Thursday, May 04, 2006

It is hard out here


We a little slow on the down low, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers
(Repeat after me, although it is a sexy looking siren, Vodka and Sunkist is a mean, sadistic b*tch)

What a coinkie dinkie
Terrorist Zacarias Moussaui was sentenced to life in prison for contributing to the September 11th attacks. Moussaui will serve his life sentence at a maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado. Coincidentally, Zacarias’s prison name will also be Florence, Colorado.  

Or something like that
Friday is Cinco De Mayo. Cinco De Mayo is Spanish for:  Do those chicks on “The View” ever shut up?

Long odds
Keith Richards suffered a concussion after falling out of a palm tree in Fiji climbing to get a cocoanut; they say Richards is going to be fine and I hope so. Losing Keith Richards to falling out a palm tree would be as unlikely as Stephen Hawking losing a spelling bee to President Bush.


Take it form a born Louisvillian:
One of the favorites for Saturday’s Kentucky Derby is a horse named Lawyer Ron. Why did they name a race horse after a Lawyer? Because, like a lawyer, he goes around in circles, costs people millions, he relives himself wherever he wants and leaves it for others to clean up.


Since you asked:
Why doesn’t anyone care if Barry Bonds breaks Babe Ruth’s record? And why are there so many who don’t want to see Bonds break the record? Why does everyone hate Barry Bonds so much? Why? Because he is a known steroid cheater? Nope. People hate Barry Bonds because Barry wants it that way.

There is a woman I knew who is/was exactly like Barry Bonds. She was a very attractive girl at UCSB. It should be fun to be a hot looking college girl on the beach at Santa Barbara, right? Wrong. She was utterly and totally miserable all the time; the only time she was slightly less miserable was when she was making those around here even more miserable. Once you got past her attractive façade, she was every bit as sweet and kind as the monsters in “Aliens” sans the acid blood.

That’s exactly the way Barry Bonds is. Shouldn’t it be kinda cool to be getting paid a qwizillian dollars to whack home runs in front of millions of people? You’d think so. Most of us would pay to do what Barry Bonds gets paid a ridiculously high amount of duckets to do. But Barry is that rare kind of miserable person who is only close to happy when he’s made others unhappy.  

So, if you hate Barry, you don’t want to see him happy, do you? Then, whatever you do, do not be miserable about Barry Bonds beating Babe Ruth’s record. Be happy for him. Enjoy his home runs. This is going to be hard to type out, but, err, uh, eh, uh, CHEER FOR BARRY BONDS.

It will make him miserable.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

It is hard out here

It’s the play that makes us stay, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

Hola
Friday is Cinco De Mayo. Cinco De Mayo is Spanish for: Gas Prices Suck.

Whoa
A lot of people don’t like the label illegal immigrant, they prefer undocumented worker. And today, Michael Jackson said he doesn’t like the label child molester, he prefers the term Priest.

You know we love and kid the Keith Richards
Magician David Blaine is going to live underwater for seven days; and when he comes out, he will be so pruney, he will be able to impersonate Keith Richards.

Keith Richards is still recuperating from a concussion but they say he is going to be fine. Doctors say Keith will be up, staggering around and slurring his words in no time.

Keith Richards is still recuperating from a concussion but he is going to be fine. Unfortunately, two of the doctors treating Keith Richards also suffered concussions; they passed out and hit their heads after asking Keith what medications he’s on.

The doctors initially had a communication problem with Keith Richards, but then they brought in Ozzie Osbourne to translate from drunk British rocker back into English.

An 8.0 earthquake hit the New Zealand area. To give you an idea how strong it was, when the earthquake hit Keith Richard’s New Zealand hospital, it shook so hard, Keith actually walked in a straight line.

Cranky test
Here is a test that you are getting cranky. If you are upset about the Spanish version of “The Star Spangled Banner”, but you were fine with Jimi Hendrix’s stoned psychedelic “Star Spangled Banner” at Woodstock in 1968, you may be getting a touch grumpy.

Sounds oddly familiar
Kaavya Viswanathan, the Harvard student caught plagiarizing 45 times in her novel, just lost her publishing deal. The good news is she is going to co-author a book with disgraced Oprah writer James Frey. Yeah, it’s called “The Da Vinci Coat.”

Since you asked, Keith Richards version:
Made some jokes – or took the piss, as the Brits say – at Keith, but make no mistake, there is the Keith people joke about, the cartoon of Keith Richards, and then there is the real Keith. Luckily I got to witness the real Keith rock the crap out of Petco Park last summer and he is still amazing. Jokes are one thing, but I really hope Keith is OK. Hate to lose that one, they aren’t making any more.

You want a good time waster? Go to Keith http://www.keithrichards.com/ and click on “Ask Keith.” Once you get away from the cartoon image Keith, it doesn’t take you long to realize what a thoughtful, funny, engaging gentleman Keith Richards is. Honest but kind. Yes, he is wise and grizzled yet what clearly comes through is his child-like innocence and passion. He obviously loves his life and his art – and why wouldn’t he? - and that is why he does both so well. Quite the philosopher, this Mister Richards.

That is the same spirit that sends a 62-year-old man to drinking rum all day in Fiji with his band mate and then he decides he has to climb a cocoanut tree and get a damn cocoanut. Keith Richards is fine, it is gravity that is the rat bastard.

It was interesting for me to read that, when asked about what music he listens to, Keith went through his entire day. For Keith Richards, music is like air. It has to be there all day for him to live.

Ready for this? Keith Richards always wakes up to Mozart. Sometimes Bach but usually Mozart. As the day goes on he goes for some esoteric Jazz or, if the sun is out, some Reggae. After lunch some R&B and then when people come over he plays DJ and plays songs he think they’ll like. His kids might suggest some hip hop or techno, but he says he can only take that for about a half an hour. Then it is on to straight freakin’ stone cold blues.

Here is hoping that, someday, Keith Richards listens to the whaling soulful sound of, you got it, gurRach Bant. (Decided to make it two words)

Here is also hoping that all of us, Slats and Nugs, will wake up to Mozart and be drunk on rum with a close friend, climbing a cocoanut tree in Fiji when we are 62.

Hang in there, Keith. Oh, and while we are saying a prayer for Keith, toss a prayer out for a wonderful woman who is a close friend to our amazing friend, Dayna, a mother of three named Heather.

Heather could use a kind thought.

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

It is hard out here

She’s waiting for another love, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers


Jose can you see?
A Spanish version of the Star Spangled Banner is causing quite a stir; some feel it should only be in English, others like the sound of Spanish, and others don’t care as long as Roseanne Barr never sings “The Star Spangled Banner” again.

Help is on the way
Magician David Blaine is going to live underwater for seven days; upon hearing this, FEMA will try to get to him in a couple of weeks.

Blaine is spending so much time underwater, when comes out he will be an official citizen of New Orleans.

Yeah, ‘cause that’s what they needed
Rosie O’Donnell is going to replace Meredith Vierra on “The View.” Because that’s what that show needed: another woman who is loud and talks too much.

Can you imagine if a male cop tried to evacuate the set of “The View” for a bomb threat?

“Ladies, uh, Rosie, we, um, excu . . . Star, Maam, I, Ms. Walters, there . . . oh forget it.”

He forgot
The son of actor Denzel Washington, John David Washington, was signed by the St. Louis Rams. He could have signed with Tennessee, but sadly, Denzel’s son didn’t remember the Titans.

Not good
Yesterday was a national immigrant boycott. It was bad, the New York Yankees lost so many pitchers they had to play T-Ball.  

Yeah, that’ll fly
A lot of people don’t like the term illegal immigrant, they prefer undocumented worker. And today, Michael Jackson said he doesn’t like the term child molester, he prefers underage physical therapist.

Not quite, Sir
At the White House Correspondent’s dinner, Bush impersonator Steve Bridges looked so much like President Bush that when Bush first saw him, he thought his 34% approval rating had doubled to 68%.


Since you asked:

Holy schnikees, I got it. My new band’s name:

gurrachBant

Now what kind of Hagan Dazie, hoity toity Europinksy type name is that for a rockin’ blues band you may well ask?

All amped up blues owes its roots to Chicago. And since the bands I play harmonica for are garage and bar bands, the name of the band is the Chicago pronunciation of garage band.

And we sexy it up using that funky, outside-the-box thinking, eBay and iPod odd use of capital letters.

gurrachBant

What is great about that is it is also a built in BS detector. Somebody tries to pronounce as gurr ah sha baaahhhhnt you know they are full of it.

“Hey, deese guys tole me dat down dah street at dah Tavern dey got a goot gurrach bant on Suntays, so let’s go haffa a few Old Styles afder dah Bearsssss game.”

I like it. Buy the t-shirts.

Monday, May 01, 2006

It is hard out here

Do be do be do, that how we do the do that we be do, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

Get it?
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Anna Nicole Smith; I think the case is known as ‘Ho versus Paid.

This decision revives Anna Nicole’s right to claim $89 million of her late 89 year-old husband, J. Howard Marshall II’s billion dollar estate. That’s about $1 million for every time Anna did not have sex with him.

No small task
The investigation into the millions in bribes taken by convicted congressman Randal “Duke” Cunningham now reveal that Cunningham also accepted prostitutes. If Cunningham isn’t careful, he might even start to give congressmen a bad name.

Spanking going on
A woman in California was awarded $1.7 million in damages for being spanked in public. As opposed to Exxon which was awarded $8 billion in quarterly profits for spanking the public.

OK, this one is a stretch
The new Italian Prime minister is Romano Prodi. It was a little awkward when they asked President Bush what he thought of Prodi, Bush replied; “I don’t have me one of them Apple eye-Prodis, I still can’t figure out my Walkman.”

Falling Stone
Keith Richards was treated for a mild concussion after falling out of a tree on vacation in Fiji; they were initially were worried when Richards hit his head and suddenly they could understand what he said.

That’s when you know you’re partying too much, when you’re so high you end up in a tree.

Why was the 62-year-old Keith Richards climbing a tree? Apparently he was rehearsing for the Rolling Stones song “Monkey Man” and got carried away.

How appropriate
Katie Holmes announced she is changing her name to Kate; yeah, and she’s changing to an unlisted number and enlisting in the witness protection program.

A published report claims Tom Cruise is planning to have a Beatles tribute band play at a July wedding to Katie Holmes. It will be great, a band will be pretending to be the Beatles while Katie and Tom will be pretending to get married.

Or something like that
George W. Bush look-alike Steve Bridges appeared with President Bush at the White House Correspondence Dinner. The resemblance between Bush and Bridges was uncanny. Bridges looks so much like Bush he calls himself a George W. Bush impersonerator.

Correspondence dance
George W. Bush look-alike Bridges appeared with President Bush at the White House Correspondence Dinner. Bridges looked so much like Bush that, by the time the dinner was over, Bridges had fired four White House staff members.

Bridges looked so much like Bush that Dick Cheney didn’t know who to throw his voice to.

At the White House correspondence dinner, Comedy Central’s Steven Colbert insulted the President and President Bush did not look happy about it. In fact, after Colbert’s speech, Bush told Vice President Cheney to invite Colbert quail hunting.

Fox News reported that Comedy Central’s Steven Colbert “bombed” with his scathing Bush jokes at the White House correspondence dinner. To be fair to Colbert, it is not easy to tell jokes to President Bush. It’s a thin line between jokes that upset Bush and jokes he doesn’t understand.

In attendance at the White House correspondents dinner was Jeff “Skunk” Baxter. Baxter was the lead guitarist for “Steely Dan” and “The Doobie Brothers” and now he is the Pentagon’s expert on unconventional weapons. And now Keith Richards is the Pentagon’s number one consultant on gravity’s effect on aging.


More useless information supposed to drive my imagination
As I am working on a piece on Babe Ruth, my grandfather’s old drinking buddy, did you know that the Baby Ruth candy bar was named after the Babe and not the then- reported President Garfield’s granddaughter? That granddaughter story was cooked up – sorry – by the candy bar maker so they wouldn’t have to pay Ruth for the rights. The candy exec who thought of it confessed about the scam years later.

And while we are on the subject of Baby Ruths, did you know that the famous Baby Ruth in the pool “Caddy Shack” scene was inspired by a real incident at my high school? Brian Doyle Murray, Bill Murray’s older brother and “Caddy Shack” co-author, went to New Trier East which had the world’s nuttiest O.C.D.-inflicted swim instructor named Dave Robertson.

(As I was too young to have witnessed this, the famous story was told to me by my then best buddy, Howie Detmer’s swimming star older brother, Tommy Detmer. A legend in his own right, but I digress. Howie’s older sister, Debbie, is the mother of Houston Astros star reliever, Brad Lidge, but I digress again).

Dave Robertson was an amazing swim coach. His 1961 Illinois State Championship high school team finished third at the National AAU meet to the university powerhouses USC and Yale. This got them a five page spread in “Sports Illustrated.” Robinson invented interval training for swimming – patterned after the training runs of first four-minute-mile-breaker-Roger Bannister - when plodding long distance grinding was the only method used back then.

But Robertson was also a swimming pool dictator that non-swimmers despised for the Nazi water torturing germaphobe that he was. It was an unwritten rule that everyone who took a class with Robertson, and everyone had to, must imitate his affected staccato high-voiced speech pattern;

“Boyccce, no spitting in the pool, boycce, (boys) we will have no gaboons (snot) in the pool, boycce.”

(To this day, I practically start shivering when I hear that voice echoing off the chlorine smelling sterile tiles. But I liked Robertson and found him engaging and smart, even if he was a little nuts. OK, a lot nuts)

Anyway, this Robertson guy was so despised by the unruly authority hating anti-jock late Sixty pre-hippy types – of which I am sure Murray was at the time - that they lay awake at night and fantasized of ways to make him miserable. Thus the plan of throwing a Baby Ruth in the pool was spawned.

The famous day arrived and somebody threw a Baby Ruth in the pool. When Robertson saw it, naturally thinking it to be fecal material, he ordered the offender to dive in and retrieve it. As legend had it, whoever the long-forgotten-named hero was, not only did he retrieve it but he emerged with the soaking Baby Ruth bar in his mouth.

Robinson blew a gasket. That HAZMAT team you see in “Caddy Shack” is no exaggeration. Robertson had the pool drained and disinfected back when nobody knew what disinfecting was.

When I worked on Wall Street in the eighties, that Baby Ruth pool scene was marked so indelibly on the fabric of our culture, that when a trader wanted to cause a stir and generate action in the bond markets, it was called “Launching a Baby Ruth in the pool.”

Tah dahhhhhhhh. Didn’t think I could tie it all together, did you?