Archive for April, 2010

As much as I want to, it is hard for me to stay awake for those late NBA games.
But with the Mavericks on the brink of first-round elimination by the Spurs, I really wanted to watch Game 5 of that series last night.
So when I got home from work, I took an hour nap to help me stay awake.
I was ready for some playoff basketball at 8:30.
But the Spurs and Mavs were nowhere to be found.
Why?
The game was advertised to be on NBA-TV, Channel 402 on Dish.
I have NBA-TV, Channel 402 on Dish.
I pay 95 bucks a month to have NBA-TV, channel 402 on Dish.
I had watched parts of the network’s early game between the Celtics and Heat.
But once that game was over and it was time for Spurs-Mavs, a little blue box came on the screen telling me that game was not available in my area.
My “area” in Texas.
Last time I looked San Antonio is in Texas. And so is Dallas.
So what you are telling me is that NBA-TV will show me games I really don’t care about, but when one comes on that I do want to see, it is NOT (BLEEPING) AVAILABLE.
That’s a whole bunch of bull caca.
I would call Dish today and tell them what I think, but they would just transfer me over to some guy in Pakistan who eats goat and barely speaks English.
I would call Time Warner and tell them I want them back, but it would take about six months to get through on their wonderful automated telephone line.
So I will just bitch to you.
Now if the NBA-TV broadcast of Spurs-Mavs had interfered with some local broadcast, then I would understand.
But the game was not shown on any of the 250 zillion channels in my package.
That’s my problem with Dish.
I don’t want the Pentagon Channel.
I don’t want Planet Green.
I don’t want the Eternal World.
I don’t want the Jewelry Channel.
I certainly don’t want Fox News.
I want the (bleeping) Spurs and Mavericks.
My son has Time Warner and he watched in on something called KJBO.
That station is available on free TV — but not on my $95 piece of crap.
If anybody from Time Warner is reading this, I hate Dish and want you back.
Call me.
I can’t call you.
P.S. I am taking a couple of vacation days Thursday and Friday. See you again on Monday.

I promised myself a long, long time ago that I would not grow up to be one of those old farts who can’t adjust to modern times.
In other words, I was not going to be my dad.
Dad hated Elvis.He hated his sideburns. He hated his swivel hips. He hated hearing a white boy singing the black man’s music.
Finally, in 1964, Dad admitted that Elvis wasn’t all that bad.
That’s because he found something new to hate — the Beatles.
Their hair was too long. Their music was too loud. They did drugs.
I grew my hair long (when I had hair). I wore bell bottom jeans, sandals, beads and those wide leather watch bands.
I listened to Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.
Drugs? I’m not going there. I’ll simply plead the fifth amendment on that.
So I have never tried to judge my kids or their friends by the music the listened to, the length of their hair or the clothes that they wear.
I have accepted butt crack tattoos; tongue piercing and the wild and weird bands they listen to, I even turned the other cheek when a boy wearing a Charles Manson t-shirt came to the house to visit my daughter.
But there is one thing out there that really bothers me.
Ripped jeans.
My mama used to patch my blue jeans when I got holes in them.
Now my son buys them new with the holes already in them.
And he is a 34-year-old college graduate.
He’s not alone.
You can find “distressed” jeans for sale all over the Internet.
Saks Fifth Avenue offers “washed out stretched denim that is highly distressed with rips and holes in front in a slim fit.”
For just $198 a pair.
Victoria’s Secret is even selling ripped jeans.
I admit the ones that Britney Spears wears in her “Piece of Me” video look pretty darn hot. But she doesn’t buy these pants. They buy her. And they pay a lot more than $198.
If you don’t want to buy jeans already ripped, there are a lot of Web sites that offer instruction on how you can rip you own.
“Why?” I asked my son. “Why do you buy jeans with holes in them?”
“That’s the style,” he answered.
If it was stylish to stick a feather in your butt, would he do that?
Now I am sounding like that old fart I didn’t want to be.
It’s time to shut up.

If the Mavericks go one-and-done in these NBA playoffs, Rick Carlisle should be done as head coach.
It seems obvious to me that Dallas and San Antonio are pretty even talent-wise.
The reason the Spurs now lead the series 3-1 is they have a championship coach and the Mavs don’t.
Gregg Popovich does his best coaching in the postseason.
He has won four NBA championships and made the conference finals two other times in the past 12 years.
In Game 3, the Mavs went on a 17-0 run in the third quarter. They turned 51-59 into 68-59 in just a little more than three minutes.
Most coaches would have called a timeout during such a run.
Some coaches would have used every timeout they had to try and slow the other team down.
Popovich, however, just rode it out.
His team responded by slicing Dallas’ 9-point lead down to just 2 in under two minutes.
With 10:42 to play, San Antonio regained the lead and went on to win the game.
Popovich knows how to create mismatches on the court.
Carlisle looks lost. And so does his team.
It’s frustrating.
So if the Spurs go on to win this series — and it sure looks like they will — Mark Cuban needs to tell his coach to get lost.

RIght now as I write this, the Jacksboro ISD school board is meeting to approve new AD/football coach Tommy Allison.
I’m interviewing Superintendent Dennis Bennett later today, so I’ll get his thoughts on the hire for tomorrow’s TRN.
But Allison, who had been to the last two Class A Div. II state championships with Cayuga (winning the 2009 title), has beaten out lots and lots of very good football coaches.
Obviously, 2A is tougher than A. And as far as I know, Allison won’t have two D-I athletes on Jacksboro’s roster like he did at Cayuga with Traylon Shead and Malcolm Kennedy.
But the higher-ups in Jacksboro must have felt Allison will be a difference-maker that can take the Tigers — and their awesome 2A facilities — to the next level. Jacksboro hasn’t won a playoff football game since 2003.
Allison joins Rider’s Scott Ponder (Petrolia), Windthorst’s Bill Green, Munday’s Patrick Corcoran and Graham’s Kenny Davidson (Fort Worth Christian) as the area’s only head coaches to win state football championships.

Remember back when idiots like OU Joanie used to rag on Mack Brown for being a guy who could recruit but not coach.
And at the same time, those same clowns were calling the OU head coach Big Game Bob.
Well, what are they saying now?
Bob Stoops had three of his OU players drafted with the first four picks on Thursday night and then had another one go with the 21st selection.
Yet OU hasn’t won a national championship in 10 years.
And the Sooners have lost four of their last five games to Mack Brown’s Longhorns.
Maybe we should now be calling Stoops “Mr. February.”
He sure can recruit, but he stinks as a coach.

I certainly don’t know what’s going through a goofy mind of a person who decides to leave this earth with a violent murder-suicide.
Mostly likely they have never accomplished anything in their lonely lives and figure they might as well make a name for themselves by going out with a bang.
But think about it — nobody ever remembers the guys who do it.
Take this simple murder-suicide test.
1. Name the two Columbine killers?
2. Who was the gunman in the Luby’s cafeteria killing spree in Killeen?
If you answered Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold and then George Hennard, give yourself a gold star.
Most of us could never pass that test.
Ross William Muehlberger will also quickly be forgotten.
Years from now when people in our town start talking about the April 20, 2010 shooting spree, they will remember Toby’s and Hastings and the brave soldier Tim Donley.
But Muehlberger will be another “What’s-his-name” nutcase.
But everbody reading us knows about Smokey the Bear.
Why? Because he saves lives.
Suicide-murder is a much better idea than murder-suicide.
If George Hennard had done that, 24 people eating at Luby’s would still be alive.
If Lester Hobbs had done it, little Aja Jotson would be alive to celebrate her 9th birthday.
And if that “What’s-his-name” nutcase had done it, Tim Donely would be at Toby’s tonight.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting the man who should be the next governor of Texas.
But I may have a better chance at winning the Masters than Bill White has of beating Rick Perry next November.
Perry has a big “R” next to his name — and in this state these days, that beats “D” most every time.
Perry’s biggest challenge to the throne came in the primaries when he beat Kay Bailey Hutchinson.
Hutchinson had two big things that Bill White doesn’t — name recognition and that big “R” next to here name,
So Texas will be be stuck with Rick Perry for four more years.
But before you go out and vote for this guy just because of the “R,” take a close look at both men.
At least give Bill White a fighting chance.
I talked to a friend and a prominent Republican yesterday and he told me he would probably vote for White over Perry.
During White’s time as mayor, the Houston area led the nation’s cities in job growth. His campaign brags that Houston added more jobs during that time than 37 states combined.
He also cut property taxes for five straight years.
An editorial in the Houston Chronicle said: “Mayor White has deftly steered Houston through both fiscal and tropical storms. His successor will have a tough act to follow.”
Bill White probably doesn’t have a prayer of being elected our governor.
Just because of that damn “R.”
But he is still the best man for the job.
We miss you, Ann Richards.

It was the biggest story in Sunday’s paper.
But I’m betting most people missed it.
Fred and Mary Toler are celebrating their 70th wedding anniversary over in Iowa Park.
Seventy years of marriage to the same person?
Now that is what I call taking “until death do us part” pretty darn seriously.
Pay attention, Tiger Woods.
Pay attention, Nicky G.
Fred and Mary were married in 1940 — some six and a half years before I was even born.
And I’m an old fart.
They lived through the Great Depression, World War II, Vietnam, 911 and George W. Bush.
And have spoiled eight grandchildren, 12 great grandchildren and six great-great grandchildren.
Simply amazing!
Marriage, in my humble opinion, is the toughest thing in life to do.
And I have three divorces to prove it.
It is harder than golf, harder than quitting smoking, harder than opening plastic containers.
But Fred and Mary have been working at it for 70 long years.
They should make trading cards of people like this.
Their anniversary notice made Page 5B of Sunday’s paper.
It should have been on the front page.

I don’t like paying taxes.
Who does?
But I like living in the USA.
So I pay.
That’s the rules.
I don’t even mind you Tea Party people protesting.
That’s also the rules.
What pisses me off is some Fox News puppet coming to my hometown and telling me that my Heavenly Father is not really my Heavenly Father.
That’s what the radical fool, Rev. Jesse Peterson, said yesterday.
“You cannot be a child of God and vote for the Democratic platform,” the irreverant reverand told the few hundred people who showed up on the courthouse lawn to hear his Rush Limbaugh imitation.
Sorry, buddy, but my God is not a Republican.
He loves me so much that he gave his only son for me.
He also loves idiots like you, reverend.
Peace!

Not often have you read in this blog anything good about the WFISD.
In fact, I am often reminded by one former school board member that I once referred to him and his cohorts as “knuckleheads.”
And over the years I have had some not so nice things to say about our superitendents.
Well, today, I am going to applaud those “knuckleheads” and our current superintendent for the way they handled the Carl Pennington situation.
Well, almost.
There was something in Ann Work’s front page story on Wednesday that still concerns me.
Reginald Blow, who served as board president for part of Tuesday’s meeting, said he could not really talk about the details of what went on with Pennington “because my hands are tied.”
But he then told Ann that more information about the situation would be revelaed at Monday’s regularly scheduled meeting.
Not sure what all that means, but hold the applause until after we find out.
But today I am semi-applauding the superintendent and the school board for doing the right thing by not firing the Wichita Falls High basketball coach. Instead they renewed his contract for one-year but at the same time put him on sort of a probation.
Pennington did some things wrong, but he deserves a second chance.
He is a good guy, a good coach and a man smart enough to learn from his mistakes.
WFHS is better off with him than without him.
Plus I believe that had he been fired, it would have set off a firestorm among this city’s African-American population.
Many blacks are still angry that Larry Menefee was passed up for the principal’s job.
Firing the school’s only African-American head coach would have been seen as just another slap in their black faces.
And the real loser would have been the WFHS athletic program.
In the WFISD choice program, Rider and Hirschi would have been the easy choices for our city’s top black athletes and their families.
The action taken by the school board on Tuesday was certainly no knucklehead decision.
You guys did good.
But my hands are now the ones that are tied. I will hold back any real applause until Monday night.

I feel like crap today,
And I look worse.
My face is bruised.
My lip is fat.
My jaw is out of whack.
Both legs are cut up.
My ego is shaken.
I look like Rocky after that first fight with Apollo Creed.
Or maybe Frankestein.
Would you believe me if I told you I got this way fighting to save some young woman who was being assaulted?
No, I didn’t think so.
You who really know me know my fighting record is 0-forever.
You would never buy that old “You oughta see the other guy,.”
So I will be truthful.
I fell on my face Monday afternoon at the Little League park.
No one pushed me. I didn’t trip over anything.
I just fell.
Like some elderly old coot who belongs in a home with a nurse wiping the drool off his chin.
So if I still look like this the next time you see me, don’t ask what happened.
I have already told you. Make me say it again and I just might make you whip my ass.

Well, Quanah finally filled its head coach/AD position Monday night by going with Jason Sims.
Sims was the WFHS’ linebackers coach/special teams coordinator this past year. Before that, he had spent six years as Archer City’s defensive coordinator. Sims was behind that really good defense that was key to the Wildcats’ state quarterfinal run in 2008.

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There used to be this one guy who called me every week to argue about our pro wrestling coverage.
This was in the old days, back when every Thursday was wrestling night at the 4-H barn and every Friday night was TV wrestling sponsored by Don Birge.
Well, my wrestling fan just could not understand why high school football or anything else got better newspaper coverage than Danny Hodge vs. The Great Bolo.
My argument to him was: “If wrestling was real, do you really think they would have the world championship match at the 4-H barn in Wichita Falls, Texas?”
That never changed his mind, but just think about it.
How many world champions do we have here in Hooterville Falls?
Well, according to this morning’s newspaper, we do have one.
“Rain,” billed as the 2010 world pole champion, is performing all this week at Maximus.
I wonder if anyone has told her she is pole dancing in a town made famous by our own one-arm stripper.
Maybe the could do a duet.

Has there ever been a better opening day at the Masters?
Even God was enjoying it so much, He changed the course of the weather.
There was a severe storm bearing down on Augusta on Thursday, but it broke up and just went around the golf course.
The first-round leader is 50-year-old Fred Couples, a rookie on the senior tour.
One shot back is 60-year-old Tom Watson who is proving that last year’s British Open was no fluke.
Tied with Watson is Phil Mickleson, the second best player in the world and also the second most popular.
Y.E. Yang, the last guy to win a major, is also one shot back. Yang is the guy who beat Tiger at the PGA.
Then there’s K.J. Choi, a guy who played with Tiger on Thursday and beat him by one shot. Choi is tied with Watson, Mickelson and Yang.
And of course there is this great Tiger comeback story.
The weird commercial with his dead dad; the warm reception by the fans; the two eagles and the best opening day round (4 under) he has ever had at the Masters.
Great, great theater on one beautiful stage.
The weekend should really be fun.

On my flight back from Springfield, Mass. a couple weeks ago, Delta picked my pocket for 60 bucks in baggage fees.
It was the first time I had been swindled by this “We hate your bags” policy.
When I have to fly, I do everything possible to use Southwest.
I love an airline that loves my bags.
If that weren’t bad enough, here comes an airline that will start making passengers pay for carry-one luggage.
Spirit Airlines — a low-fare airline based in Miramar, Fla., — has announced that it will begin charging as much as $45 for a carry-on bag that you put in the overhead storage. It is only $20 per bag if you are a member of Spirit’s special club or $30 if you pay in advance online.
The company line is that this will speed up boarding and deplaning and the low costs of its flights will make up for the extra fee.
Now I have never flown Spirit and probably never will, but you bet your sweet booty that the other airlines that we do fly will join the pick-pocketing party.
It’s hard for a thief to pass up easy money.
It would be nice if Americans would just boycott these thieving bastards for a week or so to make them re-think these policies, but that will never happen.
But when possible, you can bet I will give Southwest my business.
Spirit points out that it still won’t charge for baggage that will fit under your seat.
I’m betting it won’t be long before they do.

Duke is officially the national champion of college basketball.
The Blue Devils won the title fair and square Monday night.
And we will remember them for a long, long time.
But only because of Butler.
National champions come and go every year, and most of us quickly forget them.
There are way too many sports and way too many other things clogging our minds these days for us to actually remember who won some title four years ago.
Who did win in 2006?
If you knew it was Florida, good for you.
All I remember about that year and that Final Four was George Mason.
That’s because every year since then, when the brackets are drawn up, people always ask: “Who will be this year’s George Mason?”
And from here to eternity — or at least until some mid-major conference school wins a national title — people will be asking: “Is there another Butler out there?”
The only reason we will look back 10 years from now and remember that Duke won the 2010 national championship is because of Butler.
Even after the Bulldogs beat Michigan State in the Final Four opener and stretched their win streak to 25 in a row, most people thought “Ok, that’s nice. But they have no chance against Duke.”
At least that is what we were all thinking after the Blue Devils demolished West Virginia.
But Butler played mighty Duke down to the wire Monday night and came within inches of winning the national title.
Because of Butler, this was a special year for college basketball.
Sure wish the BCS people and college football would take notice and change their ways of dong things.

Two tidbits of high school football information brought to you on this Monday
* WFHS receiver Devontay Chaffin received an offer from Louisiana Tech last week. I was told this by football/track coach Shawn Lewis at the PK Relays.
It’s his first one, and obviously anytime someone from around here gets a D-I offer, thats’ a pretty cool deal. I have a feeling a lot more will be coming his way.
* Case McCoy played in Sunday’s University of Texas spring game. Garrett Gilbert was the starter and he took most of one team’s reps (and threw 3 TDs). Sherrod Harris got most of the other’s reps, while next year’s freshmen Case McCoy and Connor Wood also played.
Those last three QBs mentioned played on both teams. Here were their stats:
Sherrod Harris — 5-8-0, 76 yds, TD
Connor Wood — 3-5-0, 20 yds, TD
Case McCoy — 1-5-0, 10 yds
Also, saw an ESPN highlight with McCoy standing on the sideline. His number was No. 6 — that’s half of his brothers’ number.

For us Christians, Easter should be a bigger deal than Christmas.
Yeah, a virgin birth is pretty cool.
But a resurrection is much cooler.
Yet we don’t put up Easter trees or hang Easter stockings for send Easter cards. MSU doesn’t have a Fantasy of Easter Lights.
Part of the problem with Easter is it is not on the same day every year. Heck, sometimes it’s not even in the same month.
And it always falls on Sunday.
Nothing new there. Christians can go to church every Sunday.
With Christmas, you might have church on a Friday night.
Plus, you don’t get a holiday from work for Easter because it always falls on Sunday.
But maybe all of this is good. Easter is not as commercialized as Christmas is.
You don’t max out your Discover card on Easter.
I have zillions of good and not-so-good Christmas memories.
But I have one Easter memory that tops all of them.
Easter 1963:
I was a junior in high school.
I was a poor boy. I had holes in my blue jeans way before it became fashionable to do so.
By the spring of 1963, most juniors at Wichita Falls High School had paid for their senior rings.
Not me. My daddy struggled just to pay the rent.
Even though a senior ring back then only cost 17 bucks, I didn’t have 17 cents.
But on Easter Sunday, my mama gave me an Easter basket.
An Easter basket for a 16-year-old boy? I would have much rather had a copy of Playboy.
Inside that basket were 17 plastic eggs.
In each egg, was a silver dollar.
My waitress mama had saved enough tips to buy my senior ring.
She never saw me wear it.
Mama was killed the summer before my senior year.
That’s what makes this Easter memory so special.

Right now, there are two head coaching vacancies in this area.
There are also a couple regional openings that are drawing some interest from area coaches.
Here’s what I know (and I’m sure there’s a lot more I don’t):

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According to a good friend and reliable source in Austin, our governor is considering proposing a law that would legalize marijuana in Texas.
No (bleep). He really is.
Like any good Republican, Rick Perry is motivated by the money that pot can put in the state’s cookie jar.
Perry said a study done by the Texas branch of NORMAL (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) has shown that our state can profit billions of dollars in tax revenue and avoid having a state income tax.
The governor, who has admitted smoking pot during his college days at Texas A&M, said although illegal, marijuana is as much a Texas tradition as high school football and dove season.
He pointed to singer Willie Nelson, the late Janis Joplin, the Dallas Cowboys of the 1990s and Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington as examples.
Perry said it is possible that a special election could be held in November of this year and Texans can be buying and smoking pot legally by New Year’s Eve.
He said the state would control all sales of pot and parephenalia.
Drive-through head shops will feature both low-grade Mexican and high-grade sinsemilla as well as bongs, hookas, high quality rolling papers and an assortement of Twinkies, Oreos, whole cashews and various other junk foods.
Perry said if Texas can profit as much on the legalization as weed as he thinks it can, he may consider the legalization of cocaine in 2011 and heroin by 2012.
April Fool.