Dead again

For the second time in ten years, Kansas City’s most-enduring Classic Rock station, 99.7 KY, has bitten the proverbial dust.  The original KY-102 was born in 1974, and dominated the airwaves by the end of the decade and well into the ‘80s.  KY—btw, NOT named after the lubricant jelly—was our Album Rock champion (back in the days when they actually did play entire albums), and so many of us grew up with the station that it felt like a death in the family when the corporate suits killed it in late 1997 and changed to a “Modern Rock” format (which lasted all of a year before being changed again).  Meantime, KY was resurrected down the dial at 99.7 a few months later with more or less the same on-air staff, and all was well again—for a while, anyway.  Their ratings were fairly dismal at the time of the first switcheroo, and they never really improved afterwards.  KY rested on its own laurels and the station got stale, with only their longevity to hang their hat on.  They stuck with the same tired morning show team far too long and the station just took its audience for granted.  As of the last ratings period, they were ranked 17th overall—in a 20-station market!  To wit, KY's demise was not only inevitable, but totally justifiable.

Now the format is being changed to something called “Quality Rock”, whatever that is.  The station will be called "The Boulevard" and will supposedly feature the likes of Tom Petty, U2, Dave Matthews Bland, David Bowie, et al—essentially only Rock people who get nominated for Grammy Awards.  Sounds more like "The Dead End Street" to me, therefore I won't be tuning in...

Meanwhile, KY’s second demise feels more like “Oh well, whatever...” than a death in the family.  Classic Rock on the radio (as I like to hear it, anyway) has been dead and gone for years, and I’m totally bored with both KY and our other Classic Rock station, 101-The Fox, which have practically identical playlists (i.e., the same 500 songs over and over).  Thus, I’ll have no problem catching all those Boston and Mellencamp songs played ad nauseam over at 101, which is more or less the KY Graveyard anyway, as 3/4 of their on-air staff are ex-KY jocks.  The only reason 101 outdrew KY in the ratings is the yearly bounce they get from carrying Chiefs games (although this year the bounce was more like a muffled thud).  This is what happens when radio stations are run by corporations instead of people who actually give a shit about the music.

Click here for further commentary from the guy who I really think made KY what it was back in their heyday, Mr. Randy Raley.

On my way to work this morning, I tuned in KY before the format change had taken effect, and sure enough, I came in right during the organ solo of Boston's "Smokin'"!  Seemed only fitting—one more for the road, huh?

R.I.P., KY (1974-2008)

Here comes your 20th nervous breakdown...

A FRIENDLY REMINDER...
Elvis’ birthday was two days ago, which means if you haven’t taken down your outdoor Christmas decorations yet, you're are a moron because Christmas is OVAH!

“KILL MOOSE AND SQUIRREL…”Looks like Boris and Natasha never give up.  That's a real moose who literally got "strung up" by his antlers (click pic to enlarge) when workers in Anchorage, Alaska were raising power lines.  Fortunately, Bullwinkle was safely lowered back to earth all in one piece.  Then again, if he weren't in one piece, there's one place he could go for help:








WAKE ME WHEN IT’S OVER, PLEASE
Are y’all as sick as I am already with all the overblown ESPN-like analysis on the New Hampshire primary and Iowa Carcass?  The talking heads at all the news outlets are splitting so many hairs right and left—did Obama say the right things?  Does Edwards need a haircut?  Did Huckabee look Christian enough?  Did Hillary put her pantyhose on straight?  This is going to be a very long year…

“OLD SCHOOL” TV RULES!
I checked out the newly-released “Mod Squad” DVD set this week—talk about going back in time!  I hadn’t seen that show in probably 35 years, and I didn’t remember all that much about it, except the really cool theme song.  One thing I always wondered—what on earth were they running from in the opening title sequence?  I thought cops were supposed to be the chasers, not the chase-ees, and these three were high-tailing it like they were being chased by bill collectors on pay day.  The plots on the episodes I watched were thinner than Ron Howard’s hair, but these DVDs are worth it alone just to see what people wore back then and all those cool late ‘60s cars, not to mention gas prices at 32.9!  The special features also include recent interview clips with Peggy Lipton, who has aged remarkably well since back in the day.

“VOICES ARE CALLING, FROM INSIDE MY HEAD…”
I’ve also been watching the first season of “The Odd Couple” recently, and Felix and Oscar had this neighbor kid named Phillip who appeared in several episodes. I didn’t recognize the kid visually, but his voice sounded very familiar to me, and it was driving me nuts until I looked him up on imdb.com, and I’ll be damned if it wasn’t the kid who did the voice of Linus on the “Merry Christmas Charlie Brown” special!  It scares the shit out of me sometimes how my memory retains stuff like this…

HALL OF FAME FINALLY TAKES GANDER AT GOOSE
Congrats to the Baseball Hall of Fame for finally getting it right and voting in relief pitcher Rich “Goose” Gossage for the class of ’08.  Even though he pitched for the Evil Empire (Yankees), I always respected his talent and career achievements, and his induction into the Hall has been long overdue.  I don’t get why relief pitchers aren’t recognized for what they do like the other position players are.  The Pro Football HOF does the same thing with kickers and punters by acting as if they don’t exist—Jan Stenerud is the only pure kicker who has been inducted so far, and the greatest punter ever—Oakland’s Ray Guy—has been totally snubbed.  Hell, if they can recognize non-players like owners, commissioners and announcers, then why do these guys always get ignored?

FUNNY (AND TRUE) STORY
I was reminded the other day of a discussion at work one day a few years back.  Some mammogram films had gotten stuck inside this Rolodex-type viewing machine and someone said it was because the person didn’t hang up the films properly.  To which I replied, “So what you’re saying is they weren’t well-hung!” [Place rim shot here]

HERE WE GO AGAIN…
Big mouth Al Sharpton is at it again, causing a big stink over this Golf Channel announcer chick Kelly Tilghman’s ill-advised “lynched in a back alley” remark about Tiger Woods.  Yes, it was a dumb thing to say on TV, and far be it for me to defend anyone from the friggin’ Golf Channel, but if you watch the video, it clearly wasn’t pre-meditated and was out of her mouth before she knew it.  Still, Big Al’s doing all his typical “our race has been offended” opportunist histrionics and wants this gal to be fired and strung up by her nut-sack and all, never mind that Woods himself said he wasn’t offended and everything’s cool at his end.  I’d love it if Tiger would go a step further and tell Sharpton and his tag-team partner Jesse Jackson to put a fucking sock in it already...

FROM THE LIFE OF (THE OTHER) BRIAN...
One of my favorite movie scenes of all-time.  Try to suppress your laughter—it's damn near impossible!

I don't need no doctor...

The good folks at Gallery of The Absurd did a nice job depicting Dr. Phil's lame attempt to score some serious ratings for his show by offering his "help" to Britney Spears over the weekend.  Whatever respect I still had for this man has now completely vanished...

I first became a fan of Dr. Phil when he started out on Oprah’s show, and I also thought he was outstanding on the first season of his own show.  He dealt with a variety of topics, and even if they didn’t necessarily apply to me, I enjoyed listening to his advice.  I bought a couple of his books and found them somewhat helpful as well, but Phil started gradually losing me as a viewer when his show started completely revolving around selling his books for whichever ill of mankind he was out to cure at the time.  One season, it was all about parenting (or the lack thereof) and a bunch of “family-this” and “family-that” crappola, thus kicking us single people to the curb in the meantime.

The next season, he got on this whole big weight-loss kick.  I’m overweight myself, but I found very little of that crusade’s advice helpful, let alone entertaining.  Dr. Phil's true jump-the-shark moment for me was at the beginning of that season when his weight-loss “challenge” commenced and they presented it to be some sort of “Survivor”-esque elimination contest with a bunch of overweight people living together in the same house, with the first one to fail to lose enough weight being kicked out, etc.  I felt very betrayed when I realized that Dr. Phil had “gone Hollywood” by playing this asinine “reality show" gambit.  The “reality” show trend continued on with the “Dr. Phil Families” he featured later that season, complete with cameras in their homes, thus giving the show an MTV/”Real World” feel with its contrived "mini-dramas" revolving around pregnant teen girls.  Such phony bullshit!

Then he started including Mrs. Dr. Phil—his annoying wife Robin—on the show and she always came across to me as a control-freak nag, and I couldn't stand her shrill voice with that Texan drawl to boot.  Dr. Phil didn't stop there—he brought his oldest son Jay on the show frequently to promote some book that he wrote for teenagers.  Jay was likeable enough, but he hardly struck me as being an authority on teenage angst, seeing's how his pampered little ass never seemed to have experienced any!  Then there was the Danny Bonaduce pity-party on the Dr. Phil show a couple years back, and so on and so forth...

Does Dr. Phil really expect us to believe that helping Britney Spears was his sole motivation for visiting her this weekend?  How dumb do you think we are, Doc?  You know damn well if he could've bagged Britney to be on his show, his ratings would've spiked like gas prices right after a terrorist attack.  Hate to say it, but in this household, the Doctor is out!  As Fred Sanford once said to Merv Griffin, "I used to like you...dummy!"

Stop! Or I'll blog!

GOOD PAUL...
Happy birthday to Paul Revere of The Raiders, who hits the big 7-0 today.  I'm on record as not being all that enamored with his current nostalgia act in Branson, which is more of a Rock 'N' Roll oldies revue than a Raiders show, but I do give him credit for still performing and, if nothing else, keeping the group's name alive.  I've never met PR in person, but I've heard from more than one source that he's a real nice guy, as is former Raider Mark Lindsay, whom I did have the good fortune to meet in 2001.  A tip of the hat to both of these gentlemen for being my first real taste of Rock 'N' Roll at age three.

BAD PAUL...
After reading the booklet that accompanies the new Kissology, Vol III DVD set, I'm very disappointed in Paul Stanley's commentary on Peter Criss and Ace Frehley, and their departures from the band during this decade.  This is usually Gene Simmons' forte, but the Starchild chose to rip away on these two, especially Peter.  A sample quote:  "To this day my biggest regret was watching our hard-fought-for resurrection of the original line-up turn into a miraculous second lottery win where 2 individuals chose once again to throw away the winning ticket...Whether it was drugs, alcohol, family members or advisors—the possibilities were lost...What a waste."  Well, Paul, didya ever stop to think that maybe Ace and Peter just don't wanna be in the circus forever?  Both of them appear to have remained clean and sober during this time, and they seem to be at different places in their lives, and not to mention were probably fed up with only being able to play the same bloody set list night after night.  Perhaps if you and Gene had gotten past your own egos and let them contribute more to the Psycho Circus album in '98 and if you had continued making new music after that instead of resting on past laurels, Ace and Peter might still be in your band, which currently looks like a Kiss tribute band.  I also think it's bogus that Ace and Peter aren't allowed to add their commentary to these DVDs and tell their side of the story.  End of sermon...

IS THERE ANY DOUBT NOW...
...that Britney Spears is going to be this year's Anna Nicole Smith?  Sad to say this, but it's only a matter of time before she offs herself...

MEMO TO ALL FOOTBALL ANNOUNCERS:
The Seattle Seahawks' quarterback's last name is pronounced "Hassel-BECK", not "Hassel-BACK"!  Got it, now?  Oy!

ONE TIN SOLDIER SHOULD HAVE RODE AWAY!
I watched the so-called "classic" 1971 film Billy Jack for the first time last night.  I got about halfway through and gave up on it—I could no longer take the antics of the tree-hugging hippie kids at the school!  Even Howard Hesseman in his pre-Dr. Johnny Fever days couldn't save this turkey.  Go ahead and hate this movie, go ahead and change the channel!

REAL MAN OF GENIUS
A little trivia you can impress your friends with: ya know who the singer is in the background on the Bud Light "Real Men of Genius" radio ads?  His name is Dave Bickler, and you might remember him as the original lead singer of the band Survivor, particularly on "Eye Of The Tiger".  He left the band not long after that because of throat problems, but quietly made a comeback on these damn funny commercials, and ironically has made more money doing this than he ever did with Survivor.  Bickler formed the band with a guy named Jim Peterik, whom you're also familiar with, if you love Top 40 oldies—he sang lead vocals for the one-hit-wonder band Ides of March on 1970's "Vehicle".  Trivia class is now dismissed for today...

WANNA WATCH A COMMERCIAL?
Well, it Depends on what it is!  A little humor from my girl Julie Brown, yet another redhead I always found myself attracted to—sexy AND funny, what a concept!  Her 1987 cult-classic album Trapped In The Body Of A White Girl is finally out on CD too, after all these years of only being available on vinyl.  Great songs too, like the title track, as well as "I Like 'Em Big and Stupid" and her greatest hit, "The Homecoming Queen's Got A Gun."

ALL IN THE FAMILY?
You don't suppose former Rainbow/Black Sabbath singer Ronnie James Dio has any male relatives named Stu or Ray, do you?

SEPARATED AT BIRTH?
Here we have Andy Jackson and hack actor Jeff Conaway from TV's "Taxi".  The latter has been resembling Keith Richards more and more in recent years too.  Uhh, drugs are bad, mmm-kay?

Careful, Nervous Blogger Driving...

THE HOUSE IS A-ROCKIN'...
I neglected to mention on Thursday that it was my 12th anniversary at my humble abode, which I took possession of on January 3, 1996, thus my house is now officially 60% paid-for.  It ain't the Taj Mahal or the Presley Estate, but it's a good little house all the same, and I love it to death.

SPEAKING OF STEVIE RAY REFERENCES...
SRV will be eligible for induction into the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame next year.  He fuckin' better be inducted, or I will personally drive to Cleveland to the Hall of Fame and piss on it.  Really, really hard!

ROCK CHALK, JAYHAWKS
As a Missouri fan, even I have to give it up to Kansas for their 24-21 victory in the Orange Bowl the other night against Virginia Tech.  I certainly was all ready to do the "Hokie Pokey" if Va. Tech won, but KU was up to the challenge of proving they are indeed worthy.  It's all good for the Big 12 too, as we now have a changing of the guard after 40 some-odd years of Nebraska/Oklahoma/Colorado/Texas domination of the conference.  Next season promises to be even more exciting than this year was...

I also must comment on the milquetoast performance by ZZ Top at halftime of the O-Bowl.  One friggin' song ("Sharp Dressed Man") and that's all?  And do we really need all the dancing girls scattered all around the field, all of whom weren't even born before "My Head's In Mississippi" came out?  Frankly, I expect better from the Little 'Ol Band From Tejas!

While I'm at it, I want to share a quote from K.C. Star columnist Jeff Flanagan about the bowl game coverage on TV in general:  "We don't need 100 interviews with past coaches, retired athletic directors, parents in the stands, or VIPs on the sideline...Some marketing genius at ESPN apparently decided a few years ago that football telecasts should be geared toward entertaining and/or luring the non-football fan.  But guess what?  The non-football fan isn't watching 99.9% of the bowls...Non-football fans watch other things."  Amen to that!  The gambit I'm sickest of is interviewing the parents in the stands and/or showing their reaction to every freakin' play their QB son makes—very irritating!  NBC started this crap about 15 years ago or so when Bubby Brister was subbing at QB for the Steelers in a game at Denver, and Jesus Horatio Christ, these som-bitches flashed their cameras to catch his mom in the crowd after every fucking play to get her reaction to young Bubby's prowess on the playing field, and it got old real quick, folks!

SURE SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE
One of our local Classic Rock stations is running their "Top 1,001 Songs of All-Time" countdown to start the year, and at position #666 is that Satanic classic, "All You Need Is Love" by The Beatles!  The number of the beast, you say?  I dunno, but then again, you can't spell "Beatles" without "b-e-a-s-t"...

OUR COUSIN VINNIE?
For no particular reason, I got to thinking about former Kiss guitarist Vinnie Vincent today.  A little trivia for you, here—didya know that our man Vincent Cusano was a staff writer on TV's "Happy Days"?  I'd be willing to bet it was during the "Joanie Loves Chachi" era.  Anyway, allow me to present to you one of the silliest music videos of all-time.  Not a bad song, mind you, but this thing looked more like a parody of Rock excess than anything Weird Al ever did.  I've said it before, I'll say it again—VV was a damn good songwriter, but he was a mediocre guitar player, at best, and he stepped on his own winkie (while wearing spiked golf shoes) more than a little bit...

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO "LENNY THE COOL"
I witnessed yet another bon mot from former Chiefs legend Len Dawson last night on Channel 9 here in K.C., where he is their sports anchor.  He's notorious for butchering (non-football) player's names, and while reporting the news that the Royals had signed former big-name pitcher Hideo Nomo (pronounced hih-DAY-o) to a minor-league contract, our Lenny pronounced Nomo's first name as to rhyme with "video"!  I loved Len Dawson to death as a player, and he's not bad as a color commentator on the Chiefs radio broadcasts either, but he is to TV sports anchoring what Vinnie Vincent was to music video-ing!

TELLIN' IT LIKE IT IS—VOLUME II
More song lyrics where I substitute the word "fuck" for the word "love", like it shoulda been in the first place...

"More Today Than Yesterday"—SPIRAL STAIRCASE (1970)  "Every day's a new day, every time I fuck (love) ya..."
"Good Trouble"—R.E.O. SPEEDWAGON (1982)  "We could stay awake and fuck (dance) all night--we can always sleep..."
"Lovin' You's A Dirty Job"—RATT (1990)  "Fuckin' (Lovin') you is a dirty job..."

Classic Old-School Fast-Food Joint #1

Hate to seem like I'm ripping off everything Randy Raley does on his blog, but in the tradition of his Old-Time Gas Station series, I give you a favorite memory of mine, Classic Old-School Fast-Food Joints!
First up is a place we rarely ate at when I was a kid—the mighty Burger Chef.  Not that I didn't want to eat there, but there weren't that many B.C.'s around Kansas City, and it was like pulling teeth to get my old man to take us out to eat anyway.  By the time I was old enough to drive in 1980, the Chef had left our area altogether.

Remember Burger Chef and Jeff?  Evidently, there are a few folks out there who do, like the guy who put this website together.  And this one.  B.C.'s heyday was the '60s and early '70s, but they were gone by the Reagan Administration.

If possession is 9/10 of the law...

...then what's the other tenth? Inquiring mind wants to know!

TEMPLE OF DOOM!
Congrats to MU running back Tony Temple for his record-setting performance in the Cotton Bowl the other day—281 yards rushing and 4 TDs—as Mizzou got high on the Hawgs and whooped Arkansas 38-7.  Everyone worried about MU having a letdown after being snubbed for the Orange Bowl bid that went to Kansas, but they showed a lot of class and played their asses off and I'm very proud of them for finishing 12-2—their best season ever.  More good news for MU—they don't have to play Oklahoma next year, unless it's in the Big 12 title game.  Given the way OU played against West "Virgina" last night in the Fiesta Bowl, I can't figure out for the life of me how they managed to beat Missouri twice this year.  Watch out for the Tigers in '08, folks!

SPEAKING OF DOOM...
...that's what our buddy, the (very wrong) Rev. Pat Robertson, is predicting.  Yesterday, he proclaimed (as he always does) that God Himself told him 2008 will be a year of worldwide violence, and we're going to have a recession followed by a stock-market crash by 2010.  "The Lord was saying that there's going to be violence and chaos in the world," Pat claims.  Uhhh, your bulletin's a little late, dumbass—there already is violence and chaos in the world!  Yet another example of how this fucker and others of his ilk prey upon simple-minded people's fears.  Sleaze-bags like Robertson are a huge reason why I'm a non-believer...

PUCKIN'-A!
Was so pleased to see the NHL's outdoor hockey game in Buffalo become a surprise hit on New Year's Day, as some folks actually did tune in the broadcast on NBC.  Mother Nature added a little spice to the game with the snow and sleet, but for the folks in the stands, the conditions were no worse than those of a typical Buffalo Bills game this time of year, so it probably didn't even faze them.  Besides, the sight of 71,000 tuques in one place is quite heartwarming!  It's also nice to see something positive happen for the NHL for a change, and now there's talk of making this an annual event in different venues, possibly even in some non-NHL cities.  May I suggest Kansas City?  Might as well—Arrowhead Stadium never gets used in January anymore, except by the pigeons who roost there.

PEOPLE ARE STRANGE...
Okay, sitting outdoors for three hours watching a sporting event all bundled up in Winter time is one thing, but someone please explain this Polar Bear Club network to me.  That's the folks in numerous localities around the country who every New Year's Day go running into icy water intentionally wearing only bathing suits!  What exactly does this prove, besides that these yokels are first-class candidates for the looney bin?  Shit, I was freezing my ass off the other morning just walking out to grab my newspaper—and I was fully-clothed with a coat on!  These folks are certifiable...

SHE'S A BEAUTY?!?
University of Arizona law student and former beauty-queen Kumari Fulbright, accused of forcibly holding and torturing a former boyfriend by biting him on the arm and sticking a butcher knife in his ear, has been freed on bond.

You've no doubt already seen this pic making the rounds on the 'net and in the papers. Okay, I know she's an easy target here, but I just can't resist.  Who on earth did this former beauty queen—former being the key word here, I'm assuming—compete against?  The cretins at the Cantina Bar in Star Wars?  Joan Rivers and her ugly-ass daughter?  Joe Torre?  Steven Tyler?  Only a matter of time before we see her face on iodine bottles the world over...

IS THERE NOTHING SACRED?
Was extremely disappointed to hear Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Pride And Joy" on a car commercial numerous times during the bowl games.  I can't possibly fathom any scenario where SRV would have sold his music to any TV ad if he were still with us—shame (x3) on his estate for being sellouts!

IS THERE NOTHING SACRED?—PART DEUX
I saw by the paper today that they're now making a live-action "Speed Racer" movie.  Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!  Chim-Chim and Sprytle (sp?) are gonna be pissed...

AFTER FURTHER REVUE...
Anybody remember the old kids' show "The New Zoo Revue"?  I rented it on DVD not so long ago, mostly to re-live childhood memories of lusting after the lovely Emmy Jo in her short skirts and go-go boots—she was about the fourth female I remember being smitten by on TV after Yvonne Craig as Batgirl, Marcia Brady and the girl from "The Bugaloos".  Anyway, a couple things struck me about the show as I viewed it with adult eyes.  First off, the frog's voice sounded uncomfortably close to that of Bart Simpson, whom he pre-dated by a good 15 years at least.  Secondly, how is it the frog lived in a hole in the ground and the owl lived in a tree, but the hippo had her own fully-furnished apartment just like the humans?  Oh yes, I forgot—this was the '70s!!

LOOK MA—NO LEGS!
Even Lt. Dan might be impressed with this chick!

I'm still standing...

...better than Elton ever did, I might add!

NEWTS AND NOTES ON THE NEW YEAR:
Last song of '07:  "Had Enough"--The Who. Long live The Ox!

First song of '08:  "Delirious"--Z.Z. Top. Seemed appropriate to set the tone for the new year...

Second song of '08:  "New Year's Day"—U2.  Terribly predictable, true, but damned if this isn't a killer tune!  I'm only sorry I didn't realize that when it came out 25 years ago.  Hey, I fully admit it—I fucked up!  Wasn't the first time, won't be the last...

First question of '08:  Is there any appreciable difference at all between Carson Daly and Ryan Seacrest?  To me, these fuckers are interchangeable—and totally disposable, as well...

Second question of '08:  Why hasn't Dick Clark's health improved at all? Sad to say this, but he sounds just as bad as he did a year ago at this time—struggling for breath as he speaks—and it's heartbreaking to see the World's Oldest Teenager reduced to this.  Thankfully, at least he didn't inadvertently grab his wife's right boob on camera this year when he kissed her at Midnight like he did last year...

First (coherent) thought of '08:  I truly hope all is (and remains) well in the lives of my dearest friends (Stacy, Phil & Chris, Tom, John, Minta, Margaret, Rose, Fork, Alex, Tracy, Nadine and Andrea), as well as my fellow travelers in the good ol' blogosphere (Randy, Ken, Michelle, the good Doc. Sardonicus, Kilroy) and all the little people (Martians, midgets, et al) I've failed to mention by name here.  Y'all somehow manage to keep the proverbial acorn spinning on this end, and I thank you profusely, one and all!...

Second (coherent) thought of '08:  Why is Dubya still in charge?

"Another year over...a new one's just begun..."

At the risk of sounding like Barry Manilow, it's just another New Year's Eve here at the ol' homestead and I'm spending NYE alone for the third straight year, which speaks volumes on the current state of my flatlining social life.  I did have an offer to hang with a couple married friends of mine at one of the casinos tonight, but I would have just been a third-wheel (which I'm getting way too old for), so I passed.  All my other friends are married with kids and/or have no desire to get out on NYE, so I'll just spend it with Dick Clark and Co. once again and drink myself blind to the sound of ol' T. Rex (or perhaps some Johnny Cash).

Then again, going out on NYE is rather overrated anyway.  Unless you're willing to spend a shitload of money, decent options are pretty limited.  Even the crappiest sports bars or biker bars are going to charge you ten bucks just to get in the door and provide you with some cheapo party favors, lame appetizers and overpriced watered-down drinks.  If I had a girlfriend, or if I could round up a group of friends to get together with and ring in the new year, I might be more inclined to splurge and go out.  Even better would be if I knew someone who was throwing their own NYE party at home, but such is not the case.  Just as well—this way I don't have to dodge the drunks driving home since I'm already there.  Come to think of it, one of the better NYE's I ever had was the time I spent it playing house with an ex-girlfriend curled up on her sofa watching Dick Clark (Kiss was on that year, as I remember).  I guess I'll continue my tongue-in-cheek tradition that I started in 1999-2000 during the whole Y2K fuss by making The Who's "Had Enough" the last song of the year I hear right before Midnight because it ends with the line "here comes the end of the world..."  Hey, one of these years, it might just be right!

Before I sign off for 2007, I want to wish the Mizzou Tigers best of luck against Ar-Kansas tomorrow in the Cotton Bowl.  I also want to send warm greetings to the good people of Buffalo who will attend the outdoor hockey game tomorrow in the Bills' stadium between the Sabres and Pittsburgh—let's hope y'all return home safely without freezing off any of your extremities!

And to the rest of us—with the exception of those who made my 2007 Asshole(s) Of The Year list, as well as the New York Yankees—I raise a toast and hope we all have a boffo 2008.  Happy, happy, joy, joy!

Meanwhile, back at EATS...

My classic Rock brethren friends will know what I'm referring to, there...

OH, IS THERE A FOOTBALL GAME ON TONIGHT?
Much has been made about the NFL's decision to simulcast tonight's Patriots-Giants game on CBS and NBC, in addition to their own NFL Network, which is originating the broadcast.  The league claims it's so the fans can witness potential history with the Pats trying to go undefeated and all, but what they won't admit is their little cable channel is a colossal flop.  Yours truly is as big an NFL fan as they come, but I have no desire to pay extra for NFL Network, and I think most other football fans feel the same way, but true-to-form, the league is using their little simulcast as a three-hour infomercial for their cable channel.

During the first year of its existence, I got NFL Network as part of my existing digital cable package and I was largely unimpressed with it.  Their typical programming day was a total bore—it was the same three-hour block of shows run continuously.  One show dissected every aspect of the game ad nauseam (á la ESPN), and there was another show following the Jacksonville Jaguars through training camp (zzzzz!), blah blah blah.  I also fully expected the league to take advantage of their virtual treasure trove of old school NFL Films highlights from the past 40 years to fill out at least part of their daily TV schedule, and sadly, they never did.  Now, Compost—I mean, Comcast—wants me to pay extra to get NFL Network, and they can shove it.  NFL Network's game broadcasts (which began last season) are pretty underwhelming anyway.  There have been numerous glitches and FUBARs along the way, not to mention the uninspired choice of has-been Bryant Gumball as play-by-play man and Cris "Super Shill" Collinsworth as color analyst, plus Deion "Pimps R Us" Sanders on their pre-game show.  Sorry, gents, I'll pass...

MORE THINGS I CAN DO WITHOUT...
These new FreeCreditReport.com TV ads featuring these bozos singing along like Weird Al Yankovic about being in the poor house because they didn't utilize this important service.  These ads replaced the equally-annoying ones featuring that "I'm thinking of a number..." Pat Sajak look-alike weasel.  Keep your smelling salts handy, now—I have a little revelation about FreeCreditReport.com:  It's not really free!  Just thought I'd share that with you...

A KISS IS STILL A KISS
I got Volume III of the Kissology DVD anthology for Christmas, and it's totally worth it for the 4th disc alone, which features one of the earliest Kiss shows ever, December 22, 1973—nearly two months before the first album came out—at a place called the Coventry in New Yawk City.  It's a single-camera video, but the quality is surprisingly good (all things considered) and it's the Kiss equivalent of the Zapruder film of JFK's assassination—almost literally where it all began...

PROOFREADING, THE LOST ART...
I ate Virgina once—tasted like chicken!  Almost heaven, West Virgina...












CLASSIC MISHEARD LYRIC #67
"Stranger”--JEFFERSON STARSHIP (1981)  “What is veiled now soon will be shown.”  This line had me bamboozled for years until I finally looked it up.  I thought it was something like “What is there? My suit will be shown...”

THE DE-EVOLUTION OF RADAR O'REILLY
I mentioned in my last post how the general quality of "M*A*S*H" declined after Radar went home, and it occurred to me how company clerk Walter Eugene O'Reilly (no relation to Bill, one would hope) somehow managed to age in reverse on the show over the years.  When the show debuted, Radar was actually rather savvy and sassy, and even a little cocky at times.  Witness the "Chief Surgeon Who?" episode when he's camped out at Henry's desk drinking his brandy and smoking his cigars when the General (played by the future Boss Hogg Sorrell Booke) comes storming in and asks him what he's doing, "D-O-I-N-G, doing!  What're you doing?", to which young master O'Reilly replies, "Listening do you spell 'doing', sir!"  Then flash ahead a few years to an episode where Col. Potter offers Radar one of his cigars, and Radar reluctantly asks, "Won't it stunt my growth?" then he proceeds to practically choke on it!  Over the years, Radar became more and more naïve and child-like as time went on, but then all of sudden in his last episode, "Goodbye, Radar" he turned into this surly bastard, for some bizarre reason.  Perhaps it had something to do with actor Gary Burghoff, who was 35 by that time, playing a kid who was what, 19 or 20?  His receding hairline was probably a good hint that it was time to return to Ottumwa...

Ain't I a stinker?--Vol. I

First of an occasional series where I salute those truly crappy episodes that inevitably come from good TV series...

Any show that runs 11 years is bound to have its fair share of clunker episodes, and “Frasier” is no exception, especially near the end of the show’s run when many eps involved Daphne‘s insufferable mother, Gertrude, but there are two that really stick out for me.  One of them seems to be universally hated by “Frasier” fans, “Enemy At The Gate” from 2001, where Frasier makes a big fuss about an exorbitant parking garage fee which he refuses to pay and inconsiderately causes a major back-up of cars behind him and Niles at the gate.  Confounded, man—you’re a bloody psychologist and can afford to pay the friggin' $8.50 (or whatever it was)!  The other one I hate is called “Four For The Seesaw” from 1997 where Niles and Frasier impulsively snag a weekend getaway at a mountain cabin with two babes (because life is just THAT kind!) and suddenly morph into Ralph and Potsie once they get there.  Those are the two “Frasier” episodes I refuse to sit through in reruns.

I loved “Friends” to death, but they had several episodes (again, toward the end of the show's run) that basically sucked, and my all-time “Friends” cringe moment was the episode where Ross had to hide the fact that he had the audacity to shop at Pottery Barn because Phoebe absolutely hated Pottery Barn!  First off, this was such a blatantly transparent commercial for Pottery Barn, and secondly, what exactly would Ross have to fear if he did indeed experience the wrath of the omnipotent Pheebs—a whack on his pee-pee?  Oh, horror of horrors!  Another one I hated was the time Ross enlisted Joey and Rachel to help him move his new sofa up the steps and he kept uttering the word “PIVOT!” over and over at every turn (pun intended).  And then there was the shameless self-promotion when Robin Williams and Billy Crystal guested briefly in the coffee house in one ep the very same week they just happened to have some movie coming out (which tanked, big-time).
 January 29, 1971 is a date that will live in TV infamy as “The Partridge Family” bus cruised into Motown and they wound up hanging out in the Hood with guest stars Richard Pryor and Louis Gossett, Jr. in the episode called “Soul Club”.  Seems our heroes in crushed velvet somehow got booked at a club called “The Fire House” in the ghetto after somehow being confused with the Temptations (they were practically interchangable, after all—nice going, Reuben!) and the club (run by Pryor’s and Gossett’s characters) was about to go belly-up.  However, Keith (aka, "Soul Brother #2,908) saves the day by coming up with a new song ("kind of an Afro thing") and the P-Family delights the Soul Train crowd with “Bandala” and a grand time was had by all.  Talk about fucking science fiction…

“Sanford And Son” is my all-time favorite sitcom ever “on earth in this hemisphere,” as Fred would say, but the one episode that absolutely makes me cringe is the next-to-next-to-last one ever from 1977 called “Funny, You Don’t Look It”.  Did they really expect us to believe that Fred G. Sanford would ever actually think for a nanosecond that he was Jewish?!?  Even worse, by this time Redd Foxx was basically phoning in his performances (as was Demond Wilson as Lamont), so the acting in this episode was more wooden than Pinocchio.  Dare I say it?  You big dummies!

It’s no secret that “M*A*S*H” overstayed its welcome, and many of the episodes—especially after Radar left—were subpar, like when Klinger runs a camp newspaper, or when the 4,077th staff tries to redo the O.R. floor in cement, et al.  The infamous “Dreams” episode that began the 1979 season is often cited by fans as another clunker, but it didn’t annoy me half as much as “War Co-Respondent” with guest star Susan St. James as “THE” Aggie O’Shea.  It was downright sickening the way the whole camp fawned over this gal, especially Hawkeye, who seemed to think he was entitled to doink every woman under the age of 35 who happened into camp, not to mention the contrived romance between Aggie and the ever-faithful B.J. Hunnicutt.  They should’ve paired her up with Klinger—it’d have been a helluva lot funnier…

And then there’s our all-time favorite shark-jumpers, the gang at Arnold’s on “Happy Days”.  I like to divide up HD into two distinct eras:  Pre-Chachi and During-Chachi.  From the Pre-Chachi era, I give you the rather infamous “Fonzie’s New Friend” episode where “Happy Days” suddenly became socially-conscious by inserting a token Black character, Sticks Downey.  Oh yeah, like a brotha is going to play the drums for Richie, Ralph and Potsie!  Okay, tell me that one again about the oceanfront property in Winnipeg, will ya?

From the During-Chachi era, I give you “Potsie Quits School” from 1979 where young Warren Webber struggles with his anatomy studies in college and Da Fonz encourages him to assimilate his studies musically, so come final exam time, good ol’ Pots hums and sings his way through the test, and next thing you know, the entire classroom erupts into a college musical singing along to “Pump Your Blood” while Fonzie proclaims “My boy don’t cheat”, the professor acts all befuddled and Potsie prances around like a faggot.  It’s a sure death knell to any sitcom when it resorts to singing and dancing on every other episode.  As Robin Williams said in Dead Poet’s Society:  “Excrement!”

ABBA--The Blog Post

I’ve often said it takes a real man to admit he likes ABBA, so I’ll be a real he-man and confess my love for the world’s greatest pop group.  Hey, I have company in the ABBA Admiration Society with the likes of Bono and The Edge from Youse2, Tina Turner, R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, Alice Cooper and even Oasis hard-ass Noel Gallagher.  Dead loser Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain even once listed them as an influence—funny, it never showed in his music, but I digress...

I’ll spare you the minutiae of the history of ABBA, which is well-documented, and focus on why I enjoy their music—because it’s pretty bloody good!  As beloved as ABBA are, you’d think there would be more artists who try to emulate them and their style, but given the dearth of decent pop music over the last 15-20 years, that is sadly not the case.  Benny and Björn were/are master craftsmen at creating killer pop songs with catchy hooks and great melodies, and Agnetha and Frida are two of the finest female vocalists ever to grace this planet.  True, some of ABBA’s stuff was on the schlocky side, and toward the end of their career they leaned a bit too hard on danceable fluff'n'stuff, but overall they produced some of the dandiest pop music of all-time.

I first got into ABBA sometime in ’75 when “S.O.S.” came out, mostly because I mistakenly thought it was my girl Olivia Newton-John singing it at first.  Loved the song anyway, even when I found out it was the group that did “Waterloo” the year before.  The summer of ‘76 was when I first embraced Kiss, but all the while I found myself also being drawn to their polar musical opposite, that little ol’ group from Sweden.  The women-folk in the group certainly caught my eye, especially my (other) girl Frida, as I’m a sucker for redheads.  People often tend to write off ABBA’s music as lightweight happy ‘70s music (“When I Kissed The Teacher“, "Honey, Honey" for instance), but at closer look, they also excelled at break-up songs—"Knowing Me, Knowing You", "The Winner Takes It All", “S.O.S.” and “One Of Us” being prime examples.

It took them a while, but ABBA finally scored a #1 hit in America with the quintessential pop record, 1977‘s “Dancing Queen”, but after that, they began to sound a bit too mechanical and things suddenly became minimalist with ABBA-The Album, ABBA-The Movie, etc., therefore it’s their earlier stuff that I prefer the most.  In the 25 years since the group ceased recording and performing, there has been an unprecedented wave of ABBA nostalgia, with the hit musical Mamma Mia!, tribute groups like Björn Again, and movies featuring ABBA music like Muriel’s Wedding and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, as well as fans clamoring for a reunion concert/tour.  Regarding the latter, I think a reunion—even just a one-off concert—would be a big downer, and I’d rather remember ABBA the way they were.

For the record, I pronounce the group’s name ‘AH-ba‘, not ‘aaaa-ba’, or even the Aussie variation ‘Ib-ba’!  You say ‘to-MAY-to’, I say ‘to-MAH-to’…

My all-time ABBA Top 20:
20) “Honey, Honey” (1974)  Cute little pop song that features one of the silliest lines in music history, “You’re a doggone beast!”  Then again, it wasn't nearly as silly as what they wore in this video...
19) “Ring, Ring” (1973)  You don’t suppose this is Ernestine the phone operator’s favorite song, do ya? “One ringy-dingy…two ringy-dingies…”
18) “Angeleyes” (1979)  Second-best track off the overly disco-y Voulez-Vous LP.
17) “Take A Chance On Me” (1978)  ABBA-The Album was a tad disappointing to me following Arrival, but this was easily the best single from it.  Seeing Frida in thigh-high boots in the video was also quite a draw to my 14-year-old eyes!
16) “Does Your Mother Know?” (1979)  Björn—who was 34 at the time—sounds rather Shaun Cassidy-ish here singing lines like “but I can’t take a chance on a chick like you,” but it’s a cool song anyway.
15) “Hole In Your Soul” (1978)  Borderline Rock ‘N’ Roll here and very guitar-driven, a rarity on an ABBA record.
14) “I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do” (1975)  Song that holds the world record for most often repeated words in a song title, and a natural for any wedding reception.
13) “When I Kissed The Teacher” (1977)  Lead-off track from the Arrival album.  Cornball as all get-out, but I like it anyway.
12) “Bang-A-Boomerang” (1975)  The title has a hokey Archies quality to it, the chorus is hokey and so is the video, but the song still works!
11) “Why Did It Have To Be Me?” (1977)  This song was often a concert highlight with Björn trading lead vocals with Frida while Agnetha was off-stage smoking a joint.  Just kidding!
10) “Intermezzo #1” (1975)  A rare instrumental from ABBA, this one gave brother Benny a chance to flex his muscles and show off his very underrated prowess on the keys.  That’s pronounced “Inter-MET-zo” for youse non-Italians out there…
9) “Mamma Mia” (1975)  Funny, they don’t look Italian…
8) “The Winner Takes It All” (1980)  ABBA’s second-greatest break-up song ever, and Agnetha’s finest hour on record.
7) “Waterloo” (1974)  Song that put ABBA on the map/globe and made Sweden famous for something other than Volvos and meatballs.  It’s bouncy, catchy and pure ‘70s, and there ain’t nothin’ wrong with that!  Ignore the white "Soul Train" dancers at the beginning of this video...
6) “On And On And On” (1980)  This one has really grown on me over the years, even though it’s from ABBA’s later era when their records tended to be a bit cold and over-produced.
5) “Knowing Me, Knowing You” (1977)  One of the best break-up songs ever, this was Frida’s finest hour on record.  The twin lead guitars on the outro were a nice touch too.  Looks like Agnetha OD'd on the blue eye shadow in the video!
4) “So Long” (1975)  This catchy little number went beyond break-up song to fuck-you song!  ABBA used to close their concerts with this one, naturally (based on the title, not the fuck-you part, I presume).
3) “I’ve Been Waiting For You” (1975)  Highly underrated track which features great vocals from Agnetha as she sings of devotion to someone without losing her cool.
2) “Dancing Queen” (1977)  Arguably ABBA’s most famous song, and one of their very best.  Pop singles don’t get much more perfect than this one.
1) “S.O.S.” (1975)  Love the Wall of Sound effect during the choruses here.  This song was the first ABBA song that really stuck with me, and remains my favorite, too.

2007 Asshole(s) Of The Year

Good ol’ Larry Flynt used to have a monthly feature in Hustler magazine called “Asshole Of The Month”, and often the recipients of said accolade (mostly politicians and right-wing dickheads) were truly deserving, and I think it’s appropriate to revive this little tradition in year-end style, so please kick back, my dear friends, and enjoy yours truly’s salute to those who fucked up colossally in 2007:

30) Ted Nugent:  An ex-idol of mine.  I’ve said this before, I’ll say it again:  I used to idolize you, ya big-mouth douche!  And to paraphrase Dr. Sardonicus, after your diatribes on Hillary and Obama, I don’t want to hear no more about the Dixie Chicks, you friggin’ has-been...
29) Donald Trump/Rosie O’Donnell:  These two publicity mongers deserve each other.  I still say they should duke it out on “Celebrity Death Match”.  My money’s on Rosie…
28) Steven A. Smith:  At the risk of sounding racist here, I’ve grown real weary of this guy’s shuck-and-jive Angry Black Man routine on ESPN.  Shaddup, already, you pompous ass!
27) O.J. Simpson:  Forever on a personal quest to prove what a dickweed he is.  Congrats, Juice—you’re headin’ for the big house, now!
26) John Mellencamp:  Empty-headed hick Springsteen wanna-be whom I’ve loathed for lo, these many years, and he even sold his soul to GM with his "This Is Our Country" schlock, to boot.  Will be inducted into the Crock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame next year.  Oh, joy!
25) Katie Horner:  Local over-zealous TV weather tart/alarmist who chronically disrupts CBS programming at every sighting of a dark cloud within 100 miles of Kansas City.  She actually encouraged viewers to wear bicycle helmets whilst riding out a tornado in their storm cellars last Spring!
24) Al Gore:  Actual President-elect of 2000 who now milks his newfound adulation as pre-eminent Global Warming pointer-outer to death (while cruising around in his gas-guzzling stretch limo, natch).
23) Kid Rock:  I’m still trying to figure out why people pay good money to see this no-talent poser (in a hat) perform in concert—this clown is this generation’s Vanilla Ice!  Has been involved in more fights this year than a NARC at a Hell's Angels rally.
22) Bill Belichick:  Yes, this guy is a brilliant football coach.  Sadly, he has all the people skills of Charles Manson…
21) Rev. Jerry Falwell:  In his final year of eligibility I feel compelled to include Mr. “Give all your money to the church and solve your debt problems” once more for old time’s sake.
20) Nancy Grace:  Sneering, helmet-haired self-appointed judge and jury be-yatch who holds court on CNN every night.  She may well have been personally responsible for the suicide death of a woman she interrogated on her show earlier this year, but shows less remorse than C. Manson ever has...
19) David Beckham:  The farce to end all farces!  Major League Soccer prostituted itself around and sold its credibility right down the river by signing this overrated wanker to a mega-million $$ contract, just so he could play in five whole games for the Los Angeles Galaxy.  True, the media circus that followed him around wasn’t all his fault, but I’m sorry—nobody’s that good!
18) Adam “Pacman” Jones:  First-class moron NFL player known for his numerous run-ins with the law, the most infamous of which left a Las Vegas titty bar bouncer paralyzed following gunfire instigated by a member of Pacman’s entourage earlier this year.
17) Jason Whitlock:  Ever-flatulent Kansas City Star sports columnist and self-appointed avatar of racial issues in the wake of the who Don Imus flap.  A man who regularly uses the terms “hoes” and “pimp-slap” in his columns…
16) Clay Chastain:  Those of you outside of Kansas City won’t know who he is, but he’s become a major nuisance to me.  Chastain is a very vocal advocate for a light-rail mass transit system in K.C.—which I’m all for, actually.  My problem with this guy is that he lives in Virginia, yet he thinks he has the right to tell our city what to do with its money!  Move your sorry ass back here, Clay, and I’ll take you more seriously…
15) Rev. Pat Robertson:  Looks like this dickhead will have to carry on without his tag-team partner Falwell now, but fear not, dear friends—I have no doubt ol’ Pat will continue to give religion a bad name until his dying day…
14) Britney Spears:  Ain’t nothing worse than a tabloid-fodder celebrity who goes out of his/her way to draw attention to his/her flagging career.  Do us all a big favor, Brit, and disappear quietly like Tiffany did about 20 years ago…
13) Don Imus:  Happy Holidays, Don—as in “Hoe, Hoe, Hoe”!  Just as I predicted, the asshole is back on the air already...
12) Rev. Al Sharpton/Rev. Jesse Jackson:  Don’t you just wish these two publicity hounds would both be run over by a bus?  Black people don’t even take them seriously as religious or civil rights leaders anymore…
11) Mike Nifong:  Opportunistic D.A. who was bound and determined to send three innocent Duke lacrosse players to the pokey for his own political gain.  Nice try, dumbass, but as Fred Sanford once said, “He who liveth by the sword shall be stucketh.”  Still and all, I maintain that lacrosse is a faggot college activity!
10) Bud Selig:  Commissioner Howdy Doody proved once again what a spineless leader he is by showing up to watch Bonds hit "#756", standing there with his hands in his pockets looking like a total Melvin.  Should’ve been fired years ago…
9) Roger Clemens:  This jagoff finally decided he wanted to pitch for the Yankees after the season was a third of the way over, which led to this utterly ridiculous moment of over-zealous hype.  He signed a beyond-belief $28 zillion contract to merely go 6-6 with a 4.47 ERA.  Truly earth-shattering!  The Mitchell Report sez he did steroids, too—the Dickens you say!
8) Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho):  This phony Republican fuckwad is on record voting for anti-Gay legislation at every turn, yet who was that foot-tapper in the john at the Minneapolis aeroport trolling for fudge packers earlier this year, hmmm?  It certainly couldn’t have been this honorable Senator from the Spud State who uttered the phrase “I’m not gay!” more often than Mr. Garrison on “South Park”.  Or could it?  Oh, what a twit...
7) Michael Vick:  No explanation needed here.  Hope he enjoys his time in the pokey with his bitches (pun intended).
6) Michelle Malkin/Sean Hannity/Ann Coulter/Bill O’Reilly/Rush Limbaugh/Geraldo Rivera/Jonah Goldberg/Dennis Miller:  I know I’m being rather lazy here, but I’m lumping all these ultra-conservative Republican Party cheerleaders/pinhead pundits into one entry. Regular readers of this blog already know why...
5) Barry Bonds:  Do I even need to elaborate?  Arrogant steroid-taking horse’s ass with shriveled-up nads who now claims to be baseball’s Home Run King.  Sorry, ass-wipe—Henry Louis Aaron is still the man, and you’re not one, and unlike you, my dick still works just fine...
4) The entire Oil Industry:  These greedy fuckwads continue to reap record profits for two simple reasons:  A) because they can, and B) no one’s trying to stop them.
3) George W. Bush/Dick Cheney:  Pretty self-explanatory.  They’re joined at the hip, therefore I count them as one entry.
2) Seung-Hui Cho (Virginia Tech gunman):  This loser, combined with the Siamese twins in the #3 spot, are probably personally responsible for more death and mayhem than anyone else this year.  I do understand how it feels to be disenfranchised and I do realize this Cho bastard was screwed-up to begin with and was picked on constantly during his youth, but that’s no excuse for being such a cold-blooded miscreant, and it‘s impossible for me to have any empathy for this fucker.  Burn in hell, ass-wipe…
1) Rev. Fred Phelps/Westboro Baptist Church, Topeka, KS:  Most assholes don’t actually mean to be assholes—they just are.  But then again, there are sub-humans like Rev. Fred and his inbred band of psychos (half of whom are lawyers) who go out of their way to be assholes by picketing/protesting the funerals of fallen U.S. soldiers who died while indirectly defending these tick-turds’ collective Constitutional right to do so.  I now pose the question once asked by Blackie Lawless of W.A.S.P. in their 1985 song "I‘m Alive":  “Tell me, what’s in it for you?…Damn you, Holy Man, alive…”

"Dashing through the snow..."

"…in an ‘03 Cavalier…Four more years to go, and I’ll own it free and clear!”

GLOBAL WARMING, MY ASS!!
For the third straight Saturday, we’re having what the Weather Channel people might call a “Winter Weather Event” here in K.C.  It started off as just plain rain, then freezing rain, then sleet and now the snow is blowing horizontally in the lovely 25-35 MPH winds out of the northwest.  Luckily, I managed to get the bulk of my Christmas shopping done this morning before this little Norwester hit town.

PEOPLE ARE STRANGE…
Explain this to me, please—what is this obsession some people have with wearing shorts?  While doing my shopping today, I encountered two different people at Target strolling around in shorts.  Nothing wrong with that, but if you’ll read my weather report above, you’ll note that today was not exactly balmy in the great outdoors!  And I’m not talking about kids who don’t know any better, but grown adults here.  Maybe it’s just because I get cold relatively easy, but I don’t get why you’d wear shorts like it was the 4th of July while doing your Christmas shopping.  Same goes for women who wear skirts and no hose this time of year—ain’t that just a tad drafty?

HYPOCRISY, THE CONTINUING SAGA
Seems that there was a new book about parenting due to hit the stands.  Pop Culture Mom: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World is the memoir of one Lynne Spears, mother of singer/nutbag Britney Spears and actress Jamie Lynn Spears.  The book was slated to come out on May 11th next year—Mother’s Day, naturally—but her publisher is delaying the release indefinitely after this week’s revelation that little Jamie Lynn is pregnant.  What’s even funnier to me is that the publisher, Thomas Nelson, Inc., is an inspirational Christian book outfit.  I repeat—a Christian book publisher!  Don’t it seem just a tad disingenuous that one of their offerings would come from the mother of a skanky out-of-control singer who dresses like a whore and whose concert performances have been known to include male dancers sticking their faces right in her crotch, let alone the mother of a 16-year-old girl who just got knocked up?  Oh well, I guess if there’s a buck or two to be made, all bets are off and ethics and morality go right out the window, huh?  One can only imagine the helpful parenting hints ol' Lynne will dish out in her book—not unlike the advice of a twice-divorced marriage counselor...

I KNOW THAT DUDE!
I stumbled across the ancient classic kids’ musical film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on the TV this week, starring the original “DVD” himself, Dick Van Dyke.  I probably hadn’t seen this thing in damn near 40 years, and there was a guy in it who looked and sounded awfully familiar to me.  It was none other than the lad himself, Benny Hill!  Little did I know when I first saw this film how much this man would later corrupt little ol’ me…

A FRESH ANGLE…
…on Madonna’s induction into the Rock ’N’ Roll Hall of Fame.  I read a column on MSNBC the other day that pointed out something I hadn’t thought of before—one of the reasons why they voted Madonna in is so it would draw attention to the Hall, and it makes perfect sense.  Not saying that makes it right, of course, but last year they had the built-in intrigue of the whole Van Halen soap opera to draw attention, and this year they’re desperate because of the sad fact that truly worthy candidates like the Moody Blues, Deep Purple or the Brothers Doobie ain’t gonna cause much buzz in our short attention span society.  By the same token, though, you can’t tell me that Kiss being voted in wouldn’t raise more than a few eyebrows…

CLASSIC MISHEARD LYRIC #66
“In My Time Of Dying”—LED ZEPPELIN (1975)  I was confused by the part at the end where Robert Plant repeats the phrase “Oh, my Jesus” several times.  I thought he was singing “On my T.V.”!

HOLY ALMANAC, BATMAN!
I’m currently reading a wonderful little anthology book called From ABBA to Zoom by local K.C. author David Mansour, which came out a couple years ago.  Dave has painstakingly chronicled practically everything that was or is prominent in Pop Culture since the 1950’s, right down to the characters on “Josie & The Pussycats”.  I’m not even halfway through the B’s yet, and I’m having a ball recollecting stuff from the past, like the burger offerings at A&W restaurants—Papa Burger, Mama Burger, Baby Burger, etc.—and I’m now stockpiling even more ammunition for my Pop Culture reference arsenal on the ol’ blog here.

I'm nervous and my socks are too loose...

...and so overcome by Mellencamp's election to the Rock Hall of Fame that I can hardly function!  Actually, it's just the usual Christmas madness, and I've been too friggin' busy to do much blogging this week.  I hope to make up for it voluminously over the long weekend coming up...

YOU SAY IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY...
Happy 62nd b-day to Peter Criss of Kiss.  The Catman has been dogged-on (ohhh, bad pun!) by both critics and fans alike at times over the years, and even I don't consider him to be the best drummer Kiss ever had—the two Erics both blew him away—but I think he's a good guy overall.  Certainly the most down-to-earth member of the original four of Kiss.  If you look at concert videos from the '70s, Peter was quite the basher and very animated in his playing style.  Over the years, he's refined his technique and is more of a timekeeper now.  I also give him credit for having sense enough to leave the circus with a little dignity, realizing he's in his '60s now.  I really wish Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley would have retired the make-up after the so-called "Farewell Tour" in 2000 when Peter (and later Ace Frehley) left the band for good.  Kiss looks too much like a tribute band now.

"SOFT ROCK" REVISITED
I got to thinking about the remark I made early this week regarding the late Dan Fogelberg and the "Soft Rock" genre being something I can only take in small doses.  In DF's case, I tended to shy away from his music because I didn't really relate to songs about forest Primevals and such, but it occurred to me that there are lots of "mellow" songs out there that I truly love, some more than I realized.  People who know me well might even be shocked at some of the stuff I enjoy.  Take Gordon Lightfoot, for instance:  "If You Could Read My Mind" from 1971 is an old favorite from my Top 40 listening days, as is 1974's "Sundown", and is there not a more chilling song than "Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald" from '76?  Friggin' brilliant!

My man Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere & The Raiders had a brief solo career in the early '70s and scored hits with songs like "Arizona", "Silver Bird" and "Miss America" (not the Styx song), but my favorite is his minor hit recording of a Neil Diamond song called "And The Grass Won't Pay No Mind" from 1970.  Hell, Diamond himself put out some wonderful stuff during that time, like "I Am...I Said" and "Play Me" (even though it included the non-existent word "brang" in its lyrics).  I even groove to songs by Country crossover artists like the late Charlie Rich and "Most Beautiful Girl" and Glen Campbell's "Wichita Lineman".  Quite possibly my all-time favorite "mellow" song ever is the late Brook Benton's "Rainy Night In Georgia" from 1970.  The instrumentation on that track is so atmospheric, and Benton's vocal is so convincing that he truly made you feel he really was some drifter hitching train rides.

That's all I have for now—I'll reactivate the ol' verbal bazooka over the weekend...

'Scuse me while I puke and die!

John Mellencamp has been voted into the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame.  So has Madonna.  So has some so-called Rocker named Leonard Cohen.  Shit, they might as well induct Mantovanni, Pat Boone and Topo Gigio while they're at it.  Meanwhile, Deep Purple, The Moody Blues, Kiss, Paul Revere & The Raiders, Rush, The Doobie Bros., Cheap Trick—oh, fuck it, I give up!  I surrender!  I'm done arguing about who should be inducted into this travesty of a shrine.  It's a very cool museum in Cleveland, but the entity as a whole is a fucking joke!  At least the Country Music folks get it right by inducting those who rightfully belong in their Hall of Fame...

I haven't the bloggiest idea...

DAN FOGELBERG, 1951-2007
Sad news in the music world with the passing of singer Dan Fogelberg yesterday of pancreatic cancer.  I didn't follow his career all that closely, therefore I wasn't even aware that he'd been seriously ill for the past few years.  Although the "Soft Rock" genre is better for me when taken in small doses, DF certainly had his moments like "Part of The Plan" and my personal favorite, 1978's "The Power Of Gold" (with Tim Weissberg).  I seem to remember he got plenty of airplay at the "Mighty 1030" on the Transtar satellite in '87 when I worked there.  R.I.P., Dan...

I HAVE A QUESTION...
How can the Golden Globe Awards people nominate this Charlie Wilson's War flick for five awards, when it hasn't even come out yet?!?  Ain't it amazing how these brand new movies get all the nods (the Oscars do this too), while all the good stuff that comes out in March and April every year is largely forgotten?  Who be paying for these nominations, hmmm?

SHOUT, SHOUT, LET IT ALL OUT—THESE ARE THE THINGS I COULD DO WITHOUT...
Things like constant reaction shots from the luxury suites of player's wives, mothers, girlfriends, et al., during NFL games.  Especially skank celebrity girlfriends like Jessica Simpson in her pink Tony Romo jersey, whom Fox TV constantly cut away to during the Cowboys-Eagles game yesterday.  And some schmuck sitting with her actually brought it to her attention that she was on camera—as if this bimbo has never been on TV before!  And true-to-form, the talking heads on ESPN are now trying to blame Romo's poor performance yesterday on said bimbo's distraction.  Yeah, right, whatever...

I could also do without singer Beyoncé on every other TV ad these days.  Ironically, she's taken the place of the above-mentioned J. Simpson on the Direct TV ads this football season, and she's also hawking cell phones and who knows what else.  Beyoncé is a talented singer and a half-decent actress, but she's rapidly turning into a big sell-out.

VICTIMS OF VENOMOUS FATE
The Northwest Missouri State Bearcats are beginning to look like the Buffalo Bills of Division II football.  For the third straight season, NWMS made it to the Division II title game, only to lose another heartbreaker on Saturday, this time to Valdosta State 25-20.  Things were looking good for the Bearcats with about 5:00 to go in the game when a killer holding penalty nullified a nice first down play as they tried to run the clock out with the lead.  Valdosta got the ball back and scored with just seconds left.  Life's a real bitch sometimes, unfortunately...

OFF THE SCHNIDE!
Congrats to the Miami Dolphins for finally winning a game this year after beating Baltimore 22-16 in OT yesterday.  Congrats for not only winning the game, but making me look like a genius for picking them to win!  And congrats to the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers for maintaining their rightful place in ignominy (igno-Mini-Me?) as the only NFL team to go winless for an entire season.  I remember that sad-sack team's maiden season very well—nearly every game was a 45-10, 48-3, 42-0 blowout—even the then-lowly Chiefs manhandled them pretty good that year.  They continued their mighty losing streak on into the next season, going 0-12 before finally beating the Saints in Week 13.  At least the Bucs had an excuse—they were a rag-tag expansion team full of cast-offs, wanna-bes and never-weres.  The Dolphins have no such excuse, being a franchise that's been around for 40-some-odd years.

Speaking of the Bucs, on the same day that Miami spared their place in the record books, Tampa Bay finally recorded a kickoff return for a TD!  In much the same manner as how the New York Mets have never had a no-hitter in their 45-year existence, it took the Buccaneers 31 years and 1,865 tries to finally run back a kickoff for a touchdown.  What's the bet TB gets another one next week...

SPEAKING OF IGNOMINY
El Chiefos put on yet another half-assed performance at Arrowhead yesterday, and as I predicted when the season started, the fans are turning on the team in droves now that things have gone totally south.  Most of their venom is aimed at general manager Carl Peterson and head coach Herm Edwards.  I'm willing to give Edwards one more season to make his plan work, given that he's still working with a lot of players left over from the Dick Vermeil era that don't fit his new system, but Peterson's time has come and gone.  Step aside, CP, and let someone else run the show...

31 FLAVORS?!?
Well, the college bowl season begins this weekend, and there are now a staggering 31 bowl games (32 counting the BCS title game).  At the risk of sounding overly-nostalgic, I remember the good ol' days when I was a kid and there were about 1/3 that many bowl games.  You had the big four—Rose, Cotton, Sugar and Orange—on New Year's Day (or Eve, sometimes) and maybe another half-dozen or so traditional bowl games (Fiesta, Gator, Holiday, Tangerine, Peach, Sun and the vaunted Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl from Houston), plus a handful of All-Star games like the Blue-Gray Classic, Hula Bowl and Senior Bowl.  Thus, viewers were guaranteed of seeing good solid teams playing over the holidays—none of this 6-6 vs. 7-5 crap like we have today.

Now you have these tradition-free bowl games like the New Orleans Bowl, Ft. Worth Bowl, Motor City Bowl, et al, not to mention all these soulless corporate name dot.com bowls and crap like the Outback Bowl, etc.  Even the Peach Bowl ain't Peachy anymore—now it's the Chick-Fil-A Bowl.  It's quite conceivable that one day we'll be treated to the ACME Lint Filter Bowl!  What's worse, some cities have multiple bowl games each year now, like Orlando and San Diego.  Hell, New Orleans has three this year with the BCS title game.  Too much of a good thing, folks...

Rant within a rant:  Why does Fox Sports suddenly get to carry all the big bowl games (except the Rose Bowl) when they don't even televise one single solitary regular season game on free TV?  I guess this is what you'd call the new-millennium version of "Bowling For Dollars"...

Damn, I miss the '70s!

THE POOP AND NOTHING BUT THE POOP
Brazilian soccer midfielder Kaka was named the FIFA World Player Of The Year.  I guess that means he truly is The Shit!  That was too easy, I know, but I just couldn't resist...