...is better than the way we had."--Joe Walsh
Sometimes I think ol' Joe's right, too! Gonna put the blog on vacation while I go on vacation for a few days and head for the mountains of beautiful Colorado and get high—literally. While I'm there, I hope to party with the Colorado Rockies faithful if and when they beat the Red Sox, but that remains to be seen. Full report and photos forthcoming upon my return, and I'll leave it to y'all to keep the proverbial acorn spinning in the meantime...
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Friday, October 26, 2007
Book 'em, Danno!
I'm currently tracking through Season 1 of "The Streets of San Francisco" on DVD, the opening theme music from which I'd almost forgotten in the 30 years since I last saw the show on TV. It gave me the inspiration for yet another list...
World's Greatest Crime Drama TV Theme Songs:
10) "Barnaby Jones" Well, doggies! Buddy Ebsen cuffin' and stuffin' the bad guys—his theme song was far hipper than he was...
9) "Mod Squad" Another example of theme music that was far superior to the show it fronted.
8) "Mannix" This jazzy little number was a bit out of place for a crime drama, but for some reason, it worked.
7) "Rockford Files" Mike Post and his synthesizers had a huge hit with this one in '75.
6) "Miami Vice" And ten years later, Jan Hammer and his synthesizers had a big hit with this one.
5) "Baretta" "Don't do the crime, if you can't do the time..." Sammy Davis, Jr. admonishes. Too bad the star of the show didn't heed his advice, even though he ain't doing the time...
4) "Streets of San Francisco" Rather easy to forget that this is where Michael Douglas got his start. And of course, this was Karl Malden's stepping stone to his lucrative career in American Express traveler's check commercials.
3) "Starsky & Hutch" Go with Tom Scott's "Gotcha!" theme from the second season, which was so funky even Huggy Bear woulda dug it.
2) "S.W.A.T." The group Rhythm Heritage scored a fairly sizeable hit in the Fall of '75 with this one, and it rocks. Too bad the show wasn't as good as its theme song.
1) "Hawaii Five-O" Was this song fucking cool, or what? You bet your Chinny-Chin-Ho, it was!
World's Greatest Crime Drama TV Theme Songs:
10) "Barnaby Jones" Well, doggies! Buddy Ebsen cuffin' and stuffin' the bad guys—his theme song was far hipper than he was...
9) "Mod Squad" Another example of theme music that was far superior to the show it fronted.
8) "Mannix" This jazzy little number was a bit out of place for a crime drama, but for some reason, it worked.
7) "Rockford Files" Mike Post and his synthesizers had a huge hit with this one in '75.
6) "Miami Vice" And ten years later, Jan Hammer and his synthesizers had a big hit with this one.
5) "Baretta" "Don't do the crime, if you can't do the time..." Sammy Davis, Jr. admonishes. Too bad the star of the show didn't heed his advice, even though he ain't doing the time...
4) "Streets of San Francisco" Rather easy to forget that this is where Michael Douglas got his start. And of course, this was Karl Malden's stepping stone to his lucrative career in American Express traveler's check commercials.
3) "Starsky & Hutch" Go with Tom Scott's "Gotcha!" theme from the second season, which was so funky even Huggy Bear woulda dug it.
2) "S.W.A.T." The group Rhythm Heritage scored a fairly sizeable hit in the Fall of '75 with this one, and it rocks. Too bad the show wasn't as good as its theme song.
1) "Hawaii Five-O" Was this song fucking cool, or what? You bet your Chinny-Chin-Ho, it was!
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Kick 'em when they're up, Kick 'em when they're down...
RUSTY WHAT?!?
New Royals manager Trey Hillman announced his coaching staff yesterday, which includes first base coach Rusty Kuntz. Yes, I know his surname doesn’t rhyme with "runts", but it’s one of those sports names that’s guaranteed to elicit a chuckle out of me every time I hear it, along with the likes of baseball’s Dick Pole, Razor Shines and Pete LaCock, football’s Dick Post, Happy Feller and Fair Hooker (mediocre prostitute?), NASCAR’s Dick Trickle and hockey’s Parris Duffus, Peter Ing and Guy Dupuis. Honest, folks—I’m not making those names up!
SLUMMING WITH THE REST OF US NOW, KID?
Kid Rock got busted this past weekend for getting in a fight with someone. Nothing shocking there, except this time he got busted at a Waffle House restaurant in Atlanta! Has Kid’s career plummeted so far already that this is the only place he can afford to eat out now?
I must confess that Chateau de Waffel is a guilty pleasure of mine, especially on road trips. True, it’s White Trash heaven (both in terms of staff and clientele), but their food’s not bad, their prices are pretty reasonable, and I usually get served before I’m even halfway through reading the sports page, unlike at Denny’s, where I can read the entire paper (including the classified ads and obituaries), and still be waiting for my food. For a quick and cheap sit-down breakfast, you can’t beat Casa de Waffle, and best of all, you can watch them cook your food and not have to worry about anyone hocking loogies in your omelet…
LET IT RAIN, PLEASE!
It most definitely sucks seeing these California wildfires burning out of control, knowing that the firefighters are pretty much helpless in trying to put them out. Something else I could truly do without is the news media’s constant roll call of celebrities who are evacuating their homes. So what? At least Suzanne Somers, et al, can afford to replace her overpriced home (that she probably only lives in part of the time anyway)—what about the working folks out there in the same area who are about to lose their modest homes that they can't possibly afford to replace in their lifetimes?
YOU KNOW WHAT?
I rediscovered an old childhood friend this week when I rented the two-disc "Droopy" DVD collection, and it is a total crack-up--this little guy was so deadpan he makes Ben Stein sound like David Lee Roth. I didn’t realize that Sir Droopy went all the way back to the 1940s—I always thought he was a ‘60s phenomenon—and yet these cartoons have definitely stood the test of time and are just as entertaining today as they were 60 years ago. In the words of our good friend Bullwinkle, "You can't beat the classics, I always say!"
WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
There’s this old doctor (a pediatrician, no less) who works in our building who stands outside and smokes cigarettes constantly. Nothing instills confidence more in me than a physician who chain smokes. Reminds of when I was nine and laying on a gurney about to be wheeled in for my tonsillectomy, and there’s my doctor standing across the hall puffing away (back in the day when you could smoke in hospitals) on his Benson & Hedges, and I was like, "Huh?" The old doc. at our building also always uses the wheelchair-assist thing to open the entry doors to the building because he's too damn lazy to open them himself. Big pet-peeve of mine to see able-bodied people doing this...
CLASSIC MISHEARD LYRIC #54
"Bounty Hunter"—MOLLY HATCHET (1978) "My six-gun, she's strapped by my side..." Me not being that well-versed on guns and ammo (then or now), I thought maybe there was some sort of weapons apparatus nicknamed a "six-gun cheese-strap"! Only my feeble brain would come up with stupid shit like that...
HYPOCRISY, 101
The Cleveland Indians’ recent playoff run has once again brought about protests over the use of Indian mascots by sports teams, which no doubt would have escalated if the Tribe had made it to the World Series. Ain’t it amazing how this only happens during high-profile sporting events like this or whenever the Washington Redskins make the Super Bowl? You never hear about such protests during early-February weeknight Chicago Blackhawks games in Calgary, do you? I also might be inclined to take these protests a little more seriously if and when Native Americans cease building casinos and resorts on their revered reservations and/or on top of their so-called "sacred" burial grounds…
GO ON WITH YOUR BAD SELVES, THEN…
The big stink in Kansas City the last month or so has been over organized ethnic groups like the NAACP and their Hispanic equivalent La Raza threatening to take their convention bidness elsewhere because one of newly-elected Mayor Mark Funkhouser’s appointees, one Frances Semler, is a member of The Minutemen organization, AKA the Raging Paranoids. Evidently, NAACP and La Raza seem to think they have the power to dictate to Kansas City’s mayor who he can and can’t have on his staff. This is certainly not an endorsement of these bigoted vigilante Minutemen losers, but at the same time, we’re talking about a friggin’ Parks Director, for crissakes! It’s not exactly like this woman runs the city or anything. Anyway, La Raza has decided they won’t be meeting in K.C. anytime soon, and are taking their little convention to sunny San Diego, home to one of the largest Minutemen contingents in the whole country. In the words of F.G. Sanford, Esq.: "Buenos tacos!"
MAKE IT STOP!
In the time it took me to type all the above, the Boston Red Sox managed to score a touchdown in the bottom of the fifth tonight at Fenway in Game 1 against the Colorado Rockies. That half-inning alone was even more interminable than Jimmy Page's guitar solos during Led Zep's overblown The Song Remains The Same flick...
New Royals manager Trey Hillman announced his coaching staff yesterday, which includes first base coach Rusty Kuntz. Yes, I know his surname doesn’t rhyme with "runts", but it’s one of those sports names that’s guaranteed to elicit a chuckle out of me every time I hear it, along with the likes of baseball’s Dick Pole, Razor Shines and Pete LaCock, football’s Dick Post, Happy Feller and Fair Hooker (mediocre prostitute?), NASCAR’s Dick Trickle and hockey’s Parris Duffus, Peter Ing and Guy Dupuis. Honest, folks—I’m not making those names up!
SLUMMING WITH THE REST OF US NOW, KID?
Kid Rock got busted this past weekend for getting in a fight with someone. Nothing shocking there, except this time he got busted at a Waffle House restaurant in Atlanta! Has Kid’s career plummeted so far already that this is the only place he can afford to eat out now?
I must confess that Chateau de Waffel is a guilty pleasure of mine, especially on road trips. True, it’s White Trash heaven (both in terms of staff and clientele), but their food’s not bad, their prices are pretty reasonable, and I usually get served before I’m even halfway through reading the sports page, unlike at Denny’s, where I can read the entire paper (including the classified ads and obituaries), and still be waiting for my food. For a quick and cheap sit-down breakfast, you can’t beat Casa de Waffle, and best of all, you can watch them cook your food and not have to worry about anyone hocking loogies in your omelet…
LET IT RAIN, PLEASE!
It most definitely sucks seeing these California wildfires burning out of control, knowing that the firefighters are pretty much helpless in trying to put them out. Something else I could truly do without is the news media’s constant roll call of celebrities who are evacuating their homes. So what? At least Suzanne Somers, et al, can afford to replace her overpriced home (that she probably only lives in part of the time anyway)—what about the working folks out there in the same area who are about to lose their modest homes that they can't possibly afford to replace in their lifetimes?
YOU KNOW WHAT?
I rediscovered an old childhood friend this week when I rented the two-disc "Droopy" DVD collection, and it is a total crack-up--this little guy was so deadpan he makes Ben Stein sound like David Lee Roth. I didn’t realize that Sir Droopy went all the way back to the 1940s—I always thought he was a ‘60s phenomenon—and yet these cartoons have definitely stood the test of time and are just as entertaining today as they were 60 years ago. In the words of our good friend Bullwinkle, "You can't beat the classics, I always say!"WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
There’s this old doctor (a pediatrician, no less) who works in our building who stands outside and smokes cigarettes constantly. Nothing instills confidence more in me than a physician who chain smokes. Reminds of when I was nine and laying on a gurney about to be wheeled in for my tonsillectomy, and there’s my doctor standing across the hall puffing away (back in the day when you could smoke in hospitals) on his Benson & Hedges, and I was like, "Huh?" The old doc. at our building also always uses the wheelchair-assist thing to open the entry doors to the building because he's too damn lazy to open them himself. Big pet-peeve of mine to see able-bodied people doing this...
CLASSIC MISHEARD LYRIC #54
"Bounty Hunter"—MOLLY HATCHET (1978) "My six-gun, she's strapped by my side..." Me not being that well-versed on guns and ammo (then or now), I thought maybe there was some sort of weapons apparatus nicknamed a "six-gun cheese-strap"! Only my feeble brain would come up with stupid shit like that...
HYPOCRISY, 101
The Cleveland Indians’ recent playoff run has once again brought about protests over the use of Indian mascots by sports teams, which no doubt would have escalated if the Tribe had made it to the World Series. Ain’t it amazing how this only happens during high-profile sporting events like this or whenever the Washington Redskins make the Super Bowl? You never hear about such protests during early-February weeknight Chicago Blackhawks games in Calgary, do you? I also might be inclined to take these protests a little more seriously if and when Native Americans cease building casinos and resorts on their revered reservations and/or on top of their so-called "sacred" burial grounds…
GO ON WITH YOUR BAD SELVES, THEN…
The big stink in Kansas City the last month or so has been over organized ethnic groups like the NAACP and their Hispanic equivalent La Raza threatening to take their convention bidness elsewhere because one of newly-elected Mayor Mark Funkhouser’s appointees, one Frances Semler, is a member of The Minutemen organization, AKA the Raging Paranoids. Evidently, NAACP and La Raza seem to think they have the power to dictate to Kansas City’s mayor who he can and can’t have on his staff. This is certainly not an endorsement of these bigoted vigilante Minutemen losers, but at the same time, we’re talking about a friggin’ Parks Director, for crissakes! It’s not exactly like this woman runs the city or anything. Anyway, La Raza has decided they won’t be meeting in K.C. anytime soon, and are taking their little convention to sunny San Diego, home to one of the largest Minutemen contingents in the whole country. In the words of F.G. Sanford, Esq.: "Buenos tacos!"
MAKE IT STOP!
In the time it took me to type all the above, the Boston Red Sox managed to score a touchdown in the bottom of the fifth tonight at Fenway in Game 1 against the Colorado Rockies. That half-inning alone was even more interminable than Jimmy Page's guitar solos during Led Zep's overblown The Song Remains The Same flick...
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