"Send In The Clowns"--An ersatz tribute to 'Circus' magazine

Okay, I lied, I decided to get off my ass and post something new here after all!

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m currently in the process of going through my personal archives, inventorying old belongings, purging stuff and reorganizing the rest, which includes the old Rock ‘N’ Roll periodicals I used to collect.  Circus magazine, “The Leading Rock & Roll Bi-Weekly”, and/or “The Voice of American Youth” as they alternately dubbed themselves, is the one I read the most (along with Creem and Hit Parader, to a lesser extent), and it was my primary source for Rock news and music features back in the day.  I bought my first copy of Circus in the summer of ’76 when I first got into Kiss and spotted Gene Simmons’ tongue on the front cover, and was a regular reader until the nether end of the ‘80s when Circus featured nothing but hair bands ad nauseam and ceased writing about under-the-radar musicians like Nick Lowe, John Hiatt and Dave Edmunds like they used to.  Thumbing through these old issues here lately has brought back a ton of memories, which I will share here (in no particular order)…

CONCERT GUIDE  Circus featured a Concert Guide in each issue with the latest tour dates for every major group/artist.  And I do mean EVERY group or artist—along with the usual suspects like Aerosmith, Z.Z. Top and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Circus also included listings for people they never even featured in the magazine, like Waylon Jennings, Steeleye Span (who?) and Shirley Bassey (WTF?!?).  Predictably, the guide was usually very inaccurate and already outdated by the time each issue hit your newsstand.  The funniest part was how these editor clowns constantly mangled the names of the event venues in their listings.  Kansas City concert-goers supposedly went somewhere called “Chief Stadium”, there was a “San Diego Coliseum” (aka, San Diego Sports Arena) and a “Ridgefield Stadium” near Cleveland, better known as Richfield Coliseum, former home of the Cleveland Cadavers.  Toronto had a “C&E Coliseum” and Vancouver had a “P&E Coliseum” (to wit, CNE and PNE, respectively) and Seattle’s new domed stadium at the time was listed as just plain “Dome Stadium”.  But my favorite bon mot of all was Chicago’s “Kaminsky Park”, home of the White Sox!  Renamed for Electric Light Orchestra’s Mik Kaminsky, I suppose.  In addition, in 1978, the Concert Guide had some intrepid upstart band called Van Halen listed alphabetically under 'H'!  I give Circus an A for effort, but it was a bit lacking, all the same.

LETTERS  The Letters column in Circus was almost a forerunner of today’s Internet message boards/forums as it was a breeding ground for the never-ending pissing matches between Kiss and Aerosmith fans, not to mention the snoody Prog. Rock fans who looked down their noses at those same Kiss and Aerosmith fans and acted as if they were better than everyone else just because Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Pink Floyd, Genesis, King Crimson, et al, were all such virtuoso musicians.  I’m already on record here about my distaste for much of ‘70s Progressive Rock—I found a lot of it to be cold, overblown, soulless and downright boring—give me Black Oak Arkansas any day over that pretentious lot!  At least Jim Dandy and the boys were fun to listen to, which is often far more important to me than musical virtuosity when it comes to Rock ‘N’ Roll, but I digress…

I’m really kinda stunned at some of the stuff Circus actually accepted from readers and printed in the Letters section, like the following classic from Tony in Stirling, Ontario:  I would like to tell you that your column “Into Your Head” is a ridiculous waste of space. Who the hell is interested in some crazy bopper’s sexual hang-ups? You’re supposed to be a music magazine. Also, I just want to say that I think Elton John is a fag, and the Beach Boys suck.

Classy guy.  I’m real curious to see what all they edited out from Tony’s original letter!  Letters like this one really have no place in a first-class national periodical, but oddly enough, Tony was right on all three counts—Sir Elton is indeed a homosexual, the Beach Boys pretty much did suck in the ‘70s minus Brian Wilson, and “Into Your Head” fit in Circus magazine about as well as a nun at a frat party.  IYH was a Dear Abby-esque advice column compiled by some psychiatrist hack who seemingly got his degree from Hazzard County A&M.  One of the correspondents to his column had issues with “fagits”, whatever those are...

Here’s another gem of a letter from Issue #150, February 28, 1977 by Stephen from Mississauga, ON:  In regards to John Casale’s letter in CIRCUS, which insinuates that Freddie Mercury is queer, sorry to disappoint you fella, but I am now going to quote from the book ‘The Queen Story’ by George Tremlett, renowned rock biographer.  "No one could be more heterosexual than Mercury, who had been living with his girlfriend Mary Austin…"  So go back to your Bowies and Jaggers and leave Fred alone ‘cause you’re barking up the wrong tree!

Fella?!?  How gay is that? Excuse me, fella, but both you and the book author were shoveling more bullshit than highway workers in the wake of an overturned manure truck.  And as we all know from our homework, Freddie Mercury was most decidedly gay, and hardly tried to hide it.  Mary Austin was indeed a longtime girl friend and confidant of Fred’s but she was never his girlfriend.  He half-heartedly tried to make it appear that way to get the press off his tail, but everyone knew he was busy with X-number of boys of his own…

In a semi-related item in the same issue, Ed from Bloomsburg, PA chastises Robert Duncan (whom I chastise below here) for a feature he did on the just-released Led Zeppelin concert flick in which he (for some bizarre reason) referred to Robert Plant’s talleywhacker several times:  ...since you have an obsession to keep mentioning Robert Plant’s cock so many times dealing with movie sequences, you should have entitled the article '"The Dong Remains The Same.''

Friggin’ brilliant!

A Kansas City letter-writer, Clare, ripped Ted Nugent a pretty good one following a 1977 article in which Nuge—true-to-form—bragged on himself a bit too much about his appearance at Arrowhead Stadium in ‘76:  First of all, he didn’t break any attendance records here in K.C. that I know of.  The 41,000 people came, for the most part, to see REO Speedwagon because they have been K.C. favorites for years.  A lot of people including myself left midway through Nugent’s set.  Ted also boasts that “police received complaints [about the noise] from people 15 miles away.”  Because of that, stadium concerts were almost banned here…He has blown it for himself because he will never play an outdoor concert here again.

I think that whole “15 miles away” business is a pure B.S. urban legend that Ted chose to create.  We lived five miles from the Truman Sports Complex and I never heard a thing.  And Nugent has indeed played outdoors in K.C. several times since then, including my first major Rock concert at Arrowhead in ’79, at which I was rather miffed and disappointed with the lack of volume—the powers-that-be obviously made Ted turn it down a bit by that time.

ALBUM REVIEWS  And then there were the atrocious album reviews.  It was through these often-pompous, condescending, sarcastic and grating reviews (as well as those found in Rolling Stone, which were ten times worse) that I developed my healthy long-standing loathing of Rock music critics.  And just as with today’s ESPN-dominated sports media, there clearly was/is a definite East Coast bias amongst these critics.  Everything the Ramones, Patty Smith, J. Geils Band or Bruce Springsteen ever did was the cat’s ass with these schmucks, but except for Cheap Trick and a scant few others, most Midwestern and Southern acts like Styx, REO Speedwagon, Kansas or Z.Z. Top never got a fair shake from these assholes.  Some reviews were so overblown and snarky that the reviewer (Lester Bangs, atten-shun!) would prattle on for ten paragraphs about totally unrelated crap before finally getting around to talking about the record he/she was reviewing.  Some never even mentioned the LP in question at all!  I much prefer a track-by-track analysis over three columns of unnecessary (and usually unrelated) prose in an album review.

The single-most asinine album review I’ve ever read appeared in Issue 138 of Circus, August 24, 1976, Robert Duncan’s hatchet-job of the Kiss classic Destroyer, in which he proclaimed “The new Kiss album stinks.” Yes, I know opinions are like assholes and all, but this review was such utter stoat excrement, and it was blatantly obvious that Duncan’s sole purpose was to mock the band just to make Aerosmith’s Rocks look that much better in the same review.  Personally, I think Toys In The Attic was the far superior Aerosmith platter compared to Rocks, but that’s just me.  What I never got is how the critics ripped the first three Kiss albums because they sounded too amateur-ish, yet here they came along with a very slick and sophisticated record, and the critics still ripped it to shreds anyway.  I maintain to this day that Destroyer is Kiss’s finest hour in the recording studio, and it remains my second favorite Kiss album of all-time, right behind Kiss Alive!

Anyway, check out a couple more of Duncan’s witticisms here:

In "King Of The Nighttime World", they have this little bastard kid talking in the background as if Kiss themselves were unable to relate any more to what a drag it is living at home.

Uhhh, Bobbo, there are no children talking in KOTNW.  No doubt, the little bastard kid he refers to is the one who appears on the following track, “God Of Thunder” (producer Bob Ezrin’s son, to be exact), and he wasn’t relating to what a drag it is living at home, either.  Evidently, Duncan Donut was too stoned here to know what song he was reviewing.

In "Shout It Loud" [sic], they have a grand piano playing the descending riff, and, in case you hadn’t noticed, the grand piano is an acoustic instrument!

Wow, what a shocking revelation this was!  And guess what, Bob—I have actual photos Kiss without their make-up on!  Was it some sort of unpardonable sin for an acoustic instrument to appear on a Kiss album?  This certainly wasn’t a new phenomenon—they had previously utilized acoustic guitars on both “Black Diamond” and “Rock Bottom”, not to mention another piano on “Nothin’ To Lose”.

As one might expect, this thing instigated a lot of tongue-wagging in the Kiss/Aerosmith pissing match forum, but letter-writer Holly from Joliet, IL probably summed it up best in a later issue:  “All I can say is this Robert Duncan is so full of shit he can’t hear the records he reviews.”

I do realize all this analysis and hair-splitting on my part is 35 years too late and fairly pointless, but I didn’t have a blog in ’76, and besides, I love doing shit like this!  Duncan authored a similarly-scathing review of Love Gun in ’77 that I thought was uncalled-for.  What cheeses me off is this is the same man who authored (and I assume made money off of) a suck-up biography book about Kiss in the fall of ‘76.

MISCELLANEOUS  The full-page album ads (especially for Kiss) were often highlights of each issue of Circus.  I especially liked the ones that said “Alive II is coming…”…Circus ill-advisedly tried to get into the socio-political and culture realm for a brief time by featuring non-music people like Caroline Kennedy, The Fonz and Chevy Chase on their covers, but a fair amount of backlash from readers quashed all that in a hurry…I remember how Circus made a major effort to hype two bands who had Kiss connections that are now long-forgotten, Angel and Starz.  The all-white-clad Angel were label mates of Kiss on Casablanca Records, and featured one Punky Meadows on guitar and another guitarist named Greg Giuffria, whose self-named band had some success in the mid-'80s (with a little help from G. Simmons).  Angel had a cool logo that looks the same when viewed upright or upside down, but they never really went anywhere.  Same goes for Starz, who were stable mates of Kiss at Rock Steady Productions.  Mostly style over substance, I think.  Yet another Casablanca act, The Godz, suffered a similar fate, although Rock Steady did produce a promising band called Piper that featured a young hot-shot singer-guitarist named Billy Squier…I’ve found it rather fun to go back and read stuff about bands that I really dig now whom I ignored, overlooked or just plain dismissed back then like Rush, The Band, Rainbow and Aerosmith…Circus was good as misidentifying songs and people over the years, like when Cheap Trick’s perennial concert closer “Goodnight Now” was labeled “Good-Bye There”, the album released by the The Doors featuring Jim Morrison's poetry was An American Dream instead of An American Prayer in Circus, and in a 1981 feature on Ozzy Osbourne, bassist Rudy Sarzo was referred to in the photo caption merely as “Rudy from Cuba”.  Sarzo himself was quite miffed over this in his autobiography book.  When Circus reviewed Z.Z. Top’s Eliminator in ’83, they inexplicably titled it Destroyer!...Photographs were often reversed in Circus, like in the 1976 feature about Black Sabbath and Nugent in concert together where Ted is depicted as a lefty guitarist and southpaw Tony Iommi is shown as a righty in the same spread!  It also wasn’t uncommon to see Paul Stanley’s star over his left eye…

I found the following quote rather fascinating:  “This is the Rock & Roll album of the year, my friends…It’s a son of a bitch.”—Frank Zappa (Issue #138, August 24, 1976, regarding Grand Funk Railroad’s Good Singin’, Good Playin’, which he produced)

THE Frank Zappa?!?  Anti-establishment Frank Zappa?  Funny-looking moustache Frank Zappa?  Father of Dweezil and Moon Unit Frank Zappa?  Talk about strange bedfellows—I never knew about this unholy alliance before now.  I just can’t fathom Mr. Avant-garde/Anti-establishment/corporate music-hating Frank Zappa producing a commercial Arena Rock band like Grand Funk!  I have yet to actually hear this LP (which was GFR’s debut on MCA after Capitol Records let them go), thus I can’t speak to the quality of it, but I do know that it didn’t fare well at all and Grand Funk were sadly already on the downside of their career by then.  As for Zappa, he never struck me as being such a chest-thumper, either.  Sorry, Frank, but I gotta give Album of the Year for ’76 to Destroyer.

Circus was published from 1966 to 2006, and I read it regularly from '76 through about '88 or so when it devolved into a shell of what it once was.  The album reviews—crappy as they were—were reduced to little drive-by short-attention-span blurbs, the feature articles on the bands were all-hype and no substance, and the rest of the mag featured nothing but full-page photos of Poison, Bon Jovi, Ratt, Def Leppard and Whitesnake, et al. I swear, they used the same in-concert photo of Motley Crue’s Vince Neil in three straight issues at one point!  It was at this point that Rock ‘N' Roll started circling the drain anyway, with the impending Grunge malaise, so it’s probably just as well.  I’m still perusing the old issues currently, and if I find some more juicy quotes and oddities, they might make it into a future post here.  Meantime, I found an interesting Circus tribute site should you desire further background.

Welcome to Limbo...

“Been away so long I hardly knew the place…”—P. McCartney, “Back In The U.S.S.R.” (1968)

I thought I’d better post something before someone does an autopsy on this blog.  I heartily apologize to those of you who still check in here for the past three months of inactivity on my part—it wasn’t by design.  I’ve just plain not had the time lately—let alone the writing mojo—to devote to putting out blog posts that live up to the quality you’re used to seeing here.  I do have a litany of excuses, if you care to read them…

Excuse #1:   I’m currently going through a transitory period where I’m trying to get my head out of my ass in regards to my personal life and flatlining social/love-life situation.  Shit, I might as well just say it:   I’m seeing a therapist to help me figure out why I keep stepping on my own dick (often while wearing soccer cleats) when it comes my finances, not to mention the stuff that really counts in life (friendships/relationships) and why I often feel so disconnected from even my closest friends and family.  This is my second go-round with professional therapy, and unlike Charlie Sheen, I hope to make it stick this time.  I’ve found a new therapist who comes highly-regarded and after only six sessions, we have a great rapport going and I feel very comfortable opening up to her.  I’m feeling a sense of urgency now that I’m approaching my late ‘40s (I’ll turn 47 in June) and it’s time to take out all this mental garbage I’ve been dragging around for four decades and have a real life while I’m still young enough to enjoy it.  I need to finally get an answer to Pete Townshend’s eternal question, “Can you see the real me—can you?!?”

Excuse #2:  I’ve been concentrating more lately on finally completing several long-dormant computer projects that have eaten into my free time, as well as my on-going effort to load songs into my new super-mega iPod.  Annnnnnd, I’m doing some long-overdue house-cleaning (literally) by purging old stuff I’ve collected over the years that’s no longer relevant to me or has been replaced by other things, i.e., old cassette tapes, magazines (including porn, which is readily available on the ‘net anyway), wall posters, defunct stereo components, bizarre childhood school artifacts and just plain crap that I have no idea why I kept in the first place.  I inherited a pack-rat mentality from my old man, and after he died last year and we had to get rid of his belongings, I was totally amazed at all the shit he held onto—this man couldn’t bear to throw ANYTHING away.  For example, bank statements and paycheck stubs dating all the way back to the ‘40s!  He even kept this ‘70s vintage toilet tank lid that was busted into three pieces—as if he could somehow glue it back together?!?  Well, I don’t want to be like dear old Dad (in more ways than just this), so I’m doing some major herd-thinning at my house.  I’m not tossing everything out, mind you, just carefully selected items, and unlike these nerf herders on “Clean House”, I don’t need some total stranger(s) going through my personal belongings telling me what’s what.  It’s not all that hard to do, really—just time-consuming, therefore I’ve found it’s easier to work on this a little bit at a time, when I can think straight and not feel rushed to get it done, all the while reorganizing the remaining belongings and storing them properly.  Space in my two-bedroom abode is at a premium anyway, so this will make my place a leaner/meaner operation in the end.  If nothing else, I’ve been impressed with my own productivity the last 3-4 months, after years of half-assed effort/apathy.  I’ve discovered that the slow, rolling boil method is quite effective…

Excuse #3:  One of the major components of this blog early on was my ranting about political/social stuff that chafed my hiney, but I’ve outgrown a lot of that now.  I’m still slightly left-leaning, but I’ve done a lot of re-evaluating of my own political outlook recently and I now view some people whom I once thought highly of in a different light, Michael Moore being a prime example.  Whereas I still find right-wing Schnauzer’s dicks like O’Reilly, Hannity, Coulter and Limbaugh, et al, to be highly repugnant, Moore’s money-grubbing attitude and fact-distorting tactics make me question his motives and credibility too.  Keith Olbermann is another lefty pundit I could do without—he’s too childish and snarky, and MSNBC was wise to sack his ass.  Anyway, I’m to the point now where I think both sides are full of shit anyway, and I’m totally burned-out on the whole liberal vs. conservative/left vs. right/blue vs. red/Jedi vs. Sith/us vs. them discourse.  I don’t see/hear a lot of solutions coming from either camp, and I’ve come to realize what a waste of time it is expending so much energy bitching about them when it doesn’t really solve anything.  Although I’m still a practicing hypocrisy pointer-outer, I’ve ceased being such a reactionary—it ain’t worth my time anymore.

Excuse #4:  You can also blame Facebook for the dearth of activity here.  Like many others before me, I, too, have been seduced by the power of the Dark Side.  Although I could do without the limitations of having to post things in little dribs and drabs on FB in their 482-character limit (as opposed to my full-fledged filibusters on here), I fully admit I have gotten somewhat addicted to the instant gratification FB provides when friends respond to what I say.  It’s sorta like performing for a live audience, as opposed to acting in a movie or TV show or even writing a book, where the reaction is delayed and/or far less tangible.  Blogging also seems to have become very passé of late, and I’m loathe to admit that I don’t even read my favorite blogs by other people much anymore.  Just as home-taping was “killing music” back in the ‘80s, Facebook is killing blogging now.

Excuse #5:  With spring fast approaching, I have several home-improvement projects looming, as well as beaucoup impending yardwork…

I’ve been tempted to pull the plug here altogether and ride off into the sunset, but I don’t want to do that in the event that the dust clears and I can find the time to do some relevant creative writing again in the not-so-distant future.  For now, let’s just say the HollandsComet blog is on temporary hiatus until further notice.  Please check back every so often—I might feel compelled to do some new feature pieces or pay tribute to someone who passes on when and if I have more time.

“Hit the target or you better hit the ground—still time to turn this game around…”—N. Peart, Rush (“Face Up”—1991)

"Get away from the blind side of life..."—S.R. Vaughan ("Change It", 1985)

"Reelin' In The Years" - Vol. 5

More golden oldies from my original journals in the early '90s...

Mon. June 8, 1992:  “Responding to accusations of financial and religious improprieties, officials of the Christian Science Church provided members with the most detailed financial report in church history.  The report said that since 1986, the church had exhausted $135 million of its unrestricted reserve fund and borrowed $115 million from its pension fund to finance new ventures in radio, TV and magazine publishing.”
Shades of the United Way?  And just as with big charities, the bigger the church, the less I trust it.

Tue. June 9, 1992:  “Dan Quayle’s been shooting his mouth off again, and once again displayed his total ignorance in the process.  He divided the nation into ‘the cultural elite and the rest of us’, and broadened his attack on the moral values of “Murphy Brown” to encompass a wide swath of American life, including universities, Hollywood, and the news media.  Quoting Chairman Quayle:  ‘As I discovered recently, to appeal to our country’s enduring basic moral values is to invite the scorn and laughter of the elite culture.  Talk about right and wrong and they’ll try to mock us in newsrooms, sitcom studios and faculty lounges across America…That’s why I say this about the scorn of the media elite:  I wear their scorn as a badge of honor.'"
Does this not sound like the same mantra that Sarah Palin chants today?  “The nasty old news media was/is being mean to me!!”  Ain’t nothing worse than a beleaguered politician who constantly plays the “Why’s everybody always pickin’ on me?” card.  Suck it up and deal with the media—you’re politicians and it’s part of the game.  Quayle single-handedly ended any chance of Bush the First to be re-elected in ’92 with his ignorant comments, just as Palin pretty much lost the election for McCain in ’08.

While I'm on Ms. Winky-Dink, I read somewhere recently where she steadfastly refuses to be interviewed by mean old Katie Couric again.  Now, tell me please, if Sarah Palin is elected President, how the fuck is this woman going to stand up to our enemies in the Middle East, North Korea, et al, when she's afraid of a lightweight twit like Couric?!?

Sat. June 27, 1992:  “In a development I’m real pleased to see, Dan O’Brien won’t be going to Barcelona (for the Olympics).  Dave Johnson won the U.S. track and field trield in New Orleans and earned a berth in Barcelona, but O’Brien failed miserably in the pole vault (he completely chickened out on one run), and failed to make the team.  Dan and Dave have been the focal point of this silly Reebok ad campaign all year long, 'Who’s The Worlds Greatest Athlete?...to be settled in Barcelona', and now it’s all academic.”
Don’t you just love it when an ad campaign by a major corporation blows up in their collective faces?  They kept hyping the hell out of these two schlubs (who no one knew in the first place) for months and it got to the point where it felt like we were being force-fed the whole thing, just like when we were told that Alan Thicke would supplant Johnny Carson as the "King Of Late-Nite" back in the '80s.  Riiiight....

Sat. June 27, 1992:  “Apparently Hank Williams, Jr. had too many tears in his beer at Sandstone (Amphitheater) tonight, and staggered off the stage after only fifteen minutes.  He was so drunk he didn’t even sing one song all the way through.  He also saluted the crowd with half a peace sign, and said things like, “Fuck you, Kansas City,” “Fuck Garth Brooks,” etc.  Not surprisingly, the idiots who paid $30 to see Bocephus were not too pleased, and booed him off the stage.  Sandstone officials weren’t happy either, and said Williams won’t be paid for his “performance”.  Patrons will probably get refunds.  Meanwhile, (radio station) KFKF, who sponsored the show, imposed a moratorium on Hank Jr. music on their station until further notice, saying that ‘this is not what Country music is all about.’  Funny how often this happens in Country music and nobody says anything about it, yet when it happens at a Rock show, it’s front-page news.”
Hank’s lapse in judgment indirectly resulted in the death of a deranged fan in Belton, MO about a week later.  Things had been going badly for the guy as it was, evidently, and the aborted concert and subsequent ban on Hank Jr. music on the radio put him over the edge and he threatened suicide.  Cops were called to his home at 3:30 in the morning and when he threatened to shoot them, they were forced to fire on him.  The man had also talked of hunting dinosaurs and owning a fighter jet, so he was a couple fries shy of a Happy Meal anyway.

Mon. July 6, 1992:  “National leaders for the deaf community are angry that a hearing actor plays a deaf man in a new film directed by Penny Marshall called Calendar Girl.  ‘Hiring hearing people for such roles is akin to white actors in blackface,’ says Linda Bove, a deaf actress who has appeared on “Sesame Street” for 17 years.  Leaders of the National Association of The Deaf and the Deaf Coalition say they may boycott and picket the movie when it comes out.”
Uhhh, folks, that’s why it’s called ACTING!!!  No one fussed when Laura Dern played a blind girl in Mask.  Tom Hanks and Sean Penn ain’t gay, but they played homosexuals in Oscar-nominated films.  As far as I know, Anthony Hopkins has never killed anyone—should the role of Hannibal Lechter have gone to O.J. Simpson instead?  Roger Daltrey is neither deaf, dumb, nor blind, buuuut—well, you get the idea.  This is why I bristle so much at these grandstander coalitions and special interest groups who make these big stinks over nothing just to get their names in the paper.  They do more to damn their cause than to promote it.  You really wanna impress me?  Have a deaf actor play someone who can hear clearly!

Sat., July 18, 1992:  “Roger Clemens got pissed at a Boston newspaper reporter during a post-game interview after his victory over Minnesota, and threw hamburger buns at him.  It seems that George Kimball of the Boston Herald used his column to blame Clemens for the death of a kid who had Down Syndrome.  The kid’s grandmother had asked Clemens for an autographed baseball, but he allegedly refused her.  I don’t quite follow how this could’ve caused the kid’s death, but Clemens repeatedly called Kimball a “lowlife” and then assaulted him with hamburger buns.”
Far be it for me to defend a dickhead like Clemens, but I side with him on this one.  But hamburger buns, Roger?!?  This man threw 100-mph fastballs and his weapon of choice for retaliation was hamburger buns?!?  Guess his steroid needles weren't handy at the time.  I would’ve at least gone with bagels or English muffins instead…

Wed. July 22, 1992:  In reviewing my first-ever Kiss tribute band show of the group Kiss’d:  “’Paul’ was too much of a hot dog and his between-song patter was nothing short of embarrassing.  ‘Ace’ was the funniest-looking—he was short and kinda fat, and shaped like Barney Rubble.  ‘Gene’ actually did the fire-breathing (twice) and the blood-spitting, although he wiped it off right away.  ‘Peter’ was the best instrumentalist, and also looked the most like his character.  The show was marred with numerous equipment problems, lyric fuck-ups and too much smoke.  By show’s end, they place resembled the inside of Cheech & Chong’s Volkswagen."
Kiss tribute band shows can be a crapshoot—sometimes they play really well but the costumes/make-up look like crap, or sometimes they look good, but sound like shit or their pyro and special effects suck.  Still, it’s become a fun cottage industry that will no doubt outlive the original band, and when you get a good Kiss tribute band like Strutter or Destroyer, it’s like seeing the Real McCoy in its prime.  What I’d love to see is someone do a Kiss tribute band from the non-make-up era—now THAT would be a challenge to get the look exactly right!

Thu. July 23, 1992:  “[KCTV-5 news anchor] Anne Peterson invented a new word on the news tonight:  'acquitment'.  That’s acquittal, you airhead!”
My friend Tom always called Anne Peterson “The Rock” because according to him, if you held up a rock and a picture of her and compared the two, there was no difference.  AP was cute and perky in a Katie Couric kinda way, but not terribly qualified to be a news anchor.  Still, somehow, she managed to stick around for 20 years on Channel 5, teaming up with the late Wendell Anschutz as the longest-running news anchor duo in TV history.

Sat. July 25, 1992:  “Speaking of Boatmen’s [my former employer], an airplane flew over the stadium [Busch in St. Louis] with one of those streamers that read:  ‘BOATMEN’S—HOW YOU’DE RUN A BANK’."
Ah, yes, proofreading, the lost art…

Sun. July 26, 1992:  “When we returned to Denny’s for breakfast, we got there a little before Noon, and they were pretty busy, but not unusually so.  The people next to us ordered AFTER we did, got their food, ate it, paid for it and left BEFORE we ever got ours.  How fucking long does it take to cook two grand slam breakfasts and an omelet?”  Classic case of the poor service we encountered at Denny’s, but for some reason, we kept going back for more.  During our many drinking binges in St. Louis, my friends and I often de-toxed at the Denny’s in the suburb of Bridgeton near our hotel, or as we referred to it, “Home of the Butt-Ugly Waitress”.  It never failed—we were always waited on by some White Trash gal who looked like Mick Jagger in drag, and once I actually had to explain the complicated Denny’s breakfast menu to this gal who didn’t understand the difference between the Top Sirloin & Eggs and a New York Steak & Eggs.  That particular Denny’s closed down several years ago, but many of the Butt-Uglies no doubt work at the Waffle House that opened just up the street.

Tue. August 4, 1992:  “The Adam Rich Saga continues—once again, our man Adam was sentenced to three years’ probation and ordered to go back into drug rehabilitation.  L.A. Deputy District Attorney Teri Hutchinson reacted to the ruling by saying, 'What a joke.  This is the fourth time he’s been sentenced to a program.  I thought "Eight Is Enough" was talking about the TV program he was on, not how many treatment programs.'”
Ol’ Adam spent the better part of 1991-92 in and out of jail for stealing drugs and drug paraphernalia and just plain being a first class fool.  I’m a little surprised he’s not milking this for all it’s worth on “Celebrity Rehab” today.

Fri. August 7, 1992:  [Regarding my first—and last—high school reunion] “Ozzy’s ‘Road To Nowhere’ was playing on the radio on the way over, and it was most appropriate because '…the wreckage of my past keeps haunting me…'”
It had never really hit me until that night what a total waste my high school years were for me, socially.  It dawned on me that I really had no close female friends back then, and that’s a tragedy, because it took me years to finally realize that I was just as worthy of friendships and romantic relationships with women as any other guy, but in high school, I was a virtual shut-in in that regard.  I was never encouraged to socialize and chase girls during my adolescence, let alone just have one or two as friends, and this reunion was a painful reminder of what I missed out on if I had only opened up a little more, and in a lot of ways, I’m still paying for it today.  High school is supposed to be “the time of our lives”, but I fucking hated it, and vowed “Never again” when it comes to future reunions.

Sat. September 5, 1992:  “Went and saw Single White Female tonight—pretty good flick.  Interesting moment happened during a scene in which Jennifer Jason-Leigh’s character is shown masturbating in bed.  She no sooner had started bumping and grinding when the power went out because of the wicked thunderstorm outdoors.”
Not making this up, folks—it really happened!  Timing is everything…

Mon. September 7, 1992:  “Big story of the day:  Baseball commissioner Fay Vincent resigned his post today, citing that he wanted to avoid a big legal battle (over realignment, et al) after the owners had been ganging up on him.  This is pretty fucked-up because although I disagree with some of the things he did, I think he did a great job, overall.  No replacement is on deck as yet.  Mark my words, the owners are going to run the game into the ground after this.”
And they damn near did, thanks to the work stoppage two years later.  I thought Commissioner Fay did a pretty decent job, overall—he was light years better than Bud Selig.  Just as an aside, every time I hear Fay Vincent’s name, I remember David Letterman’s “Top 10 New NBA Slogans” list, and one of them was “At least we don’t have a Commissioner named Fay!”  Another on that list was “Come see our Johnsons!”

Tue. September 8, 1992:  “No less than 20 present and former Cincinnati Bengals have been fingered in a lawsuit for raping or imprisoning a woman know as Victoria C.  The alleged rape too place October 9, 1990.  Among the players names in the suit are Ickey Woods, Lewis Billups, Rickey Dixon, Rodney Holman, David Fulcher, Eddie Brown and Solomon Wilcots.”
I don’t think anything ever came of this lawsuit, but it’s funny how some things never change—the Bungholes spent just as much time on the police blotter back then as they do now.

Tue. September 9, 1992:  “Brewers owner Bud Selig has been named temporary chief of Major League Baseball until some sucker takes over for good.”
Unfortunately, no one ever did, and we’ve been stuck with Howdy-Doody running MLB ever since...

Wed. September 16, 1992:  [During my first-ever East Coast road trip] “I hopped off at Lincoln Memorial and immediately encountered a large group of cute little Hispanic babes in these colorful costume-like outfits with very short skirts.  This, coupled with the sharp angle of the stairs leading up to Abe, provided me with some most excellent tush photo opportunities!  Even ol’ Abe himself was smiling…
Yes, me and Abe were eyeing little girls with bad intent…

Wed. September 30, 1992:  [The night George Brett of the Royals got his 3,000th hit in Anaheim]  “Where was I when all this happened?  Sitting right here at this computer while watching a boring movie on Showtime, totally unaware of what happened.”
I inadvertently missed this little hunk of history as it took place and didn’t learn of George’s feat until the next morning on the radio and I was like “He fucking did what?!?”  He’d been injured and hadn’t played the previous two nights, and he was sitting at 2,996 hits going into that game, and I figured he either wouldn’t play at all or would only pinch-hit—I never dreamed the bugger would go 4-for-4, thus I didn’t tune the game in on TV.  D’oh!

Sat. October 3, 1992:  “Sinead O’Connor decided it was time to stir up some more trouble.  In one of the more majestic pieces of bad taste in recent years, Sinead appeared on “Saturday Night Live” singing one of her new songs, and concluded by methodically shredding an 8 x 12 photo of Pope John Paul II and shouting, “Fight the real enemy.”  I’ve been a staunch defender of Sinead up ‘til now, but I have to call her out on this one.  What point could she possibly have been trying to make by pulling such a stupid stunt?  Come on, Sinead, lighten up.”

Talk about a colossal career-killing maneuver, this was even more lethal than Billy Squier outing himself by prancing around like Richard Simmons in the “Rock Me Tonite” video.  You know, I really wanted to like Sinead—this woman made the shaved head a cool female fashion statement (instead of a punchline like Britney Spears in ’07), she has stunning blue eyes and a beautiful voice, and is a fairly talented individual—but she’s as flaky as a Pillsbury pie crust (keep reading).  She’s also way too dead-dog serious about everything.  Given my stance on religion and all, it’s unusual for me to defend the Catholic Church, but I thought what O’Connor did was wrong.  While I think religion is pretty much all bullshit, I at least try to be respectful in regards to religious figures—except for TV evangelists, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Fred Phelps, of course.

Wed. October 14, 1992:  “Sinead O’Connor is featured in the current issue of Rolling Stone in an interview in which she thinks:
—Everybody should smoke pot.
—“There’s absolutely no point” in voting.
—The L.A. riots were “great” because “people had some expression at last.”
—Mike Tyson is a victim, even if he did rape Desiree Washington, who shouldn’t have filed charges.
—What she really is fighting is child abuse.  Apparently she blames the Catholic Church for abuse she suffered from her parents.
—Organized religion is a lie.

Sinead, sweetie, I really AM trying to understand, but quite frankly, you sound like a blithering idiot.  Lighten up before you alienate every fucking fan you have.”
I do agree with the last two points she made in the interview, so why is O’Connor an ordained minister now?  And yeah, some of those poor folks in Watts got to express themselves during the riots, but 53 of them didn't—because they FUCKING DIED!  It’s pretty obvious that Sinead was/is in the same league with that deranged Hank, Jr. fan I mentioned above.

"Reelin' In The Years" - Vol. 4

Now that the Comets saga is complete, here's another round of old journal stuff I dug up from back in the day when I kept close track of day-to-day headlines, as well as happenings in my life.  My original text appears in blue here, followed by my more recent observations thereof...

Mon. March 23, 1992:  “Magician Doug Henning and the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (the one The Beatles denounced in ’68) want to turn 1,400 acres near Niagara Falls, ON into Maharishi Veda Land, a theme park combining recreation and spiritual enlightenment.  Yeah right.  Will they sell dashikis at the souvenir stands?”
Didn’t these guys learn anything from Tommy’s Holiday Camp in The Who’s Tommy?  “All these pricey deals don’t teach us…your freedom doesn’t reach us…how can all this trivia take us to the goal you reached?”  Doug Henning wasn’t quite all there, anyway—didn’t he remind you of Mr. Van Driessen, Beavis & Butt-head’s tree-hugging hippie school teacher?  A little light in the loafers, too…

Tues. March 24, 1992:  “A bundle of about 2,000 dirty magazine sections spilled from a recycling truck about 10:00 this morning and littered I-35 near Cambridge Circle.  Now there’s a section of highway I wouldn’t mind adopting!”
As Chandler and Joey on “Friends” would surely attest, there’s nothing quite like free porn!

Fri. April 3, 1992:  “The ousted president of the United Way and two close aides transferred more than $1 million a year to other organizations they controlled, the United Way admitted today.  The three also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on their travel, pensions and insurance plans, according to a report released by their new management.  The report revealed a five-year pattern of financial manipulation far more extensive than any the organization had previously disclosed.  This included the spending of more than $100,000 of the charity’s money by the former president, William Aramony, for limos, flights on the Concorde, golf equipment, jewelry and flowers.  Need I say more about these big charities?”
And these are only the three scumbags that got caught—one wonders how many more schmucks within the United Way were/are laundering charitable donations under the table.  The bigger the charity is, the less I trust it, and UW is one of the worst, in my opinion—they’re nothing but a big corporation to me.  I resented being force-fed all their propaganda at my job every year when I worked at Boatmen’s Bank, not to mention how they tried to make me feel like a shithead for not donating.  I never confirmed this, but someone told me that some companies who do United Way pledge drives would even go as far as to put employees who don’t participate onto a shit-list which would affect their pay raises, chances for promotion and so forth.  Thankfully, the employers I’ve worked for the last 14 years since I left Boatmen’s haven’t done the United Way’s bidding for them.  There are numerous smaller charitable organizations out there that are far more worthy than United Way.

Sat. April 4, 1992:  “[My friend] Tom discovered that we have a new Rock station in this town.  KRVK “The River” is no longer.  98.9 is now KQRC “The Rock”, playing a basic hard Rock/heavy metal format.  This may finally be what I’m looking for.  Someone finally noticed that there are too many AC [Adult Contemporary] stations in this market, and decided to try something different.”
This turned out to be one of the most successful format changes in K.C. radio history.  “The River” was so wimpy I started calling it “The Puddle”, so anything new would’ve been an improvement.  Hard to believe The Rock has been around 18 years now, and they’re still one of the higher-rated stations in the K.C. area.  I don’t listen to them much now, though—they play way too much Metallica for my liking, and I can’t stand their overrated morning drive yakker Johnny Dare.

Tue. April 7, 1992:  “A jet carrying P.L.O. chief Yasser Arafat disappeared in a sandstorm while trying to make an emergency landing in the Libyan desert.  Hope they don’t find him…
That towel-headed jagoff was the cause of most of the trouble in the Middle East in the first place.  Too bad we had to wait another 12 years for him to finally croak.

Thu. April 16, 1992:  “The Blades [our former IHL hockey team] did better on Salt Lake’s power play than on their own tonight, and won Game 4 over the Golden Eagles 5-1 at Delta Center.  The Blades scored three shorthanded goals—two on the same penalty!  By the way, the Blades were 0-for-5 on their own power play.”
Shorthanded goals are rare enough in hockey, and three in one game is phenomenal.  Salt Lake had several players who Blades radio announcer Bob Kaser dubbed the “Cement Heads” for taking dumb penalties.  Evidently they weren’t too good at capitalizing on the other team’s transgressions either.

Mon. April 21, 1992:  “The Concert For Life AIDS benefit in memory of Freddie Mercury was held in London. Elton John, David Bowie, Extreme, Def Leppard, George Michael, U2, Roger Daltrey and Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath were among the performers who joined with the surviving members of Queen for the four-hour concert.  One of the more interesting moments occurred when Elton sang the first part of “Bohemian Rhapsody” and was followed by Axl Rose singing the “So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye…” part.  The two then joined together to sing the soft part at the end.  Strange combination.”
This is the same guy (Rose) who thought nothing of performing in t-shirts that read “AIDS: Kills Fags Dead” singing with Elton John, who is arguably the most famous homosexual in the world.  Strange bedfellows, indeed.  Little did anyone know at the time that Guns ‘N’ Roses’ best days were already behind them at that point, too.  Easily the most self-destructive band of all-time.  They coulda been a contender...

Wed. April 29, 1992:  “Another Raytown (or near-Raytown) institution is closing.  Brywood Theater, KC’s first six-screen cinema complex closed tonight after 19 years of operation.  The lease on the building is up and the cost of upgrading the air conditioning system for the summer would be too much, according to AMC officials.”
Remember when six screens in one complex was considered revolutionary?  Now you have these mega-plex clusterfuck theaters with four times as many screens (or more).  I worked just a few hundred feet away from Brywood Theater at Waid’s Restaurant during the ‘80s and saw many a good flick at the theater, which was state-of-the-art when it opened in 1973, but it was grossly out-dated by 1992.  What AMC didn’t mention was the other reason they closed Brywood was that there was too much gang activity going on in the parking lot at night, and too many Homies were assaulting and/or killing each other over those overpriced L.A. Raiders Starter jackets that were all the rage at the time.

Thu. April 30, 1992:  “The death toll stands at 24 in the wake of the rioting in South Central L.A.  At least 63 fired were burning by mid-evening…The ramifications of the Rodney King thing went further than just riots and protests.  Sports events in the Los Angeles area scheduled for tonight were postponed.  Hollywood Park also cancelled its thoroughbred racing cards for today and tomorrow.”
In all, 53 human beings died because of all this mess.  All over a routine traffic stop of a good-for-nothing alky who to this day still doesn’t have his shit together.  While Rodney King certainly didn’t deserve the beating administered to him, and all the stuff that resulted from his trial and the verdict thereof wasn’t his fault, he at least owes it to those who perished to straighten his life out and make something of himself.  Loser.

Mon. May 6, 1992:  “All curfews were lifted and L.A. tried to get back to abnormal today.  Meanwhile, in typical Republican fashion, the Bush administration blamed liberal welfare programs started by Lyndon Johnson for the rioting that went on last week.  White house press secretary Marvin Fitzwater said, ‘We believe that many of the root problems that have resulted in inner-city difficulties were started in the ‘60s and ‘70s programs of the Great Society.”
What Marvin failed to mention was that almost all of those programs were wiped out by the Reagan administration and hadn’t even existed for the 11 years prior to the ’92 riots.  But, the Blame Game was the Republicans weapon of choice as much then as it is now.  Wait, there’s more coming…

Tue. May 19, 1992:  “Dan Quayle got a lot of single mothers steamed at him with some remarks he made during a speech in San Francisco.  He blamed a breakdown of American family values for the Los Angeles riots and accused prime-time TV of contributing to moral decay by glamorizing a character who bore a baby out of wedlock.  He said the plight of urban America had not been helped by the portrayal this week of “Murphy Brown”’s mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone, and calling it just another ‘lifestyle choice’.  ‘Marriage is probably the best anti-poverty program there is,’ quipped Quayle.  So let me get this straight—Murphy Brown’s giving birth on TV the other night to an illegit child is what caused the riots in Los Angeles.  Are you totally deranged?!?  I’m just about sick of this traditional “American family values” crap they keep throwing in our faces.  I’m fed up with this ‘live how we think you should live’ attitude our so-called leaders have toward us in the ‘land of the free’.  I’m astounded that people in power can make such ignorant and off-the-mark remarks for public record.  I’m also sick of this hard-on Republicans have for trying to find a scapegoat for all the problems they can’t fucking solve.”
Up ‘til then, I didn’t really have that much of a quarrel with the Republican party (except maybe the Dickie Nixon debacle), but it was at this point that I started leaning to the left.  Republicans are so good at displacing blame where it doesn’t belong and using easy targets as scapegoats.  I never much cared for the “Murphy Brown” show, but I’ll defend it by saying that they were hardly glamorizing single parenthood as much as they were trying un-demonize it.  True, two parents are generally a preferable situation, but there are lots of single mothers out there who can still get it done, including a young woman I worked with at the time who is no longer with us.  She was an ideal loving mother to her two you children.  Rest in peace, Susan…

As for Dan Quayle, this side of Dubya, was there not a more intellectually bankrupt political figure in American history?  He single-handedly kept late night comedians in business for months.  Read on, and you’ll see…

Wed. May 20, 1992:  “The White House spent the day trying to save face in the wake of Dan Quayle’s lunkheaded remarks on Tuesday.  White House spokesman Marvin Fitzwater (the man who blamed LBJ for the riots two weeks ago) tried to put Quayle’s remarks in a better light, but failed miserably.  Reaction was fierce and hot on the radio and late-night talk show circuit, as one would expect.  Some of the more interesting quotes:

—“If the Vice-President thinks it’s disgraceful for an unmarried woman to bear a child, and if he believes that a woman cannot adequately raise a child without a father, then he’d better make sure abortion remains safe and legal.”—Diane English, creator of “Murphy Brown”
—“Well, Dan Quayle came through for us one more time…I’m surprised he watches ‘Murphy Brown—isn’t that opposite ‘F Troop’ on cable?”—Johnny Carson on the “Tonight Show”
—“If I hadn’t seen the ‘Murphy Brown’ clip with my own eyes, I would have thought it was another stupid Dan Quayle joke made up by people trying to humiliate him.”—Matt Groening, creator of “The Simpsons”
—“Murphy Brown is not going to cause an outbreak of illegitimate births.”—Michael J. Robinson, Georgetown University political scientist
—“This whole thing with Murphy Brown is hilarious.  Next, 'Doogie Howser, M.D.' will be responsible for no health care in this country.”—Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, creator of “Designing Women”
—“I think the effect of Murphy Brown on the Los Angeles riots was marginal.”—Bill Clinton, Presidential candidate

Fri. May 22, 1992:  “Even though I never thought it would end, Johnny Carson ended his reign tonight as host of the “Tonight Show”.  Johnny went out with a classy wrap-up show that included a montage of the guests who appeared on the show, as well as a musical montage with everyone from Judy Garland to Z.Z. Top.  I know how badly Johnny wanted to move on and do something else, but for some reason, this just doesn’t seem like the right time for this to end.  Although I haven’t watched Johnny as much the last few years as I used to, it just won’t be the same anymore.  But hey, life goes on…and who knows, maybe Jay Leno will find his niche, too.  Then there’s always Letterman, who by the way, is already one-third of the way to matching Carson’s reign of 30 years.  Later, Johnny…”
And in less than a year and a half, Dave will have matched Johnny’s 30 years on the air doing late nights.  Here in K.C., we were forced to wait over an hour for the final Carson “Tonight Show” to air, thanks to the Royals game at Texas that ran late.  I think Johnny was having second thoughts about retiring at that point, given all the fresh material Dan Quayle was supplying him.  It certainly hasn’t been the same since Johnny retired, and I miss him a lot—just a classy guy and a fun show to watch.  Today’s late-night landscape is a virtual wasteland in comparison.

Sat. May 23, 1992:  “Went with Tom and saw Basic Instinct at Blue Ridge West.  I was not impressed.  This thing was overly-long, rather boring at times, and it left you hanging as to who the killer is.  Sharon Stone is a real babe, but her character was just a little too arrogant for me.  In fact, the whole movie was just a little too arrogant for me.  It only rates a 4 on my scale.”
Can you say ‘overrated’?  And apart from the infamous beaver-shot scene, was there really anything truly memorable about this film?  I don’t think so.

Sat. May 30, 1992:  “The cable guy arrived around 3:00 to disconnect Cinemax and hook up Showtime.  This guy did not have his shit together.  He smelled like he hadn’t bathed in a week, and when he went out to do his thing on the pole, he not only hooked up Showtime, but HBO and Cinemax as well.  After discovering this, he said it was my lucky day, and that he didn’t feel like dragging his ladder back out there to fix it.  He said the next time he did a job out our way, he’d change it.  I hope he has a poor memory—got a feeling he might…”
And sure enough, the som-bitch never returned, and for the next three years until I moved out of my parents’ house, I was getting free HBO and Cinemax!  Sorry, Comcast...

"Hot Winter Nights" - Epilogue

Time to conclude my tribute to the original Kansas City Comets indoor soccer franchise.  First off, a few more misc. reminiscences, then a final overview of my devotion to this team...

ODDS & ENDS

How much did I love the Kansas City Comets?  Well, this blog is partially-named in their honor, and I took my radio name, “Captain Comet”, from them as well.  The latter was probably not the best choice in the world, but I enjoyed the anonymity of not having to use my real name on the air, so it kinda stuck.  Besides, "Captain Fantastic" was already spoken for by E. John.  Anyway, I was also probably the only fan in the building at Comets matches who kept score during the games.  I figured baseball fans keep scorecards, why not soccer?  The idea came to me by accident on the night of February 26, 1986 (easy to remember—that’s the day of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster) during pre-game warm-ups at Kemper Arena.  I attended alone that night, and had come straight from school (I was attending UMKC at the time) and tried to do a little studying before the game, and since I had my spiral notebook with me, just for hoots and grins, I decided to keep track of that evening’s goals.  Unfortunately, most of the goals were scored by the evil San Diego Sockers, as they drubbed K.C. 13-3 in easily the worst game in Comets history.  Before the next home game, I designed my own homemade scorecard on graph paper (see photo) and a couple years later when scanner technology came about, my friend Tom put together a more professional-looking model, although I’m still more partial to my original.  I continued to use my scorecards even after the Comets’ demise when the Kansas City Attack replaced them, and even adapted them for hockey, as well.  There are times when I wish I’d become a sports statistician instead of a DJ…

On two separate occasions when a Comets game was played on snowy nights that impeded many folks from reaching the Kemper Corral, the team was good enough to allow us fearless fans who did manage to make it to those games to exchange our ticket stubs for a free ticket to a future home game.  Let’s see the NBA do that!  One such night was a freak early April, 1990 weeknight snowfall that dumped about 7” on the city.  I was working downtown by that time, and the Comets game worked out perfectly for me, because if I had tried to navigate my way home in the snow after work, it would’ve taken me two hours or more.  By attending the game, it allowed enough time for the rush hour traffic to dissipate and for the crews to plow the roads, and I was able to cruise home rather easily following the game.  And the Comets won that night, too.  Timing is everything.

After that thrilling 1985 playoff victory against the St. Louis Steamers (see Chapter 3), I couldn’t get enough of the Comets and started attending each and every home game, and several road games in Wichita, St. Louis and Cleveland as well.  From April 19, 1985 until the bitter end on May 4, 1991, I only missed two Comets home games, both because I had to work at the radio station, but even for one of those I still got to run game broadcast on the radio anyway, as KKJC was an affiliate on the Comets Radio Network.  About midway through the ’85-’86 season, I got tired of having to do the box office thing every night, so I came up with the bright idea of getting season tickets.  My friend Tom and I went down to Kemper Arena one fine afternoon bought a half-season ticket package.  We decided to go the Bob Uecker route and sit right down in the front rowwww behind the Plexiglas in Section 119, seats 5 and 6.  There were actually better seats available throughout the building—from these seats, the view to our left was obstructed by the player benches and we basically couldn’t see the corner at the other end of the field on our side.  But, I had ulterior motives for choosing this pair—besides the obvious perk of being right on top of the action, I figured we could see ourselves on TV a lot during game broadcasts, being’s as we were on the side of the arena opposite the press box, plus we would be able to participate in the Comets victory laps where the players would run along the glass and high-five the fans after every win.  It worked out great, and we kept those seats for the ’86-’87 season as well before we got burned-out on sitting in the same place for every game, not to mention getting annoyed with the family of four that sat to our left and their squirmy little ADHD kids.  Working in the radio biz at the time also netted me more than a few free Comets tickets for the next couple seasons anyway.

THE AFTERMATH
I must now confess that I’m a little embarrassed by how overboard I went with my enthusiasm for the Comets those last six years or so, to the point where it sometimes came at the expense/exclusion of family, friends and even career obligations as my priorities got a little out of whack at times.  Example:  when I was given my first shot at a live air-shift on KKJC, filling in for our afternoon drive guy on a Wednesday, I was initially peeved because it conflicted with a Comets home game scheduled that evening.  It all worked out and I got to the game on time, but you’d think I’d have cared more about my future livelihood than a sporting event.  Another time, my mom had an important grand poohbah wing-ding with her Eastern Star organization that I probably should’ve attended with the rest of the family, but I chose a Comets game instead, and I’ve always felt bad about that.  I was also inconsolable immediately following the Comets demise in 1991.  Not to be melodramatic or anything, but it felt a little bit like having your heart ripped out—hell, I took it harder when the Comets folded than I did when two of my three (count ‘em, three) serious relationships with women ended and I felt very empty, angry and sad.  Given the precarious state of the MISL/MSL during those last years, I had prepared myself for the possibility that there would be no more Comets, but I never dreamed it would be the team pulling its own plug—I always figured if the team ever did fold, it would be because the entire league went under, considering what a successful and model franchise the Comets had been.

Hell, my devotion to the team was such that I even passed up a Saturday night Kiss/Ted Nugent concert over at Municipal Auditorium in early ’88!  I chose the Comets game because I’d already seen Kiss two months earlier in Topeka (with up-and-comers White Lion) on the Crazy Nights tour, which is considered by most Kiss fans (me included) as one of their worst, and Nugent’s career was in irreversible free-fall by that time.  In retrospect, I almost wish I’d done the concert now anyway—the Comets lost that night, and it was one of those rare times when the team seemed really listless with no sense of urgency.  I also faced a dilemma during my 1991 vacation regarding the Comets, who were in the midst of that final playoff series with the Cleveland Crunch at the time.  Games 6 and 7 (if necessary) were slated for Cleveland, but I was also trying to hit some Major League Baseball stadiums on this road trip, including Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium, which was in its final season.  I could’ve skipped Game 6 and gone onto Baltimore, hoping the Comets could extend the series to Game 7 (which they did), but I didn’t want to chance it, thus I never saw an Orioles game at Memorial Stadium.  With all apologies to Cal Ripken and Co., I still stand by my decision, as seeing the last two games in Comets history was a privilege and I had a great time that weekend at Richfield Coliseum.  Sorry, Baltimore…

I’ve been reluctant to fully embrace any other teams that have emerged since the Comets (including the Kansas City Blades hockey club, whom I also miss greatly), and I’ve kinda kept them all at arms-length because it hurt so much when the Comets folded.  The Blades did manage to take some of that sting away by having a magical 1991-92 campaign in which they literally went from worst to first after their dismal inaugural 1990-91 season, and had the best record in the International Hockey League, culminating in a Turner Cup championship.  The Comets’ replacements, the National Professional Soccer League’s Kansas City Attack, also filled the void, but only so much.  The team spent its first season playing at Municipal Auditorium (where the rent was cheaper) instead of Kemper Arena, but the sightlines in our venerable basketball venue were terrible for indoor soccer, and it was like being in the Twilight Zone.  Even though Gino Schiraldi returned for one more year and former Comets Zoran Savic, Iain Fraser, Chad Ashton, Chris Duke and Kim Roentved were members of the Attack at one time or another, it just wasn’t the same anymore.  The team wisely moved back to Kemper Arena in 1992-93 and even though the Attack franchise was even more successful that the Comets on the field, winning NPSL championships in 1993 and 1997, the fire just wasn’t there anymore for me.  It was like having to watch black-and-white TV after your color set was stolen from your living room—or for you youngsters out there who can’t relate to B&W, it was like having to watch analog TV after your 52” HD digital flat screen got nabbed.

And I don’t mean to slam the Attack here:  their players worked just as hard as the Comets did (both on and off the field), but the NPSL had such a small-time attitude and I hated their rinky-dink scoring system—two points for a regular goal, 1 point for a power play or shootout goal, 3 points for a goal from beyond the arc, 5 points for goals scored on Ground Hog Day, 10 for goals scored on Thursday nights by Eskimos, etc.—to me, a goal is a goal, period!  Another example of the low-rent nature of the NPSL:  to save on travel expenses in the postseason, the league would settle a 3-game series that was tied 1-1 with a 15-minute “mini-game” immediately following the second game—in effect, a 15-minute overtime to decide the whole series—which I thought was totally crass.  The whole thing just seemed so cheesy and inferior compared with the MISL and I never fully recognized the NPSL as a “major” sports league.  It also didn’t help that the NPSL seemed devoid of the characters and charismatic players the MISL had, like Tino Lettieri, Tatu, Karl-Heinz Granitza, Preki, and the late Stan Stamenkovic and Slobo Ilijevski, et al.

Not surprisingly, the Attack (and the Blades, too, for that matter) suffered from the same indifference the Comets received from our local media.  When their move from Atlanta was announced in September of ‘91, the K.C. Star relegated this news to the back seat behind the Chiefs, Royals, U.S. Open tennis and Mike Tyson-Evander Holyfield, only managing a small blurb about the new team on the front page.  Radio coverage for the Attack was spotty at best, too, and even when the Attack honored several former Comets during a halftime ceremony in 1992, the Comet players still had to take a back seat to something else.  Comet greats like Alan Mayer, Tim Clark, Elson Seale, Enzo DiPede, Kevin Handlan and Ben Popoola were forced to wait for some local aerobics group to finish performing their little demonstration before they were finally honored.  So typical of the way this team never got any respect…

While the Attack drew respectable crowds at Kemper, their numbers never came close to approaching the attendance figures of the Comets, and never once did the Attack sell out a home game in their entire history.  The team even changed its name back to Comets in 2001 (while the NPSL cleverly renamed itself the Major Indoor Soccer League—confused yet?), but it made little difference.  I like to call this period the “Faux Comets” era, as they were Comets in name only, with a much lamer logo and bland uniforms compared with the originals.  Even sillier, the team’s mascot, Fuzzy The Attack Cat, was forced to morph into Fuzzy The Cosmic Cat!  During the early ‘00s, owner Donald Kincaid was hopeful of moving the team to a proposed 8,000-seat arena (i.e., lower overhead) in Johnson County, KS that would’ve been similar to the Independence Events Center where the new Missouri Comets now play (minus Fuzzy).  But, the mythical Johnson County venue never materialized, and the team ceased operations after the 2004-05 season and hardly anyone even noticed.

I’m still a fan of our current “niche” teams like Major League Soccer’s Kansas City Wiz(ards) and the Missouri Mavericks CHL hockey team, and I’m cautiously excited about the new Comets franchise, but I don’t care to put myself through the agony again of being a “SuperFan”.  Having said all that, however, I loved the original Kansas City Comets for a reason—they made us fans truly feel like we were part of the team!  I actually felt like I’d be letting them down if I didn’t attend the home games and show my support.  As I wrote at the time of their demise, “It was refreshing to see a group of athletes playing their asses off, not worried about who was making more money than who, or how many Ferraris they owned.  I’d take one wounded Jan Goossens over a hundred Bo Jacksons any day.  When I see people forking out $12 for Yogi Berra’s autograph, it makes me wonder what’s wrong with our society.  Comet autographs have always been free, plus you could probably get a handshake and a nice chat, to boot.”  There was a purity to this franchise (and league) that just doesn’t exist in sports anymore—it was all about winning and the love of the sport, without all the trappings of ego, exorbitant salaries, steroids, et al.

Just an aside, Comets defender Tom Kain, an up-and-coming young star at the time, abruptly retired from the team during the 1990-91 season.  He saw the writing on the wall that the league was in trouble and had a job offer to go to work for Adidas back home in New Jersey.  It’s a rather warped commentary about the league that a good young healthy player was forced to take a real job to support his family instead of playing the game he loved.  Yet, these guys in the old MISL probably worked as hard—if not harder—than their overpaid NFL, NBA and MLB brethren and easily spent more time out in the community with their own fans than the big-league sports guys did/do.  On the day the Comets folded in 1991, it spoke volumes that Kevin Hundelt and Jim Gorsek carried on conducting their Comets-sponsored youth soccer camps—in 100º heat, no less—even though they had both just lost their jobs.  Many MISL/MSL players were barely making more money than I did as a working stiff at Boatmen’s Bank—and I was woefully out-of-shape!  True, no one forced these guys to take up soccer as a vocation, but somehow, this just didn’t seem right.

Despite their popularity, the Comets certainly had plenty of detractors in this town as well.  I often chafed when I read the numerous letters-to-the-editor in the Star criticizing/mocking the team and the sport, and I often wrote rebuttals in defense.  There were also short-sighted bozos like the guy who called in on the radio one time who deemed the Comets and MISL, “Just a bunch of foreigners with funny names running around in shorts.”  Oh, like funny names are a just reason not to like something.  Based on that line of thinking, the NFL (Marty Schottenheimer, anyone?), Major League Baseball (Dale Sveum?), NBA (Detlef Schrempf?) and college basketball (Mike Kryzyzewski?) must have sucked back then too, eh?

Another example of simple-minded thinking is the charming Mongoloid who anonymously commented on my previous post about the Comets and the media:  “but indoor soccer sucks. it's not interesting and no one cares...you know...so that's why it always got the short shrift.  it sucks.  You can almost hear the conversation repeated in every newsroom:  'we're not going to devote much resources to indoor soccer.'  'why not?'  'you know...'cause it sucks and no one is interested.  we cover football and baseball because they have leagues with big television contracts.  who watches indoor soccer?  nobody.  little manboys.  weirdos.'  'oh.'"  Wow, this is Rhodes Scholar material here!  And such great sentence structure, too.  Must be a University of Hee-Haw grad.  Seriously, I never understood all the vitriol heaved at the Comets back in the day, much less now.  I never gave a rip about professional boxing or golf or team tennis, but you didn’t see me trying to run Tommy “The Great White Dope” Morrison or Tom Watson or the K.C. Explorers out of town on a rail back in the day.  Lighten up, folks—to each his/her own…

[And as I’ve stated before on the blog, I don’t mind dissenting opinions or any reasonable challenge to what I write on here, BUT…if you’re going to criticize what I write, at least have the balls to sign your fucking name to it—I do NOT suffer cowards gladly!  Try writing in complete sentences, too, if you want me to take you seriously...]

Curiously, I’ve never been able to get into Arena Football in the same way I embraced indoor soccer.  Football needs to be played in a big open (preferably outdoor) space, and Arena Football is too claustrophobic for me—it looks to me like they’re playing in a phone booth!  On the other hand, Indoor soccer on a hockey rink makes a lot more sense and is a much better fit.  And while it’s true that outdoor soccer is played in a big open space, it’s a freakin’ bore!  Like most Americans, I have great difficulty getting into watching 22 guys just trotting around kicking the ball back-and-forth for 90 minutes, with only a scant few scoring opportunities sprinkled in.  And what’s up with this tie business?!?  Some soccer teams are delirious if they can just finish in a tie!  Americans like scoring and they want to see someone win the bloody game—a 0-0 tie just don’t cut the cheese over here.  That’s what made/makes indoor soccer so much more appealing to me—it’s fast-paced end-to-end action that keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout the game, unlike football and baseball with their inherent lulls and stoppages.  True, indoor soccer loses a little something on TV (as does hockey), so it’s better viewed in-person, and when the music cranks up, the Rock concert mentality just adds to the intensity of the game.

Another perk about the original MISL was how the league was virtually devoid of prima donnas like Brett Favre, showboaters like Terrell Owens (apart from Tatu, anyway, and even HE was pretty benign) and insatiable egos like Kobe Bryant or LeBron James.  The rivalries the Comets had with St. Louis, Wichita, San Diego, et al, were both fun and intense, which just added fuel to the fire.  I tend to root for the underdog/little guy anyway, and I really thought indoor soccer had a chance to become the fifth major league sport in the U.S. along with the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL, so it was quite disappointing when it all fell apart.  Several indoor leagues have come and gone since the original MISL died (the CISL, the WISL, the NISL, the PASL, etc.), and for whatever reason, indoor soccer just can’t seem to capitalize on the current rising popularity of World Cup soccer in America, either, so it’s always going to be considered a “niche” sport, unfortunately.  Damn shame, because it’s a fun game and far more entertaining (to me, anyway), than the outdoor game, no matter what my “soccer hooligan” friends in England might say.  I’ve gradually learned to appreciate the subtle nuances of outdoor soccer, but it’ll never come close to matching the excitement and intensity of the indoor game for me.  And it’s the ONLY sport (besides mini-golf, anyway) where I approve of the use of Astroturf!

I hope y’all don’t mind me indulging myself in this little series here, but it’s one I’ve been wanting to do for quite a while now.  I also hope you’ve enjoyed reading this series as much as I’ve enjoyed reliving so many great memories while researching this material, many of which I hadn’t thought of in years and some which I’d blotted out altogether, for some strange reason.  Thanks to the magic of YouTube, there are numerous MISL video clips out there for your entertainment pleasure.  The history of the Wichita Wings series is especially good—hell, I like their highlight reel better than the Comets’!  In closing, to the original Kansas City Comets players, coaches, owners and front office folks out there who might be reading this, I send out a hearty salute to you.  You were a fine body of men (and women) and I hope I’ve paid proper tribute to this wonderful sports entity.  Those “Hot Winter Nights” somehow even managed to make an awkward and star-crossed venue like Kemper Arena feel like home and THE place to be, and they were some of the best times of my life.

"Hot Winter Nights" - Chapter 6--Top 10 Games in Comets History

Pretty self-explanatory...

HONORABLE MENTIONS
Wings 10, Comets 9  (December 19, 1986 @ Kansas Coliseum in Wichita)
The only Comets loss that appears on this list, but this was such a good game I feel compelled to include it.  It was our first road trip to Wichita, as well, and my friend Tom and I got to experience the cacophony that was Kansas Coliseum for the first time.  Comets radio man Kevin Wall wasn't BS-ing when he talked about how loud this place got with 10,000 crazies screaming in it.  As the score indicates, it was a crazy game, too.  The Comets led 3-0 after one quarter, 4-2 at halftime and 8-6 early in the 4th.  Then the Wings took the lead on three unanswered goals before K.C.'s Damir Haramina tied it again with a buck-05 to go.  This game set the Comets all-time mark for the shortest OT in team history, as Wings sniper Erik "The Wizard" Rasmussen drilled the game-winner just 30 seconds in—his third goal of the contest to go along with 2 assists.  Disappointing finish, but we had a great time that night.

Comets 6, Wings 0 (April 12, 1991 @ Kemper Arena—Game 1, 1991 MSL Eastern Division
Semi-Finals)
Shutouts in the MISL/MSL were even more rare than perfect games in baseball, and the Comets only had two in their entire 10-year history.  Enzo DiPede recorded the first in a regular season game on January 4, 1984 against the Memphis Americans, and Jim Gorsek threw a no-hitter at the Wichita Wings in this playoff opener.  The Wings couldn't buy a goal that night, even though they had numerous close calls, and Big Jim stopped everything they threw at him, including a two-man advantage, a shootout attempt and over seven minutes of 6th-attacker pressure by Wichita.  The greatest single-game goalkeeping performance by a Comet ever...

THE TOP 10
10) Comets 10, Steamers 5 (March 21, 1986 @ The Arena in St. Louis)
I rank this one highly more for personal reasons as this was my first road game with the Comets, and I was lucky enough to snag a seat directly behind the Comets' bench at the "Old Barn" on Oakland Avenue.  1985-86 was a down year for K.C., so the Comets vented a little frustration that night by exploding for double-digits on the scoreboard and in doing so, tied the team record for most goals in a road game, including a hat trick by Charlie Fajkus, along with two goals and two assists by my boy Damir Haramina.  Things got a little ugly in this one too, as there were fights galore and Steamers defender Carl Rose was ejected for instigating one of them.

9) Comets 5, Wings 3 (March 16, 1991 @ Kansas Coliseum in Wichita)
My friend Tom and I had made four previous trips to Itchitraw for Comets-Wings contests, and the Wings won all four (three of them by one goal), but we finally got a winner in our final try, which also turned out to be the Comets' final regular season appearance in Wichita and final regular season road win team history.  We took great delight in giving a little guff to the Orange Army (Wings fans) or as I dubbed them, the "Wing-A-Lings", in particular this one old fart who kept accusing the Comets of playing dirty.  Never mind that Omar Gomez of the Wings was ejected for being a douche that night.  "Y'all go home and we'll shut out the lights fer ya!" I quipped.  I truly miss them damn Wing-A-Lings...

8) Comets 5, Sockers 4 [2OT] (March 28, 1990 @ Kemper Arena)
Third-longest game in Comets history (86 minutes, 10 seconds), and a stirring comeback against the Sockers as K.C. knocked in two 6th-attacker goals in a 31-second span late in the 4th quarter to tie it at 4.  Dale Mitchell gave head coach Dave Clements his 200th MISL/MSL coaching win @ 11:10 of the second OT in a game that was televised nationally on ESPN, which Clemo later deemed "a great advert for the sport".  Very true, but sadly, it was too little, too late to save the then-floundering Major Indoor Soccer League.

7) Comets 6, Sidekicks 5 [2OT] (February 27, 1987 @ Kemper Arena)
The 1986-87 season got off to a poor start for the Comets, in which they endured an 8-game losing streak that included an embarrassing 8-4 loss to the hapless expansion New York Express (who folded a month later).  Head coach Rick Benben was dismissed and eventually replaced by Dave Clements, and things started to turn around for the team.  This game was another typical Comets-Sidekicks nail-biter, as Dale Mitchell sent it into OT on a 6th-attacker goal with 42 seconds left in regulation.  The game was also filled with lots of chippy play, but very few penalties were called, and both teams were getting pretty frustrated.  Just :35 into the 2nd OT, Jan Goossens knocked home the game-winner, and in what he later deemed "a moment of mental illness", he ripped off his game jersey in a little dig at the Sidekicks' Tatu and his goal-celebration shtick and ran around the field flailing his arms (@ 2:37 of this video), leading play-by-play man Kevin Wall to proclaim on the air, "The MAGIC IS BACK at Kemper Arena!"  And it was, too!

6) Comets 8, Crunch 6 (May 1, 1991 @ Richfield Coliseum outside of Cleveland—Game 6, MSL Eastern Division Final best-of-seven series)
The Comets staved off elimination in Game 5 of this tough series with a 5-4 OT win at Kemper in what turned out to be the final Comets home game ever, and kept the momentum going in Game 6 in what turned out to be the last game the Comets ever won, period—and best of all, I was there!  The Comets' 1991 playoff run dovetailed nicely into my vacation plans that spring, as I did a baseball/indoor soccer road trip that also took me to Cincinnati, Detroit and Pittsburgh and the ballparks therein, and to Cleveland's Richfield Coliseum for the final two games in Comets history, though we didn't know that for sure at the time.  Game 6 and Game 7 were both exciting contests, but since 6 was the winner, I'll go with it on my list here.  David Doyle had a hat trick on this night, and Carl Valentine added three assists as the Comets held off high-scoring Cleveland for one more night, even though Hector Marinaro had four goals for the Crunch.

5) Comets 9, Wings 8 (April 14, 1991 @ Kansas Coliseum in Wichita—Game 2, MSL Eastern Division best-of-three Semi-Final series)
The Comets' final visit ever to Wichita was a crazy day all the way 'round for the team, but a happy one all the same.  The game was a see-saw affair in which the Wings took an early lead, then the Comets roared back with five goals in the 2nd quarter, only to relinquish the lead again to Wichita in the 2nd half.  Then David Doyle tied it all up at 8 early in the 4th quarter and with just 20 seconds left in the game, Carl Valentine rammed home the game winner and series clincher in the last contest ever staged between the two I-35 rivals.

A funny thing happened to the Comets after the game when their team bus broke down on the Kansas Turnpike en route back to Kansas City.  Head coach Dave Clements, assistant coach Tony Glavin and trainer Doug Wiesner stood guard with the bus until help arrived, but the players all hitched rides with various Comets fans who’d made the trip down I-35 for the game.  My friend Tom and I weren’t among them, unfortunately—we decided not to attend since we'd just gone down there a month before (see #9 above) and besides, the game was aired on local TV here—d'oh!  That would’ve been fun, too—there was plenty of room for a couple players in my ’87 T-Bird.

4) Comets 4, Sockers 3 [OT] (December 5, 1986 @ Kemper Arena)
There were times when the San Diego Sockers seemed like the Ivan Drago of the MISL, and after losing 15 in a row to the Suckers, er uh, Sockers (including more than a few drubbings like disastrous 13-3 shellacking at the hands of San Diego the previous February), we fans were all frothing at the mouth on this night when S.D. came to town early in the '86-'87 season.  And just like Rocky Balboa before them with Comrade Drago, the Comets discovered that the Sockers weren't machines—they were human after all!  K.C. was totally focused this time, taking advantage of two Sockers penalties with power play goals, and Jan Goossens took a feed from Damir Haramina about 4.5 minutes into OT and jammed it home.  From that point onward, the Comets-Sockers rivalry was much more evenly-matched.  Vengeance was ours...for the moment, anyway.

3) Comets 7, Sidekicks 6 [3OT] (December 6, 1987 @ Reunion Arena in Dallas)
At 94 minutes and 23 seconds, this was the longest game in Comets history, a see-saw affair that saw several lead changes throughout, after Kansas City fell behind 4-0 late in the 2nd quarter.  The Comets were on the verge of winning when Dallas' Mark Karpun tied it at 6 on a 6th-attacker goal with 18 seconds left in regulation to send it into extra innings.  As luck would have it, I was working that Sunday afternoon at my radio gig at "The Mighty 1030", KKJC in Blue Springs, and we just happened to be a Comets radio network affiliate, so I got to run the board for the game broadcast during the 4th quarter and all three OTs, during which I was on pins and needles throughout.  When the late Barry Wallace drove home the game-winner @ 4:23 of the 3rd OT, I let out a loud "GOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!" in the studio, and the other guy in the building at the time thought the fire alarm had gone off!

2) Comets 7, Sockers 6 [OT] (May 13, 1988 @ Kemper Arena—Game 3, MISL Western Division Final best-of-seven playoff series)
It was Friday the 13th, no less, and it was shaping up like a cursed night for the Comets, as they fell behind 5-1 and 6-2, before roaring back with five goals in the 4th quarter, including Barry Wallace's game-tying goal with less than five minutes left in regulation.  Dale Mitchell capped off the greatest single-game comeback in Comets history with his second goal of the night with a buck-03 left in OT.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to witness the finish because I was due at my new radio gig at KKJO in St. Joseph—an hour's drive from Kemper Arena—and I reluctantly had to leave before the game ended.  However, you can see the goal 2:49 into this video.

1) Comets 4, Steamers 3 [OT] (April 19, 1985 @ Kemper Arena--Game 2, MISL Wildcard best-of-three playoff series)
As I detailed in Chapter 3, this was the sweetest victory of all for me.  This wasn't just a game—THIS WAS WAR!  I look back more fondly on this game/victory more than the Royals winning the '85 World Series five months later.  It was easily the most intense sporting event I've ever attended, bar none...