Happy 75th Birthday Neil Young

 

Bob Dylan and Neil Young perform Will The Circle Be Unbroken

at Nowlan Park Kilkenny in July 2019

Happy Birthday, Neil. A review of this concert may be found in the Irish Times.

Brooke Burns Should Be Considered as the New Host of Jeopardy

 

Nobody can replace Alex Trebek as the host of Jeopardy.  Someone must succeed him since the show is so popular, but I just read that 50% of the viewers will not watch the show with a new host.  There are now 34 shows left that were recorded with Alex hosting before his death.  No future host has been announced, but certainly, the producers of Jeopardy have given some thought to a future host after Alex's illness was announced.  He fought the disease with great courage.

Brooke Burns is the host of two shows on The Game Show Network:

Master Minds   (Ken Jennings appears on this show)

The Chase (American version featuring Mark Labatt as The Beast)

She is an intellectual with a good sense of humor who interacts well with the contestants.

I hope the producers of Jeopardy will consider her as the new host of Jeopardy.

Rest in Peace Alex Trebek

 

Today we heard the bad news that Alex Trebek passed away from pancreatic cancer at the age of 80.  He was very candid with his fans by publically announcing in March 2019 he had the 4th stage of this miserable disease.  He kept everyone advised of his progress in fighting this terrible form of cancer which has a low survival rate.  My father fought pancreatic cancer from 1995 until he passed away in September 1997,  Alex really loved being the host of Jeopardy as he hosted the show while he was taking chemotherapy.

I have been a fan of Jeopardy since the Arthur Flemming days in 1964.  It was hard to watch it since I was in school while the show was on weekdays at 12 noon.  The show was on hiatus for 5 years until 1984 when the syndicated version hosted by Alex premiered.  For most of its run, it was on weekdays at 7 PM which was much more convenient for me.  I rarely missed a show and always recorded it when I was away from home in the early evening.

If you are interested there were many posts in Bruce's Journal about Alex Trebek.  I assume there are several weeks of shows not yet seen with Alex hosting it.  Somebody will succeed him as the host of Jeopardy, but it will not be the same.  It would be inappropriate to speculate on who will be the new host of the show so shortly after his death.  I have someone in mind I feel could succeed him, but not reveal the name at this time.

Very shortly after his death was announced WABC-7 gave a tribute.  I have chosen to post here the tribute from Entertainment Tonight.

Rest in peace Alex.

Dedication to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris - We're a Winner by the Impressions

 

A picture is worth a thousand words

Dedication to Donald Trump I'm a Loser by the Beatles

 

No further comment is needed.

Thoughts on Steve Cohen Taking Over As Owner of the Mets

 

I really don't want to discuss politics especially the counting of the votes in the battleground states which are very close.  The current president will not give up very easily.  The biggest event in sports for me has been the sale of the New York Mets from the Wilpons to Steve Cohen.  On the first day after the sale was completed he clean house in the front office by terminating Brodie Van Wagenen and Omar Minaya among others.  I was not impressed by Brodie's trades and free-agent signings during his two-year tenure as General Manager.  Now Sandy Alderson will make all the major decisions and will likely appoint a new General Manager.

Steve Cohen is a very wealthy man whose assets are greater than $14 Billion.  He should not be tempted to spend money just for the sake of it.  There have been some very poor free agency signings over the years when either the player developed injuries or just did not perform.  I hope he takes the approach of developing players in the farm system and paying them well when they perform at the major league level.  A few free-agent signings to fill holes in the roster should work.

Off the field, I am hoping there will be a statue of Tom Seaver outside of Citi Field.  Restoring the old-timers game would also work well.

We'll have to wait and see what happens.

Count Me In by Gary Lewis and The Playboys - Oldie of the Day

 

This is a very strange video for a "good time" oldie.  I think counting is on everyone's mind today.  The count of the votes in the presidential election must be thorough and accurate to make sure the right candidate wins.  Like in 2016, this would not be a problem if the candidate with the highest popular vote wins the election.  Joe Biden has more than 2 million popular votes but does not yet have the required 270 votes in the Electoral College to become the next president.  I sense that this will drag on, but a president must be inaugurated on January 20, 2021.