The fireworks are over here tonight. We have some amazing music for you including:

1. H-Beam
2. Geoff Smith
3. Mambo Sauce
4. The Mob Stories
5. Lords of Altamont
6. Tim Foley

With special help from Bob Hope, John Wayne, Jack Wyles, and J.C. Hutchins.

Download the show here

        This past week, we packed the wife and kids up and went down to Howell Farm, which is a real life working farm. My kids absolutely loved it. There were cows, and sheep, and pigs. It was an absolutely perfect day. I even had some home made ice cream. Good day. My son, Charlie was almost overwhelmed by the animals, the whole week he's been going "I touched a sheep", but for me, I took something very different out of this day. I looked around, and didn't see any Starbucks, I didn't see a Home Depot, and the Walmart was at least a 5-mile walk, and I said to myself, "Self (because that's what I call myself), this was a frigging hard life." You see, I don't know if I could have done it. Sure, they had a farm house, and I suppose some meager farm tools, but I don't know if I could have woken up at the crack of dawn every day to be a farmer, dealing with the crops and all that stuff. Well, I do shovel crap some mornings in Court, but you get my drift.

             That's why, I've got to take a very unpopular position this week, however, this past week the NFL Players Union testified in Congress that they were entitled to increased disability benefits for injuries arising out of playing football, and in fact, Coach Ditka from the Bears has done an amazing job bringing this issue to the forefront. In fact, this statistic shocked me, that out of the 8000 former players of the league, only 300 people receive benefits from the league. The players claim that they have to step through tires filed with red tape, and go through a bureaucratic mess to receive benefits.   

             But, as my high school coach once said to me, "Hey Ditka - what do you think you're special? Suck it up! Shake it off, and get back in the game!"

             I don't mean to be crass here, but I really have a problem with the NFL players complaining now, for a variety of reasons. I am not going to begrudge them for one second that many of them have suffered horrific, and traumatic injuries during the course of their playing days. I am not going to begrudge that football is a sport of collisions that are like a mack truck hitting a wall. I am not going to be the one to say that the NFL owners made tons of money off the sweat of these hard working individuals.

             But to the players association, I say this "and?" I work every day with injured people, people that are totally and permanently disabled, and you know what there are a lot of guys and girls in this country that sweat, there are lot of people in this country who's hard work made a ton of money for their bosses, and you know what - they're not entitled to a dime more than what they negotiated when they originally took their job.

             More importantly, there are remedies available to the players, but like a lot of workers out there, they just don't take advantage of them. For example, remember George Adams from the Giants? I think he played a couple of years with the Patriots too. He was drafted by the Jints in the first round in 1985, and he played running back from then until 1991. In 1996, he filed in New Jersey Workers Compensation Court trying to get the Giants to pay for a hip replacement surgery, and the Court rightfully dismissed the claim because it was way out of time. It wasn't until 2003 that the Appellate Division finally said enough and closed the case out for good

             Sure, it's a sad story, but Adams is in and should be in no better position than the millions and millions of employees that get hurt on the job, and if they want their employer to pay for stuff, then they have to file a timely claim. I don't think that just because he's a football player should entitle Adams to any extra benefit.

             Some of these athletes have been coddled all their life, and now that their careers have ended, they really miss the warm, wet, hug of their mommies. Maybe that's more prevalent now where than it was years ago, but lets not kid ourselves, when a kid comes out of high school and gets shuffled through college and spends more time on the field than in the classroom, they knew the deal, they knew the opportunities that they had in front of them, and were co-conspirators in their own problems. Maybe it was short sighted, but the rest of us had that cold realization that nobody is going to take care of us, but us, like we were the fat kid on the first day of sleep away camp.

             The NFL players association has a problem with the bureaucracy of their benefits system. Really? Is this the first time that they've dealt with bureaucracy? I can't get six-slices of turkey on my sub at Subway without talking to two levels of management. Please Jashwari, just put some of the spicy mustard on the thing, lather it up, and stick it in a bag, I'm in a rush. My problem is that we all have to deal with bureaucracy on a day to day basis, and is this really something that Congress needs to get involved with? This is a frigging customer service issue. Do we really need to distract ourselves from the war in Iraq, the quasi-criminal behavior in the White House so my local Senator can waste half a day to get a picture with Joe Willie Namath?         

         We are in the midst of a national health care crisis. I don't mean crisis in the traditional "Crisis at the Mall - Film at Eleven", type crisis. I mean "Crisis" in the ohmigd this is a really sobering and horrible problem kind of crisis kind of way. The kind of crisis that is right in front of us, and by the grace of gd you and I haven't had to deal with it. I've seen it. Hopefully, you have insurance. Hopefully, you have a whole boat load of overflow insurance, because I've seen it. If you get hurt in this country, traumatically, and you get hurt, you go right from the hospital right to the bankruptcy line. Seriously. Its that quick, and once you get there you get charity care or Medicare or any other social remedial program that gives you as much choice as a my homies at Guantanamo. You think I'm kidding. Did you know that the average surgery on your back is about a $100,000 plus the time lost from work and all of that? I certainly don't have that kind of money laying around for unexpected problems, hell, NFL players might not have that kind of scratch just laying around. Michael Vick does of course, and he's letting his dogs use it for a training area before fights. Sick bastard, but that's a story for another day.

             If Ditka really wants to do something, then perhaps he should tackle the entire health care problem in this country. If Ditka wants to actually give back to the fans that paid for the tickets that made the NFL a success, then maybe its time to step up and speak for the whole team. Because when, athletes, or celebrities in general, use their power and influence, to try to get benefits that you and I are not entitled to, and for benefits that they didn't negotiate for in the past, it just gives off an awful smell....hmm....what does that remind me of? I know, what it reminds me of.....the pig crap that was sitting in the hot heat back at the farm.

             Oh, and to my friends in Chicago. This takes nothing away from my immense respect from Coach Ditka. In fact, as they said on Saturday Night Live. Ditka versus the Packers? Who would win? Ditka. Ditka versus the Indianapolis 500 driving a school bus? Who would win? Ditka? Ditka versus Paris Hilton in a beauty contest? Ditka. But Ditka versus Jersey Todd in an argument? Who would win?

      JT, of course.