I write to you from an undisclosed location…an underground bunker where I can sustain life for up to one full year.  Why am I here?  I’m terrified…I truly am.  I can’t risk the danger that is taking place on the surface of this planet.  This is it sportsfans…I don’t know if there will ever be another Rum & Coke Buzz column.  We as a nation are in the middle of the single biggest catastrophic event to ever hit this great land, and if we don’t take precautions now, the bodies will soon be piling up in the streets.  Did you ever see “Outbreak”?  Remember the bodies being piled up by the military?  I’m afraid that doesn’t even scratch the surface on what America will be experiencing in the coming months.  Why will all this happen?  NO FLU VACCINES!!!  Just to let you know, and to hopefully set the right example others should follow, I installed a new bio-decontamination room in my house a few weeks back when the story about the lack of vaccines first broke and before I decided to seek shelter in my bunker.  When you enter the house, you strip down and must pass through a series of anti-bacterial sprays and mists before being allowed to enter.  As soon as the cleansing process is done, there will be sterile surgical scrubs to wear that will be thrown away and burned as soon as you leave.  When it gets here, I will start wearing my bio suit I have on order.  At the very least, I urge everyone to start wearing surgeon masks and rubber gloves…I don’t know if this will be effective at all…but please do something!  Ok, in all seriousness, I do know that there are some people who need the shot such as the elderly…but the way this is being portrayed is beyond hilarious.  I see on the news huge lines of people waiting for hours to get this miracle shot…panic-stricken people who look like they think they will all drop dead without this shot.  First off, the last flu shot I got was almost 10 years ago and I refuse to get them again.  Of course now that I say that I’ll probably contract some weird strain and suffer some prolonged and agonizing death, but the last time I got a flu shot I got sick…so no more for me.  On the local news they showed one clinic with 1,000 people in line waiting for a shot.  Now I get pissed off if there’s more then one person in line in front of me at the grocery store…I couldn’t imagine having 999 people in front of me for anything.  Some rep from the health department was being interviewed, and she was saying for everyone to quit panicking, more vaccines are on the way, those who need one will get one.  It amazes me how much of a panic people can get worked up into.  Remember the night of 9/11 and the lines at gas stations?  Someone somewhere started this rumor that gas would be running out soon and everyone flocked to the pumps to fill up…and on top of this some gas stations jacked the price up to like five bucks a gallon.  Just calm down everyone…shhhh…it will all be ok.  I just get so sick of the news playing off of people’s fears.

 Here’s something I find a little strange – If the World Series ends up being Boston versus Houston, does anyone else find that interesting?  Kerry being from Boston and Bush being from Texas?  I swear, it’s like this entire year has revolved around politics.  So who will I pull for?  Neither.  I gave up on baseball in 1994.  At one time I loved it…at one time there was nothing like a warm summer night, chilling out and listening to or watching a ball game.  I saw Hank Aaron play when I was a kid, I remember watching my Braves in the early 80’s with Bob Horner, Chris Chambliss, Glenn Hubbard and Dale Murphy.  I’ll never forget the horrendous late 80’s…which made 1991 the most fun I ever had watching baseball.  No, I wasn’t one of these Johnny-come-lately Braves fans, I love (or use to) all my hometown teams.  1991 was a thing of beauty…the last place Braves from the year before making it all the way to the World Series.  The power hitting of Ron Gant, the clutch performances by Mark Lemke, the precision pitching of Steve Avery in the NLCS, Tom Glavine winning the Cy Young award.  Man what a team…Terry Pendleton, Greg Olsen, David Justice, Otis Nixon, Brian Hunter…I hardly missed a game that year.  Yeah, they lost in one of the most exciting World Series I had ever seen…but it was quite a year.  The 1992 season had as much drama if not more at times…all culminating with Francesco Cabrerra’s base hit driving in two runs in the bottom of the 9th in the NLCS for the win.  Can anyone who saw it forget Sid Bream lumbering towards home with everything he had?  Well, they lost the World Series again, this time to Toronto.  1993 they were a powerhouse team once again, but someone got in their way in the NLCS…the Philadelphia Phillies.  I started to wonder if the Braves championship runs were over.  1994 came and the Braves were kicking ass.  Going into the final stretch of the season, they looked stronger then previous years and I honestly thought that 1994 would be the year they would win it all…but something happened.  The players decided to go on strike.  I was optimistic…I honestly thought the players and owners would do what is right for the game and resolve it, I really did.  But they never did and The World Series never took place.  I’m sorry, but I will never forgive baseball for doing that….well maybe not never…but it will be quite some time before I watch again.  First, I don’t understand why any professional athlete would bitch about anything…they are getting paid quite nicely to PLAY A FRIGGIN GAME FOR A LIVING!!!!  But here’s the part that really bugs me…when the players went on strike, they hurt a lot of people financially.  What about those who are vendors at the game who depend on that income?  What about area businesses like bars whose main business comes from people viewing games there or hanging out there after a game?  What about the people who work the parking lots?  The people who were really impacted by this make a small fraction of what the players were making, and for the players to do that shows a level of selfishness I want no part of.  I just couldn’t believe these guys would cancel a World Series because of some $$$.  When the 1995 season came around, I didn’t watch…I didn’t want to…screw them…they lost me as a fan.  That year the Braves made it to the World Series, and I didn’t watch any of it until the final inning.  My dad called and said “They’re about to win, you should watch”.  I turned it on, watched them win, and I wanted to be excited thinking that maybe I could forgive and forget…but I couldn’t.  I watched the win and the celebration, but I really didn’t care…all I could see on the field were guys who cared more about a few $$$ then the history and tradition of the game.  I didn’t watch one game until 2002, except for when Mark McGwire broke Roger Maris’ single season home run record (I was hoping he wouldn’t).  That year, 2002, I decided maybe it was time to let bygones be bygones and start watching again…and I did.  I watched for about a month and was starting to enjoy it again…until one fateful night when it was stated during the game that a possible strike was being talked about again.  What???  Why should I invest any emotion or passion in this thing at all if there was going to be a chance of another World Series being done away with?  I cut the TV off and haven’t watched much since.  The only time I did was two games of the 2003 NLCS when I met some friends of mine who are die-hard Cubs fans at a bar…and I really just went to hang out.  Maybe one day I’ll get over it, but not for a long time.  I think the mentality of some (not all) of those guys can be summed up by what Patrick Ewing said when the NBA was talking about going on strike.  He said, “Yeah, we may make a lot of money, but we spend a lot too”.  WHAT?!?!?!  What really sucks though is that when I was a kid, The Red Sox were my second favorite team because of Carl Yazstremski.  He was one of my favorite players.  If I wasn’t so bitter towards baseball, I’d probably be pulling for the Red Sox big time.

And now for band stuff.  First off, the DVD is now finished the editing process and soon we will have the master made.  I gotta say, it looks and sounds pretty awesome.  Check the website soon and we’ll have some up for sale.  Remember that’s www.noisecult.com for all your NoiseCult needs.  Second, we’re playing Helloween Havoc this Saturday the 23rd at the Tennsco Community Center in Dickson.  Show starts at 6 pm, and we’ll probably be going on around 7:30 or so.  Remember, as Jack Black said in “School of Rock”….”one great rock show can change the world”….and wouldn’t you love to tell your kids one day that you were there live?  Yeah, I thought so too.

One final thing – if you want a night of fun…watch “Fahrenheit 911” and “Fahrenhype 911” back to back.  It’s quite interesting.

Jackass of the week time.  I listen to talk radio during the course of the day, and there's one ad I hear every now and then that is utterly ridiculous.  There's some dude in the Nashville area that has labeled himself a "sedation dentist".  Yeah...exactly...what the heck???  Ok, so this guy in a voice that sounds like he's talking to a frightened 3 year old starts going on about "have you ever been put down or fearful of going to the dentist?".  You know, as if you're going into the dentist office and they start screaming "LOOK AT THESE TEETH!!!  THEY ARE HIDEOUS!!!  YOU ARE A LOSER!!!  CAN'T YOU EXERCISE NORMAL HYGIENE YOU PIG?!?!?!".  Ummm...I've never had that happen...I don't know what kind of dentist they're referring to here, but he's probably a cool dude...a real straight shooter, you know?  Anyway, this guy states that he gives a pill to you and you sleep away the time in peace and comfort.  First off, this sounds like that mentality of not spanking a kid or that a kid burning houses down just needs a little quiet time.  Secondly, in my perverse way of thinking, I see it as a huge front to drug someone and take advantage of them.  "Excuse me, why is my zipper down?"..."oh...ummm...it was down when you got here...yeah...".  A little grope here...feel there...you know what I'm talking about, right?  Anyway, this sedation dentist gets my jackass of the week award.  Sorry, no picture.

Stay tuned for next week...should be interesting.