The Top 40 Hottest Car Movies

From Hot Rod Magazine (they oughtta know).
Can't argue a single movie on this list.

State Championship Game!!

I like living in Kirkwood. It has a very old fashioned small town feel about 12 miles southwest of St. Louis. It has a great school district and it seems to be a very close knit community. How cool must it be to be my daughter right about now, last month, the Cardinals win the World Series and this month...

...her high school football team plays for the state championship!! We thought last year was the year but it looks like this year is it. They play three time state champs Ray-Pec (Raymore and Peculiar two towns just south and east of KC) but Ray-Pec has lost three games this year. The game is on Saturday night at 6:30 at the Edward Jones Dome. How fun. Go Pioneers! Undefeated and now maybe champs? My high school team went a total of 7-24 the three years I was there, so this is very neat!

The Modern Man

The genius of George Carlin on display

Random Shit

I'm going to be a grandfather again. Damn! I am very proud, but DAAAMMMMMNNN! I am much too young. Love you, Jess.



I hope good things are happening to my friend Jay. It appears so. Maybe the karma train has arrived and not departed.



It was Paul's last home game at Notre Dame. "It went by so fast", no shit, Sherlock get used to it. He's on his way to LA to see the USC game. Damn kid has done more at 22 than I have at 50.



Arriving at Chapter 27. Chapter 26 has no more pages, it's over. I hope.



I was flattered by a particular offer I received. It was to do something completely different in the radio field. I would have loved to try it, but the shift I was supposed to do was so important. I don't think that's a place where a guy learns a new craft, drive time. Now, if this guy EVER gets an overnight opening or something like that, let's roll. Very. nice. guy. GREAT CITY. Thanks, Steve.

Brush With Greatness Part 11-Saga

In 1982 and 1983, KY 102 in Kansas City conducted what was known as the "Rock Awards". The public could vote for their favorite guitar player, group, vocalist, newcomer of the year...whatever. The ballots were at the local Wendy's outlets, I believe. This was back in the day when KY102 was lke the equivalent of KSHE at that time. We owned the city. The Rock Awards were held at the Hyatt Regency and it was basically conducted like the Emmys or Academy awards. Jocks got dressed in tuxes and gave out awards with notable rock stars. At this particular rock award, we got Billy Squier to play. Billy also gave out an award with me and tried to pick me up. He was pretty drunk. We always got the band who won best newcomer to play...Quarterflash was the other best new band winner. The Awards got real expensive and disappeared after year two. They were alot of fun and the first time I ever met Steve Perry. Anyway, this is the band Saga who got the award for best new band. This must have been 1982. Saga did a couple of songs called "On The Loose" and "Wind Him Up" and another ballad hit in about 1993.

Back row from left: Program Director Joe MacCabe, good friend Jon Hart, overnight guy (and eternal good dude) Vaughn Mac, saga dude, saga dude, night gal Katey McGuckin, saga dude, Lynne Dean

Front row; midday guy Paul (Fredrocks) Fredrichs, me, the ledgendary Skid Roadie, legend.


Buy Saga here

The Traffic Jam 1987-88

From left Jim (baggadonuts)Evans-bass, sax. Steve (Big Man)Pecaro-guitars. Randy(what the hell am I doing with two hats?)Raley-drums,percussion. I had major dental work done earlier in the day. Can't you tell?

What To Say?

My summer by Randy Raley: Contusion, Confusion, Evolution, Desolation, Illusion, Saturation, Humiliation, Annihilation, Revolution, Persuasion, Creation, Salvation, Inspiration, Elation, Communication, Resolution, Compassion,

SOLUTION!!

Post Number 500!

I was going to post some elequent lyrical masterpiece about post 500.
All I could come up with was Ed Bradley died today from leukemia.
A journalist and a damn fine broadcaster.




Ed Bradley 1941-2006

The world is a sadder place without him in it.

Done too soon.

Who ARE These Guys?

Remember these guys - coming out all guns blazing in the climax of Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid? Or in The Sting, taking a big-time gambler to the cleaners with a laconic smile? Sure, they're older now, a little more careworn, a little more lined, but it's still the same team.
It is more than 20 years since their partnership last lit up the screen - but for film fans of a certain age there's still something magical about a rare Paul Newman (Butch Cassidy) and Robert Redford (The Kid) reunion.
The occasion was the 25th anniversary of Robert Redford's Sundance Institute, founded by the star when he was at the height of his fame to encourage independent film makers.
Asked what had brought him out for a rare public appearance Newman, 81, wearing a sweatshirt on which he appeared to have written I Never Had A Crappy Gig Until Tonight, answered with one word: "Redford."
Redford, 69, and his work also drew a host of A-listers, including Uma Thurman, to the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York for the event.

How cool is that? Was there ever a better movie than "Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid"?

From The Mouths of Babes...

I wonder what this conversation is about.

The Gong Show

Was Chuck Barris the coolest game show host, EVER? This was one show I never failed to miss. Someone has put together some cool clips from the show (including the unknown comic and Gene Gene the dancing machine). Also included is the act that got this show booted from NBC. Great memories of my mom and I sitting in the living room and laughing our asses off. I have never seen a guy have a better time hosting a show than Chuck Barris. What a hoot!

Perspective

I took my car into the shop to get the oil changed and a lightbulb fixed earlier today. I also went today because I found out two days ago that my mechanic, who has never over charged me and has always dropped whatever he was doing to rescue me, lost his wife due to breast cancer last week. Greg is a big burly guy who can hit a softball out of just about any park I have ever seen. A great guy to have on your side. When I got there, he had Al (another great mechanic) work on my car and invited me back to the office. I think he just wanted to talk to someone. He had basically kept it a secret from everyone other than a few close friends. He told me about his three kids, two boys 19 and 15 and his 12 year old daughter. About how they had prepared for this day for a long time. About how even though they had prepared for this, they really hadn't. They had just returned from their annual trip to Florida and when they got back to St. Louis, "she got really tired and just gave up". My heart broke for him, his family and especially the 12 year old girl. No matter what I have been through this summer, whatever indignities I have suffered NOTHING and I mean nothing compares to what my friend Greg is going through. He told me that as he was going through their pictures to display at the visitation, he was amazed at how young they were. "Where has the time gone?" he said. I relayed a conversation I had with my mom when she was alive and beautiful and I was eighteen and full of piss and vinegar. She told me "you will not believe how fast it goes, in the blink of eye, your life moves around you." Greg agreed. I know now what she was trying to say. This is the second time this year a good friend of mine has lost a wife to cancer. Enjoy the simple pleasures and the people around you. Hug your family. Tell them you love them.

The Beatles' "LOVE"

The Beatles LOVE with Cirque De Soliel is now playing in Las Vegas.
I happened onto a 4 song sample from the show yesterday and "OH, MY GOD!" This is the most incredible set of music I have heard since the original recordings came out. The songs have been completely redone by Sir George Martin's boy Giles. "Strawberry Fields Forever" takes on a completely different tone, "Octopus' Garden" now has strings and so does the acoustic version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." "Lady Madonna" is a completely different song interplaying "All Together Now" in the middle. Infriggincredible. This has the blessing of Paul, Ringo, Olivia and Yoko. The entire show will be available on DVD Audio with 5.1 surround sound. I cannot wait for this. Fresh Beatles, what better Christmas present could a guy ask for?

Great Picture!

An Airbus on it's way to the moon! Not really, but it sure looks like it.

John Densmore's Tribal Jazz

One of the things I like to do is voice track a shift on our smooth jazz station at www.smoothvox.com. One of the duties I have for that job is to review new music. I have come across some gems while doing so. I have found another. The CD is called "tribaljazz" and that it is. This is a collection of jazz musicians that John Densmore (the former drummer for the Doors) has assembled. This is what I like to call "acid jazz". Don't ask me why but this sounds like it was made back in the 60s, and that's a real good thing. It's just a very ecclectic group of musicians and songs that sound great. John is the drummer and you will find flutes, saxes and things like a coxixi. There are five vocal tracks, one laid down by Alfre Woodard on an awesome composition called "The First Time I Heard Coltrane". On "Vegetable Wizard", the vocals are in French and "Orange Midnight" is sung in Senegalese. See? Weird, trippy shit. One of the other vocals is Jim Morrison's whisper vocal on "Riders On The Storm" with a new arrangement and a completely different sound. "Violet Love" is a rap number about all of the killing that religion has wrought. Art Ellis is the cat on the flutes, saxes and pianos. This is a killer of a recording that just came at me out of left field. This sounds nothing like what John did with The Doors and it is "acid jazz".
Coltrane would be proud to have his name associated with this. It sounds very much like what he would sound like today (I think). Three and a half stars from judge Raley.

A Delicious Find

I have been buying hard to find CDs from my friend Tom Young at "Now Hear This" in Kirkwood for about 20 years now. In those two decades, he has found just about everything for me. I have him to thank for filling in the holes of my CD collection. One big hole was The Marc Tanner Band. The Marc Tanner Band was Marc Tanner on vocals and it featured a bunch of studio musicians like The Porcaro brothers from Toto, Richie Zito, David Paich, Steve Lukather, Bob Glaub along with others. I picked up "No Escape" yesterday after having him order it for me. Ahhhh! I haven't heard this in years. The only copy I had of this recording was on vinyl, although I did find "Elena" on Napster a few years ago, but the quality was not good. From the opening number "Never Again" to "She's So High" to "Elena", these are very catchy tunes, well done pop music. It sounds like Toto meets Hall and Oates. So, I am still finding things to plug into holes in my collection. This is on "Wounded Bird" Records a division of Rhino. Good old Rhino, they have done more for us collectors than anyone I know. If anyone knows of a studio version of "The Pit and The Pendulum" by Ross, let me know. Marc Tanner gets four stars out of five from judge Raley

World Champs!

Observations from the Series

Tim McCarver...shut up.

Tony La Russa has made the transformation complete to morphing into Corey Hart who wore his "Sunglasses At Night".

If you have a cell phone and you sit behind home plate, you get one free wave. Anymore than that and you look like an idiot.

Jim Leyland said he "smoked a carton of cigarettes" during the rain delay for game four. Hey Jim, that's 200 fags. It's probably not real good for you..

My favorite commercials would be...

The McGiver MasterCard commercial...
Coin collecting commercial from the US Mint...
The dude stuck in the shark tank commercial from Travellers
The Playstation 3 spot. Hell, I'm 50 and it almost made me want to go out and get one.

Sorry, John. I don't like your new song. Pretty simplistic and dumb. No matter how much airplay it gets, it will always make me think of a Chevy truck. From the East coast to the west coast..yadda yadda yadi.



The Magglio Ordonez afro was very cool. Reminded me of my hair style in high school. Or as my dad described it..."it's audubon hair, son". "Audubon hair?" "Yeah it audubon on a dog's ass."

Just my thoughts, though.

World Champion St. Louis Cardinals

Somewhere, up there is a long line of McNews (and Raleys)smiling because their beloved Cardinals have won the World Series. I come from previous generations of Cardinal fans. My mother and father spent their honeymoon at Sportsmen's Park in 1946



My sister and I would act as an antenna on the farm. We would have to touch the AM radio to pull in KMOX from St. Louis so my grandfather could listen to the game on those hot muggy nights in my youth.

On my first honeymoon, I drug my wife to the "big city" of St. Louis to see the Cardinals lose to Atlanta. I was full of awe and wonder.

Thanks, guys for an incredible ride this year, you were the highlight of my summer.
I know many other families whose Cardinal roots go back many generations.
(I didn't write about them during the series because I didn't want to jinx them. See? It worked.)

Donvan McNabb heaves during a game...

Did he get sick because of the temperature or because he had to listen to Bill Maas? Either way, not good.

Stuff You Don't See Everyday...

What the hell is this?


I sure picked the wrong year to quit drinking


Hey, there's room for more!


Now, that's what I call a bogey er, I mean yogi.


Rack 'em up!


Jeez,that hurts just looking at it.

ThanksKK

So so Football Weekend

Ava 40 Buffalo 8
East Moline lost (record is now 1-8, just like the old days)
Priory loses to Burroughs
Iowa gets manhandled at Michigan
Mizzou wins 41-21
Notre Dame wins (barely)
Chiefs win (barely, they go 3-3)
Rams didn't play

Vini, Vidi, Yadi

The Cardinal fans version of "shock and awe"...


Yadier Molina? This is why I am a baseball guy. The first chill of winter, the smell of crispness in the air. The aisles of Walgreens being decked with bite size candies everywhere, the ever present change in the season that results in some of the best displays of color that mother nature can deliver and will ultimately end up in my gutter. The frontyards with the blown up Frankensteins or ghouls with the tombstones dedicated to no one that lie in jest catch my attention as a speed by. Man, I can feel, smell and taste the caramel Granny Smith apples that will soon be dropped into trick or treat sacks across the city. Yadier Molina? If you are a Cardinal fan, you have to truly be happy for this kid. His name goes right next to heroes of October named Mazeroski, Gibson, Lolich, Carbo, Fisk, Jackson, Morris, Puckett, Cesar Cedeno, Will Clark etc. Yadier Molina? Can't hit a lick but has a rocket for an arm. He has thrown out 44% of those unsuspecting guys who try to steal on him (that's a league high) and has picked off 14 saps on first base. I can out run him. That's not good. On the first pitch he saw from a Mets pitcher last night he became Superman, Batman, and Green Lantern rolled into one. It wasn't guys named Albert, Scott or Chris that lifted this team onto his shoulders, it was a guy named Yadier. That's why I am a baseball guy. In baseball, there no clock to watch, no coin flip to determine who gets the ball first, no overtime, just two teams slugging it out until one goes home a winner. I reminded of the George Carlin bit where he compares baseball with football. "In football, you go to the end zone and deal with blitzes, in baseball you go home and you sacrifice". "Clocks? we don't need no shtinking clocks!" As he launched his homerun into the night sky in the toughest city in America, I actually squealed like a little girl. Didn't care. How can you not be happy for Yadier Molina? Yadier friggin Molina? While listening to the broadcst last night, after he hit his Justice League home run, I was reminded of a Simon and Garfunkel song. Shea Stadium had indeed turned into "the Sounds of Silence". Yadier Molina! You da man.

The 30 Top Scary Movies of All Time

The fine folks at Stuff Magazine have put together a list of the top 30 scariest movies of all time. There could only be number one, it's obvious and not even open to discussion. From the first notes of that creepy ass song to the relentless way it hits you over the head minute after minute, it has no equal. It swore me off scary movies forever (or, at least until I saw Alien and when that creepy thing jumped out of that dude's chest, it was truly over for me).


For a Halloween treat enjoy this list made up by Hollywood insiders of the creepiest movies of all time. Can't argue with anyone of them here.

Happy 80th Chuck Berry

In rock and roll, it all starts and ends with him. He is the man. I interviewed Chuck in 1985 when the movie "Hail, Hail, Rock and Roll" was announced. I wish I had a way to attach audio here, I would then let you hear a guy so star struck he could hardly talk (that would be me). My picture with him was lost in the great flood in my basement (1992). He was and is an irascible old coot. I can remember a story told by a longtime St. louis musician (no names please)who said that Chuck would purposely untune his guitar and wouldn't care that it sounded like shit. Why should he? He's Chuck Berry and from what I hear, playing better than ever. He has a big gig tonight at the Duck Room at Blueberry Hill. (Duck room? Blueberry? Get it?) and of course the tickets have been gone for weeks, but there's always tomorrow night...oh wait, they're gone too. Happy Birthday to a St. Louis treasure and the guy who is the grandfather of rock and roll, just ask him, he will tell you all about it. 80 years old, Wow!
My Chuck Berry top ten:
1. Let It Rock
2. Sweet Little Sixteen
3. Wee Wee Hours
4. Maybelline
5. Reelin and Rockin
6. No Particular Place To Go
7. Brown Eyed Handsome Man
8. You Can't Catch Me
9. Johnny B. Goode
10.Little Queenie

RIP Johnnie Johnson

R. I. P. Christopher Glenn

I guess I am at the age where people that meant a lot to me in my career are starting to pass. Whether it's musicians that really spoke to me or people in my business that I wanted to emulate, most of them are older than me and so therefore are hitting the "autumn" of their life. I was saddened to hear about the death of Christopher Glenn. I wrote in an earlier post that it was a bummer to hear about his retirement and I wished him a long and happy time away from the biz. Unfortunately, he died of liver cancer yesterday. How many of us "boomers" listened to him tell us what was "In The News" in between Looney Tunes on Saturday morning. Even though I was older, I hung on every word and remember saying to myself that I wanted to sound like that. I never did. No one did.
Here's his obit from CBS news.
Thanks, Christopher from someone you never met.

A Post of Links...

The Top Ten List of The Worst Sports Announcers On Television. What? No Joe Theisman?




Inappropriate "FBombs". You Tube was invented for stuff like this...



Arizona blew a twenty point lead last night and lost to the Bears? Karma's a bitch, isn't it Bill Bidwill? Here are ten reasons to cheer up Cardinal fans.




Ten of the dumbest Congressmen (and woman) who proudly serve our country. Remember, we get what we pay for...

Automated Cashiers

I refuse to go through the automated checkouts at my favorite store. I don't have a problem with the service or anything but I feel if we use the automated check outs then why would the store keep real people? And really, if I hear "..please put your item in the bag" after I have put my item in the bag, then someone will get hurt. So, for the love of God people, let's not give Schnuck's another reason to fire anymore of their workers, wait the extra minute, be polite and smile knowing you've helped that checker keep their job. It's your duty.

Incredible Video

If I did this, you would be picking up tendons and hamstrings and muscle from the highway.
Incredible how limber some people can be.

Not A Good Sports Day

My Old High School Teams Won

Ava beat Cabool 62-25
East Moline beat Galesburg 28-20 (their first win of the season, just like old days)
Mizzou lost,
Iowa lost,
Notre Dame did not play.
Cardinals go 1-1.
Chiefs get killed,
Rams lose in a heartbreaker.
Bummer.
Better luck next week.