Happy Harry Day!

TRUMAN NATURE
Today would’ve been Harry S. Truman’s 123rd birthday.  Remember that gawdawful song Chicago did in 1975 that went "America needs you, Harry Truman…" in tribute to our 33rd President?  Dreadful song, but the sentiments therein are still very applicable these days—we could sure use a "no bullshit" leader like him now around these parts.  It was pretty cool growing up in an area with an ex-President practically in our back yard—having the Truman Library and his home in nearby Independence made me feel a bit more in touch with history when I was kid.  I clearly remember the long ordeal and the nightly news updates when he was dying during the Christmas holiday season of ’72 and how bummed I was that Harry didn’t live to see the finished product of the Truman Sports Complex (Royals/Kauffman Stadium didn’t open until the following April).  I also remember Dad and my brother and I boarding the shuttle bus in the stadium parking lot for the ride over to the Truman Library and standing in the long line for over four hours on that sunny but frigid Winter afternoon to pay our respects when Truman laid in state.  My old man—a staunch Republican—was still a fan of H.S.T., and I was always grateful that he took me out there that day.

Keep giving ‘em hell, Harry, wherever you are…

MEET THE NEW BOSS…
France has a newly-elected president, one Nicolas Sarkozy.  Hmmm—doesn’t sound all that French to me, but I’ll patiently await the verdict from the panel of experts at Faux News Channel on whether or not the man actually looks French…

WELL, ISN’T THAT SPECIAL?
For the second straight year, over-the-hill pitcher Roger Clemens has decided to start his season two months later than everyone else by signing with the Yankees for several bajillion dollars.  What the fuck is this "I’ll start pitching whenever I get around to it" crap?  This ain’t the PGA or tennis where you are your own entity and can play whenever you feel like it—baseball is a TEAM sport!  I don’t care if Clemens is a sure-shot Hall of Famer, either—he should be expected to go through Spring Training and start the season on time just like everyone else instead of this mercenary "here I come to save the day" bullshit he pulls every year.  He doesn’t even have to accompany the team on road trips now when he’s not scheduled to pitch, either.  Mr. "Rocket Man" is totally self-serving, not to mention a complete jerk too.  I hope some National League pitcher beans him right on his fat head in his first plate appearance during Interleague play.

Oh by the way, did I mention that I don’t really like Roger Clemens very much?  Don’t want to mislead you or anything…

And of course, ESPN will have their hype machine running at full-capacity when Clemens finally does get going this year, just as they do with all the other sports figures they obsess over and waste so much "SportsCenter" airtime on like Barry Bonds, Terrell Owens, Bill Parcells, Michelle Wie, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Brett Favre, et al.  This may be a looooong summer…

MOVIE REVIEW
In between thunderstorms and bailing out my crawl space the other night, I managed to work in the film Little Children on DVD.  It reminded me of Crash from two years ago in that I neither truly liked it or disliked it, but it still managed to hold my interest throughout, for some reason.  Getting to see Kate Winslet nekkid and having sexual relations was definitely an asset, but it was actually a fairly interesting story with a few quirks, too.  I can also see why Jackie Earle Haley got the Best Supporting Actor Oscar nod too—he creeped me out pretty good and was quite convincing as the sex offender/ weirdo.  Not the greatest film I’ve ever seen, but well worth a look.  About a B-minus on my scale.

WELCOME TO "WHITE TRASH THEATER"…
Don’t know about you, but I’m already tired of this new trend in celebrity schmuck-dom being perpetrated by spiteful spouses/ex-wives and/or their children, as in the case of Alec Baldwin’s vitriolic voice mail message and David Hasselhoff’s drunk-off-his-ass videotape that are currently making the rounds on YouTube and on regular TV.  In both cases, the spouses are claiming innocence in the whole matter as to how these things got released to the media in the first place.  The ex-Mrs. Hasselhoff was on "Larry King Live" last night denying everything, and overrated whore Kim Basinger (Mrs. Baldwin) has been doing same in the media.  In the words of Mr. Dylan, "Let us not talk falsely now…"

Yes, I know this crap is mere fodder for the tabloid media and all, and all the masses out there eat this stuff up because they are shallower than shit, but once again I must quote Chairman Townshend:  "Why should I care? WHY should I care?"  As for the above celebrities:  go fight your fucking battles in private.  As for the masses: get a fucking life, America!

CLASSIC MISHEARD LYRIC #30
"Brass In Pocket (I’m Special)"—THE PRETENDERS (1980) This song never did make a lot of sense to me until I sat down to read the lyrics, and strangely enough, it still doesn't!  "Detroit leaning"—what’s that mean? "A wink and a tail" sounds like "When can I tell?" and "Gonna use my sidestep" sounded to me like "Gonna use my sausage"!  Was Chrissie hiding something in her pants she didn’t want us to know about?  Coincidentally, when my big sister took me to see The Who when I was 15 in April of ‘80, The Pretenders opened for them.  Sis knew nothing about the group prior to the concert, and actually thought Chrissie Hynde was a dude at first!

WHAT’S THAT SMELL?
There is now a team in that NFL Europa league in Cologne, Germany.  Can’t you just picture the headlines following a bad loss—"Cologne Stinks It Up."  They also have a team called the Rhein Fire—"I’ve seen Fire and I’ve seen Rhein"?  The league itself has changed monikers several times:  it was previously NFL Europe, and before that, the WLAF (World League of America Football), or "Waffle League" as David Letterman once referred to it—"You can’t spell waffle without W-L-A-F!"