July 6, 1982

Was somewhat alarmed to realize this morning that it was exactly 25 years ago tonight that my friend Tom and I attended one of the finest concerts I’ve ever witnessed, Elton John at Starlight Theater.  Good moogly-woogly, where has the last quarter century gone?  Oh well, I have very fond memories of that night, so I might as well share them…

Starlight is an 8,000-seat outdoor theater located in Kansas City’s Swope Park.  Built in 1950, Starlight had been mostly used for summer musicals that appealed to the Geritol Generation featuring the likes of Julie Andrews, Juliet Prowse and Jim Nabors (who once swallowed a moth while singing onstage there, according to urban legend).  Rock concerts were a rarity at Starlight, although we did see Paul Revere & The Raiders there in the Summer of ’71 when I was a wee lad of seven, and Starlight was undergoing a resurgence of sorts in the early ‘80s when new owners decided to stage fewer musicals and more concerts.  I think Heart was the first Rock band to play there under the new regime in 1981 as sort of an "acid test", and it went well enough that a whole slew of Rock shows were scheduled there, including four during the first week of July, 1982.  Tom and I caught the Charlie Daniels Band on a hot Saturday afternoon, and Asia played there on the 4th (we passed), then that "cat named Hercules" came in for two nights on the 6th and 7th.

Sir Elton was undergoing his own little resurgence at the time after spending about five years in the musical wilderness following his mid-‘70s heyday when he could do little or no wrong.  He had just released his second album on his new label, Geffen Records, the very underrated Jump Up, and more importantly, he righted his own wrong by reuniting with his classic band lineup of drummer Nigel Olsson, bassist Dee Murray and guitarist Davey Johnstone.  Still, this was my first Elton John concert, and given the dearth of truly decent material from EJ, as well as his lack of enthusiasm for performing at times during the prior five years, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from him.  I needn’t have worried…

Tuesday night turned out to be surprisingly gorgeous for early July in K.C., and it was a most welcome change for me as I recovered from the sunburn I got at the C.D.B. show on Saturday.  Quarterflash (of "Harden Your Heart" fame) was the opening act, and this was our second time with them, as they played a free concert the previous Thanksgiving Eve at the Lyric Theater in K.C.  Too bad that band never went anywhere, because they weren’t too shabby live in concert.  Then Elton hit the stage just before dark, opening with "Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding", and for the next two hours, he rocked the house with a nice mix of his classics, some new stuff and a few surprises along the way.  Of the new stuff, the high point was the poignant "Empty Garden (Hey Hey Johnny)"—easily the best of all the John Lennon tribute songs—and another new one called "Dear John" (not about Lennon) got a pretty good reaction, as did "Chloe" from his 1981 album The Fox.

One of the things I love most about Elton John is how he’s not afraid to pick out obscure tracks from his earlier albums—some of which he’d rarely (if ever) played live before—and dust them off and give them a go in concert instead of just playing the same tired old set list every tour.  On this night, Elton’s "B-stuff" sounded every bit as good as his "A-stuff"—songs like "Better Off Dead" from Captain Fantastic, "All The Young Girls Love Alice" from Yellow Brick Road, "Teacher I Need You" from Don’t Shoot Me, "Ticking" from Caribou and a song that really grew on me after this show, "Where To Now, St. Peter?" from Tumbleweed Connection.

And oh yeah, the big hits sounded pretty sweet too.  "The Bitch Is Back", "Pinball Wizard" and "Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting" and "Bennie & The Jets" never sounded better, and the band was very tight throughout—damn, it was great having these guys back together again!  The highlight of the night may well have been a very trippy extended version of "Rocket Man" which featured some appropriately spacey guitar work from Johnstone.  Elton closed the show with "Crocodile Rock" followed by a medley of old Rock ‘N’ Roll favorites ("Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On"/"I Saw Her Standing There"/"Twist And Shout"), and it was just an awesome fucking show.  Out of the over 100 concerts I’ve attended since 1979, this one certainly ranks in my top two or three.

One reason why my memory of this show is so utterly sharp is because we had the good fortune of getting to hear Elton in concert all over again the next night, as the July 7th show was broadcast live on a few hundred radio stations nationally, and locally on the old KY-102.  Tom and I both had tape rolling, and between the two of us, we were able to piece together the entire concert on cassette, so it’s like having a souvenir of the show we attended, since the set lists were identical both nights, and I still listen to it often—it’s far better than any official live album Elton’s ever put out, with the possible exception of the expanded double-CD release of 1976’s Here And There.

There was some funny stuff in that second night’s show, like after a song when Elton says, "Thank you, Kansas!" and after the applause dies down a bit, you can clearly hear some guy who was none too pleased with the omission of "City" scream out, "YOU’RE IN MISSOURI!!"  Elton forgets a lyric in the middle of "Ticking", and his band introductions are rather humorous too, like when he refers to Davey Johnstone as "a guy who’s rejoined us after a while playing with other biggies—like Meat Loaf…"  EJ also was very classy to give props to the venue itself by telling the nation, "If anybody ever wants to see a beautiful theater, come to Kansas City and see the Starlight Theater—it’s beautiful!"  About the only downside to the recording is ever-pompous radio personality George Taylor Morris talking over the proceedings during the encores.  Still, one of these days I’m going to transfer this sucker onto CDs.

Here’s the complete set list, btw:

Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding
All The Young Girls Love Alice
Someone Saved My Life Tonight
Better Off Dead
Ball And Chain
Empty Garden (Hey Hey Johnny)
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
The Bitch Is Back
Pinball Wizard
Ticking
Elton's Song
Chloe
Where To Now, St. Peter?
Where Have All The Good Times Gone?
Rocket Man
Bennie & The Jets
Teacher I Need You
-------------------------------------
Dear John
Your Song
Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting
-------------------------------------
Daniel
Crocodile Rock
-------------------------------------
Medley:  Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On/I Saw Her Standing There/Twist and Shout

What's Yer Rush?

No, not the blowhard radio host/big fat idiot.  I'm referring to that Little ol' Band from Toronto who plays loud rhythmic music.  My Rush is actually the early 80’s version, but many fans are partial to the 1970’s model (pictured here), and some folks even prefer the ‘90s-and-beyond Rush, but all are good in one way or another.  If nothing else, you have to admire this classy band’s longevity and consistency, as well as their top-flight musicianship.

Rush was just another average Hard Rock band until their original drummer John Rutsey was dismissed because of health concerns (diabetes, namely) after their first album in 1974, and Messers. Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson lucked into finding a very talented drummer who also just happened to have a knack for writing intelligent lyrics, one young Neil Peart, and the rest is history.

I was rather resistant to Rush at first, despite my older sister’s encouragement to check them out in the late ‘70s.  I was rather intimidated by their album-side-length Sci-Fi epics that I didn’t relate all that well to, plus Lee’s shrieky banshee vocals grated on me at times.  But once Geddy got control of his voice and truly learned how to sing (long about the time of 1981’s Moving Pictures), I began to take notice of the band, and I loved their next album Signals, which helped get me through my first semester in college in the fall of 1982.  I actually found it refreshing to hear a band singing about space shuttles, pleasure domes and quarrelling trees, etc., instead of the usual "suck-and-fuck" Rock ‘N’ Roll subject matter, which renders Rush’s early classic (before Peart's arrival), "Hey baby, it's-a quarter-to-eight, I feel I'm In The Mood..." rather comical to listen to now.

My first experience with Rush in concert was not a terribly good one, though.  They played Kemper Arena for two nights, April 23-24, 1981 on the Moving Pictures tour.  We had tickets (10 bucks a pop!) for the second night, and all day long at school on the 24th, people who attended the first night were just raving about what a kick-ass show they saw, so I looked forward to something special, but the show we witnessed turned out to be a huge disappointment.  First off, it wasn't very loud, and Geddy Lee hardly said two words to the audience between songs all night other than "Thank you" (a BIG pet peeve of mine at any concert).  The band seemed to be going through the motions at times and the show left me really flat.  About ten years ago, I attended a much better Rush show at Sandblown Amphitheater with my sister, and they redeemed themselves mightily in my eyes.  I also highly recommend their DVD release R30 which features a 2004 concert from Germany that was quite good, plus the animated video featuring the Rush bobbleheads that they used during the concert's intermission is a total hoot.  The DVD set also includes some vintage concert footage and interviews.

One thing I've always marveled at is how Geddy Lee multi-tasks during concerts.  First off, he's the greatest living bass player on the planet (second only to the late John Entwistle in my book), and he also doubles on his phalanx of keyboards and bass pedals and such, all the while singing some fairly complex lyrics—something a little more complicated and thought-provoking than "I was born in a small town/And I live in a small town/Gonna die in a small town...".  Neil Peart is also a treat to watch hammering away on his gi-normous drum set—the damn thing needs its own ZIP code!  It's also been nice to see him rebound from the horrible double-whammy tragedy of losing his only daughter in a car accident and his first wife to breast cancer within less than a year of each other in 1997-98.

Another thing I always found refreshing about Rush is that they didn't exhibit your stereotypical Rock star behavior, and seemed like the kind of guys you'd love to just sit down and have a few beers with and talk about life and such.  Although guitarist Alex Lifeson's New Year's Eve drunken fisticuffs incident involving his son jamming (or trying to) with a house band at a Florida hotel a few years back did somewhat "shatter the illusion of integrity", they all still seem like really cool guys.

Getting back to the music, I've always been ironically partial to Rush's synthesizer period that lasted from Moving Pictures through 1987's Hold Your Fire, where the synths were more prominently featured on their records than the guitars.  I say ironic because I'm normally not all that big a fan of synthesizers, but when used in moderation, they can actually benefit a good band.  Power Windows from 1985 is my personal favorite Rush album of all-time, and 1984's Grace Under Pressure has also grown on me big-time over the years.  Roll The Bones and Counterparts from the early '90s aren't too shabby, either, as the band re-emphasized Lifeson's heavier guitar work.  And irony of all ironies, Rush fell prey in 2004 to the current trend of bands doing full albums of cover songs—this coming from a band who up to that point had released nothing but all-original material, apart from "borrowing" the riff from Cheech & Chong's "Earache My Eye" at the tail end of the live version of "Big Money" on A Show of Hands.  At least Rush has the good taste to do a couple Who covers ("Summertime Blues" and "The Seeker") as well as The Yardbirds' "Shapes of Things".

A little trivia for you: Geddy's Lee's given name is Gary Lee Weinrib, and his parents were Nazi concentration camp survivors in WWII.  His grandmother had a thick Hungarian accent and whenever she said his first name, it sounded like "Geddy", so it stuck.

Good day, eh?—My All-Time Rush Top 10:
10) "The Enemy Within" (1984)  Totally overlooked song that sounds very '80s, and that's not always a such bad thing...
9) "Red Barchetta" (1981)  Car songs always rule, and this one features some very Who-like power chords in it during the "wind in my hair/shifting and drifting" section.
8) "Xanadu" (1977)  A little longer than I'd normally like, but very sonic at times, and it holds one's attention throughout.
7) "Countdown" (1982)  Very cool account of a space shuttle launch, complete with actual NASA transmissions that Rush was very privileged to use—the space agency doesn't loan them out to just anybody.
6) "Working Man" (1974)  Far and away the best Rush song from that first album prior to Neil Peart's arrival.  And who among us doesn't like to "take a sip of an ice cold beer" after a long hard day?
5) "Face Up" (1991)  Cool song that gave me a little dose of inspiration during a down period in my life to get my shit together and lose some weight with the line "Still time to turn this game around..."  Guess I should listen to it more often, eh?
4) "2112" ["Overture/Temples Of Syrinx"] (1976)  The tune that really put Rush on the map, radio-wise.
3) "Turn The Page" (1987)  Song that more or less marked the end of the synthesizer era for Rush, but very cool stuff.  Interesting use of overlapping vocals from Sir Geddy here.
2) "Subdivisions" (1982)  Includes one of the three greatest synthesizer solos of all-time here, right up there with the one at the end of the Sniff 'N' The Tears underrated 1979 classic "Driver's Seat" and Del Shannon's "Runaway".
1) "Marathon" (1985)  Awesome headphone song that I nearly wore out the cassette I had of on my Walkman.  One of Geddy's best vocal performances ever, too.

What The &%#@ Were They Thinking?—Vol. I

First of an occasional series on major FUBARs in music history…

I stumbled across Gimme Shelter on the tube last night and watched it for like the 85th time.  It’s the documentary film about the infamous 1969 Rolling Stones Altamont concert debacle, and I came away with the same thought I always have when I watch that movie—what the fuck were the Stones thinking?!?  Sure, it was a nice gesture on their part to try to stage a free concert, but the band was very naïve to think that it would be like "Woodstock West" or "Monterey Pop, The Sequel".  First off, Woodstock wasn’t as peachy as people make it out to be—the organizers there really pushed their luck and were damn lucky it didn’t turn into an epic catastrophe, and The Stones were just about as lucky that Altamont didn’t turn out worse than it actually was.

The show was destined to be a disaster from the start because they kept changing the location for it.  Two or three different sites were considered, including Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, but the concert got moved around for various reasons, and at the last minute one Dick Carter offered up his Altamont Speedway, located about 40 miles east of the Bay Area, in exchange for the free publicity, although I have no idea what the hell for—the speedway was dormant, and NASCAR wasn't a terribly big sensation at the time.  Anyway, with less than 48 hours’ notice, the show was moved to a hill outside this racetrack with totally inadequate toilet and electrical facilities, not to mention inadequate accessibility by car for 100,000 people, and it appeared to be every bit the clusterfuck to get to that Woodstock was.

Okay, I have a couple questions.  First off, why would you schedule on outdoor concert in Northern California in December?!?  The Bay Area is frigid enough in summertime—why in blue blazes would you do an outdoor show during the holiday season?  Seems to me that L.A. or sunny San Diego might’ve been a tad more comfy for this one.  Secondly, how fucking dumb do you gotta be to hire the Hell’s Angels to provide "security"?  Ever hear of that "inmates running the asylum" analogy?  Good rule of thumb:  Avoid hiring anyone who wants to be paid in beer, but if you do so, do not pay them until after they’ve done the job, not while they're doing it!!!

The concert was just a total disaster, of course.  The sound system was totally inadequate for the size of the crowd, and food, water and toilets were an afterthought.  Patience became just as scarce as the food, water and toilets not long after the show began, and fights broke out all over, many of them involving the "security people."  In addition to the Stones, the bill included Santana, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, the Flying Burrito Brothers and Jefferson Airplane, but only the latter two acts (plus the Stones) are shown during the film.  The Grateful Dead was also scheduled to play between JA and the Stones on the bill, but when Jerry Garcia got word of the fisticuffs between the Airplane’s Marty Balin and the "security people" (see film) and the nasty vibe of the whole thing in general, the Dead high-tailed it outta there.  Oh, did I mention that drugs played a part in all this? Drugs are bad, mmm-kay?

Just to make things worse, the Stones’ set was delayed because bassist Bill Wyman was unable to get to the venue in a timely manner, thus, it was dark and even colder by the time Mick and the boys hit the stage, and the already-agitated crowd and "security people" were downright rabid.  As documented in the film, the Stones’ set was marred with constant interruptions caused by fights breaking out right and left in front of the stage.  Jagger tried to quell the violence by pleading with the crowd to chill out, but it did little good.  The girl right at the edge of the stage staring at Mick with tears in her eyes pretty much reflected the ugliness that went on that night, culminating in the stabbing death (caught on camera) of 18-year-old Meredith Hunter at the hands of one of the "security people".  A tragedy, to be sure, but it wasn’t totally unjustified, either.  Hunter brandished a handgun—not a particularly bright move for a black guy dressed like a leprechaun pimp in the middle of a huge crowd of predominately white people.  Still, I think Hunter could’ve been properly subdued with a proper security force instead of a flotilla of drunken redneck bikers.  The film also didn’t mention that there were three other deaths at Altamont—two people were run over by a car, and another person drowned in a nearby drainage ditch (probably that bozo who kept crowd-surfing during the Burrito Brothers' set).  Just an ugly, ugly event, as well as a black eye for Rock ‘N’ Roll—so much for all that tree-hugging hippie utopia crap, eh?

Still, the Altamont concert seemed strangely appropriate as more or less the closing chapter of such a turbulent and violent decade.

'Dis, 'Dat an' d'Other

I BEG YOUR PARDON...
...and go fuck your Rose Garden, Mr. Bush!  Let's review here:  Scooter Libby was convicted by a jury of betraying his country, big-time (treason charges, anyone?), yet with the stroke of a pen, Dubya lets him off the hook.  All I gotta say is "Buck Fush!"  Need I say more?

JIMMY WALKER, 1944-2007
Sad news in the sports world with the death of former NBA player Jimmy Walker (no, NOT the arsehole from "Good Times"), who lost his battle with lung cancer last night.  J. Walker was one of my favorite players in the early years of the Kansas City and/or Omaha Kings back in the '70s, and prior to his arrival here, he was the #1 overall draft pick in 1967 out of Providence, and an All-Star in 1970 and 1972 with Detroit.  I wasn't even aware until today that he is also the father of current NBA star Jalen Rose.  R.I.P., JW...

HOMER "BOOTS" RANDOLPH, 1927-2007
Who, you say?  Well, if you're a fan of "The Benny Hill Show", you know of this man's work.  He was a saxophone player who scored with a major hit in 1963 called "Yakety Sax", which became even more famous as the theme music for the "lad himself"'s show in the '70s and '80s.  He was also a session musician and played on Elvis Presley's "Return To Sender", among others.  Mr. Randolph died of subdural hematoma today.  R.I.P., Boots...

BARELY BONDS
Lots of hubbub this week about Barry Bonds making the National League All-Star team as a starter, following a mysterious last-minute surge in the voting that would put the Diebold people who manipulated the 2000 Presidential election to shame.  That don't confront me (as long as I get my money next Friday), seeing's how Bonds is actually having a decent season, and there's no one else on the San Francisco roster worth putting on the All-Star team, anyway (as per the Major League mandate of each team being represented by at least one player).

Bonds also hit career HR #751 tonight, putting him just four shy of tying Hank Aaron (thus putting ESPN in a tizzy once again), but I couldn't care less, really.  I was nine years old when Hammerin' Hank was chasing Babe Ruth for #715, and I remember how exciting it was to watch him break the record live on TV on April 8, 1974, but when (or if) Bonds gets #756, I'm not sure how I will react.  Maybe I'll yawn, fart or scratch my balls—honestly, I haven't decided, yet—but I'm pretty nonplussed about it at this point.  And it's not a racial thing—Hank Aaron is black, and I want him to KEEP the record that I rooted for him to attain 33 years ago.  It's not even about the steroids thing, really—who are we kidding? Bonds isn't the only one who's used this shit.  No, I think my indifference might have something to do with Barry Bonds being a total fucking prick!  He's such an arrogant douche that it's damn near impossible for me to root for him to do anything but fall on his ass...

The good news is that the Giants are in last place and bound to stay that way, thus meaning there should be a ticket or two available during the final week of the regular season at AT&T Park (or whatever it's called this week) when yours truly invades the Bay Area for the first time in the history of the world...

HAPPY TRAILS TO THE "HUMAN RAIN DELAY"...
Most intriguing maneuver by Seattle Mariners manager Mike Hargrove, who resigned on Sunday during an 8-game winning streak.  Now, that's what I call quitting while you're ahead! Just as well—the M's got hammered by two touchdowns at the hands of the lowly Royals tonight, 17-3...

CLASSIC MISHEARD LYRIC #38
"(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone"—PAUL REVERE & THE RAIDERS (1966) "You've been awful careful 'bout the friends you choose/But you won't find my name in your book of Who's Who, I said..."  To my three-year-old ears, it sounded like "You won't find my name in your boogaloo's who's this?"  Yes, I know The Monkees had the big hit with this song (written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart), but PR&TR recorded it first, and their version is far superior—it's punchier, Mark Lindsay's vocals are grittier than Mickey Dolenz' wimpy rendition, and the Raiders were a real band to begin with—end of discussion!!

MY NAME IS SUE...HOW DO YOU DO?!?
After checking out my newly-acquired Johnny Cash CD box set, I was a taken aback a tad by the true meaning of a song called "The One On The Right Was On The Left".  My brother Earnie used to have an 8-track tape with that song on it when I was a kid, and back then I thought the song was some sort of musical chairs thing—little did my eight-year-old mind realize that this song was actually a precursor to the current conservative vs. liberal conflict!  Talk about your childhood delusions.  Still and all, the Man In Black rules...

WHAT I COULD BE DOING RIGHT NOW...
If I'd been properly motivated, I could have driven 30 miles tonight (one-way) out to what used to be called Sandstone Amphitheater to watch three (count 'em), three has-been bands in concert—Def Leppard and (what's left of) Styx and Foreigner.  Somehow, I couldn't get properly motivated...

My friend Tom and I caught all three bands in happier times when it was real.  We saw Def Lep on their first U.S. tour in 1980 at Kemper Arena, opening for Fred Nugent and Scorpions.  Great show, as I recall, but over the years I've come to realize the limitations of Joe Elliot's voice—he sounds like some 15-year-old kid trying to sound cool in an amateur garage band at times.  We also loved Foreigner in the rain at Arrowhead in 1982, but I'm so sorry—Mick Jones alone today is not a big draw—at least give me Lou Gramm on the vocals instead of some nobody posing as Brother Lou.  Meantime, Styx drops by here every five months or so anyway (along with REO Speedwagon every other time, it seems), and minus Dennis DeYoung, there's something missing, so I'll just reflect back on the night of March 16, 1981 when (thanks to a nasty stomach virus) I was as sick as a child pornographer at Kemper Arena when Styx hit town on the Paradise Theater tour, and they still managed to blow me (and Tom) away, anyhow.  Even that silly Kilroy thing in '83 was mildly amusing from the top row of Kemper (whilst watching some doofus to our left puking his guts out all over his newly-bought Styx t-shirt), but I can really do without this current nostalgia act crappola...

I'd rather fondly remember the above concerts instead of driving 60 miles round trip for some half-assed re-hash, thank you...

Classic Misheard Lyric #37

"Pride (In The Name of Love)"--U2 (1984) "Early morning, April 4—shot rings out in the Memphis sky..."  Mea culpa on my part—I'm surprised no one caught my brain fart on my Travelblog, Pt. 2 entry last month regarding the Lorraine Motel where I subtitled it "Sunday morning, April 4."  Come on, where were all you Youse2 fans out there?!?

Hey, I'm willing to admit a mistake now and then, and there are two goofs in regards to this, one being mine and the other being Bono's.  I don't know where I got Sunday from—confusing it with "Sunday, Bloody Sunday", perhaps?—and on top of that, April 4, 1968 was a Thursday.  Bono gets a few points off his American History grade, and the lyric should have gone "early evening, April 4" because Martin Luther King was shot a 6:01PM and died about an hour later—I wonder if anyone's ever pointed out this error to young Mr. Hewson.  Anyway, I caught this FUBAR last night while reading my Soulsville, U.S.A. book on the history of Stax Records (which was subsequently impacted by King's death in numerous ways).

I stand corrected, even if that Bono dude doesn't...

Everybody MUST get Stoned!

I'm about halfway through the Rolling Stones during my inexorable trek through my CD collection.  I'll spare the documentary stuff on these guys—y'all know their story by now—and just share a few thoughts on the band.  "Satisfaction" is probably the first song I ever recall hearing on AM radio when I was little, along with Jefferson Airplane's "Somebody To Love", and every time I hear "Brown Sugar", I think of that magical summer of '71 when I was seven and TOTALLY grooving on Top 40 radio in WHB ("World's Happiest Broadcasters") in Kansas City.  Of course, it went right over my 2nd-grade head that Mick Jagger was singing about black prostitutes and such on that song, but it didn't matter.

I have to admit I got rather burned-out on the Stones when I first started listening to Album Rock in the late '70s/early '80s ("Emotional Rescue" didn't exactly help, either), but one night in the Winter of '80-'81, someone on KY-102 played 1965's "The Last Time", which oddly enough, I was hearing for the first time, and I was absolutely floored by that ringing guitar riff, which led me to "re-discover" the band.  This was also about the time Tattoo You came out, which featured "Start Me Up" and "Waiting On A Friend" (great sax solo from Bobby Keys, btw), and I've been a fan ever since.

My first and only Rolling Stones concert was in 1994 at Faurot Field in Columbia, MO on the Voodoo Lounge tour, and it was a damn good one.  Certainly one of the best light shows I've ever seen at any concert, and Mick and the boys were in top form.  Shockingly enough, they can still bring it today, even at their advanced ages.  I'm still mystified why Keith Richards continues to wear that fishing tackle in his hair, but I swear, ol' Keef's gonna outlive us all!

My all-time Rolling Stones Top 15 (10 ain't enough):
15) "Fortune Teller" (1964)  Early classic that sounds rather primitive at times, but you gotta love the punchline, "Now I get my fortune told for free!"
14) "Monkey Man" (1969)  Rather underrated guitar work from Keef on this one.
13) "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" (1965)  Apart from Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water", is there not a more recognizable guitar riff in Rock history?
12) "Gimme Shelter" (1969)  Very appropriate song to close out such a tumultuous decade.
11) "One Hit (To The Body)" (1986)  I was rather partial to the Dirty Work album, even though most fans and critics weren't.
10) "The Under-Assistant West Coast Promotion Man" (1965)  The flip-side of "Satisfaction", and yes, the title's a mouthful, but it's a damn funny song with a great riff.
9) "Had It With You" (1986)  Love the attitude on this one.  Snappy little riff from Richards too.  The title track from that album, "Dirty Work", was pretty good too.
8) "Rock And A Hard Place" (1989)  Very underrated song from the very underrated Steel Wheels album.
7) "Brown Sugar" (1971)  True, this one's been played to death on the radio, but I still love it to death...
6) "Bitch" (1971)  Fucking nasty riff on this one.
5) "19th Nervous Breakdown" (1966)  A veritable classic.  Could've been written about Maris on "Frasier"...
4) "Far Away Eyes" (1978)  The Rolling Stones meet "Hee-Haw" and live to sing about it!  One of the funniest damn songs you'll ever hear, and a great sing-along during the choruses.
3) "Mean Disposition" (1994)  If you didn't know any better, you'd swear this was a Chuck Berry song.  Keith sure sounds like him soloing toward the end of the song.
2) "The Last Time" (1965)  See above.  I've always wondered how Journey got away with stealing the line "I told you once and I told you twice/But you never listen to my advice" on "Walks Like A Lady".
1) "Hold On To Your Hat" (1989)  Totally hidden gem on the Steel Wheels album that just cooks!  Jagger even plays guitar on it.

New Blog City

Haven't done a misc. items entry for a while, so let's get caught up on a few things...

"I'M LISTENING...AND I'M SHAVING"
I snapped this photo at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul back in March. Is this guy a dead ringer for Kelsey Grammer with his head shaved, or what?

IS THERE NOTHING SACRED?
Was more than a little disgusted the other day to hear Motorhead's classic "Ace Of Spades" on a 2K Sports TV commercial for their latest baseball video game featuring St. Louis Cardinals star Albert Pujols.  Never thought I'd see the day when my man Lemmy would knuckle under to capitalism...

BIRDS OF A FEATHER
Was rather bemused to stumble across Bill O'Reilly interviewing Ann Coulter last night on Faux News Channel.  Rather fascinating to watch two turds engaged in conversation...

GOOD QUESTION
A letter writer in the paper the other day posed the following:  Why was Jack Kevorkian imprisoned for helping people to die who were suffering, yet it's perfectly okay for veterinarians to euthanize dogs and cats for the same reason?

A MOMENT OF SILENCE, PLEASE...
For NFL Europa, the NFL's developmental league that used to be called the World League of American Football (WLAF), or as David Letterman and I peferred to call it, the "Waffle League".  The league was losing $30 million a year, and five out of the six remaining teams were in Germany anyway ("NFL Deutschland", anybody?), so the mothership decided to give up the ship after 15 years.  I always liked those Frankfurt Galaxy helmets too...

CLASSIC MISHEARD LYRIC #36
"Soul Man"--SAM & DAVE (1968)/BLUES BROTHERS (1979) "I was educated from good stock"  I always thought it was "I was educated at Woodstock."  Well, some of those tree-hugging hippies were educated there, I guess.  A little trivia for you, while I'm at it—guitarist "Play It" Steve Cropper didn't have a proper slide when they recorded the Sam & Dave version at Stax Records, so he used a cigarette lighter to play slide gee-tar.  Seems that Mr. Cropper and the rest of Booker T. & The MG's are far more important figures in music history than I ever knew, as I am currently reading Rob Bowman's excellent book, Soulsville, U.S.A.—The Story of Stax Records. These guys—Cropper, bassist Duck Dunn, drummer Al Jackson and Booker T. Jones on the keys—played on more hit records than most people realize.

FRIED HOCKEY BOOGIE
I am quite impressed with the Hockey Hall of Fame's induction class for 2007:
Mark Messier:  A no-brainer here.  Classy player, although I would've preferred he stay in Edmonton instead of finishing his career with the New York Strangers.
Ron Francis:  Finally, a TRUE Hartford Whaler in the Hall!
Al MacInnis:  Another classy guy, and it's great to see another St. Louis Blue in the Hall.
Scott Stevens:  My man from the Devils' Stanley Cup teams.  It's strangely ironic that his career was ended prematurely by a concussion, since he was so proficient at dishing them out during his career...

SPEAKING OF HOCKEY...
Rumors are flying like errant pucks into the stands about the Nashville Predators possibly relocating to Kansas City and the Sprint Center thereof.  Trying not to get my hopes up too much here, but unlike with K.C.'s previous foray trying to lure the Pittsburgh Penguins here, this is a team I won't feel guilty about "stealing" because Nashville has all the hockey tradition of La Paz, Bolivia anyway.  I don't even mind if they retain the name Predators if they move here, but I hope they lose those hideous uniforms and colors.  In fact, it wouldn't break my heart to see those beautiful (and highly underrated) K.C. Scouts uniforms hitting the ice again...

Thinking of others...

I'm feeling a little like Casey Kasem today, so I want to send out a few long-distance dedications to those who deserve them:

To Dubya and Cheney: "How Do You Sleep?"—JOHN LENNON
To Rosie O'Donnell: "You Talk Too Much"—GEORGE THOROGOOD
To Pacman Jones: "Folsom Prison Blues"—JOHNNY CASH
To Don Imus: "The Sounds of Silence"—SIMON & GARFUNKEL
To Ken Griffey, Jr.: "Back In The Saddle"—AEROSMITH
To Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson: "Your Cheatin' Heart"—HANK WILLIAMS
To Oregon State Baseball: "Every 1's A Winner"—HOT CHOCOLATE
To Nancy Grace: "Bitch"—ROLLING STONES
To Michael Vick: "I’ll Be Doggone"—MARVIN GAYE
To Barry Bonds: "Try A Little Tenderness"—OTIS REDDING
To The WWE: "The Needle And The Damage Done"—NEIL YOUNG
To Kobe Bryant: "You Can’t Always Get What You Want"—ROLLING STONES
To Paris Hilton: "Don't Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)"—MOTLEY CRUE
To Michelle Wie: "Come Back When You Grow Up"—BOBBY VEE
To Ann Coulter: "Evil Woman"—ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA

"They Died Old"--Volume I

As a counterpart to my "They Died Young" series, it's time to salute those sports venues who made it to old age, and in some cases, out-and-out senility!

ST. LOUIS ARENA
It was old, it was smelly in places, it had dark and narrow hallways and a few bad sightlines, it was rather decrepit—it even had cats living in its basement—but the mighty St. Louis Arena had soul and it had atmosphere, and it was one of my favorite sports venues of all-time.  While not quite as well-renowned as its Depression Era brethren Chicago Stadium, Boston Garden, Detroit’s Olympia Stadium or the old Madison Square Garden, "The Old Barn" withstood the test of time (as well as a tornado), and it was home to a big chunk of entertainment and indoor sports history in St. Louis.  It’s true The Arena had a rather checkered history (like when it was called "The Checkerdome" during the ‘80s), but hell, any sports arena with a bowling alley attached to it can’t be all bad!

Located at 5700 Oakland Avenue, just a stone’s throw from the city’s world famous Forest Park Zoo, St. Louis Arena was built in 1929 as a showcase for various farm and dairy shows that were popular at the time, as well as conventions, circuses, religious gatherings, concerts and sporting events.  Unfortunately, almost as soon as the place opened, the stock market crashed, and The Arena nearly closed permanently.  It bounced from owner to owner throughout its history, and went through numerous renovations and improvements over the years.  The Arena held about 15,000 people when it first opened, and more than 19,000 by the time it closed.  The building was also flanked by matching structures, one to the east called "Arena Annex" that was used for various exhibitions and storage, and one to the west, the "Arena Bowl", which for a time was one of the largest bowling alleys in St. Louis.  AB closed sometime in the ‘60s, but the building survived until the mid-‘80s.  Perhaps The Arena’s most distinctive feature was its huge wooden Lamella roof, which was one of the largest of its kind in the world at the time, and gave the building its trademark barn-like appearance.  It was a pretty sturdy roof too, despite having a big hole blown out of it by a freak February, 1959 tornado that also heavily damaged much of the Arena Annex and parts of the city as well.

St. Louis Arena was home to numerous sports teams throughout its 70 years, but it is most identified as the home of the NHL’s St. Louis Blues, beginning in 1967.  Prior to their arrival, several minor league and college hockey teams played at The Arena, most notably the St. Louis Braves (the farm team of the Chicago Blackhawks for many years) and the St. Louis University Billikens hockey team.  The Blues were an immediate hit as an expansion franchise in the NHL, and The Arena was home to fan favorites over the years like Garry Unger, Bernie Federko, the Plager brothers (Bob and Barclay), the Cavallini brothers (Paul and Gino), Brett Hull early in his career and legendary play-by-play announcer Dan "He Shoots, He Scores!" Kelly.  The team had its ups and downs over time, and nearly left town a couple times because of ownership changes and financial woes, but the Blues always fielded a consistent product on the ice, and made the playoffs in nearly every season they played at the Old Barn.  The high point was probably the 1986 playoff series vs. the Calgary Flames that featured the "Monday Night Miracle" on May 12th when the Blues fell behind 5-2 in Game 6 and roared back to win 6-5 in OT on a goal by another fan favorite, the late Doug Wickenheiser.  The Blues lost in Game 7, but that game was such a thriller that people still talk about it in the Gateway City to this day.

Oddly enough, basketball didn’t become a regular staple on Oakland Avenue until the ‘70s, primarily because the NBA’s St. Louis Hawks played their home games at old Kiel Auditorium until they bolted for Atlanta in 1968.  St. Louis U. played mostly at Kiel as well, but college basketball hit its stride in St. Louis in 1973 and 1978 when The Arena hosted the NCAA Final Four.  The annual "Border War" game between Missouri and Illinois became a Christmas-time tradition, with the final one at the Old Barn being the best of all in 1993 as MU beat the Illini in a triple-OT thriller that nearly brought the house down.  The Arena did get a brief sniff of pro basketball (although most of it didn’t smell too good), as the semi-legendary Spirits of St. Louis of the old American Basketball Association played there for two eventful, if not well-executed, seasons in the mid-70s.  They were perhaps the wildest collection of misfits ever assembled on one team in any sport, and their story is chronicled in the hilarious ABA documentary book Loose Balls by Terry Pluto.  You can also read about them and the rest of the league at a wonderful site called RememberTheABA.com.  Incidentally, the Spirits were also the launching point in the sportscasting career of one young Bob Costas.  Sadly, they folded when the ABA merged with the NBA, and St. Louis has been without pro basketball ever since, apart from the three or four "home" games the Kansas City Kings would stage each season at The Arena during the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

One sport that truly rocked the house on Oakland Avenue was indoor soccer.  The St. Louis Steamers of the original Major Indoor Soccer League arrived in 1979 and featured many local players on its squad who became fan favorites right away as they took on big-name European and South American players on other teams.  The Steamers quickly became the hottest ticket in St. Louie, routinely outdrawing the Blues (just as my boys the Kansas City Comets concurrently outdrew the Kings here), and The Arena was packed to the rafters throughout the early ‘80s until the indoor soccer novelty wore off.  The Steamers eventually folded in 1988 and were replaced by the Storm a year later.  The Storm turned into a drizzle and ceased to be when the MISL folded in 1992, and were replaced by the St. Louis Ambush in the National Professional Soccer League who played one season at The Arena before moving with the Blues to the new venue next to Union Station.

My first visit to St. Louis Arena was during the middle of the great heat wave in July, 1983 to see The Police in concert with my friend Tom.  Great show, and I seem to remember the building felt like a sauna, even though it did have air conditioning.  I returned three years later on my first official solo road trip and pretty much spent pretty much the entire weekend at the Old Barn in March, 1986, watching my beloved Comets beat the Steamers on Friday night, then taking in my first NHL regular season game outside of K.C. as the Blues beat the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night.  I had such a great time both nights that I decided to attend the matinee on Sunday between the Steamers and Wichita Wings, which gave me a chance to really roam the place and check out all the nooks and crannies, since the crowd wasn’t as large as the previous two nights.

I was particularly taken by the balcony sections on the ends of the arena that I’m sure gave some folks vertigo because the pitch was so steep that each seating row had a railing in front of it to keep folks from taking a tumble.  It was worth the climb, though, because the views were awesome and you felt like you were hovering over the action.  Another cool feature that I loved was the out-of-town hockey scoreboards on the facing of the balconies. Instead of the traditional abbreviations for the teams like "CHI", "DET", "MIN", et al., the Blues were creative enough to employ these colorful backlit signs of the individual team logos inserted next to the game scores, thus you had to really know your team insignias to know who was winning.  Now with all the fancy state-of-art scoreboard technology, they can do all that stuff electronically, but back then it was a much cooler homemade touch.  Another oddity that intrigued me were the claustrophobic narrow passageways underneath the dark lower level seats on the sides in the above photo that were barely even wide enough for a wheelchair to fit through.  Good thing this place never caught fire during a game, or there would have been major carnage down there...

My friends and I made several pilgrimages to The Arena for Blues games and soccer games involving the Comets and the Steamers and Storm between 1986 and 1992.  My final visit was in March, '92 for a game between the Tacoma Stars and St. Louis Storm (the Comets folded the year before), and even at its advanced age, The Arena’s old magic was still there, and the atmosphere was still electric.  As cavernous as the building was, it still got plenty loud when the crowds got raucous, and the joint really got to jumpin' during hockey fights.

Probably my favorite Arena memory of all was "Kazoo Night" at a Blues game on March 3, 1990.  Classic Rock station K-SHE 95 sponsored the giveaway of plastic kazoos to everyone who entered the building, and they were put to use almost immediately when one of the K-SHE jocks led the assembled multitude in the greatest rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" you'll ever hear.  Screw Whitney Houston—this was the damndest thing I’ve ever seen and heard!  The DJ got it going, and it started off rather tentatively, as most people (including me) thought it was a joke at first, but everyone gradually joined in, and by the "rockets red glare" part, it sounded great!  I wish someone had recorded this, because you’d be surprised how good 18,000 people playing the National Anthem in unison on kazoo actually sound—certainly as good, if not better, than any singer or musical soloist could’ve done, and a damn sight better than wimps like Kenny G...

Sadly, St. Louis Arena was never given a proper send-off, nor did it have any kind of Grand Finale.  The Blues were scheduled to begin the 1994-95 season at the Old Barn until their new arena, built on the site of old Kiel Auditorium and originally known as Kiel Center, was completed in December.  However, the new joint was finished way ahead of schedule and was indeed ready for Opening Night in October after all, if there had actually been one in October.  Turned out it didn’t matter anyway, as the NHL labor dispute delayed the start of that season to January, ’95, thus no one realized at the time when the Blues bowed out in the 1993-94 playoffs, that they had played their final game at The Arena, period, thus no fanfare, no closing ceremony, no nothing.  Given the building’s star-crossed history, I guess that seems fitting in some bizarre way.  Ironically, The Arena’s final event for a paid audience actually was a hockey game—a roller hockey game, that is, featuring those dreaded hometown St. Louis Vipers in August, 1994.  St. Louis Arena was shuttered not long after that and left to rot for 4.5 years until they gutted the place, auctioned off its valuables and imploded it on February 27, 1999.  A mixed-use complex comprised of retail shops, office space, loft apartments and a Hampton Inn hotel now occupies the site, but in a nice touch, the footprint of The Arena itself was left open for a green common ground/courtyard area.

There is a wonderful book that I believe is still in print called The St. Louis Arena Memories written by Patti Smith Jackson, and it features a treasure trove of photos from throughout the building’s entire history from construction to implosion.  It was one of the nicest Christmas gifts I ever received from anyone (thank you again, Stacy!).  I also read a few years back that the old main scoreboard was purchased by a bar near Kiel Center (or whatever it’s called this week) to use as its centerpiece, but the bar was subsequently torn down, so I don’t know what happened to it after that.  Anyone out there know of the old scoreboard’s current whereabouts?  I'd love to see it again.  In lieu of that, if ol' Doc Emmett Brown ever does perfect that flux capacitor to enable time travel, I definitely plan to drop by The Old Barn on Oakland Avenue again.  To paraphrase a line from Elton John's "Bennie & The Jets", it was "weird and it was wonderful..."

The Bane of My Existence

Time for another rant that I simply must get off my chest, and it’s aimed at today’s cell phone generation people.  Yes, these modern technological marvels do serve a purpose in the world, and are very important to certain folks who need to be reached urgently when they are otherwise unreachable, and of course, cell phones are quite handy in emergencies.  BUUUUTTT—they are also becoming a Major League public nuisance because all too often, they’ve fallen into the hands of inconsiderate people who abuse them.  As George Carlin once said about people with car phones back in the ‘80s:  "Technology has brought us these self-important twits…"

Okay, I’ll admit that I’m a tad biased because I’m rather resistant to change, thus I don’t own a cell phone, nor do I care to.  As my friend Phil once said, cell phones are like "the modern-day cowbell," and at the risk of seeming anti-social, I like being relatively inaccessible.  I really don’t like talking on the phone that much anyway—I’d much rather talk in person or in writing, so let's get together and talk or e-mail me if you wanna get a hold of me.  That being said, I find the majority of cell phone users to be a very annoying lot for numerous reasons.  My biggest question is what is so bloody important that can’t wait until you get home (or at least back to your car) to talk about when you’re in public places like the grocery store?  I’m growing really weary of this "dig me, I’m important—I have friends" dynamic that these yahoos exhibit constantly.  Allow me to cite a few examples:

• Just last night I was behind this jagoff in the checkout line at the store, and he was just jabbering away and not even giving the cashier the time of day the entire time—until he decided he needed a pack of cigarettes at the last second, thus making us all wait even longer.  By the time I got out to my car, the fucker was still yapping away while he loaded his truck!
• I work at a CT/MR imaging facility, and on more than one occasion we’ve had patients who are so absorbed with themselves that they step outside to take/make calls while waiting for their scheduled appointments.  Some of them actually expect us to wait for them to finish their call before doing their scan!  You wanna talk about chutzpah…
• During my recent trip to Nashville, as I was walking back to the garage where I was parked, I encountered this palooka at a bus stop stomping around in a circle just cussing up a storm into his cell phone at someone, all the while waving his free arm around like a rap singer—he looked almost like one of the Beastie Boys.  After retrieving my car, I drove past him again about ten minutes later, and he was still stomping around and yelling and waving while the other bus stop people looked on! I’d bet my next paycheck there was no one on the other end of the line, and this joker was just trying to draw attention to himself and show everyone what a bad-ass he was.
• New technology has brought us all those cute little ring tones, thus converting cell phones into portable jukeboxes.  All day long at work, I get to hear these contraptions going off, as many of my co-workers are addicted to these damn things, and I swear I feel like I'm inside a damn pinball machine...
• One co-worker is particularly obsessed with her cell phone, constantly jabbering away all day long on it—right in front of patients who are waiting, or while in the bathroom, or at the lunch table while the rest of us are trying to eat—and it’s downright rude!  Unlike her, all my friends have jobs during the day and don’t have time to talk.
• [RANT WITHIN A RANT:] The above person actually had her cell phone cut off at one point because she was behind on her monthly bill—this is the same person who recently applied for Section 8 government housing because she recently broke up with her live-in boyfriend and had no place to stay.  She’s 30 years old, has three kids with three different fathers (none of whom she ever married), her oldest kid is 14 (do the math) and now she wants to mooch off the government, yet she somehow can still afford to drive a Mitsubishi and maintain her funky fingernails and her funky shellacked Turtle Wax/Simoniz hairdo and the grill in her mouth, get a new tattoo every other month, and run up a $500 a month cell phone bill!  Can you say "poffeycock!"? [This is where the conservative in me rears his ugly little head, but that’s another rant for another time, so I digress…]
• You can’t even get through an entire ballgame on TV anymore without having to watch some bozo on a cell phone in the stands directly behind home plate waving frantically to alert his friend(s) on the other end that he’s on TV.  It would totally make my day if that protective backstop would suddenly disappear just long enough for these mongoloids to get clocked right between the eyes by a line drive foul ball or an errant fastball from Johan Santana or Big Unit.
• As I’ve previously blogged, these people with the fancy new earpiece things (or electronic Q-Tips, as I like to call them) who look like they’re talking to themselves are also quite irritating to me.  And don’t even get me started on how many car wrecks I’ve nearly been involved in because of some yutz yapping on their cell phone.  Hang up and drive, people!

There—I feel much better now!

A face even a mother couldn't love!

Joan Rivers and her ugly-ass daughter finished at #2 and #2A. Rev. Fred Phelps' sister finished 3rd...

Assorted funnies

Now that's MY kind of buffet!













I ain't so sure they're kidding, either!

They call me MISTER Popiel!

How low would YOU go?

"Road Trips Gone Terribly Wrong"--Part I










"Road Trips Gone Terribly Wrong"--Part II

Go Beavers!

Being the proud owner of one of their hats, I'm certainly rooting for the Oregon State Beavers again this year in the College World Serious against UNC in Omaha. Actually, I became an OSU fan a few years back because their football team likes to whoop up on Notre Dame in bowl games, leading to headlines like "Beavers humiliate the Fighting Irish"!

I think I posed this question once before, but does anyone know what Oregon State calls their womens' teams? Surely not the "Lady Beavers"! Same goes for South Carolina--their mens' teams are called the Gamecocks. Inquiring mind wants to know...

Oh well, anyway--Go, you Beavers!

Language Lessons

Ever since my recent trip to Memphis, I've become a music documentary DVD junkie, and this week I re-watched a most excellent profile on the life of legendary producer Tom Dowd.  You may not know his name, but unless you're deaf or have lived in a Third World country for the last 50 years or are just plain brain dead, you're familiar with this man's body of work.  There's a better than good chance his name is on the back of more than a few of the albums/CDs in your collection, because he produced the likes of The Allman Brothers, Ray Charles, Derek And The Dominoes, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Neil Young, Charles Mingus, James Brown, Eric Clapton, John Coltrane, Rod Stewart, Wilson Pickett, Cream, Lynyrd Skynyrd—even my boys Black Oak Arkansas—and many many others.  Can you say prolific?!?

The DVD, Tom Dowd-The Language of Music was filmed just prior to Dowd's death in 2002, and his stories and recollections are priceless, as are those of Clapton, Gregg Allman and others he worked with over the years.  It also features one of the more majestic musical instruments on this planet--the grand piano that the second half of "Layla" was played on.  Mr. Dowd just had a knack for bringing out the best in the musicians he worked with, and he also seemed like a genuinely nice man and was well-respected by all.  Well worth a look if you're into "behind-the-scenes" music stuff like I am.

Summer's here and the time is right...

...for obese women to dress appropriately in public!

Don't get me wrong:  I'm NOT referring to mildly-overweight women like say Kate Winslet, Jennifer Hudson, Renee Zellweger at Bridget Jones size (which I actually prefer) or even Ann Wilson circa 1985.  I'm talking about these female Jabba The Huts like in the photo here, who ought to have a little common sense.  I've already seen far more flesh than I care to this spring and summer, and I swear, if I see any more of these grossly overweight (and often tattooed) skanks trying to look chic at the grocery store in their spaghetti-strap tube tops (with those oh-so-sexy exposed bra straps), it may just give me cause to reconsider homosexuality!  Look folks, I weigh 265 to 270 pounds, and I do the world a great big favor by not going shirtless in public, so a good rule of thumb is basically any woman who outweighs me by more than 20 pounds has no business wearing this stuff outside the house!

Minding My P's & Q's

I’m still churning my way through the alphabet in my CD collection, and here are some brief thoughts on who I’ve been listening to this week…

TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERSI’m not completely sold on whether this guy truly belongs in the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame, but TP does have his moments now and then.  I can usually only take Petty in small doses, apart from his 1989 Full Moon Fever CD, which was far and away his best (ironically minus the Heartbreaker name) and the second Traveling Wilburys CD, Vol. 3, which he practically carried by himself at times.

My All-Time Tom Petty Top 10:1) Runnin’ Down A Dream (1989)
2) Refugee (1980)
3) Poor House [Traveling Wilburys] (1991)
4) Jammin’ Me (1986)
5) Yer So Bad (1989)
6) Last Dance With Mary Jane (1993)
7) Cool Dry Place [Traveling Wilburys] (1991)
8) Don’t Do Me Like That (1980)
9) [tie] I Need To Know (1978)/American Girl (1976)
10) Zombie Zoo (1989)

ELVIS PRESLEY
Yes, the man has been reduced to a mere caricature these days, but let’s not forget why he became such a cultural icon in the first place.  Like Eddie Murphy says, when Elvis was young, he was "a bad motherfucker!" and his early music certainly reflects that.

I view Elvis as a rather tragic figure—he got run into the ground by his manager, Col. Tom Parker, who had him making all those crappy movies instead of focusing on his music career in the ‘60s, and then Elvis got all mangled up on drugs to the point where he was a walking zombie by the mid-‘70s.  Elvis also made the tactical error of surrounding himself with a bunch of leeches and yes-men (his "Memphis Mafia"), not to mention The Big Dick (see photo), but I think he was an extremely lonely man, which I find very sad.  His demise was inevitable, but as Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits once sang, "He’s still the man…"

My All-Time Elvis Top 10
1) A Big Hunk O’ Love (1959)
2) Hard Headed Woman (1958)
3) Mean Woman Blues (1956)
4) Kentucky Rain (1970)
5) Jailhouse Rock (1957)
6) Hound Dog (1956)
7) In The Ghetto (1968)
8) Suspicious Minds (1969)
9) Money Honey (1956)
10) Way Down (1977)

THE POLICEAs with Cheap Trick and Journey, I’m more partial to a lot of The Police’s "B-stuff" than their big hits, thus "Roxanne" doesn’t even crack my Top 10, and I never need to hear "King of Pain" and "Every Breath You Take" again as long as I live...

Evidently, there are still plenty of suckers out there paying $200 a pop to see the band on the latest "We’re Only In It For The Money" tour (a tradition started by The Eagles back in the mid-‘90s), but I have no intention of seeng them live now (unless Sting, Andy or Stew personally invites me).  I have fonder memories of two excellent Police concerts back in the day, one at Kemper Arena on March 25, 1982 (ticket price: $10.75) and another at St. Louis Arena (then known by the silly name "Checkerdome") on July 24, 1983 (same day as the George Brett pine tar incident), where they pretty much brought down the house both times.  I remember the crowds were very energetic at both of those shows and were almost as much fun to watch as the band was, especially all the girls who were dressed like The Go-Go's.

So, how come Sting’s solo career was so dull?  Successful, yes, but so utterly dull…

My All-Time Police Top 10:1) One World (Not Three) (1981)
2) Message In A Bottle (1979)
3) Synchronicity II (1983)
4) Regatta De Blanc (1979)
5) Demolition Man (1981)
6) When The World Is Running Down… (1980)
7) Rehumanize Yourself (1981)
8) Synchronicity I (1983)
9) Born In The ‘50s (1978)
10) Spirits In The Material World (1981)

THE PRETENDERSHave to admit I wasn’t terribly crazy about Chrissie Hynde at first, but I grew to like her over time—well, at least her voice and her songwriting, anyway.  Still not crazy about her attitude sometimes, but at least she didn’t allow her band to morph into "Chrissie Hynde & The Pretenders", as so often happens with bands who have a female lead singer, a la "Patti Smyth & Scandal" and "Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine" (was that a mouthful, or what?).  Like Petty, I’m not so sure the Pretenders belong in the HOF either (not yet, anyway), as I think they’re a tad overrated at times, but there is some good stuff to behold here.

For you trivia buffs, that’s Rockpile’s Billy Bremner playing lead guitar on "Back On The Chain Gang" and "My City Was Gone".  Also, Chrissie Hynde attended Kent State University at the height of the anti-war protests, and she was there during the tragic May 4, 1970 campus shootings, although I’m not sure if she actually witnessed the massacre or not.

Speaking of "My City Was Gone", it also serves as the intro music on Rush Limbaugh’s Communist—er uh, conservative—radio propaganda program—er uh, talk show.  Seems strangely ironic that he would choose the music of a liberal über animal rights activist like C. Hynde for his show.  Ay, oh, way to go, Ohio…

My All-Time Pretenders Top 10:
1) Message Of Love (1981)
2) Tattooed Love Boys (1980)
3) Time The Avenger (1983)
4) Middle Of The Road (1983)
5) I’ll Stand By You (1994)
6) My City Was Gone (1982)
7) Mystery Achievement (1980)
8) Show Me (1983)
9) Back On The Chain Gang (1982)
10) Precious (1980)

QUEEN
One of my bigger regrets in life is never getting to see Freddie Mercury & Co. live in concert, as I’ve heard they used to put on an awesome show.  My best chance was probably in 1980 when they played Kemper Arena on The Game tour, but as I remember, that was a very tough ticket in this town.  Queen returned again in 1982 on their Hot Space tour, but we passed on that one because the album was so crappy, and I later heard that it was a poor show anyway, and they were actually upstaged by upstart opening act Billy Squier.  Saaayyy—you don’t suppose Billy and Freddie—oh, never mind, let’s not go there!!  Ironcially, Squier himself was upstaged by upstart opening act Def Leppard the next time he came to town.  And so it goes…

Getting back to Queen, Hot Space did a ton of damage to their career in America that they never really recovered from, but the fans in England and Europe remained fiercely loyal to the band, and they put out some damn good stuff in the mid-to-late ‘80s that went sadly unnoticed in America, right up until Mercury’s death in 1991.  One of the greatest vocal performances you’ll ever hear is Freddie singing "The Show Must Go On"—you’d never know that the man was literally dying when Queen recorded it for their final album Innuendo, and it was an unbelievably powerful performance coming from someone who at the time needed assistance just to go to the toilet.

Queen should have ended right there and then, but now we have Queen + Paul Rodgers, which I’m having great difficulty embracing.  No offense to PR—he’s a great singer in his own right—but you just don’t replace a Freddie Mercury.  Wrong, wrong, wrong!

A little Queen trivia for you: You know how Freddie Mercury's truncated microphone stand came about?  Totally by accident.  At one of the band's early gigs, he had some mic stand that evidently was bulky and heavy, and during a performance, Fred tried to move the thing and it wouldn't budge, so he just ripped the top portion of the mic stand out of its base and did the rest of the show without the base.  He liked it so much that it stuck...

My All-Time Queen Top 10:1) Tie Your Mother Down (1976)
2) Bohemian Rhapsody (1976)
3) Killer Queen (1974)
4) The Show Must Go On (1991)
5) Crazy Little Thing Called Love (1980)
6) One Vision (1985)
7) You’re My Best Friend (1976)
8) Rock It (Prime Jive) (1980)
9) I Want It All (1989)
10) Need Your Loving Tonight (1980)

Zoinks!

For all you poetry buffs out there, please allow me to recite a little tribute to those Meddling Kids that I spotted on the back of a car the other day...

Pass ol' Shaggy the baggie

So he can roll a doobie for ol' Scooby!

Or something like that...

Pacman Fever!

Well, in a thoroughly earth-shattering turn of events, Tennessee Titans cornerback Adam "Pacman" Jones is being sought by authority figures about his possible involvement a shooting outside a titty bar involving his homies—er uh—his entourage.  Couldn't possibly be true, could it?!?  This is damn near as shocking as David Crosby getting busted for drug possession...


Okay, I'm being facetious more than a little bit here—Paris Hilton's in jail but this fucker isn't?  And, is there any doubt that the NFL's current most prolific miscreant is rising high on the list of the biggest dumbasses in sports history?

In fact, here are the current standings:
1) O.J. Simpson
2) Darryl Strawberry
3) Art Schlichter
4) Mike Tyson
5) Steve Howe
6) Adam "Pacman" Jones
7) Lawrence Phillips
8) Andre Rison
9) Denny McLain
10) Ron Artest
11) Jose Canseco
12) Bode Miller
13) Todd Marinovich
14) Tommy Morrison
15) Pete Rose
16) John Daly
17) Tonya Harding
18) Terrell Owens
19) Albert Belle
20) Randy Moss