The nausea I feel after being berated by the presidential party conventions has been soothed a bit by my discovery of the following movie on YouTube. John Duffy is one of my musical heroes and if he were alive today, I’d like to have seen him run for president. This country could use a chain smoking, shop teacher with bad pants and a butch cut in charge. In a post-911 world, now more than ever, we need Duffy around. He’s the kind of guy you could (and I did) have a beer with (or 12).

Mr. Duffy… you are sorely missed.

Stephen Colbert and his Formidable Opponent show that while the truth may hurt… it can also be damn funny.

You know Summer has truly arrived once the has-beens start popping up all over the place. Madison’s Capitol Times has an extremely funny article about this past Saturday’s triple threat: Poison, Dokken and Sebastian Bach. Apparently some lucky folks (lucky that they had $30 of expendable income) got to hang around The Bean and a chance to pick up some suvineers…

The auctioneer held out one of the muscle shirts to a young blonde with “Elvira, Mistress of the Dark” hair: “C’mon, you gotta get a whiff of this!”… She did.

Awesome.

I also missed my chance at REO, Molly Hatchet, Joan Jett and the Beach Boys.

Today, as I was hauling yet another “Shopper Stopper” (a junk-snail-mail newspaper in Madison, WI) to the recycle bin, I decided to take a look at and see if there was a way to stop their delivery. None was listed, so I turned to Google…

To stop delivery, just call Madison Newspapers’ customer service number at 608-252-6363, select option 5, and ask them to stop it. Should stop in 1-2 weeks. Thanks Google…

Even if you’re not that into Bluegrass, I would think you’d find the Flatt & Scruggs TV Show DVD pretty cool. If you are even remotely into Bluegrass, then this DVD series is absolutely essential! I don’t think I can hype these DVDs too much… just go buy one and see for yourself. In addition to the many, many great tunes, they also included some of the original Martha White commercials… which are priceless!

My favorite mandolin player on this planet is Mr. Mike Compton. In an odd turn of events, I also consider him a friend. That he can suffer through with my playing and not throw up (not noticeably at least) is the finest musical honor I’ve achieved. This is a clip of he and I playing in Margaret River, Australia. You can find more videos and sundries over on that there YouTube…

I’ve said it all year… said it all month… said it all week… I have said it all day. My Bears will sweep the Pac. God is a FIB.

Ten years ago today, the world became less funny.