At this juncture, at the end of the day, the context of our mind-set's narrative is to literally empower both people and human beings to circle back and embolden their proactivity, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers   

Somebody deep inside the bowels of the $15 billion-a-year revenue NFL:

"We need to give Drew Brees something when he breaks the passing yardage record. How about a 7 X 10 certificate from Kinkos?"

"Should we get it laminated for two bucks extra?"

"Sure. Why not?"



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Nikki Haley resigned as ambassador to the U.N. Awkward moment when Donald Trump wished Nikki luck in her feud with Cardi B.


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Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in today. 


Thought it was classless, however, how Kavanaugh honked the boob on the Blind Lady Justice statue.




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In Italy, Maurizio Zanfanti, who claimed to have had sex with over 6,000 women, died at having sex with a woman in her car. He died at 63, but I heard it was 69.  

Let this be a lesson: no man over the age of 50 has any business trying to have sex in a Prius.

The date of his memorial service will be announced as soon as the undertaker can close the lid of his casket. 



**** After defeating Conor McGregor, Khabib met with Vladimir Putin in Russia where Putin gave Khabib the good news in person: Putin will not poison Khabib for jumping out of the ring after the fight.

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Hurricane Michael is scary. Not only will it do wind and water damage, but it will viciously insult your choice of hors d'oeuvres at your Tony Awards party.



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Yesterday was the second anniversary of the “Access Hollywood” Billy Bush tape. And yesterday, Donald Trump grabbed a pussy and put him on the Supreme Court. 



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When informed Taylor Swift was endorsing a democratic candidate, Donald Trump said he now likes Taylor's music 25% less. Trump then added, 


"But if Taylor doesn't stop endorsing democrats, I won't like the other half of her music either."




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Former Major League All-Star pitcher, Brad Lidge, is an archeologist. Which is amazing when you consider most baseball players think an archeologist is someone who reads "Archie" comic books.




Since you asked:

Gem Stones

Fine. If you insist, I will give you my latest insights to the Rolling Stones.

The first era was the Brian Jones Era, which, for me sounded too much like how Brian Jones looked. Blonde bangs, cigarette holder, hippy striped suits, wide brim hats. While I like “Under My Thumb,”  “Satisfaction” and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” in general it was too English countryside hippy goofy like “Ruby Tuesday,” “Paint it Black,” "Lady Jane" and "She's a Rainbow," “19th Nervous Breakdown.” Too weird, too much organ and sitar. 

Too snotty.  Too pretentious. 

No, you get your ass off of my cloud, you funky weirdo. (Jones passed in 1969, but he was stoned out of his gourd, and had no impact to the Stones, since 1968) 

No disrespect to their great founder, Brian Jones, RIP, but once he passed in '69 and guitar virtuoso Mick Taylor came in, bam, “Honkey Tonk Woman,” “Bitch,” “Can’t You Hear Me Knockin?” “Sway,” “Wild Horses,” “Shine a Light,” “Brown Sugar,” “Tumblin’ Dice,” “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” “Midnight Rambler” and the most underrated Stones song ever and possibly the greatest road trip song, “All Down the Line.”

The glory days of the Rolling Stones. 

The fancy hippy dude English gentleman of Brian Jones was replaced by the bandana, leopard vest, leather pants, snakeskin boots of Keith Richards. Taylor’s musical sophistication allowed the glory of Richard’s raw roughness to come out. Just think the beginning of “Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’” - which is my walkup/At-Bat song - which starts all raspy, all Richards and then the liquid solo of Mick Taylor at the end.

No offense to Ron Wood, but when Taylor left and Wood replaced him, Woodman entered a sort of more pop-sounding era. Not bad, just like “Start Me Up,”  but not as edgy as “Bitch.” 

Let’s put it this way. Under Mick Taylor, there would have been no too-near-disco stench of some of the songs on “Some Girls.” 

The fun parlor game we play at our dinner parties is categorizing bands as either “Legends, Great, Everyone Else.” But as far as rock band legends go, there are only three: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. Everyone else is an offshoot. (Sorry “The Who”) 

And, let’s face it, while they are without question the best, the Beatles never really rocked. 

The greatest rock and roll band without question is the Rolling Stones. Yes, it is true, Led Zeppelin were better musicians and a better vocalist, but so were Little Feat for that matter. There are a lot of talented 70’s rock guitarists who ended up living in a van in Van Nuys giving guitar lessons to rich brats in Encino.

(Aforementioned Little Feat and other Laurel Canyon legends like Flying Burrito Brothers, Toto, Buffalo Springfield, Mystic Nights of the Oingo Boingo, Crazy Horse, Poco, Stone Ponies, Love, The Byrds) 

And thus ends my fantasy of the ultimate “Who’s On First?” Tour starting Yes, U2, The Who and the Guess Who.  


Saw a documentary on NFL legend running back, John Riggins, and I was struck by how much luck is required to make it in the NFL. 

We all know the almost cliche stories of top quarterbacks who are fiascos. Ryan Leaf, JaMarcus Russell, Johnny Manziel. And one of the contenders for the GOAT is a guy who was barely drafted, Tom Brady. 

If you land on the wrong team with the wrong coach with the wrong scheme, and if you get an unlucky injury, you are RG3'd out of the league despite having world class talent. 

But John Riggins was a slam dunk. All you have to do with a great running back is give him the ball, right? Broke all of Gale Sayers's records at Kansas. 

6.3, 230 and surprisingly fast. But tougher than a $2.00 steak. Rigging joins the Jets who are still showcasing a fading Joe Namath so they don't use him nearly as much as they should have. 

Finally Rigbone gets traded to the Redskins, but lands with the over-rated, egomaniacal George Allen. The two A-dogs clash and Allen turns Riggins into a blocking back as punishment and to prove his authority.

So at age 31, ancient for 1980, Riggins retires. It takes a great coach in Joe Gibbs to realize what a waste of talent his career had been. Riggins goes on to be the oldest back to set rushing and scoring records. MVP of a Super Bowl. Redskins Ring of Honor, Hall of Fame.

Hell, my Redskin-adoring cousin named two of his labradors after John Riggins: Riggins and Diesel.

But if Gibbs does not come along, Riggins does not have the comeback at age 31 and nobody knows who John Riggins is. 

Look at the tragic career of Rob Lytle. Indoor track star at Michigan. 6.1, 200 pounds, broke all of the rushing records at Michigan. Goes to a crappy Denver Bronco team and, along with some unlucky injuries, has a hugely disappointing NFL career. 

Lytle was shocked to go from Michigan, a school that did everything first class, to the Broncos who did not have a weight room. Just some rusty dumbbells in the back of the locker room. Attendance was embarrassingly low and their stadium was falling apart.   

The Bronco players treated football like it was a job they did not particularly like for a boss they hated. The gung-ho Wolverine, Lytle, was heart-broken by the reality of the NFL.

When I was in high school, the counter-productivley cheap George Halas was the owner of the Chicago Bears. This is a guy so cheap he would not pay for the padding that goes underneath Astroturf. Walter Payton spent his entire career playing on pavement with rough plastic Brillo pads on top of it.

While paying superstars was a necessary evil to survive in the NFL, Halas refused to pay decent money to backups. As a result, I watched Bears practices with guys who were in bad shape, let alone not in good shape. 

Watching them practice at Northwestern for games when they would be playing on Astroturf, which their Lake Forest practice facility did not have, these guys would not have made it on my high school football team.

For the most part they were blue collar workers and bartenders who wanted to be on the Bears so they could get laid. They had big guts, broken knees and thrown-out backs.

TV revenue and the player's union eventually caught up to the Bears, but there were years during the mid-Seventies when, except for the play of a few superstars, the Bears could not have beaten some really bad Northwestern teams.


While I am still in close contact with most of my UCSB Decathlon/Heptathlon pals and many of my Elegant Farmer restaurant pals, I am only in touch with a small handful of my fraternity brothers. Sadly, three have passed. The rest, you know who you are, Sweet Lew, Flauta, Fierce and Flea. Mostly through emails and Facebook.

But I have since come to discover many of my fraternity brothers were filthy rich real estate trust fund babies. They weren't born on third base, they were born six inches from home plate. And yet they were impossibly smug about their home run.

This explains their other-worldly arrogance, all physical and mental evidence to the contrary. And the unexplainable attraction from our little sisters. Most sorority girls.