Nothing Exceeds Like Excess

It's wienerlicious!

What in the Wide Wide World of Sports is going on here??

This baby should come with a crash cart.  Clear!

Pizza Hut is pulling a fat one behind our ample backsides.  They have gone and introduced at least two embarrassingly and excessively American fattening delights well...not near you.  The betrayal is epic!  The U.S. is the land of wide loads and extra cheese; not the Middle East or the U.K.  We deserve the first bite when it comes to artery cloggers like the all new hotdog stuffed crust pizza, damn it.  And, don't get me started on the undoubtedly delicious and drool inducing crown crust pizza filled with taco and hamburger goodness Pizza Hut now offers the citizens of the Middle East.  The Middle East??  Those people are skinny.

  OH THE HUMANITY!!

My fellow Americans I fear we are in desperate straights.  We seem to be falling behind in the creation of adipose tissue-- a "lard gap", if you will.  We need to take action--and soon.

What has happened to the country that invented the deep fried Twinkie and Snickers bar?  We've not a minute or a calorie to lose.  The time for excess is now!  Write your congressperson or, better yet, the president.  Not Obama, the important one:  David Novak, the president of Yum Brands of Louisville, Kentucky.  They own Pizza Hut.  

Let's launch a national campaign to force the evil geniuses of Pizza Hut to offer the wonderfulness of the hotdog stuffed and crown crust pizza to all Americans yearning to split their jeans and pop their buttons.  Or, better yet, let's all get together for a bacon sundae.  I forget who is making those gut bombs but they are out there somewhere doing God's work.

IT'S ON PIZZA HUT!  We are coming for our lard fix and will not be denied.

Now, if you will excuse me, I'll meet you at the trough just as soon as I've sprayed a bit of WD-40 on my thighs.  These damn jeans seem to have shrunk.

Nothin' says "eat me" like a bacon sundae.

He Had A Good Beat, 20 Million Kids Watched: God Gave Him An 82

I liked the young Dick Clark.  Carson got it right.  When Johnny left the Tonight Show that was IT--no comebacks, awkward interviews or guest shots on other shows-- he was DONE.  In show biz lingo he knew when to "get off".  Dick Clark, though he gave up Bandstand, insisted on hanging on to his New Year's Rockin' Eve television appearances WAY too long.  A stroke in 2004 left him speech impaired and looking old which made for cringe inducing moments every New Year's Eve.  America's "Oldest Living Teenager" became a cadaver like reminder to the rest of us that we were all becoming ripe bananas.  It was the old "you can't go home" syndrome writ large on the last night of a dying year.  I swear I could hear a gigantic "Nooooooo" go up across the U.S. when Dick would start the annual countdown.  

1957 the network was young and so was DC.

  The cool guy out of Philly, circa 1957, the one we could tune in, after some serious antenna manipulation, on channel 12 the new ABC affiliate out of Flint.  That's the guy I want to remember.  He, like Pat Boone, was the clean cut young man that moms liked and dads generally found non-threatening enough to trust around their daughters.  We kids liked him because he played all our songs, had a party going on EVERY day at his house, and often hosted the very rock n' roll stars we loved and admired.  He was smooth too.  Dick Clark knew just what to say and how to be oh so cool while saying it.  That had miles of appeal to clumsy teens who were just hoping their face would clear up before next Saturday's dance.  

Like most things in life, timing is everything.  Clark began his career in high school working at his dad's radio station in Utica/Rome, New York and continued his air work at WOLF in Syracuse while getting a business degree at Syracuse University.    His talent landed him a gig at WFIL in Philadelphia in the early 50's where he also grabbed some occasional TV time substituting for Bob Horn on his daily teen dance party called "Bandstand".  When Horn was busted for drunk driving the younger and more handsome Clark was ready to rock n' roll.

 

United Stations

For those of us in the hinterlands, his American Bandstand afforded a first look at the rock acts we loved to listen to on the radio, even if they were lip syncing.  It also didn't hurt  that their hair and clothes made parents everywhere shake their heads and quietly confirm that indeed the country was going to hell and Chubby Checker was driving the bus.  In the Eastern time zone we knew that it was always good idea to make sure that Bandstand, which started at 4 PM, was off the TV before dad got home.  I still remember lengthy lectures about how dad didn't fight the "Japs" in the South Pacific so that Dion and the Belmonts could establish a beachhead in his living room.  (Maybe he had a point.)

Through the years Clark stayed connected to radio via his United Stations Network where he produced and hosted shows like "Rock Roll and Remember".  The network's website is featuring several tributes to his work this week.

Dick Clark had a marvelous career being, well...Dick Clark.  He sold the music and a ton of products by mostly selling himself.  He was in love with his work and it showed.  It made him successful and crazy rich.  Not bad for a kid from upstate New York.

He was an icon to we boomers, as much a touchstone in our lives as JFK, hula hoops and transistor radios.  His death is just one more reminder that the days, weeks and years are slipping away; our generation is no longer young and full of promise.  The music plays on but the static increases and the colors are beginning to fade.  Top 40, "rate a record", and even pop music as a concept mean little or nothing to our grandkids.  Theirs is the world of the Internet and "on demand" entertainment.  We can take some comfort in knowing that Dick Clark and American Bandstand  mystified our parents and grandparents in the same way.

The Righteous Brothers sang, "If there's a rock n' roll heaven...you know they've got a hell of a band."  Even money says they now also  have a hell of an emcee.

Thanks Dick...well played.

"For now, Dick Clark, so long."

The EYES Have It

Just what we need!  Another "advancement" from those technology geeks at Google.  It's not bad enough that cell phones have turned us into a nation of eavesdropping spastics who are forever bumping into things as we conduct or listen to ever more inane conversations and location updates.  "Hey, I just squeezed the melons at Whole Foods and am wondering if I should buy one or marry it. What do you think?"  Even in places like New York we have slowed our pace as we walk and talk our way into a perpetual rodeo of over sharing,  What the hell ever happened to the concept of being alone with your thoughts?  We have the attention span of gnats and the brains to match.

Google glasses look cool on her

Most of us guys will look like this clown.

And NOW...just when we were getting used to random conversations going on all around us, COMES...Google Glasses!  Yep, very soon it will be within your ken to don a pair of souped up goggles that will allow you to surf the net, send and receive emails, watch sports and snap pictures all with the blink of an eye.  Literally.

Most gals will look like this  doofus.

Just try to get someones attention when they're wearing a pair of these peepers.  Don't get me wrong, there are times when whatever is playing on that big screen of real life will be infinitely inferior to the nearly limitless entertainment available for scoping out on the web.  I know for a fact I could have gotten a ton of usage out of Google glasses had they been around when I was forced to sit through high school geometry, biology, American lit,...OKAY,  high school period.


This whole project is the brainchild of the dorks at Google X, the online search leader's secret facility that has promoted the idea of elevators into space and driverless cars.  But, before you go getting any ideas about all of this being a "given" in our children and grand children's future, try to recall some of the "advancements" that were supposed to be a lock for the twenty-first century.  Remember flying cars, jet packs, and picture phones?  Well, unless you count Skype, we are still waiting for those bitchin' futuristic mind blowers.  Come to think of it there has been one really major disappointment regarding the promised technology of my misspent youth:  X-RAY Vision Glasses!  I'm fairly certain I speak for a generation of pre-teen males when I say..."I believe we have a class action lawsuit here!"

 I must have order at least six pairs of those babies in hopes of clearing up the mystery of the female anatomy.  The bastards NEVER worked.  Perhaps the work of the Google Goofs isn't completely without merit...
.

Google X team, GET BACK TO WORK.  And, you might want to throw in an X-Ray vision APP.  Several million 12 year-old boys will be forever in your debt.

See through clothing!!!

No Resurrection for The Padres

Maybe in 2013?  

Let me just go ahead and say it...  "Wait 'til next year."

The Padres home opener is in the books and I think, if you're a fan,  it's going to be okay for you to go ahead and spend the money you were saving for World Series tickets.  You non Padre fans can just keep dreaming but those of us with a fondness for the "Father's"can just settle in for another season of low run production and oh so timely errors.  The 2012 season, after just one game, smells very much like the baseball cuisine the Pads served up in 2011: very few hits, practically NO runs and significant errors.  Cameron Maybin did smack a colossal homer in game one, but that did little to repair the damage done by his ham-handed misjudgement of a routine centerfield fly earlier in the day. 

Cameron Maybin gets a high five after his 445- foot dinger

 Somehow I thought this year would be different.  For once there seemed to be a few guys who could actually get on base and help the usually strong starting pitching and faithfully prophylactic  bullpen.  This year the pitching seems slightly less certain, but competitive.  Maybe I can take it up with the big Skipper in the Sky when I make my bi-annual trip to church this weekend.  ( I would attend more often, but God makes me nervous when you get him indoors.)  Prayers for injuries to other National League West contenders would seem to be in order.  Of course, that would be wrong.  (Like I care.)

And now for some good news...

 Recently I toured the Mayan ruins in Mexico and a very knowledgeable guide, Armando, assured me that the world WILL NOT end this coming December 21.  He explained that the Mayans, though very bright, had their calendar all wrong and that their basic understanding of lunar orbits, star alignments, and blah blah blah got them so confused that they simply stopped figuring how much time they had left and decided calendars were not something they needed to worry about.   Or, they may have been drinking.  In fairness, Armando did present himself as slightly delusional and maybe even just a little bit insane.  From one moment to the next I couldn't tell if he was about to eat dirt, chase rabbits or bark at the moon.  Whatever the case,  I think it will be a good idea to put off paying any bills until December 22.
Especially if you're ordering Padre season tickets for 2013.

Mayan ruins:  Come for the history; stay for the Iguana.  It tastes like chicken.