Archive for May, 2010

I am really going to miss “24.”
Jack Bauer gave me a reason to watch TV.
I looked forward to Monday nights. I had my DVR set to record every episode just in case I wasn’t in my recliner when that clock started ticking.
“24″ had its final episode this week — and left us with that dead parole officer still stuffed in a storage bin at CTU.
Hopefully, they will find his smelly carcas before the premier of “24 The Movie.”
But all good things must come to an end, and “24″ has now joined “The Fugitive” and “Gunsmoke” and other great TV shows in re-run land.
In eight seasons — which on “24″ is just eight days — Jack killed 266 people.
Most of them were bad guys but some were just guys unlucky be the in the wrong place at the wrong time.
That’s an average of 2.8 kills an hour or 33.25 per day.
That’s big-time killing.
It’s more than 30 times the rate that the 4,400 Americans have died during eight years in Iraq.
Another interesting part of “24″ was the fictional U.S. presidents the show gave us.
In eight days, we had
(1.) President Palmers. Two black brothers. One is assassinated. The other is still in a coma somewhere.
(2.) President Daniels. A Bill Clinton type who couldn’t keep his pants zipped.
(3.) President Logan. A paranoid Richard Nixon type.
(4.) Preisent Taylor. A woman so ethical that she sent her own daugher to prison yet so unethical that she covered up an assassination by the Russians.
What can “24 The Movie’ do to top this?
How about a cross-dressing gay president and a first lady with a 5 o’clock shadow?
I don’t care who the president is.
Just put Jack Bauer and Chloe O’Brien on the big screen in 3D.
I will be the first in line.

Steve Kerr, the general manager of the Phoenix Suns, joked about signing LeBron James and got slapped with a $10,000 tampering fine by the NBA.
Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, said the Mavs would be interested in signing LeBron and got hit with a $100,000 fine.
They broke the rule. It’s a stupid rule. But it’s still a rule. And they both knew the rule.
Now the President of the United States is tampering.
In a TV interview with sportscaster Marv Albert, President Obama said LeBron would fit in nicely with his hometown team, the Chicago Bulls.
“I will say this: (Derrick) Rose, Joakim Noah it’s a pretty good core. You know, you could see LeBron fitting in pretty well there,” Obama said in TNT interview scheduled to air tomorrow night.
The president won’t be charged with tampering because he has not direct interest in the Bulls franchise. He is just a fan, like me and you.
But he’s not like me and you.
He’s the president of the USA.
When you and I talk, nobody really pays much attention.
But when Obama talks, the whole world listens..
And that includes the world of LeBron James.
If the president called me tonight and said he would like to see me write a column about roller skating, I would be at the rink when it opened tomorrow.
When the leader of the free world says the NBA’s biggest star would look good in a Bulls uniform, I’m sure LeBron at least listens.
That’s tampering.
Fine his presidential booty.

How many of your out there live in a mansion?
10 grand a month for rent, utilities and a pool boy?
Five bedrooms?
Seven bathrooms?
Three dining rooms?
Better yet, it’s all free.
We working slobs are paying for it all.
So, governor, if all those HD TV screens aren’t big enough, please call Best Buy and put it on our tab.
And I have yet to get one “thank you” card from Rick Perry.
How about you?
Oh, I did see the message that all MSU needs to put about $1.7 million back in the state cookie jar. Like other state agencies here in Texas, my alma mater was asked to cut costs by 5 percent.
But please don’t anyone tell our governor that he could probably get by with just six bathrooms.
When you gotta go, you gotta go.
And without doubt, Rick Perry has shown us he is full of caca.
But when a reporter questioned the governor about his Barton Creek mansion, his reply was “Bring it on!”
Last time I heard someone say that, Don King was sitting next to him.
Rick Perry, however, is not the only smug SOB politician out there.
It seems these days that all of the people we vote into office think once they get there, they are better that we common folks.
They deserve pay raises while we ours are being cut.
They deserve better health care than me and you.
They deserve to live in mansions while we struggle to pay the rent.
They deserve seven bathrooms while we have to shake the handle just to make our toilet flush.
Hopefully come November, Texans will flush Rick Perry.

First off, let me tell you that I am an expert on baptism.
I have been baptized three times.
A dunking hat trick for Nicky G.
The first time I was 13 and did it because I had officially reached that so-called “age of accountability” and all my friends down at the 10th and Broad Church of Christ were doing it.
The second time I was in my 20′s and was chasing a a pretty young thing in a short skirt. I went to church with her one Sunday and chased her right down the aisle, “got saved,” and was baptized with her that night.
Two weeks later we broke up and I never went back to Fairway Baptist Church.
Then back in 1982, I did it a third time.
This was for real. I got saved in a Baptist revival.
I was dunked into the water as an act of obedience and was a witness of being buried with Christ and being risen to new life with him.
My preacher preached on baptism Sunday morning.
It is not a subject you often hear addressed from the pulpit, mainly because Christians can’t agree on what it is all about.
As a kid growing up in the Church of Christ, I was taught that you had to baptized to get into Heaven.
Later on in life, I discovered that was wrong.
The good people at the Church of Christ just can’t explain away that thief on the cross.
For most of my life I was taught that sprinkling wasn’t baptism.
God did not accept anything except dunking.
Wrong again.
Baptism is about what is in a person’s heart, not how or where you do it.
I don’t believe in baby baptism because the Bible says baptism is for believers.
That’s not a knock on my Catholic friends.
It’s just what they call baptism is really just a christening or a dedication of a child to God.
That’s a good thing.
I just have a problem with the wording, that’s all.
But one thing I think we Christians should all agree on.
Baptism is an important part of our faith.
Jesus himself — though sin free — was baptized.
If it’s good enough for the Son of God, then It’s certainly good enough for the son of Earle and Freda Gholson.
But three baptisms is two too many.
One is enough.

We’ve got a lot of kings down here in Texas.
Football is king. Nobody does it better than us.
Ditto for barbecue.
Bob Willis is still the king. Waylon Jennings sang it. I believe it.
Jerry Jones has replaced Roy Rogers as king of the Cowboys.
We also have the King Ranch down around Kingsville.
So do we need another King?
Darn right, we do.
I would love to see King James playing for the Mavericks.
That would finally bring an NBA championship to the Dallas.
And it might be our only shot.
Mark Cuban has deep pockets and can certainly afford LeBron James.
And Texas is a whole lot better place to live than New York City.
LeBron says all he really wants to do is win a championship.
Well, he has a much better chance of doing that with the Mavs than he does with the Knicks.
Plus we don’t have a state tax. That’s a huge plus for a guy who makes more than $40 million a year in salary and endorsement money.
I’m just dreaming here. This King is not coming to Dallas.
He says he all he wants is to win a championship.
His two best chances to do that would be the Lakers and Celtics.
Kobe and LeBron on the same team — that should be illegal.
But Boston is a real possibility. This is a franchise that knows how to win NBA titles, and the team’s superstars are getting up in years.
Today some people are saying and writing that the King’s stock fell with the Cavaliers’ loss to the Celtics.
He had a triple-double 27 points, 19 rebounds and 10 assists in last night’s loss.
That lowers his value?
I don’t think so, but the King needs a ring to verify his royalty.
Michael Jordan won six NBA titles in Chicago — which when he arrived there, was no better than Cleveland.
LeBron will never be in Michael’s world — or even Kobe’s world — until he starts winning championships.
Right now he is headed in the direction of ring-less superstars like Karl Malone and Charles Barkley.
I’ve got an idea.
How about LeBron signing on with the Charlotte Hornets?
This is an up-and-coming team that made the playoffs this year.
Plus, Michael now owns this team.
Michael and LeBron together — maybe not on the court, but with the same team — would certainly be interesting.
But I would rather see him in Dallas.

Guerdwich Montimere is not a criminal.
He never robbed, raped or killed anybody.
In fact, until now, about the only thing this guy was guilty of was having a name nobody can spell or pronounce. (Thank God for cut and paste).
But poor Guerdwich is now out on bond and facing jail time and a fine.
His crime?
Playing high school basketball.
Calling himself Jerry Joseph, he somehow enrolled at Odessa Permian High School, went out of the basketball team and averaged 20 points a game.
The Permian coach wanted to adopt him.
Only problem was Guerdwich graduated from high school three years ago.
He is 22, not a 16-year-old sophomore like he pretended to be.
I sort or understand the guy.
Back when I was 13, a buddy and I signed up to play a tournament for a 10-year-old team. We played on 8-foot baskets and dominated the little kids.
It was fraud. But it was sure was fun.
The guy is 6-5 and has some game. Would it not have been easier to just try walking on at some junior college or some NAIA school?
If not, how about a city league or the YMCA?
But no, poor Guerdwich — a naturalized U.S. citizen from Haiti — went back to school and now may have to to go back to jail.
Can you imagine this guy sitting in some cell with Big Bubba?
“They say I killed six people, but I didn’t murder nobody,” Bubba growls. “I is innocent.”
“What are you in here for, boy?” he says, eyeing the booty.
Guerdwich answers in a very, very soft voice.
“Playing basketball, sir.”
Fraud is not always fun.

Texas is scheduled to have back-to-back executions tonight and tomorrow.
Not so long ago, my attitude would have been:
“Good riddance. Fry the no-good bastards.”
But my opinion has changed.
I’ve just read way too many stories about convicts being released from prison after being locked up for sometimes up to 35 years for a crime they didn’t commit.
Google “innocent men released from prison” and you will see where I am coming from.
I know you can show me in the Bible where God gives his OK to capital punishment.
“And eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”
But our lawmen and our legal system have just made way too many mistakes for me to support a system that might execute innocent men and women.
There have been 1,203 executions in this country since 1976.
I wonder how many of those were mistakes.
Scary thought.
And the odds are most of the mistakes happened here in Texas.
That is because our state is responsible for roughly 38 percent of all executions in this country.
We’re No. 1.
We’re No. 1.
Texas has had 454 executions since 1982.
Virginia is a distant No. 2 at only 106.
Heck, when George W. Bush was governor, Texas put 153 in the grave.
Bush beat Virginia in just eight years.
That’s almost 20 a year.
Yes sir, Texas does executions better than anybody.
We had 24 last year. No. 2 Alabama had just 6.
Texas 24, Alabama 6 — don’t you wish that had been the score of that national championship football game this year?
We have 7 this year, but by adding two more this week, we will more than double No. 2 Ohio’s four.
Once upon a time, I would have said: “That, gives a whole new meaning to Don’t Mess With Texas.”
Today, however, I just feel ashamed that some innocent men had to die like this..

I love Hooterville Falls.
It is my hometown. I have lived here almost all of my life.
I don’t plan on ever moving.
But being a life-long Hootervillian gives me the right to poke fun at my hometown.
And when I read in the paper today that this town had been voted the best weekend getaway by The Official Best of Texas 2010, I had to laugh out loud.
Only if you are running from the law would this place be considered “the best weekend getaway”
Our cops have too many meth heads to deal with to worry about catching some fugitive holed up at the Wayfarer.
What do we have that might attract someone into spending a weekend here?
Our 108-degree summers?
An OK water park?
A cold and ugly coliseum?
The famous Crepe Myrtle?
The littlest skyscraper?
The Chocolate Falls?
Attebury grain elevator?
Dr. Phil’s old home?
The Fillmore Hill?
The Flyover?
The Times Square sign?
How about a nice drive down Scott Street?
After a scenic view of our salvage yards, relax with drinks at the It’ll Do.
Bring your camera. You might just want to take photos of your family in front of the old Wilson Manufacturing or the Wichita River or maybe even with one of our many homeless people.
Stop and take in some famous landmarks like the Imperial 400 motel; the Steak and (L)egg coffee shop; the old deserted Sears building; the old deserted Cow Lot; the old deserted everything.
Book a room at the Catalina or the Triple D and pay by the hour.
Your scenic Scott Street trip will end with more photo opportunities at the famous — but old and deserted — Holiday Inn East.
When the sun goes down, the night life begins.
We have several saloons for you to enjoy, but take this advice. Order beer in longneck bottles. The bottles make nice weapons — just in case some drunk cowboy doesn’t like your ear ring.
And for your dining pleasure, the Whataburgers are open 24 hours.
Hope you enjoy the best weekend getaway in Texas.
Ya’ll come back now, hear?
.

Hooterville Falls has elected a new mayor.
Or maybe I should stay 3,282 Hootervillians elected a new mayor.
Only 5,775 of us bothered to go vote.
So Glen Barham won the mayor’s seat in an election that drew only 9.9 percent of this town’s registered voters.
90.1 percent of you didn’t vote.
It’s not that you didn’t know there was an election.
There are signs all over town to remind you
It all comes down to you not thinking voting for mayor was worth your time and energy.
Have we all forgotten what not voting did to us 10 years ago?
So the next time the City Council decides to buy a water park, you should keep your mouth shut.
The next time a golf course is forced to close because of an unfair water bill, you need to just shut up.
The strangest thing about this election is that Barham’s winning vote total was less than the number of registered voters our town lost in just one year.
A year ago there were 62,018 registered voters here in Hooterville.
This year there were only 58,354.
That’s a loss of 3,664 voters. Barham won with 3,282 votes.
But despite the low turnout, Hooterville got it right this time.
Barham was without question the best man for the job.

I wrote this several years ago, and it has appeared both in the paper and on this Web site. I really think it was one of the best things I ever wrote. So with Mother’s Day coming up Sunday, I share myself and my mama with you.

——

I always get kind of sentimental at this time of year.
That’s because I have always been a Mama’s boy.
And, boy, do I miss my Mama.
She has been gone for almost 47 years.
I was only 16 – a month before the start of my senior year in high school – when Mama was killed. She was only 35.

Mama wasn’t the June Cleaver type mother.
She was young and liked to party.
She drank cold beer and sometimes gin and tonic.
She loved to go dancing on Saturday night.
She wore short shorts back when the churches told us that all women who wore short shorts were headed straight to hell.

Mama always had a job, something most women didn’t do back in those days.
She was the best damn waitress in Wichita Falls.
She was working at the old Marchman Hotel coffee shop downtown when she died.

Mama also liked sports, especially baseball and football.
She also introduced me to my first love – Marilyn Monroe.
I was a really young kid when she took me to see the movie “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.”
I fell in love with Marilyn that night.
Marilyn died young.
Mama and I cried together.
A year later Mama died.
I cried alone.

I’m not for sure, but Mama had probably been drinking the night she died. I told you she liked to party, and one of her friends had a wedding shower out at Lake Kickapoo. Doubt if those girls were drinking Kool Aid.
Driving home late that night on Highway 79, two cars crashed head on.
The driver of the 1961 Chevy Impala – my Mama — died instantly. I was told the sudden impact slammed her head into the windshield and broke her neck.
I never got to say goodbye.

Mama never got to see her two grandchildren or her great grandson.
I believe there’s a Heaven and one day we will see each other again. And Tommy, Christy and Nicholas will see the grandma and great grandma they never knew.
But on this Sunday, once again, I will have to wear a white rose again on Mother’s Day.
Then sometime that afternoon, I will drive to Hope Cemetery in Henrietta and stand by the small marble tombstone and stare at the words I have stared at so many times before.
Freda Gresham
Born: Sept. 5, 1927
Died: Aug. 2, 1963

Give your mama a big hug on Sunday.
I sure wish I could hug mine.

For most of my life, when I heard the name “Muehlberger,” I thought of blue jeans.
I bought a lot of Levis and other stuff from the old downtown store at 7th and Indiana.
But from here to eternity, I guess, the name “Muehlberger” will remind me of murder.
Two weeks ago Ross Muehlberger killed a man at Toby’s and shot and wounded four women at Hastings. Then he killed himself.
Suicide usually means the end of the story.
But not this time.
Pamela Sampley, the alleged girl friend and sidekick of Muehlberger, has taken over the front page headlines.
The charges against her keep piling up, but the one getting the most attention stems from her allegedly threatening to finish off what Muehlberger didn’t do. That, according to law, is a terrorist threat.
And in this day and age, we take terrorist threats pretty darn seriously.
I don’t know Pamela Sampley.
And here in the USA, people are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.
Nothing has yet to be proven.
But if I were her lawyer, I would first tell her to shut up.
What you say in a jail cell can keep you in a jail cell.
Next, I would have her dye her red hair and completely change the way she looks.
You don’t want to go before a judge looking like Squeaky Fromme.
And that is exactly what this woman looks like — the loyal follower of Charles Manson.
Go back and look at that newspaper mug shot.
Then Google up an image of a young Squeaky.
There’s a scary resemblance.
Manson even once gave Fromme the nickname “Red.”
Fromme was a bad girl.
She went to prision for trying to assassinate President Gerald Ford.
In prison, she attacked a fellow inmate with the claw end of a hammer.
She went to prison when she was just 27. She was 60 when they put her back on the streets last year.
If Pamela Sampley keeps talking and looking like Squeaky Fromme, she may face a similar fate.

I woke up this morning not even realizing today was Cinco de Mayo.
In fact, I didn’t figure it out until I got to work and read a story about how the Phoenix Suns are going to wear their “Los Suns” jerseys for tonight’s Game 2 in their playoff series against the Spurs to honor the Latino community and protest the stupid Arizona law which allows racial profiling to try and handle the immigration problem.
The Spurs, which come from a city with a huge Latino population, applauded their stand and wanted to wear “Los Spurs” jerseys but decided too late to do so.
It’s rare for professional athletes to take a political stand, so I think this is awesome.
Three years ago, I wrote a blog expressing my own thoughts about Cinco de Mayo.
Pardon me for this rerun.

The Gristmill restaurant.
Gruene Hall.
Kenny Wayne Shepherd.
All three have a unique greatness that made taking off a couple of days last week well worth it.
It is spelled Gruene, but pronounced Green.
If you have never been to Gruene, Texas, you’ve gotta go.
The little town — located just off I-35 between Austin and San Antonio — bills itself as “gently resisting change since 1872.”
There are the usual antique shops, which will probably interest many of you. But it’s not my thing.
The soda fountain in the general store, however, gave me a peep into my past.
When you go to Gruene, you have to eat at the Gristmill.
It is a unique restaurant that’s not hard to find. Just look under the Gruene water tower.
The Gristmill sits in the shade of towering oak trees and overlooks the Guadalupe River.
When your waiter asks “outside or inside?” make sure you choose outside.
It is a wonderful dining experience.
The most popular item on the menu, of course, is chicken fried steak.
But if you, like me, are trying to drop a few pounds, the chicken caesar salad is great.
And plan your trip around an evening at Gruene Hall.
Texas’ oldest dance hall — a small venue that only holds about 800 people — has had some of the top names in the music business on its stage.
I got to experience the greatness of Kenny Wayne Shepherd.
This 23-year-old Louisiana boy is the hottest blues guitarist going.
He’s a combination of Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan.
He finished his Gruene Hall show with “Voodoo Child,” a song made famous by Hendrix.
But Kenny Wayne did it even better.
If you want to experience Texas, you’ve gotta go to Gruene.
It’s a great short vacation.

Hopefully, all of you out there took time to read my Saturday column.
If you did — and you took my advice — you have a lot more jingle in your pocket today.
I nailed the Kentucky Derby.
My prediction of jockey Calvin Borel on Super Saver paid a nice 8-to-1.
Nice pay day for all of my believers.
This poor boy wagered $10 across the board and walked away with a cool $168.
It was my best Derby prediction since I picked Smarty Jones to win in 2004 and also had the $65.20 exacta.
And for you doubters, all I can do is quote the great philospher Gomer Pyle:
“Shame — shame — shame.”
I’m betting you will be attention come Preakness time.

We’ve got a lot of area athletes competing at this week’s regional track meets. Here’s the list:

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