With every mistake, we must surely be learning?!?

Evidently not! Witness the following:

EPISODE I
In what may be the ultimate "What the hell were you thinking?" brain fart of all-time, Golfweek magazine published this cover in the wake of the Golf Channel announcer chick's recent boneheaded utterance about lynching Tiger Woods in an alley.  The Golf Channel gal's gaffe was inadvertent, but this was premeditated—how dumb do ya gotta be to publish something like this, even if it's all in fun?  The magazine wisely fired their editor who was behind it all...




EPISODE II
Seems that Ike Turner's death was officially caused by a cocaine overdose.  True to form, ol' Ike remained a total dumbass right up to the bitter end.

EPISODE III
Rumors are flying that Britney Spears is pregnant again.  Please do us all a big favor, Brit—save us the agony that we went through with Anna Nicole by doing paternity tests to find out who the father is before you do yourself in with a drug overdose...

EPISODE IV
This from Dave Alpert, market manager of Entercom Kansas City, the man who was behind the demise of legendary KC radio station 99.7 KY, bragging on the station's new format:  "There are at least 550 songs on the station that were not on KY...The old station was totally corporate radio...I'm not dissing it, but there was not a lot of thinking outside of the box. Just play the same 325 songs over and over."

Dumb question, but why couldn't they have merely added those 550 songs to KY's existing playlist in the first place instead of blowing up the station and alienating a lot of loyal listeners?  This new format sounds pretty damn corporate to me, although I do give them points for playing Elton John's "Madman Across The Water"—excellent track.  Their inclusion of Dire Straits' "Down To The Waterline" gives me hope that they might also play my favorite DS track "Solid Rock" as well as stuff like "Tunnel Of Love" and "Romeo And Juliet", but time will tell.

Meantime, with all my bitching and complaining about the sorry state of Rock 'N' Roll radio, I've decided to do something about it and create my own personal radio station on the new Ipod that I got for Christmas.  Being as resistant to change as I am, I was reluctant to make the jump to Ipod-land at first, but I had a change of heart when it occurred to me that I can just load a thousand or so of my favorite tunes into this little sucker, put the som-bitch on "shuffle" and let 'er rip!

EPISODE V
Word has it that the tiger in the San Francisco zoo was being taunted by the guy that it successfully tried to eat and kill last month.  Tigger's dinner entree was apparently drunk off his ass at the time, and in a place where he shouldn't have been in the first place, therefore these people who claim that the barriers were insufficient are full of shit!

Thank you, sir, may I have another?

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST?
According to the papers, the writer’s strike now threatens the upcoming Grammy Awards broadcast.  Just as with Julie Brown’s "Homecoming Queen" gunning down the entire Glee Club, it’s "No big loss…"  Did anyone truly miss the Golden Globe Awards this year?  Apart from these people who obsess over all the red carpet palaver, I think not.

"O" IS FOR OMNIPOTENT
Are you ready for all-Oprah all the time?  Evidently, that’s going to happen when Discovery Health Channel morphs into the Oprah Channel, thus displacing thousands of hours’ worth of baby-birthing shows.

You know, I give Oprah credit for taking the high road on her talk show by not featuring stuff like the "White Trash Theater" crap Jerry Springer and Moron Povich air every day, but still there’s something about this woman that I don’t like, and I can’t quite put my finger on it.  Some of it has to do with her arrogance, I think—I mean how humble can you be to name a magazine after yourself and feature your own photo on the cover of every issue?  I think it might also have a bit to do with overexposure on her part, and having her own cable network is only going make that worse.

OKAY, I’M CONFUSED…
How is it Hillary Clinton gets 55% of the vote in the Michigan primary, yet Obama and Edwards weren’t even on the ballot?  Who came up with this convoluted system anyway, anyway—Curly, Moe and Larry or FEMA?  And dumb question, but why do they hold the Michigan Primary in the middle of January when the weather is usually shitty and people might not be able to get out and vote?  Seems to me like March or April might be more favorable…

PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH, MMM-KAY?
I made a little observation while channel-surfing the other night:  It occurs to me that the people who host these "What Not To Wear" TV shows are often in more dire need of makeovers than their guests are.  Case in point:  Finola Hughes, who used to be a real hottie when she was on "General Hospital" back in the ‘80s, but she was dressed like a drag queen on this silly show.  They have another one of these pointless crapfests on The Learning Channel (what any of this has to do with "learning" is beyond me) with some flighty black gal hosting it, and she had so much make-up on she looked like a glazed donut!  And why do women rely so much on the advice of these flaming homos on what to wear to impress heterosexual guys with?  Some of this crap they have these girls wearing on these shows looks like it was designed by Ronald McDonald...

MORE KY POST-MORTEM
Hate to keep beating a dead horse/radio station, but here's an excellent piece by K.C. Star columnist Timothy Finn on the demise of KY.  One of his readers posted the following commentary that I found rather profound, too:

"I don't live in the Kansas City area anymore and have no idea what KY had become, but when it was 102 in the late 70's and early 80's and played album rock, it helped define our generation, just as WHB did the previous generation.  I am sure its time has since passed..."

Sad to say, but he may be right--perhaps Classic/Album Rock radio has indeed gone the way of Oldsmobile and Montgomery Ward...

CLASSIC OLD-SCHOOL TV COMMERCIAL #2
Give a hoot--don't pollute!

Choke, puke, hurl--repeat!

Behold the mission statement of our new radio station, 99.7 The Dead End Street—er uh—The Boulevard.  Springsteen and Jackson Browne hard to find on KC radio?  Y'all didn't try very hard, then!  Stations playing "only the same few song from artists that have many great songs"?  Well, then why has The Boulevard already given Billy Joel's "Captain Jack" two spins in the last two days?  Pure poffeycock!

All they've done is lop off the harder stuff from the KY's old playlist like AC/DC, Ted Nugent, Van Halen and Ozzy and replaced it with Dave Matthews Bland, Coldplay and R.E.M.  Apart from that, it ain't that much different than KY was, just minus the personalities.  Once again, this is what happens when radio stations are run by corporations who listen to all these consulting firms and demographic surveys telling them what they think people want to hear.  Granted, KY was in desperate need of some re-tooling, but it wasn't worth blowing up if all they're going to do is replace it with this crap!  Welcome to Dullsville, boys and girls...

I'm sorry, but I just can't imagine people tuning in this station in droves.  As Fred Sanford used to say, "I give it two weeks..."

Football follies

AND THE BEST ACTOR OSCAR GOES TO...
Terrell Owens in The Crying Game!  Normally, this behavior would be considered just a bit tacky for "a man of his statue", as T.O.'s former hoochie-mama publicist once called him.  But then again, this headline-grabbing whore will stoop to most anything to keep the spotlight on him, including crying like Nancy Kerrigan.  Just a hunch here, but I bet Donovan McNabb and Jeff Garcia were out shopping for new TVs today after having thrown bricks through their existing ones while watching this load of malarkey.  Perhaps T.O. wouldn't have had to cry if he'd bothered to catch a pass or two in the second half yesterday.

For the record, I didn't buy Hillary Clinton's crocodile tears in New Hampshire last week, either...

BLAME JESSICA
And of course, we all know the real reason the Cowboys lost to the Giants was Tony Romo's girlfriend, two-bit bimbo actress Jessica Simpson, aka "Yoko Romo" to Dallas fans—after all, she practically was in on every snap of the ball yesterday!  Never mind that the Cowboys were outplayed on defense by the G-men.  The fans and the media have been making such a big stink over the little vacation the two them took during Dallas' bye-week—a trip that Romo's coach urged him to take, no less—and it's such a crock.  What, all the other players don't have girlfriends to distract them, too?  I picked the Giants to win, by the way, so there!

MAYBE NOT LIKE PEYTON MANNING'S TEAM, MAYBE
The only blemish on my postseason game prognostications was San Diego's surprise win at Indianapolis yesterday.  I suppose we should blame this on Peyton Manning's girlfriend, huh?  Nice job by the Chargers of hanging in there even after losing QB Phillip Rivers and RB LaDainian Tomlinson to injury and having TE Antonio Gates at about half-speed.  They don't have a hope in hell against New England next weekend, but it was a valiant effort all the same.  This also may well have been Tony Dungy's final game as the Colts' head coach.  Hope he stays—he's a classy guy and a good man—but if not, he's done himself proud.

ADIOS TO ANOTHER DOME
Yesterday was also the final Colts game at the RCA (nee Hoosier) Dome, as they move into their new joint across the street next season.  Not unlike Seattle's Kingdome, the Hoosier Dome will die pretty young at the age of 24 later this year when they tear it down (the Kingdome barely made it to 23).  Still, it's nice to see another dome disappear from the football universe, although their new house will be a part-time domed stadium.  However, I will say that of all the bubble-dome football stadiums I've seen in person (Metrodome, Pontiac Silverdome, Carrier Dome) the Hoosier Dome is probably the most stately-looking on the exterior.

JOHNNY PODRES, 1932-2008
Okay, this isn't football, but former Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Johnny Podres died yesterday.  Highly ironic that he later went on to become the pitching coach of the San Diego Padres in the early '70s.  I always thought his surname was misspelled on baseball cards and that it should've been Johnny 'Padres'.  Oh, dopey me...