Oh it's been so long

That's what she said.

Anyway, wow, I suck. No blogs lately.

The muse remains on summer break, but in the meantime, here's a small YouTube contingent in tribute to the anonymous dude behind myself, pulling the puppet strings that are Stronger Than Dirt Pete Moss ...



The Nazz - Not Wrong Long

Addendum:



(Too-short snippet of) Lord Buckley - The Nazz

Seriously, watch that one. Gate of Horn -- you cannot hardly get more "Chicago" than that. Take that, Michiflanderers and Hosers (or whatever you're called)!

There. Now I feel a little less inadequate qua my blogeurishness.

PS - Remind me to do an obsessive post about Chicago folk music history someday. I'll enjoy putting it together.

Here is an appetizer:



John Prine - Souvenirs

PPS - And one more because I can't resist:



Steve Goodman and Jethro Burns - City of New Orleans

Saturday Night Ouyay Ubetay Ostpay

Homer & Jethro - The Battle of Kookamonga

Too clement to blog

It's summer. Shut off the computer. Go outside. And don't slam the screen door on the way out.

Poopery

It's a poopery post, people ... hubris gone wiiiild ... unwaning arrogance -- the unwaning arrogance of several obscure 1980s-Chicago politics/media (i.e., Harold Washington/Mike Royko) references in a row, right in the first sentence of this post, the one explaining that it's a throwaway post of unconnected crap, kind of like a Neil Steinberg column, except much less horrific. Items probably to be added gradual-like over the course of this windy evening, as I think them up ... so check back periodically for updates. Hah. Right.

•The Weather Item. So much for the Windy City thing being a myth. Holy shit. Hatten down the batches, folks -- we have a midwestern SuperStorm® on the way tonight. Tommy Skilling promises 90 mph winds, flying monkeys, and this time the wicked witch wins instead of that insipid bitch Dorothy.

Yes, there is a 100% chance of falling-tree-induced death tonight in the entire Middle West region, as well as a 1,000% chance of toronados, cieras, and cordobas -- every type of crappy 1970s Detroit car -- rusting all over the place and taking up one-and-a-half parking spots, each.

So, as Hawk Harrelson would say, "Strap it on tight and shove it in deep" ... or whatever it is he says. Something creepy and disturbing. "Can o' porn!"

•The Cubs Item. One thing bugs me about the Cubs' new backup catcher, Koyie Hill. Koyie don't live on hills! They live in ponds! If his name was Koyie Pond, he would merit his own blog post, in the "Cool Chicago Sports Names" category. Or, at the very least, he'd qualify to be Autumn Champion's landscape architect.

But the bright side to the name Koyie Hill is this: Now the Cubs just need to sign Frankie Valli as a pitcher and they will have the most antonymic battery since Liza Minnelli walloped David Gest. Does that joke even make sense? I hope not.

•The Item Where I Make a Smartass Remark About Feder's Column. Yesterday's R-b F-d-r joint declareth thus:

At least one Chicagoan was delighted by news Tuesday that the New York-based Museum of Television and Radio has been renamed the Paley Center for Media (after the late CBS founder William S. Paley).

"That means the only museum of radio and television in America is right here in Chicago," said Bruce DuMont, founder and president of the Museum of Broadcast Communications here.

"They've abandoned a brand and a mission," DuMont said of his counterparts. "We don't walk away from the word 'museum.'"

Uh ... OK. But, Mr. DuMont, last I heard, the Museum of Broadcast Communications didn't even have a building yet, since it moved out of the Cultural Center location in ... when was that? 2003? 2002? A long time ago. I haven't been by 400 N. State in a while -- which is where the new location has been promised to be ... located -- but I have heard nothing about it being anywhere near completion. So these arrogant and misguided Noo Yawkas might be abandoning a "brand" -- or, more accurately, a generic or at least highly descriptive designation that is surely a weak and pretty worthless mark -- but if they have a physical plant, maybe you should knock off the wisecracks and get back to raising some money to hand over to the Illinois construction mafia. Just a suggestion.

In closing: Lorna Luft. That's just to get a reference to Judy Garland or progeny in all of the first three items. Whew. Wasn't sure I could pull that off. Or why.

•The "Nice to Get Some Company" Item. Finally I'm not the only one in town boostering them some women's softball. This item from one of the finest websites ever to have aitched a tee-em-ell, The Beachwood Reporter, tells it like it is:

[N]ext to rugby and Australian rules football, women's softball is largely an undiscovered gem that helps make ESPN2's programming far more interesting on the whole than ESPN's. Screw the Cubs and the White Sox, folks; these women play ball like there's no tomorrow - and somehow without the grinding boredom that makes Major League Baseball famous. Christ, if unpaid college chicks can go nine innings without making it feel like you're watching slugs cross the road, why can't grown dudes making more money than God for a living do the same?

D-I-S-R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Find out what it means

Hell yeah, I want a chocolate chicken pot pie! Respect mah authoritigh!!! Beefcake! Beefcake!!!

There were so many things wrong with the Cubs' series against the Braves over the weekend that I don't know where to begin. Luckily, I don't really have to, because every other bliggitty blang blog has covered every detail and every idiotic well-reasoned point of view out there in sports-intertubes-land. If you care at all, you already know all about it.

I just want to bring up one thing that seems to have been forgotten -- a little detail about the fine chunk of manflesh pictured in the photograph above -- senile senior umpire and Eric Cartman be-alike, Bruce Froemming.

Just in case you missed it, during Saturday's game, Cubs manager Lou "Hey Abbott!" Piniella made good on his promise from the previous day to argue the hell out of a call -- any call -- and proceeded to not-so-sincerely stomp around like a dinner-theatre caricature of the tantrummy eight-year-old we somehow expect grown baseball-playing men to emulate ... and apparently the crowd enjoyed it quite a bit, demonstrating their approval by littering the outfield with ... litter. (I also think Ronnie "Woo Woo" Wickers threw his false teeth out there, too, but that could very well have been an unfortunate accident.)

After the game, crew chief Bruce "Captain Renault" Froemming was so shocked, shocked that one of the most thrown-out managers in baseball hystery had gotten himself tossed from a game that he temporarily put down the slab of brontosaurus ribs he was snacking on long enough to recommend to MLB that Piniella be suspended for his "terrible display of disrespect."

Which was only appropriate, considering that Froemming is quite an expert on disrespect. He's such an expert, in fact, that he himself was suspended for 10 days in 2003 for calling an MLB administrator a "stupid Jew bitch."

But, hey, at least he didn't kick his hat! That would have been way over the line.