News Flash: Catholics Still Facing Sex Abuse
by Bryce Martin

A headline worth examining:

Pope Prays for Healing in Sex Abuse Scandal

The current visit by the current pope has brought the expected. But to refer to the years and years of sexual predator priests plying their lewd and cruel vices on young boys as the "sex abuse scandal" is grossly misleading. The term connotes an actual event took place and we are now moving beyond it.

Does anyone actually think it's over? The causes and conveniences that created the situations are still in place. All that's changed is that the perpetrators know now to be more careful in not getting caught and catholic officials are now better armed in ways of concealing and covering up such offenses. The situation is worse now than ever for rising victims.

As crimes go, this case is long from being closed.

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Steve McNair easily not a hall of famer
by Bryce Martin

I have nothing against Steve McNair, although as a Titans fan I was always painfully aware of his production numbers and embarrassed by them in comparison to other, better quarterbacks.

The Sports Zone, 104.5 radio in Nashville, brought up the question today on the wave of McNair's announced retirement. I understand such questions are the topic of call-in radio sports shows.

This particular item shouldn't be on that topic list. McNair is not even on the table for discussion on whether he is a future NFL Hall of Fame candidate. Of course he's not. Two recent Titans retirees, Frank Wycheck and Eddie George, both borderline, make for a much better and legitimate debate.

I know of at least 18 or 20 quarterbacks with better numbers who will never make the hall. Simple. Like McNair, they don't have the numbers.

Those who bring up talk of Super Bowls are showing their ignorance on such matters. Sure, how you rate on such things as major awards among your peers, and post-season contributions, can play a factor in assessing a career, but that counts in instances where regular season totals are a little light and need some extra weight to ballast a career.

McNair's best season would rank as Peyton Manning's worst. Look it up. An unfair comparison, I realize, but still embarrassing.

It is not just my opinion that McNair is not a hall of famer. It's plain to see, and it's not a topic that should just now be coming to light. Any real sports fan, especially one who follows a certain team such as the Titans, ought to already know such things.

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C'est Magnifique Bardot
by Bryce Martin

Some recent Yahoo headlines have done their intended job in getting a reaction.

Brigitte Bardot May Go To Prison For Anti-Muslim Remarks

In France, where the government holds up its hands in surrender to anything I guess you can expect this.

If you can't say something bad about Muslims, who can you say something bad about?

Please don't tell me that most Muslims are good people and not like the ones who consider all non-Muslims as infidels who need their throats slit. I don't hear this so-called majority speaking out against their brethren.

France. What a joke. Here's a country that for the past 30 years or so has fought to keep American culture out of its society (not necessarily a bad idea) and only recently was complaining about our slang words creeping into their vocabularies. But, it's fine if Muslims want to come in and take over their country (which is obviously happening) and erase all its past and traditions for a new Franceistan.

Some Gays Having Trouble Getting a Divorce

They're not married. Think that could be the problem?

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Yes, wars are costly
by Bryce Martin

I love these national wire stories, comments and emails from people on how much the war in Iraq is costing, and hinting in saying so how we just need to pull our tent as if the money could be better spent elsewhere. It could, but it never is and so why would this be any different?

If we had never went to Iraq, no single American would have one single penny gained from us not going. And don't say, yeah, but we could have made better use of it. We could have, yes, but (see above) since when has our federal government taken that stance? Whatever amount of money is spent through waste and corruption would not begin to equal what has been spent in Iraq. It's clear that no one elected to any of our higher offices will stop the moneygrabbers and wastrels.

I don't understand completely why these people don't just come out and say they are democrats and against anything republican.

Wars cost money. It's a known fact. So, what's your point?
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Remembering Music Row's Argyle Bell
by Bryce Martin

Argyle Bell (1951-2001)


Argyle made me feel welcome without ever actually welcoming me. I thought of him as being a Yankee by his looks and the fact I think he told me he was from Boston. Maybe even from New York or Jersey, what with the Ramones hair and clothes.

He always seemed in a hurry, as if he was only where he was because he was running late to his real destination. He was like a marathon runner speaking to observers on the sidelines as he trudged on.

I came to Nashville in 1987 and soon after was writer and editor for a Music Row publication called Independent Record Magazine and later called Nashville Inquirer. Argyle liked the fact I had came from Bakersfield, Calif., and that I could tell him things I knew about Clarence White and about Gary Paxton regarding recording ventures in Bakersfield. He mentioned how much he cherished a picture he had of himself with Buck Owens.

I would see Argyle walking the Music Row area much the way did a long and gangly Zac Meadows. Each of them picked up copy, delivered copy, and ran errands in connection with various small publications they were associated with. Argyle was a hustler, but in the old meaning of someone not afraid to wear out some shoe leather to earn a respectable living.

I drank way too much and was, in fact, a common drunk. Argyle once told me when we met on a sidewalk, "Bryce, you drink too much," and walked on. He wasn't walking away because I had consumed too much Schaefer. He was always walking away. The fact he would always remember my name made me feel good. And I knew he really meant that I did drink too much and was concerned for me, though he didn't know me well enough that it should matter to him.

Once, at the Third Coast bar, I saw him walking across an upstairs level. "Oh, he lives up there," another bar sitter said. I thought that was the neatest thing, living right here on Music Row in the middle of such a show. I didn't even know the place had rented rooms, or even that it had an upstairs area. At the Third Coast, he gave me a flyer about a show he was planning involving mainly Clarence White and The Byrds. I thought it a great idea but a bust commercially. I mean you have to hit the public over the head to get their attention and most had no idea who White was or knew much about The Byrds. This wasn't his first year putting it on he would have me to know. Sometimes I rummage through old boxes to see if I still have that old flyer. I haven't found it yet.

The last time I saw Argyle was when I was in a line in Hillsboro Village to go inside the Belcourt regarding an audition for a movie due for shooting in Nashville at the old prison. I had moved from Music Row years before. I saw Argyle, the same old Argyle, the hair, the slim-legged black pants from the 60s, bustling along like in the old days. I didn't want to lose my place in line, or holler out, so I just watched as he turned a corner and disappeared. Not long after, he was gone. I wish now I had left my place and joined him for a while. We could have talked on the run, as in days of old. I bet he would have still remembered my name. "Take care, Bryce," he would have said as we parted paths.

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Some memories stick like gum on a hot sidewalk, or:
Random ruminations while wondering whatever happened to Wonderful Monds

by Bryce Martin

Some baseball anecdotes and oddities stick with you over the years like gum on a hot sidewalk. Here are some of my favorites:

Hall of Fame knuckleball pitcher Hoyt Wilhelm debuted at age 28 with the New York Giants in 1952. He hit a home run in his first at bat, and a triple his second time at the plate. In a fluttery career spanning 21 years and 432 total at bats, Wilhelm never homered or tripled again.

While warming up in the bullpen, then-Dodgers pitcher Jim Brewer was the target of a heckler.

"Hey, Brewer, why don't you go back to the copper mines in Oklahoma."

Brewer, not looking where the words came from, responded, "They don't mine copper in Oklahoma."

The sucker bit. "What do they mine?"

Said Brewer, "They mine their own business."

Outfielder Mickey Rivers was talking bad about his former teammate Reggie Jackson to a reporter. Informed that Jackson had a reputed IQ of 160, Rivers asked, "Out of what, a thousand?"

Identify this mystery voice: "What's the static's on this boy, Pee Wee?"

Credit sportscaster Red Barber with this one: "Baseball is only dull to dull minds."

A wooden baseball bat is likely to break if held in any rotation other than where, when held straight out, you can read the trademark. That is why you used to always see hitters slightly rotating the bat and adjusting their grip at the dish. "You've got your trademark turned down," a catcher jostled Hank Aaron. "I didn't come here to read," Aaron shot back.

While pitching for the Texas Rangers, Don Durham told me Manager Billy Martin requested he hit a player. Not unusual, except it was the runner at second base he wanted Durham to plunk.

Pitcher Don Dennis was the first (and maybe only) player to ever hit a baseball to the roof of the Houston Astrodome, a distance of -- if memory serves -- 160 feet. He did it with a fungo bat in pre-game warm-ups.

Credit outfielder Glenn Burke with introducing the "high five" to the annals of sports history. It was less than monumental when he slapped palms with Dodgers teammate Dusty Baker in 1977 after Baker homered, but it is now part of the ritual.

Voice: Dizzy Dean asking TV-boothmate Pee Wee Reese to give him some statistics.

By Bryce Martin
First Published: 8/22/2002

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VP Search for McCain No Problemito
by Bryce Martin

I read (as in "reed" and not "red") where so-called GOP presidential candidate John McCain is mulling over a choice for running mate. Any possible vice-president pick would have to share his views, he said.

Okay, how about the obvious choice, Ted Kennedy?

If you're in for a dime, you're in for a dollar.

Or, to coin a new phrase, if you're in with slime, wallow in slime.
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