Singing Cowboys Hang Their Heads and Cry

Wow! The "Naked Singing Cowboy" from New York City is in a huge battle with Peanut M&Ms over slamming his identity (or could it be a money issue?). Let's get to the bottom of this, the background and the real circumstances.

I'm a huge fan of westerns, cowboys — and yes, even singing cowboys. Growing up, I couldn't get enough of Gene Autry (a museum dedicated to him still exists in Gene Autry, Oklahoma), Roy Rogers, Jimmie Wakely, Johnny Mack Brown or the numerous other movie cowboys.

These cowboys could sing, ride, rope and display the characteristics of strong moral values. They knew kids looked up to them. They saved the day and made right all the wrongs in the Old West. Some wore kind of wild western wear, but mostly really wearable western wear. Plus, they were into being respectful of women, and were always polite.

Let's now take a look at the "Naked Singing Cowboy" (well, not really...). Who is this guy? He wears a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, and wears only "tighty whitey" Fruit of the Loom briefs. He's got a guitar and he prowls the streets of New York playing, singing and accepting money for his "performance art". He sometimes sells advertising on his shorts and guitar.

This New York oddball has finagled his way onto guest appearances on television, motion pictures and print media. He's really well known, and I don't think there's a lot of "Naked Singing Cowboy" imitators. In Oklahoma, he and they would probably be arrested. A naked singing cowboy in Bricktown is likely not in our near future.

For most of you who don't know, a woman (definitely not a lady) can go topless in public in New York City (which is not the law of the land in most places). So if your 12-, 13- or 14-year-old boys run away, they might go to New York City instead of California. If you've ever been to New York City, you'll realize that the "Naked Singing Cowboy" is just a small part of the whole bizarre mix!

Our precious M&Ms decided to include in their new upbeat, cartoonish advertising campaign a peanut M&M in "tighty whiteys" with a cowboy hat and a guitar. If people associate this with that New York CIty NUT, he ought to be honored — attention seems to be his goal in life. Does he deserve any $$$ for this satirical parody? I think not. He should be flattered, but definitely not compensated.

Chad Stevens (the Fowler car commercial guy) does parodies all the time — like the Mathis Brothers (holding the dog was priceless), UPS (playing with the marker on the whiteboard), and the infamous noodling movie parody. I don't think those people are suing him!

Besides, all the "Naked Singing Cowboy" needs is a gym membership, because he doesn't buy clothes and food (no shirt, no service). If they give him anything, it should be peanuts (M&Ms, that is) or sunscreen.

* * * * * * *

Check your roofs — with all this weather we've had, even newer roofs might have been severely damaged. check it out before leaks start or other problems occur.

If you know someone buying or selling a home, tell them to call me. Thanks, and let's all look forward to a great 4th of July!!!

Father's Day in Culture Town

Gosh, I don't know what's wrong with our culture, society or general everyday living space. The week before Father's Day on the search engine Lycos, guess what the rankings by search terms were? They have a Top 50 list every week.

• Let's start with #1 — Lindsay Lohan. What a train-wreck personality! 

• Or #2 — YouTube (which could be anything from a gospel song, performance, or a mouse riding a cat riding a dog riding in a Hot Wheels car being pulled by a pig in the Garlic Day parade.

• Then there's more floozies, actresses or models than you can shake a stick at: at #3 Kim Kardashian; #4 Megan Fox; #7 Paris Hilton; #8 Jessica Alba; #10 Angelina Jolie (whatever?); #12 Pamela Anderson; and #16 Jessica Biel.

• Surprising — coming in at #5 was Naruto (no, it's not a natural way for men to grow hair on a bald head). It's the Japanese animated whatever, like a smart-aleck show-off Ninja punk.

• Then who would have thunk it? Our old pal (not the American Idol) Clay Aiken is #6. Why, why, WHY????

• At #9, 13 and 14 respectively, were Pokemon (the franchise lives on $$$), Facebook (I guess there's not enough pictures of sloppy drunks or 50ish men claiming they are "sensitive" and 40) and MySpace (so yesterday, it's beyond imagination).

• For the practical (or web thieves), there was BitTorrent at #15, the cool way to move files and media. Practical at #15 is a surprise!

• Then all you sports fans come in with Boston Celtics at #17 and Golf at #18, which should be HUGE, I would think (Father's Day week and golf at a lowly #18?). Both are behind the sports leader on Lycos, WWE at #11. (Well, maybe professional wrestling isn't a sport, per se, but there's lots of physical activity and a lot of sport watching the people who are watching the WWE.)

All this is to say that feminists, sit-coms, comedians and society have put down fathers, so last week Father's Day came out at #19. What a shame. Next year I'll be checking out the Mother's Day ratings on Lycos. At least Dad beat out Poker (#22), Coco Crisp (#36) and Hillary Clinton, who didn't even make the list (how quickly we forget!).

If you're buying or selling a home, call me — "That Real Estate Guy".

Father's Day in the Big Town

Once a year, it's time to realize that I used to get excited to buy my Dad cologne (that he never used) or fishing stuff. Now he's passed away at age 93, and I'm the Dad, with two wonderful daughters who my Dad was so very proud to have as granddaughters and a wonderful mother for the girls. I think Dad thought I could possibly marry a barmaid from Bartlesville (and he wasn't looking down on the barmaid!).

When I was young, Dad and I went to the old All-Sports Stadium a lot to see the Oklahoma City '89ers baseball team, back when the Bricktown Ballpark or the Redhawks were still just a cloud in somebody's crystal ball.

Even though I was young, I still knew something crazy was going on when they had 10¢ beer night. Rowdy crowd, I guess! Yelling the crass, loud remarks at the opposing batters. We stayed until the game was over, even in a blow-out, because Dad had forked over the money for tickets and we were getting the "full enjoyment", whether you liked it or not. The up-side — with fewer people in the stands, it meant that foul balls were easier to catch, chase down or wrestle for.

The food was typical fair (pun intended) — All-Sports Stadium was on the fairgrounds. I knew Dad was good for two or three concession buys per night. Unfortunately, one of them was for hot dogs or hamburgers, because we didn't eat supper beforehand. If we did, though, then Junk Food City, here we come! Ice cream, cotton candy, caramel apples, peanuts (lots of peanuts), funnel cakes and candy bars. 

I did observe something, even at that young and tender age. Down the first base line, right in front of the bleachers, was the bullpen, stocked with pitchers and catchers not seeing game action. So guess who was in the first base line bleachers? Twenty-something girls — blondes, brunettes, redheads and bleached blondes (Marilyn Monroe wannabes). 

Was this just fate? I don't think so. Sometimes I would overhear conversations or the ball players would have me fetch one of the girls for them to talk with. I thought, "How lucky those girls are to get to 'meet' the ball players and go out with them." As I got older, I realized the ball player was getting played like a trout on a fly rod.

Happy Father's Day to all you Dads out there!

What's Your Peeve Level?

Don't give me that "holier-than-thou" look when I ask what the current top five on your pet peeves list are. We all have things that eat away at us like a squirrel gnawing on an old pecan.

• The "dude" in the 10-item-or-less express line at the grocery store with his monthly shopping (over 10, over 15 — do I hear over 20 items?!?!).

• The lady that grabs the one item in a store of 12,000+ items that doesn't have a price tag, and of course the person who works in that department just started their 30-minute lunch break. After no one can be found to tell them the price, the cashier comes up with a price off the top of her head of $15.99, and the customer says, "I'll think about it..."

• Convenience store clerks that ask a 50-year-old lady for her ID to buy a pack of cigarettes (how cute, how adorable, how special!!), and meanwhile the line is eight people deep while the lady digs in her purse and pulls out the pictures of her nine grandkids to get to her license and prove she's over 21.

• Try this one — you pick up the dry cleaning, and your clothing has a very visible spot on it that wasn't there when you brought it in. Then they try to convince you it was there. It's almost duke-it time, and they aren't smart enough to see that you're a "life-long" customer (if they'd just take care of you!).

• Next on the list — clerks who have people sign up for credit cards and preferred customer cards while check-out lines back up. Not to mention any names, but (Kohl's, Best Buy, Steinmart and CVS) are the worst offenders.

• A real biggie — people who go through a large intersection on a green light, but stop immediately on the other side of the intersection to turn LEFT into a business on the corner. Breakdown!!! Instead of planning ahead (30 seconds max) by working their way over to the left-turn lane, turning left at the intersection, then turning RIGHT into the business on the corner, they block the inside lane of traffic while waiting for the cars in the opposing two lanes to clear out so they can turn. Instead of being selfish, blocking the intersection and messing up the traffic flow, be a good citizen and do the LEFT, then RIGHT thing!

• For all of you coupon users, what's the deal with restaurants having "buy one, get one for half-price" coupons? Whatever happened to "buy one meal, get one free"?

• That leads us to waiters or waitresses that take your order and gets every order wrong, or (as my friend Doris will attest to) that they just flat-out didn't turn your order in to the kitchen. Talk about a long wait!!! But at least they gave me a free breadstick. A FREE BREADSTICK — isn't that special???

Remember, if you know someone buying or selling, tell them to give me a call. 

PS: All comments are appreciated, even if they're negative. I take criticism well, but not long!

Pitch ’Til You Win!

We are an over-eating society, with Oklahomans at the head of the chute. Buffets, smorgasbords, all-you-can-eat, load ’em up nights, bottomless plate specials, endless choices and piles of pizza come at us like a freight train.

One of the busiest is Furr's Fresh Buffet on I-35 in Moore. Cars are parked on the grass, spilling out of the parking lot for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It's been rumored that if you went all-out on all three meals in one day, that you'd explode or be on a Tums I.V. I'm not brave enough to try it out!

Now, to kick this food flood up a notch, Lambert's Café in Springfield, MO, combines devouring and dodgeball. This sport is buffet ball where your life, looks and appetite are tested to the utmost. Did I mention Lambert's is the home of "Throwed Rolls"? ZING! They just missed us!

That's right — the staff is wandering around with big pans of fried potatoes with onions, macaroni 'n' tomatoes, fried okra and black-eyed peas going through the crowd dipping spoonfuls onto your plate or wax paper constantly throughout your meal. The sneaky people in their red suspenders pile you up with food, food, mounds of delicious-smelling, eye-pleasing and tasteful Southern home-cooked favorites. All this in addition to your (so-called) "normal" order of an entree choice of such delights as meat loaf, chicken fried steak, chicken and dumplings or roast beef, with your choice of two of over 18 choices in side dishes. ZING! I think that roll grazed the side of my head!

Look over there — a young high school boy is running around the room, doing his best Brett Favre imitation. Zigging and zagging to avoid the lineman's rush and hurling a spiral (roll) to some unsuspecting gentleman on a seniors' bus trip. He misses the catch, but the roll never touches the floor so it's still in play.

Remember the guys in school that for some reason were never athletic enough to even catch any type of ball? Guess what? They still can't, and when they try to catch a roll, their wife or girlfriend gets pulverized with the tipped roll. I'm here to tell you, the Brett Favre wannabe can flat CHUNK those rolls!

Bring your appetites and maybe your old catcher's mitt. Good food — and prepare to loosen your belt!