March Madness? Make Me Watch!

"Got your bracket ready?"

"How about those Zags!"

If you live in the Inland Northwest, or Anywhere, USA , you've been hearing this crap for days on end.  Opening day of the baseball season is on the horizon and college basketball just WON"T GO AWAY.  

As a sports fan I dread this time of year.  I'll watch most any baseball game, never miss an NFL Sunday and, if necessary, can stomach the last three minutes of an NBA telecast but you can't make me watch college basketball.

 I've always had a hard time with the concept of college athletic programs.  Other than serving as funnel  for alumni money, what purpose do they serve in the halls of higher learning?  Coaches, invariably the only Republicans on campus,  make more money than the presidents of the universities that employ them.  "Student" athletes major in stoop tag and playground studies and frequently graduate without benefit of having attended class, mastering the English language, or balancing a checkbook.  The only positive product of this marriage of sports and education would seem to be, if the students are paying attention, that hard work, winning and providing a product the market appreciates and demands pays a hell of a lot better than a degree in art history.  And, much to the chagrin of the reliably socialist faculty, student athletes often come away with a real aptitude for free and untrammeled bust out capitalism.  (At least until their agent and no good relatives figure out a way to steal their money.)

Tallulah Bankhead

So, even though Gonzaga University is only 30 miles away, you'll not find me wasting a minute of time watching ANY of the Sweet Sixteen action this weekend.  I am convinced that the whole marriage of college and sports makes about as much sense as your local dentist offering muffler repair and oil changes.  However, being a college graduate, I am not dumb enough to have neglected to get down a heavy bet on the Gonzaga-UCLA tilt this afternoon.  I'll read about how much I've won in tomorrow's paper.  It's 71 degrees outside and a fine day for doing anything but watching TV. Go Zags.

Tallulah Bankhead once said, "If you know your bible and your Shakespeare and can shoot craps, you have a liberal education."

I wonder how old Tallulah was from the free throw line?

Bow Wowie!

"Turn up the Marley mon, and bring me my kibble."

Too bad we no longer live in Nevada and that my kids' dog, Teri, has gone to that big pound in the sky.  Why?

Glad you asked.  Democratic Senator (of course) Tick Segerblom of the Nevada state legislature and the cool name hall of fame is sponsoring a bill that would allow animal owners to get marijuana for their pet if a veterinarian certifies that the animal has an illness that might be alleviated by the drug.


"How are ya feelin' Sam?"  "Boss, I'm sicker than a dog.  How's about you fire me up a spliff."  Yes sir, this might be a bigger boon to the Silver State than legalized dice and slot machines.  If Tick, (what a shame to waste a killer moniker on a democrat), gets his way,  I can see tons of reprobates rolling into the land of Elvis impersonators just to get Fido on the four-legged doobie train.  Soon the desert will be filled with canine cannabis aficionados grooving to Bob Marley tunes and begging for just one more handful of Kibbles & Bits.

"Don' worry mon..I like dogs."

Don't get me wrong, I love dogs.  I've had three good ones and would have one now if the bastards didn't have that bad habit of dying on you just about the time you're getting used to them.  Not that they're a good investment.  These days a dog is easily the most inefficient piggy bank you can own.  Vet bills are through the roof, food is expensive and all an owner gets out of them is a ton of poop that now requires pick-up.  (I miss the old days when the lawn mower took care of that.)

"What? No whiskey?!!"

Since today's topic combines dumbass ideas and getting high, here's another dandy that recently got the green light from Washington: Powdered booze!  The product, Palcohol, no doubt dreamed up over a few cocktails by some hardcore members of the Spiritus Frumenti Club, is now legal in Washington state and is subject to the same restrictions as hard liquor.  This is a BAD idea.  Speaking as a victim of too many attentive bartenders during the twentieth century, my liver is up on blocks for the 21st, the only customers for Palcohol are the dipsomaniacs who live in fear of accidental sobriety.  Powdered booze is the answered prayer of barflies from here to Kalamazoo.  It can be easily concealed and will provide a backseat "pick me up" for most any boring occasion like: work, long plane rides, church, family reunions, and interventions.  The only complaint you'll hear from the rummies who will buy this is that it will only be available in four pre-mixed flavors: cosmopolitan, margarita, vodka and rum.  I predict this stuff won't move off the shelves at the liquor store until until an alcoholic's two best buddies   are introduced in the product line.  Jack Daniels and Jim Beam, are you listening?  This one bares watching.

That's all the news from the substance abuse desk for this week.  If you live in Washington state get ready for a relaxing 12 or 13 cocktail airplane ride thanks to Palcohol and, if you decide to move your dog to Nevada, everything be irie from now on mon.
Bow wow wowie.

The National Campfire, Now Embers

Have you noticed?  Very few cultural icons unite us these days.  In the 50's and 60's the tribal drum of the Baby Boom generation was Top 40 radio.  Those of us who came of age at that time toted our transistor radios everywhere we went.  It was the soundtrack of our lives.  From coast to coast the same hits, blasted just loud enough to piss off our parents, bore testament to our sincere belief that we would always be hip and never grow old. (Hey, we were idiots.) 

TV too united us in a much broader sense.  Most families watched the same popular shows and embraced the moral and cultural norms they represented.  Father really did know best, Davy Crockett was the "King of the Wild Frontier" and Superman fought for "truth, justice and the American way".  We saw Elvis and the Beatles for the first time on the Ed Sullivan Show, a man who single handed proved that even your dad could host a TV show.  We talked about it on Monday at school or around the water cooler at work and came together in our shared experience.

I was reminded of how much we've changed as a nation while looking over the latest Nielsen Total Audience Report that was released yesterday.  Our national campfires, radio and TV,  where we once gathered to warm ourselves in shared cultural experiences are rapidly going the way of the Pony Express.  Radio began its death spiral with the advent of streamed music and the solitary experience of listening through earbuds and headphones.  You can walk miles of packed summertime beaches and not see a single radio but you will see plenty of heads bobbing to sounds only they can hear.  Traditional television watching is also rapidly declining.  Streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Instant Video or Hulu now have subscribers in 40 percent of American homes.  If we watch network television at all it is mostly recorded and viewed at our convenience as we fast forward through the commercials.  After years of domination, broadcast and cable networks find themselves in an entirely new competitive situation.  Cable nets fell 9 percent in total audience in 2014 and there is panic in the executive suites.

We have eliminated most gatekeepers and become our own entertainment program directors.  In many ways that's good.  We want what we want, and we want it NOW.  However, something is lost in all of this.  Today we are a nation of multiple languages, races, religions and cultural traditions but very little unites us as a country.  Maybe that's what makes us such a desirable destination for the rest of the world, but I wonder.  I question our ability to come together as our parents and grandparents did to defeat the pure evil of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan.  If necessary, will we be able to snap out of our self induced isolation, remove the buds from our ears and focus on major threats that seem near our doorstep?  Or, will we march in lockstep off the cliff of history grooving to our very own music mix as we contemplate what movie to watch tonight on Amazon Instant Video?

Sorry to go all serious on you, but this has been on my mind as I watch winter turn to spring on a glorious Friday afternoon in North Idaho.  I think I'll head out for a walk, but I'm not taking my Ipod.

When ALL Things Are Possible For MY Team

Spring training has started and the Padres have already dropped a couple.  Hey, it's just spring training, they made a lot of good moves in the off season.  This could be their year!  Of course I say this every year and that's the beauty of Spring.  All things are possible for a baseball fan.  The carcass of last year's miserable season is a distant forgettable memory.  Baseball is back and the world is spinning in greased grooves.

Baseball fans are eternal optimists.  Though football has surpassed America's Pastime in popularity, the number of games played by a major league baseball team keeps hope alive for most of us at least until June. Even the most miserable clubs have a chance to put together a winning season at that point.  Growing up in Michigan I lived for the Detroit Tigers and great players like Al Kaline, Charlie "Paw Paw" Maxwell and Frank Lary.  They seldom beat my Dad's beloved Chicago White Sox but they were MY team.  Baseball more than other sports inspires an ineffable loyalty and sense of ownership in its fans.  Ask most any American if they have a team and even casual fans will confess to having an allegiance to a favorite organization.

As I mentioned, my father was a lifelong fan of the Chicago White Sox.  Other than being from downstate Illinois,  I know of no particular reason he chose the pale hose.  He grew up in what is considered to be St. Louis Cardinal country but always preferred the American League over the National.  Among the many questions I wished I had asked while he was still around,  his choice of a baseball team intrigues me quite a lot.  My Uncle Bob was also a White Sox fan but Uncle Louie was a National League guy all the way who remained loyal to the Chicago Cubs throughout his lifetime.  It's hard to imagine that they failed to make even a single trip to the World Series during his entire earthly hitch.  My brother Steve continues to carry the Cubs torch and is beginning to question whether he too will get shafted by those "lovable losers" before he slides home.

After moving from Michigan I flirted with other teams.  A couple of years fealty to the Twins, a fling with the Red Sox, Angels, Giants, A's and Mariners were a product of my radio gypsy life. In 1976 I took at job handling the afternoon drive show on the Padre's flagship station, KOGO, in San Diego.  There I was fortunate enough to work with former Yankee great Jerry Coleman, one of the finest men I have ever known.  Jerry was the play-by-play announcer for the Pads and also handled sportscasts at 4:30 and 5:30 PM on my radio show.  A genuine war hero who had his baseball career interrupted for service as a combat pilot in both World War II and Korea,  Jerry was just a tremendous human being.  From day one he made me feel at home in San Diego and always made tickets to Padre games available  whenever I wanted them.  We worked together for two years and largely because of Jerry, I became a Padres fan for life.  

Most everyone has a story about when a team became "their" team, and it's usually  an interesting one.  You can learn a lot about somebody by simply steering the conversation toward the subject of favorite baseball teams.  Cubs and Mets fans, for example, tend to be far more patient than the rest of us; also slightly more masochistic.  Some fans relish a club's history or repeated success but most have a special something that inspired them to sign up for life, which reminds me…  NEVER trust a Yankee fan!  Yankee fans are bandwagon clowns and front runners.  They've suffered little as fans and deserve to be scorned by the rest of us.  Dodger fans are equally wretched.  They are merely the Yankee fans of the National League and deserve your disdain.  If necessary, move to the other side of the street when you see a Yankee or Dodger fan approaching.  They are to be pitied and recognized as the opportunistic low life scum they truly are.

And now, if you'll excuse me,  Spring is in the air and the Padres are about to take on the White Sox in a Cactus League tilt.  Via Direct TV and the 2015 MLB package, I'll be there to support the Friars.
Sorry Dad, the White Sox just aren't MY TEAM.