It's a blog-eat-blog world

THE DEED IS DONE
Well, it took the better part of four weekends, but my friend Phil and I finally finished off the reconstruction of the back wall of my house, which had been badly damaged in places by rain water.  Special thanks to Phil for all his help with this little venture—I now owe you several hundred favors, Bro!

BUH-BYE, BROWN-NOSE!
Kansas Senator Sam Brownback (R) announced this week he was dropping out of the '08 Presidential race, which suits me just fine.  This guy is an über-Christian anti-abortion zealot who no doubt would've been forcing your kids to pray in the public schools that could no longer teach evolution under his watch, and he would've had us partying like it was 1899.  Good riddance!

AH, BUT DOES HE LOOK FRENCH?
A letter writer to the K.C. Star had a brilliant comment the other day about Rudy Giuliani.  He astutely noted that during the recent GOP debates, Rudy was sporting a shirt with French cuffs, or as the writer suggested, "shall we say 'Freedom Cuffs', n'est-ce pas?" Oui, oui, monsieur!

MEET THE NEW BOSS...
The Royals hired a new manager who I'd never ever heard of until about 36 hours ago, one Trey Hillman, who spent 12 years in the New York Crankees organization and the last five managing (successfully) in Japan.  Evidently the man comes highly-recommended, though, and Royals GM Dayton Moore seems to know what he's doing, so let's see what happens.  Hell, no one had ever heard of Cleveland manager Eric Wedge before they hired him.  Some baseball "experts" still don't know who he is...

MEET THE NEW BLOG...
...I've added to the Required Reading list.  Pretty self-explanatory—I especially love the coverage therein of the feud between Ms. Malkin and Jerry Rivers (aka Geraldo Rivera).  A turd feuding with another turd is strangely fascinating to me, for reasons I can't fully explain...

AND THE BEST ACTRESS OSCAR GOES TO...
...Ellen DeGeneres for her stunning tear-filled "performance" on her own talkfest this week over some dog she adopted and gave away to someone else without the permission of the agency from which she adopted said mongrel.  Call me jaded all you want, but I view this as little more than a desperate attempt for ratings on Ellen's part—and oh what a coincidence, the November sweeps are just around the corner!  Pure hooey...

EXHIBIT "A"...
...on why I won't be taking in the current Van Halen tour.  Putting aside the fact that "Jump" is my least-favorite VH song ever, I can't believe how utterly putrid they sound here—they're so off-key they make the Sex Pistols sound like Pink Floyd!  Michael Anthony ought to be glad he was kicked out of the band after all—he's being spared the shame and embarrassment of this joke of a tour.  He's much better off touring with Sammy.  As for VH:  Ahhh, might as well punt! (Punt!)

HE'S BAAACK!
The K.C. Chefs officially activiated running back Priest Holmes today, after he spent two years on the shelf with a neck injury.  While I don't expect him to be the same player he was in his prime, more power to him if he can contribute to the Chefs' woeful offense, which is downright offensive this season.  I'd like to see them use him like they did Marcus Allen in his waning days as a third-down back to spell Larry Johnson.  In any event, it's nice to see "The Beast That Is The Priest" back on the field.

HAPPY TRAILS, TRENT
I was rather relieved to hear that the docs. refused to clear former Chief/current Dolphin QB Trent Green to play anymore this season, following his second major concussion in as many seasons.  Trent, buddy, we love you to death, but we don't want to see you put to death by another collision—so PLEASE retire, will ya?  Your dedication to playing is admirable, but you've had a great career you can be proud of—walk away from it while you still can!

THIS NEVER GETS OLD!
USC 38, Notre Dame 0.  Even whipping out those cheesy green uniforms today didn't help out the Faulty Irish, who are now 1-7 and totally irrelevant.  Meantime, Mizzou looked much better today in stomping Texas Tech 41-10 in Columbia.  Their showdown with Kansas at Arrowhead in November may well be one of the best games of the year, as KU is now 7-0 after beating Colorado today in Boulder.

CLASSIC MISHEARD LYRIC #53
"It Wasn't Me"—GEORGE THOROGOOD & THE DESTROYERS (1978)  "Well he was cold, tired and hungry, came a-beggin' for bread/The lady took him in and fed him breakfast in bed."  When Lonesome George sang Chuck Berry's underrated classic, I thought he said, "The lady cooked him meat and fed him breakfast in bed," which also worked.

10-20-77
Hard to believe it was 30 years ago tonight that the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash altered the history of Rock 'N' Roll.  I just happened to be listening to the old KY-102 on the radio that night—which was somewhat rare at that time, as I was just starting to make the transition from Top 40 to Album Rock radio when I was 13—and I want to say it was DJ Joe McCabe, or maybe it was Ray Sherman who delivered the bad news.

I knew a little (pun intended) about Skynyrd at the time, but I didn't know who Ronnie Van Zant was or anyone else in the band, for that matter, and I remember being rather partial to their new single that had just come out called "What's Your Name?".  Oddly enough, I hadn't even heard "Free Bird" up to that point.  Knowing now what I didn't know then, I think I'd have to add Skynyrd to my list of bands I wish I could've seen in concert during their prime—along with Queen, Bob Seger and The Who when Keith Moon was still alive.  I saw the modern-day version of Lynyrd with Johnny Van Zant on vocals a few years back, and it was okay, but everything I've heard and seen about the '70s Skynyrd tells me they were white-hot on stage, and I remember Molly Hatchet's Dave Hlubek once proclaiming in a radio interview that LS "would've been the Led Zeppelin of America" if they'd finished their ill-fated tour.  Dave may well have been right...

Fly on Free Birds, fly on...