Archive for July, 2009

Can you imagine sitting in the Rose Garden of the White House, drinking beer with the president and the vice president?
One beer and the meeting is very cordial.
Henry Gates smiles. James Crowley smiles. Obama and Biden smile.
Everything is beautiful.
Peace, brother.
Then the second round of beers is served.
Crowley confesses that he voted for McCain.
“You lose,” Obama jokes.
“Maybe not,” Biden says. “Sarah Palin could be sitting where I am right now.”
“Somebody call her,” Gates says.
Glasses are empty.
Round three arrives.
“Did you not believe an African American could afford a home like mine?” Gates asks Crowley.
“I’ve seen a lot more black guys getting in through the back windows than the front doors of homes like that,” Crowley answers.
“What kind of health insurance you guys have?” Obama interrupts.
“Another round, please,” Biden orders.
Round 4.
“What kind of beer are you guys drinking?” Biden asks. “Mine is a Buckler.”
“Sam Adams,” Gates answers.
“Blue Moon here,” Crowley says.
“Bud Light for me,” Obama says.
“I need to pee,” Gates says.
“Don’t pee in the garden,” Biden jokes.
“You think just because I am black that I might piss on your roses?” Gates fumes.
“What kind of health insurance you guys have?” Obama interrupts.
They all go pee, then come back for a fifth round.
“Bet you can’t tell a Bud Light from a Sam Adams,” Biden challenges the president.
“They all taste the same after No. 5,” Crowley says.
“I’ve got a joke,” Biden says.
“This guy comes into a bar and says he can pick out any kind of beer by tasting it. Some others at the bar bet him he can’t and they line up four beers to see what he can do.
“He tastes the first one. ‘Coors,’ he says correctly.
“He tastes the second one. ‘Bud,’ he says correctly.
“He tastes the third one, ‘Sam Adams,’ he says correctly.
“Then he tastes the fourth one and immediately spits it out. ‘That tastes like piss,’ he said.
“Yeah, but whose?’ the other guy asks.
“Let’s make it a six pack,” Obama says and orders a Round 6.
“Now aren’t you glad we had this little beer party?” the president asks.
“I never thought I would ever sit down and drink a six pack with two colored guys,” Crowley says.
“What not just say n………?” Gates shouts. “Honky cop.”
“I should have shot your black ass,” Crowley screams.
“Boys, boys, let’s not go there,” Biden says.
“Who you callin’ a boy, Mr. Vice Kiss Ass,” Gates hollers.
“Give me a gun. I’ll shoot his black ass right now,” Crowley shouts.
“Anybody want to talk about health care,” Obama asks.
“That cracker cop is going to need a lot of it if he opens his ugly mouth again,” Gates screams.
Ain’t beer diplomacy great?
Next time, let’s do tequila shots.
And invite Sara Palin.

There’s a really cool mural on the back wall of Texas Roadhouse recognizing some of the famous people who have called the Wichita Falls area home.
There’s Mia Hamm, the greatest female soccer player ever.
There’s Dr. Phil, probably the most famous graduate of MSU.
There are race car drivers Eddie Hill and Lloyd Ruby.
There’s Larry McMurtry, the Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award winning writer from Archer City.
And then there’s this old gray-haired woman sitting in the middle of them.
Now I have lived in this town just about all of my life.
And I am old.
But I had no idea who this old woman was.
And nobody in our newsroom could solve the mystery.
Speaking of mystery, my big boss man always thought it was Angela Lansbury.
I finally asked around long enough to find out that the old woman in the mural is Frances Reid.
Now, you might ask (and I did), who in the hell is Frances Reid.
She is an original cast member of the soap opera Days of Our Lives.
She plays Alice Horton and has been on the show ever since 1965.
Frances was born in Wichita Falls on Dec. 9, 1914 but moved to Berkeley, Calif.
The average age of the six people in this mural is 69 — and it would be much higher if 37-year-old Mia wasn’t there.
Dr. Phil is 58. Eddie Hill and Larry McMurtry are 73. Lloyd Ruby died at 81. And Reid is 94.
Does this say something about Hooterville Falls?
The young people move away and the old farts hang around.

There’s a really cool mural on the back wall of Texas Roadhouse recognizing some of the famous people who have called the Wichita Falls area home.
There’s Mia Hamm, the greatest female soccer player ever.
There’s Dr. Phil, probably the most famous graduate of MSU.
There are race car drivers Eddie Hill and Lloyd Ruby.
There’s Larry McMurtry, the Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award winning writer from Archer City.
And then there’s this old gray-haired woman sitting in the middle of them.
Now I have lived in this town just about all of my life.
And I am old.
But I had no idea who this old woman was.
And nobody in our newsroom could solve the mystery.
Speaking of mystery, my big boss man always thought it was Angela Lansbury.
I finally asked around long enough to find out that the old woman in the mural is Frances Reid.
Now, you might ask (and I did), who in the hell is Frances Reid.
She is an original cast member of the soap opera Days of Our Lives.
She plays Alice Horton and has been on the show ever since 1965.
Frances was born in Wichita Falls on Dec. 9, 1914 but moved to Berkeley, Calif.
The average age of the six people in this mural is 69 — and it would be much higher if 37-year-old Mia wasn’t there.
Dr. Phil is 58. Eddie Hill and Larry McMurtry are 73. Lloyd Ruby died at 81. And Reid is 94.
Does this say something about Hooterville Falls?
The young people move away and the old farts hang around.

There’s a really cool mural on the back wall of Texas Roadhouse recognizing some of the famous people who have called the Wichita Falls area home.
There’s Mia Hamm, the greatest female soccer player ever.
There’s Dr. Phil, probably the most famous graduate of MSU.
There are race car drivers Eddie Hill and Lloyd Ruby.
There’s Larry McMurtry, the Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award winning writer from Archer City.
And then there’s this old gray-haired woman sitting in the middle of them.
Now I have lived in this town just about all of my life.
And I am old.
But I had no idea who this old woman was.
And nobody in our newsroom could solve the mystery.
Speaking of mystery, my big boss man always thought it was Angela Lansbury.
I finally asked around long enough to find out that the old woman in the mural is Frances Reid.
Now, you might ask (and I did), who in the hell is Frances Reid.
She is an original cast member of the soap opera Days of Our Lives.
She plays Alice Horton and has been on the show ever since 1965.
Frances was born in Wichita Falls on Dec. 9, 1914 but moved to Berkeley, Calif.
The average age of the six people in this mural is 69 — and it would be much higher if 37-year-old Mia wasn’t there.
Dr. Phil is 58. Eddie Hill and Larry McMurtry are 73. Lloyd Ruby died at 81. And Reid is 94.
Does this say something about Hooterville Falls?
The young people move away and the old farts hang around.

Since I don’t have a thought in my head today — and I am about to go to jail and see Bubba — I am printing a re-run of a blog I wrote back in October of 2007.

Here is William Shatner’s interpretation of Sarah Palin’s speech from her resignation.
I really laughed a lot, so you might have to rewind this a couple of times to hear what Shatner is trying to achieve.

I am going to jail tomorrow.
Around 10 a.m., the cops will show up and take me away.
Bond is set at $2,400.
Right now I have $162.
Most of the time I stay away from stuff like this.
But the Muscular Dystrophy Association caught me in a soft mood and talked me into taking part in this lock-up.
I tried to tell them I sucked at raising money, but they insisted I could do it.
So I sent out this e-mail pleading for help.
Nicky G is going to jail for the Muscular Dystrophy Association on July 29.
They are putting me in a cell with Big Bubba who hasn’t seen a woman in 24 years.
I need a $2,400 donation to get me out.
Please pledge to the save Nicky G from Big Bubba and help out MDA.
Thanks
Nick
One friend responded this way:
“Hey Nick how much do we have to raise to get them to make you Bubbas’ roommate forever?”
Another guy wrote back:
“Will there be pictures of you in convict clothing available on the internet? Interesting.”
The worst response of all was:
“Well all I got to say is this! Move fast inside that cell and if he catches you, tell him that you already have a man! If that doesn’t work just pucker up and take it like a man!”
I didn’t realize I knew so many comedians.
Surely you boys are moonlighting as stand-up comics and can afford to send me a few bucks.
Nine wonderful, caring people have offered to chip in to help me.
Thanks to Glenda Holmes, Lana Sweeten-Shults, Diane Bryant, Chris Showalter, Regan Medlinger, Jackie Riley, Judith McGinnis, Bob Hance and Darrell Coleman.
Still, I am $2,238 short, and time is running out.
And Bubba has a big smile on his face.

I’m involved with the Muscular Dystrophy lockup Wednesday at Texas Roadhouse and I thought I would take my fund raising efforts to the internet.
Please follow this link and help out if you can.
Every little bit helps. I got a picture in the mail Monday from Shylah Cutbirth. Read her note below, then think a little bit more about what you can give.

I have to admit I have lusted over 8-year-old girls.
But I was in the second grade when I did it.
This Tony Alamo freak is 74.
And he has been having sex with little girls for at least 15 years, probably much longer.
Alamo was been a false prophet for 40 years.
To show you just how nutty this guy is, when his wife died in 1982, he put her embalmed body in a glass coffee table and asked his faithful followers to pray for her resurrection.
When that didn’t work, he found other sex partners — third graders — saying it was “God’s Will.”
The only God this pervert ever worshipped is between his legs.
Last week a jury in Texarkana, Ark., convicted Alamo on 10 counts of taking girls as young as 8 across state lines for the purpose of sex.
Alamo — whose real name is Bernie Hoffman — faces a possible 175-year prison sentence.
So for the rest of his life, the script changes.
Now Bernie will be some awful man’s little girl.
How fitting.
But the only true justice for a freak like this is a sharp ax or a butcher knife.
“Mr. Alamo, please pull down your pants and place your penis on this chopping block.”
Whack.
Goodbye pee-pee.
He won’t need it any way.
His cell mate will give him his.

As the high school football season wound down last fall, a couple of co-workers and I looked at all the Wichita County teams (that is except Electra) and thought we could be dealing with a whole new set of head coaches.
The reasons varied.

(more…)

My grandmother didn’t have a racist bone in her body.
She taught me to sing “red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight.”
But when she talked about black people, she called them “colored.”
I have a 70-year-old friend who still says “colored people” when referring to blacks.
But every time he says it, I cringe.
I say this because I read today that the NAACP is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
This organization, which was a leader in the civil rights movement, still has “Colored” in its name.
Even though “colored” is no longer considered proper.
Negro is also an outdated term.
I still say “black,” but that, too, is becoming unacceptable.
African American is now the proper way to refer to black people.
But I hate it.
I also don’t like Mexican American or Jewish American or Anglo American.
Can’t we all just simply be Americans?

That’s the situation Nocona finds itself in.
Although the superintendent didn’t return my call and Gary McElroy didn’t want to comment on the matter, McElroy has been reassigned.

(more…)

Richard Jefferson’s wedding last weekend cost a reported $2 million.
That’s pretty cheap considering what it looks like Arturo Gatti paid for his – his life.
Police arrested Gatti’s wife for allegedly killing the former boxing champ.
They say she strangled him with her purse strap while he slept.
That happened just about a week after Steve McNair ‘s girlfriend shot and killed the former NFL quarterback while he was sleeping.
This was a murder-suicide, which makes me think: Couldn’t we save a lot of lives if the person with the gun would reverse the order of things and do the suicide first?
Jefferson, wanted no part of that “until death do you part” vow.
All the guests showed up at his wedding last weekend.
The only thing missing was the groom.
The newest San Antonio Spur backed out of his marriage to a New Jersey Nets dancer. Instead, he gave his credit card to a friend and told him to treat the wedding guests to a fun night.
They were partying about the same time Arturo Gatti was being strangled.
I feel lucky. All my ex-wives just split.
And now we hear that Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson are no longer a couple.
Sleep well, Tony.

When I was raising my kids in the Baptist church, the preacher told us that the quickest way to burn in hell was to listen to “devil music.”
If Little Richard had invented rock and roll before those 10 commandments were handed over to Moses Malone, God might have added a few more to the list.
Such as:
Thou Shalt Not Listen to “Hotel California” by the Eagles.
Thou Shalt Not Listen to “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin.
Thou Shalt Not Listen to the Knights in Satan’s Service (KISS).
Thou Shalt Not Listen to any record played backwards.
“Rock and Roll,” the preacher said, “is a slang term the black people have for sex.”
I like it.
It’s much better than “getting it on” or “doing the nasty.”
And much better than the Bible word — FORNICATION.
I didn’t want to tell my kids back then, but if it hadn’t been for rock and roll, they probably wouldn’t have been around.
There’s a real good chance their mom and I were listening to Hotel California or Stairway to Heaven the night they were conceived.
But the “devil music” scare was 25 years or more ago.
Baptists, it seems, have changed their tune about rock and roll.
I say this after looking at an ad on Page 5A of today’s newspaper.
Right there in pretty big print, it says “Rock ‘n Roll — Down Under.”
The ad was for Vacation Bible School at — believe it or not — First Baptist Church.
Rocking and rolling at the FBC?
Just hope they don’t play those records backwards.

I get pretty pissed off every time I have to pay to drive through Oklahoma.
And now the Okies are planning to up the price.
“We still think we have the best roads in the state,” Jack Damrill, a spokesperson form the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority, was quoted as saying in our newspaper today.
Try driving from Hooterville Falls to Oklahoma City on the state’s free roads sometimes.
They were created for wagon trains and haven’t improved since the Oklahoma Indians started scalping us palefaces with slot machines instead of tomahawks.
Comparing the turnpike roads to these free roads would be like Joan Rivers winning a beauty contest against a monkey’s butt.
Damrill said if tolls aren ‘t raised, then “the maintenance of our system is going to take a hit.”
Maintenance?
What maintenance?
H.E. Bailey has been always been a washboard.
But if you Okies just have to have more money, let me make a suggestion.
Let the Indian tribes foot the bill.
Their casinos are the ones making all the damn money.

I may have a small fortune in the floorboard of my car.
That’s what I thought when I read today that some 11-year-old kid in London sold his Happy Meal toy collection for more than $11,000.
The kid had a 7,000-piece collection.
And very un-kid-like, he never played with any of the toys. He left them unopened in their original packages.
My 6-year-old grandson tears the package open before he ever takes a bite out of his burger.
This kid doesn’t go to McDonald’s for the food. He goes for the toys.
And most of them have ended up in the floorboard underneath the seats of my car.
If you throw in Pokemon, Bakugan, Ben 10, Power Rangers, Transformers and Star Wars — I have spent hundreds of dollars on junk.
Grandpa would go broke just to make little Nicholas a happy boy.
But I really felt stupid today when I read a survey of the “20 Most Worthless Pieces of Junk” and discovered Happy Meal Toys are No. 1 on the list.
McDonald’s junk is considered even more worthless than things like rice cookers or shoe inserts or bargain DVDs or ab rollers or ear candles.
Ear candles?
What in the heck is an ear candle?
According to the survey it is “an old-timey process that supposedly cleans out one’s ear canal. It works this way: a hollow tapered candle about the diameter of a child’s pencil is lit on the wide end. The narrow end is lowered into the ear canal. In theory, the updraft from the flame creates a partial vacuum within the candle, drawing all the ear gunk from the ear canal into the candle’s hollow center.”
Instead of sucking out the ear wax, however, it fills up the ear with candle wax and soot.
And you can’t hear yourself fart for about a week.
Yet the “ear candle” is only No. 11 on the worthless list, way down from the Happy Meal toy.
I wonder if anyone has ever been killed stepping on one McDonald’s worthless pieces of you-know-what.
You know a lot of feet have been broken in the 30 years since McDonald’s started seducing our children with this crap.
The toys may be worthless, but this promotion has been bringing customers to Micky D’s since December of 1979 when the worthless crap promoted “Star Trek the Movie.”
So what’s next — ear candles with every Big Mac?

Right after the Michael Jackson funeral this week, there was some office speculation (started by me) about who would be the heir to the superstar throne.
Who’s death could fill up almost two weeks of 24-7 television time?
Who would rate a funeral that would rival a high-dollar Las Vegas show?
I’m talking entertainers here.
Presidents and heads of state don’t count.
And for the time being, let’s leave out sports people. I’ll deal with that later.
My pick was Paul McCartney.
The Beatles — in my opinion — were the most famous band of all-time, and McCartney was the face of the Beatles.
I picked McCartney over Mick Jagger, but it’s pretty close, mainly because Jagger has amazingly been the main act for the Rolling Stones for almost 50 years.
Madonna’s name came up.
That would be big.
Somebody mentioned Cher.
Nah, she played Hooterviile Falls. That dropped her stock.
Hannah Montana?
Maybe if you’re 13.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were mentioned.
But they would have to die together like Romeo and Juliet.
In the end though, the winner was. . .
(Drum roll, please)
Oprah.
Wikipedia says this about Oprah Winfrey.
“an American media personality, actress, producer, literary critic and magazine publisher, best known for her self-titled, multi-award winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history. She has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century, the most philanthropic African American of all time, and was once the world’s only black billionaire. She is also, according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world.”
I don’t watch her show, so Oprah was not on my list.
But I can certainly see how she may be the biggest celebrity on the planet.
OK, now let’s talk sports.
For old farts like me, Muhammad Ali is huge. He really was the greatest.
Today though, it would be a toss up between Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan.
You can argue either way.
Jordan won six NBA championships and five MVPs, but the last one came 11 years ago.
Tiger is probably right now the most recognizable athlete in the world. But he plays golf, a sport that doesn’t have the popularity of basketball.
Do you have an opinion?
If so, lets’ hear it.

Mac Thornberry says Congress is way too busy to think about Michael Jackson.
I was never a big Michael Jackson fan, but I am also not a big Mac Thornberry fan.
Still I agree with Big Mac that there are more “pressing issues facing out nation” than the death of a pop music superstar.
What I don’t agree with him on is that Congress is too busy to do it.
Of course with all the extra marital affairs going on in Washington, I am sure that some congressmen are really tied up these days. Maybe literally.
And then of course there are those lunches with lobbyists. Don’t want to miss a free meal.
Then when I read the quotes from a certain New York congressman, I can understand why he might be busy picking out a new sheet to wear to the next rally.
But what else is keeping our elected officials so busy.
Is there a congressional pay raise on the agenda? While many Americans are losing their jobs and taking pay cuts, these men and women voted themselves a $4,700 across the board pay raise this year — costing taxpayers some $2.5 million.
This is one vote they never miss.
Are they planning more Senate hearings on steroids in baseball?
Don’t look now, but it seems like Washington is more concerned with this than the rest of America.
And then of course there is that all-important campaign to fix the BCS college football playoff.
How about one of those resolutions like proclaiming Jan. 3 National Chocolate Cherry Day.
Don’t laugh. It’s true.
Or how about National Corvette Day.
Just last year, our Congress proclaimed June 30 to honor a car.
Or how about one of those important proclamations honoring a team for winning the Super Bowl, the World Series, the NBA, the NHL, the NCAA field hockey championship, the Soap Box Derby, the Fourth of July hot dog eating contest, a cock roach race —- do you get my point?
But I am sure the real busy work in Washington these days is figuring out how to get re-elected.
I would bet if somebody kept score, these people spend more time trying to win elections than they do on actually representing the people who elect them.
Taking a few minutes out of their busy schedule to honor some singer/dancer — even though he has probably done more as a humanitarian than most all of them — is just asking too much, I guess.

I like Sarah Palin.
I didn’t vote for her. But I still like this lady.
So shut up with all this “quitter” crap.
Palin isn’t quitting on Alaska.
She loves her home state.
I believe her when she said she is stepping down as governor because she believes it is in the best interest of Alaska.
She is sick of the identity change brought on by a hapless, hopeless and witless Republican Party 11 months ago. The negative media and the b.s. that goes with it has beaten her up and beaten her down.
A lame duck governor with all this baggage can’t be the reformer Palin was when she beat out an incumbent governor and won the job.
Palin never asked for this attention.
The GOP — embarrassed by eight awful years of George Bush — had no answer in 2008.
They went for the Hail Mary Pass.
Or should I say the Hail Sarah Pass?
And it fell oh, about 25 yards short and incomplete.
Sarah Palin was prepared to be governor of Alaska.
She wasn’t prepared to be vice president of the United States and one heartbeat of a 72-year-old man away from being the leader of the free world.
It was like going from the stage of Backdoor Theater to the stage of Broadway.
But she couldn’t just say no to the offer.
Who could?
So leave the lady alone.
Let her go on being a good mother and a good wife and a good citizen.
Since Rush Limbaugh’s name has popped up as a potential candidate, you know the Republicans have a really short list to choose from in 2012.
So the party may knock on Palin’s door and ask her to run for president.
Hopefully, she will say no and not do an encore on the big state.
She’s too good a person to play this political game.

Yes, to many like me, Tom Crane will always be remembered as “Tom Crane the Weather Vane.”
It was just a nickname he couldn’t shake, even though he left that Channel 3 job 38 years ago.
But I also remember him in another way.
To me, he was always Tom Crane the Encourager.
Every time I saw Tom, he would tell me how he read everything I wrote.
He would point out certain columns or stories that he liked most, pat me on the back and say “Keep up the good work.”
In my business, you get much more criticism than you do praise.
(See Page 2C, top left corner, of today’s sports section.)
The nice words that Tom always had for me were certainly appreciated.
Now I wish I had taken the time to tell him how much I appreciated it.
Tom Crane was also a loyal friend.
Not to me — we were just casual acquaintances bonded together by our love for sports and journalism.
Tom and Chuck Avera were very close friends.
When the longtime tennis coach died a few years back, Tom called me and said he wanted to do something special for his buddy.
Every day, Chuck had gone to the 7th Street Sandwich Shop to eat and read the sports section of the newspaper. He always sat in the same booth.
Tom had the idea to honor Avera by placing a newspaper in that booth every day.
My boss agreed and we did it.
Chuck’s favorite greasy spoon changed owners not long ago and I’m not sure if Avera’s memorial is still around.
But I am betting it was as long as Tom Crane was alive.
Now that Tom is gone, I hope there’s a good friend out there who comes up with a special way to honor him.
Also, if you ever stop by the sandwich shop, ask if there’s still a daily newspaper at Chuck’s booth.
Or maybe I should say Chuck’s and Tom’s booth.