Weather

It has rained on and off (but mostly on) for about a week now. The Ohio River is overflowing, streets are closed, and the city has an overall wet cardboard musk to it. Yes, the weather is news, but the situation is slowly devolving into LOCAL WEATHERMAN OVERKILL. I can't turn on my TV without a lacquer-coiffed manikin telling me about a storm that has already passed us by. 


"THE STORM IS OUT OF OUR VIEWING AREA NOW BUT WE WANT TO WARN THE FOLKS IN COALDUST COUNTY OF THEIR IMPENDING METEOROLOGICAL DOOM. TAKE SHELTER, PEOPLE WHO HAVE NO WAY OF HEARING ME!"


I hate to sound like an old guy who tells you things were a lot different when he was a kid, but things were a lot different when I was a kid.


When I was in second grade about a dozen tornadoes hit Louisville, all in a single day. There was no advance warning. None. There were sirens, and three seconds later the city was a pile of rubble. 


"Well, the town is pretty much destroyed. And now here's Barry with sports."

Could we maybe, just maybe, find a middle ground?

Trump 2012? The Mayans were right!

Donald Trump is considering taking time off from his busy schedule of looking like the lead singer of Flock of Seagulls' Dorian Gray picture to run for president next year. 

Please God, let it happen. Can you imagine the Republican primary debate between Trump and Sarah Palin? Will their egos combine to throw the Earth off its axis, hurling all of humanity toward the sun? Will either of them know anything but empty posturing and hollow rhetoric? Will Sarah wrap herself in at two piece flag bikini? Will Trump buy the Republican Party and drive it to bankruptcy? Will Sarah unleash a new round of folksy colloquialisms? Will Trump bang Bristol Palin in Atlantic City? The answers: maybe; not likely; figuratively; probably; definitely; and depends on how many wine coolers she drinks.

Trump failed as a casino owner. Really, that's all you need to know about the guy. Casinos are a license to print money, yet Trump's casinos failed miserably. Your paper boy could make money from gambling. And I bet your paper boy has enough humility to stay away from presidential politics.

Sometimes I remember things

Yesterday I was in a record store - because I'm old and still buy music in the CD format - when a CD by the indie rock band The Fucking Champs reminded me of a brief incident from way back when.

About 11 years ago I went to see a band at this venue named Artswatch, which was pronounced "arts watch" but which I called "art swatch" because it pissed off people who took themselves way too seriously. Artswatch was a tiny place that was usually filled to twice its legal capacity. Climate control-wise, it was serviced by an air conditioner the size of a lunchbox that I'm fairly sure spit out, in lieu of cold air, molten lava.

I was standing around before the show started, drinking water because the 'swatch didn't have a liquor license, when this guy said to me, "Man, that was a great show you guys played the other night."

Before I could tell him there was no show, he said to his friend, "This guy is in that band I saw last week, The Fucking Champs."

At the time I had heard of The Fucking Champs, mainly because I enjoyed their name, but rest assured I had never seen them perform, let alone join them onstage. I tried to explain: "No, Im not in The Fucking Champs. I'm not in any band."

Then the guy acts like he doesn't believe me, like here I am a member of The Fucking Champs and I think I'm too cool to talk to a fan. Luckily, a shiny object soon caught his attention and he left me alone.

A few days later I was at the record store so I had to see this indie rock bastard who had the poor fortune to look like me. Everyone in the band was of average height and weight. None of those champion fuckers looked a thing like me. Could have been a touring musician, I guess.

And maybe that guy still talks about the summer night at Artswatch when he sweated through his ironic t-shirt and was snubbed by the snobby prick who played backup tamborine for The Fucking Champs.