End of Year Time Killers

Over the past few weeks, several articles have been published dealing with some of Shedd's Spot favorite subjects: Robert Byrd, Dan Snyder, the Washington Nationals. Seeing that the Shedd's Spot postings have been few and far between lately, I thought I'd share the articles with you.

A couple of days before Christmas, The Washington Post ran this story on the ol' Exalted Cyclops and how important he was to healthcare reform passing in the Senate. Three days after the article was published, The Post ran this brief feedback piece from the literary editor of The Weekly Standard that reminds readers of Robert Byrd's involvement in the Klan.

In early December, the Washington City Paper's Dave McKenna used his Cheap Seats column to sum up all of Dan Snyder's 2009 missteps. Read the column and get a laugh or two here.

On December 30th, soon to be ex-Washington Post Nationals beat reporter Chico Harlan wrote this Nats Journal piece on the 10 biggest Nationals developments of 2009. To me, the post affirms my claim the biggest mistake the Lerner family made since acquiring the team was keeping Jim Bowden as general manager. The team bottomed out in spring of 2009 with the Smiley Gonzalez scandal and, since then, the team has made massive positive changes in its front office. Unfortunately, those changes don't translate immediately to wins on the diamond. But, some of us have faith the team is finally headed in the right direction.

Thanksgiving Time Killers: The West Va. Music Hall of Fame

(Shedd's spot has been on hiatus again because of work. I hope I can get things cranked back up and keep it going.)

During past visits to West Virginia, I've made posts that jump all over the place. So, I think I'll keep this on one subject, the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame.

A couple of weeks back, the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame inducted its third class of honorees. Among the class were country pioneers the Bailes Brothers and country singer Hawkshaw Hawkins. Over the years, there were four Bailes brothers who performed at different times, in different combinations as the Bailes Brothers. Of the four, only Homer Bailes, age 87, is alive today. At the time this Charleston Gazette piece was written, Homer Bailes was en route from his home in Louisiana back to West Virginia for the Hall of Fame ceremony. So, most of the article's quotes on the Bailes Brothers came from Bailes' daughter. Here is my favorite quote from the daughter:

They were all ornery. They were whoremongers and alcoholics, but they loved each other, and they loved the music.

It won't probably surprise you Homer Bailes became a preacher later on in his life. Those sort of things happen a lot in country music.

I posted this Shedd's Spot piece back in March that features a video of Hawkshaw Hawkins performing "Car Hoppin' Mama" and you can read more about Hawkins in this recent Charleston Gazette article.

You can read more about the Bailes Brothers, Hawkins and the rest of 2009 class here.

One final note about the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame. You shouldn't believe all the inductees were/are country performers. The Hall has also inducted Polka King Frank Yankovic and Chuck Berry's long time pianist Johnnie Johnson.

Shedd's Spot 100th Post

It's been a little over four months since I set this blog up and posted my first entry. That entry, celebrating the end of West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd's tenure as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, was inspired by my visit to West Virginia over the holidays. During that trip, it seemed every turn I took led me to something named after Byrd, who is one of the all time kings of pork barrel spending.

Since then, I've tried to be informative and funny while trying not to take myself too seriously. There have been quite a few posts on the Washington Nationals, a few lamenting the days of old here in the D.C. area, and a lot of posts on music.

Not surprisingly, two of the most read posts were ones picked up by other blogs or websites. "Frank Goes Nuts" was picked up the L.A. Angels fan blog Three Days of Cryin' while "Music News from Elvis Costello and Bill Kirchen" was linked to by the website Elvis Costello Fans. Another widely read post was "The Godfather Winds Up the Crowd at Wolf Trap" about Chuck Brown's April appearance at the Barns of Wolf Trap.

A post that has been suprisingly popular is the Friday Frolics post featuring Junior Samples. It has made its way around the world wide web a few times via email. Who knew there were that many Junior Samples fans out there?

One thing I have noticed is that if you mention the NCAA in a post, someone with that organzation is going to read it. Every mention of the NCAA here on Shedd's Spot has garnered at least one hit from a PC (or Blackberry) on the NCAA's network.

I want to thank a few folks for their help so far...Tadcranky for his blogging tips, same for "M.K. in Portand and "J.D." in Richmond for his topic suggestions. Most of all, thanks to all of you for reading, even the reader who called me a "big p*ssy fair weather fan" in an anonymous comment on my post "With Eight Tickets You Get a Haynesworth" that criticized the Washington Redskins for signing Albert Haynesworth. As long as y'all keep reading, I'll keep posting.

Just in Case You Don't Understand the Jesco White Thing...

This news piece appeared on the The Nashville Network in the early 90s. It is probably the best explanation you'll get of the Jesco White cult craze that followed the release of Dancing Outlaw. By the way, Dancing Outlaw, produced and directed by Jacob Young, won an Emmy Award in 1992 for Best Public Television Program.

Now This Is a Schedule Filled With Promotions!!!

Here's an entry that includes several topics discussed in recent Shedd's Spot posts: West Virginia, minor league baseball, the Dancing Outlaw and Barbie.

The West Va. Power, a member of the Class A South Atlantic League, recently announced it's 2009 game promotion schedule. You'll remember, that in this prior post, I mentioned the Power was conducting an online poll to determine which West Va. celebrity fans would most like to see on a bobblehead doll. The results are in and the Power decided to put several celebrities, including some non-West Virgnians, on bobbleheads throughout the season. The list of bobbleheads to be given to fans includes former WVU football players Pat White and Owen Schmitt, the Exalted Cylops himself, Senator Robert Byrd, President Obama and Jesco White, the Dancing Outlaw. Supposedly, the Jesco White bobblehaed won't actually be a bobblehead. It will have bobbling feet instead in order to mimic Jesco's dancing. Also supposedly both Whites, Pat and Jesco, have agreed to appear at Appalachian Power Park on the night of their bobblehead giveaways.

Also on the schedule are appearances by the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, Mr. T and Mr. Belding from Saved By The Bell. (I wonder if Mr. Belding will be bringing any special pictures he may have taken during the days Saved By The Bell was in production?) A Barbie night is also in the works to play off the recent publicity the state has received due to a member of the state legislature seeking to outlaw the sale of Barbie dolls in the state. (See this prior post.)

One final note on the West Virignia Power. This year, the Power will be a minor league affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates. To commemorate the glory days of the Charleston Charlies, a Class AAA Pirates affiliate in the 1970s, the Power introduced an alternative logo. The logo combines the Charlies derby wearing baseball with the Pirates swashbuckling look. Of course, in today's age of political correctness, the original Charlie cigar was left off the logo. A picture of the new logo on a baseball is shown above.

Two Very Different Takes on West Virginia Music

When in West Virginia, write blog entries about West Virginia....

This entry is on two very different types of West Virginia music and the very different people who play them. The first type is along the lines of what you would expect, accoustic music played by an older couple who have played old time music all their lives. The second type is not what you would expect, music that could loosely be called rockabilly played by someone Appalshop described as "Elvis in Sid Vicious’s body with a little Frank Sinatra thrown in".

This morning, my dad showed me an article from a 2004 edition of Goldenseal magazine about Lester and Linda McCumbers, a couple from Calhoun County, West Virginia. The McCumbers, now in their 80s, both grew up during the depression when families used music played in the home as both entertainment and as an escape from the daily grind a hard life. As the McCumbers grew older, they continued to play and sing. Now the McCumbers are considered one of the few remaining living links to the days of real old time music. The Goldenseal article is not available online, but a 2003 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article about the couple is available here, complete with soundclips of them performing.

Hasil (pronounced "Hassle") Adkins was born sometime in the 1930s in Boone County, West Virginia. Sometime in the 1950s, he started recording, mostly as a one man band. Adkins claimed he wrote over 7,000 songs during his life. Among those songs were "Blue Star", "The Hunch" (which supposedly has an accompanying dance which mimmicks sex), "Chicken Walk", "No More Hot Dogs" and "She Said", which was covered by the Cramps. Most of the songs were either ruthless rockers or slow, rough edged country ballads. For 50 years or so, Adkins made it through life banging out gigs and being a cult hero. Then, Adkins died in April 2005 ten days after being intentionally run down a teenager on an ATV.

I could write more on Adkins, but I think it's best you witness him for yourself. Start by listening to the cuts included on the Myspace page dedicated to him here. Then, go on to read this interview first published in Planet magazine in 1995. At the bottom of that page is a link to information about how Adkins got caught in a war of words between Village Voice writer Howard Hampton and Sting. The official Hasil Adkins website is here and, finally, here is information from the Appalshop website on the documentary Appalshop produced on Adkins entitled The Wild World of Hasil Adkins.

After reading all that information, it probably won't surprise you to learn Adkins once released an album dedicated to the chicken...

Follow Up on Yesterday's WV Police Blotter

I read in The Charleston Gazette where fugitive Joshua James Harrison was rounded up while hiding out at his grandmother's house. He had cut off the monitoring bracelet that was on his ankle and decided to run....straight to a relative's house. That was not so smart move number 0ne. Not so smart move number two was deciding to hide in his grandmother's freezer when the police showed up. This quote from a local policeman on how the police knew Harrison was hiding in the freezer is great.

"The officers went in and were looking around and they looked over toward the kitchen area, toward the freezer," Stover said. "They noticed all the frozen foods from the freezer were on the counter. ... It's amazing where people will find to hide, but that was one of the oddest."

A Post That Is All Things West Virginia

Shedd's Spot will be reporting from the Mountain State for the next couple of days beginning this evening. Meanwhile, here are some entertaining tidbits from the state that gave us the Exalted Cyclops, Senator Robert C. Byrd.

First off, WV beer blogger Rich Ireland doesn't want Yuengling "imported" into his state. Read about it here.

I know this sort of weird stuff happens everywhere, but when a stepmom gets busy with her stepson it's headline news, like this story, in West Virginia because there aren't always other things to report on. Be sure to check out the mugshot. And, let us not forget about the middle school teacher who had a thing for one of her students. Here is a blurb about it. Although Shedd's Spot is following a story on an escaped fugitive for a later post, I'll end the police blotter part of this entry with this short piece on a cock fighting ring being busted. One reader suggests cock fighting should be a felony, then another reader follows with "felonious cockfighting...has quite a ring to it.".....classic.

But, let's not have this post cast an entirely negative light on West Virginia. Two friends and I will be entering, as a team, the Great Greenbrier River Race at the end of April. The race is a fundraiser that helps keep up the Greenbrier River Trail.

If you ever happen to be passing thru Craigsville, WW, stop and have a meal at the Ranch House Restaurant. You can't go wrong there.

Major Eats in the Minor Leagues and Other Tidbits From the Lower Levels of Baseball

The Western Michigan Whitecaps minor league baseball team has jumped into the world challenge eating. You know what challenge eating is, right? It's where the customer buys an enormous sized meal and if the customer finishes it in one sitting, he/she gets a prize and/or the meal is free. The Whitecaps entry into the market comes via the Fifth Third Burger, a burger which consists of five one-third lb. burger patties and several toppings that include a cup of chili and Fritos. The entire burger weighs upwards of four lbs. and contain 4800 calories. If the purchaser finishes the $20 burger in one sitting, he/she gets a t-shirt. This recent story in The Grand Rapid Press details the story behind the burger and contains a video on the making of the burger. Of course, the reader comments attached to the story are exactly what you would expect....they are along the lines of "it's no wonder Americans are fat" or "I can't wait to have one". The best comment I saw on the burger was on a different website. It was simply "what, no bacon?". By the way, the Fifth Third Burger shares its name with the sponsor of the Whitecaps' ballpark, Fifth Third Bank.

To give equal time to healthier eating at the ballpark, here is a story MinorLeagueBaseball.com ran back in November on the vegetarian menu at Merchantsauto.com Stadium, home of the New Hampshire Fisher Cats. PETA has named the stadium the Most Vegetarian-Friendly Ballpark in Minor League Baseball. Oh yeah, that wasn't People Eating Tasting Animals who gave the award.

I recently found this interview with former James Madison University stand out baseball player Kellen Kulbacki on the Project Prospect website. Kulbacki talks about how his game improved last season after he was promoted from low A to high A ball within the Padres farm system. Kulbacki hit 20 HRs in 304 at bats after being promoted. Presently, Baseball America has Kulbacki ranked as the fourth best prospect in the Padres system.

In 2001, MinorLeagueBaseball.com published this list of the 100 best minor league teams of all time. It's interesting to see how many Baltimore Orioles teams from the 1910s and 1920s are on the list. Seeing most of us weren't around during those glory days of the minor league Orioles, check out a couple of the more recent teams on the list. I liked the piece on the 1992 Columbus Clippers because I had seen several players from that team, including J.T. Snow and Brad Ausmus, play for the Prince William Canons in the years just prior to 1992.

And finally, I found it funny the West Virginia Power is taking an online poll asking fans which West Virginia celebrity fans would most like to see on a bobblehead doll. The choices are Senator Robert Byrd, Jennifer Garner, Jerry West, Randy Moss and the Dancing Outlaw himself, Jesco White. Anyone who knows me, knows my vote is for good ol' Jesco.

Quickies

It's less than two weeks until the official start of spring and less than a month to the unofficial start of spring...baseball opening day. So appropriately, today's Quickies post has nothing to do with either spring or baseball....

50 years ago today (March 9th), Barbara Millicent Roberts came onto the American pop culture scene and depsite a few controversies, both here and abroad, she is still going strong. The latest fight Miss Roberts faces is in West Virginia, where State Delegate Jeff Eldridge has introduced legislation to ban her because she supposedly sets a bad example for little girls. Eldridge seems to be following the lead of Saudi Arabia, where Miss Roberts was outlawed in 2003. It's hard to understand why folks would have it in for Miss Roberts just because she once said "math class is tough". Everyone makes mistakes, so let's hope Delegate Eldridge sees his and drops his fight to ban the sale of Barbie dolls in West Virginia.

Remember the trade rumors involving Denver Broncos QB Jay Cutler a couple of weeks back? Remember Cutler's reaction to them? Well, it seems a lot of folks, including Cutler and "credible" sports media types like Peter King and Colin Cowherd, fell for a giant hoax. A message board poster calling himself "The Truth" fabricated the rumor in a post on the message board BroncosFreaks.com. So far, I've had very little success in finding my own "credible" news source verifying what I heard about this hoax on the radio this morning. But, another blogger seems to be upset about it. You know what they say..."if it's on the internet, it's gotta be true".

Finally, and on a serious note, on this day in 1977, a group of Hanafi Muslims entered three buildings in Washington, D.C. and began a 39 hour siege. During the siege, 150 people were held hostage, one person was killed, and several were injured, including then D.C. Council member Marion Barry. Barry was hit in the chest by a pellet from a shotgun shell. Of course, Barry recovered and went on the serve as mayor of D.C. on two different occasions and came close to driving the city into financial ruin. The Washington Post ran this story two years ago marking the 3oth anniversary of the siege.

Mexico's Grand Warlock Predicts U.S. Troop Build Up on the Mexican Border as the U.S. Looks to Expand into Mexico

Yes, Mexico's Grand Warlock, Antonio Vazquez, predicts the U.S. will pull troops out of Iraq in 2009 and place them on the Mexican Border in an attempt by the U.S. to expand U.S. territory.

Meanwhile, West Virginia's Exalted Cylops, Senator Robert Byrd, has predcicted WVU basketball coach Bob Huggins will make it thru 2009 without getting a DWI or wearing his infamous gold suit and matching shoes.

It's a New Day in Washington...and It's Not What You Think

Yes, big changes are coming to our Nation's Capital. Most everyone thinks those changes begin January 20th when Barrack Obama is innaugerated as our country's 44th President. But in fact, the changes begin when the 111th Congress convenes on January 5th.

The 111th Congress will feature a Senate Appropriations Committee chaired by Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii and not by Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia. After serving on the Committee since 1989, Byrd succumbed to pressure from Democratic leaders this past November and gave up the Committee chairmanship. On the surface, this may not seem much. But, in many ways, it's comparable to taking a child out of a candy store.

Byrd's long record of bringing pork barrel projects to West Virginia has been documented dozens of times over. It seems you can't swing a dead cat or, more appropriately, a dead road kill deer anywhere in West Virginia without hitting something named after Senator Byrd. My favorite Byrd project I've read about is the Robert C. Byrd Hardwood Technologies Center. If you search the internet for information on the Byrd Hardwood Technologies Center, you'll find dozens of articles on Byrd's long history of pork projects, but very little on what the Center actually does.

Now, I have to admit to being somewhat of a hypocrite in criticizing Byrd's pet projects. My parents moved back to West Virginia twelve years ago and I use the Robert C. Byrd Appalachian Highway System every time I visit them. Byrd's road projects have brought transportation to and from West Virginia light years forward from the awful crooked two lane roads that never failed to make me car sick every time my parents dragged me to West Virginia back when I was a kid.

One of Byrd's latest pork barrel goodies is a road project called Corridor H. Corridor H is will be a four lane divided highway which will run from the West Virginia-Virginia border west of Strasburg, Virginia to Interstate 79 near Weston, West Virginia. Several small sections of Corridor H have been opened, but the entire project won't be completed for years. With Interstate 64 entering West Virginia from Virginia to the south and Interstate 68 entering West Virginia from Maryland to the north, the need for Corridor H is very much in question. In question for everyone, that is, except me. Corridor H would cut the time it takes me to drive to my parents' house by an hour or so.

Although Senator Byrd is best known for his pork barrel projects, he is also known for his ego, his somewhat checkered past and his attempts at fiddle playing. Byrd has been known to refer to himself as "Big Daddy" and, as recently as last summer, was shown on a national news program bragging about the number of pork projects he has brought to West Virginia.

As to his past, prior to his election to the House of Representatives in 1952, Byrd was an active member of the Ku Klux Klan and had been elected Exalted Cyclops of his local chapter. (And all this time, I thought the only Exalted Cyclops in the Klan was John Goodman's character in Oh Brother Where Art Thou.)

Byrd and his fiddle have made numerous appearances throughout the years. He has sawed away on Hee Haw, at the Grand Ole Opry and even at the Kennedy Center, all the while playing up his image as a true West Virginian. My dad recently told me I saw the good senator sitting in with a distant cousin's bluegrass band back in the 70's. I don't remember it, but then again, how many nine year olds would pay attention to a fiddling senator?

Now 91, in poor health, and the longest serving Senator in the country's history, Robert C. Byrd doesn't play his fiddle much anymore. And beginning January 5, 2009, he won't have the country's purse strings to play much with either.