I’d like to thank the NFL scheduling gods for placing the Cowboys bye-week in a position where we can actually get news about the World Series in our local Dallas paper.

Speaking of the World Series, was anybody else touched by the kid from Odessa who got to throw out the first pitch last night?

Here’s how the Boston Globe describe it:

“”It’s amazing,” exclaimed Andrew Madden, a 13-year-old Odessa, Texas, native who emerged from the walkway outside the Red Sox clubhouse yesterday afternoon and saw Fenway Park in person for the first time. “The Green Monster is awesome.”
So was his entire day. The youngster threw out the first pitch last night before Game 2 of the World Series between the Boston Red Sox and Colorado Rockies. Former Sox right fielder Dwight Evans escorted him.
Madden is a heart transplant recipient who fell in love with the Red Sox during the 2004 playoffs and has been a fan since. He and his surgeon, Kristine Guleserian, a Boston native, created a bond while Madden waited for a new heart. They followed the ’07 Red Sox closely, and Guleserian promised Madden that she would bring him to a game at Fenway if the team made the postseason.”

Nice

But speaking of the Series again, what was Rudy thinking?!!

He could maybe get away with that if this was Texas. But picking the hated Sox as a New Yorker?
Come on, even I know that’s bad.

And speaking of New York, you may remember my blog about Tex-Mex. Well, it appears that even the food writer for the New York Times is hooked. And it appears that he has the good taste to suggest Herrera’s as one of the archetypal restaurants. Read it here.
I like the part where the government of Mexico tried to retrain fifty Tex-Mex chefs as to what is actually “Mexican” and what is not.

Know what? We get it. It’s NOT Mexican, it’s Tex-Mex. That was my point.

This is perhaps the most pitiful headline I’ve ever read.

Why is this so hard to believe? She’s absolutely right: on a good day, the air in LA is horrible. How much worse with fires raging all around? I remember several years ago when fires in central Mexico choked us here in Dallas for a week.

Two from the category of “quirky covers you can find on MySpace”…

First there’s Belle Rumore, an all woman band of voilin players who do a really fun cover of Chicago’s 25 or 6 to 4.

Speaking of Chicago’s music and MySpace, here’s their bass player, Jason Scheff, doing an amazing acapella “Stairway to Heaven.”
Jason is the high harmony guy for Chicago so it’s no wonder he can pull this off. (A shout out to his brother, Darin, who I’ve known for many years now, via the fact that his company hosts this website…)

One more note about Jason…
This past year, he completed 21-years with Chicago. That’s now officially longer than Peter Cetera, the man he replaced, was ever with the band. Give you some perspective, huh?

Speaking of Chicago members and MySpace, I meant to tell you all about getting an email from Robert Lamm. Lamm wrote a MySpace blog called “Good Ideas.” You can read it here. The gist of it was to suggest that we can all make the world a better place through the choices we make. As an example, he lifted up mosquito nets for Africa. Well, as you may remember, one of our most successful Connections Band shows was at Walnut Hill UMC last year, where the beneficiary was “Nothing But Nets,” a non-profit dedicated to providing mosquito nets for Africa.

So, I wrote Robert Lamm to tell him that, in a way he couldn’t possibly know, his music had actually been helping on this very issue, in that we raised $4,000 for this very cause by playing his music in a free concert.

A few days later, I got this one line response:

“Thanks for the update, and for getting involved in a real way with the Nothing But Nets effort. Keep on rockin’, my friend!
RL”

Awesome.
Robert Lamm knows about Connections.
Wow.

For those who doubt the whole MySpace thing, I will observe that it’s an amazing site precisely because a guy like me can communicate with folks like Jason Scheff and Robert Lamm. That don’t happen everyday, and it’s pretty cool when it does.

And speaking of Connections’ artists, James Taylor’s new CD, “One Man Band,” is now out.
(Is this a play on “One Man Dog?”)

Finally, speaking of Taylor, and to end where we began (with the World Series), I hope you got to see JT doing the National Anthem last night:

“James Taylor was positively beaming as he stood behind home plate at Fenway Park early Thursday afternoon.

Preparing to rehearse the national anthem, Taylor, born in Boston and a loyal Red Sox fan, submitted his list of elements closely tied to New Englanders.
“We identify ourselves by a number of things,” Taylor said. “Maple sugar, lobsters, the leaves turning, the Boston Tea Party and the Sox. It’s part of our blood.””

Read the whole story here.

You can find the video on this page (October 25th entry)

This gives me chills…

Fenway Park…the Big Green Monster…the Red Sox in the series…a kid from Odessa throwing out the first pitch…James Taylor, playing his Olson and singing the National Anthem…

Could it be cooler?

Go Sox!