Exploding heads? Cheney wrong again

Capital police have yet to report an epidemic of exploding craniums in Washington. Thus, the man who more than anyone assured America that Iraq abounded with WMD is wrong again.

Dick Cheney said the release of his self-indulgently titled “In My Time” would cause “heads to explode”

It’s typical bravado from a trigger-happy chicken hawk who sought and received five deferments to duck duty in Vietnam, yet never personally drew human blood until 2006 when a Texas lawyer forgot to duck when Cheney nearly cooked his goose.

And to further add to the fowl coincidences, both men were hunting a bird whose name is pronounced exactly the same as a previous VP under a previous Bush.

It stretches the credulity of all the old birds-in-the-bush aphorisms.

I nearly had a vested interest in the release of the Cheney book and exploding heads would have certainly goosed up sales in a fanciful project over which I still feel sentimental.

It was 2009 when Cheney was becoming so visible I suggested he replace Simon Cowell as a take-no-prisoners judge on “American Idol.”

Remember? Obama had just taken office and Cheney was predicting so much imminent doom I was surprised anyone was still bothering to peruse the seed catalogues.

He hinted bin Laden was probably chortling over having such a rank amateur as Obama going after him.

And Cheney may have been right about that. We’ll never know.

So Cheney seemed a natural to step in for Cowell. Who wouldn’t have tuned in to hear him tell some “Freebird” mangling hillbilly, “You can’t sing, you’re ugly and you smell like Detroit during a garbage strike.

“I’d advise you to go back to welding bent tailpipes, but I’ll be happy to shove you out the window if you’re just going to stand there and pout. It’s up to you friend. I don’t care one way or the other.”

He remains one of the most fascinating political characters of our time and is certainly the most frightening.

Besides being an uber-war monger with that fistful of deferments, he’s a dour moralist with two DUIs. He’s the leader of the far right movement that rails against gay marriage, yet he’s the doting grandfather to two children who are being raised in an alternative lifestyle loathed by his many ardent supporters.

I through tightly clenched teeth found psycho-analyzing him irresistible.

I wondered if my bitter partisanship was blinding me to a side of Cheney he sought to conceal.

Like perhaps the presence of a soul.

I had so much fun with it I decided to dash off a jiffy book proposal called, “The Audacious, Startling True Adventures of Pvt. Cheney -- Stealth Superhero!” It’s marooned at the orphanage section for unwanted stories at www.chrisrodell.com.

I was sure I had a smash hit on my hands and pitched it to some publishers who -- and this is symptomatic of my many failures -- said, wow, this is a great, hilarious, if only you’d have thought of this about six months ago!

What’s funny is whenever I’m invited to speak to high school or college journalism students, the story that gets the most enthusiastic comment is invariably the one about Pvt. Cheney and it’s always from the students who look the most thoroughly burned out, God bless ‘em.

Makes me hope burn outs gravitate to the publishing world before it’s too late for me.

I’m sure the book would be enjoying a nice little run right now.

It’s bound to have been more entertaining than Cheney score settling bore, which reviews are saying is just his way to kill time.

And, hey, I’m all for that.

It’s a vast improvement over all that Cheney was responsible for killing from 2003-2008.

America's got talent ... Not!

I may not be the best writer, but I’m probably the only writer who can do 10 Army regulation pull ups and juggle.

Not at the same time.

Not yet.

That’s not all. I can take a wet towel and twirl it like a goombah in the window of a pizza shop, I can finger flick a bottle cap at a target 30 feet away and dent the bullseye, and I can play an armpit concerto of the Beach Boys song, “Barbara Ann” whenever the humidity cracks 80 percent.

What I can’t do is fix a leaky faucet, apply jumper cables to a dead car battery without electrocuting myself, earn a decent living, or be a role model to anyone whose blood alcohol rate ever even accidentally descends below .08 percent.

Of course, no one ever gushed, “Cool, man!” when I did any of the latter and the crowds still go crazy when I do the pizza towel so don’t blame me for logically following the positive reinforcement.

That makes me right at home here in America, the land of the unquenchable thirst for moronic diversion.

I see “America’s Got Talent” is returning May 31. I’m unlikely to watch, but I can guarantee the show would rate better than any show called, “America’s Got Kids Who Score Better in Math/Science Than Other Countries!”

Of course a show with that premise could never be confused with a reality show.

We’re too infatuated with celebrating trifling talents at the expense of encouraging cerebral or muscular pursuits American lives and families could really use.

It was unfortunate this nagged at me in the least likely place for me to do anything about it.

Yes, it was the Sunday church talent show. About a dozen kids brought their trombones, fiddles, harmonicas and other “talents” to the church basement to prove the America of the future won’t lack for off-key entertainment.

A group of impressionable youths who really needed to hear a strong dose of Simon Cowell-style criticism got only love sonnets from Paula (I stopped watching Idol when Cowell vamoosed so forgive the dated references). 

First up were two 10-year-olds -- only one of them actually attends our church -- playing a sort of dueling trombones routine.

It was awful.

Truly, I wanted to stand up and say, “What . . . the . . . bloody . . . hell . . . was that? (I did so love Simon). First of all it was pitchy. Second, that a 10-year-old Lutheran trombonist would feel the need to import a Catholic one to double up on the bum notes is sonic sacrilege. You are a disgrace. I’d advise you to stop watching the Disney Channel, forget your dreams of musical stardom and get used to wearing sensible shoes. The world’s always going to need waitresses, honey.”

Instead, I rose from my seat and clapped like the pair had connected on a long Steeler touchdown pass.

The little Lutheran was my daughter, Josie.

There were dancers, toy train collectors, a karate kid, and a trumpet player so intent on impressing he started the same song four times before he played it to his satisfaction.

It was perfectly fine the first time and I hope that kid doesn’t grow up to become my heart surgeon.

The very worst was a little 4 year old who with trembling hands raised a harmonica to her lips and immediately began what seemed an impersonation of a cigar store Indian.

She had the same look on her face I imagine I’ll have when probe-wielding aliens land on my unkempt front lawn or when my wife tells me it’s time to get a real job.

She was petrified.

It was pathetic. Clearly, she is the daughter of overbearing parents who’ll feel like failures if their daughter doesn’t exhibit at least one show off talent.

Disgusted, I was ready to launch into my speech about how the country could do with a lot less preening show biz aspirants and a lot more worker drones.

Instead, I rushed to the stage and lifted the little girl in my arms as she buried her tear-streaked face in my shoulder.

“It’s all right, darling,” I whispered. “You don’t have to play. Daddy’s going to take you home and teach you how to do the pizza towel twirly thing.

“And then everything will work out just fine!”

Devout Christians departing May 21: Yippee!

Looks like anyone who purchased for full price a 2011 calendar paid twice too much. A group of Christians is making news for pinpointing the exact end of days.

Mark your calendars. It’s May 21.

The precision of the date was determined by Christian broadcaster Harold Camping, the 89-year-old leader of the Oakland, California, based Family Radio Network.

His calculations are based on thorough Biblical readings and external factors such as the 1948 founding of Israel.

And you had to figure the Jews would have something to do with it.

“Beyond the shadow of a doubt, May 21 will be the date of the Rapture and the day of judgement,” Camping says.

If Camping is correct then, according to Rapture believers, all the most devout Christians will be magically whisked to heaven while the rest of us face times of deadly upheaval.

Well, good riddance.

Tea Party morons will have lost their greatest constituency, the “God Hates Fags!" crowd won’t be around to torment soldiers’ funerals, and Rush Limbaugh will have so few listeners he’ll be relegated to a static-filled backwater AM channels.

Yes, Rush’s listeners may be going to heaven, but he’s not going anywhere.

I’d love to see how the rest of us could do on solving problems like the spread of AIDS and global warming without having meddling Christians around to tell us things like condoms and compact fluorescent light bulbs are the devil’s playthings.

We could enact some common sense gun laws, build temples devoted to ecumenical peace near Ground Zero and -- who knows? -- maybe even persuade Simon Cowell to return and save “American Idol.”

For me, hating Christians is an act of self-loathing because I’ve always considered myself one.

Yes, I think I’m one of the baptized good guys. I kneel down and pray to God and Jesus every night. I do unto others as I’d have them do unto me. It’s my faith and I revere essential Christian tenets of love and forgiveness. 

But guys like me don’t make the true Christian cut because we entertain the cosmic possibility that just maybe we’re wrong.

We can believe, but we cannot know.

That’s why three of my favorite musings on the subject of religion are firmly secular thoughts from a trio of monumental men.

The first is from Thomas Jefferson who said, “Question with boldness even the existence of God; because if there is one, He must more approve of the homage to reason than that of blindfolded fear.”

Then there’s this from Henry David Thoreau who on his deathbed was asked if he’d made his peace with the Lord. Thoreau’s sublime response: “We’ve never quarreled.”

The third is from my late grandfather who shortly before his death at 98 said he was hoping he’d get to meet God to ask him, “Now, I know you created heaven and earth, but who or what created you?”

A heaven with the Christians who say they can divine things like when God plans to flip the big “off” switch is a heaven I do not wish to attend.

All the people will have the same boring haircuts. They’ll say the same sanctimonious things. They’ll be Dallas Cowboy fans. They’ll still find reasons to think they’re superior to other less pale Christians.

I’ve been to parties like that and they seemed to last an eternity.

I cannot begin to fathom how long an actual eternity like that would seem.

So, go ahead, you true believers, and rise up to your exclusionary stick-up-the-ass heaven, the one that will make lilly white places like Augusta National seem diverse and hip.

I’m staying here with my friends, the ones who like to drink, smoke, swear and screw.

Sure, if Camping and his followers are correct we may be in for some historically tough times.

But we’ll give it hell.

And in many ways, that will seem like a heavenly alternative to what the most devout Christians have always had to offer.

Dick Cheney should replace Simon Cowell

The only thing that can save the declining “American Idol” franchise is replacing the departing Simon Cowell with the only man more reliably mean and nasty than the bellicose Brit.

That, of course, would be Dick Cheney.

Cowell leaving is a death blow to a show that began circling the drain last season when it detonated its nifty chemistry by adding the bizarre and dippy Kara DioGuardi.

The result was the reality TV-equivalent of New Coke. Something we all enjoyed was replaced by something nobody liked nor sought.

And it’s been all down hill from there. Paula Abdul split, thus depriving America of her balloon-headed commentary. Her eventual replacement is Ellen DeGeneres, but her seat’s been filled by the grim and lizard-like Victoria “Posh” Beckham and Mary K. Blige who looked so uncomfortable I suspect she must have lost a bet.

Worst of all Cowell, without the foil of Abdul’s gushy babble, seems adrift. He seems restrained. He seems like he’s pulling his punches. Gadzooks, he seems well-mannered.

And if he’s bored, I’m bored. His breathtaking honesty makes him among the most compelling figures on television. He doesn’t care what anyone thinks about what he says or, certainly, how he dresses. I know guys who gut deer in shirts fancier than ones he wears on prime time.

He’s planning on moving to a new show that won’t restrict the ages of its amateur contestants so now our exposure to the pool of appalling talent in America will be deepened exponentially.

That should make for good TV, too, so I’ll probably check it out.

Really, I think he’s missing his calling judging creaky voiced warblers with bad teeth and delusions of grandeur.

I think Cowell should be on the U.S. Supreme Court. Imagine prim Ken Starr coming before the Cowell court to argue against some lurid aspect of gay marriage or legal marijuana.

The resulting pay per view proceeds could overnight wipe out the national dept.

But Cowell seems unlikely to leave Hollywood for D.C.

The opposite is true for the Cheney. The former recluse is popping up in front of the cameras so much you wonder when he's going to go union and apply for his SAG card.

He’s predicted so much imminent doom in the past 12 months I’m surprised people still even bother to peruse the seed catalogues.

It’s as shameless as it is shrewd because the odds certainly favor lone wolf terrorists bent on bloodying our national nose. Jack Bauer always wins in the end but not without a grim body count that escalates sometime after about the eighth hour of “24.”

So Cheney is a natural to step in for Cowell. Who wouldn’t tune in to hear him tell some “Freebird”-mangling hillbilly, “You can’t sing. You’re ugly and the viewers at home can’t tell, but you smell like Detroit during a summer garbage strike.

“I’d advise you to go back to welding bent tailpipes, but I’ll be happy to shove you out the window if you’re just going to stand there and pout. It’s up to you friend. I don’t care one way or the other.”

It may seem like a long shot, but who ever would have thought the dour puritan Tom Delay would one day don Chippendale tights to cha-cha-cha on “Dancing With The Stars?” And I’d self-lobotomize with jumper cables and my car battery if I was certain it would erase the Twilight Zone of that surreal memory from my frontal lobe.

All we need to perfect the slapstick chemistry is another bubble-headed foil for Cheney to criticize.

Let’s see. It has to be someone he can order around like Moe does Curly, someone he can ridicule whenever the perspective judge says or does something so stupid we’re all dumbfounded this person is in a position of authority as supreme as “American Idol.”

I wonder if W. is busy.

American Idol and American music

As much as I was distraught by eight years of Bush/Cheney, my sanity was soothed by the certainty that one day it had to end.

The American people would return to their senses, a bold new leader would arise, the future would brighten.

Amen.

But the same cannot be said for a scourge that will continue to devastate the nation. It poisons our youth, desecrates our culture and threatens to leave a vast wasteland in its vapid wake.

Of course, I’m talking about American Idol.

I wish I could say the popular show is setting music back 25 years, but that would be too much to ask. Musically speaking, the past is the present.

I tremble for my cool when I hear I myself saying, consarnit, music just isn’t what it used to be. But back when I went to college in the paunchy part of the 1980s, they were playing great, current music from the 1980s. Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger, U2, Journey and Tom Petty were all making vital contributions.

Today, I go back to those same Athens, Ohio, bars and hear many of those same songs. I look at my gray-haired and balding buddies and lament the only thing that ever changes is us.

We’d have torn the bar apart in an Ouzo-fueled rage if in 1985, we’d have gone into the bar and been subjected to nothing but 1965 ditties by the likes of Perry Como and Bobby Vinton.

But it’s the future of music for which I cringe.

American Idol sets the trends in gaudy fashion, pouty posing and fractured commentary. Paula Abdul recently confessed to a 12-year pill addiction, but hastened to add she was never high on Idol.

Really? That’s what she’s like when she’s lucid? If I were a show producer, I’d order her to refill her Vicoden prescription.

Musically is where it does the most damage. There are some clearly talented singers on the show, but ever since the success of Kelly Clarkson, all the girls and most of the boys have tried to sound exactly like Kelly Clarkson.

I think the show lost all credibility the year someone no one remembers beat out the great Sanjaya Malakar. Now, that guy was entertaining. As soon as I can find a big poster from the night he sang ‘You Really Got Me,’ by the Kinks with his hair piled up in that ridiculous faux-hawk, I’m putting it on the wall in front of the desk in my office.

The sweet-smiling Indian kid will always be my American Idol.

As for the judging, 75 percent of it is drivel. I sputtered in outrage after some long-gone top 10er sang, “Make You Feel My Love,” and Randy and Kara both gushed it was a moving interpretation of a great Garth Brooks song.

“What the . . .,” I exploded. “That’s a Bob Dylan song from his classic 1997 album, ‘Time Out of Mind.’ Brooks sang it, but it’ll never be a Garth Brooks song. How do these so-called experts not know that? And the guy made an awful hash of it. Here, let me show you how it’s supposed to be done . . .”

I dashed to the kitchen and grabbed a ladle for a microphone and stood up on the hearth and began what I thought was a poignant rendition of the soulful song. That’s when my 8-year-old seared me with a glare and a Cockney echo: “What . . . the . . . bloody . . . hell . . . was . . . that?”

She does a wicked Simon Cowell. He’s the only reason I let her even watch the show. He’s brilliant. After all the oral fluff from Randy, Paula and dippy fifth wheel Kara, some bracing insight from Simon is a catharsis of honest interpretation.

I wish it were just him judging. In fact, I don’t think the perennial ratings winner is a large enough platform for him. I’d like to see President Obama appoint him to fill the Souter vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court. And then turn the high court into a modern equivalent of “The Gong Show.”

Maybe someday they’ll rule on the case of who murdered all the music back in 1989, consarnit!

Here are some uniquely ‘80s songs you can still hear in places like The Junction and Pawpurrs on Court Street in Athens, Ohio.



• “Voices Carry,” ‘til Tuesday

• “Shakin’,” Eddie Money

• “Keep Your Hands to Yourself,” Georgia Satellites

• “Luka,” Suzanne Vega

• “Angel is a Centerfold,” J. Geils Band

• “Twilight Zone,” Golden Earring

• “Who Can It Be Now?,” Men at Work

• “Come on Eileen,” Dexey’s Midnight Runners

• “Love is Like a Rock,” Donnie Iris

• “The Breakup Song,” The Greg Kihn Band

• “Take On Me,” a-ha

Feel free to add to the list. Please, nothing by Paula Abdul.

Crooked halos & angel tree urchins

I prefer buying Christmas presents for angel tree urchins to buying them for my own little angels, the bratty little ingrates.

With my kids, I actually witness how they react and how little they care for the gifts I buy for them. And when I say I, I mean the ones my wife goes to great pains to shop for, pay for and wrap post-midnight while I’m out watching hockey games with my friends.

They tear through the packages the way Biblical locusts go through once verdant fields of grain. They do not pause. They do not savor. They simply decimate.

I surmise it’s nothing like that with angel tree recipients. Sweet anonymity allows me to project who they are and how they’ll react to my meager gifts.

All I know about him is that he’s 8, wears slim pants, size 10 shirts and likes Sponge Bob and playing with Legos. With that skimpy profile, I’m now free to conjure the scruffy rest of him in my mind.

He’s perfectly poor. He’s the one kid Tiny Tim and the other Cratchit children make fun of when they want to feel better about their own sorry lot. They’re so poor Mom ladles in dirt with the gruel after weekly church service to make it more hearty and Sunday special. The kid always goes out of his way to tell Mom how good it tastes. He roots for the Pittsburgh Steelers and one day hopes his family will be able to afford a cheap transistor radio so he doesn’t have to stand out in the cold with his nose pressed against the glass of the local tavern to see who wins on the bar TV.

His pretty young mother works three jobs -- VA nurse, flag seamstress, and cupcake froster at the old folks home. She solos for the church choir and blushes at the classically trained choir director’s ardent urgings that she try out for American Idol next time Simon Cowell brings the crew to Pittsburgh. She’s just too shy, she demurs.

The father’s a good guy, too. He’s a freelance writer who’s been so beaten down by torrential rejection, editors who carelessly insert commas into his copy, and dodgy payments from deadbeat publishers that he just sits home drinking beer and watching “Dallas” reruns on the Soap Network.

So these are people for whom I can root.

I imagine them at Christmas around the little shrub they lovingly call a tree and handing the boy the gifts I that I hope will make a difference.

Here’s what happens: He opens the package with the little size 8 jeans in them. The family rejoices. Who knew Santa could be so stylish! (Mom and Dad slyly wink at each other). He puts the pants on and the very next day a little girl who’s never noticed him before checks out his more confident 8-year-old swagger. The pair become enduring sweethearts. She’s the granddaughter of a Big Three automaker CEO who’s just transferred all his holdings to her to hide from government snoops while he piously drops his salary to $1.

He tears the paper and pulls out the camo hoodie next. With its extra warmth, the boy now stays up two extra hours each night to study. Scholarships follow.

Then comes the best part. The deluxe box of Sponge Bob Legos! I saw this on the shelf and did a double take on his wish list. Listed one and two were Sponge Bob; Legos. I couldn’t believe my eyes. A two-fer! He begins working the pieces and making grand designs that soon catch the eye of a local architectural firm that specializes in eco-friendly skyscrapers.

He’s soon earning enough that Mom’s able to quit her trio of jobs and take voice lessons. She tries out for American Idol, finishes second, but crabby Cowell quits in outrage over the idiot vote and offers to shepherd her career.

They celebrate by getting Dad a 90-inch HDTV and the complete series box set of every “Dallas” episode featuring Larry Hagman commentary.

One day they all sit around and look back on the Christmas that started it all, the one where the anonymous stranger gave the thoughtful and blessed angel tree gifts. They say a heartfelt prayer asking God reward the soulful stranger.

Of course, nothing like that’s ever happened, even though I’ve been doing the angel tree thing for more than 15 years. I crassly confess I expect by now there’d be some karmic sort of compensation for my selflessness.

But nope.

Who knows? Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe those angel tree urchins just don’t care about my thoughtful gifts. Maybe, like my own little angels, they just kind of sit there and look around with that “Is-this-all-there-is?” expression.

Maybe angel tree kids are no different or more appreciative than middle class kids.

Lousy little ingrates!