We goin’ votin' up in this here this here, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

Uh, no Sir, that’s not, oh forget it
McCain campaigners say Sarah Palin has gone rogue; it was awkward when President Bush heard Palin had gone Rogue, Bush asked; “Is that like going commando?”

Scary
Did you have a good Halloween? Mine was rough. One kid came as a bundled sub-prime mortgage bond and then imploded all over my front lawn.

I had a rough Halloween, I went as Joe the plumber’s butt and made an ass of myself.

Not since then
North Carolina senator Libby Dole is embroiled in a rough campaign. This campaign has been the roughest thing to happen to Libby Dole since Bob Dole first discovered Viagra.

Again, rough
One kid came to our house as an Oakland Raider, but the poor guy didn’t have enough strength to ring the doorbell. Then he dropped the candy.

Not since then again
“High School Musical 3”, “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2” and the musical “Mamma Mia” are in theaters. It is the greatest time to be a gay movie fan since “Top Gun’s” Tom Cruise played beach volleyball in his blue jeans.

Not good
My Fantasy football team isn’t doing well. My team, The Get-a-life’s lost to the Need-to-get-laid’s.

Huh?
Now I don’t want to say John McCain is in trouble, but right now he’s more behind than Jennifer Lopez.

Kids today
In my neighborhood on Halloween not one pumpkin was smashed, none of the windows were soaped, no house was egged or toilet papered. Just how damn lazy have kids gotten anyway?

Confident
Now I don’t want to imply that Barack Obama is getting cocky, but for Halloween Barrack went as an interior decorator so he could measure the White House windows for drapes.

Wild man
Halloween in Hollywood was wild. Police tried to arrest a publicly drunken Andy Dick but he got off claiming he was trick or treating as Joe Sixpack.

Diminutive
“Desperate Housewife” star Nicolette Sheridan is dating David Spade. So that would make her a really, really desperate housewife.

“Desperate Housewife” star Nicolette Sheridan is dating David Spade. It was cute, for Halloween, Spade went as Dennis Kucinich and Nicolette went as Kucinich’s hot wife.

Since you asked:

So proud. Just cast my vote for the first time as a guy who can make a ripping-good beef brisket.

Rubbed that three-pound bad boy with garlic powder, pepper, Old Bay seasoning and smoked paprika and cumin. Seared it for three minutes a side. Put soaked mesquite chips in the smoker and replaced them as needed to keep a low, steady smoke. Poured in the sauce of sautéed onions, garlic, one pint of Guinness, half a cup of ketchup, a dollop of peach preserves and a splash of balsamic vinegar and a dash of caraway seeds into an aluminum pan. Covered the brisket loosely with tin foil

Indirect low heat – about 250 – for four hours flipping it twice. Sliced it thin and served on French rolls with the sauce. Hmmm, mmm, mmm. Salad and baked beans and Bob is your rogue Uncle.

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In the “Brad Lidge’s Uncle is my elementary school best pal, Howie Detmer” category, get this: Our great pal from my New York days was/is Jim “Wally Walter Kachooks” Walters, a fellow Colorado College alum of my great friends Will “G-Willy” Volkmann and Jim “Woody” Woods and Jeff “Hondo” Hlavecek. (And also our good pal, Roger Bottum. Nickname installed)

Granted, Colorado College was called the Harvard of the Rockies, but was it featured in the latest “US News and World Reports” Top 50 universities and colleges, like my beloved UCSB? No, I’m afraid not. But a good school all the same.

But I digress.

Wally’s best pal at C.C. was a guy named Joe Ellis, who was, when I met him, an assistant to Denver Bronco owner, Pat Bowlen . Let me explain. In ‘86 I moved from New York to San Diego and then the Broncos were in the ’88 Super Bowl in San Diego. Wally and Hondo came out from New York and crashed at my apartment and they got me a ticket to the game. Probably from Joe Ellis. The night before the game was when we met the famous Joe Ellis at a huge NFL party. Wally – one of the truly funniest people you can ever hope to meet - had often described Joe as the funniest person alive. Needless to say expectations were high.

Maybe I was trying too hard to be funny or my expectations for Joe’s comedic talents were too high, but Joe didn’t seem all that funny to me. In fact, for whatever reason, Joe and I flat out didn’t hit it off. Or maybe he just didn’t like me. Oh well. It happens. Ask the French.

Today Joe is the Denver Broncos chief operating officer. Not only that, a blurb in the “San Diego Union Tribune’s” sports section says Joe’s mom is President George Herbert Walker Bush’s sister, which makes Joe our president’s first cousin.

As the great Walter Kachooks would have put it so well, quoting his buddy Joe:

“Lambra bambrah slangra slingrajee, yah sassamrah.”

It’s a Joe/Wally thang.

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As I once mentioned in here before, San Diego, bless its heart, just doesn’t look right in the rain. It’s like the proverbial guy wearing a straw hat eating a banana on a train. You don’t know why, it just looks goofy. Like a skateboarder wearing a tutu.

To put it in a more appropriate political context, San Diego in the rain looks like Nixon walking on the beach in his suit and shiny shoes. Or Michael Dukakis’s imitation of Snoopy in that goofy helmet in the front of the tank.