Saturday, November 28, 2009


We gonna t-bird that home skippy, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers



In addition to Thanksgiving Detroit Lions football, there is the National Dog Show. One has a lot of howling, whining, messes on the ground, leg-humping and fleas. The other is a dog show.



Women in England are undergoing plastic surgery to make their female reproductive parts more attractive to their men. Apparently the procedure makes their vagina look like a soccer stadium.



President Barack Obama pardoned the Thanksgiving turkey, or as they are also known: the Detroit Lions.



More on the flamboyant performance of Adam Lambert at the American Music Awards. How gay was Lambert’s performance? It made Elton John look like an Indigo Girl.



You know what is the biggest bar business day of the year? Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Lots of bars are replacing happy hour with; “Drink Your Relatives Tolerable” hour.



More on the flamboyant performance of Adam Lambert at the American Music Awards. Security managed to restrain Kanye West from grabbing the mike to say he thought Clay Aiken had the gayest act of all time.



The San Diego Chargers handed out over two thousand turkeys to the needy; the mass handling of a bunch of turkeys will prove to be excellent practice for playing the Kansas City Chiefs.



HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumble” revealed the NFL is cracking down on binge drinking before NFL games. This is bad news for the Oakland Raider’s bench, it is going to make it a lot tougher to watch their team play.



HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumble” revealed the NFL is cracking down on binge drinking before NFL games. If it works, the Detroit Lions may be sober enough to win their game.



Congress is looking to amend a bill that would allow Amtrak passengers to carry a gun; that way, when you are horribly hurt in a train crash, you can put yourself out of your misery.



A women’s sex aide drug is awaiting approval from the FDA, or, as a lot of women are referring to the FDA now: Freaking deliver already.


A flood in an Eggo factory could lead to a waffle shortage next year. Which will hopefully lead to a fat ass shortage as well.



The audience for the “Twilight Saga: New Moon” opening was 80% women. And of those 20% men, 100% were whipped
.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Cap Rock in Joshua Tree, key spot in the Seventies L.A. music scene. Gram Parsons took Keith Richards and Anita Pallenberg here to consume copious amounts of tequila, coke and peyote. It was where Gram Parson's body and coffin were burned. And the Eagles first album cover was shot here after a night of copious amounts of tequila, peyote and coke. And I camped there one night in 1977 after copious amounts of Olympia beer.

The bird is the word, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers



A women’s sex aide drug is awaiting approval from the FDA, Flibanserin. The way it works is it makes women think all men look like George Clooney.


A women’s sex aide drug is awaiting approval from the FDA, Flibanserin. And what woman would not get turned on by something named as sexy as Flibanserin? Was the name “Shut Up and Do Me, Bitch” taken?


A women’s sex aide drug is awaiting approval from the FDA, Flibanserin. Don’t we already have a women’s sex aid? It’s called: jewelry.


Thanksgiving is coming up. We here comedy writers have a great deal to be thankful for, namely Balloon Boy, Sarah Palin, former Miss California, Carrie Prejean, Jon and Kate, Joe Biden.


“People” named Johnny Depp the Sexiest Man Alive. I made the Sexiest Man Alive issue as well, I was right in between Balloon boy’s dad, Richard Henne, and Chas Bono.


Sunday featured the 1-9 Cleveland Browns versus the 1-9 Detroit Lions; you know what happened? It was amazing, both team lost.

Since you asked:

Here is the deal with Adam Lambert’s wildly over-the-top “AMA” act. Forget the whole annoying gay; “We want to get married" – of which I am in favor - "and teach your children Sunday school and march in a parade in a leather studded thong” hypocritical entitlement.

Attention gay folks: you can go out of your way to shock the hell out of us uptight straight folks, or you can try and fit in to our little prissy and prim world, you can’t demand both at the same time.

What pissed me off about Lampert wasn’t the gayness: a guy in the S&M leash, it wasn’t kissing the keyboard player, it wasn’t pretending to get oral sex. It was the slap in the face of all of us “American Idol” fans who gave Lambert so much unconditional support.

That “AMA” act was one big-ass middle finger to all of us non-homosexuals Lambert fans of which I used to be. Why do gay performers assume being gay makes them more cutting edge? It just makes them gay instead of straight. We straight people have as much sex as gay people, we just do it with the opposite sex.

This didn’t happen at our house, but it could have:

“Oh, daddy, can I stay up and watch that nice boy from right here in San Diego who we liked so much and voted for on “American Idol”?

“Sure honey, you don’t have school this week.”

“Why is that man on a leash? What’s that guy on his knees doing to him? Why did he kiss that boy?"

“Time for bed, Ann Caroline.”

Now either Lambert thought of that possibility or he didn’t. Either way he is complicit. What a selfish, egotistical douche bag Lambert is that he didn’t bother to think through that possible scenario, straight or gay. Kids are kids.

Although I can’t speak for others, that kind of shameless self-promotional egotistical arrogance and average fan disregard will now prevent me from ever buying or listening to another Adam Lambert song or performance.

Something tells me I'm not alone.

And it’s not, as Lambert keeps whining, because he is gay. Can you imagine Carrie Underwood doing that exact same skit with women? Yes, that would be hot to us straight guys instead of repugnant, but it would still be career suicide and wildly inappropriate on national network TV.

But Underwood isn’t arrogant or dumb enough to pull something that stupid.That's why, next year, and many years after that, Underwood will still be a superstar. Adam Lambert will be in "People" magazine's "Where are they now?" issue.

Sunday, November 22, 2009


Meisner, Leadon, Frey, Felder, Henley

Reading more about the wild music/drugs/sex and post-Manson paranoid fueled Malibu and Laurel Canyon and Sunset Blvd and Troubadour music scene of the early seventies in Los Angeles. It is fascinating.

It is amazing how much the artist’s songs and albums were like snapshots and or lie detector tests of what was going on with their lives. You can taste the jealous infighting, cocaine and unchecked egomania in Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s “Déjà vu” as well as the hint of San Francisco and Berkeley where it was recorded and where they lived.

Horribly-underrated-guitar great, Ry Cooder, talks about how you can hear a room in songs. It’s also true about personalities and the era.

And, as a result, you can taste the simplicity, wholesomeness and relief to be away from that insanity in Neil Young’s “Harvest.” Did you know Linda Rondstadt and James Taylor sang on Young’s “Old Man” and “Heart of Gold”? Two of my favorite songs. If I did know, I had forgotten. How awesome is that?

In Joni Mitchell’s “River” you can smell the burning candles, fresh cut flowers and lingering pot in her foggy, rustic, stain glass Laurel Canyon rich hippie house.

And, as a result, you can sense the panic to try and rise to the incredible talent all around them in the Eagles first three albums.

It’s like each early Eagle song is a different wardrobe some insecure actor is trying on to try and look the part of his role. Should I put on this Crosby-like buckskin San Francisco hippie jacket? Or how about this rancher/poet Neil Young denim or flannel shirt? Or should I try being a little more guitar-god-rocker-like with a football jersey and cowboy boots like Stephen Stills? Or how about this classy Englishman intellectual fancy white cotton shirt and vest like Graham Nash? Beard? Mustache? Long hair? Perm? Tan? Pale? How much turquoise jewelry is too much?

For me the classic Eagles lineup will always be the one on “One of These Nights.” Although the album doesn’t have take-over-the-world hits like “Hotel California” and “Life in the Fast Lane” – a line originated by Glenn Frey, by the way - it was their strongest chemistry. Randy Meisner’s “Take it to the Limit” was the best selling Eagles song until “Hotel California.”

In my opinion, at that “One of These Nights” time, the ranking of the Eagles talent as singers musicians and song writers went Meisner, Leadon, Felder, Henley, Meisner again and then Frey. (Yes, I put Frey sixth in a five-man band. You can’t underestimate the power of Frey’s ruthless drive and ambition, but drive and ambition don’t equate to talent) Felder was better on guitar than Henley and Frey were combined on their instruments.

Although Henley got better on drums.

And I love Joe Walsh, “Turn to Stone” is one of my favorite guitar-hero-chord rock songs, but I never liked Walsh for the Eagles. I tried to like him as an Eagle, but I never did. And Henley took a long time to find his individual songwriting chops.

Don Henley’s lyrics, like his voice, have always been world class, but musically, he needed a lot of help. His first solo album, “I Can’t Stand Still” got hammered by the critics as way too self indulgent and, like Henley himself, too intense. Music critics suck, but, this time they were right. (But I still liked it)

And Frey’s “No Fun Aloud” – the title a clear swipe at the wildly intense Henley – was cute and I liked it at the time, but it clearly showed how much Frey needed Jackson Browne, J.D Souther, Henley and Jack Tempchin to write a good song; as he needed Henley, Souther, Meisner and Leadon to harmonize on the songs; and how he also needed the guitar chops of Leadon and Felder to play a song. “Smuggler’s Blues”? Really? Frey’s solo albums are a testament as to what can happen on an album when an over-bearing drug-addled egomaniac is surrounded by yes men who won’t tell him the Emperor has no chops. Like a David Crosby-wannabe.

(Like Frey, Crosby was the least talented person in his band, and it clearly pissed him off also)

Even from my distant vantage point, I knew Frey was not nearly as good on guitar as he thought he was. And his Jack Nicholson-sounding voice is good at best. In an interview, Henley said the Eagles first broke up because somebody thought they were all things to all people. Gosh, I wonder who that was a swipe at, excuse my preposition?

At my last Eagles concert few years ago in San Diego – at Qualcom Stadium – it was almost sad how everyone in that stadium could see Frey still thought he was the leader of the band, but we could see how far he had fallen, especially when he sang the-wildly-mediocre-at-best “Girl From Yesterday.” Yes, Frey can still bring it with “Take it Easy” and “Already Gone” two great songs thanks to him. But in historic football terms, Meisner’s “Take it to the Limit” is the 1969 Green Bay Packers. “Girl From Yesterday” is the 2009 Detroit Lions.

A few years after that, Henley, Frey and their nasty, bald troll manager, Irving “asshole” Azoff’s bloated millionaire egos officially killed the Eagles when they fired “Hotel California” author Don Felder. That is when the Eagles finally became everything I hate about music: an overly-marketed plastic-sounding washed up brand name money making machine with no soul, not unlike the current Van Halen.

As far as I am concerned, no offense to the non-offensive Timothy B. Schmidt, and the mad genius, The Bomber, Joe Walsh, the current Eagles might as well wear Kiss makeup.

Thus concludes another chapter in my schizophrenic and complicated love/hate relationship with the Eagles. It is eerily similar - frustrated sexual aspect aside - to the emotions I have about the women I dated back then. Like that sadistic, spoiled bitch I took to an outdoor Eagles concert in the day who then dumped me that same night for our high school’s handsome rival quarterback.

Should get past it, but somehow I can’t. It’s too much a part of my history and makeup. .Just like the early Seventies itself, when that LA music scene was good, it was great, but when it sucked, it really sucked and it sucked hard.

Unlike my girlfriends back then, but that is a whole other topic for a different time . . .