The Tony Award Nominations

This isn't actually really totally about the Tony Award Nominations which were announced yesterday.

Extensive polling of my thousands of readers indicates that 66% of those polled want me to continue bashing the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

So, even though it is like shooting fish in a barrel and grows tiresome, I'm all about being obliging. And tiresome.

One would think that any and all newspapers in America today would have an article about the Tony Award Nominations. How am I to know what play to see if I'm in New York City next month?

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram did not have an article with a list of nominations.

Instead, on the Live! page in the "People Watch" column under the heading "Tony time" we get the following embarrassing typical Star-Telegram goofy nonsense.

"The 2008 Tony nominations were announced Tuesday morning, and the most nominated show, the Latin/hip-hop musical In the Heights was produced by none other than Fort Worth native Mike Skipper, a Richland High School and Texas Wesleyan University graduate. He lives in Graham (Texas), where he is part-owner of the Wildcatter Ranch & Resort. For a complete list of Tony nominees, visit our Pop Culture District blog at star-telegram.com/blogs"

So, this highly fascinating Texas connection is worth putting in the hard copy version of this lame paper, but the actual Tony Award nominations get relegated to a blog.

Meanwhile, according to the Star-Telegram's Channel Surfing column on the TV page we learn that Ross Matthews, aka Ross the Intern on the Tonight Show, will be on Days of Our Lives today.

No. Ross Matthews is not from Texas. He is from my hometown of Mount Vernon, Washington. I looked at my hometown paper and the TV section felt no need to repeat to its readers something along the line of "Mount Vernon native and Mount Vernon High School graduate, Ross Matthews, will be on Days of Our Lives today."

Mount Vernon has a population of less than 30,000. Fort Worth is approaching a population of 700,000. Which town exhibits the small townish mentality? I'll let you decide.

And then on the Letter to the Editor page we get yet one more disgruntled reader bashing the Star-Telegram. This letter writer/paper reader was vexed by a long article in the Star-Telegram devoted to cheerleading at Carrol High School with the first sentence being "Which is sillier: cheerleading at Carrol High School or the Star-Telegram devoting ever more space to it?"

Now, don't forget to watch Days of Our Lives today. Mount Vernon's own, Ross Matthews, native son and MVHS graduate stars in a bit part that will last a few seconds. So, don't blink or you may miss it.

James Garner, Stroke at 80

I was surprised to learn this morning that one of my all time favorite actors, James Garner, is now 80 years old. He suffered a mild stroke on May 9, followed by surgery May 11. Prognosis good.

James Garner being 80 makes me feel very old. In my mind's eye he's a young guy. His Rockford Files TV series is one of my all time favorites. I'm not alone in that regard. The Rockford Files was where famed TV writer Stephen J. Cannell got his reputation for fine, sophisticated, funny writing with believable, real characters and complicated plots that made sense.

James Garner always reminded me of my dad. Tall, dark and handsome with an easy going way about him. Come to think of it, my dad is rapidly approaching 80. In very good health. He was out golfing on Mother's Day with my brother-in-law and nephew. I don't know how he got away with leaving my mom home alone on Mother's Day.

I'm hoping James Garner makes a full recovery and does yet one more Rockford Files TV Movie. I remember reading him say he can't do Rockford anymore due to not being able to run due to bad knees. Rockford in a wheelchair, rather than a Firebird might be amusing. It worked for Perry Mason.

The Fremont Solstice Naked Bike Parade

Yesterday or the day before I mentioned how things are a bit different up in Seattle than here in the D/FW Metroplex.

The Independent Republic of Fremont, in Seattle, has an annual event to celebrate the summer solstice.

Part of this event is a bike ride. Where bike riders are in various states of undress. This has been going on for 20 years and each year it's bigger than the year before.

I have never watched the Fremont Solstice Parade. I have been to Fremont. It's like visiting the former Soviet Union. Complete with statues of Lenin.

Below is video of last year's Fremont Solstice Naked Bike Parade. This year's parade is just a bit more than a month from now. In case you wanna go.

Hillary in West Virginia Primary

I grow tired of so many Democrats saying it's time for Hillary to give up. Neither she nor Obama will likely have enough delegates to win the nomination by the time the final primary closes.

So, what is so wrong with having an old-fashioned convention where the choice is made at the actual convention?

When Ford had more delegates than Reagan heading into the, I think, 1976 Republican Convention, I don't recollect there being cries for Reagan to drop out for the good of the party.

It's only been in recent times that there's this notion that it's to be all wrapped up by the time of the convention. That may be one reason why the conventions have not been as interesting in recent times.

What if it takes a dozen votes before Obama is finally chosen? What would be so bad about that?

The News Goons and Talking Heads would have such a fun time tracking defections and speculating about deals being made.

It would seem the Democrats would come out of the thing stronger, not weaker.

But, I don't really care about that. I just want to see an old-fashioned convention like the good old days. No Chicago type riots though, that would be a bad thing.

Tarzan and Jane Skinny Dipping

By the early 1930's Hollywood movies were really pushing the envelope with very adult content, both theme wise and nudity wise. The complaints from religious fanatics and worried mothers grew so numerous that a thing called the Hays Office was created to censor movies. Censorship lasted until the 1960s when the lid came off and we began down the path that led us to the vulgar state of too many of today's movies. And TV.

I'd long known there was a skinny dipping scene in Tarzan and his Mate. I did not know that Ted Turner restored the censored scene in 1986. In the infamous scene Tarzan throws Jane into a pond with her dress getting snagged on a tree branch, rendering Jane naked. Tarzan jumps after Jane. Tarzan and Jane then swim for quite a long time under water. An Olympic swimmer named Josephine McKim temporarily replaces Maureen O'Sullivan as Jane during the skinny dipping. With Maureen back being Jane she gets out of the water and has to tell Cheetah multiple times to "Give it to me, Give it to me." Cheetah holds her dress hostage while he laughs at her.

Watch the video to see what disturbed Depression Era religious fanatics. And prudish mothers.

Texas Tornado Hail Storm Video

On April 17, 2008 we had ourselves a fairly hellacious storm here in the Dallas/Fort Worth zone of Texas. This was the storm I whined about because it sent the local TV weather guys into non-stop all night long yammering. So, I didn't get to watch Survivor. The storm that had the weather guys in such a dither did not produce a tornado. Six days later another bad storm came along, once more during TV prime time. But this time the local TV did not go into Weather Drama Queen Mode. Yet that storm did produce a tornado which destroyed 4 homes in Crowley. Crowley is a suburb south of Fort Worth.

Back to the April 17 storm. There are these guys who are Tornado Chasers. They have a website called Tornadovideos.net. These guys were in their Storm Chase Vehicle near Weatherford, in the heart of the storm.

Watch the Tornado Chaser's video below and you will see just how hellacious these Texas storms are. At the start the Tornado Chasers are driving through the hail. Eventually they have to stop. The guys get out of their Storm Chase Vehicle and one gets whacked on the head by incoming hail. The hail keeps getting bigger and bigger til it's baseball size. The giant hail cracks their windshield. By the time the hail stops falling the ground is thickly covered with big hail balls that make it look like there has been a big snowfall.

The Battle at Kruger

Oblivious as I am to the world around me it is not too big a surprise that I'd not seen what I guess is the most viewed video on YouTube. That being "The Battle at Kruger." Over 31 millions video views. This video was the Winner of YouTube's Best Eyewitness Video. YouTube must have some sort of awards show. I suppose there is a YouTube video of the YouTube Video Awards Show.

There is a "The Battle at Kruger" website. If you are at work, be warned the website opens with loud jungle music. The turn off the sound button is small, scroll down and you'll find it on the left side of the page.

The Battle at Kruger video lasts a bit over 8 minutes. Stay with it til the end and you are rewarded with a happy ending.

Naked in Seattle

Each morning after I read the hard copy Fort Worth Star-Telegram I then read the online version of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to get a, well, more intelligent version of a newspaper. I miss the daily hard copy of the P-I. In all my years of reading the P-I I don't recollect anything about it annoying me, or finding a mistake. I've lost count of the mistakes I've come across in the Star-Telegram. One would have thought I'd spot a mistake or two in the P-I, since I lived in its coverage zone for my entire life, til moving to Texas. Yet, even with me not all that familiar with the coverage zone of the Star-Telegram, I find errors. I think one can extrapolate from that that there must be a lot more errors that I don't spot because I'm not familiar with what's being written about.

Anyway, this morning whilst reading the P-I I was struck, yet again, by how starkly different the West Coast is from Texas. I knew prior to moving that it would be much more conservative, overall, in the Buckle of the Bible Belt. It's not a secret that the West Coast, and Washington in particular, and certainly Seattle, is much more liberal than Texas.

Washington is also way less repressive and, I dunno, free-spirited might be the words I'm looking for. Like in today's P-I on the front page there's a photo of a nudist swinging on a rope over the Ballard Pool. That's the photo above. I can't imagine such a photo appearing in the Star-Telegram. Let alone an article about a local pool's nude swims.

There are a few nudist colonies in Texas and a nude beach called Hippie Hollow down by Austin. The West Coast has nude runs, nude swims, nude bike rides & nude hikes. Vancouver has Wreck Beach, that's a huge nude beach where thousands congregate on a hot summer day. I've been there once. It was fun. But I got sunburned in unfortunate places. Near where I lived in Washington there is a nude beach called Teddy Bear Cove. I remember many a fun night at a natural hot springs near the Mount Baker volcano. It is a short hike through old growth forest to Baker Hot Springs. On a weekend night there were often dozens of nude hot springers having a real good time. Early in the Reagan years orders came from Washington to shut down Baker Hot Springs. It has since been restored to its former glory.

There is a Seattle neighborhood called Fremont that seceded from the Union and declared itself the Independent Republic of Fremont. Fremont has an annual event called the Summer Solstice Parade and Pageant. Thousands attend. A highlight is the nude bike ride. A few years back there was an attempt by some prudes to force clothes on the bike riders. That attempt failed.

I can't imagine a parade in Texas featuring a nude bike ride. If one wanted to go on a nude hike in Texas I don't think it'd be much of a problem because there are a lot of fine parks with fine trails and very very very few Big Texans out hiking on them. Regarding that I'll just say this, for the same reason it is pleasant to swim in the buff it is also pleasant to hike sans outerwear.

Below is a video of a pair of Canucks crossing the border, legally, and heading to Baker Hot Springs. In the video they erroneously name Baker Lake as Mount Baker Lake. I point that out lest you visit the fine state of Washington and want to seek out that scenic lake. There is no one but the Canucks in the hot springs and this pair of Canadians broke the rules by keeping their clothes on. Shameless scofflaws.

Below the video is today's fresh goofiness from the Star-Telegram.



Okay, today's Star-Telegram goofiness is once more that bizarre policy of supposedly making a story local unlike the evil paper in the evil city 30 miles east of Fort Worth, by pointing out any remote Texas connection to someone being written about. On the TV page, in a blurb about a show on FOX called Bones, we learn a guy from American Idol will be on tonight's show. And "fellow Idol grad---and former University of North Texas student---Brandon Rogers also appears and Burleson's Kelly Clarkson gets name-dropped."

Wow! Burleson's Clarkson gets named dropped and some guy who dropped out of a Texas college is on the show! I'm sure glad we got reminded for the umpteenth time that Kelly Clarkson is from Burleson. I almost forgot.

And then on "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire The Colony's (that's a Dallas suburb) Janelle Newland goes after the big bucks today, and she's not the last North Texan we'll see during the next couple weeks." Oh thank God, a reason to go on living.

If that is not enough excitement, on American Gladiator, "competition begins, with the challengers including Dallas' Jeff Davidson and his wife, Ally..."

Jenna Bush Tornado Free Wedding

The Jenna Bush wedding did not get hit by the line of storms that passed through north Texas yesterday.

Oh well.

I apologize to my 2 readers for once more succumbing to one of my more pathetic obsessions, but, this morning's Sunday Fort Worth Star-Telegram had the goofiest example yet of their bizarre policy of trying to tie any story to any remote pointless connection to Fort Worth.

I believe the Star-Telegram's #1 worst reporter is Anna Tinsley. She is the writer who over and over and over again repeated the nonsense that a lame Fort Worth food court was the first pubic market in Texas and was modeled after Seattle's Pike Place. I can remember 2 other glaring errors, one being in her description of trails at Bob Jones Park up by Lake Grapevine. The other being several bizarre mistakes in an article about a new section of trail at River Legacy Park.

So, in this morning's Star-Telegram, Anna Tinsley apparently was sent to Crawford to cover the Jenna Bush wedding.

Under a sub-headline "Texas 'royalty'" Miss Tinsley writes:

"It's like our royalty in Texas is getting married," said Stacy Wallace, a Temple woman who originally hails from Fort Worth. "I've been wanting to come by for some time, and I thought (Saturday) was the perfect day to do it."

She originally hails from Fort Worth? Why is this information we need? So, Miss Tinsley solicited the quote about Texas royalty, telling Miss Wallace she was a reporter for the Fort Worth paper and Miss Wallace then said she hailed from Fort Worth and so Miss Tinsley added that important fact to her story about the Jenna Bush wedding? Is that how this useless point ended up in the paper?

And what precisely does "hails from" mean? Comes from? Doesn't to hail something mean give a shout out to? Or call? Okay, I'll look it up. Well, after we get past the frozen version of hail and objects thrown forcefully through the air and an enthusiastic greeting and to praise vociferously we get to hail meaning to be a native of.

If Miss Wallace now lives in Temple does she still qualify as a native of Fort Worth?

I'm past caring now. Below is an amusing video about the Jenna Bush wedding. It sounds like the report comes from India.

Tornado Warning for Jenna Bush Wedding

At 4:15 PM CDT the National Storm Prediction Center issued a Tornado Watch until 9:00 PM CDT. The storm line runs from about 50 northeast of Dallas, southwest to Temple, Texas. Temple is south of Waco. In the neighborhood of Crawford. Where Jenna Bush is due to walk down the aisle with her daddy come sunset.

So, at this point in time the Jenna Bush wedding has the potential to have some good weather drama. The local TV stations are likely already in full arm waving Weather Drama Queen Mode. I'm not going to turn on the TV to find out.

Watch the below video to get a real good idea of what we put up with here in constantly stormy Texas.