With the NFL season winding down, and the preseason highly favored Dallas Cowboys struggling just to make the playoffs, you knew that eventually T.O. a/k/a Terrell Owens, a/k/a “the ticking time bomb” of clubhouse chemistry, would revert to his old, selfish ways.
Reported by ESPN, according to multiple sources within the Dallas Cowboys, Owens has expressed resentment toward Tony Romo, apparently jealous of the quarterback’s relationship with tight end Jason Witten.
Apparently, Owens accuses Romo and Witten, who are close friends and road roommates, of holding private meetings in which they create plays the two will use in upcoming games. Owens is jealous that they don’t include him in the conversations. The immature wide receiver thinks that the two are “conspiring” because he believes that Romo will look to deliver the ball to Witten regardless of whether Owens is open.
As I said earlier, when a team is winning, Owens is a relatively model citizen; when the team struggles, Owens is first to start trouble with his quarterback. He picked a fight with Jeff Garcia in San Francisco and with Donovan McNabb in Philadelphia.
I just have one question for Terrell Owens: can anyone be your friend? Romo and Witten are friends. You are f@#king insane. Romo and Witten seem like decent guys; you are self-centered and immature. I would hang out with Romo and Witten; I wouldn’t want to be in the same stadium with you, much less a small room.
I know that the pea-sized object called your brain looks at the stats and sees you, Owens with 55 receptions to Witten’s 64, and if this ratio was reversed, the Cowboys would be 13-0. But, let’s look closer: the offensive line has been hurt most of the season and Romo is often scrambling for his life; so the check down to the open tight end is often the only option left to Romo. But that’s just it, it’s simple toss and catch to you; no one else is on the field, and all Romo has to do is get it to you and all will be well.
Maybe this is the reason so many fans can’t stand you T.O.; there is no “I” in team, and football is the ultimate team sport. But you are the poster boy for “me, Me, and more ME.” You are a gifted athlete and a great wide receiver, but I wouldn’t want you on my team in a flag football game, much less in the NFL

A coworker showed me a joke today: White Sox fans go to the White House (Obama); Cub fans go to jail (Blagojevich).

Pin-up legend Bette Page died Thursday night. I never knew her; in fact, I never even knew of her until the late Dave Stevens started drawing her in the pages of his comic “The Rocketeer.” But since then, I learned about her photos, nude and clothed, conventional and bondage; the pictures she took for Irwin Claw; her disappearance into obscurity.
As it turned out, she was not a freak, a whore, a slut. She was a Southern girl whose deeply religious background saw nothing wrong with the nude body. In the HBO film “The Notorious Bette Page,” actress Gretchen Mol portrayed Ms. Page as an actress who really didn’t understand the men who bought the bondage photos; she was just acting and playing dress up.
Bette was located in the late 1990s living in California. She refused to be photographed because she wanted to leave her fans with the image of the young beautiful girl, not the old woman she had become. I think that is a bit vain; youth always turns old unless you die young, but she was an icon rediscovered. Rest-in-peace.

It’s funny that as some people are trying to get former Governor George Ryan out of prison, the Feds are arresting current Governor Rob Blagojevich. After months of investigation and rumor, Blagojevich was arrested today in his North Side home accused of charges he conspired to sell the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by President-elect Barack Obama to the highest bidder in what a federal prosecutor called a “corruption crime spree.”
Throughout Illinois, I don’t think anyone was surprised that the Governor got into trouble. He has been linked to Tony Rezko, convicted fund raiser who the GOP attempted to link to Obama in the campaign, and almost every week, there were reports that the law was in hot pursuit. This time, however, Federal Prosecutors reportedly have Blagojevich on tape saying F@#k Obama… I’m going to get paid (in return for the Senate appointment). It is entirely possible that the speed with which that appointment is due may have forced the prosecutor’s hand in delivering the indictment.
To those of you around the country who are shocked by having the sitting governor arrested, but that’s par for the course around here. There have been 8 men who served as governor of Illinois between 1961 and now, four of them have been arrested for corruption. Otto Kerner (1961-1968) went to jail after the authorities found shoe boxes stuffed with money in his closet. Dan Walker (1973-1977) served time in jail for taking improper payments in the state house.
Despite halting the death penalty in Illinois, George Ryan may have been the shadiest up to now. He was convicted of taking money in various scams while acting as Secretary of State and Governor; the most famous of which was selling truck drivers licenses improperly. One of the drivers was to blame in an accident that killed six children in one family. That has been a major source of the outrage at Senator Dick Durbin requesting outgoing President Bush to release Ryan on account of age and the health of his wife. But Ryan has shown little remorse, and only shown that recently.
Now, Blagojevich has always been a bit shady to me. He is listed as having graduated from Northwestern in 1979 and having participated in student government as President, but I was there in 1979, and I’ve talked with my college friends and no one remembers him; certainly not in government. His major claim to fame was in marrying powerful Alderman Dick Mell’s daughter, but once he reached the state house, he and Mell got into a nasty and very public fight, and Blagojevich has fought repeatedly with Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan. This is not to say that Mell and Madigan are choir boys; far from it. But they have been able to operate without getting arrested. In fact, Madigan has pushed for legislation that permits state officials, including the governor, to be impeached, aimed directly at Blagojevich.
Ryan, interestingly enough, is the only Republican in this Hall of Shame, but I think this is more endemic to the office than to any political party. But this is a black eye to Democrats, and, even though he has done nothing wrong according to prosecutors, President-elect Obama. I believe that former Governor Ryan should remain in jail; and that Blagojevich will soon follow. Now, if they can only catch Daley in something illegal, then they could all share the same wing of the prison.

This sounds like something that would have been sung by Ian Dury. but, at least the first two items seem to go together, like eggs and bacon; or Bush and incompetence. But it isn’t the auto companies, or the banks, or the mortgage holders or shareholders that I want to talk about now. No, it’s rock bands. Or, more particularly, old rock bands.
This week, a band called Yes is playing in the Chicago area. I used to be an art rock junkie, I remember seeing “Yessongs” in a movie theater and going to see Yes at Hawthorne Race Track with Peter Frampton and Lynryd Skynyrd (the original band before the plane crash). Yes has always had a varying lineup led by bassist Chris Squire (who “owns” the name and started the band) and various guitarists, drummers, and keyboard players. The current version features who many consider the best guitarist: Steve Howe; the best drummer, Alan White; the son of the “best” keyboard player, Oliver Wakeman (son of Rick). But, this tour is without lead singer and co-founder Jon Anderson, whose crisp, high tenor, is one of the signatures of the band. Anderson has suffered from acute respiratory failure, which caused the band to cancel a planned 2008 tour.
Never willing to turn down money, the four “Yes” men have added a Canadian singer, Benoit David, a singer in a band called Mystery and in a Yes tribute band Close to the Edge (named, of course, after one of Yes’ better known albums) and hit the road, which brought them to Chicago. At first, Anderson posted on his website that he was “disappointed” and “disrespected” by having the new singer and the lack of contact the other band members have had with him since his malady began. Recently (according to Wikipedia), the comments disappeared and Squire has said that the tour continues with Anderson’s blessing. I guess Anderson got a nice check and never has to leave the house which is a fine price for a “blessing.”
But, if you’re a concert goer, paying good money to see your favorite band, do you want to pay top money for a couple of members of the old band and the singer from a tribute band? This sounds like the plot of a very bad movie. Wait, you mean this IS the plot from a very bad movie? Oh yes, I had forgotten “Rock Star” with Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Aniston.
I call this the INXS effect. Ever since the Aussie band held a televised audition for a lead singer after enigmatic frontman Michael Hutchence died; released a well received CD and toured to large crowds, a lot of old rockers figure that they don’t have to deal with the old mates they hate; they can just put in some nobody and the original guy gets most of the money.
Which brings me to the whole reason for this rant: to comment on the possibility that this same fate may befall one of the greatest bands of the rock era, Led Zeppelin. After reuniting last December as a tribute to Ahmet Ertegun to huge scalper interest, the reunion rumors have been rampant. But Robert Plant, the lead singer, had a very successful CD and tour with Allison Krauss, and now appears to show little interest in a Zeppelin reunion. So, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones have discussed touring with another singer along with original drummer John Bonham’s son Jason.
This would be a disastrously bad idea! One would think that Page would have learned his lesson when he and Plant recorded and toured without Jones back in 1995. The tour sold well and the “Unplugged” CD or Zeppelin classics did well, but the resulting CD of new material was a dud and the two parted ways again. I have friends who know Plant and have met Page, and both of them love money and don’t necessarily like to split it with the other (or, obviously Jones, who, when the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, began his remarks by passing Plant a piece of paper with his phone number, just in case they had lost it – a swipe at them leaving Jones behind). But they do love money.
Now, it may be just negotiations gone public in an attempt to sway the sides in the court of public opinion. Obviously, there’s huge money in reunion tours, as The Police have proven over the past couple of years, as Sting and his ex-mates put aside their animosity to rake in bushels of money. Led Zeppelin, whose “legacy” easily outdistances The Police (and have not toured in 31 years compared with a “paltry” 24 years for Sting’s bunch), would probably be the biggest tour in history, even in an economic downturn.
Of all the old rock idols, I do appreciate Robert Plant for trying to break as far away from the Zeppelin as possible in his solo material. However, he has never been shy to go running back for a big payday, and with his album “Now and Zen” recorded with Page back in 1988 or the Page reunion in 1995. Page has done little of note since Zeppelin and probably needs the money. Jones has been a valuable producer and musician on his own, but has never been able to have the big post-Zeppelin payday.
I don’t know if I would go to see a reformed Zeppelin since I worked their last Chicago appearance – four nights at the old Stadium in 1977. I didn’t go to see Plant and Page in 1995, although the family did see Plant with Ms. Krauss at the Jazz and Heritage Festival in New Orleans last Spring. But, if there’s going to be a Led Zeppelin reunion, let’s do it right, with everyone on board. Zeppelin was too great a band to go the same route as INXS or Yes. Do it, or don’t do it at all.

I know that these end of year top 10 lists are completely arbitrary and always subject to the writer’s taste, but if that isn’t what a personal site is for, I don’t know what is. And I think that before all of the other “critics” get their ideas in, I’ll jump out first.
Besides, I have always voted in the WXRT annual list, in part to express a less “programmed” opinion than the lemmings that listen to ‘XRT and actually think the station remains cutting edge. Also, I always hoped that I would win the annual contest: to win ever major disc from a major label released over the next year. I figured I would save a lot of money if I had won but I never did, and they no longer give that as a prize. Oh well…
And I hate it when music reviewers pick top 10 lists comprised entirely of CDs that you have never heard of, by acts that are so obscure, that you can’t find their music at your local store, or iTunes, or whatever way in which you get your music. I know that there are critics who believe that this is a way of telling the world about new artists, but most of the time, the music they pick plainly sucks. Maybe they want to champion artists on the cutting edge, and maybe it’s just me getting older, but the cutting edge is not that interesting, just different for the sake of being different without connecting with me, the listener.
Anyway, I still average 40-45 purchases of new music and even though most of the picks on this list will reflect historic favorites on my part, I think it is time to look back on the year and give you an evil opinion of what was good in 2008:

10. Mudcrutch: Tom Petty’s reconstituted band would ordinarily be “too country” for me, but Petty’s pop hooks remain and Mike Campbell remains one of the best guitarists around.
9. Vampire Weekend: Another eponymous CD. This band came to most people’s attention through a LOT of hype from the East, but I figured it was worth a try when I plunked down the $9 for the CD without having heard anything off of it. Upon hearing the first couple of songs, I thought that this was a dog; a turkey that I wasted my good money on. But the CD got better and better as it went along, and these songs became infectious on the iPod.
8. Various artists – Big Blue Ball: This may not be eligible for 2008 since most of the recordings were made in years past, but Peter Gabriel’s project with a number of friends was world music at its finest. It had Gabriel’s pop music sensibility, but it also allowed the other artists room to add their own imprint.
7. Lindsey Buckingham – Gift of Screws: you may be surprised at my appreciation of Fleetwood Mac’s wunderkind guitarist, but I’ve always been a fan, finding his solo music and songs for the Mac much more interesting than the material written by the others. After a very mellow acoustic CD (Under The Skin in 2006), Buckingham plugged the guitars back in and, while not really “rocking out,” it is a set of fine musicianship, great songs with terrific hooks.
6. Al Green – Lay It Down: The right Rev. gets back down to the business of soul, which was strangely missing from Green’s two CDs working with his old partner Willie Mitchell. Will.i.am and other young producers captured the best of the Green’s 1970s music and keeping the warmth of the old recording style. A top flight CD to romance with your significant other.
5. Matthew Sweet – Sunshine Lies: I don’t know what happened to the former Nebraska pop tunesmith over the past few years – he disappeared other than in Austin Powers movies, and a CD of 1960s and 1970s covers with former Bangles Suzanna Hoffs. But back in the 1980s, Sweet was one of the best pop music writers and performers around. This new CD came out on a small label, with little fan fair; it was another CD that I took a chance on, and I was more than happily surprised. This is Sweet’s best CD since “Girlfriend.”
4. R.E.M. – Accelerate: in the 1980s and early 1990s, this would automatically leap to the top of WXRT’s annual list, just because the lemmings they call regular listeners found it easy to vote for the band. Well, after three poor CDs (all since drummer Bill Berry left the band – and forgive me, but I liked “New Adventures in Hi-Fi”), R.E.M. really tried to return to rocking out, and for the most part succeeded. This CD contains some of their best, most high octane songs since “Document” and they didn’t pad the CD with filler – it comes in, in a brisk 38 minutes.
3. Elvis Costello – Momofuku: if Elvis releases a rock CD, it invariably ends up on my list, but I have to say that this CD is unusual since it has songs that I absolutely love, and songs that I feel are some of the worst of Costello’s career. EC said that he was retiring from recording, but not from live performance and the “music business.” I hope he was joking, because, when he’s focused, he’s one of our best, most intelligent and interesting musicians.
2. Joe Jackson – Rain: it came out in January last year to almost no publicity, but Joe Jackson released yet another great songs cycle. This time, he used only his old band’s bass player (the great Graham Maby), drummer (Dave Houghton), and Jackson’s piano and voice to produce a fine CD of songs. I have always liked his habit of tempering love songs with melancholy and unease, and Jackson is at his best when he is telling stories of love, longing, and sometimes betrayal.
1. Nine Inch Nails – The Slip: one may think that this CD makes the list solely because Trent Reznor released it on his website for free, but that is not the reason. While still maintaining his edge and power, Reznor retuned to more accessible songs, and I couldn’t listen enough. While I appreciate NIN’s more recent selections: “With Teeth” and “Year Zero,” I just couldn’t connect with them as well as I did this year.

Honorable mentions: As always, there are some deserving recordings that didn’t make the top 10, but deserve mention nonetheless. I was never a fan of David Byrne and Brian Eno’s “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts,” but this year’s “Everything That Happens Will Happen Today” was much more accessible, tuneful and catchy. Even though WXRT only plays one song and overplay the Talking Heads, it is worth listening to. Bob Mould still has electronica in his blood, but he delivered another strong group of songs on District Line. Talk about delivering the goods once again on a CD of familiar sounds, both The Cure (“4:13 Dream”) and John Hiatt (“Same Old Man”) didn’t break any new ground, but still released CDs that were good to those of us who were fans to begin with. Finally, I really enjoyed Steve Winwood’s “9 Lives” CD, which continues the strong output from the former boy genius of rock and roll, playing the organ and guitar with great feeling.
So, that was 2008. I can look forward to 2009 with optimism (and not just politically). I’m interested in your thoughts???

What is it about professional athletes that they think that the world is the Wild West and all of them are Billy the Kid? New York Giant wide receiver Plaxico Burress accidentally shot himself in the right thigh at a Manhattan nightclub Friday night.
Burress was apparently out on the town with teammate linebacker Antonio Pierce. As to what actually happened, no one is talking.
The incident is being investigated by New York police and the NFL, even as Burress was charged with a weapons possession charge. Burress was not apparently limping when he entered courtroom this morning, where he pled not guilty to the charge but refused to speak to the media other than through his attorney. The attorney, Benjamin Brafman went into full spin mode: “He is standing tall. He is a mature adult,” said Brafman (quoted by the AP and SI.com). “I think any professional athlete in this situation would be concerned.” Asked as to whether there was a coverup, Brafman refused to respond other than to say: “I think a lot of what’s been in the press is not accurate.”
Yeah, sure. Of course, it is reported that Burress faces 3 ½ years in prison if convicted, but let’s be honest, Plaxico Burress is the star from the defending Super Bowl champion, and he shot himself. Unless it can be proven that he shot at someone and hit his own leg, Burress will receive a slap on the wrist at best. The NFL, of course, may have a stiffer fine/suspension.
But, to go back to the beginning, why do these athletes feel compelled to be armed? Most of them, despite their talent at playing sports, have little or no skill at shooting someone. The real tough guys would grab the gun from them and shoot them before they could even aim the gun. And this is not an anti-NRA question (although one would be fair), but do professional athletes face such crime that they need protection? Of course, Redskins’ safety Sean Taylor was killed in a home invasion but that did have some gang overtones. And there was the NBA star whose home was burglarized at gunpoint. But is this a trend, or at athletes attacked at the same percentage of the regular population? Furthermore, was something happening to cause imminent harm to Plaxico Burress that he needed the safety off his gun and his finger on the trigger?
Anyone who can answer any of these questions aren’t talking, and perhaps we will get some truth in the public and league investigations, but we do deserve answers. One would think that with the money they make, I would rather hire a bodyguard than carry a weapon myself.