The Fickle Bounce Of The Fantasy Football

by Kevin Burton    The morning orange juice is sweeter, the song of the birds outside more melodious, even the cats’ litter box is less odoriferous, when all four of your fantasy teams have won.     This is silliness, even profound silliness, but it’s a thing, I promise you.    Winning at fantasy football is …

Remote Adventures In South Dakota

by Kevin Burton    Checked into the Hampton Inn in Sioux Falls on a Monday, settled into our room. One thing was missing.    We were two days into a much-needed vacation and having a great time, ready to watch the Chiefs-Raiders game on Monday Night Football.    The room was nice, lots of space …

Visiting Johnny Carson’s Boyhood Home Town

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 …

The Bible Is What’s Happening Now

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 …

Bills, AFL And I Get Good Start To Season

by Kevin Burton    Super Thursday anyone?    Yeah, you’re used to Super Sunday. Big meals, commercials as big deals and oh yeah, a football game, the Super Bowl.    Did you ever want to skip the five months of preliminaries and cut straight to the chase?  Ever want to skip all the insurance commercials …

Hey Sports Nut, Could You Give Up ESPN?

by Kevin Burton     What was previously unthinkable, now I don’t even think about. I’m talking about a ravenous, red-blooded American sports fan giving up ESPN.     I did that, we did that, years ago.    This comes up because it is football season now, or close enough. The pre=season pro games have started. The …

Yay, Comma, Football Is Back, Period

by Kevin Burton     Remember the interjection song from Schoolhouse Rock?    The song says interjections are “generally set apart from a sentence by an exclamation point, or by a comma when the feeling’s not as strong.”    Well I was feeling pretty sheepish about this, but I said the sentence “Yay! Football is back” …

Quibbles And Bits: Shame On Starbucks?

by Kevin Burton    Got some things to say. Don’t want to make a federal, 700-word case of them, just want to have my say as they say in England.    Just some things I need to get off my chest.     I’ll call them Quibbles And Bits. I’ll serve them up on Page 7 …

Reality Intrudes Upon Laverne And Shirley

by Kevin Burton    Shame on me for this, but there was a time when I believed every word of the song from Laverne and Shirley.   That show ran from 1976 to 1983 on ABC. It was a big hit for its first few years, a spinoff from the very popular “Happy Days.” It …