Two days ago we celebrated our 232nd birthday as a great nation. What a country! Our founding fathers were brilliant men who designed a roadmap to guide the way and it still works after all this time. There are forces at work trying to subvert our constitution and our national sovereignty, but I have faith that we'll ride the storm of political correctness and right the ship.
The holiday started for us on Thursday with The Peter Boyles Radio Circus. Our local talk show guru (The Radio Mayor of Denver) decided to do a remote broadcast from the Glendale Sports Arena and he invited a cast of characters from the local news that was just amazing.
The show started out with Terry Anderson, the firey talk radio guy from LA who says "...if you ain't mad then you ain't payin' attention." I've been on Terry's show a couple times and it was great to meet him in person finally.
Also on the show was Cory Voorhis, the ICE agent who was prosecuted in Federal Court over his involvement in blowing the whistle on our now Governor Ritter during the election in 2006. Cory finally won his case and I wrote a victory song for him. He and his family and several of his supporters have become good friends and, thanks to Peter Boyles, his story got a lot of attention and made a lot of people very angry at our state and local officials.
Also in attendance was Mike Jones, the male prostitute who was servicing Ted Haggard, the founder of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs. Mike came forward after he discovered who Haggard was and told the world what they'd been doing. He's a funny guy and a man with a conscience.
Next was Marygael Meister, the Denver resident who has been threatened with fines and jail time for keeping three bee hives in her back yard. This after she attended a class at the Denver Botanical Gardens to learn how to do it. This is how our supposedly "Green" local government responded to someone who is doing her small part to stimulate our ecology. Go figger!
Then Laura Hagan and her dog, Rolo, made an appearance. I wrote a song for Rolo during his incarceration on death row for allegedly biting a neighbor on the butt. A new judge was assigned to the case and Rolo was acquitted, thanks again in large measure to Peter Boyles and his relentless coverage of the story. (See my home page for a link to Rolo's web site. You can now buy T-shirts to help with Rolo's legal defense.)
Other note-worthy cast members included Dr. Death (a professional wrestler), Congressman Tom Tancredo, Don Wrege (song-writer and Ozzie Osbourne look-alike), the mayor of Glendale, the Dance Hall Girlz (a burlesque dance group from Shotgun Willies strip bar - whew - luckily this show was on radio!), and a police dog trainer that Peter met while doing the Rolo story. This guy brought an attack dog with him and they dressed Peter's intern, Max (big guy!) in one of those padded suits and then sicked the dog on him. It was amazing to see. The dog came at him going super-sonic, leapt in the air about 10 feet out and nailed poor Max to the ground, ripping at his arm. Max lived to tell about it and we all had a good laugh.
The show ended with me (aka Bob O'Luney's Amazing One-Man Band) singing a new parody I wrote for Peter's producer, Greg Hollenback. Because of his notorious night life activities he's become known as The Sheik of Cherry Creek, so I parodied the old "Sheik Of Araby" for him.
The whole show is available as a podcast at http://www.khow.com/cc-common/podcast/single_podcast.html?podcast=fullshow_boyles.xml
You can listen to each hour and even download the files. My bit comes at the tail end of the 8:00 hour, but the whole show is worth listening to. Some of the jokes about the Dance Hall Girlz were pretty hilarious, especially from Mr. Tancredo.
The day went downhill from there, as I had to go spend an hour at the dentist getting a new cap fitted. But Dr. Bruce Dunn is very gentle and, being a huge Kingston Trio fan, he knows to treat my mouth with respect. And I made it through the whole ordeal without the benefit of novocain or nitrous!
Friday was the epitome of Independence Day. Hot and sunny. The day started with a parade, but not exactly what you'd expect. It was organized by all the neighborhood kids who decided to decorate their bikes, skooters, trikes and wagons and do a parade around the neighborhood. Bob O'Luney volunteered to be the band. We wound all through the neighborhood and people were coming out on their porches and waving and it was America at it's best. We marched down to a little neighborhood park, had a picnic and then marched back home. (Video to come.)
At noon I sang at a retirement home. I was dressed in my stars & stripes shirt and my Converse red, white & blues. Everybody sang along to "God Bless America", "Yankee Doodle Dandy", "This Land Is Your Land", "America The Beautiful" and many more.
After that I came home to party. We had about 50 friends and neighbors over to swim, play and chow down. Hot dogs, watermelon, potato salad - all the traditional stuff. At dusk we gathered up lawn chairs and blankets and went up on our hill to watch the fireworks all around the city. We have a panoramic view from the top of our property and it was quite a show! We could see about 10 different displays going off, from Golden to Arvada, Commerce City, Aurora, Mile High Stadium, Coors Field and more. Plus we had our own little show in the street with some relatively harmless and barely legal poppers.
All in all, it's been a great weekend and a cause to stop and reflect on the freedom we have to be able to do all this stuff. This is still the greatest country on the planet and as we look toward putting new people into our elected positions this coming November, I hope we all take advantage of our right and responsibility to vote and vote intelligently. Although I'm not personally enamored with the major candidate line-up for the presidency, I know it'll all work out. Heck, if Pat Paulson was still running I'd probably vote for him this year. Short of that, I'm now leaning toward Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate. He's much closer to my political views on just about every issue, but I sadly acknowledge that this country is not ready for a third party. Still, I thank God that I live in a country where I can express my beliefs and vote for a candidate who represents my political position. Though my voice is small, I still have the right to say what I believe, and that's what makes this country great. God bless America!
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