always, we’re looking forward to a safe and successful football season,” Perry said. “If all fans attending FSU home games will familiarize themselves with the rules and procedures, and leave themselves plenty of time to get to each game, it will make for a much more enjoyable experience for everyone.

It is interesting to note that astrological signs and their believers are not just those who would enjoy a bagel with their morning paper, but that horoscopes and zodiac signs have also shown an importance to politics in the United States. In particular this current presidential election has already given rise to speculations about the candidates and their abilities to woo the American public to see things their way. The Neptune Café has wasted no time in preparing horoscopes on Sarah Palin (her astrological sign is Aquarius) and Joe Biden (his birth sign is Virgo).

Even as it is unknown at this time where the candidates themselves stand on the veracity of astrological signs and their ability to foreshadow the events that will take place - put any of them in front of a convention of professional astrologers, and you bet they are all believers - the history of America’s presidents shows that horoscopes and astrology signs have played a larger than suspected role.

Ronald Reagan, for example, is reported by the various papers to have changed the time of his inauguration by nine minutes, simply because he received an auspicious reading for this particular time. The Presidential UFO site remarks on the close relationship that existed between the reader of astrological signs, Jean Dixon, and the former First Lady Nancy Reagan.

Teaming Mike Francesa and Chris Russo as a replacement in afternoon drive time for controversial host Pete Franklin, a big-name hire for WFAN when it debuted two years earlier.

Francesa had been around since ‘87, known more as an information man than a personality. Russo was all personality, and got wide exposure from appearances on Don Imus’ morning show.

The show originally was heard from 3 to 7 p.m., but its start time later was moved to 2 and then 1 p.m. Beginning in 2002, it received additional exposure via simulcast on the new YES Network.

Francesa, now 54, and Russo, 48, moved into the prime slot just as WFAN was beginning to take off - one year after moving from 1050 to 660 on the AM dial and adding Imus. And it was not long before the show became a major attraction for the budding sports talk powerhouse.

It eventually rose to No.1 in the market among men ages 25-54, the station’s key demographic target, earning its hosts millions of dollars and wide influence over the local sports media agenda.

Over the years, their contrasting personalities became well established: Francesa as a supremely confident know-it-all, Russo as his goofy, energetic sidekick, often mispronouncing or misusing words.

Listeners came to know their disparate areas of interest and expertise, such as Francesa’s love of horse racing and Russo’s of tennis.

Both admittedly knew little about hockey, and both were known for their fixations on baseball.

Their relationship rose and fell as frequently as the fortunes of the local teams they chronicled.

The early years were particularly contentious, including a 1992 incident in which Russo intentionally omitted Francesa’s first name when welcoming listeners to the show, angering his partner.

In recent years, the two seemed to disagree less frequently on the air, and to get along better off it.

Often they were on the same side of controversial issues, such as their criticism in 2006 of Billy Wagner, the Mets’ new closer, for entering games to “Enter Sandman” - the same theme music as the Yankees’ Mariano Rivera.

The hosts angered many sports figures over the years, including simultaneous feuds with the Giants’ Tiki Barber, Michael Strahan and Jeremy Shockey when they were the team’s three biggest stars.

In the spring of 2007, they again were on the same side of a controversy, lambasting MSNBC and their own employers, CBS Radio, for firing Imus in the wake of comments about the Rutgers women’s basketball team that many regarded as racist and sexist.

Francesa and Russo remained loyal to Imus, who famously nicknamed them “Fatso and Froot Loops” during his time at WFAN.

Imus’ departure left the afternoon hosts as the unquestioned stars of the station, and a critical part of its revenue stream.

This year, though, their relationship soured again, leading to several weeks during which they openly feuded on and off the air.

Each agreed to act more professionally when called together in early May by operations manager Mark Chernoff. But Newsday reported June 22 that the show likely would end by Labor Day. Five days later, Francesa acknowledged the show was at a “crossroad.”

“I think we should take a step back for a second and be proud of the fact that he and I, despite our battles sometimes over 19 years, put together one of the great shows in radio history,” Francesa said last night. “It is something I’ll be proud of for the rest of my life.”

Said Russo last night: “I loved that show.”

He was the last living partner in the landmark record label, Atlantic Records, The label’s founder Ahmet Ertegun, who died at age 83 in 2006, brought Wexler to the Atlantic in 1953, where the two produced records together through the ’50s by artists such as the Drifters, Bobby Darin, Clyde McPhatter, LaVern Baker, Big Joe Turner, Ray Charles and others, helping to define the emerging sound of rock ‘n roll.

“My God, the Godfather of R&B creators has stepped behind the curtain and disappeared,” said Solomon Burke in a telephone interview. Wexler always said when asked who was the best performer of his day, “Solomon Burke with a borrowed band”.

Wexler, who would produce important records by Bob Dylan, Dusty Springfield, Willie Nelson, Wilson Pickett and others, worked with Ertegun in his first days at Atlantic producing “Mama He Treats Your Daughter Mean” by Ruth Brown, not only one of the biggest-selling R&B records of the year, but a hit that helped young Atlantic Records survive.

Wexler even gave the music its name. As an editor at trade magazine Billboard, he changed the name of the charts in 1949 from “Race Records” to “Rhythm and Blues.”

“No one really knew how to make a record when I started,” he told the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “You simply went into the studio, turned on the mike and said play.”

A proud, accomplished man, Wexler could be by turns avuncular and racounteurial, lustful and ambitious. He was a tireless promoter and a well-read intellectual who could also take care of himself on the street. While his partner Ertegun loved the nightlife and social milieu of the music business, Wexler was a hard-working associate, often personally responsible for sales, marketing and promotion (and, during the ’50s, the distribution of payola to disc jockies).

His work with Aretha Franklin, whom he signed to Atlantic in 1967, not only established the great vocalist, whose previous recordings went largely unnoticed, indisputably as Lady Soul, but also helped usher in the entire era of soul music. Wexler was a controversial figure in black music circles - he once left a black disc jockey convention under guard after threats to his life - but he was color blind in the studio and often used musicians of various races in sessions in Southern recording studios during the ’60s like the Muscle Shoals, Ala., Studio where he first recorded Franklin.

Born in 1917 in New York’s Washington Heights, Wexler served in the Navy during the Second World War and attended Kansas State University. When he joined Atlantic, the label, yet to have its first million-seller, was a small company specializing in making records for the African American community. From his post, he watched the reach of this music spread across the globe.

Although he and Ertegun combed Southern states during the ’50s for recordings, Wexler only found his spiritual home in the South after he and Ertegun no longer worked together in the studio and Wexler gravitated toward making records in places such as Muscle Shoals, Memphis or Miami. He produced Wilson Pickett’s “In the Midnight Hour” in Memphis’ Stax/Volt studios and made the classic 1968 Dusty Springfield album, “Dusty In Memphis.” One of his last productions, the 1992 album “The Right Time” by Etta James, was another classic excursion in Southern soul recorded in Muscle Shoals.

After the sale of Atlantic Records in 1967, Wexler continued to work for the label until 1975, largely as a record producer. In the ’80s, he made albums with Dire Straits, Carlos Santana, and George Michael, among others. His 1979 album with Bob Dylan, “Slow Train Coming,” Dylan’s first recording after his conversion to Christianity, won Dylan his first Grammy Award for “Gotta Serve Somebody.”

Wexler was named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. In 1993, he published an unusually candid autobiography, “Rhythm and the Blues” (co-written by David Ritz), in which Wexler admitted to numerous adulterous affairs throughout his marriages, distant relationships with his children, and abundant drug use.

His first two marriages ended in divorce. He is survived by his wife, Jean Arnold, his son, who lives in Highbridge, N.J., and a daughter, Lisa Wexler of Kingston, N.Y. Another daughter, Anita Wexler, died of AIDS in 1989.

In the 2000 documentary about his career, “Immaculate Funk,” Wexler was asked what he wanted written on his tombstone. “Two words,” said the famously atheistic Wexler, “‘more bass.’”

For more than 30 years Wexler was a partner in Atlantic Records, where he worked with a dazzling array of artists, including Ray Charles, Wilson Pickett, Dusty Springfield and Dr John. Wexler had a particular gift for spotting raw talent, and shaping a musical context in which it could shine.

Before coming under Wexler’s wing Aretha Franklin had been a promising but under-achieving vocalist, recording show tunes and ballads. Wexler shrewdly placed her in a southern soul context which unleashed all her dreams and demons, and Franklin became a star.

At the same time he was responsible for bringing to the fore the artists from the Stax and Volt labels in Memphis — Otis Redding, Sam and Dave and Booker T and the MGs — that became such a powerful force in the charts in the 1960s. Wexler went on to work with Dire Straits, Santana and Bob Dylan, among many others.

Gerald Wexler was born on January 10 1917, the son of a Jewish window-cleaner who had arrived from Poland six years earlier with a cousin to whom he was engaged. Instead he married a girl called Elsa, whom he met in a bakery. At their home in the Bronx the couple argued constantly, and the young Jerry escaped by reading omnivorously.

At school he got by on bluff. “I could ad-lib answers to almost any question,” he recalled, “and there was no studying in the true sense of the word; I got by with the help of opportunistic skimming and a good ear.” He spent much of his time in pool rooms, where his liking for books was regarded as cool, and by the time of his bar mitzvah speech he was an atheist.

Later in life he declared: “I see myself as deeply spiritual. My feelings for literature, art, movies, food, and wine are all invested with spirit. Above all, it’s in my feeling for music. Music has brought me joy; it has given me a beat and a groove, sent me down the righteous roads.”

He left school in 1932, and spent two desultory semesters at City College; seeing that he was unhappy there, his mother gave him $50 to pay for summer-school sessions to qualify for New York University, but he spent the money on a fruitless bet in a pool room . His mother then sent him to Kansas State College of Agriculture and Applied Science, which also offered a course in journalism.

There the young Wexler discovered the music on Kansas City’s famous 12th Street. He neglected his studies, and within two years his mother had summoned him back to New York after one of his professors told her that her son was “a young man of marked ability, who is manifestly unable to integrate his own personality in his world… He simply cannot go on here. Something in him rebels.”

Back at home Jerry accompanied his father on his window-cleaning rounds, spending his nights haunting the nightclubs of Harlem soaking up the music of Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and others. He also found work as a customs guard, which enabled him to arrive one day in a club on 52nd Street and read aloud at a jam session from a goverment manual which described “in exacting terms the way marijuana was made: the flailing of cannabis, the treating of the residue, the caking of the plant. My buddies were enraptured, and some were even taking notes.”

His life changed in 1941 with America’s entry into the Second World War. He joined the US Army, but spent the entire war stationed in Texas and Florida. He enjoyed the experience, and valued the discipline, and after being discharged he returned to Kansas to complete his studies, eventually earning a degree in journalism.

Wexler found a job with the music-trade paper Billboard, where in 1949 he coined the term “Rhythm and Blues” for the paper’s black music chart, which had previously been called “Race Records”. As he recalled: “I was happy when it stuck; it defined a new genre of music. The handle worked its way into our language.”

His growing network of contacts in the music industry included Ahmet Ertegun, of Atlantic Records, which was then a small R&B label in New York. Ertegun and his co-founder, Herb Abramson, invited Wexler to join them, and were flabbergasted when the young man insisted on being made a full partner. They withdrew their offer, but a year later (in 1953) — when Abramson was drafted — asked him in, initially as a provisional

co-director of Atlantic.

The label had recently signed Ray Charles, at that time relatively unknown, and in 1954 their artist Joe Turner released Shake, Rattle and Roll, which helped to kick-start the rock ’n’ roll revolution. This was soon followed by Ray Charles’s I Got a Woman.

One of Wexler’s and Ertegun’s first ideas was to make a foray to the South in search of the piano player Professor Longhair. After travelling to New Orleans, and then journeying deep into the bayou, they eventually found Longhair performing in a crowded juke joint. “I thought, my God, we’ve discovered a primitive genius,” Wexler later recalled. “Ahmet said, ‘You won’t believe this, but I want to record you.’ To which Longhair replied, ‘You won’t believe this, but I just signed with Mercury.’”

Wexler worked with Ray Charles on some of his finest recordings, and was keen to sign the little-known Elvis Presley for the label; but they were unable to raise an extra $10,000, money that would have been recouped many times over.

One evening at dinner with Kurt Weill’s widow, Lotte Lenya, she remarked to Wexler that surely the label could record one of her husband’s songs to bring in some royalties. The result was Bobby Darin’s version of Mack The Knife. The firm suffered a loss when Darin and Charles left for other labels, but Atlantic redoubled its energy in its search for new talent, and was sufficiently hip to withstand the change in the American scene with the arrival of the Beatles.

Wexler discovered an erstwhile “wonder-boy” preacher named Solomon Burke, whose hits — including The Price and Cry To Me — sustained Atlantic through a decidely lean period. But it was a journey south that was to usher in a purple period for the label.

His association with Stax Records in Memphis brought Atlantic hits with Otis Redding, Sam and Dave and Eddie Floyd; while an affiliation with Fame Records in the Alabama town of Muscle Shoals produced the worldwide number one, When A Man Loves A Woman by Percy Sledge. But perhaps Wexler’s greatest recordings came when he combined Aretha Franklin with the session musicians from Muscle Shoals on such hits as Natural Woman, Respect and I Say a Little Prayer.

He paired the same musicians with the English singer Dusty Springfield to produce her finest work, Dusty In Memphis. And he was instrumental in developing the career of the guitarist Duane Allman, whom he introduced to Eric Clapton, resulting in the album Layla.

Ertegun, meanwhile, had been signing mainstream rock acts such as Led Zeppelin and Yes — to Wexler’s increasing chagrin. They certainly boosted turnover, but Wexler’s greatest enthusiam remained black music.

In the 1970s Wexler’s life changed. In 1941 he had married Shirley Kampf, with whom he had two daughters and a son, but the union now unravelled. Meanwhile, Atlantic had been subsumed by a corporation. But while working on Gumbo by Dr John, a pianist who had been around New Orleans and Los Angeles for years but had found a hip new audience in his guise as The Night Tripper, he met Renee Pappas.

Both Wexler and Renee realised that she was seeking a father figure, and he happily acquiesced in educating her. They married and took an apartment on Park Avenue. As before, he sought relief from domestic frustations by retreating to the recording studio. He recorded Willie Nelson properly for the first time, but — the label not being attuned to country-and-western — Nelson was allowed to leave Atlantic, only to find great success elsewhere.

Wexler increasingly felt as if he were being elbowed aside. “I had lived and breathed Atlantic Records for a good part of my adult life,” he said, “but it was the end of the road.” He remained friendly with Ertegun, but felt glad to leave. .

In the late 1970s Wexler joined Warner’s and made albums with artists as various as Etta James and the ascendant Dire Straits, who duly came to greater prominence when Wexler had them play on an album which Bob Dylan — an admirer of his work with Aretha Franklin — asked him to produce. Ironically, this was Slow Train Coming, Dylan’s first outright religious album, but it was more than ably produced by the resolutely atheist Wexler. Its sequel Saved did not have the same impetus.

Wexler was now asked by director Louis Malle (a jazz buff) to organise the music for his bordello movie Pretty Baby, for which Wexler came up with a sensuous score which, by means of using out-of-copyright music, cost an amazed studio a mere $5,000.

Inevitably, Wexler’s second marriage broke up after a mutually unfaithful decade. As ever, he found consolation in his work. He produced Santana’s rollicking disc of cover-versions, Havana Moon, and took to theatre producing . Some recordings — with José Feliciano, Donovan and even Tony Orlando — were hardly inspired, and his funky recording of Careless Whisper with George Michael was replaced by an earlier version (except in Japan).

In 1985 Wexler met the novelist and playwright Jean Arthur, whom he married within two months. He retired to a villa in a Florida marina, where he was surrounded by gold and platinum records and other mementoes of his success. He was happy to welcome journalists and writers to reminisce about his great days in the music business.

In 1993 he published an autobiography, Rhythm and the Blues: a life in American Music, which included the tragic revelation that his daughter Anita, having recovered from drug addiction, had then died from Aids.