Why Buy This?

My all-time favorite beverage product is Caffeine-Free Diet Coke.  It should be re-named "Bubbling Brown Water."

More Cow Bell

I was listening to Terry "Motormouth" Young ("I'm not talking fast, you're listening slow") on Sirius satellite radio's 60s on 6 last night and heard Hugh Masekela's "Grazin' in the Grass" for the first time in a long time.  Terry made a big deal about the cowbell at the beginning, which is the reason I picked that song as my "theme song" when I was on KXLU radio at Loyola Marymount University back in the 70s.
I had to have a theme song because Tad Stones had one.  Tad is an animator currently working on Fox TV's "Bob's Burgers," and before that he was at Disney helping to put together the "Disney Afternoon" package of cartoons (CLICK HERE to listen to the interview I did with Tad for my podcast, The Musical Innertube).  But back at LMU, he was the morning DJ at KXLU.  And he had the coolest theme song ever, "I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman" by Whistling Jack Smith. I needed a cool theme song just to keep up.  For awhile I mixed and matched "Grazin'" with "Soulful Strut" by Young Holt Unlimited, but eventually I went to "Grazin'"full-time because of that great cowbell. I would turn on the mike as the song's intro played and say, "The sound of the cowbell means Rooney's on the radio again," and people would rush to their radios.  Mostly to turn them off.

While listening to Terry go on about the cowbell last night, it occurred to me that I beat Christopher Walken and those guys at Saturday Night Live by about 20-some odd years with the "more cowbell" routine.  So there's that.

You Think We'd Have Learned By Now

Below is a list of five things I can think of off the top of my head that we encounter fairly regularly in the course of our lives and still haven't managed to adequately prepare for or cope with when they happen:

1. Snow
2. Hurricanes and/or Tornadoes
3. Elections
4. Car Breakdowns
5. Falling in Love

Why President Obama Was Re-Elected

Americans by and large are tired of being scared.  Scared by SuperPacs.  Here in Pennsylvania, which was an on-again, off-again swing state this election, the political ads in the last few days before the election weren't pro-Romney. They were anti-Obama. Designed to scare.  All accused Obama of putting the American economy in the tank, and forecast years of misery if he were to be re-elected, with a lot of young Moms and Dads looking pained and rubbing their foreheads.  All paid for by "Americans For This" or "The Committee To Preserve That," SuperPACs that the Supreme Court says are people, too.  A common statement I heard on election day:  "Hey, I can watch TV again!"

We all realize that the American dream is a Dad who makes a ton of money at his job so Mom can stay home and make apple pies and little Dick and Jane go to a school staffed by caring teachers where all the kids play nice.  But it's the American dream.  American reality, that's slightly different. Those of us who live in the reality instead of the dream are women, gays, immigrants, people of color. We deal with it.  It's really no big deal.  And we get tired of those who would rather spend their time yelling about how threatened they are, and how they want everyone to live in their dream world. Shut up and just deal with reality and move forward.  Hmm.  "Forward."  Where have I heard that before?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go watch some TV.