Did you ever watch a game (any game/any sport) and despised both teams so much that you wished for a way they could both lose? For me, it'd be Notre Dame playing the University of Georgia...if anyone asked who I was pulling for I'd say "the meteor." The same with the Phillies and the Dodgers. Saints and the Cowboys. You get the picture. I had similar emotions watching a video of Skip Bayless and Richard Sherman go at it on ESPN's "First Take" on Thursday. "Those that can't, talk about it" vs. those that can generally makes for pretty good exchanges. And, usually, I'm able to differentiate between protagonist and antagonist in the drama that ensues. Not this time - I was praying for spontaneous combustion in both chairs. Bayless may, in fact, get paid just to play the jerk role...if so he does it well. "Judge not..." and all that not withstanding I get the sense he's of the ilk that's quite certain the reason we have sporting events is so that they (the ones who consider themselves artists and paint with keystrokes and microphones) can hone their craft. "Aren't you just the cutest thing Joe Sports Fan...sitting their in your recliner pounding beer and chicken wings and thinking you know what's happening here! No, there's a reason I'M the one with the press pass." Richard Sherman, on the other hand, is everything we try not to like about professional athletes. Ego and a mouth that's been known to write checks his body can't cash. Not quite "money for nothing and chicks for free" but almost. Remember his "golf clap" for Roddy White in the divisional round of the NFC playoffs? AFTER he'd been smoked for 47 yards and 6 points? He's the reason I'm president of the Trent Williams fan club.
In case you missed this clash of egos...
"IF YOU WANT TO STOP SOMETHING, SCREAM, 'TYRANNY!' "
Hey, I've seen Jimmy Stewart pull off a filibuster....and you, Rand Paul, are no Jimmy Stewart. I admire the stamina - physical and mental - required to pull of a filibuster - the only thing that could shut up Paul was his own bladder. But I'm not really buying what he's selling...because,see, I've seen it before. It wasn't that long ago that folks on one side of the aisle were telling me to be wary of someone who's middle initial was "W." They warned me that his "warrantless wiretapping" was going to infringe on all my civil liberties and ALL my inalienable rights! The government would know everything from my favorite curse word to what's on my grocery list!!!!!! Now, the other side of the aisle is working hard to push the same panic button for all us ignorant masses. Drones are going to be doing everything from flying by my window to see what I'm reading and what I'm watching on television (there are certain times of the day that a passing drone looking in my window is going to get a view that will cause it to crash itself into the nearest mountain so as to remove the image from memory banks.) Dear GOD, make it all stop! Those that take the floors of our statehouses, chambers and rotundas and use such delusional paranoia to do nothing but push POLITICS (you CAN'T call it "governing," for God's sake) are no better than the mental giants who jump on the pages of our social networking sites, sounding the daily alarm! My Facebook page stays filled with these modern-day Paul Reveres. They quote everyone from Nostradamus to Thomas Paine to tell me that our current president is in secret talks with the Canadians to buy up all of our libraries and churches and turn them all into hockey rinks! "Please share if you don't want the world to end!!"
click here - David Weigel, Slate magazine says it better than I'm able to...
"...tell me where is sanity..."
If someone from another planet asked me "what is rock & roll?" I'd tell them to listen to Alvin Lee and Ten Years After peel off "Going Back To Birmingham." Alvin unexpectedly died Wednesday after some "routine" surgery. Few things make you feel the passing of years as quickly as losing people and their craft (be it singing, acting, writing etc...) who became a part of you, especially in your formative years. I stuck my foot squarely in my mouth when I came home one day many years ago and found my mother sitting on the couch crying. I thought something horrific had befallen our family. She looked at me and said "Bing Crosby died." I said "SO?? You didn't even KNOW Bing Crosby?? Why are you crying?" She gritted her teeth and said "it's not just that some singer died...something I've loved for a lot of years isn't around anymore. One day you'll understand." Damn, if she wasn't right.
"So I'm sitting on Jekyll Island,
when I hear that Jerry Garcia died.
I take my cold beer and my coozie,
I look up and I toast the sky.
Seems everytime I turn around,
something that always was is gone...
without a sound."
I wrote that song in 1995, coincdentally 4 days after my first date with the woman that now shares my name (August 9, 1995.) After our first meeting I went to the beach with my friends and she went to the mountains with her friends. And, after only one date, I remember sitting on that beach and talking to The Almighty "God, please let this be her....I'm tired of wandering around. Then when I heard that Garcia had died - "see? I'm not getting any younger!"
Take a listen...if you can't get into this forget it, 'cause you can't get into nothing at all....
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