When Aaron Ivey comments on your blog

…and an unregistered user comments after him, it puts this crazy looking hat on him.  I can’t decide if it’s a party hat or that Pope hat.  Either way, Ivey had to plan this.  Well done, AI of www.aaronivey.com! 

Saturday morning college football thoughts

A mid-season look at a few questions

• How come at 2-6 against Oklahoma, all the media could say after last Saturday’s game was that Stoops finally stopped this losing streak against Texas and not… Texas back to taking yearly beatings from Oklahoma? 
• Is the Big 10 really that bad?
• How did USC get beaten by a one loss Standford at home and stay in the top 10?
• How bad does Brian Brohm’s decision to go back to college after his great Jr season look now?
• Why does the media always demand a little sister to prop up? Enjoy your turn, USF
• Is it going to take a pitchfork and flaming torch mob at the offices of the NCAA to finally get a playoff to determine a champion?  On second thought, nobody would watch that.  Just look at it.  The first game (as it stands this morning).  Nobody wants to see a re-match of that slugfest from Baton Rouge.  Let’s stick with the BCS.  That always works out great!  [negative]

Money Changes Everything -Cindy Lauper, 1984

Forgive my little stream of consciousness blow up but I’m wrestling with a question.  Why do I even want to see the above train wreck?  This is NOT the same band that made me stop and stand in front of the radio in Kevin McCormick’s garage and with an open mouthed stare as Eddie Van Halen tore up “Eruption”.  I was only 6 years old but I knew this was not ABBA.  I also knew that everything else coming out of my brother’s Plymouth Duster’s speakers (Schon, Frehley, Richrath, Page, Buckingham, etc.) didn’t sound like this either.  No.  This was different.  This was dirty and mean and loud and maybe what those dudes in the Eagles wanted to sound like but just didn’t for some reason.  THIS was rock and roll.  This is why Drop Dead Legs and Girl Gone Bad played through the class cassette player when Mrs. Gibson left the room was worth me spending the rest of the day in the Principal’s office of Eastern Avenue Christian Academy.         

So, why is it different?  I don’t know.  Somewhere in my Dad’s tool shed back in Oklahoma, I’ve still got the copy of Guitar World magazine from 1991 where Eddie Van Halen spends half of the interview explaining why Roth quit.  Roth says he was fired.  Blah, blah, blah… Nobody cares.

I was excited when Roth was “back” in ’96.  Same when Roth was “back” in ’02.  They hate each other again.  No, they don’t.  Wait… yes they… What were we talking about?  Ed claims that they recorded some new music with DLR but are fighting again and that Van Halen is going to tour with Sammy Hagar for the summer.  Roth is on the Howard Stern Show talking about the brothers Halen like they were the devil.  He’ll never talk to them again.  Ed’s on MTV claiming that Roth “better wear a cup” if he ever talks to him like that again.  Cup?  I don’t know either.  Some catfight, I guess.  Oddly enough, Van Halen managed to record my favorite album ever (5150) with Sammy Hagar after the first break up in 1986.     

So, what does it all mean, Gladys?  I just don’t think I like it.  In the last ten years, Van Halen made a crappy album with Ex-Extreme front man, Gary Cherone.  Those who claimed that David Lee Roth can’t even get arrested these days were proved wrong with a pot bust in Central Park.  And the Van Halen camp was silent.  A year ago Eddie Van Halen made a brief appearance at some award show looking like the crazy woman down the street with the dozens of cats and baseballs and frisbees in her overgrown yard because the kids were scared to go get them.  Roth looked well, Roth looked like Doc from Back to the Future.  They were tired.  Ed checks into rehab, Roth was fired from his boring radio show, and Ed’s son “replaced” founding member, Michael Anthony on bass.  Now they’re friends?!  Now, they’re old buddies that just had a misunderstanding?  The rock and roll equivalent of rap feud shooting after a Mike Tyson fight in Vegas.  Makes me wonder just how much cash a promoter waved in front of them.  It doesn’t matter.  It’s all hard to buy the “it’s just show business” line after 20 years of animosity.  Hard to swallow the Ed and Dave all smiles and hugging after every song thing too. 

I saw about 30 min of footage of their last rehearsal at the Staples Center and some from the first show in North Carolina.  They do look good these days.    It looked like most of the guys from Van Halen doing a decent impression of a 1984′ish Van Halen.  Should a 50 year old man still be “Hot For Teacher”?  I know 2 decades have passed and musical styles have changed, people grow, and things just come out differently.  I saw Metallica in high school then saw them again 5 years later.  Different.  But Van Halen built the Van Halen franchise on being Van Halen.  Maybe it’s 20 years of rust.  Maybe they will come off of the tour and record a great album.  Maybe that “Brown Sound” will live again in the new century.  But then again, maybe Ed will fall off the wagon (again), Dave will be so coked up he can’t find his keys, and the kid on bass will be playing his XBox with his buddy from down the street.  Who knows?  Maybe they’ll come to Nashville on this tour.  Maybe I’ll beg Mrs. FullBug for the night off to go.     

        

Lost in Love and I don’t know much

To the two dudes in the parking lot at work this morning.  You know who you are.  You smirk when I say something funny in the break room .  You both seem pretty cool.  The tall one has a really pretty girlfriend that brings you lunch sometimes.  I don’t know your names.  Anyway… That was Air Supply playing loudly from my SUV this morning at abut 6:50am.  However, it was Led Zeppelin until my giant finger hit the wrong button on the XM receiver when I was trying to turn the thing off to go into the office.  As for your puzzled look (puzzled look = I knew that Scott dude was probably a fag), I can explain this.  I panicked.  I should have just turned the radio off and gave you the “dude nod”. Instead, I chose to act like the Skipper from Gilligan’s Island and wildly slap at the receiver with my hat and yell “Gilligan!”.  Or something like that.  I know there will be no more smirks at my comments in the break room.  Let’s just agree not to make any eye contact until all this ugliness is past us.   

We’re number 1! We’re number 1!

After years of always being behind everyone, The Dub Vee finally is tops in something!  Congratulations, West Virginia!  First in the nation in percentage of smokers is something!  So long, Mississippi and Kentucky!   

Bruce Adkins, director of the state Division of Tobacco Prevention, said the study shows the state’s ranked first in young smokers ages 18 to 35 and second for adults.

It’s nice seeing the kids take the lead.  Oh, and to answer “Marc’s” question from an e-mail… I’ll quit poking fun when states like WV stop paying people like Bruce Adkins, “Director of the state div of Tobacco Prevention” while paying Department of Ag Commissioner, Gus R. Douglass to pimp all of West Virginia’s delicious tobacco that they grow.  Story below.   

http://wowktv.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=29753

UP Post office embarrassed about premature apology

Shocking news out of Louisiana.  (Story here)  Not that people were shot (that’s a hobby down there) but that a postal worker was involved in a mass shooting holding nothing but mail!  I’m sure the USPS was feverishly working on the standard “This was a random event that does not necessarily reflect on the postal service.  Shootings happen all the time and it is important to note that over half of all multiple victim shoot ’em ups do not involve the post office or postal employees.” note when they learned the news.  Breathe easy this time, boys.  You can go back to your DMV styled customer service and your break room gossip about how FedEx sucks.

From the article** …Roy identified one of the dead as Joey Giordano, son of attorney Camille Giordano, who was shot but not killed. The other person killed was Marty Fields, a postal worker who was delivering mail to the law firm when he walked in on the shootings.

Suck it, Burger King

Last night, (after getting home from dinner with some friends) I’m outside under the dashboard of my poorly lit SUV around 9:00.  Stupid satellite radio cord is tangled and there’s not enough wire to nevermind… it was real mechanical stuff.  You wouldn’t understand.  Anyway… there’s some dude walking down the street and there’s no light.  I want to go inside but I can’t get the $^%ing thing unstuck!  Just then, I hear “call me!“.  So, I do what most men would do.  I jump, hit my head on the handle thing on the passenger side of the truck, and spin around looking for the creepy dude.  He’s gone (probably back in his house looking through the window at the guy cussing a radio and smashing his head).  It was right around then that I found this guy (below).  Burger King gave bribed kids with these a few weeks back during the Simpson’s Movie hub bub.  Seems “Barney” says “call me” when the button is pressed with the handle of a phillips head screw driver.  Or… Hoot’s finger when I brought this in from the truck.  “There he is!  I haven’t seen that yellow boy in a long time.”  “Call me”  “Call me”  “Call me” etc…