ABC’s Brent Musburger made some idiotic comments today before the Indy 500. He said we shouldn’t forget we’re at war so that we can all enjoy events like the Indianapolis 500… Yeah Brent, we’re in Iraq so they can fuel the damn cars…

While most Americans celebrate the holiday by going to parades, holding cookouts and drinking excessively in the late spring heat, some poor FBI agents are digging for Jimmy Hoffa at a farm in Michigan. I hope someone brings them dogs and beers…

I miss the NBA and NHL playoffs. I know they’re ongoing, but without the C’s and the B’s in them, it’s just not the same. I long for those Memorial Day weekend triple headers of C’s, B’s and Sox playing on the same day. I wonder when that will happen again. Oh, and Dwyane Wade is the real deal.

We’re almost 1/3 through the marathon that is the Major League Baseball season and I don’t know what we’ve got with the Red Sox. The pitching has been solid as expected, and the defense better, but the lineup does struggle on occasion to score runs. So far, the biggest surprise has been Mike Lowell (.326, 22 doubles and 29 rbi) and the biggest disappointment Jason Varitek (.232 and only 3 more homers than Josh Beckett). I love his game, but .232 is lame.

It’s sad because of the guys immense talent, but because Barry Bonds is perceived as he is, all his accomplishments in baseball will be shadowed by an asterisk. Today Mr. Bonds passed George Herman Ruth with number 715*, but he’ll never, ever, be looked upon with the reverence of the Babe.

Kyle has had a tough “coming of age” long weekend. First, and it was a first for him, a waitress spilled 15 of my 16oz beer on him during dinner. Right in his lap. Based on the look on his face, it wasn’t “the pause that refreshes.” Second, yesterday he tripped on a pair of shoes (not mentioning any names…) left in the living room, and fell against an end table resulting in his first fat lip. It was pretty traumatic for him and even more so for me. He’s fine and I’m recovering.

I kinda like HR chicks. Well, the ones that get it. The ones you can actually joke around with and not end up in, uhhh, HR. Anyway, one I know has kind of a problem with passing out company golf shirts because it’s very “old boys network” behavior. I thought of her when I read about another cool HR chick today.

Finally, why do middle age relationships or anything remotely resembling a relationship have to be so complicated? Could it be:

– the ex?
– the kids?
– the mother?
– the other ex?
– the work thing?
– the one that got away?
– the drinking problem?
– the kids kids?
– the backhair?
– the cellulite?
– the cats?
– the dog?
– me?

Really, I’m just wondering.

Last night I met about a dozen work folks for dinner in Boston’s North End. It was a fun night, but once dinner was over I’d really had my fill of fun. We had a couple drinks before and then wine with dinner, so a few people were getting real happy and beginning to lose inhibitions. As we were walking back toward Quincy Market, the group turned left. They were going to stop and drink. I kept going straight…to walk and think.

It was a beautiful night.

First I received an eMail, then a voicemail, then old-fashioned junk mail and finally another eMail. It was unbelievable. My phone company, Vonage, didn’t want me, a loyal customer, to miss out on their great IPO!!! For those of you not hip to the lingo of us movers and shakers on Wall Street, an “IPO” is an initial public offering of stock. That’s when big shots like me get to get into stock on the ground floor and ride it to riches! Yep, this was another opportunity just like that time I was invited to participate in the IPO of MP3.com. Yeah, back then of course, I was a big shot record executive and… well, that’s another story for another time…

As any investor should, I conducted a little “due diligence” on this “too good to be true” offer and quickly surmised it was going to be just that. The financial fundamentals just weren’t there and competition in their VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) market is heating up. Some observers suggested that Vonage was actually having difficulty attracting institutional investors and that the seemingly customer-friendly IPO offer was actually a desperate cash grab from its own customers.

I didn’t invest.

The stock opened Wednesday and the IPO price loyal Vonage customers had to pay was $17/share. It quickly fell and as of yesterday, it sat at $13… I love the service and pay a flat $27.78 a month, but I’m sure glad I didn’t buy their stock. Let’s say I purchased 500 shares. As of this morning I’d be down $2000, or about six years worth of Vonage bills… All because my phone company spammed me into a bad deal.

Yes, I am toast. An overdone piece dipped into hot tea with milk when it just turns to mush before disintegrating to the bottom of the cup. Anyway, toast can’t write so I give you Dave. Um, well, Dave’s hair. It seems, according to Dave, that he’s got some fabulous “do” according to all the groupies on his myspace site. Now don’t get me wrong, Dave’s pomp is legendary. It’s freakin awesome! Here are some comments left from his fans:

“best hair since ’68 era Elvis! keep rockin cat!” “Keep growing those cool lambchops!”

Another dude from a British band wrote ol’ Hut234 to say he thought he had the best hair in the UK until he saw Dave’s picture he said “you win!” Dave got a big kick out of that…

Dave is proud of his hair and I think he spends quite some time whipping it up into that pompador. I tried to touch it once, but Dave went all diva on me…

Visit Dave at www.myspace.com/raveondave

I’ve been very busy lately working on um, work, so I don’t have much time to wax poetic. Hey, at least I haven’t missed any beautiful weather. It has been raining so much the last time the Red Sox had a homestand they played a total of six innings. Anyway, it does give me the opportunity to re-use this graphic from May of last year…

It’s funny, while most people are quite tired of the beverage falling from the sky, my boy Kyle loves it. I recently told him about when I was in college in Tucson, it was just one after another of hot, dry, cloudless days. I’d wish for just one day of weather like this. Enjoy it. Soon enough you’ll be hearing “how ’bout this heat?”

Last night I watched the last episode of “Love Monkey.” Several times during the show, I felt myself beaming with delight. Yeah, there’s the music, the great scenes of NYC and its clubs, but I really think the appeal for me is the bonds of friendship the characters had and their personal integrity. I have friends like that I don’t see nearly enough of. In the final scene, all the friends come together for the birth of a baby. As each friend arrives at the hospital to wait and worry, a song silences dialogue. It spoke to me about “the journey.”

There’s been quite a bit of buzz surrounding whether the box-office take of “The Da Vinci Code” will be follically challenged when it opens this Friday. There are also Catholic groups, including “Opus Dei” asking for a film disclaimer. Opus Dei doesn’t want to be portrayed as secretive monk-freaks… Um, whatever. As for the Catholic bureaucracy, Josh Grossberg wrote in E!-Online, “In a Good Friday sermon at St. Peter’s Basilica, Father Ramiero Cantalamessa, speaking before Pope Benedict XVI, attacked the book and the upcoming film as “pseudo-historic” works aimed at undermining the Church’s authority.” The church’s authority? Is that the same authority some of their priests used to rape little boys? Just wondering.

As for how the movie will do, just do the math. “Da Vinci” sold over 40 million copies of the book. Multiply that times people lending their copy to others, library borrowing, illegal Internet distribution of the text and audio version and that 40 million is probably 400 million. Those that haven’t read the book have certainly heard about it, so I expect the opening weekend to be huge. After that it will be all about word of mouth advertising. With Ron Howard directing, I expect movie-goer opinions to be stellar. I dare say that if “Da Vinci” had a love story and a sinking luxury-liner, it might end up the highest grossing film in history.

“Happy Mother’s Day” I said with a smile as she walked out the door. Dressed in black, the mother of our children floated away, back out into the rain of a bittersweet day. Standing at my feet was our four year old grand-daughter, Mackenzie. I was told she burst into tears at church on this day. To “Kenzie,” Mother’s Day is a painful reminder of her mother, who took herself out of the game over two years ago. Her return is uncertain. “She wanted to see her Auntie Megan,” I was told. Kenzie made herself comfortable on the couch with her Uncle Kyle, so there was no need for Megan to get up just yet. Entering Megan’s room to let her know, I was horrified to see a tornado had touched down and violently swirled the contents of her room into a splintered, random mess. I climbed over the wreckage and dug through debris until I finally found her. She was sleeping soundly, unfazed by the destruction left in the wake of a wicked whirlpool of wind. Relieved my Megan survived the devastation; I kissed her cheek and told her of our visitor. She sprang up like a rookie being asked to pinch hit in a big game… a really big game. Based on Ms. Daley’s past performance in these pressure situations, I have no doubt she’ll hit a homer.

“It is so beautiful here; I wonder how many people decided to end things here and jump-off?” I didn’t know the answer to Barb’s question about the Golden Gate, but I would find out.

Research turned up “The Bridge,” a film by Eric Steel documenting the deaths of some 20 people who didn’t come to walk, or jog, or linger to absorb the beauty. They came to “cross over” the ledge to the other side. Since opening in 1937, the bridge has been magnetic to those with a death wish, and its pull has claimed over 1,300 lives.

Walk On By…
In a Q&A; session during the SF Film Festival, Mr. Steel spoke of things that surprised him during his year at the bridge. One incredible observation was that many people walking by would clearly see that a person was preparing to jump, but would just keep on walking without making any effort to intervene or help. While that seems incredible, it’s not really surprising. Many among us are indeed colder than the icy waters of the San Francisco Bay.

I hear Prom Night is big with the chicks. Here are a couple from last night’s prom… No, I don’t have any idea why it was on a Thursday. Anyway, here’s Megan (R) and her pal, Courtney. No words can explain the joy I feel seeing the smile on her face and the sparkle in her eyes. My little girl has become a smart, funny and most beautiful woman.

The Robot Strikes again…
My friend Jeff is a brilliant writer. He’s the reason I’m here, and I mean that on several levels. In the last couple days he’s written another of his exposes’ on the Tar Hut years, and today has a sweet interview with Brian Henneman of the Bottle Rockets. They are in town June 17th… Don’t miss ’em.