Riding with the window down…

That is the name we used for a family of wasps common throughout Texas - the Mud Dauber. They are so named because they construct their nests from mud. I am not referring to these non-aggressive wasps, but instead to the battle for Tom Delay’s vacated 22nd congressional district in Texas. The Dobbers in question are Shelley Sekula-Gibbs and Nick Lampson.

Nick is the lesser of the mud slingers as he has only pointed out things such as Sekula-Gibbs accepting a pay raise while on Houston’s City Council. That isn’t a big deal until you put it in light of the fact that she voted against a police pay raise and the majority of her council counterparts refused their raises.

The real dirt is being tossed about by Sekula-Gibbs who asserts that Nick Lampson’s values include “violence and sexually explicit games to children” and “is for abortion.”

Neither seems to stand for anything themselves, as both are focused on why the other sucks so bad. It makes you proud to be an American.

You would think that sooner or later, I would run out of cool Roger Miller lyrics. Don’t expect it anytime soon because the hardest part about doing these with his songs is not including the whole darn thing. This is from a song called “The Best of All Possible Worlds” and picks up after he is thrown in jail.

“Well they finally came and they told me they was gonna set me free.
And that I’d be leaving town if I knew what was good for me.
I said its nice to learn that everybodys so concerned about my health.

I said I won’t be leaving no more quicker than I possibly can, cause I’ve enjoyed about as much of this as I can stand. And I don’t need this town of yours more than I never needed nothing else.

Cause theres still a lotta drinks I ain’t drunk, and theres lots of pretty thoughts that I ain’t thunk. Oh yeah!
And Lord! theres still so many lonely girls - in this best of all possible worlds!

Nice… amidst all the down-home colloqualisms is a story about a man that has been knocked around by life, but still has a positive outlook. For a special treat, download the song and pay attention to the seemingly mindless ramblings at the end of the song. “Well, step right up, see the wild monkey kiss a football, see the young sad-eyed owl, come to the ????? for you , step back, step back, its happening any minute, and a burst of smoke comes forth, don’t hit me Mr. Railroad Bull…” crazy stuff - how can you not love him?

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#150 - Okay, actually it was me that created the SNAFU by not getting all the proper documentation. It turns out you can go to Mexico with nothing more than a hand shake… coming back to the US is another story.

(Time: 15:27)

Linkies
PMC Top 10
March of Dimes
Texas Children’s Hospital
Fresh Media Works

Every Color by Matthew Ebel
Sweet Melissa by Chris Juergensen

Call in and leave a voicemail for the show! 206-202-3644

Once again the “blame the world for bad parenting” crew is on the rampage. Rockstar Games, makers of the Grand Theft Auto series of video games, recently released their brand new brawling romp - The Bully. In this game, you are a student at the prestigious Bullworth Academy. Rather than killing cops, stealing cars, and shooting rival gang members (ala GTA,) as a mischievous schoolboy, you

… you know the one - sans head. That is what my weekend is shaping up to be like. It began with a riveting football game last night with Lone Star Gridiron cohost, Mike Wright, and things don’t appear to be slowing anytime soon.

I am in the preliminary stages of putting together this weeks PMC Top10 in the few remaining minutes I have before heading out for an all-day video shoot. (All night too.) I am trying to fit it in as best I can because I also have a shoot Sunday morning. That is my normal PMC time, but things are just too tight this time around.

You would think it would slow down a bit after that, but no sleep for the weary. I also have to put together a “Greatest Bonus Tracks” retrospective show for next weeks PMC Top10 because I will be in San Miguel de Allende and unable to do the regular show. Monday will be wall-to-wall meetings with programmers, bankers, designers, ad agencies, podcasters, etc. Oh and somehow I have to get all that finished before an early Tuesday morning flight.

Am I complaining? Well, maybe just a little - but it is under this kind of pressure that I actually perform best. You can “bet your bippy” though, that when I hit my travel destination, I am going to kick back for at least a few hours. Then it starts all over again… just in a different language.

It strikes me as odd that we believe oil and coal are “fossil” fuels - that is fuels that are created by decaying organic life. Where is the evidence? Is it just voodoo science that we have heard since we were children and thus believe? I think so. Where is the empirical evidence? Where are the scientific trials and studies repeating (and thus proving) the process? Maybe because those close to the issue know that oil is not the result of millions of years of pressure and decay, but instead the result of common chemical and physical reactions in our earth’s core.

How else do you explain hydrocarbons (of which gas, oil, and coal are) present in other planetary bodies? Did they all have organic life that died millions of years ago, got compressed and heated, and then flung into space? Not as likely as further evidence that these hydrocarbons are the result of common chemical and physical reactions found throughout the universe.

So, is this another vast conspiracy to control the price of oil by pretending it is not abundant? Probably not. It could just be that the “old guard” still believes the fossil theory, it could just be that our usage is outrunning the rate of replacement, or it could just be that they are going to take care of some “political business” before announcing to the world that oil is indeed abundant and cheap.

I am going to predict that just as diamonds can now be created in the lab, oil will either be manufactured altogether or the technology to reach deep internal stores nearer the earth’s core will be developed within the next decade.

And before you think that will solve the world’s problems… remember that taking it from the earth and putting it into our atmosphere as C02 is STILL a huge problem for the health of the planet and everyone living on it.

I have been jumping through bureaucratic hoops for the past week trying to get a copy of my birth certificate (don’t get me started on that hornet’s nest of incompetence.) During my search, it dawned on me that because I lived in Red Wing, Minnesota for less than a year after my birth, I didn’t really know anything about where I was born. Lets start off with a photo.

What a gorgeous city! At least when it isn’t covered in snow… but then I imagine it has another beauty altogether. Red Wing is home of the world famous Red Wing Shoes - more famous now for their rugged line of boots.

The article on Wikipedia is an excellent resource that gives a bunch of census data and interesting facts. It is the county seat of Goodhue County - what a great name for a county. Looking at the picture, it appears to be the perfect small town (16,610 pop.) I love the cliffs and bluffs overlooking the city and of course all the trees. If it wasn’t for the 60ft snowdrifts and 6 months of winter, I just might be tempted to pack everything up and move.

For now, I will just be content to continue learning about my childhood home in the “Land of 10,000 Lakes” - Minnesota.

The state is known for its moderate-to-progressive politics and social policies and its civic involvement and voter turnout. It ranks among the healthiest states by a number of measures, with the fifth highest median household income and has one of the most highly-educated and literate populations.

No wonder when I moved to Texas, it took me three years of schooling before I learned something new. No offense to Texas, it is full of some of the greatest people on the planet, it was lagging quite far behind in education back then and has improved much since that time.

#149 - Listener feedback, Houston Press interview, more on The Unit, and some dog history

(Time: 20:23)

Linkies
The Unit
Posse Comitatus
Lone Star Gridiron
Houston Press
Friday Night Lights
Laurence Simon
Lou and Ginger - the dynamic doggie duo

Doin’ Alright - Monique Rhodes
Mistake - Christopher Dallman

Call in and leave a voicemail for the show! 206-202-3644

Hey, I posted some more pics of Lou and Ginger on my Flickr page…

check it out here.

Alan Jackson is the “everyman” country music star. He can sing at length about drinking beer on the Chatahoochie and drinking period with Jimmy Buffet. What is rare for him is to touch on a subject of social concern as he does in this lament of the plight of The Little Man against big money.

“Now they’re lined up in a concrete strip

You can buy the world with just one trip

And save a penny cause it’s jumbo size

They don’t even realize they’re killin’ the little man

Aw, the little man”

Country music is interesting because it is traditionally very conservative in its politics. The exception though, is when common sense interferes with conservatism. The same crowd that tars and feathers the Dixie Chicks for speaking out against the war, lauds someone like Alan Jackson for his lament of the big corporations crushing The Little Man. The lesson to the Chicks is that instead of attacking your President as a person, stick to attacking the things that people can get behind at a gut level - like our kids dying. Same “liberal” thoughts - just totally different reactions.