Old-school news, just in time
by Kevin Burton Two takeaways from Sunday’s Chiefs-Bengals AFC Championship game, one a smirking aside, the other more lasting. To set up the first one, I remember when the late great John Madden had just left his brilliant career as Oakland Raiders coach and just begun what would prove to be a brilliant …
Continue reading “Note To Bengals And Self: Don’t Lose Stupid”
by Kevin Burton A blind BBC reporter, retrieved his cell phone from a mugger and restrained the assailant until help arrived, multiple sources reported in late December. “Wrong blind person, wrong day,” said Sean Dilley, a blind news reporter and project lead for the BBC’s Reframing Disability program. Dilley was taking a …
My father used to say that NFL games were fixed. Then and now I scoff at that, but sometimes I wonder. Like Sunday, when Buffalo was so passive and so awful in a blowout 27-10 loss to Cincinnati. Maybe this is just me needing to adjust my expectations for teams as they coalesce …
by Kevin Burton Can’t remember how we got on the topic, but a co-worker was telling me last week how radio was the life blood of his youth. Radio was the conveyor belt on which everybody travelled in my day, as in his (he is roughly ten years older than I am, if …
by Kevin Burton When I was a sort of young beep baseball player, I had a team mate who always talked about heart guards. Beep baseball is baseball for blind players. The ball is slightly bigger than a softball and depending on who made the ball, it can be quite hard. When …
by Kevin Burton Surely you’ve heard this old joke: What do you call a person who speaks three languages? Trilingual. What do you call a person who speaks two languages? Bilingual. What do you call a person who speaks only one language? American. A wicked, sweeping generalization that. Not entirely fair. But …
by Kevin Burton On the next-to-last night of our Upper Midwest vacation we found ourselves watching the clothes go round. We were in Norfolk, Nebraska, boyhood hometown of Johnny Carson, when we gathered our quarters and the Tide Pods Jeannette had bought for the occasion, and took advantage of the Hampton Inn’s coin …
by Kevin Burton There was a time when one man captured this nation’s attention, made us laugh and in a way, held us together. And that national smile began with the first five notes of that song, The Tonight Show theme. “Daaaaa dum dum daaaa daaaa….” You heard those notes and …
Continue reading “Visiting Johnny Carson’s Boyhood Home Town”
by Kevin Burton The late comedian Flip Wilson had an ongoing gag featuring a hip, fast-talking preacher who strayed for comedic effect, far from a right interpretation of the Bible. His Flip Wilson Show aired Thursday nights on NBC from 1970 to 1974. The recurring preacher segment came from what he called “The …
by Kevin Burton I’m sitting in the dark, on the couch my mom gave us. I hear the sound of a train in the distance. There is romance, poetry in the sound. I’m in the Man Cave and it couldn’t be mancavier. Two smallish beacons of light accompany the night without interrupting …
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