Wednesday, March 14, 2018



Eff that ess right in the bee, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers


In a huge defeat for Donald Trump, democrat Conor Lamb was elected to congress in Pennsylvania. Trump is calling Lamb’s win “Fake Ewes.”



Donald Trump appointed Mike Pompeo Sec. of State. Pompeo was the head of the CIA. The CIA’s historic arch enemy was Russia’s KGB. Russian President, Vladimir Putin, was the head of the KGB. What could possibly go wrong with this arrangement?



A family claims United Airlines stuffed their dog in an overhead bin and the dog did not make it. Spirit Airlines would have charged them a Pet Euthanasia fee. 



Fantasy Baseball leagues play 162 games. And I have just figured out how to end sexual harassment. Make all men join a Fantasy Baseball League because no Fantasy Baseball player has ever talked to a woman let alone harassed one.



The World Series champion Houston Astros visited the White House on Monday. And, today, Donald Trump fired the Houston Astros.




Donald Trump is in San Diego touring the border wall prototypes. But I am not sure how good the wall prototypes are. The only thing they’ve kept out of San Diego are the Chargers.



Ed. Sec. Betsy DeVos criticized teachers today on Twitter. It might have been more effective if Betsy had spelled educator without the K.



Ed. Sec. Betsy DeVos criticized teachers today on Twitter. Teachers did not like it. Today after school, Betsy has to write “I will not tweet against teachers” 100 times on the chalk board.



Donald Trump fired his Sec. of State, Rex Tillerson, with a tweet. He had to use a tweet. Trump was busy stretching out so he did not pull a muscle when he runs into a building with an active shooter. 


Since you asked:

In my opinion, the three greatest rock albums of all time, “Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs,” “Exile on Main Street,” and “Led Zeppelin IV,”  have one huge common denominator: they were all recorded in a communal environment in a grand estate.

“Layla” and “Led IV” were both largely created in grand old English estates, Led in a Headley Grange and at Derek and the D’s at Clapton’s Hurtwood Edge. And you can really hear the old stone hallway on “When the Levy Breaks.” And “Layla” is the ultimate stadium song and has the teeth to stand up to a castle too.

“Exile” was recorded in a posh villa formerly occupied by the Nazis in the South of France in a town filled with real pirates and that can be heard on that album too.  

These albums were the result of the producer, the musicians and the engineers eating, drinking, partying, sleeping and jamming together. “The Foo Fighters” did that too on their last album. 

Anyone who has been to a great concert knows how amazing that experience is. Anyone who has listened to a recording of a concert knows how bad that is. Between the crowd noise and bad acoustics, something is lost. And studios are famously boring places to play.

The mobile sound truck used for both “Exile” and “Led iV” was the same one. “Layla” was recorded in Criterion Studios in Miami, but the songs were mostly finished, they just added Duane Allman’s slide guitar.   

The last thing that happens when bands break up - from  the Beatles to the Eagles - is when the egos get too big and they start taking separate limos and doing their recordings on their own in the studio. Part of that is a symptom of wealth, because it is much cheaper to record everyone together. 

When everybody lives together, the album comes together like a huge pan of Paella, all melded together. 

So why doesn’t someone do that with a movie? 

And I don’t mean just an ensemble of actors, that happens all the time. Write the movie together with the writers and the actors. When Larry David films “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” he just writes the scenario. For example, your reserved table at a restaurant was taken by your snotty neighbor. Then he lets his actors wing it.

The best scenes in “Caddy Shack” were Bill Murray improvising with hitting the flowers and his scene with Chevy Chase. (In real life they hated each other, so they were competitive to see who could be funnier)  

Stick about four comedy writers and ten comedian/actors, the film crew in a nice resort area where everyone has their own room, but it has a common dining/bar area and a nice lake or ocean and go. 

I’ll be waiting on your call. Hear the phone ring. Just a friend of mine who says, hey, what’s the matter man? 


It is important to stay positive and have kind words for everyone. But what fun is that? Sometimes you want to sling the dirt. And what better way to sling the dirt than with a feature I like to call:



“Hollywood Hypocrites.”

Everyone knows how the awful people in Hollywood are, Sean Penn, Val Kilmer, Barbra, Bruce Willis.

But the fun ones out unveil are the Hollywood Hypocrites who portray themselves on screen as down-to-earth, but are genuine assholes.

Lisa Kudrow. A friend’s 10-year-old daughter was rudely turned down for a selfie.

John Cusack. Seems like a good Chicago boy, like Vince Vaughn, right? Wrong. He is one of those  who tells his assistant, “Tell them not talk to me.”

Jeremy Piven. See John Cusack.

Eric Clapton. You can blame this on the fact that he is an ugly drunk and was drunk for almost all of the 70’s, 80’s and ’90’s. 

John Lennon. Yes, he died being nice and giving an autograph to the guy who shot him, but many say this was ironically one of the only times he was nice to a fan. To date he is the only drunk kicked out of the bar at The Troubador in LA and Jim Morrison used to urinate on the floor.

Robert Redford. We all want to believe he is as nice as real good guy, Paul Newman, but Double R, as he called himself, is a rude, arrogant jerk. And rumor has it he had a horrific cocaine addiction. 

Bob Seagren. This is for the few people who loved track in the ’60’s and the subsequent “Superstars,” like me. Talked to him after a 10K run in San Diego and he could not have been more of a prick.

Michael Irvin. He should be in prison for sexual assault. And, even more unforgivable, he was rude to me at the Super Bowl in ’03. 

Shaun White. Talked to him and Park City and he could not be more pompous and full himself even though there is not much to himself. I.e. he is really short. And a jerk. A short jerk.