There's Nothing Lame About His Ducking Skills

Displaying reflexes that could earn him an honorary membership in the TMNT should he choose to take that path after his term ends, President George W. Bush narrowly missed tasting some shoe leather as an Iraqi TV reporter hurled his kicks at him during a news conference on Sunday. I wonder if President Bush is asking himself why can't he be more like Tom Jones. Whereas the "What's New Pussycat" singer gets panties tossed at him, the Prez has to worry about avoiding Florsheims upside the head. I know some of you may be saying that those panties belong to women with AARP cards. But hey... they're still panties!

Below you can watch the shoe throwing incident in real time and in slo-mo. This is one of those clips that will never get old to me. It ranks right up there with former Indianapolis Colts coach Jim Mora's "playoffs" rant back in 2001 as one that will make me laugh every time I see it.

The Retro Mix Playlist For 12/12/08

12 midnight hour

Back In Black- AC/DC
Love Train- The Supremes
Love Will Find A Way- Pablo Cruise
Turn This Mutha Out- M.C. Hammer
Come Out and Play- The Offspring
Mandinka- Sinead O'Connor
Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)- Jay-Z

The Guilty Pleasure of the Week:
Sad Eyes- Robert John

Under Attack- ABBA
7- Prince
Fly Like An Eagle- Seal
Come and Get Your Love- Redbone

1 am hour

Wild Wild West- The Escape Club
Is That Love?- Squeeze
Go Ahead With All That- Chanté Moore
Every Little Step- Bobby Brown
Crippled Inside- John Lennon
Stumbling In- Suzi Quatro & Chris Norman
Party Train- The Gap Band
Name- The Goo Goo Dolls
This Is the Sound- The Juliana Hatfield Three
Wild Thing- Tone Loc
Thank God It's Friday- Love & Kisses
Evil Woman- Electric Light Orchestra
The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite- R.E.M.
Another One Bites the Dust- Queen

The Retro Mix Video of the Week: Under Attack by ABBA

Abba - Under Attack
Uploaded by jpdc11

Special Time For The Retro Mix

Instead of it's regularly scheduled time of 7 pm EST, my show (The Retro Mix) will air tonight from midnight to 2 am. For information about The Retro Mix and how you can listen online, click here. I hope you can join me.

Malcolm and Pancakes: A Love Story

As I mentioned in one of my recent DWTS posts, I missed Lance Bass' fall during his dance routine because I was preoccupied with my preparation of some pancakes. Ever since my mother used to make them for us as a kid, I've had a love affair with flapjacks that continued into adulthood. A few years, I had an amicable parting of the ways with pancakes. During that time, there were a couple of quickies if I happened to be ordering breakfast at a restaurant. However, these brief encounters were the extent of our "relationship".

Earlier this fall I was reading one of my favorite blogs, Thoughtful Reflections (written by Jessica). In one of her posts, she linked to a previous one she had written about flapjacks. That was all it took for me to fully embrace my fixation once again. When I went grocery shopping shortly thereafter, I made sure I bought a box of pancake mix and a bottle of syrup. Once I got back to my apartment, I couldn't wait to fire up that skillet! When it comes to pancakes, I am a fairly basic guy. I don't need strawberries or whipped cream (however, those two items have me thinking about something else entirely). Anyway, back to the pancakes... as long as they are oozing with butter and syrup, I'm fine. Because I don't allow the time of day to dictate what I eat, I was having pancakes for dinner on some nights. It was getting to the point where I strongly considered hanging an IHOP sign above the entrance to my apartment.

As a kid, the only syrup I remember my mother buying was Alaga (the name is a combination of Alabama and Georgia, the home states of the company founder and his wife). Unfortunately, the grocery store in my area doesn't carry it. In early November, after doing my radio show one Friday night, I stopped by one of the Kroger locations in Flint hoping that they carried Alaga syrup. Kroger management didn't let me down. The original sugar cane flavor of Alaga is just the way I remembered it: sweet and so thick that when it dries around the mouth of the bottle, you can get a decent workout trying to unscrew the top.

I took me awhile, but I realized that I had to abandon my love once again. At the rate I was going, it wouldn't have been long before I'd be saying, "Hey, hey, hey" as I headed to the local junkyard to join my band and play bubblegum soul songs with a message. Even though I've bid farewell to flapjacks for now, I know that we will hook up again at some point in time. What's cool about our relationship is that there are no hard feelings. When I was in the pantry of my kitchen tonight, the bottle of Alaga temporarily morphed into Mrs. Butterworth and said to me, "It's OK Malcolm, I understand. You have to do what's best for you right now. Just know that whenever you want me, I'll be right down here waiting."

Are you a pancake lover? If so, what are your favorite toppings? To help put you in that pancake state of mind, check out a clip from the 1965 Chilly Willy cartoon titled Half-Baked Alaska. This scene features Chilly at a diner getting set to eat a stack of flapjacks.

Final Results of the Fast Food Commercial Poll

By an overwhelming margin, most people felt that fast food commercials should not be banned from TV. As I mentioned in the post inviting readers to participate in the poll, a new study shows that a ban on fast food TV commercials could reduce childhood obesity by 18%. However, I am wary of studies such as this because I feel that they often can be slanted. I still feel that getting kids involved in physical activities and parents taking more responsibility in their children's meal choices will have a greater effect on reducing childhood obesity.

I am surprised that more people didn't feel that banning fast food commercials was a bad idea. There were actually 11 people who voted "Yes" in the poll. Unfortunately, they didn't leave any comments in the post as to why they feel this way. If any of you who voted "yes" are reading this, I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic.

Here are the final results:

Yes: 26%

No: 73%

The Retro Mix Playlist For 12/5/08

7 pm hour

Girls Just Want To Have Fun- Cyndi Lauper
Right On- The Rascals
Old Fashioned Love- The Commodores
The Humpty Dance- Digital Underground
Thank You- Dido
Pop Goes the World- Men Without Hats
Hot Line- The Sylvers

With or Without You segment's feat. artist: Gerry Rafferty
Stuck In the Middle With You- Stealer's Wheel
Right Down the Line (solo)

Encore- Cheryl Lynn
Everything About You- Ugly Kid Joe
When It Began- The Replacements
Raise the Roof- Public Enemy

8 pm hour

Hungry Heart- Bruce Springsteen
It's No Crime- Babyface
Medley- Stars On 45
Monkey Wrench- The Foo Fighters
Divine Hammer- The Breeders
Stomp!- The Brothers Johnson

Now & Then segment's feat. artist: Rick Springfield
What's Victoria's Secret? (from his 2008 CD Venus In Overdrive)
I've Done Everything For You (released in 1981)

It Must Be Love- Alton McClain & Destiny
Flashlight- Parliament
Lover Come Back- Dead or Alive
Jeremy- Pearl Jam

Note: On Friday December 12th, The Retro Mix will not air at its regularly scheduled time. It will air 5 hours later from midnight until 2 am.

The Retro Mix Video of the Week: What's Victoria's Secret? by Rick Springfield

Please Take A Moment To Vote In the Current Fast Food TV Ad Poll... Thank You

According to a new study, a ban on fast food TV commercials could reduce childhood obesity by 18%. If you'd like to read the story on the study, click here. Although most of us will agree that childhood obesity is a problem, I don't feel that banning fast food ads is the solution. These days, it's too easy for kids to lead a sedentary lifestyle. If we can get kids to put down the remote control/video game control pads and get them involved in physical activity, that would be a step in the right direction.

As always, feel free to provide feedback in the comments section after voting.

Old School Friday: Actors/Actresses Who Can Sing and Vice Versa

For this week's OSF, I chose a single by Ralph Carter (best known for portraying Michael Evans on the 1974-1979 sitcom Good Times). Titled When You're Young and In Love (a song that was a hit in 1967 for the Marvelettes), Ralph's version hit the pop/R&B charts (#37 and #95, respectively) in 1975. For his performance of the song on Soul Train (which you can watch below), Ralph demonstrated that he was more than just a "militant midget".

Thursday Thirteen #65: Richard Pryor Quotes

Thirteen Quotes by Richard Pryor

December 1st marked what would have been Richard Pryor's 68th birthday. As a belated commemoration, I've listed 13 quotes by the man that many (including me) call the greatest stand-up comedian of all-time.

1. Upon traveling to Zimbabwe: I know how white people feel in America now, relaxed. Because when I hear the police siren, I knew they wasn't comin' after me.

2. I had to stop drinkin', cuz I got tired of waking in my car driving ninety.

3. I'd like to die like my father died... My father died fucking. My father was 57 when he died. The woman was 18. My father came and went at the same time.

4. I believe in the institution of marriage, and I intend to keep trying 'til I get it right.

5. On race relations: I don't understand what goes on some times, right, cuz here we are in this theater, we gettin' along just fine. We go outside and the shit change.

6. The way I see it, the earth is going to be here after we're dead and gone. Even if it's a polluted planet, and they messed it up. Where do they go from here - to another planet so they can mess that up too?

7. I'm not addicted to coke, i just love the way it smells

8. On trying to find his roots: I went through every phone book in Africa, and I didn't find one god damned Pryor!

9. I'm for human lib, the liberation of all people, not just black people or female people or gay people.

10. It's so much easier for me to talk about my life in front of two thousand people than it is one-to-one. I'm a real defensive person, because if you were sensitive in my neighborhood you were something to eat.

11. I never met anybody who said when they were a kid, I wanna grow up and be a critic.

12. Rosa Parks showed us all that one little person can make a whole bunch of noise without so much as a whisper. She showed the world that the color of your skin shouldn't determine what part of the bus you sit in... as you ride through life.

13. On meeting Ronald Reagan at The White House: Muthafucka looked at me like I owed him money.


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Tina Fey: The Story Behind the Scar Revealed

For some time now, there has been a fascination with Tina Fey's scar on the left side of her chin and cheek. There is even a blog devoted to the subject. When I first noticed Tina's scar, I was intrigued. I became even more so after reading an interview that Tina did with Entertainment Weekly in 2003 (the author of the article wrote that Tina's facial scar was from a childhood injury she preferred not to discuss). Although I was curious to hear the story behind the scar, I was also cool never learning what happened.

But now, after all these years, the biggest mystery since "How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?" has finally been answered. In an interview that Tina and her husband Jeff Richmond gave for the January 2009 issue of Vanity Fair, Richmond says a stranger slashed Fey's face when she was 5 years old. He goes on to say that the incident occurred in the front yard of her house. To read the complete Vanity Fair interview, click here.

Oh well, now that we know the story behind Tina Fey's scar, it's on to the next mystery. Speaking of scars, I'm dying to know what's in Al Capone's vault. I think a certain mustachioed Fox News Channel personality is just the person who can get to the bottom of this.