Takin it to the house, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

Big deal
The San Diego Chargers are just one win away from locking down the AFC West and a playoff spot.

Which, in truth, clinching the AFC Worst, is like being the girl with the most teeth at the Arkansas bar at last call.

Until further notice
The Midwest is bracing to be hit by its second big winter storm of the season.

In a related story, the Chicago Chapter Against Global Warming will postpone its meeting until further notice.

Not a good sign
The Mitchell Report revealed names of baseball players who used steroids or other performance enhancing drugs. Chief among them is Roger Clemens.

Is anyone surprised that Clemens used steroids? When Clemens pitched he was on so many steroids even his baseballs shriveled up.

Except you guys
There was a surprise in the Mitchell Report on steroids in baseball;

Due to their late-season collapse, Mitchell recommended that the New York Mets take more performance enhancing drugs.

No shocker there
The Mitchell report revealed names of baseball players who used steroids or other performance enhancing drugs. Chief among them is Roger Clemens.

We should have been suspicious when Clemens came out of retirement more than Cher after a freshly cranked face lift.

Both sides to every story
The New York Jets have a problem at their games with drunken men harassing women to expose their breasts.

And yet there is a small contingent of men who claim the problem is a bunch of witty, charming guys who politely ask women to share their wonderful bodies with others, but are then rudely rebuked.

Material crap

Madonna in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? That’s like naming Michael Jackson baby sitter of the month.

Since you asked:
Check out the clip at TMZ of Tori Amos kicking out the two spoiled brats who were yammering in the first row at her concert in - where else but the home of the worst spoiled brats?- San Diego.

There is a bus I call the Overly-Entitled Brat Bus that stops in our neighborhood from one of the private high schools. The poor-suffering bus driver has to stand in the street holding up a sign to stop the cars in both directions and the cars have to stay stopped until the kids have all cleared crossing the street.

The problem? The kids don’t clear the street. They lounge in the middle of the street milling about talking to each other or their cell phones while making a line of about ten to twenty cars, and this poor, poor bus driver, sit there and wait.

The worst offender is this just-this-side-of-albino pale, pimply oaf of a jamoke who is about sixteen-years-old and pushing about forty pounds overweight. As he is sixteen and also has a huge gut, he wears his pants way, way down on his hips to the point where he walks on six inches of the bottom of his pants. You can barely see his shoes. (I'm sure it is against school policy for him to wear his gang shants)

Except he doesn’t walk on his pants, he slowly – and I mean painfully slowly – shuffles his feet across the street like a ninety-year-old man. The entire time his mouth is gaping wide open with his cell phone plastered to the side of his long, greasy hair of his giant, baby-like head.

This kid is the embodiment of overly-entitled San Diego brats.

When I first read that Tori Amos went ballistic on her fans here in San Diego, I thought, uh oh, here we have another psycho diva on our hands, and, we probably do. But it is clear from the cheering by the fans on the tape that these two brats were being unusually loud and rude and deserved to be embarrassed, called out and thrown out.

Even if it was a piano player at the lounge at the Grand Haven Michigan Holiday Inn – which is damn nice, by the way - it is rude to talk in front of someone who is trying to perform.

Of course now will come the obligatory lawsuit against Tori Amos from the two rude parents of the two rude brats who were thrown out.

To quote Don Henley:

“The more I think about it, ol’ Billy was right

Let’s kill all the lawyers, kill ‘em tonight.”

Except, of course, for the great, great counselor, the honorable and regular a.L.b.b. reader, J.A.H.L. Esquire. Or as he is known in more exclusive circles, Marvin "Shake 'em up, shake 'em loose" Tiller.

(Polite applause)

Yeah, I gotta problem wit dis



Madonna is being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; maybe it’s just me but I feel like inducting Madonna into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is like inducting Adam Sandler into The Football Hall of Fame for his role in “The Waterboy.”

Seriously? Madonna in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Madonna is to rock and roll what Hot Pockets are to fine dining. Maybe put her in the “We Are Going To Hell In A Hand Basket” Hall of Fame, but not the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Yes, I freely admit I do not like, nor have I ever liked Madonna. But I am not blind, I can see why some people do. Her ability to shock and re-market herself is just short of brilliant. She understands the changing and fickle pop tastes of the proletariate because she is so completely one of them no matter how much she forces the fake British accent on us.

But the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? The Stones? Elvis? Jimi? Eric? Janice? Put Madonna in the Schlock and Lull Hall of Feign, maybe.

But then again, just a while ago you could walk into the Hard Rock Casino lobby in Las Vegas and find the school girl outfit Britney Spears wore in "Oops, I Did It Again" displayed front and center, so . . .

Tonight we big pimpin’ with our pink vodka sausage sauce, penne pasta, red jug wine and “Godfather 2” on big screen DVD, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

Scary
The Mitchell Report will be revealed today naming the names of 50 to 100 baseball players who used steroids or other performance enhancing drugs. Baseball players haven’t been this nervous since the rumors that their cups were made in China with toxic lead.

Just plain wrong
Madonna is being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; just when they get James Brown peacefully buried for a while, he spins out of his grave and they’ll have to bury him again.

Madonna in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? That’s like naming Michael Jackson baby sitter of the month.

Imagine?
The Mitchell report will be revealed today naming the names of 50 to 100 baseball players who used steroids or other performance enhancing drugs. Reportedly the list includes many New York Mets. That’s amazing. How bad would the Mets- end-of-the-season collapse have been if their performances hadn’t been enhanced?

Since you asked:
Gots to, gots to, gots to get my tookus out in the wadoo on my SUP (Stand Up Paddleboard).

In addition, I have to come up with a name for my SUP. It is yellow and blue like UCSB so I was thinking Gaucho-like. Groucho the Gaucho? Hmm.

Ann Caroline actually hit the ground laughing during a line from the Marx Brothers “Duck Soup” when Groucho said during Chicolini’s (Chico’s) trial for treason:

“Chicolini may look like an idiot. He may talk like an idiot. But don’t be fooled, he really is an idiot.”

Sniff. I’m so proud.

This just just in in:
Bobby Knight and his hunting buddy accidentally peppered two people with shotgun pellets in two separate incidents. And here I had no idea Knight was planning to run for vice president of the United States.


In health news, a man in Berlin nearly died from alcohol poisoning after he chugged a liter of Vodka rather than hand it over to airport security; and you don’t even want to know what this guy did when they were about to take away his tube of Preparation H.

For the last time, for the love of mercy, I’m begging you, get some help, David Hasselhof.

This just in:


The Republican presidential candidates debated for the last time in Iowa before the caucuses. I haven’t seen this many anxious rich old white guys since they raised the luxury tax on yachts.

Operators are waiting
Jessica Alba has announced she is pregnant. For you guys who are traumatized by this news you can get counseling over the phone at 1-800-Oh, Please.

Step it up, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

Used to that
During a speech, Bill Clinton was heckled by a man who looked like a robot. But Clinton is used to dealing with irate cyborgs, his vice president was Al Gore and he is married to Hillary.

It's on now
Barack Obama has caught Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire polls; things are getting serious, Hillary is getting ready to go to battle and put on her khaki fatigues pants suits.

Barack Obama has caught Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire polls; you have to wonder how much Oprah’s backing Obama has to do with this. In fact, Hillary is so desperate to get on Oprah, she is thinking of changing her name to Steadman.

Medical definition for $100, Alex
“Jeopardy” host Alex Trabek is resting comfortably after suffering what has been described as a minor heart attack. “I’ll take: A Minor Heart Attack is Only One That Happens to Someone Else” for $100, Alex.”

Babwah boring
Barbara Walters included MySpace founders Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe with David and Victoria Beckham on her “10 Most Fascinating People” special. So by most fascinating, Barbara means she is most fascinated by some really boring and disappointing people.

Since you asked:
As someone who spends more than their share of time researching news stories on the web, it is utterly amazing to me how consistently horribly written most news stories really are.

Honestly, when you write jokes about a topic you just want to pick out the main essentials of who, what, when, why and where and 99% of the time half of those answers are simply missing. Take, for example, the “Barbara Walters 10 Most Fascinating People” special. It took me ten stories to finally come up with all ten of the people listed. And the title of the freaking thing has the number ten in it.

What kind of idiot could possibly write and file a story without answering the simplest questions that most normal people could have about the story? Most of the “journalists” are so in love with their opinion and their biased slant on the topic that they never get around to providing the essential facts.

As I mentioned, I was as impressed with our local KNSD San Diego news coverage, specifically Susan Taylor and Marty Levine, during the 2007 San Diego Firestorm as I was mortified by the national coverage.

The national news coverage of the fires bordered on being criminally sensational as well as factually misleading. The national press is not just biased, it is downright corrupt in its compulsion to out-scoop and out-sell the competition, namely cable news. The truth has little or no relevance. As I said before, there is no doubt Katie Couric would knock over and step on a sick orphan to get to a more sensational story.

Here I thought CBS should have put Andy Rooney out of his misery, as annoying as he is – and watching him is like seeing an animal that should have been put down a long time ago – at least Rooney serves some function, if only as a reminder of the ugliness of eyebrow dandruff. Katie Couric doesn’t even provide that. Couric is utterly useless.

They need to Rosie O’Donnell Katie Couric’s ass right now.

(Rosie O'Donnell. Verb. To fire and banish from television a deeply unlikeable and difficult personality in a totally misleading way by falsly portraying it as a friendly, mutual decision. See: Star Jones)

These just in:
"Newsweek" offered tips on how to look younger: #1 is sleep more, #2 is smile more, #3, use moisturizer, and the most important tip for looking younger, #4, appear on “Larry King Live” as much as possible. Next to that fossilized Galapagos turtle in suspenders you’ll look like an embryo.


On this date in 1936, King Edward VIII became the first English monarch to abdicate his thrown to marry an American divorcee, Wallis Simpson. Do you know what they now call it when you give up incredible wealth and prestige for another person? It’s called: Marrying Kevin Federline.

We layin’ down da silly up in this filly, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

How . . . cold . . was . . it?
There is a huge ice storm that has hit the Midwest; it was so cold in Chicago it actually gave Bears fans a shiver of hope for making the playoffs.

There is a huge ice storm that has hit the Midwest; it was so cold in Iowa, Hillary Clinton had to put on her fleece-lined pants suit.

There was a huge ice storm in the Midwest. It was the perfect storm, an ice storm hit a low pressure system resulting in a rare but terrifying frigid phenomenon called: a Hillary.

Barking bad
Not to dog-pile on and bitch after Michael Vick, but after being hounded by the New Orleans Saints, 31-14, the Atlanta Falcons really barked up a bone and have gone to the dogs, they are the pits and that’s no bull.

Global schmobal
Led Zeppelin received rave reviews for their reunion concert in London in 27-years. So maybe global warming isn’t so bad, it has unthawed these awesome dinosaurs.

Huh?
Twenty years ago if you had said Oprah is Obama’s BFF so use your WiFi on your iPhone and Google them on YouTube, you would have been burned for witch craft.

That’s, uh, that’s a long game. You are correct, Sir.
Now, I don’t want to say that last night’s New Orleans 31-14 win over the Atlanta Falcons was boring, but at times it seemed like Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday Night Football.

Since you asked:
How ‘bout my Fantasy team, Thor’s Thunder? After going 0-4 we have put on an impressive 7 out of the last eight. In the playoffs it is all about the mo’ and we got some mo’ mo’. Got four hot players starting in the final fo’.

Mr. Gower: Thoughtful old boss or evil, alcoholic child abuser? You decide

Now that it is the holiday season, I want to bring up a long neglected holiday topic: Emil Gower. We all remember Gower as the drunk pharmacist in “It’s A Wonderful Life” whom George Bailey saved from poisoning a little boy by mistake, for which George received a beating until his deaf ear was bloody for his trouble.

Granted, Gower received a tragic telegram about his son dying in the war. Nobody would have objected if he took a few days off to mourn. But, no. What did Gower do? He stayed on the job and got roaring, stinking, crazy drunk. Barely able to stand and speak, drunk. Now how come somebody didn’t notice and say; “Hey, the pharmacist is roaring drunk. This could be a problem.”?

Nope, people came in and out of the pharmacy like everything was fine. Just ignore the roaring drunk little scary guy behind the counter. So Gower fills a proscription – and maybe this is where my dislike of pharmacists began – for bi-carbonate of soda with, oops, deadly poison. Here is another one of many questions: what is a pharmacist doing with a huge bottle of powdered poison in the first place? Is this the proscription he fills for disgruntled wives looking to become widows? Clearly Gower has poisoned before.

No way that poisoning was an accident. You gotta be pretty drunk not to notice the huge skull and crossbones required by law back then in movies and in cartoons, on the bottle of poison. So Gower gives the poison for George to deliver. You don’t think Gower knew he was making George the fall guy? Why do you think Gower got so mad when he found out George didn’t deliver the poison? Gower had already been paid by the mob for the hit.

So what did the sloppy-drunk-in-the-middle-of-the-day-during-work Gower do? He bitch slaps little George right on his bad ear until the freaking thing bleeds. How old is George Bailey at this point? Ten? Eleven? A grown drunk is whaling on a poor half-deaf little kid until his damn ear bursts. This was one busy day for Gower: Get smashed, try to poison a kid, beat another half-deaf kid in his deaf ear until it bleeds. Go home. Trust me, you or I try this and it is prison for life, as it should be.

In the George-never-lived part of the movie we discover that Gower went to prison for poisoning the kid and then become a drunken bum. Then becomes a drunken bum? He already was one. Why didn’t Gower go to prison in the George-is-alive version? He was drunk on the job handing out medicine, he tried to poison one kid and beat a half-deaf kid bloody for screwing the hit up. There isn’t a court in the land that wouldn’t send that guy up the river.

When we see George become a grown man, the first thing that happens is he is asking for a big trunk for his steamer trip. Lo and behold, who gave the trunk to him? Gower. Well, isn’t that nice? Oh, sure, a second hand cheesy suitcase will more than make up for the fact that you were once beaten bloody in your deaf ear by a drunk old guy who was trying to poison a little kid.

On second thought, I would take that trunk. It would be perfect. Perfect to hide the dismembered body parts of Emil Gower and bury him in it in Potter’s field, like the old, drunken wretch deserves.

Next: Violet. Flirty town socialite or recidivist whore?

And just how cozy were officer Burt and Ernie the cab driver? Why did Ernie’s wife leave him in the George-wasn’t-alive version? You don’t suppose it was because of all of Bert and Ernie's supposed fishing trips up to Mount “Brokeback” Bedford, do you?

And crazy Uncle Billy Bailey? Crack pot or crack pipe?

And trust me, you don't even want to hear my theory on Ma Bailey and Annie's, um, special relationship.

OK, I have have stepped over the line on that one. I'm just sayin', F.Y.I., from a bottom-line synergy functionality standpoint win-win mindset, at the end of the day, at this point in time, it is what it is, literally.

This just in:
Prior to their humbling 34-13 defeat by the New England Patriots, Pittsburgh Steeler defensive back Anthony Smith guaranteed a Steeler win. Today Smith went back to his volunteer job as a campaign worker for “Kucinich for President.”

We loves us some Favre, we really do. But if Favre is pronounced Far-vruh, shouldn’t Brett be pronounced Rib-ette, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers?

In the cover article of “Sports Illustrated” “Sportsman of the Year” issue it was revealed that legendary Green Bay QB Brett Favre is also legendary in the clubhouse for his flatulence. That means that Favre isn’t just a surname, it is also an onomatopoeia:

“Faaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrvrrrrrreeeeeaaaahhhh.

So when Green Bay runs the no huddle offense, it isn’t to speed up play, it is to get away from a toxic Favre.

So when Favre is calling signals from the shotgun and he lifts his leg, it may or may not mean for the center to hike him the ball.

The excessive Favre gas explains why the Green Bay audible signal for the give-and-go is Favre pulling his own finger.

This also explains how the Lambeau leap was invented: Receivers were trying to distance themselves from a gaseous Favre.

The cover article of “Sports Illustrated” “Sportsman of the Year” issue had players and writers revealing their favorite Brett Favre story. One of SI writer’s Peter King’s favorites is when Brett was bird hunting with him and to lure the grouse closer, Favre whispered; “Here Grousie, grousie, grousie.”

Others speak of the many times when asked if he knows how to spell Mississippi, Favre asks deadpanned: “Do you mean the river or the state?”

But my personal favorite Favre story was from the “Sports Illustrated” writer –whose name I cannot recall - who discovered that 1996 Green Bay tackle Bruce Wilkerson was a much-beloved gentle giant with an equally giant stutter. And, apparently, about the only thing those Super Bowl bound Packers loved more than Wilkerson was good-naturedly teasing him about his stutter, which, clearly, Wilkerson was a great sport about.

During one game, Wilkerson was to check off the lineman’s blocking assignments at the line of scrimmage by yelling the check word Cow, but, in the excitement, he got severely stuck on the hard C, repeatedly grunting; “Kuh, kuh, kuh, kuh” to much stifled-snickering from his teammates. Finally, in abject frustration, Wilkerson shouted: “Mooooooooo.”

Favre and the entire team started laughing so hard Favre had to call a timeout. When Favre staggered to the sidelines, holding his stomach laughing, Coach Mike Holmgren asked what was so damn funny. Tears streaming down his face, Favre couldn’t stop laughing long enough to even tell him.

And then Favre farted.

Or did he fatred?