Spanning the Gulf betwixt skid marks, skid marks

When I was 7, I thought this commercial had it goin' on.

After 42 years, my opinion hasn't changed. No Nox against it at all.

Thank you! Thank you very much -- I'm here all week.

3 Chords & the Truth: Wintry mix

Don't let the name of this week's episode fool you.

That, for the most part, was no wintry mix out there. For the most part all evening, it's been a flat-out snowstorm in Omaha, by God, Nebraska. And suddenly the forecast for a "wintry mix" became one for "3- to 6 inches."

You know what kind of weather that is, don't you?

It's stay inside, grab a cup of something hot, grab something warm to curl up in . . . and put on 3 Chords & the Truth. Because while it's snowing like the dickens outside, the Big Show -- safely inside -- is offering up a "wintry mix" today.

And one set in particular is downright toasty. Really toasty. If you know what I mean.

WELL, that's about all I have to say about this week's edition of Everybody's Favorite Podcast.

Cold outside.

Warm inside.

Wintry mix.

Good music.

Some of it . . . very unwinterlike.

If you know what I mean.

DID I mention it snowed today? Did I mention the music's fine, so come on in?

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Your Daily '80s: Andy & Dave, 1980

Here's a little agit for the never-believer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Here's a little ghost for the offering. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Here's a truck stop instead of St. Peter's. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Mr. Andy Kaufman's gone wrestling (wrestling bears).
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Hey Andy, did you hear about this one? Tell me, are you locked in the punch?
Hey Andy, are you goofing on Elvis? Hey baby, are we losing touch?
If you believed they put a man on the moon, man on the moon
If you believe there's nothing up my sleeve, then nothing is cool

-- R.E.M., 1992

The importance of being Bobby

The only thing that surpasses politicians' rank hypocrisy amid our never-ending Left-Right food fight is politicians' capacity for self-aggrandizement and lack of capacity for introspection.

This is how a ditwad governor of a failed Southern state manages to write a memoir at age 39, throwing in chapters about how to better run America while his own state sinks into a Third Worldish fever swamp and another complaining that President Obama was mean to him and Rahm Emanuel cursed his chief of staff.

(In Emanuel's defense, when dealing with a governor who named himself after Bobby Brady, and whose chief of staff is named Timmy Teepell, tamping down one's junior-high PTSD might be too much to ask of a man.)

AND, OF COURSE, Politico is on the story:

On Obama’s first trip to Louisiana after the disaster, the governor describes how the president took him aside on the tarmac after arriving to complain about a letter that Jindal had sent to the administration requesting authorization for food stamps for those who had lost their jobs because of the spill.

As Jindal describes it, the letter was entirely routine, yet Obama was angry and concerned about looking bad.

"Careful," he quotes the president as warning him, "this is going to get bad for everyone."

Nearby on the tarmac, Jindal recalls, then-White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel was chewing out his own chief of staff, Timmy Teepell.

“If you have a problem pick up the f——n’ phone,” Jindal quotes Emanuel telling Teepell.

The governor asserts that the White House had tipped off reporters to watch the exchange on the New Orleans tarmac that Sunday in May and deemed it a “press stunt” that symbolized what’s wrong with Washington.

“Political posturing becomes more important than reality,” he writes.

What might explain why Obama and Emanuel were so angry at Jindal is that the governor released his food stamp request the previous day to the media and indicated that he wanted a response by the close of business Monday.

AND PEOPLE wonder why reporters drink.

Probably because vast quantities of hard liquor is the only thing that will stop the voices of politicians in your head. Especially if the politician is the anthropomorphized cognitive dissonance that is Bobby Jindal.

Your Daily '80s: Uncle Walter sells the '60s

And that's the way it was, advertising '60s nostalgia in 1984. He was Walter Cronkite. Good night.

America 2010: A tragedy in four acts

Sorry, Glenn. In this case, "puppetmaster" George Soros was right.

"A 1957 movie -- made by a communist, appropriately" -- Soros' alleged "gift" for Glenn Beck. That is, according to Beck. You see, Soros thinks the Fox News Channel's resident paranoiac is the real-life "Lonesome" Rhodes from A Face in the Crowd, Elia Kazan's 1957 "communist" classic.

According to Beck.

Well, heck. It must be true, the John Birch Society's magazine is picking up Beck's "exposé" of Soros and running with it.


OK, DOES Andy Griffith's character remind you of anyone here? Anyone at all?

Substitute Goldline for Vitajex, Lonesome's sponsor in the film. Anything come to mind now?


THANK GOD that the ultimate faith of "Lonesome" Beck's followers rests in the United States Constitution -- not a TV host. At least if Beck starts to steer them astray, the foundational document of our democratic republic -- and Tea Party America's exhaustive knowledge of it -- will be there to steer them (and us) away from the brink of something really nasty.


OH, S***.

I'll give you my $516.32 worth

I am a late Boomer. Either that means I was born in the year of our Lord 1961, or that I had red beans and rice for supper.

Take your pick.

But as a member of a now-aging generation, one facing the creeping shadows of mortality -- and occasionally the discomfort of gastric distress -- I am increasingly compelled to explain myself, my generation, to those who follow. I suppose this is part of the human need to leave a legacy, to live on in defiance of one's biological expiration date . . . ultimately, to not be forgotten.

To be understood is to, in some way, be less alienated from the rest of humanity. To offer a glimpse into one's thoughts, into one's soul, into one's influences and eccentricities is to seek common ground with generations who find us as mysterious as we find them.

And, yes, The Gong Show winners above were that Oingo Boingo. Oingo Boingo may be another thing that needs explaining, but not right now.


CHILDREN, look. This is who we were. Deep inside, somewhere, this is who we are.

This is who we were before we began to take ourselves so damned seriously. The sum of what you see here is the totality -- or at least a reasonable facsimile -- of today's molders of the world you know.


HERE WE ARE. Understand us. Come to know us a little better.

And please do not gong us after 20 seconds have elapsed.

If you want to know why the world is the way it is, look at the . . . on second thought, avert your eyes. Ignorance is bliss.


WE, THE BOOMERS are not just a generation that now worries about heart health and contemplates bladder-control products.

We once were young. We once were 10 feet tall and bulletproof. We once rocked out. We once laughed.

And we once loved weird s***. Just like you.


TAKE IN what is before you now. Understand that this represents my generation's hopes, fears and insights into the human condition.


UNDERSTAND, too, that we once smoked dope. A lot, a lot of dope.

Which may or may not explain the tea party.

Good night, good luck . . . and I think I'll let Gene Gene the Dancing Machine take us to commercial.

One for Depends, no doubt.

Your Daily '80s: Before Late Night, mid-morning

Before there was The Late Show with David Letterman, there was Late Night With David Letterman, and before there was Late Night With David Letterman, there was The David Letterman Show. Which wasn't on late at all.

It didn't run long, just from June to October of 1980, but you can see what was to come in a couple of years. Not to mention what Jay Leno would be stealing in another decade or so.

So, welcome back to Sept. 30, 1980. Today's featured guest, Steve Martin.

Death in the ruins

This is Detroit.

Charlie LeDuff is on the story for Mother Jones magazine. One place this story of Detroit took him was the morgue.

It's a busy place. It's a crowded one, too.

Life is extraordinarily cheap in America today. Funerals, however, are not:

Dr. Carl Schmidt is the chief medical examiner there. There are at least 50 corpses on hold in his morgue cooler, some unidentified, others whose next of kin are too poor to bury them. So Dr. Schmidt keeps them on layaway, zipped up in body bags as family members wait for a ship to come in that never seems to arrive.

The day I visited, a Hollywood starlet was tailing the doctor, studying for her role as the medical examiner in ABC's new Detroit-based murder drama Detroit 1-8-7. The title is derived from the California penal code for murder: 187. In Michigan, the designation for homicide is actually 750.316, but that's just a mouthful of detail.

"You might say that the homicide of Aiyana is the natural conclusion to the disease from which she suffered," Schmidt told me.

"What disease was that?" I asked.

"The psychopathology of growing up in Detroit," he said. "Some people are doomed from birth because their environment is so toxic."

"BUT IT'S DETROIT!" you may be tempted to scoff. Detroit, though, wasn't always an epithet. Something had to make Detroit into Detroit.

It might be a stretch to see anything more than Detroit's problems in Detroit's problems. Still, as the American middle class collapses, it's worth perhaps remembering that the East Side of Detroit—the place where Aiyana, Je'Rean, and Officer Huff all died—was once its industrial cradle.

Henry Ford built his first automobile assembly-line plant in Highland Park in 1908 on the east side of Woodward Avenue, the thoroughfare that divides the east of Detroit from the west. Over the next 50 years, Detroit's East Side would become the world's machine shop, its factory floor. The city grew to 1.3 million people from 300,000 after Ford opened his Model T factory. Other auto plants sprang up on the East Side: Packard, Studebaker, Chrysler's Dodge Main. Soon, the Motor City's population surpassed that of Boston and Baltimore, old East Coast port cities founded on maritime shipping when the world moved by boat.

European intellectuals wondered at the whirl of building and spending in the new America. At the center of this economic dynamo was Detroit. "It is the home of mass-production, of very high wages and colossal profits, of lavish spending and reckless installment-buying, of intense work and a large and shifting labour-surplus," British historian and MP Ramsay Muir wrote in 1927. "It regards itself as the temple of a new gospel of progress, to which I shall venture to give the name of 'Detroitism'."

"It is the home of mass-production, of very high wages and colossal profits, of lavish spending and reckless instalment-buying, of intense work and a large and shifting labour-surplus," British historian and MP Ramsay Muir wrote in 1927. "It regards itself as the temple of a new gospel of progress, to which I shall venture to give the name of 'Detroitism'."

Skyscrapers sprang up virtually overnight. The city filled with people from all over the world: Arabs, Appalachians, Poles, African Americans, all in their separate neighborhoods surrounding the factories. Forbidden by restrictive real estate covenants and racist custom, the blacks were mostly restricted to Paradise Valley, which ran the length of Woodward Avenue. As the black population grew, so did black frustration over poor housing and rock-fisted police.

Soon, the air was the color of a filthy dishrag. The water in the Detroit River was so bad, it was said you could bottle it and sell it as poison. The beavers disappeared from the river around 1930.

But pollution didn't kill Detroit. What did?

No one can answer that fully. You can blame it on the John Deere mechanical cotton-picker of 1950, which uprooted the sharecropper and sent him north looking for a living—where he found he was locked out of the factories by the unions. You might blame it on the urban renewal and interstate highway projects that rammed a freeway down the middle of Paradise Valley, displacing thousands of blacks and packing the Negro tenements tighter still. (Thomas Sugrue, in his seminal book The Origins of the Urban Crisis, writes that residents in Detroit's predominantly black lower East Side reported 206 rat bites in 1951 and 1952.)

You might blame postwar industrial policies that sent the factories to the suburbs, the rural South, and the western deserts. You might blame the 1967 race riot and the white flight that followed. You might blame Coleman Young—the city's first black mayor—and his culture of cronyism. You could blame it on the gas shocks of the '70s that opened the door to foreign car competition. You might point to the trade agreements of the Clinton years, which allowed American manufacturers to leave the country by the back door. You might blame the UAW, which demanded things like full pay for idle workers, or myopic Big Three management who, instead of saying no, simply tacked the cost onto the price of a car.

Then there is the thought that Detroit is simply a boom town that went bust the minute Henry Ford began to build it. The car made Detroit, and the car unmade Detroit. The auto industry allowed for sprawl. It also allowed a man to escape the smoldering city.

AND THOSE THINGS that made Detroit into a slur -- into a basket case . . . into a place where some humans have gone feral and nature has started to reclaim its turf from the ruins -- also are turning parts of where you live into little Detroits.

Somewhere near you, hope is dead and humanity itself ain't feeling so good.

Somewhere, some fool on cable television, or on talk radio, is telling you the biggest problem the country has right now is big government and high taxes. That what ails Detroit -- and what ails all the little Detroits just down the road, in all the neighborhoods you dare not enter after dark . . . or ever -- will be fixed by private charity and good morals.

Some say condoms are the answer. Others, Jesus.

A half-century into the collapse, however, neither the Trojan man nor the Savior of the World has made much of a dent. Not only that, charitable contributions these days are as down as the leading economic indicators.

Public policy in these anxious times seems to consist of hoping for a miracle in a world that doesn't believe in prayer. And while it's true that Jesus has no hands and no feet apart from our own, it also is true that Jesus' hands have taken to wringing and His feet have taken a hike.

In an emerging banana republic run by the rich men of Wall Street, it really sucks to be Lazarus. Detroit knows this today.

You will discover it tomorrow.

Your Daily '80s: Still wanna go to London

Speaking of "I wanna go to London," it's Lene Lovich on the BBC's Top of the Pops in 1981.

Apparently, she has a new toy.

Oceania is at war with Eurasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia.

Two words on Keith Olbermann: Arrogant. Insufferable. Ass.

OK, three words on Keith Olbermann. . . .

Obviously, the man has no concept of humility. He is as entitled as his -- my -- entire generation, and journalistic ethics (not to mention NBC News rules) are dumb and irrelevant "to 21st-century journalism" because, primarily, Olbermann didn't feel like abiding by them.

Because American citizenship is all rights and no obligations. Obviously.

AMERICA IS two warring camps now, left and right, and all that matters to either is destruction of the Other. Three hundred thousand viewers petitioned MSNBC to bring Olbermann back merely because he is of their tribe (principle, justice and journalism be damned) and, more importantly, because he hates the Other Tribe.

That's all that matters today. Hating the right people. Well, hating the right people . . . and loving money. Money, gobs of which can be earned by giving the people exactly what they want to hear. Just look at Fox News, for God's sake.

So MSNBC caved in a couple of days, and Keith Olbermann gets to come back on the air unapologetically "apologetic," kicking his bosses in the nuts the whole time.

And the lonesome, painful . . . soprano . . . moaning you hear off in the distance is that of MSNBC's president, Phil Griffin, lamenting his lost manhood.

That settles it

It's scientifically official: Tom Dempsey da man!

As it turns out, the New Orleans Saints' place kicker made his 63-yard field goal the hard way in 1970.

Conan: Very Funny

OK, Conan's back. And this opening had me about to fall off the couch laughing.

Just sayin'.

Your Daily '80s: Wanna go to London

Skinny ties are back in, I hear.

Good. I have some.

That's reason enough, on this edition of Your Daily '80s, to revisit local music in 1982. That local music would be the U.S. Times, a New Wave band that was in the forefront of hip in Baton Rouge, by God, Louisiana.

Well, at least as far as we LSU students were concerned at the time.

But if you want to know the truth, I think the Times -- as the band was known before it adopted the "U.S." as part of its name -- remains pretty hip today, even though now they're just a footnote in the history of a middling town's "college bands."

THE TITLE TRACK from the band's "Wanna Go to London" album pretty much sums up a time and a place . . . and the music we loved. We just as soon would have loaded up a trunk and flown to London town -- skinny ties, rock 'n' roll stars.

Heck, in 1982, I actually sent my resumé and clips to an English newspaper. Unfortunately for me, the economy was crappy all over, and the editor politely informed me he didn't have jobs for British reporters, much less ones from -- What was the name of that place in the colonies again?

STILL, dreaming was as cheap as air-mail postage.

I wan, I wan, I wan, I wanna go to London,

Go to London, England. . . .

(NOTE: Contains a single F-bomb, not overly noticeable.)

Barking up the Ducks' tree

Washington's athletic director didn't mince words -- or make an attempt at being a gracious guest -- during the Huskies' visit to Oregon last weekend.

Instead, he went on and on to the Huskies' radio crew about how the university in Eugene had become an embarrassment because of state budget cuts, and about how UW was superior in every way. (Except, of course, on the gridiron.)

NORMALLY, I wouldn't give a duck's tail (or a Husky's hind quarter) about Pac-10 pissing matches. I don't have a dog in that fight. Then again, neither did Washington, as it turned out.)

One thing occurred to me, however. This, as reported on Sports by Brooks, is exactly what somebody's going to be saying about my alma mater, LSU, if and when Gov. Bobby Jindal gets his budgetary way and finishes his ongoing work of destroying the state's flagship university:

Mahler to Woodward: “What do you make of this place? When you come down here, you see the new baseball field, you see the brand new turf, you see the atmosphere. And don’t know if motivation is the word but obviously this is kind of where Washington wants to be, ranked #1 in the country and have all eyes on them.”

Woodward: “Sure, it’s not really where we want to be Softy (Mahler’s nickname), because it’s an embarrassment what their academic institution is, and what’s happened to them as far as their state funding has gone. In my mind it’s a wonderful athletic facility but they’ve watched it at the expense of the university go really down.

“The athletic facility is impressive. The fans at Oregon should get down on their hands and knees at night to Phil Knight and pray to him because this is an incredible facility he’s built.“

Mahler: “Talk more about what you were just mentioning, about academics, is that backed up by some stats that just came out? Or numbers? Tell me about that.”

Woodward: “Sure, any of the rankings you look at, you watch how far they’ve (Oregon) dropped because of their state funding. And it’s a message for us too. Our state needs to get its act together because we can’t continue to progress without investment in our institution. But we’re doing extremely well and we’re very proud of that fact.

“We’re a part of the whole University of Washington. That’s who we are.”

OK, TIGERS. You have been warned. You will be embarrassed . . . that is, if anyone in Louisiana still is capable of such.

Happy Dempsey Day!

Forty years ago today, Nov. 8, 1970, a guy with half a foot kicked himself into the record books . . . and into the hearts of New Orleans Saints fans forever and ever, amen.

The scene: Tulane Stadium.

The foe: the Detroit Lions.

The score: Detroit 17, New Orleans 16.

Until. . . .

Peter Finney of the New Orleans Times-Picayune picks up the story:

"Tell Stumpy to get ready to go in and kick a long one,'' said Heinrich that sunny Sunday in Tulane Stadium.

A 22-year-old kid, born with half a right foot and four fingers missing on his right hand, had no idea "long" meant 63 yards.

With 11 seconds remaining, Errol Mann of the Detroit Lions had just booted an 18-yard field goal to put his team ahead, 17-16.

Now, with two seconds left, the Saints had the ball at their 45-yard-line, following a kickoff return by Al Dodd and Dodd's catch of a Billy Kilmer pass as he went out of bounds.

In those days, the goalposts were on the goal line, not at the rear of the end zone.

As Dempsey looked downfield into the north end zone, the uprights reminded him of "a tiny target'' for someone who had booted three field goals that day, the longest from 29 yards.

"I was more concerned about kicking it straight because I felt I could handle the distance, whatever it was,'' Dempsey said. "I knew I was going to get a perfect snap from Jackie Burkett and a perfect hold from Joe Scarpati. It was all up to me. I had to hit it sweet.''

Dempsey had complete confidence in Scarpati. "Joe told me he was going to put it down eight yards behind the snap, a yard longer than normal. He asked the linemen to hold their blocks a little longer.''

As Scarpati awaited the snap at the Saints' 37, with the crossbar sitting 63 yards away, Kilmer, standing on the sidelines, remembered some members of the Detroit special team laughing. "They thought Tom had no chance,'' he said.

Dempsey would remember something else: a photograph he was given days later.

"It's my favorite,'' he said. "It doesn't show me. It shows what Wild Bill Cody did defending the rush. Bill used his body to take care of the inside rusher and he used his foot to take care of the guy on the outside, who was the great Alex Karras. Wild Bill kicked Karras in the groin.''

And there went Tom Dempsey's historic kick, sailing north, actually sailing a shade more than 63 yards (the ball unofficially cleared the crossbar by a foot).

And there went Dempsey, carried off the field on the shoulders of teammates.

HAPPY DEMPSEY DAY!

Your Daily '80s: Total sports

Back in December 1980, cable systems still had to be sold on ESPN. Go figure.

Your Daily '80s: Lotsa space in this mall

Blues Brothers Tour the Maill | Sports | SPIKE.com

The Blues Brothers.

1980.

"They're not gonna catch us. We're on a mission from God."

Meanwhile, 30 years later. . . .

Wonderful WOKE Radio

When you look at radio today, it is impossible not to dwell on what's been lost in recent decades -- provided you're old enough to remember what we once had.
One thing we had was humanity . . . humanity that, more often than not, rang out through the speaker of your radio along with the music, news, weather and jingles. Humanity flowed from a relationship between broadcaster and listener.

That relationship flowed from personal involvement.

Personal involvement flowed from a deep sense of caring.

And that deep sense of caring flowed from love. I get the feeling that Wonderful WOKE Radio in Charleston, S.C., was all about love.

BACK IN 1979, on Top-40 radio stations around the world, Earth, Wind & Fire described where we find ourselves now this way:

Something happened along the way
What used to be happy was sad
Something happened along the way
And yesterday was all we had

And, oh, after the love has gone
How could you lead me on
And not let me stay around?
Oh, oh, oh, after the love has gone
What used to be right is wrong
Can love that's lost be found?

INDEED. In a bottom-line world of corporate rule and "cost saving" -- a world where young people no longer know radio and, frankly, don't care -- "can love that's been lost be found?"

WOKE's Harry Weaver is long dead now. So are legions like him. And our questions for the future hang just as heavily as our longing for all the love we've lost.

Hannity's mom can deal with Hannity

This is all fine and dandy, Rachel Maddow. We get it.

Fox News Channel and its video politicos using an alleged cable-news outfit for unending political propaganda is bad. Worse than Keith Olbermann even.

Fine.

Now, if you're in high school and get called into the vice-principal's office -- or, hell, get called into your boss' office at work -- on a disciplinary matter, what is the instantaneous response when you earnestly point out how much worse (and unpunished) everybody else is than you?

C'MON, this is a no-brainer. I'm sure your mom came back at you with this one a bazillion times.

The instant, and universal, response to your protestations is "This is not about them. This is about what you did. I will deal with them when the time comes."

And then you get suspended. Or fired. Or grounded.

Because Mom always liked him better.

Listen, Rach. We all know what Fox is. Fox is not MSNBC's kid.

We all know that Fox is a spoiled juvenile delinquent and, chances are, he's going to come to no damned good. He'll probably wind up in jail. You're not being raised that way.

I DON'T WANT to hear anymore of your whining. Now go to your room.

And I don't want to hear that stereo of yours blasting, either, young lady! Don't you give me that look!