Charlie Kirk!

 The above image is all anybody should concentrate on right now. A father, a mother and their young kids. They are forever scarred by the murder of their husband and father. Gunned down while speaking conservative talking points. Graphic footage is just horrifying. I am sorry I saw it. So, for now, all we should focus on is Charlie Kirk's family. The grief is real. But the grift is over. I condemn this hit. Cuz it WAS a hit.

Now the BUT.

I had my problems with Charlie Kirk. I attacked him on twitter constantly because it was so easy. He said some of the stupidest shit ever on video and audio. He pretended to hate minorities, women, gays, and anybody else on the other side of the spectrum. He famously went from Release the Epstein files to I don't care about the Epstein Files in one day because he knew the man keeping his grift alive was in those files. It WAS a grift. Charlie Kirk, much like Sean Hannity and Kaleigh McEnaney, knew great television. They didn't believe what they said until they saw their bank accounts, contracts and adoration from mutton heads grow. Then their brains suddenly shifted. Man, are these people easy to grift. And the grift became gospel. They'd convinced themselves that cash is right and to truly earn that cash they must actually buy into what they say.

Meanwhile, the pearl clutching by the right is almost laughable. Without knowing a goddamn thing about the shooter or the motive they assigned motive immediately. The left, the Democrats, the gays whatever. Hey, we do know what motivated the MAGA Minneapolis assassin of Melissa Hortman and her husband. We DO know the motive of the Tree of Life murderer. We DO know the motive behind the mass murder in Arizona that severely wounded Gabby Giffords. We DO know the motive of the El Paso Walmart mass killer, the Buffalo supermarket killer, the King Soopers mass murderer, the Pulse nightclub killer, the killer of the black churchgoers in South Carolina, the killer at the Club Q in Colorado Springs, The Burnette Chapel mass murderer, the Knoxville Unitarian Church assassin. All of it was based in hatred of people unlike themselves. Yet the right, with no clue as usual, is quick to place blame. The Divider in Chief assigned blame without knowing anything as usual. Hey Donnie, Putin bombed Poland, didya hear?

Christ, assassinations and attempted assassinations are as American as apple pie in the words of H Rap Brown. Kennedy, Malcom, Evers, Kennedy 2, MLK Jr, Wallace, Lowenstein, Reagan, Giffords, Lincoln, McKinley, Roosevelt, Long, Hortman, Trump, the list is endless. For chrissakes, American history began with the killing of Alexander Hamilton by the freakin Vice President of the United States, Aaron Burr, perhaps you've heard of it.

So, to hell with this political bullshit outrage. I guess it all depends on whose side you're on before you actually become human and actually condemn this violence. Not a fucking word about Hortman from the Republicans, in fact, Trump said it would be a "waste of time" to reach out to the victims' families. To hell with all of it.

If you cheer this killing of Charlie Kirk, fuck you. If you cheer the killing of Melissa Hortman, fuck you too. If you cheer any murder, fuck you also.

I am sick of it. Sick of the backwards hatted tough guys on Tik Tok threatening revenge on libs. Sick of leftists cheering for Luigi Mangione. Sick of grifters and con artists pretending they care while raising money. Sick of people calling anything they don't like "genocide". 

In conclusion, I feel sorry for Kirk's family. I condemn his murder. May he rest in peace if you buy into that stuff. But remember, grifting can be dangerous, and your words sometimes have consequences. Mostly just being ostracized, but in some cases a nut wants you dead. 

And sometimes somebody puts out a hit on you. 

Football Notes!

 Moving the Husker Cincinnati game to Arrowhead in Kansas City was a brilliant move on Cincinnati's part. Yeah, they were outnumbered by 100-1 in fans but the $$$ had to be good. I mean can Nippert Stadium in Cincy handle the influx of Husker fan? Could the Lucas Oil Dome in Indianapolis handle it? Arrowhead has done it before and came through.

The drive to KC on Thursday was a fucking nightmare. Start stop start stop road construction, the 3-hour trip became 5 hours and add on another hour to park. So, if you leave at one, you get to the stadium at 7. Jesus, it was exhausting. 

The parking lot was full of red clad drinkers getting oiled up for the game. The port a potties had lines, the people tailgating took up 3 parking spots which probably led to the parking lot nightmare. 

The stadium was the loudest place I may have ever been, and I've seen Nine Inch Nails in a confined space. Sitting under the overhang in the end zone may have contributed to my ears ringing. It was hot. Being out in the open air may have been better but I was a sweaty mess.

The concessions are crazy priced. They have a captive crowd and man do they exploit it. $46 for some chicken tenders, fries and a Coke Zero. But as Max said, they were allegedly "gourmet" chicken tenders thus the price. Were they gourmet? Yeah sure. My choice was a brisket sandwich and a water (I don't drink beer at anything but baseball games cuz it's the law). It cost me $35. Yum.

The game itself was insane. The crowd was younger, drunker, and had the energy to keep it up for the entire 3 hours. I couldn't do that cuz I'm old and I'd stood for an entire Alice Cooper show the night before. I'm sure next week in Lincoln will be back to the old "Siddown I can't see" vibe. Unless the newly available beer causes some sort of conversion (It wont). 

Hey Husker fans, booing the other team's band and its dancers is low class. It's Mizzou/Colorado type shit. For thinking you're the best fan base in College Football acting like drunken buffoons isn't cool. Besides, who the hell boos Cincinnati?

Dylan Raiola is good. Emmitt Johnson is good. The defense is ok. Archie Wilson, the new punter straight from Australian Rules Football, is the MVP. His rugby punts (with either leg by the way) were the reason Nebraska won the game by pinning Cincy deep every time. Great job mate.

Raiola makes $3 million per sources. Thats $250k per game win or lose. Going to the NFL would be a pay cut. Is he worth it? We shall see.

Husker fans permeated KC on Friday. I assume most were sticking around to see the Royals that night on Nebraska night where they got a free Husker sweater or something. They were all over downtown KC. They were all over the Negro Leagues Museum which is a great place to visit. My question was do Nebraskans own any clothing other than red Husker stuff? I had on a Montreal Expos shirt which caused 4 discussions with museum visitors about the Expos. All 4 had red on.

Friday night we went to Lawrence Kansas to see the Jayhawks meet Staten Island's own Wagner U, an FCS team. They have a new, or remodeled stadium, which is modern as hell. It looks good even though our side is the same old bench seats and steep steps.

The Westboro Baptist freaks were there "protesting" outside the stadium. With their vulgar anti-gay shirts on and their judgmental bullshit I couldn't resist engaging with them. They did not engage back. I didn't swear at them but eventually told them they were THE most horrible human beings on Earth and huffed off. They don't care, they're crazy. 

The Kansas fans are decent. Of course, a game against Wagner isn't exactly knuckle biting and they sell beer. Their band is good (better than ours) and their concession prices are more in line with sanity.

A young man in a Trump hat was going up and down the steps constantly and I wondered aloud that what female would not run from this lout. A drunk young lady was taken out by EMT's down the steps where she fell into people three times until they eventually strapped her to a rolling chair. Wonder what she felt like Saturday morning.

Ubering to games seems to be the way to go. Two Uber rides in Lawrence cost less than it would have to park at the campus. Plus, it helped me avoid that climbing up Mount Everest or whatever they call that gigantic hill on campus.

The road back on Saturday was yet another Husker caravan. Some stop and start due to construction but for chrissakes, a Caseys in Mound City had a snake like line to buy pop and snacks that went from the front counter to the bathroom. Yes, it was all us Husker fans. In red.

A great weekend. Go Big Red! But I stand by my preseason prediction of 7-5 tops. 

Alice Cooper!

 Back in 1973 my third concert ever was the Billion Dollar Babies tour in Lincolns old Pershing Auditorium. Alice Cooper was the hottest act out there. It was truly a show from start to finish. Kind of a play. I saw him again in 2017 when he was 69 years old. The show was still there. An intense rock show without a pause for banter or ballads.

Alice Cooper, age 77, came to the Orpheum Theater tonight with a tight band and the show is still just as captivating as it was in 1973. I mean we have it all. The top hat and cane, the snake, Vincent Price, the stage rushers, the monsters in gas masks, the guillotine, Marie Antoinette, Cold Ethyl, the giant Frankenstein. It's a great show. 

But the real lure of the show is the band. Besides Alice, you get 3 great guitarists, Ryan Roxie, Tommy Henricksen and the always unique Nita Strauss. You get a great bassist in Chuck Garric and a drummer keeping it all together, Glenn Sobel. Does anybody really like drum solos though? It's a real showstopper, as in everybody sits down.

The crowd was well let's say, decrepit boomers and Gen Xers, but what they all had was a great time. Standing for the entire 90 minutes of hard driving rock isn't easy for us old timers (Thank you drum solo we all sat for a bit) but for this band its possible. Highlights for me were the hits, Eighteen, No More Mister Guy, Under My Wheels and Lost in America. Schools Out contained a bit of Another Brick in the Wall, and the encore featured a tribute to Ozzie with Paranoid. The sound is a bit off at the Orpheum, but the music was right on. The Alice Cooper lyrics are hard to decipher sometimes if you aren't a super fan who knows all the words but he, my friends, still has it. He moves a bit slower, but he's up there the entire 90 minutes belting out his songs, getting his head chopped off, interacting with his younger band mates, and giving the crowd what they want. a goddamn good rock show with a plot, references to old horror movies and a certain flair for the dramatic.

This is still a wonderful way to spend 90 minutes forgetting your troubles. Your ears may be ringing at the end, but you are satisfied.

As the beginning of the concert says, Welcome to the Show.

The Cornhusker Concentration Camp, Errrr, Clink!!!

Because we here in Nebraska love anything with the word "Husker" or "Cornhusker" or "Big Red" or "prison" in it the latest travesty from Homeland Security Chairman and dog murderer Kristi Noem is the placement of another cutely named concentration camp right here in CornHuskerland. McCook, Nebraska is the lucky recipient of this place to imprison farm workers, restaurant employees, construction workers and their children. Noem is so cute in her cosplay uniform of the day, in this case it's probably a whip carrying warden on a horse, that she named this monstrosity, Cornhusker Clink. Ooooooo Im so overwhelmed by something named after our extreme mediocrity of a football team that I cannot breathe. Cue the screaming Beatles fans.

Now look, McCook is barely in Nebraska, stuck down in the southwestern corner of the state where nobody ever goes. Its more Kansas or Colorado but whatever. McCook was the first town in this state to lose their hospital because of that Big Ugly Ass Bill. It closed, or will be closing, because of the uncertainty of Medicaid funding. Oh wait, rural Nebraska uses Medicaid? How socialist of them. McCook, or rather Curtis County, voted for Trump with 85% of the vote going to the orange alleged child molester so there's a temptation to say Schadenfreude Bitches but I digress. 

As a bleeding heart libtard, aka a decent person, I really don't want anybody, including the Maga cult, to get their health care cancelled by a truly despicable administration of cruelty and hate. Despite the news reports of residents of McCook poo pooing the hospital closure as not Trumps fault, again, it's a self-administered disaster caused by about 85% of the Curtis County residents. Well ok then. Sometimes people need to be saved from themselves.

Back to the Cornhusker Concentration Camp. Despite the bootlicking local support of Governor Jim "Pass the Vodka" Pillen, the human penis, Senator Pete Ricketts, and Trump simps like Representatives Mike "Medicaid Has Been Increased I Swear" Flood and Adrian "Who the Fuck Am I" Smith, a concentration camp holding their friends and neighbors isn't really all that popular anyplace in this state. The local yokel state senator from out there hasn't put her finger in the air yet so she has to do some "further study" to see what she thinks. The mayor of McCook, the county commissioners and the residents all were wandering around when the Governor showed up to announce the camp. Basically, their response was "excuse me?" 

Theres already a "prison" in McCook. A minimum-security work camp that has 186 residents who are being rehabilitated with actual jobs. The Governor, a real tool, announced those inmates will be relocated to a prison system designed to hold 4000 that currently has 6000 inmates. Pillen will do anything for his orange master, including telling the skeptics they need to get onboard the Trump Train and critics don't know what they are talking about. Pillen, who has a difficult time swearing in new National Guard members at halftime of a football game (ahhh he was hammered), is obsessed with Trump. He defeated Trumps handpicked candidate for Governor, a real grabass named Herbster, so he needs to get in line to lick Trumps ass cuz he's up for reelection in 2026. So, 186 work camp residents will be thrown back in a cell with real criminals in the overcrowded Nebraska prison system, perhaps the worst in the nation. And the new Cornhusker Concentration Camp will be built, surrounded by ICE thugs, Nebraska National Guard folks and people with pitchforks.

Good luck Nebraska. The workers, many of them undocumented, who make the farm economy go, will be sitting in a camp while crops rot in the fields, raising prices and forcing MAGAts to come up with some cockamamie excuse to blame Biden.

As long as we're at it, Governor Three Sheets, lets change the state motto from "Equality Under The Law" to "Arbeit Macht Frei". 

Resist!

Penn & Teller!

 

50 years these two have been dazzling audiences with magic tricks, Don't say illusions or Penn gets pissed. Its tricks dammit. They refuse to lie and pretend its real.

The two magicians played the Orpheum Theater last evening to what looked like a sold-out crowd. Penn was the voice; Teller was the silent magician as usual. The tricks are amazing and the participation by the audience is essential. Penn would call children onto the stage, give them shit just like he does to adults, and allow them to be the "punch line". We had Live Your Dreams, we had count the jellybeans, we had a weird pointless Entropy skit that ended up being very pointed. We had a Spanish trick that killed. All the while Penn's motormouth entertained the audience with "frustration" at kids who didn't follow instructions, adults who tried to be funny (dont) and the crowd who didn't follow instructions. It's a brilliant combination of magic and comedy.

The last act before the Entropy reveal (which is genius by the way) was inviting anybody who "believed" that Penn and Teller used "stooges" to fool the audience. onto the stage where yet another trick involving the Bible was unfolded.

The show is a bit over 90 minutes and it goes like that. You don't even notice the time its so captivating. If you've seen them In Las Vegas realize the touring show is all new stuff. The show is not as long as the Vegas show because the venue is probably not suited for some of their tricks (no magic bullet) but it is well worth the price of admission.

Brilliant!

Z Z Top!

 I first saw ZZ Top in 1973 in Omaha, pre-beards, at the old Civic Auditorium. This was so long ago that the opening act was Aerosmith, followed by Sugarloaf. ZZ Top was touring after that release of Tres Hombres, one of the great albums of the 1970s. I saw ZZ Top, also at the Civic, post beards, in 1980 or 81 and they had the longhorn onstage with a rattlesnake, in a cage thank gawd. They are what they are. Just a rock band.

Night Ranger opened to a tepid response. They have a lot of songs I didn't realize were theirs because I absolutely despise hair metal. Jack Blades seems like a decent enough guy, but man he's just not my cup of tea.

ZZ Top took the stage to a much better response. Under Pressure opened the show and had such a lousy sound mix I was worried the rest of the show would be just as bad. But like pros that have pros running the show it got fixed quickly. Billy Gibbons is joined onstage by former guitar tech Elwood Francis who got the job after the death of Dusty Hill probably because he's a brilliant bassist and he already has the beard. John Douglas played drums in place of Frank Beard who has had health problems.

The band is just straight ahead rock n roll. All the hits are there, no here's something off our latest album stuff, from Gimme All your Lovin, which the crowd recognized easily from the drum opening volley to the encore of La Grange. Theres not a song you wont recognize if you're a fan or have just been alive for the last 51 years. Remember those 80's  videos where they stood aside for a bigger story? Well now its just play the damn song, whether it be Sharp Dressed Man or Legs. 

And it still glorious.

Trumpstein!

 Did Trump engage in sex with under 18's? Of course he did, nobody with a room temp IQ doubts it. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were inseparable for years. They both enjoyed the same things, most of which is illegal, immoral and just plain sick. And now, you'd think Trump never met the guy. The Epstein list is going to be released, it's on Pam Bondi's desk awaiting review, Bondi "reviewed" it and told Trump he's in the files, then all of a sudden there was no Epstein List. Its all a fraud. made up by Obama and Biden and the Democrats. Then, because this pervert cant shut his ass up, he shades Bill Clinton and Larry Summers and a bunch of hedge fund guys, HEY he'll give you the list.

WAIT! There's a list after all? Trump is such a blabbermouth he digs a grave that 99,9% of humans would already be in, yet somehow Trump can get his fellow grifters like Charlie Kirk, Tim Pool, J D Vance, and the rest of the paid con artists profiting off Trumps debauchery to do the ol' 180 and claim they now don't care about Epstein any longer. He's got power and charisma that's for sure but it doesn't change the fact the President of the United States is a kiddie diddler, a felon, a rapist, a thief and a golf cheat.

Trumpstein is one of those guys we call a useful idiot. The Project 2025 scum will use him up, get what they want, then when it's accomplished, Trump will be shooed off to the dustbin of hedonists. Oh well we didn't know, oh my what a horror show, he needs to resign and then Peter Thiel's bitch, J D Vance, can continue the road to authoritarianism. 

Trump's latest foray into I didn't like Epstein, didn't know Epstein, or threw Epstein overboard involves Epstein stealing his employees from Mar A Lago. Purely business, eh? Tomorrow we may hear that Trumpstein was undercover to bring down a child sex trafficker and HAD to partake to keep his cover.

Meanwhile the well-known pimp and perjurer, Ghislaine Maxwell, doing 20 years for various crimes against humanity, was interviewed by Trumps personal lawyer, no not Bondi, in federal prison for some reason which I'm sure is a precursor to her saying Trump is innocent, Clinton and anyone else Trump wants to take down is guilty and she's an innocent victim of Democrats. Trump then pardons her, she stays silent and it all goes away.

What kind of moron buys any of this? I am not sure but trust me there are millions who will.

Did you know there are 4700 financial transactions in the Epstein files? Wouldn't that be interesting to see the names on that list. 47? Trump is 47. There ya go Q anon. Thats enough "evidence" for you to con more people out of money and their intelligence.

Will this whole sordid slog of degeneracy be enough to take Trump down? I have no idea. This guy is a walking scandal day after day and nothing sticks. Yeah, he has 38% approval, but he wasn't that much more popular in 2024 and America said sure why not, FASCISM RULES!

This country is truly in the Age of Stupid.