50 Years Ago Today

The Beatles played a small neighborhood concert at Shea Stadium...

Thunderstruck!

Love this...

A new low

This is really incredible. On the day Jimmy Carter announced that his cancer has spread, conservative commentator Debbie Schlussel tweeted this...

A cancer has cancer. Oops, I mean, Jimmy Carter has cancer. Same diff. #tcot #gop #JimmyCarter #ACancerwithCancer

— Debbie Schlussel (@DebbieSchlussel) August 12, 2015

Very classy. When people talk about beauty only being skin deep, Schlussel is the kind of person they have in mind.

It was 50 years ago today

Incredible Ed Sullivan show appearance from 1965...

Defending Len Kasper

I'm usually just a lurker on Twitter when it comes to Cubs news, but today I felt I had to come to the defense of Len Kasper...

@djordan1235 @LenKasper Actually there were 31 Babes according to Baseball Reference, including two All-Stars, and 4 #Cubs.

— Rick Kaempfer (@RickKaempfer) August 14, 2015

Yes, I know I'm a dork, but Len Kasper is too because he retweeted me.

Sesame Street Moves to HBO

It will still be on PBS, but now Sesame Street will debut new shows on HBO. From the Adweek article...

As part of the deal, starting this fall, new episodes of Sesame Street will air nine months ahead of when they air on PBS. Sesame Workshop will also produce a new show based on the Muppets.

I'm looking forward to the slightly edgier Sesame Street shows. Here are a few lines floating around the writers room...

*"Hey there, buddy Burt. Whaddya say we head down to the courthouse and make this arrangement official."

*"How many times have I warned you...Don't mess with Oscar the Grouch. Yippe-kai-ay, MFer."

*"Is it twue what they say about you BIG birds. (Zip) Oh, it's twue, it's twue, it's twue."

*"After I'm finished with you Guy, you'll reeeeeally be Smiley."

*"I love to Count my guns. One...two...three AK-47s. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. (Rat-a-tat)"

*"Cookie. I love Cookie. Cookie Rojas. Me new husband."

That's the Way the Cookie Crumbles

Or as Mike Ditka once said in a drunken post-game interview..."That's the way the chip-chip-cookie crumbles".

One of my favorite cookies is no more. Production of Maurice Lenell cookies has stopped, ending a Chicago tradition that goes back to the 1920s.

I loved the pinwheel swirls.

Lefthanders Day

Thanks to my favorite picture-book author Sandra Boynton for this, and happy Lefthanders day to all of my lefty friends (including my son Johnny)...

WLS Version of "Life is a Rock"

I remember hearing this on WLS when it first came out. I was sooo impressed that they were big enough to have the band record a custom version. I didn't know at the time that they did for a lot of radio stations. Still, it's cool...

Twitter Announces Changes

According to this piece in The Verge, Twitter is removing the 140 character limit for direct messages. That's supposedly the #1 request of Twitter users.

Not from me. Not looking forward to getting the ridiculous lengthy direct messages I currently can get on Facebook.

Rizzo!

When "All in the Family" Traumitized Nixon

Richard Nixon was the president of the United States during the heyday of the groundbreaking show "All in the Family". That show took more risks and made more statements than any show on television before or since. It also criticized the president a few times.

But according to Norman Lear, and the Nixon tapes, the one time Nixon was traumitized was when the show tackled the subject of homosexuality.

Listen to the tape, watch Norman Lear explain it, and show the portion of the episode that so bothered the president.

Beatles Anniversary

Mike Baker And The Forgotten 45s - On this date in 1966 The Beatles begin final tour at International Theatre Chicago pic.twitter.com/Uz8gnj8uzl

— Mike Baker (@MikeBaker45s) August 12, 2015

WCFL coverage of that show...

Was the Civil War about Slavery?

Ask the head of teaching history at West Point. Hard to argue with this...

Dealing with Hecklers

Incredibly NSFW, but I enjoy the heckler-bashing...

The Next GOP Debate

CNN will host and moderate the next GOP Debate, and like Fox News, they will be limiting the number of candidates at the grown up table to 10. They're also going to limit the little kids table to people registering at least one percent in the polls. The only one currently not getting one percent is former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmer (why on earth is he running again?)

The debate moderator, and future target of Donald Trump's crazy personal-attack tweeting, will be Jake Tapper.

Full details are here.

Joe Maddon's Facial Hair

Have you noticed that Joe Maddon is growing facial hair this year? If you're wondering why he has grown it, wonder no more...

Joe Maddon has noticed a pattern among championship-winning coaches in Chicago, they all had facial hair.

In an effort to get his new team out of its century-long title slump, the formerly clean-shaven skipper has been doing his best to grow a beard this season.

I know he's thinking of Ditka, Quennville, Ozzie and Phil Jackson, but I hate to point out to him that the last Cubs manager who won the World Series looked like this...

Colbert's First Show

This is a smart move by Jeb Bush. He will be a guest on Stephen Colbert's first show on CBS.

At the very least, it will have a large curiosity viewing audience. (And it never hurts to ride in on Clooney's coattails. George Clooney will be the first guest)

Love Advice

You know the old saying, "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach"?

Turns out, it's the other way around. From the Daily News: Hungry Women Less Interested in Love

A full belly makes women more interested in romance, according to a new study from Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania.

The researchers asked 20 women to fast before looking at romance-themed pictures, such as a couple holding hands. They then drank a 500-calorie shake and viewed the images again.

When the women weren't hungry, "they were more responsive to romantic cues" and less irritated by them.

Any married guy already knows this, but that's a free one for the single fellas out there.

We're #4!

The New York Daily News ranks the Cubs at #4 in their power rankings...ahead of the New York Yankees.

Read it here.

This is the first summer in a long time that I haven't been able to crank out a writing project. Check out my writing history. When the Cubs are terrible...I can be prolific. When they are good...I end up spending way too much time watching them, reading about them, and writing about them.

Cubs writing doesn't count.

Amy's Two Dads

I just turned in my next IE column (which comes out on September 1), and it features some of the greats in Chicago radio giving their opinions about my old friend John Records Landecker. John is retired now, but he's not sitting on his Lazy Boy and watching the Cubs. He's out in LA, hobnobbing with his movie-star daughter Amy. Here's a shot of John with Jeffrey Tambor who plays Amy's dad in the critically acclaimed "Transparent"...

Newly-married man sues wife for emotional trauma after seeing her without makeup

From the article...

“He said she looked very beautiful and attractive before marriage, but when he woke up in the morning and found that she had washed the make-up off her face, he was frightened as he thought she was a thief."

He clearly didn't recover too quickly from that remark. It could have still been saved at that point. "By that, honey, I meant that you stole my heart."

McCartney at Lollapalooza

Someone posted the entire set. Here it is below. Don't call for the next two hours.

More Trump Drama

Trump's campaign advisor was either fired or resigned over the weekend because of the Megyn Kelly controversy.

He may be bufoony, but every Sunday talk show yesterday was all about Trump, and in the first poll since the debate he actually increased his lead.

The Greatest Sports Lineup on the Radio

Robert Feder posted this today...

Did you know there’s one radio station in Chicago where you can hear Bears football, Bulls basketball, White Sox baseball and Cubs baseball? (Hint: It helps if you understand Spanish.)

Boasting a play-by-play lineup many broadcasters would envy, Chicago radio’s most unlikely sports powerhouse is Univision America WRTO AM 1200, the full-service Spanish-language news/talk/sports station.

Spanish-language radio and TV are quietly assembling an impressive sports lineup. I know when I can't find a soccer game I'm looking for, the first place I look is Spanish-language TV.

RIP Frank Gifford

Sad news over the weekend. Former football great and MNF announcer Frank Gifford has passed away. He was 84 years old. (Photo: 1960 Topps Football Card)

I will always remember Frank as one of the announcers who delivered the most painful news of my childhood--the death of John Lennon. He and Howard Cosell reported the news in the middle of a Monday Night Football game.

I've read a lot of the tributes to Frank, but here's an article that wasn't mentioned by any of them. It's an excerpt from the book about Johnny Carson, and it's called: The Night Johnny Carson Found Out His Wife Was Banging Frank Gifford.