Pix of the Day: Dec. 31, 2014 (Special ‘It Was Twenty Years Ago Tonight’ Edition)

Rarely do I have cause to say much about country music here (well, at least country music produced after 1980.)

This is an exception.

Pictured above is Doug Supernaw, a guy who had a few hits in the early 1990s and, from what I’ve read, has been plagued in recent years with mental health issues.

On New Year’s Eve 1994, however, he and his band were tapped to be the postgame entertainment following the hockey game between the (now defunct, but then brand new) Houston Aeros and the Chicago Wolves at Houston’s Summit.

Despite not having anything else to do from the end of the game until midnight, I was leery about hanging around for the concert because, well, the prospect of an arena full of drunk country fans on New Year’s Eve seemed a bit…

ummmmmm…

dangerous.

However, soon after he took the stage, Supernaw acknowledged something that I hadn’t taken into consideration: Despite being in Houston, it was a hockey game after all and there were probably almost as many people there who weren’t into country music as there were people who actually then knew what his hit records were.  So, he immediately assured everyone that he and the other musicians could play music other than 1990s country.

And they did.

Hip-hop was left out, but almost everything else from hard rock to Motown found its way into the act – and he even brought out one of the Aeros (I forget which, though I think he was a goalie) who had some music background to sit in on drums for a rendition of the Georgia Satellites’ “Keep Your Hands to Yourself” (it was the Aero’s choice; I do recall Supernaw snarking something to the effect of ‘You damn hockey players! All you know is rock!)  In short, try to imagine a (good) bar band playing to a diverse crowd of over 15,000.

All in all…

I’ve had worse New Year’s Eves.

A Different Reason to Mention Minor League Baseball

From TPM:

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) has emphasized this week that he was not aware of the hateful views of a white nationalist group founded by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke when he spoke before it at a convention over a decade ago.

Yet the event was apparently well known and toxic enough that it forced a minor league baseball team from Iowa to move to a different hotel to avoid bumping into the May 2002 conference.

The Iowa Cubs, a AAA team, were planning to stay at the Best Western Landmark Hotel in Metairie, Louisiana at the same time as the national convention for the European-American Unity and Rights Organization was being held there.

But according to newspaper reports at the time, the local New Orleans team that was arranging the visiting team’s accommodations made a change in part because of concerns about the EURO event.

The Des Moines Register covered the lodging change on May 2, two weeks before the convention Scalise spoke at took place on May 17-18. A New Orleans alt weekly, the Gambit Weekly, also reported on the change in an article about potential backlash to the EURO meeting.

If a minor league baseball team from Iowa knew exactly what the conference was about at the time, then politicians from Louisiana knew exactly what the conference was about at the time.

And if Steve Scalise is the one politician from Louisiana who somehow didn’t know, then what does that say about a national(ist?) party that would insert him into a leadership position?

A Non-GENDA Reason to Oppose King Andrew of Cuomo

This kinda speaks for itself.

Actually…

This is the sort of “bipartisanship” we could all do without.

Cuomo and Christie, Defying Legislatures, Reject Bill to Overhaul Port Authority:

The governors of New York and New Jersey, defying the unanimous votes of both their Legislatures, on Saturday rejected a bill aimed at curbing political interference and patronage at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, more than a year after lane closings at the George Washington Bridge set off a scandal that looms over the agency to this day.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, a Democrat, announced the veto of the bill just hours before a midnight deadline and in the face of almost-unheard-of bipartisan support.

Forget the “kinda.”

Pic of the Day: Dec. 27, 2014 (Special ‘The Eyes Have It’ Edition)

Stephon Thorne, of the Brampton Beast, prior to the game against the Quad City Mallards – won by the Mallards 4-3 – tonight at the iWireless Center in Moline, Illinois.

Pic of the Day: Dec. 26, 2014 (Special ‘Week 17’ Edition)

The Houston Texans taking  the field against the Chicago Bears, at Reliant Stadium, Houston, Texas, Dec. 28, 2008 (with the roof open due to hurricane damage.)

Week 17…

just not this year.

Pic of the Day: Dec. 25, 2014 (Special ‘Non-Xmas’ Edition)

Nick Hamilton of the Brainerd Lakes Area Lunkers getting a hit against the St. Cloud River Bats at Mills Field, Brainerd, Minnesota, June 15, 2011.

So……….

The Daily Beast reported that Sony studio head Amy Pascal wants one of my favorite actor’s, Idris Elba (Luther, The Wire) to star as 007.

This was too much for RushBo to handle.

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh complained on Tuesday about the prospect of Luther and The Wire star Idris Elba playing superspy James Bond in a movie, Media Matters reported.

“James Bond is a total concept put together by Ian Fleming,” Limbaugh said. “He was white and Scottish, period. That is who James Bond is.”

…I guess I missed the part where Rush Limbaugh acquired, directly or otherwise, copyright, trademark and/or any other ownership of intellectual property rights to anything – much less the character of James Bond 007 – from the estate of the late Ian Fleming or any of its successors-in-interest.

Is Rush Limbaugh saying that society owns the right to maintain James Bond’s Scottish whiteness?

That sounds a lot like socialism, wouldn’tcha say?

Well, Rush, if that’s too complicated to answer on your own, how about asking the English (and political conservative, BTW) Roger Moore?  Or Australian George Lazenby?  Or the English-American Timothy Dalton?  Or the Irish Pierce Brosnan?  Or the (ghost of the) American Barry Nelson?

Little Known Fact: He Was Going to be the Third Darrin, Had ‘Bewitched’ Come Back for a Ninth Season

…after York and Sargent, of course.

Pic of the Day: Dec. 21, 2014 (Special ‘Walls Have Ears, But Cameras Have Eyes’ Edition)

Posted on the wall of the visitors’ dugout (and fully within public view, in spite of the title) at Modern Woodmen Park in Davenport, Iowa on July 17, 2010 prior to the game between the Quad Cities River Bandits (then a Cardinals farm team) and the Fort Wayne Tincaps (a Padres farm team.)

Good Thing Hitler Didn’t Have Internet Hackers, Eh?