You know that feeling when a TV show you're watching gets interrupted for a Special Report? I don't know about you, but whenever I see a news organization cut into a show, I always think the president has been shot. I have no idea why I make this association, but I do. Special report = president dead. They get me every single time.

So when I was watching TV last night and they interrupted programming to break the news that Robert Plant, Sarah Jessica Parker and Dee Snider from Twisted Sister were all actually the same person, it was almost as shocking as the assassination of a world leader. Who would have thought that the author of "The Lemon Song" and "I Wanna Rock" would be the same person whose role on the old '80s sitcom "Valley Girls" made us all laugh and cry week in and week out (for like 2 months)? Stunning, really. Stunning. Sarah Jessica Planter? Jessica Dee Snider? Robert Slant? Sarah Dee Parker? I dunno. The opportunities are endless.

Song now playing: "We're Not Gonna Take The Stairway To Heaven"

I know, I know. Of all the pictures I took in Cleveland over the weekend, why do I have to put a rusting, pitted, algae-infested fountain here? I don't know. I shouldn't. I've also lost any chance I have of getting that high paying job with the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce. However, the overwhelming feeling I got during my three-and-a-half hour walk around Cleveland on Saturday was one of sadness. Oh, there were plenty of very nice areas of town, with some gorgeous decor and impressive landscaping. But you know what? Nobody lives there to see it. Cleveland needs people, people. They won't come unless there's places to work and I don't mean CVS and Burger King. In my walk, I probably saw fifteen people. I'm serious. It's a slippery slope, you see. The city is having an endless identity crises. Is it a blue collar city? Or an emerging city for tech companies to cheaply operate? It really feels like they're one or two major corporations away from really thriving, but walking around there on a beautiful Saturday morning, I couldn't help but feel like I was trapped on a quiet, desolate movie set or something.

One of the many positive aspects of Cleveland, though, and perhaps its crown jewel, is the second slide show today, some pictures of Jacobs Field. You see, I live in a city where the local ballpark has seats which face centerfield and are only suitable for midgets. I could probably generate fire since my knees are rubbing together whenever I go there and sit in the seats. Fenway is a ballpark where it costs $25 to park and another $25 just to sit in the bleachers. I should add that Fenway is also my favorite ballpark in the world, but Jacobs Field is just gorgeous. Modern and spacious but not overwhelming or huge. Just a great place to watch a baseball game, which we did. We also ate ice cream out of small plastic Indians helmets as Johan Santana and the Twins made mincemeat out of the Indians on Friday night. But it was a beautiful night to watch a baseball game in a modern day park. They should all be this good, folks.

Finally, I've mentioned my alma mater (Kent State) more than once here. One of the main purposes of my trip over the weekend was to go back to the place where I made many great memories. This year is the tenth anniversary of my graduation and I hadn't been back in ten years. Boy, the place has changed. Oh, I knew my way around and navigated the place like it was yesterday, but there's lots of new buildings, lots of creature comforts we never had and lots of kids who looked way younger than I remember college kids looking! Ugh.

A few notes about the Kent slideshow and the Kent State stigma. Of course, everyone associates Kent with the May 4, 1970 Vietnam Protests and the shooting/killing of four students, two of which happened to be, as they say, "just passing by." Sadly, Kent will probably always have that asterik next to it and it's always been quite a liberal school, anyway. The administration at Kent seems to have done everything in its power to pay tribute to those students and, at the same time, try to put it behind them. The memorial to the four students, which always seems to move me whenever I walk by it, is an unassuming area, tucked into a pretty part of campus not too far away from where the event occured. One can't help but stand there and wonder where Kent would be today had those bullets somehow missed and the school remained a relatively quiet, liberal college tucked away a half-hour south of Cleveland. Oh yeah, one also can't help but wonder if the National Guard had an ounce of brains in their head, but I just don't want to go there. The slideshow here contains some interesting pictures of that memorial, where the only words you'll find anywhere are three simple, but powerful suggestions: "Inquire, Learn, Reflect." The slideshow also contains a close-up picture of the metal structure in front of Taylor Hall, which still contains a bullet hole, left there for us, the future generations, to inquire, learn and reflect.

You'll also see the "grave" marked for Jeffrey Miller on the pavement near Taylor Hall. Miller was the student who was hit and killed by the bullet when it hit that metal structure and ricoched, taking a small, deadly turn and wrecking his life. Who would have thought such a small change in path for such a tiny piece of metal could wreak so much havoc? Of course, Miller's body is the one seen in that famous picture at Kent State which was circulated worldwide and won the Pulitzer. I've also included that picture in this slideshow. To me, these are snapshots of today, but they're not too far from yesterday. Ten years feels like last week all of a sudden. Thirty-four years ago, in May of 1970, the events at Kent State turned a nation and made the university known for one thing. It's probably helped them tremendously and harmed them beyond imagination. I had a wonderful time at Kent State during my years there and made lots of friends and I realized this weekend how much I miss the camraderie, the life. I don't miss the schoolwork. But I guess my one key takeaway is this: one second Jeffrey Miller is walking to (or from) class, the next minute, his lifeless body is frozen in time because of somebody's bad aim and a freak ricochet. Make sure you stop and "smell the roses" today, even if it's for just one second. Because it probably took only a few seconds for everything to end for four kids in 1970. The whole thing makes office jobs and high gas prices just seem damn ridiculous.

I would highly recommend hitting this link. You know those "pleas for help" (see: Spam email) from Nigeria or whatever where the email says something along the lines of "I need help transferring $80 million of U.S. money" and asks to use your personal account to do it? Well, this person wrote an email back and it's great.

Goodness, two straight nights of walk-off wins for the Red Sox. Riveting! I'm trying not to get excited, though. I think I said that last year. And the year before.....

Oh my gosh - more solid evidence that The Onion is not just a satire, but a publication very much concerned with reporting the facts accurately.

Song now playing: The Waco Brothers - "Plenty Tough, Union Made"

Fresh news: Let there be no doubt that my interview with Jay Farrar was the driving factor in Son Volt's decision to re-unite. This is really great news!

Over the weekend I began what will end up being a somewhat major transformation of my life. I kicked off what I had thought would be an easy task - selling some of my CD's back to a used CD store. I've harped a couple of times in these parts about something fairly obvious - that CD's are a swiftly dying breed and that someday soon all our media will be stored on a central hard drive in our houses, so better to get money for the discs now before nobody will take them. I still believe it and I still believe that those small, square plastic discs will be worthless sooner than later.

However, a crazy thing happened on my way to 21st century. As I was scanning the racks of my collection and trying to decide what to sell back, I started associating certain CD's with key moments in my life. Things like "oh, I saw these guys at The Middle East for this tour and it was great, so I shouldn't sell this back." Or "I met the bass player once and he was a really nice guy." Things like that, you know? It was like I didn't want to let the band down. Or myself.

Bottom line: I didn't sell as many discs back as I had originally envisioned when I bought the IPod. It felt too much like I was kicking my personal history to the curb. And I love history. So this will clearly have to happen in stages. But the whole thing cast a slightly fearful cloud on my weekend - now that I am "going digital," will I never again associate certain albums with great memories? Or will I just learn in new ways to appreciate it? Time will tell.

This is clearly a microcosm to adapting to the times we live in. I suspect in the past we saw similar instances for all major personal media change in our lives. I see it now with people my parents age (not my parents specifically) - they're just now starting to understand the internet, some are even forgoing their land lines for exclusive use of cell phones. But it takes a while to come to grips with such a major overhaul. This must have occured in people when TV went mainstream and radio crawled into its shadow. Anyway, I am going to continue down my path. I had never planned to sell all of my CDs as some of them are just too much a part of my DNA, but time and technology will march on, with me or without me. I will create new memories in ways I probably don't even know about yet. It's turned out to be a sadder transition than I thought it would be, but then I think about the fact that I have just about my entire CD collection on one small piece of metal and I can listen to whatever I want whenever, wherever. Let me tell you, I'm enjoying the HELL out of that!

By the way, did you hear the news about Cat Stevens? They diverted a London-to-U.S. flight because his name was on the list of suspected terrorists. It was the name they were suspicious of, not the person. Either way, I'm sure after Stevens (now named Yusef Islam) performed his stunning rendition of "Peace Train" for the feds, everything was ok. Certainly.

Song now playing: The Clash - "Clampdown"

Another college era music story for y'all. One great source of my heavy "discovery" period into hearing new music was working for the college radio station, WKSR. WKSR didn't have a powerful signal, nor did it have cutting edge equipment. In fact, I used to like to make the joke that the only place you could really hear WKSR was from the actual DJ booth. Hardy har har. Truth be told, you could get it if you lived in the dorm and maybe if you were driving around Kent and you were near the building.

Really, it was a place for us kids to practice our craft, be it editing, DJ'ing, voice overs, blah blah blah. We were there to record our own shows and play them back to try and figure out where you could improve yourself, or possibly even put together a demo tape to send out to local radio stations if that's what you wanted to do. Basically, it was fun. My first go-around there was my sophomore year, again 1991, and I had a real interesting shift from 6-10am on Saturday mornings - surely a time when many college kids are wide awake and tuning in after a night on the town, right? Right. Hah.

Anyway, it was an April morning in 1991 when I had started my show and was looking through the little section of CD's that had come in to the station the previous week. My eyes scanned the titles and I came across a band called Dramarama. The name itself was enough for me to give it a shot, so I pulled it out and I got my first look at their new album, called Vinyl, which to this day is still one of my favorite pop/rock albums of the 1990's. Lead singer and songwriter John Easdale is originally from New Jersey, but moved to Los Angeles in the 1980s just before the whole paisley pop thing started to hit there. He formed Dramarama in L.A. and it wasn't long before they had a pretty large hit due to some heavy local airplay and things went from there. Their sound is just classic pop/rock - they wear it on their sleeves. They haven't invented their own genre by any stretch, but Easdale is one hell of a clever songwriter, tunesmith and singer and so many of his songs just get stuck in my brain like chewing gum in your hair.

I really don't remember which song it was that I heard first, I only remember being really psyched to have discovered this and given it a chance. Easdale just has one of those voices. You know what I mean - you don't even need 5 seconds to recognize it, you just KNOW it when you hear it. There are not many vocalists who have the privledge of such gifts, but he is certainly one of them.

Anyway, Dramarama stopped playing and touring a few years ago, but there's been rumblings of a reunion, especially on the heels of one of those VH1 specials which reunited bands.

So in my quest to go out and try to find the musicians who've meant the most to me, I just knew I had to find this guy and give him the Item Five treatment. That said, I am proud to say, for the second week in a row, that I got to interview someone whose music played a large role in shaping the 1990s for me. I bring you John Easdale.

1. I've been wanting to ask this for a long time: How did you name the band?

The theater...a girl named Lisa came back from college where she was studying drama and used the word to describe some of her classmates.

2. What would be the first thing you would say at the podium if you were speaking at the Republican National Convention?

"What is wrong with you people?"

3. I remember one time, I was on summer break from college and I went for a walk with my new Sony Discman. I had "Vinyl" playing and I was sitting on some rocks at a reservoir listening to "Train Going Backwards." I was just leaning back and relaxing,
enjoying the music and sights. At that point, two sisters whom I knew from high school came by while out for a run and they stopped and said hello quickly but they were looking at me like I was a little weird. Do you think that's wierd that I was chilling out to music on the rocks near the water?

Doesn't sound weird to me, unless you've left some key thing out, like you were naked or shooting up or torturing animals or something...

4. Speaking of high school, I always feel odd talking about what I do now in front of people I barely knew 15 or 20 years ago. Do you ever see old high school
acquiantences and do they ever ask what's up with the music career? Does it make you uncomfortable?

I am always extremely gratified whenever anybody asks me about the music, be they strangers or old school chums...I am fascinated that anybody would be aware of what I've done without my telling them about it myself.

5. One of your new songs is called Everybody Dies and the first couple of lines are "Everybody dies, everybody's gonna die." Uh, where did that song come from? Are you obsessed/fascinated/scared of death?

My best friend was diagnosed with esophogeal cancer, and I came up with the song as a sort of "Don't worry, be happy" kind of message for him before we knew how bad it was...he has since departed...and then my mom got sick and died right after that, so what was originally written to help somebody else has helped me deal with things as well...it seems as if death is the ultimate taboo, even more than sexuality and substance abuse (at least here in the US).

6. It seems you've always had a neat skill for adding little audio clips here and there in (or between)your songs. Why?

It came from making "cut tapes" back in the good old days of cassettes...it's a nice way to do segues between things that don't sound exactly the same...

7. Who is the most underrated band of all time?

10 CC? Willie Alexander & the Boom Boom Band? Actually, probably somebody so unknown that I've never heard of them...

8. Why don't you ask me a question?

Because I already know way too much stuff...my head's completely oversaturated with useless information...

9. Do you think it totally sucks that Jello doesn't make those delicious frozen pudding pops anymore?

I'll tell you, honestly, I never realized until very recently that the whole Jello thing was based on using the stuff inside of cow and horse hooves...I always thought it was some harmless vegetable oil-type product...yuck!

10. Do you ever say to yourself, "Ah, fuck it. Why didn't I stay in Jersey?"

All the time. I still absolutely love it there. But then I wouldn't have ever met my wife or had my kids or made all these records and stuff...

11. Do you (or did you ever) think that the world really will end in 2041?

Only more recently...not when I wrote that song...but a few years back, I said to myself, "wouldn't it be weird if that whole line (which I never knew where it came from or why i put it in the song) turned out to be prophecy rather than just a verse from a pop song?" I'll be 80, if I'm still alive, and the way we're going, I wouldn't be surprised...sad, but not shocked.

12. Please tell us what you're working on. Solo album? Dramarama? etc etc. Do tell.

"Everybody Dies" was gonna be my next album, and I was gonna call it a "solo" album, even though I used a band, and it already featured Peter Wood and Mark Englert playing guitars...then VH1 came along and did this whole "Bands Reunited" thing, and we also played a few huge concerts which strongly illustrated the power that still doth lie in the band's name...so I'm gonna put it out as a Dramarama record nstead...

13. What was the last thing you laughed really hard at?

Deuce Bigalow, Male Gigolo last night on TV...(I'm easily entertained)

14. My wife and I have eaten at several restaurants lately that shut down shortly thereafter. Furthermore, we just came back from Captiva and Sanibel Island in Florida, which both had their ass kicked by the hurricane. Are you apprehensive now about interacting with me?

I hardly think so...well, maybe just a wee tiny bit...

15. Would you rather be Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny,Smokey the Bear or Celine Dion?

I'd rather be The Tooth Fairy or The Great Pumpkin or Woodsy The Owl or America's next Drug Czar...they're all fictional characters, yes? No?

Big thanks to John Easdale! By the way, the whole "world ending in 2041" is from a song called "What Are We Gonna Do" (from Vinyl). Two things: get "Vinyl" and hit that link which goes to a page of 3 new Easdale/Dramarama songs that are just terrific. Really. Do it.

Song now playing: Drive-By Truckers - "Danko/Manuel"

I've made reference to Rebecca St. Amand's blog before and I have it linked over there on the right, but her latest post (from Tuesday) had me laughing out loud and it deserves a visit. Make sure you mouse over the picture, too, for the text.

This cracks me up a bit. Especially the part about how they "both come from similar backgrounds and have been drawn together amongst the false celebrity world." Ummmm, ok? Translation: it's the first boy she probably saw in person with his shirt off.

Next stop for these thieves? The ninja convention? An assassin's board meeting?

You know, The Onion is comnplete satire, but is it?

Recently played on the IPod:
John Easdale - Call Me Dave
Sweet - Wig Wam Bam
Minus 5 - Get Back In Line
Uncle Tupelo (live) - True To Life
Bruce Springsteen - Where The Bands Are
Georgia Satellites - Keep Your Hands To Yourself
Martin's Folly - Never Said Hello

When is a blog not a blog? When it's a corporate blog, right? It seems the digital world is in a state where the concept of blogging might be headed mainstream. Many of these blogs are easily accessible to Joe and Sally Q. Public. The perception these corporations put out there is that Joe and Sally can get a glimpse into the everyday mountains and molehills a company might be going through, or to introduce new products or give a glimpse into the life of one of its employees.

The inherent problem here is that at some point the idea of a true blog gets very cloudy. If you're introducing products, talking about the business or trying to seem irreverant or hip despite the fact that you're a corporation, is that really blogging? Moreso, if the company is a public company, every last letter and every last word is getting approved by PR or marketing before getting published. It's also pretty darn safe to assume that no matter what, there's an alterior motive. So - text is getting edited/approved/disapproved before publishing and there's someone in another department doing it. Does that make it a blog? I sure don't think so. To me, the very definition of personal publishing involves the freedom to write, think and post what you want, when you want and how you want.

Public companies, or private for that matter, could learn a lesson here from Microsoft, who seem to let Robert Scoble publish his own views about the behemoth. Granted, Scoble pays for the domain so he should rightfully do what he wants with it, but Microsoft could easily turn the screws on him. I don't think I've come across many other high profile public companies where this occurs. Many of these corps simply serve up PR and call it a blog. That, folks, ain't blogging. That's marketing. Pure spin.

I guess it's all not so black & white either. I've found quite a few small companies who operate very high quality blogs and hawk their wares and news in a manner that, to me, is completely acceptable. But in the end, I'll check out Battelle or Om Malik before I go to any corp blog.

In other news, I haven't been back to Kent State since I graduated in 1994. I've also never been to Cincinnati. But work and pleasure intertwine in funny ways. I will find myself in Ohio twice in the same week next week. Business trip to Cincinnati, then next weekend it's off to Cleveland for a trip to Jacobs Field, then down to Kent to re-live some of the Friday nights I can't remember. That said, beer intake will be adjusted downward for age.

George Bush is proud of his service in the National Guard. How many here can read this and not shake their head? Just know this: if Bush really did fulfill his obligations to his national service, you can bet your sweet ass that he and his team of knuckleheads would have already stepped forward, stuck their chests out, and pointed with glee to the documents which do actually prove it. They haven't. He didn't.

If this happened in the U.S., they could narrow the suspect list down to roughly half the population, according to the U.S. board of health, right?

Song now playing: Dramarama - "Everybody Dies"

Whoa! The Jay Farrar interview from Friday seemed to be a bit of a hit. I got tons of positive feedback from many people and my site traffic exploded because the fine folks at Farrar's management added a link to their newsletter. I ended up with like 5x the traffic I normally do. So lots of new souls around here right now. Hello there. I am Jeff.

I finally found what I believe is far better commenting service, which I've deployed already and you can see it below each post. Before I switched to Blogger's horrendous commenting system a few months back, I was getting a lot of comments. When I made the switch, things went dark. So I hope you'll utilize the new comments system, it's way-hay-hay-hay better. One small problem - I tested it last night and while the comment appeared, the little number next to the comment is still zero. Baby steps, though. I'll figure it out.

Song now playing: Robert Plant - "Big Log"

There are moments in life - decisions you make and crossroads you take - which end up leading you down incredibly interesting paths. Often times, these decisions can take years before you realize how much of an impact a certain moment had on your life.

Sometime in 1991, a friend of mine and I walked into the Quonset Hut, a record store located just north of Akron, Ohio about 15 minutes from the Kent State campus. The memory is still so crystal clear to me. As soon as I got in the store, I knew whatever they were playing on the store speakers was an album I absolutely had to have. The clerk informed me that the album being played was Teenage Fanclub's Bandwagonesque and the song playing was "December." Both that album and that song remain some of my favorite music today. "December," in fact, ended up on a CD that Stephanie and I put together for our wedding and gave out to people who attended. That moment, while I did not know it at the time, turned out to be quite a pivotal few minutes in my life. The door flew open and bright light shined in - here was music that I never heard before and would never get played on the radio and I just fell in love with the song. I would go on to find much more and it lead me eventually to start my own label, all for the purpose of trying to expose music that wouldn't have a prayer of being heard on the radio. Ah, so young, naive and noble.

A few months later, that same friend and I made our way up to Cleveland as Teenage Fanclub were on their tour of the U.S. for Bandwagonesque. It turned out to be a night of firsts. It was, in fact, the first time I had ever seen a band in a nightclub and not an arena. It was also the first time I saw a band called Uncle Tupelo, who were the opening act on this tour. I had known about Uncle Tupelo and even recalled liking the records they had out, which I had heard at the college radio station when I worked there.

Truth be told, my friend Lance and I were not totally blown away by UT when we saw them. I recall there being discussion about the scraggly trio as a group that was pretty much a loud version of R.E.M. Their power was evident, though.

It turned out to be a pretty excellent show. Two years later, Tupelo released Anodyne, an album which did actually change my life in many, many ways. It was one of the many moving pieces that all came together after college and put me on a completely different track - from wanting to work in television production trucks to wanting to work in the music business. Anodyne wasn't the sole reason, but it played a big factor in my decision at the time to pursue work in the music business and ended up defining the rest of my decade. It was that important. But that's a story for another time. For now, it was that moment in Ohio in 1991 when I walked into the Quonset Hut and I heard that sweet song - that's what set things into motion.

That's why today's edition of Item Five seems so incredibly special to me. Melodramatic? Maybe. But being able to interview Uncle Tupelo/Son Volt frontman Jay Farrar was just really exciting for me. Not because I put "famous" people up on a pedestal, but because something he did, the art he helped construct, ended up being such a profound reason for where I am today and what I believe about music. It can change your life if you let it. Plus, Anodyne is one fucking great album and Jay Farrar doesn't follow fame or money, he seems to follow what's important to him. As a songwriter, he's right up there with the best. Both Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt are no longer making music together, but Farrar has soldiered on as a solo artist with two solid albums. His live shows continue to be captivating, both for the performance itself and his flat-out superb choices of cover songs.

So it's with great excitement on my end that he actually agreed to do this - to be subject to my sometimes ludicrous line of questioning. As it turns out, and I am not one to brag, I think this is the best interview I've ever read with the guy. So there.

1. You seem to have a geniune fondness for old buildings ("Way Down Watson") and a sadness when they come down. Where does that come from? Do you just like old buildings or is it more the passing of time or certain era's??

There was an old motel on Watson Rd. (old Route 66) called the Coral Court Motel that I actually stayed at once or twice. Each room was a stand alone building with it's own two car garage. The buildings exuded a sense of being in another time. The artistry involved made the place stand out in a sea of homogenized new homes and strip malls.

2. Which of these lyrics (all yours) do you like the best and why?

a) "there's a beach there known for cancer waiting to happen"
b) "will bad water mix with blood, to make the hollow man decide"
c) "silver spikes and mace displayed in your eyes"

The only lyrics of mine that I like are the ones that I haven't written yet. I generally like the ones that are the least literal.

3. This is probably my only chance. What is "Fifteen Keys" about?

I think the point of origination for that song was from traveling and doing shows with a pocketful of keys that you realize are useless until you get home. I'm now down to about 10 keys.

4. A lot of articles claim that you don't do email or look at the internet, yet I am clearly debunking that by doing an email interview with you. What gives? Why do people assume such things?

I don't know. I guess since my profile is non-existent on the chat-room/message board circuit people assume that I am a Luddite. I couldn't live without e-mail or the internet.

5. I saw Uncle Tupelo for the first time when you opened for Teenage Fanclub in Cleveland on Valentine's Day in 1991. At the time, it was two of my favorite bands and I'm not sure I've seen a better (or stranger) pairing. Did you feel the same way at the time?

On the surface it may have seemed like a strange pairing but it really wasn't. There was a commonality of purpose. We were just coming at it from slightly different directions.

6. I bought a Teenage Fanclub shirt that night, not an Uncle Tupelo shirt. Do you care? I feel bad in retrospect, because you could have really used the money and if I could have, I would have bought both shirts. But I was in college, kinda poor and the Teenage Fanclub shirt had a picture of Casper the Friendly Ghost on the back.

Don't feel bad. Maybe we could have used the money but you can't argue with Casper the friendly ghost. We traded shirts with those guys and we came away with the ones that said "Teenage Fucking Fan Club".

7. Who is the most underrated band of all time, in your opinion?

I couldn't pick just one. The Flamin Groovies, Q65, Badfinger, The Sonics, The Pretty Things

8. Who was the first band you were completely obsessed with?

The Beatles and then the Rolling Stones.

9. What is the last thing you really laughed hard at?

A Confederacy of Dunces about 15 years ago? No. The last thing was probably Mr. Show or Curb Your Enthusiasm or Ali G.

10. Your last couple of albums have largely been acoustic-based. Tell me about plans for the next album - when it might be out, will it be more electric or along the same lines?

I seem to naturally gravitate to the acoustic guitar when I write. I think to a certain degree it allows for more flexibility in that the song can wind up electric or acoustic. I've been away from the electric guitar for awhile so I expect to get back to it at some point.

11. Why don't you ask me a question?

Who is an Australian's worst nightmare?

Jeff's Answer: Oh lord. This is the toughest question I think anyone's asked me yet. I feel like this is a riddle, or that there's actually a right answer. Hmmm.....let me see. I would have to say the Reggie Jackson candy bar. First off, Reggie was a weird looking dude, even for the 1970s. The fact that he actually had a candy bar on the market was incredibly American, but Australian's must have been horrified. Yes, that's it. The Reggie Bar.

12. You have two children - have they ever listened to any of your music? What has their reaction been?

They often request to hear music that I've done. I hope it doesn't scar them! They usually either want to listen to my music or Steve Burns's (Blues Clues) though one of them has now turned on Steve.

13. "Dent County" might be the best song you've ever done, in my opinion. Did your mom & dad get to hear it or was it written after your dad passed? Do you ever get emotional while writing and performing songs like that?

I was writing "Dent County" during the last couple of months of my Dad's life and finished it and recorded it several months later. It's hard not to get emotional when writing a song like that.

14. I just got married - any advice?

You've got what--- like a 44% chance? Good Luck!

15. If you had to choose, who would you rather be: Michael Moore, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen or me?

Let's see. Michael Moore has made some very good films and he sells out soccer stadiums in Germany. Martin Scorsese has done some of the best films of our time. Woddy Allen has been consistent over the years making good films. You've got a kick ass web log. I would choose to be you because you get to ask questions like this instead of answering them.

A big thanks to Jay Farrar. One other note: this is actually the first interview I've done where I didn't have to edit a single thing. No caps, no scary grammatical errors, nothing. Kick ass. Kick ass!

Song now playing: Spoon - "Something To Look Forward To"

With great pride, I bring you the ten most hated men in rock. This is a pretty bad-ass article and it really cracked me up. I actually agree with most of it, too, especially the Sting part. I mean, I honestly can't think of another musician who had a more horrendous transformation from rock demi-god to embarassing, soft-rocking, snooty ass hole. Can you?

Oh, this is good. It's John Battelle's write-up of his first day experience with one of Google's advertising programs. Even if you're not "into" the search business, it's worth reading for sure.

Song now playing: Snow Patrol - "Spitting Games"

I typically do not make a habit out of name dropping. In fact, in the almost three years that I've been writing this blog, I've never once mentioned the fact that at one point in my life, back when I wanted to work in television production, I worked for Oprah Winfrey. Yes, it was only a quick contract job which lasted a week or so. However, I should add that during that one week, she once served me orange juice and breakfast while I sat in a first-class cabin on a plane from Chicago to Philadelphia. No lie. Somewhere in my personal vaults, I actually have the VCR tape of a brief appearance which I made on the Oprah show while I was standing on a bus with her on the way to airport. Really. I can't make this stuff up. It happened.

So why the name-dropping today? Well, I just read about Oprah's recent stint on jury duty and I couldn't help but break into laughter when I read the fifth paragraph of this story. Should I be offended that Oprah didn't ask me to do this? I could have easily come up with a better song, too. The opportunities are endless.

Song now playing: Nick Lowe - "And So It Goes"

So here's the deal. When I play MVP Baseball 2004, my goal isn't to dominate the league and win each game and go 162-0. My goal is to play in as real an enviroment as possible, with all the players correctly placed on their current teams - same as "real life." However, for my second season, I may very well have bitten off more than I can chew. I've decided to play as the Detroit Tigers. While this team has made vast improvements this year, they're still not championship caliber.

My bullpen, through 13 games, has an ERA of 5.33 and it doesn't seem to be improving. I have the third-worst defense in the majors, with 77 runs against. However, I have the fourth-best offense, which is nice and all that said, I'm surprised I've managed a 6-7 record so far, good for 3rd in the weak AL Central. I won't get overly verbose about this as I've probably given it enough time here, but I'm having fun. And it's my blog. The picture above is Ivan Rodriguez tagging out Coco Crisp at home plate in Cleveland. Cleveland went on to win it, 3-2, on a walk off single by Omar Vizquel. You can enlarge that photo by clicking here. Hurrah.

I believe it was about 10:30 tonight when my state of alertness and my sense of awaken-ness were whisked off very quickly to an undisclosed location for my protection. All this was due to the slumber inflicted upon me by our vice president's speech tonight at the RNC. At least he was eloquent, which is more than we can say for last night's debacle.

So Comcast showed up yesterday and installed my DVR. It's basically TiVO functionality, like I mentioned last week, except it's all living in my cable box now - not having to add another component to an already gadget heavy home theatre system is something I am very relieved about, not to mention Stephanie, who is most likely plotting to throw it all out the window next time I go away (just kidding, dear). Anyway, I now have the ability to record shows on the fly, store them on the cable box and then watch them whenever I want. It's pretty much a hard drive for the TV. I can also pause live television, go get some Fig Newtons, come back and hit play and it will pick up right where it left off. Genius. I launched the first recording experience last night - we recorded the season opener of "Scrubs" while we went to the Red Sox game.

Which is a nice segue into my next topic: the Red Sox game. I have very little to say about the game itself - as usual, it was entertaining and it's always good when the park is packed and the game means something. It was also a beautiful night be at the park and the Sox won. However, by the end of the night my mind ended up in a strange place - thinking about our country. Baseball stretches back to somewhere in the 1800's and last night, some 120+ years later, I couldn't help but think about where our country is headed.

Sitting next to us last night were a couple and at the start of the game, they seemed just like any other normal couple to me. By the third inning, though, the guy had transformed himself into an utter nightmare. I don't know how it started, but at some point he had "gotten into it" with another guy, possibly of Indian or Pakistani descent, who was sitting, perhaps, 10 rows in front of us. No explanation is needed, really, but the end-all is that the guy next to us was throwing out racial slurs and asking the guy things like "do you have a bomb in your pocket, Osama?" Just absolutely deplorable. I have no idea what prompted the exchanges and for all I know the other guy started it. But it doesn't matter. That someone feels the need to fight somebody at a baseball game and to top it off by embarassing himself in monumental fashion by slinging completely inappropriate insults is just terribly sad to me. Soon afterward, he was thrown out of the park and we enjoyed the rest of the game.

Driving home, we were flipping around radio stations and ended up listening to Arnold - the Governor of the largest state in the U.S., - speak at the RNC. My goodness, do the people who write this dreck even consider that what they're writing might be offensive? Arnold threw out the "girly-man" thing again and just moments later had the audacity to claim that the Republicans were leading the way in women's equal compensation and rights or something similar. I couldn't help but just shake my head. Let's not even get into the Bush twins speech shortly thereafter, either - five minutes of pure pain which only lacked the two kids blowing huge bubblegum bubbles and twirling their ponytails or something. Those kids are clearly smarter than that (I hope) and whomever wrote their script ought to be ashamed of themself. The night was rescued by Laura Bush, who, despite her spouse, seems well-spoken and shows genuine care, especially for children and the well-being of others.

Hey, Democrat, Republican, whatever. Clearly there's two camps in this country right now, divided as much as I've ever seen two parties divided. Both camps believe we should be running things in very different ways and each is absolutely entitled to passionately defend their position - and each does. But the RNC last night came off as much more of an unprofessional organization than I was expecting. It all ties back to my thoughts on the country - did people act like this 20 years ago? 40? 60? 100? Can't imagine.

Song now playing: Cracker - "Bicycle Spainard"