Posted on

Have mercy. Been ridin’ on the bus all day …

This is Post #2,400 for the ol’ EF’enD. But no time to celebrate boys and girls, cause I got a bus to catch. Tomorrow. Going to Dallas on that ol’ Greyhound. That means a ride from Beaumont->Houston->Dallas–>Catch that ol’ DART Red Line light rail to Arapaho station–>Then catch a ride with my amigo to Frisco. Hot Damn (or not.) What that means is I will be sitting on my ass a lot tomorrow. Start the music boys:

http://youtu.be/MDEHZNirvF0

No infringement is meant here. First and last, if you don’t have this album, go out and get it. I mean the vinyl. Doesn’t matter even if it’s scratched up a little, in fact, that’s the way it should be played. And loud. Make the fine China dance up and down on the dinner table of those pretentious metrosexual assholes upstairs above you.

This song reminds me of my younger days. A long-haired punk riding the bus to the AFEES in Houston for a physical for the Navy and a ride back to Kirbyville where somebody picked us up. Oh I’d be back to that old AFEES, entertain the thought of going AWOL to see Crosby, Stills Nash and Young, but go ahead anyway, crawl in a big yellow taxi for Houston Intercontinental Airport, now known as Bush Intercontinental, for Old Man Bush.

Riding the bus all day or waiting for the bus all day. One kind of blends into another. That’s why this “Waiting for the Bus All Day,” by ZZ Top, which merges effortlessly into “Jesus Just Left Chicago,” is so appropriate for the po’ man traveler. Nowadays, you have to be really broke (which I am at the moment) or you are some kind of nut, and or outlaw, to ride the bus.

ZZ Top’s been with me for 40 years or more. They sing a kind of multi-racial blues that black, white, brown, it doesn’t matter, you know?

So here is to ZZ Top and to that long bus ride tomorrow.

Posted on

A & M to be deprived of Johnny Football for one-half against Rice, sources say.

Okay Johnny, which wrist would you like us to slap? Oh. Of course, we wouldn’t want to slap your passing arm even though the slap will be more like a finger tap.

I know I should tread lightly talking about Texas A & M and it’s headline-making quarterback Johnny Manziel. Half of my family went to A & M and a close friend from college days is a big fan since our college is only what is now called a “Football Championship Series” team and not a BCS one.

Johnny Football after June 2012 arrest for fighting and fake identification. / Photograph courtesy of Brazos County's Judicial Records Search at http://justiceweb.co.brazos.tx.us
Johnny Football after June 2012 arrest for fighting and fake identification. / Photograph courtesy of Brazos County’s Judicial Records Search at http://justiceweb.co.brazos.tx.us

But if all the reports this afternoon are right then it seems Heisman Trophy winner “Johnny Football” will have to sit out one half of the Aggies season opener against Rice. This news comes from ESPN and other media outlets, based on a Twitter feed from an Aggie insider.

The one-half suspension will permanently shut the door on allegations Manziel was paid to sign more than 4,000 autographs. Scott Van Pelt said on his ESPN radio show this afternoon that autograph brokers who snitched on Manziel to the media would not talk to NCAA investigators. At least that is a popular theory. The reason is that, allegedly, the Aggies quarterback was devaluing his autographs by signing so many.

Might one say that they smell a rat in Indianapolis, home of the NCAA?

A second Heisman season is possible for Manziel and there is an outside chance he might lead the Aggies to a national championship season, this being the team’s second in Southeastern Conference play.

With this chapter in Manziel’s history apparently closed, plus putting his legal problems to bed, this might be quite a season for Johnny Football. After this season Mr. Football will be eligible for the NFL draft. And he seems eager to let the draft madness begin and escape College Station. If he can just keep out of trouble …

 

Posted on

Drone industry in Washington to drone on about expanded unmanned aircraft use

 

A headline on today’s Stars & Stripes Website threateningly announces: “Drones descend on Washington — Just for show.” But the content of the story sounds much scarier than the headline.

It seems that something called the “Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International” is featuring 600 exhibits in a three-day trade fair in the D.C. convention center. In other words,  makers of drones are seeking every possible buyer for the unmanned aircraft ranging from law enforcement to those managing forests. The article says the first objective of the show is to ease the fear of drones, going so far as to avoid using the word “drone.” Ah, do we want an unmanned plane loaded with missiles flying over our neighborhoods and playgrounds? Anyone with even the most remote, pardon the pun, common sense probably wouldn’t.

Those who accept the broadest interpretation of the right to bear arms would perhaps believe these unmanned aircraft would be great for hunting white-tailed deer in the woods. Why you wouldn’t even have to leave the house to “harvest” a 12-point buck!

Aside from the, hopefully, most far-fetched uses of drones many people likewise fear the opportunities for expanded privacy intrusions that have already traveled far afield from what even the sharpest of our “Founding Fathers” might have imagined. You might have to give up some privacy to live in a safe world of expanding terror. Then again, there is no sense in handing the government the keys to the kingdom.

Even the most practical matters — how to manage an ever-crowded sky –seem far from determined in a world in which drones are commonplace. Plus, we must remember that is is already the 21st century and we’ve yet to see even the most limited use of flying automobiles!

I hope people see such a gathering of unmanned flight as a warning to our society that maybe, maybe hell, that we should have a giant public debate before these drones begin to take off aside general and commercial aviation. But I have been disappointed by society so many times before.

 

Posted on

That tragic, deadly, ol’ Love Boat

Have you ever wondered how many boxes of toothpicks can be made from a single tree?

Most toothpicks in the U.S. are made from birch, according to Ask.com, the answer to everything, the trut,’ the whole trut’ and nothing but the trut.’

Well, according to one site whose pedigree I couldn’t tell you:

In one cord of wood (logs 8′ in length, stacked 4′ high, and 4′ wide) can be turned into 7.5 million toothpicks.

Reminds me of a cartoon I saw as a kid. The board of directors are sitting around in a board room (where else). A chart is being pointed to at a company called Acme Toothpick by some suit. The suit says: “Unfortunately, we expect a sharp decline in profits this year since the company bought a new tree.”
And we all laughed.
So what brings this up? Why it is the Love Boat. Yes, you remember so many years ago … “The Love Boat promises something new for everyone …. ” Like the prospect that this episode will be followed by “Fantasy Island.” “De plane, de plane … “
The MS Pacific is the ship once known as the Pacific Princess. That was when she embarked from across the way from the Long Beach shipyard in which my destroyer was dry-docked during that magic summer of ’77. Magic? Magic Tragic. It’s just “artistic license.” After all, someone probably made tons of money from that terrible “Love Boat” theme. Get over it. The Pacific limped into a Turkish shipyard last week, listing much like half of my crew on a one-night liberty in Fiji. A ship recycling company bought the ship — the Princess, not my destroyer — for about $3.3 million.
One might think this about the worst ending ever for a 70s icon of love. But, oh no, it gets even worse.
No doubt the “Love Boat” sucked as a TV show. Who knew it was actually lethal?
Posted on

This is not just another story about “Johnny Football”

 

Many sports news readers are probably sick, by now, of the off-field exploits of Texas A & M Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Johnny Manziel, a.k.a. “Johnny Football.” Maybe not so much if you are a die-hard Texas Longhorns fan or supporter of other Southeast Conference schools.

Note: If you give even one little hoot about this story, this ESPN.com “Outside The Lines” story by Wright Thompson is a must read.

My first journalism job was writing sports for my hometown newspaper. I liked some sports although my closest rub with playing was as an equipment manager in junior varsity football — although I also helped during varsity games — and was varsity basketball manager. I lettered in basketball though I never played a quarter. Two of the four fingers and toes I have broken in my life came from pick-up games of basketball, so I know some of the danger of sports, although that would be later in life.

I knew less about writing sports stories in high school than I did about playing them. I did know how to read, fortunately, thus I borrowed my style for writing from the local sports writers of the day. This was some 40 years ago. I am sure I have a copy somewhere, but I am horrified to read it for fear it had to be awful. Then again a friend gave me a great compliment on an article from those days that made me think about writing and writing for others in general.

Arthur has been a friend of mine since grade school when we played cops and robbers — actually Bonnie and Clyde but pay no attention to the gender issue we were just kids. I saw Arthur at a class reunion several years ago. Arthur played most of the school’s sports but he was particularly good in baseball. He told me: “You know I have a story you wrote about me playing baseball.” I found that odd that he kept it. I told him it must have been terribly written. But he said it was good. Besides, the fact he kept the story around for 40 years must mean something.

My friend’s keepsake reminded me how journalists, such as I, have an impact on others that we seldom ponder.

Sports reporting has changed immeasurably. If I was advising a young journalist who eyed a sports-writing career, I would tell him or her to read the great sports writers — everyone from Red Smith to Dan Jenkins to Rick Reilly — and I would likewise tell the budding scribe to study police reporting. The latter suggestion seems cynical or an attempt at humor but it is my authentic advice.

Fortunately and unfortunately, sports writing has melded into more specialized  journalism, like, say, environmental and military reporting. I pick those two beats because they were my specialties at one time.

But I also wrote up a police blotter item – during my time as a crime reporter — about a young guy busted for evading arrest. The young dude was allegedly smoking pot when the cops rudely interruped a party he was attending. The perp happened to be a talented running back for the Division I school in my town. But he also had a history of legal troubles. He was suspended from the team and I couldn’t tell you what happened to him after that.

Even “game stories” have changed, some for the better, and others for the worse.

It is unfortunate that the omnipresent media — from 24/7 cable to Twitter — seem to focus on the bad in sports. It is the reason I advise budding sports writers to learn how to read a police blotter, learn about the criminal justice process while doing the regular investigating that is part of a job in journalism.

At the same time, we are fortunate that sports news of today educates the public on the more serious matters of sports: Performance-enhancing drugs, the long-term medical effects of sports such as concussions from football, even collective-bargaining agreements. All of these are wrapped up in your newspaper, Web page or on a TV-teleprompter.

The modern sports news consumer is tremendously informed about sports and all that surrounds it compared to the trite phrases I would write about games — the Ws and Ls — when stringing for my hometown weekly. It’s evolution. But it isn’t always pretty. That’s why I try to avoid seeing my sports articles from 40 years ago.