The past few days have been pretty busy for me. Gig with some great players Friday night, Saturday morning we had breakfast with some friends. That night we played a wedding in Bel Air with Tyrell. This house was incredible, to give you an idea of how much money was involved with this home and this wedding--Wolfgang Puck catered the event, he was actually there! (the food was of course phenomenal) Sunday morning I painfully watched the Colts eek out a win in a game they had no business winning ... its going to be a long season. Sunday night was another Tyrell gig, this time at the L.A. Jazz Society's annual banquet where he was getting an award for Jazz Vocalist of the Year.

And let's not forget the Dodgers wrapping up their playoff series by sweeping the Cubs. What a bunch of chokers! Bring on the Phillies.

I ran a bunch of errands today. At the moment Milo is asleep and Carrie is at her book club, I'm on the couch watching football in total silence.

Nothing better!

... has lost his sh*t.

I've decided to forgo the Vice Presidential debate in favor of the Dodgers/Cubs game. Frankly, the woman makes me mad and I don't see the use in picking apart what she says any more. I agree with nothing in her platform, the debate isn't going to make me re-think any that. But here is some funny stuff I gathered from MySpace and Facebook about Palin that you might get a chuckle out of:

RULES OF THE SARAH PALIN VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE DRINKING GAME

--Take a chug of Moosehead beer whenever Sarah Palin says the following:

maverick

reformer

any sentence including the words "neighbor" and "Russia"

small-town values

Gwen or Joe (remember how many times Palin said "Charlie" during the Gibson interview?)

off shore oil drilling

Alaska

"Thanks but no thanks!"

witchcraft (not likely...but hey, you never know, especially if Kathleen Parker's name should pop up)

--Take two chugs of Moosehead whenever Sarah Palin does the following:

Utters a coherent sentence (i.e., contains a subject and a verb and makes logical sense)

Talks about her new friend Henry Kissinger or Hamid Karzai

Explains how being the part-time mayor of Wasilla, Alaska with a full-time city manager counts as executive experience

--Chug a whole bottle of Moosehead if Sarah Palin mentions the following:

Palin Presidency

On second thought, make that two bottles of Moosehead.



Are you going to/did you watch the debate? Why or why not?

Its not that I hate the Cubs team, the whole "lovable losers" thing is cute and I really dug the documentary "Wait 'Til Next Year." Its not that I hate the city of Chicago or Chicagoans (despite my experience with Bears fans at the Superbowl two years ago), in fact I have a lot of friends and family living there. I have no problem with the state of Illinois, its a fine place.

I'm afraid my hate from the Cubs stems from folks in Indiana.

Let me 'splain.

I went to school in Indiana at Ball State University. If you've ever attended college you know you meet a hell of a lot of people on a daily basis, and it seemed like every other person I'd met would tell me they were from "the Chicago area."

I'd say "Really? What neighborhood?"

And they'd reply "Goshen" or "Merryville" or "Valpraiso." ...

HUH?!

Guess what pal! That AIN'T Chicago! Its not even in the area of Chicago. You're from Northern Indiana, dont' try to act like you're from the big city. What, is it embarrassing to be from Northern Indiana? Does being from Laporte make you some sort of social pariah? Does admitting to being a Hoosier get your cool card revoked or something?! I got so sick and tired from everyone who lived north of Lafayette telling me they were from the "Chicago area" that my hatred of their sports teams grew and grew (the Reggie Miller/Michael Jordan had rivalry helped this along as well). I didn't even like baseball at the time but all of the Cubs hats around campus made me ill.

The you have folks from Indianapolis cheering for the Cubs which always made me suspicious. Why the Cubs? Why not the White Sox, Tigers, Reds, or Cardinals? Why not one of the teams that the Indianapolis Indians were affiliated with like the Expos or Brewers? I'll tell you why, because the Cubs are the trendy, cool Chicago team to root for. You can cheer on the Cubs but at the same time you don't look like you're a bandwagon fan because they always frickin' lose.

Fast-forward a decade or so; I'm at Dodger Stadium, my wife had bought us tickets for my birthday. The Dodgers are playing the Brewers, the score is tied in the seventh inning. Alex Cora (at that time a Dodger) steps up to bat. He and the pitcher go at it--Cora fouls of 17 straight pitches to right field. The crowd is going ape shit with every pitch. When the ball comes at Cora for the 18th time he smacks it over the fence. It was the most exciting sports play I'd ever seen live. Gagne comes on to close the game (back when Gagne was good and on the juice) during his remarkable streak of consecutive closes and my love for baseball and the Dodgers is born.

Now we're full circle. The Dodgers are playing the Cubs. If you're a Chicago transplant or long-time Cubs fan then we have no beef. But if you're a Hoosier living in the "Chicago area" or living in Indy with a mysterious connection to the Cubs, this one is for you:
GRAND SLAM BABY! DODGERS WIN GAME ONE 7-2.


p.s.
Dave Rinehart! Milo and I both caught your "Go Cubs" remark on Agoraphobia! So that Grand Slam if for you too!

You might remember me mentioning a couple of times over the past year or so that while visiting Indy I had done some recording with my old friend Ryan Fraley and a big band CD he was working on.

Well, the CD is finally out. It's really good and I'm proud of my playing on it. The music is classic and progressive rock songs rearranged for big band, but don't think of it as a gimmick. The arrangements are great, the playing is solid and hearing these songs in a jazz/symphonic context is really interesting.

Please check it out. You can listen to it and order it from the website or Amazon.

Tired. Exhausted. The tour over the weekend was pretty hectic.

And as I'm sure you all know, the bailout failed. As much as I hated the idea of the government providing a golden parachute to these corporations without some strict regulations legislation, the idea of an economic meltdown because of no bailout is almost scarier.

Mom left today. While we didn't have a lot of activities we had a really good time just being together and playing with Milo. It was sad to see her go.

I'm headed out for a short tour tomorrow, NYC and Memphis.

It looks like big corporations want the government to stay out of their business unless they are going broke in which case they want billions of dollars of taxpayer money to fix their situation.

So we lighten government regulations and give tax breaks to big business just to bail them out when their greed catches up to them?

This will end badly.

Download the movie now, for free!

Esquire magazine recently published this list of books every man should read. I have only read a few (Plainsong, The Sportswriter, Slaughterhouse-Five and Huckleberry Finn, The Call of the Wild for school) and really should have more of them under my literary belt. What do you think? How many have you read?

The Adventures of Augie March, by Saul Bellow
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
Affliction, by Russell Banks
All the King’s Men, by Robert Penn Warren
American Pastoral, by Philip Roth
American Tabloid, by James Ellroy
Angle of Repose, by Wallace Stegner
As I Lay Dying: The Corrected Text, by William Faulkner
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Blood Meridian, Or, the Evening Redness in the West, by Cormac McCarthy
The Brothers Karamazov: A Novel in Four Parts With Epilogue, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Call of the Wild, White Fang, & To Build a Fire, by Jack London
Civilwarland in Bad Decline: Stories and a Novella, by George Saunders
A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole
The Continental Op, by Dashiell Hammett
The Crack-Up, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Deliverance, by James Dickey
Dharma Bums, by Jack Kerouac
Dispatches, by Michael Herr
Dog Soldiers, Robert Stone
Dubliners, by James Joyce
A Fan’s Notes: A Fictional Memoir, by Frederick Exley
For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway
Going Native, by Stephen Wright
A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories, by Flannery O'Connor
The Good War: An Oral History of World War II, by Studs Terkel
The Grapes of Wrath: John Steinbeck Centennial Edition (1902-2002), by John Steinbeck
Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad
Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga, by Hunter S. Thompson
Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara
The Known World, by Edward P. Jones
Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings, by Jorge Luis Borges
Legends of the Fall, Jim Harrison
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families, by James Agee
Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov
Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry
Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis
Master and Commander, by Patrick O'Brian
Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie
Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
Native Son, by Richard Wright
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey
Plainsong, by Kent Haruf
The Postman Always Rings Twice, James M. Cain
The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene
The Professional, by W. C. Heinz
Rabbit Run, by John Updike
Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates
The Right Stuff, by Tom Wolfe
A Sense of Where You Are: A Profile of William Warren Bradley, by John McPhee
The Shining, by Stephen King
Slaughterhouse-five, by Kurt Vonnegut
So Long, See You Tomorrow, William Maxwell
Sophie’s Choice, by William Styron
A Sport And a Pastime, James Salter
The Sportswriter, by Richard Ford
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, by John Le Carré
The Stories of John Cheever, by John Cheever
The Things They Carried: A Work of Fiction, Tim O'Brien
This Boy’s Life: A Memoir, by Tobias Wolff
Time’s Arrow: Or the Nature of the Offense, by Martin Amis
Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller
Under the Volcano, Malcolm Lowry
Underworld, by Don DeLillo
War And Peace, by Leo Tolstoy
What It Takes: The Way to the White House, by Richard Ben Cramer
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Stories, by Raymond Carver
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami
Winesburg, Ohio, by Sherwood Anderson
Winter’s Bone: A Novel, Daniel Woodrell
Winter’s Tale, by Mark Helprin
Women, by Charles Bukowski

This hilarious site has been making the rounds in emails and blogs lately, it is absolutely hilarious. So what if these celebs were from the Midwest? Here's what a couple of them would look like:

(NOTE: After the last joke I posted I do realize that I need to be more PC so please don't be offended if you, like myself, are from the Midwest.)

Jennifer Aniston:


Sarah Jessica Parker:


Johnny Depp:


Tara Reid:


That's just a few, there's more on the link!

Top Republican says Palin unready

Senior Republican Senator Chuck Hagel has voiced doubts about Sarah Palin's qualifications for the vice-presidency.

John McCain's running mate "doesn't have any foreign policy credentials", Mr Hagel told the Omaha World-Herald.

Mr Hagel was a prominent supporter of Mr McCain during his 2000 bid for the US presidency, but has declined to endorse either candidate this year.

He was opposed to the Iraq War, and recently joined Mr McCain's rival Barack Obama on a Middle East trip.

'Stop the nonsense'

"I think it's a stretch to, in any way, to say that she's got the experience to be president of the United States," Mr Hagel told the Omaha World-Herald newspaper.

And he was dismissive of the fact that Mrs Palin, the governor of Alaska, has made few trips abroad.

"You get a passport for the first time in your life last year? I mean, I don't know what you can say. You can't say anything."

Mr Hagel also criticised the McCain campaign for its suggestion that the proximity of Alaska to Russia gave Mrs Palin foreign policy experience.

"I think they ought to be just honest about it and stop the nonsense about, 'I look out my window and I see Russia and so therefore I know something about Russia'," he said.

"That kind of thing is insulting to the American people."

BBC North America editor Justin Webb says Mr Hagel's opinion of Mrs Palin will have an effect on independent voters.

A senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mr Hagel was a close ally of Mr McCain, but the two men parted company over the decision to go to war in Iraq.

Mr Hagel skipped this year's Republican National Convention in favour of a visit to Latin America.

Mr Hagel's decision to accompany Mr Obama this summer on a trip to Iraq and Israel, as part of a US Congressional delegation, led to speculation that he would throw his support behind the Democratic nominee.

However, a spokesman for the Nebraska senator insisted in August that "Senator Hagel has no intention of getting involved in any of the campaigns and is not planning to endorse either candidate".

link

That's right folks, I'll be appearing on 'Sports Talk with the Good Doc' on LATalkRadio.com with Dr. Patrick Riche and Jackie Taylor again. Listen, call in, and talk some sports with your boy:

The show is on from 6-9 PM PST

LATalkRadio.com

The phone number is:
1-323-203-0815

Talk to you soon!

My mom arrived yesterday and we've been having a great time chasing my son around ever since. The election came up and I asked her about it, she told me that many people she knows back in Indiana really like Sarah Palin. I was appalled by this. Considering how much I hear about personal freedoms from folks back home I'm astounded that anyone could think her Vice Presidency would be a good idea.

The hypocrisy of the Republican party after her candidacy was announced has been particularly deplorable. While Hillary was making her run all we heard from Republicans was how Dems were trying to play the "sexist" card and how nobody was sexist they just didn't like Hillary. Then after Palin steps up Republicans are crying "sexism!" left and right particularly in regards to Obama's now famous comment "you can put lipstick on pig, but its still a pig" Where's the hypocrisy? McCain made the exact same comment about Hillary. No outrage there though! Wow.

Then is the obvious question of experience. McCain supporters have long criticized Obama for not having enough political experience to lead, but now these same folks are defending Palin's lack of experience (I think its saying a lot when The Office has been on longer than your national political career) and going so far as to say she has more experience than Obama! The new excuse from the Right is that Palin has more Executive experience than Obama. Huh?! What does that have to do with anything? Next time you hear this dressed-up spin of hypocrisy remind the person that Andrew Jackson, Abe Lincoln, John F Kennedy, and *gulp* George H.W. Bush all had political careers in the Legislature and no Executive experience before taking office either.

Then there's the question of pork barrels. Pork barrels are kind of hard to explain and this article does a better job than I could:

WASILLA, ALASKA -- For much of his long career in Washington, John McCain has been throwing darts at the special spending system known as earmarking, through which powerful members of Congress can deliver federal cash for pet projects back home with little or no public scrutiny. He's even gone so far as to publish "pork lists" detailing these financial favors.

Where's the hypocrisy? Here:

Three times in recent years, McCain's catalogs of "objectionable" spending have included earmarks for this small Alaska town, requested by its mayor at the time -- Sarah Palin.

In 2001, McCain's list of spending that had been approved without the normal budget scrutiny included a $500,000 earmark for a public transportation project in Wasilla. The Arizona senator targeted $1 million in a 2002 spending bill for an emergency communications center in town -- one that local law enforcement has said is redundant and creates confusion.

McCain also criticized $450,000 set aside for an agricultural processing facility in Wasilla that was requested during Palin's tenure as mayor and cleared Congress soon after she left office in 2002.

The entire article is fascinating, you should read it. So Palin earmarked federal funds for her town, the kind of politics that McCain has been fighting his entire political career.

But I guess the thing that disturbs me the most about Sarah Palin is the hypocrisy of her daughter's pregnancy. (That's right, I'm going there. And hopefully Obama will too). Palin asks for respect and privacy for her daughter's decision during this political campaign. Yet, if any other young, unwed woman gets pregnant, if she is raped, or if she is faced with the prospect of carrying and delivering a horribly diseased or disfigured child with a short life expectancy, Sarah Palin would have our government legislate to her what course of action to take. She only wants respect and privacy if the decision made is the one she agrees with. In fact, there is nothing respectful or private about our government telling women what decision to make about their pregnancies.

And if recent allegations about her allowing the Wasilla Police Department to charge rape victims for the forensic work (i.e. rape kits) done on their case turns out to be true, she moves from the realm of hypocrite to monster.

Orwell was wrong, we don't have to worry about Big Brother. If McCain succeeds, Big Sister will only be a heartbeat away.

I had a really good time in Oklahoma. This is the third time we've played at this venue and the folks that promote/host the show are really great. I had some really great food including some good BBQ and I re-connected with an old friend of mine from Ball State. I didn't even know this guy lived in Oklahoma now, aren't Facebook Status Updates great?

He showed me the memorial for the Oklahoma City bombing. It was really moving; there's a stone chair for each victim that is lit at the base. Each chair is positioned in the location that the victim's body was found, the chairs all face a still, shallow pool. On each side are enormous, free-standing walls with clocks on them denoting the times off the attack. I saw the memorial at night which made it more powerful as the lights from the chairs really cast a mood. It is a beautiful tribute.

I'm back home now. Thank goodness we avoided Galveston. The show is supposed to be re-scheduled for next month but I don't see how with all of the damage the city has suffered.

The Colts squeaked out an ugly win today. Hopefully the team finds its rhythm soon, my nerves can't take a whole season of this. I was at my sports bar this morning downright nauseus watching the game. In other sports news the Dodgers are doing quite well, hopefully the rest of their season will be less nerve-racking for me.

If you didn't know Mom is coming to visit soon. She'll be in L.A. on Tuesday. We're all looking forward to her trip.

I'm leaving for a quick trip to Oklahoma for a gig with the boss. Our gig in Galveston for Saturday has been canceled. Considering the city was evacuated today I'm calling this a good move.

Great way to open the stadium, boys ...

-Football season finally, officially starts today. Go motherflippin' COLTS!

-Speaking of sports the Dodgers are finally in first place in the NL West. Go Azul!

-I have a gig in Galveston, TX scheduled with Tyrell next Saturday. According to weather reports this is approximately the time when one of the three hurricanes ravaging the Caribbean should be hitting the Texas coast.

-The hypocrisy of Palin will never cease to disgust me. She asks for privacy in regards to her daughter's decision-making concerning her pregnancy yet advocates the government legislating the same decision-making for other folks. Some people are actually going to vote for her?

-I jammed my ring finger three weeks ago while playing volleyball and my ring still won't fit because of swelling. If you see me out and about please don't think I'm on the prowl.

-Is summer over? Holy crap!