What's on your mind?

Who needs the Eyewitness Action Live news team?

In this social-media age, disturbed threat-makers and hostage-takers post their own running Facebook updates on their ongoing police standoffs.

Now it's happened three times within a month. Thursday, it was a 23-year-old man updating his Facebook friends on the progress of his heavily armed freak-out, and on Sept. 21, a guy about the same age was explaining how he "cant take it no more im done bro" as he held a businessman hostage in a Pittsburgh office building.

ON SEPT. 8 in Denver, one holed-up Facebook gunman even posted pictures of himself and his alleged partner in crime during the standoff.

Of course, then there was the Utah one in June and some others last year. To put this recent phenomenon in sociological terms . . . WTF, dude?

I'm afraid to check how many folks have live tweeted their tactical staredowns with the men from SWAT.

The latest standoff, the Washington meltdown with an firepower at hand, is reputed to have a shameless hussy at its root. Of course.

And Levi Matthew Tucker (use of the middle name here is gratuitous -- if he had killed someone, it would be mandatory) apparently is a big fan of both guns and the tea party.

For what it's worth.


HAT TIP: Romenesko.

Celebrities today

I reckon you could tune in to the new season of American Idol in January to see more of this kind of thing but, personally, I'm just waiting for the upcoming AI drive-by to come out on DVD.

Thanks, Nicki Minaj, for all your classiness. Ahem.

Is it just me, or has anybody else utterly had it with today's Barbarians Gone Wild popular culture -- particularly what passes for a pop-music scene? All I want -- and, sadly, this is impossible -- is to be a young man in New York in the 1950s.

But I'll bet you could have guessed that.

MAD strikes again

Leave it to MAD to come up with the ultimate spoof of Crapple Maps . . . uh, I mean Apple Craps . . . er, Apple Maps.

At least that's the way I see it sitting in my houseboat here on Park Avenue in Omaha, by God, South Dakota.

Dear a-hole: You've just been owned

Here's one guy in La Crosse, Wis., who's going to think twice about writing a local TV morning-show anchor to tell her how fat she is.

Unfortunately, the jerk probably still won't hesitate to belittle others who don't have a television station at their disposal. Still, Jennifer Livingston of WKBT rocks.

And so does her outraged husband, Channel 8 evening news anchor Mike Thompson.


HAT TIP: Romenesko.

3 Chords & the Truth: Here's to the 'squares'

 

The New York Times said Andy Williams was "hopelessly square" . . . at least in the eyes of my generation, back in the '60s.

I wish to point out that the same people who found Andy Williams "square" in their youth have spent their middle age doing "a heck of a job" -- in the Brownie sense -- with the American family, the American economy and American politics. In other words, what the hell do the Boomers know?

Squat, that's what. Trust me on this. I am one.

So call this episode of 3 Chords & the Truth a loving tribute to contrariness. Also call it a tribute to Andy Williams, who died Tuesday night at 84. He was a hell of a singer.

LIKEWISE, being that this week's edition of the Big Show will be featuring his music, you can safely say that it's going to be a hell of a show.

That will be obvious to you shortly . . . assuming, of course, that you evaluate music -- and singers -- on individual merit and not one's particular geometry. Remember, the young, hip trendsetter of today is the totally discredited investment banker of tomorrow.

But Andy Williams is now forever.

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

Your Thursday evening culture report

Listen to Bobby Lounge. He's from Mississippi and has an iron lung. 


And a perverted Squirrelsquatch. 

 It's a Southern thing.

My huckleberry friend, Moon River, and me

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

2  And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

3  And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

4  And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

-- Revelation 21:1-4

Kids today have their computers, iPads and smart phones that bring the whole world into their grasp and into their eyes, ears and minds.

In the 1960s, I had a 21-inch, black-and-white Magnavox console television for my window on the world and, likewise, its accompanying radio and phonograph for the soundtrack of my life.

I always think of that old Magnavox, itself long consigned to sepia-tinted memory, when yet another piece of my youth has passed away as heaven and earth is aborn anew. It brought me the world; that world is no more, the new Jerusalem has yet to come down from on high, and I, in the September of my years, must wander the metaphysical neutral ground.

Andy Williams was someone that old Magnavox brought into our Baton Rouge home, and into my young life -- "Moon River" . . . The Andy Williams Show on TV . . . another appearance by the Osmond Brothers . . . "I Can't Get Used to Losing You," (one of my absolute favorite songs to this day) . . . years of Christmas specials amid freshly waxed floors, a newly decorated spruce tree and a cardboard fireplace with a festive, light-bulb fueled "fire."



IT'S BEEN decades since a live spruce tree graced my childhood Louisiana home, and the new laminate living-room floor doesn't need waxing. Mama is 89 now, and Daddy has been gone for 11 years. God only knows what happened to the 15-watt cardboard fireplace that held my Christmas stocking and strained under the dead weight of woolen hosiery stuffed with apples, oranges, candy canes and "D" cells.

Now, the Santa-festooned stocking I've had ever since I saw my first Christmas Day hangs on our Omaha Christmas tree, and last night, Andy Williams died. Bladder cancer. He was 84.

“Moon River” was written by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer, and Audrey Hepburn introduced it in the 1961 film“Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” but it was Mr. Williams who made the song indisputably his own when he sang it at the 1962 Academy Awards ceremony and titled a subsequent album after it. When he built a theater in Branson, he named it the Andy Williams Moon River Theater.

“Moon River” became the theme song for his musical-variety television series “The Andy Williams Show,” which, along with his family-oriented Christmas TV specials, made him a household name.

“The Andy Williams Show” ran on NBC from 1962 to 1971 and won three Emmy Awards for outstanding variety series. But its run also coincided with the social and cultural upheavals of the 1960s, and with a lineup of well-scrubbed acts like the Osmond Brothers (whom Mr. Williams introduced to national television) and established performers like Judy Garland and Bobby Darin, the show, at least to many members of a younger, more rebellious generation, was hopelessly square — the sort of entertainment their parents would watch.

Despite that image, “The Andy Williams Show” was not oblivious to the cultural moment. Its guests also included rising rock acts like Elton John and the Mamas and the Papas, and its offbeat comedy skits, featuring characters like the relentless Cookie Bear and the Walking Suitcase, predated similar absurdism on David Letterman’s and Conan O’Brien’s talk shows by decades.

Mr. Williams’s Christmas specials, on the other hand, were entirely anodyne and decidedly homey, featuring carols and crew-neck sweaters, sleigh bells and fake snow, and a stage filled with family members, including his wife, the telegenic French chanteuse Claudine Longet, and their three children. The Osmonds were regular guests, as were his older brothers, Bob, Don and Dick, who with Mr. Williams had formed the Williams Brothers, the singing act in which he got his start in show business.

Although Mr. Williams’s fame came from television, movie themes were among his best-known recordings, including those from “Love Story,” “Charade,” “The Way We Were” and “Days of Wine and Roses.” Decades after he had stopped recording regularly, his old hits continued to turn up on movie soundtracks: “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” in “Bad Santa,” for instance, and his version of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” in “Bridget Jones’s Diary.”

Mr. Williams earned 18 gold and three platinum albums and was nominated for Grammy Awards five times, but he never had a gold single. (His version of “Moon River” was not released as a single, although versions by Mr. Mancini and Jerry Butler reached the Top 20.) His biggest hit single — and his only No. 1 — was “Butterfly,” an uncharacteristically rocklike 1957 number for which he was instructed to imitate Elvis Presley.

His more mellow hits included “Canadian Sunset,” “The Hawaiian Wedding Song,” “Lonely Street,” “Can’t Get Used to Losing You,” “The Shadow of Your Smile” and “Are You Sincere?” He continued to record into the 1970s.

HERE'S THE THING. Pop culture worms its way -- being culture and all -- into your brain, your soul and your heart. In many ways, it defines us. It is a signifier -- who are you? Well, what music do you like? What do you read? What's your favorite movie?

What are your memories of childhood? How do you mark the passing years . . . note the chapters of your life?

Likewise,  those who create pop culture, like Andy Williams, worm their way into your life, too. They guest star in your memories and can cause a middle-age man to slip the sure restraints of time and space. And it's not just "your" pop culture that's capable of such magic.

The New York Times obituary says that my generation, the Baby Boomers, found Williams to be "hopelessly square -- the sort of entertainment their parents would watch." That's too simplistic to pass the smell test . . . or the test of time.

Yes, peer pressure would dictate that he fell into the category of Stuff Parents Like and thus was uncool. Of course, peer pressure is merely the difference between saying what you think you must and knowing what you believe in your heart. And if you have any integrity whatsoever, what you believe in your heart will win out eventually.

Look at it this way: Your favorite uncle may have been "hopelessly square," too. Did you disown him because of that? Did you slip out the back door when you saw his car turn into your driveway?

And as the years passed, did you erase him from your memories? Of course not. Did his presence cause them to be any less fond? Of course not. Did you stop loving it when he sang that song he always sang? Is the memory of that hopelessly soiled because a certain someone was a "hopeless square"?

Of course not.

I THINK that's kind of how my generation has come to deal with that -- and those -- deemed "hopelessly square" by others just as young as stupid as ourselves back in the day. Me, I have come to long for the days when hopeless squares ran the world. We the Hip, frankly, ain't doing such a bang-up job of it right now.

Long have I, and have people like me, mourned the passing of things like The Andy Williams Show from our collective pop culture, just as we lament a present culture that has banished Andy Williams and his successors from even the consciousness of today's tragically hip.

But mostly, we today mourn the passing of a legendary singer and an entertainment icon. Andy Williams may or may not have been "hopelessly square" and he may or may not have been popular with all the "wrong" people, but he sure as hell sang like a dream.

And he was as comfortable as a crew-neck sweater on a cold December day.

Mr. Williams, I just can't get used to losing you. Rest in peace.

What if. . . ?

What if a local TV station locked out its real meteorologist and brought in a "replacement weatherguy" to tell us what it's going to be like out there?

And what if the word out there is that the weatherscab producing your "Pinpoint VIPIR AccuNow forecast" was let go by the Lingerie Weather Channel because he, well, sucked?

 As NBC26 in heartsick Green Bay, Wis., showed us Tuesday, it'd go something like this:

The Green Bay Packers became the latest NFL team to lose on a highly questionable call by the league’s replacement referees last night. WGBA, Green Bay’s NBC affiliate, poked fun at the situation this morning, bringing in a “replacement weather guy” to handle the forecast.

“It’s pretty bad out there people,” the replacement weather guy said (video above). “200 degrees below we’re looking at, and it’s really going to heat up. It’s going to be like 346 degrees by noon.”

WOW! If it's going to get up to 346, the station probably ought to let all the female anchors and reporters go on the air in just their lingerie. It would be just too darn hot to wear anything else.

Yeah, that's the (replacement) ticket!

And it would make the adjustment from the replacement weatherguy's previous gig a bit less daunting.

Vote for the black Muslim. It's important.

Madonna lectures on political science. Not safe for work . . . or young ears.

The only part of Madonna Louise Ciccone that's anything like a virgin is her brain, having for 54 years avoided being deflowered by a serious thought.

Monday night, the chastity belt around her cranium was cinched up extra tight as the crowd at her Washington, D.C., concert got three minutes' worth of Politics for Dummies . . . by Dummies.

"Y'all better vote for f***ing Obama, OK? For better or for worse, all right? We have a black Muslim in the White House."

And the crowd goes wild.

"Now that is the s***! That is some amazing s***! That means there is hope in this country. And Obama is fighting for gay rights, OK? So support the man, goddammit."

AND THE crowd goes wilder, stopping its whoops and yelps only long enough for the singer's political-science pupils to breathe through their mouths.

Tonight, the absent-mind professor sent a statement to the serious media -- in other words, Perez Hilton -- to clarify that she was being "ironic."

“I was being ironic on stage. Yes I know Obama is not a Muslim (though I know that plenty of people in this country think he is.) And what if he were? The point I was making is that a good man is a good man no matter who he prays to. I don’t care what religion Obama is – nor should anyone else in America.”

OH . . . okaaaaay. Sure, honey bun. Whatever you say.  

What? Oh.

I apologize. I was having a flashback to what my wife tells me whenever I try to BS her that blatantly after being caught saying something moronic.

See, it doesn't count as irony without an eye roll or air quotes. Them's the rules.

OTHERWISE, you're just being an idiot. You know, like if you'd stripped half naked to show off your new "tramp stamp" -- it said "OBAMA" -- then made a solemn vow to the faithful:

“When Obama is in the White House for a second term I'll take it all off.”

Mighty big talk for a woman who does that just to celebrate Tuesdays.

And Wednesdays.

And. . . .

This is Tom Jones, indeed

A friend of mine is always linking to great music videos on Facebook. "Are you adequately prepared to rock?" he always asks.

I don't think anyone was adequately prepared for the awesomeness he posted tonight -- this 1969 pairing of Tom Jones and Janis Joplin on "Raise Your Hand." The memorable moment came in December of the second season of This Is Tom Jones, the singer's variety TV series that ran three seasons from 1969-1971.

Verily, I say unto thee, that the Lord hath smiled upon the soulitudinous, boogielicious union of the blackest white woman in Port Arthur, Texas, and the blackest white man in South Wales, and then He hath commandeth the angel choirs to hush up because all y'all just got to hear this.

Can I get a witness, y'all? Raise your hand!

Eine kleine Nachtmusik

Late, late on a Sunday night -- Or is it early, early on a dreaded Monday morning? Whatever -- seems to me to be the right time for a little night music.

This day on the old Webcor, we have Frank Sinatra's classic 1966 LP, Strangers in the Night. The monophonic version, of course.

Is it just me amid a bout with melancholy, or is it these sounds of Sinatra from the era of Don Draper, Lucky Strikes and fedoras -- preserved on vinyl like a prehistoric insect in amber -- represent the recorded demise of a civilization unaware of its imminent doom? Confident, a little worn on the margins, upbeat . . . and terminal.

Ring-a-ding-ding, Pally! AAAAACK!

WE SAY we have a civilization today. That may be true, in some diminished fashion in this Kardashianized ruin of a Honey Boo Boo world, but it isn't the civilization my generation was born into. I know this because it's my generation that finished it off.

It had its warts. We wanted a brave new world -- which we got, careless as we were in our wishes. Reaching for the stars, we ended up with "sketti," sex tapes, and baby daddies but not husbands.

That and Sinatra as a salve for disaffected refugees from The Collapse, strangers in the night who wander lost in the ruins of White Trash America.

3 Chords & the Truth: No. 200

First, in October of '06, there was this little thing called the Revolution 21 Podcast. Serviceable, but the name was pretty generic.

Then, on Jan. 11, 2008, something happened to the podcast.

It got bigger, and it got a new name -- 3 Chords & the Truth. Four years, nine months and 10 days later, here we are.

3C&T 200.

To rip off the sentiments of the Grateful Dead, what a long, strange trip it's been.

TODAY, the Big Show is what it always has been, only more of it. More freeform. More eclectic. More audacious. More unique. More of a musical revolution for the 21st century.

And your Mighty Favog hopes you're having more and more fun. He certainly is.

This week, on 3 Chords & the Truth No. 200, we start off by greeting the arrival of autumn. Yay! I mean, when you start off a program with John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman's rendition of "Autumn Serenade," you're starting off at "special" and then aiming for the heavens. Then again, that's just the kind of deal the Big Show is.

Of course, there are attendant problems with this approach to a music program. At the top of the list -- particularly after a show like No. 200 -- is "How the hell do we top that?"

COME BACK next time for 3C&T 201 to find out.

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

Just to be perfectly clear . . .

I am still a geek.

In this view from the Revolution 21/3 Chords & the Truth studios as we get ready for the 200th episode of the Big Show, the CDs are Karrin Allyson and John Coltrane, the mixer is a Soundcraft Spirit ES stereo model, the microphone preamps run on vacuum tubes and the background on the computer desktop is from a 1944 ad for KOIL radio in Omaha.

Yep, geek.

Drink milk. It's groovy, man.

When you're throwing a Shindig, there's nothing more refreshing than a nice, cold glass of milk. And if you're not hep to that jive . . . er, forget that, wrong decade . . . and if you don't think "the vitality drink" is sooooooo totally far out, man, just ask Bobby Sherman.

Really, man. If you're not hip to that, maybe you're just too square to be a Shindog, man.

Shine + meth = this

Back when I was a little bitty boy down on the bayou, my daddy gave me some advice I've always tried to live by, lo, these many years.

"Son," he says to me -- that's what he always called me, "Son" -- "now don't you go mixin' no corn liquor with no crystal meth." And I remember asking "How come, Daddy?" You know how 4-year-olds are . . . a bottomless font of questions.

Right then, though, Daddy backhanded me right across the chops.

"Because mixin' corn liquor and crystal meth is bad sh*t, that's why!" 

Message received. 

A lot of folks in Kentucky never got that message, I'm sad to have to tell you. I mean, look at this YouTube video by some poor soul with chemically induced Swiss cheese for brains.

APPARENTLY, he's calling himself the Blue Nation Clown, and given a certain resemblance as noted on the Dr. Saturday blog, if I were he, I'd avoid midnight movies for fear of nervous types with concealed-carry permits. Or, this being the South, steel magnolias who don't need no stinkin' concealed-carry permits to keep "jes' the cutest little .22" in their purses. 

But back to the video . . . ewwwwww. Can you imagine anyone getting into such a state over Kentucky football? Geez, if Kentucky basketball ever starts to stink up Rupp Arena, this guy will be legion.  

And the Dynamic Duo will have their work cut out for them.

Because, son, mixin' corn liquor and crystal meth is bad s***.

Teacher! There's a bug in my soup!

Guess who came to lunch today at some Omaha-area elementary schools.

Er . . . make that what.

The Omaha World-Herald reports that the unplanned-upon addition to kids' daily dietary requirements really bugged the lunch ladies.

A surprise ingredient in the soup caused a buzz Wednesday in one metro Omaha school district.

Bugs were discovered in some batches of soup delivered to the lunchrooms at nine Papillion-La Vista elementary schools and St. Columbkille Catholic School.

District spokeswoman Annette Eyman said possibly up to 150 students ate the soup before school officials discovered the contamination and recalled the soup.

The soup was prepared at Papillion-La Vista South High School. Food service workers found bugs in a pot of soup there before it was served to any students, Eyman said.

The bugs were discovered during lunch at Carriage Hill, Patriot and Golden Hills Elementary Schools, she said. No bugs were seen in the soup at the other seven schools, but it was removed anyway.

Officials took samples of the bug to the Douglas-Sarpy Cooperative Extension Service for identification.

It was identified as a sawtoothed grain beetle, she said. “They’re very common, and they don’t carry any diseases,” she said. “They’re not harmful if they’re consumed.”

ASKED FOR COMMENT on whether feeding beetles to kids was an appropriate function of local governments, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney saw the incident as yet another spasm of bitching and moaning by the "47 percent." 

"Listen, let me be clear," Romney said, clearly agitated by the query. "If you're going to be dependent on government and expect that taxpayers, the 'makers' of our society, have a responsibility to feed you at school every day, you can't be that gosh-darned picky about how you get your protein."

One 7-year-old boy at a Papillion-La Vista grammar school, was sanguine about the lunch controversy and the ensuing political scuffle upon hearing of Romney's comments.

"I like bugs," he said.

NEW AT 6 on your First Eyewitness Action News station, Omaha Mayor Jim Suttle eats some maggoty gruel, vows to "work the process" of keeping his lunch down.

Off the traks in Rail Town USA

You'd think that in a city that bills itself as "Rail Town USA," the daily newspaper would know that it's "Amtrak," not "Amtrack."

You'd think. You'd also be wrong.

Thus goes the sad decline of what used to be a damned good little newspaper in North Platte, Neb. I know. Once upon a time, I was a reporter there.

And I daresay everyone who mattered at the Telegraph then knew how to spell "Amtrak" just as well as "Union Pacific," the railroad that's the reason North Platte can call itself Rail Town USA. (The newspaper, however, calls it "Railtown USA" in a Sunday news story. Whatever.)

Actually, it was construction of the UP that gave North Platte its reason to be at all. And with the world's largest rail-classification yard in town -- yep, Union Pacific -- it doesn't seem unreasonable to ask that Telegraph web editors know something about railroads.

For instance, how to spell "Amtrak."

AMTRACK?

Amtrack???

This is what happens to a good newspaper when it inevitably falls under the dark spell of mediocre people beholden to an out-of-town corporate owner. When "community journalism" is just another job for just another editor and just another publisher, and the bottom line is just another entry on a balance sheet in Omaha.

They don't make editors like Keith Blackledge anymore -- or hold newspaper staffs to standards as high as his, either.

THEN AGAIN, why should Rale Towne USA be any different from anywhere else today.

To infinity . . . and beyond!

At halftime of Saturday's Nebraska football game, you got the marching band and stuff, sure . . . but you also got to watch some teenagers commit science.

With a little help from a homegrown astronaut.

And they launched some experiment-carrying weather balloons to infinity . . . and beyond! Or just shy of 100,000 feet, whichever came first.

SUNDAY, the Omaha World-Herald got the scoop:

It takes a lot of work to gain the privilege of standing on the field at Memorial Stadium on game day in front of 85,000 fans.

It takes dedication, hours of practice, weeks of preparation.

But the cheers Saturday weren't just for touchdowns, and a football wasn't the only flying object.

A group of students and teachers led one of the biggest science experiments Husker Nation has ever seen.

During halftime, the group released three high-altitude balloons, also known as weather balloons.

The balloons, 8 feet in diameter and typically filled with helium, floated to heights of up to 20 miles into “near space” to collect data. Astronaut Clayton Anderson of Ashland, Neb., assisted with the launch.

One balloon carried specimens of E. coli, red and white blood cells, oranges, motor oil and experimental planting seeds.

A second carried special devices to collect environmental data so students could measure such things as air pressure and cosmic rays. The third carried an identification banner of the different groups.

The data were expected to fall to Earth a couple hours after liftoff.

Michael Sibbernsen, science and technology coordinator at the Strategic Air & Space Museum, said near space is an area in the atmosphere where conditions are very cold and relatively similar to those of outer space.

Many of the experiments measured how near space and high altitudes affect the specimens. Thanks to a NASA grant, such research is now accessible to students and teachers in Nebraska.

WATCH the video (above) from the university. Cool stuff from the very edge of space.

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign

Kids. You have to spell out everything for them.

And at the student union on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's city campus, administrators just want to be clear that they're being absolutely clear. Because it's those darned kids . . . they'll test you.

As I seem to recall from my own college days somewhat farther south than Lincoln, youth from the ages of about 18-22 are kings and queens of the loophole. The second you assume that everyone knows you're not supposed to skateboard in the union. . . .

No, you need . . .

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?

Big Nebraska sky

Hey Mom, been looking for time to write
Yeah, I’m getting by all right
How’s Dad? Did he get that East field plowed?
Used to be done by now
Out here it gets cold at night
But the stars are a welcome sight
To me

I pretend it’s the big Nebraska sky
Like the picture in my mind
Is the wind still rollin’ across the plains?
Please say it’s still the same

Follow the sun as it goes
Nothing but endless rows

-- Nebraska Sky

Steve Gulley
and Tim Stafford