El Blog de Los Amigos

The first time I saw Issac Hayes was on “The Rockford Files,” as Gandolph Fitch. My dad wasn’t into anything remotely funky, so I had to discover his musical genius in high school.

There are a lot of images I’ll associate with Hayes — playing “Shaft” at the Oscars shirtless with a thick gold rope necklace; giving interviews on one of his many attempts at a musical comeback in the ’80s; his menacing portrayal of The Duke in “Escape From New York.” But, for many, this is how Issac Hayes will be remembered:

Goodnight, Issac. Tell Xenu to pour you a cold one.

The first time I saw Bernie Mac was on HBO’s Def Comedy Jam in 1992, embedded above. He went on to explode in popularity when he was one of the original Kings of Comedy, then hit a string of great film gigs such as “Bad Santa” and the Clooney “Oceans” movies (though I thought he wasn’t used nearly as well in the latter two films of the series).

He had a lot more funny left in him, but his body had other plans. Goodnight, Bernie.

(This is a stronger clip, included just because he killed the room that night…)

Gotta wonder if putting a new theme on El Blog will make me, and others, post more. As busy as we all are, I have no clue.

Right now, I’m at the point where I really, really need a bolt o’ creative lightning to hit me in the cerebellum. The Jack website, which wasn’t supposed to get long in the tooth for at least another year, is broken in a bunch of different ways. Part of the problem is the number of new “initiatives” passed down from corporate, but the primary problem is that advertisers are used to radio web sites that look like this or this. While the design we agreed on was on target with the station’s branding, it doesn’t “walk” like a site people have come to associate with a radio station.

The battles I fought with Corporate are now, ultimately, lost. Call it whatever — they won, as I’m having to go back to the well to redo the whole bloody thing. I don’t have a concept to start working on, and until I have that, I’m staring at a blank screen. Bollocks.

I’ll be relaunching Geek Nation Radio’s site in the next couple of weeks. Even if the show doesn’t get on the air with Live 105.3, there’s enough of a good thing there to get a regular podcast rolling. I’ll have detail on that in the coming week.

Past all that, there’s not a lot going on that I would qualify as “new.” Hopefully, you’re well. Cheers.

Hopefully, you remember Triumph the Insult Comic Dog’s encounter with the Star Wars geeks at the “Attack Of The Clones” premiere. NBC sent Robert Smigel and Triumph to San Diego for Nerd Prom… and in the process he bagged on Scott Kurtz. At least Scott was a really good sport about it — and he didn’t have to endure a Triumph wedgie.

Those who have read this blog for a while will understand what I’m about to say. Newcomers may want to look around.

I’m in the process of getting into trouble again.

I’ve said repeatedly that the Carrie Fisher portion of the George Lucas AFI Tribute was one of the funniest things I’d seen in a long while. Because of rights issues and whatnot, they don’t keep the AFI Tributes out there for long, and I didn’t do a grab of the video when I had the chance.

Fortunately, someone in Mexico did:

If you have any affinity for ‘Star Wars’ and aren’t laughing your head off by the end of Fisher’s diatribe, seek therapy.

Two things I wish had been said at Scoot’s funeral yesterday:

• She tolerated no drama, and produced none either.
• She was constantly working to make this world a better place, through her work in the church and her community. While my uncle Charles took the time to chart out how long her 94 years was in months, weeks, days, hours and seconds, what he failed to mention at the end of the dissertation was how none of that time was wasted. Scoot was a really independent woman, even in an era where being a strong woman was frowned upon by society. She was constantly in motion, and if there wasn’t any forward progress, she would get impatient.

On extremely short notice, not only was Manda able to come to the funeral, but my dad (who held her in high regard) and Manda’s parents (who met Scoot once but adored her completely) were there as well.

My mother is buried in a plot next to Scoot’s. I should have brought flowers for her site as well, and will go back next week.

Not crying nearly as much as I was on Wednesday or Thursday. As the saying goes, time salves loss like this.

I’d love to regale you on the whole funeral process, and observations on the automatic responses you make when you’re in the position of greeting people you either haven’t seen in two decades or never met and trying to mumble words of shared consolation… but, to be frank, I don’t have the ability to do that now.

Manda’s been amazing. My anchor, if you will. Also, the e-mails and voice mails have been a great source of comfort. Thanks.

This was taken at my wedding, thirteen months ago:

Technically, Edythe McCoy was my grand-aunt on my mother’s side. I just knew her as my Aunt Scoot. No idea where the nickname came from, but it was always there.

Whenever we would see each other, we would try to sneak in “I love you the mostest!” first. I don’t remember where it started, other than when I was very, very young. She’d write it in my birthday cards, I’d open phone calls with it.

Phyl called me today to tell me she was gone. The last month has been really hard on Scoot — it had become increasingly difficult for her to get around, and she was always fiercely independent. She didn’t want anyone making a big fuss. Period. After trying to have someone come in and help her out a few hours a day (which she couldn’t abide by at all), she had moved into an assisted care facility around the first of the month. After she had gotten settled, we were going to get together for a late birthday lunch.

The only person left on my mother’s side of the family that I’m even remotely close to is Phyl.

Scoot was a sweet, sweet woman. My world is a little darker by knowing she’s gone.

I love you the mostest.

No way…

The Rockafire Explosion Movie Trailer

The fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is 73 today.

I’ll be listening to ‘The Art of Happiness’ on my iPod a lot in the next week. Not just because it’s the Dalai Lama’s birth week, but because I’m giving a serious thought to converting to Buddhism.

Doing this, wholeheartedly, means I’ll be giving up drinking. Five years ago, this would have been an unthinkable notion. These days, I really don’t think it would be so bad.

Wisdom: Just because you live in the country doesn’t mean people will not break into your home and steal stuff.

More Wisdom: If someone does break into your home, they may not be smart enough to take things of value, like the display full of DVDs right next to the tower of CDs. Or the computers. Or the TiVo.

Fun night on Harper Hill, kiddies. Everyone’s okay, including the cats — who all stayed inside for however long with the patio door wide open. But this is screwy, and it got inside our heads.

When I was 11 years old, there was a city-wide talent show at DeSoto High School’s auditorium, and I had auditioned and got on the program doing stand-up comedy. I was dressed in a dark red suit (that, if memory serves, was from Johnny Carson’s clothing label), went up as the third act that night, deflected one heckler after the first line of the bit, and killed ‘em afterward.

The routine I did was a bit off George Carlin’s “A Place For My Stuff” album. I didn’t have to do much to clean it up — it was his riff on fridge leftovers, and pretty family-friendly.

Even after I knew who Carlin was, it took a while before I heard about the whole “seven dirtiest words” controversy and what it really meant for free speech in America. I just knew he was extremely funny, very insightful, and amazingly talented. All you had to do is hear the “football vs. baseball” comparison he did to know that.

George is gone now. Heart failure at age 71. In a decade where there’s been so many icons and talented humans shuffling off that mortal coil, Carlin’s death saddens me to no end. In a culture that now favors insult over insight (a phrase that comes to mind from the olde Hardline open, but is now true of much more today than sports talk radio), we need more people like George Carlin, Bill Hicks, and Lenny Bruce… not less.

People can’t seem to talk about Carlin without mentioning the profanity. While I don’t think it defined him, it’s important to note that we may not have paid as much attention to his underlying message without first hearing the dropped F-bombs. Same for Bruce, same for Hicks.

Or, maybe you have to be considered “obscene” to be insightful.

Well… I know I shouldn’t put this out there but I’m going to anyway…

The Rangers as of today are currently better than:
Twins
Indians
Tigers
Royals
Mariners
Mets
Nationals
Pirates
Reds
Dodgers
Giants
Padres
and Rockies…

We are one game behind .500, and currently only 2 behind Oakland… is there a chance we could see some kind of freakin’ glory or am I completely delusional?

Don’t answer…