Its time to lay down

Where you been at so long, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers?


How much drinking?
How much did Bode Miller drink during the Olympics? Let’s just say the guy put the urine in Turin.

Did not Bode well
Apparently the athletes complained about really lousy food at the Torino Olympic village. The the beef was so tough it made athletes choke besides Bode Miller.


Bode Miller has been on so many magazine covers and accomplished so little and partied so hard he is now an honorary Paris Hilton.


How much of a disappointment was Body Miller? Nobody has ever received more publicity for doing less that wasn’t named Kevin or Federline.


Alpine skier Bode Miller was favored in five events and ended up with no medals; I don’t want to say this guy stunk, but he put the B.O. in Bode.


It wasn’t all bad news for Bode Miller, Bode did win; “The Most likely to appear next in “People” magazine’s where are they now?” award.


Bode Miller said that he was proud of his performances at Torino . . . at night; apparently Miller has a different interpretation to the Olympic motto Swifter, Higher, Stronger, Miller got to the bar swifter, and got higher on stronger drinks.


Have you gone to Join Bode.com? It is now a link to Monster Jobs.com.


Scary
Maddame Toussad’s wax museum announced they will feature a Hillary Clinton figure. It hasn’t been easy to make, the more the figure takes shape and looks like Hillary, the more it scares away the guy working on it.

Lesser of two ewws
Singer George Michael was arrested for drug possession after being “out of it” in his car; All things considered, I’d rather have George Michael out of his mind in his car than out of his pants in a public bathroom.

Sad news
Sadly, Don Knotts, famous for portraying bumbling deputy Barney Fife in “The Andy Griffith Show”, passed away. They will give Knotts a single gun-shot salute if they can find the bullet in his pocket.

Kinda like that
“Sports Illustrated” featured a piece where six great Olympic figure skaters describe what it feels like to fall during a competition. They all agreed it was shocking, embarrassing and painflil, in other words, it was like watching NBC’s “Joey.”

That bad, huh?
Probably the biggest losers in the Torino Olympics were the Olympic cheerleaders. They were so bad and performed so badly and booed so often that they were actually mistaken for the New York Knicks.

Not gonna happen
The Minnesota Timberwolves Kevin Garnett was ejected after he angrily threw a ball into the stands and it hit a fan; that would never happen to the New York Knicks; they don’t have many fans to hit and they couldn’t hit them even if they did.


OK, so picture this if you will

On a good day of sunny warm snowboarding in beautiful Copper Mountain, Colorado, I start talking to a guy on the lift named Paulie who turns out to be the bartender at the big Copper Apres ski place, JJ’s. He tells me they have an awesome guitarist singer, Moe Dixon, who gets the joint a rockin’.  When I ask the barkeep if I can drop his name to ask Moe if I can sit in on harmonica, he gives me the thumbs up without hearing me blow a note.

So, beat as hell, I do a few runs after lunch, tell my lovely wife , Virginia to meet me at JJ’s at 4:00, and I head in and shower up, get dressed, grab my harp box, and head out. Looking good, I might add . . . OK, so I need a hair cut.

A quick shuttle bus ride later I am in JJ’s and I meet Moe. Friendly, nice, truly happy, warm guy, he tells me is more than happy to have me come up. Cool. So I sit down with my Hohner box of harps and order a Fat Tire beer.

Well, it turns out this guy Moe is great. He cranks on acoustic guitar playing rhythm at the same time as lead and he can sing. Knows every song in the world and works the crowd like a master puppeteer. Oh oh. May be in over my head. Then he starts telling great stories about playing with Stephen Stills, Croce, John Hiatt, James Taylor, Buffet, you name it. Gulp.

“Yo, waiter, how’s about a shot of Jagar if you will?”

Virg comes in. I tell her Moe may get me up, but deep down I am thinking maybe I might let it go. No sooner than I think that he calls my name to come up. How did he remember my name when I just told it to him once? Nobody can do that.

I jump up on stage, the bar is packed, probably 150 people, 200 if you include the long bar and he starts playing an amped up “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” “What key?” I ask. He says A. The corresponding cross harp for A is D, so I pull it out. Honk. Ouch. Bad. Not good. Cat-in-agony-bad. So I quickly decide to play A in straight position with an A harp. Not bad. Whew. Made it through. Barely.

Well, Moe must have liked it well enough because he starts to play “Sweet Home Chicago” which I know is in G with a C harp. Truth be told, we rocked. Then a few more blues classics in G cranked up. Now there was ski-boot clomping dancing. Unbelievable. It was the way I always thought Apres skiing should be but never has actually been.

Now Moe orders some “woo hoo” snowboarder girls a Shot Ski: a long ski with holes cut to fit shot glasses. All four tilt the ski back at the same time. The Shot Ski. Much better than their old gimmick, the Shot Enema, if you ask me.

Moe – notice how I call him by his first name now? - called me up during his finale and we jammed on several Jimmy Buffet songs and a few Credence Clearwater jams, including “Down on the Corner” which I know pretty well. Tore the roof off the dump is what we done. It was a blast. Folks where dancing, clapping, going nuts. Got a standing O after he thanked me, if truth be told. Granted, Moe did most of the heavy lifting, but still . . .

Not a bad way to end a great day of snowboarding. Just wish my folks could have lived to have been there, they would have loved that.

The next day, Friday, we skied with Anita, a friend of Virginia’s from College in Colorado, and we reprised JJ’s only it was even better. Even bigger crowd, standing room only, played more songs and more songs that I knew. Than it was off to dinner and then back to the condo for the Olympics on NBC.

Not bad.  Moe Dixon, if you can read this, thanks. You are awesome.

Oh, and where can I get me one of them Shot Skis?

Shout out to my Chicago Homies:

Check out Moe Dixon on tour on June 10th at the West Suburban Symphony in Wheaton. Bring some wine, the set list looks jazzier than Moe’s JJ’s rocking faire but it will be awesome. Tell him Alex, the harp playin’ fool at JJ’s from San Diego, sent you.

http://www.westsubsymphony.org/