Tom Snyder, the Chicago Cubs, and Barry Bonds

Tom Snyder was a television talk showhost and personality. At one point Dan Aykroyd's parody of Tom Snyder on the old NBC Tomorrow show became as well known as Tom himself. I'm a little young for that show, but got hooked on his incarnation of The Late Late Show on CBS in the 90's. It promptly went off the air(as did Sports Night, Bands on the Run, Boomtown, and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip). If you really enjoy a television show, the last thing you want is for me to become a fan. I have been waiting for Mr. Snyder to resurface on television or maybe satellite radio for the last seven or eight years.

The picture to the left is of Mr. Snyder in 1968. I could not find one from this century with a "clear license", so I'll go with the one that is nearly 40 years old, but has a GNU Free Documentation License. Here is one of Tom's classic interviews an interview with John Lydon and some lesser former Sex Pistol .

Tom died of leukemia sometime Sunday (7/30/2007). We'll miss you Tom.

"Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air."

On to the Chicago Cubs. I had hoped to blog about the Cubs sliding into first place tonight, but they lost, and therefore remain one game behind the Milwaukee Brewers. On the whole, the biggest problem with being a Cubs fan seems to be their propensity to lose baseball games.

Apparently in Chicago some people have adopted the mantra "Its gonna happen". I'm not feeling that positive, and at this point I think I prefer the "We Believe" slogan adopted at East Carolina University in 1991 as the Pirates went on to finish ranked 9th in the country. Either way, the Cubs are still a strong contender for the NL Central division, and despite losing tonight, I have high hopes for tomorrow. I believe.

Finally, I have ones of readers all over the world, and absolutely none of them have said "Bill, how do you feel about Barry Bonds?" I've heard a lot of people suggest that when Barry breaks Hank Aaron's record there should be an asterisk, because of the whole steroid debacle. Here's the problem: nobody ever caught him. There are people who belong in prison, some of them ex-football players turned actors, who belong in prison. But we endured the legal process and they were found not guilty. I think Barry used steroids, but nobody ever caught him. Its even debatable how hard they tried. I think I may finally understand the phrase "Don't hate the player, hate the game".

That said, a tearful apology from Barry a year ago would have probably fixed all of this. But unless he bets on baseball in the next few days, he will break the record. The betting on baseball scenario is my favorite.

The Chicago Cubs, Van Halen, and Dogs

I'm still trying to figure out how to keep this interesting, which means, I have to post something, which means I am going to have to run a few things together... they won't initially have appear to have anything to do with each other, but once a barely experienced amateur writer like yours truly tweaks them for a while, you will be certain they have nothing to do with each other.



My mother once told me, "You didn't have a normal childhood, you're a Cubs fan". If you're a Cubs fan you understand. If you aren't, I can't explain it to you, but this makes sense. Red Sox fans, Indians fans, and maybe Toronto Maple Leaf fans would also understand. This year the Chicago Cubs don't stink. In fact, they're threatening to crawl into the post season. History has shown me that if I want to talk about the Cubs on a hot streak, I should do it fast. They just lost two in a row, hopefully I'm not too late. Those two losses aside I have a hunch if you're a Cubs fan, this might be a season that you don't want to miss. Here's a funny and somewhat related youtube link.



On to Van Halen. I've been a Van Halen fan since I was old enough to be a "fan" of one band over another. In 1985, David Lee Roth left Van Halen, which kind of sent shock waves through suburban America. Back then we didn't have all the media access that we have today, so information and rumors about this kinda bounced though the halls of high schools. He was replaced by Sammy Hagar, fracturing the Van Halen fan base and causing a lot of arguments. Most people agree that the earlier work was better ( I would say the first four albums are probably the best), but the Hagar era definitely has bright spots, and singers are replaceable. Its like this, "Those who can, play guitar. Those who can't, sing". Am I just be controversial to try to drum up traffic? Probably, but I do have a child named after Edward Van Halen. Anyway, news is expected any day now that Van Halen will be doing a fall tour with their original line up, except that bass player Michael Anthony has been replaced by Eddie Van Halen's sixteen year old son Wolfgang. But nobody will care that much and tickets will sell a little better than they did for the 2004 tour with Sammy Hagar. Why? Because bass players are replaceable too. You want job security, learn to play guitar. Personally I'm on the edge of my seat going "eh". If they'd done this ten years ago, it would have sold better, and I wouldn't need a baby sitter.



Finally the last thing on my mind: Everybody loves dogs. I realized this a couple of years ago as part of a story that I cannot relate here, but people will overlook you mistreating another human being, but be far more upset if you mistreat a dog. Everybody loves dogs. I knew this, and I'm sure Michael Vick knows it now. He would be more popular in the public eye if he ran a prostitution ring. Legally, I imagine he's better off in his current situation, but you have to keep in mind that not only am I not a lawyer, I have no idea whatsoever what I am talking about. But if you happen to be involved in a dogfighting operation and didn't realize that everybody loves dogs, or you think that you love dogs, know this: Everybody loves dogs. They love them wandering up, hanging their tongues out and hoping you scratch them behind the ear. They love them hanging out under a high chair waiting to see what the baby drops. They love that dogs are never concerned about how they look when they wake up, and dogs are never too concerned about how they smell (people don't want dogs to smell bad, but they admire that kind of freedom and lack of shame). If you get caught running an operation where you force dogs to kill each other, you will become only slightly more popular than a pedophile IRS agent. Don't mess with dogs.

I Never Said Goodbye

"I Never Said Goodbye" is an album released by Sammy Hagar after he joined Van Halen. I believe he was contractually obligated to Geffen Records, and owed them one more album. To know for certain would require "research", which journalists are big on, but I'm not a journalist, I'm a blogger... I guess. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be irresponsible, or making any indictments of the blogging community in general. In this case it just really doesn't matter if it was a contractual obligation to Geffen Records, I was just looking for a clever name.

I started this blog because I wanted to be a humor columnist, like Lewis Grizzard or Mike Royko. Well, I wanted to be alive, so I guess I wanted to be more like Dave Barry. "Blog" seemed like a bit of a buzzword, the flavor of the month. I Didn't Want a Blog, or so I thought. But it a friend of mine convinced me it was the most practical way to reach people so I got started.

Then I took some time off. I didn't plan to, which is why I never said goodbye (or "seeya later"). I just went and wrote some other things, and didn't do this while I was busy with those other things. To be specific, I wrote a screenplay. To be more specific, I wrote a filthy screenplay. I don't know why. I put in anything I thought was funny, and it came out pretty dirty. I'd love to say that it was "adult", but filthy or dirty might be more appropriate. It had a sex scene. I never dreamed I would write something like that, but it was funny. It wasn't pure pornography - it was somebody explaining something that happened in the past, and it turned out it was a lie. But it was a very graphic lie. I was shocked I wrote it. I thought it was funny though, so I left it in.

The screenplay will never see the light of day.

I had no idea how to sell or distribute a screenplay. I was pretty sure it was too filthy for even HBO to air, and I had a hunch that it wasn't very good. So I decided there was only one thing to do - convert it to a book. Of course, I had no idea how to write a book either. So I started going through page by page, creating background information for each character, adding all of the back story that was not necessary when it was to be a TV show. I converted about one-third of it, when for no apparent reason I lost interest. I re-read a bit of a couple of days ago, and I really think it is funny.

The book will never see the light of day.

My silly pipe dream about being a humor columnist was till kind of hanging out in the back of my mind. It is really unnecessary, because I have a really great job. But I guess we're always inclined to look toward the future, and as much as I love my job I might like to do something else when I am 50.

But I came to realize that while newspapers are a fairly reasonable form of media right now, trying to be a newspaper columnist right now is a little like trying to be a pinsetter in 1935 (because Gottfried Schmidt invented the mechanical pinsetter in 1936). Newspapers are history, like the phone book, rabbit ear antennas with foil on ends, and anything being colored avocado green. Well guacamole is still avocado green, as are avocados, but I don't understand why the hell anybody ever thought it was a good color for kitchen appliances.


So for better or worse, I'm back. I doubt anybody will notice the difference. But this time I'm not trying to write a newspaper column here, I want to be a blogger. And I want to be a good one.