Have mercy

So, into my head popped my humstle - Mercy Mercy Mercy. My best recollection was the instrumental by the the Cannonball Adderley Quintet. 

But wait, Chicago's Buckinghams ( I think named after the fountain) did a version of it in the 60's where they added lyrics to this song and fucked it up so badly---  The song without lyrics was really great so why did they add lyrics? 

 Oh yeah, she's got the kind of lovin, kissin and a huggin- sure is mellow, glad that I'm a fellow and I know that she knocks me off my feet- have mercy on me. Yes she knocks me off my feet.  Well, there is no girl in the whole world that can love me like she do-ooo.

How many examples can you think of where some asshole added lyrics so that the band (flavor) of the month could wring another top 40 song out of nothing. 

1. This Guy by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass
2. And I love her by the Beatles
3. Grazin in the Grass by Hugh Masakela but fucked up by Friends of Distinction (remember them?), but you were mackin' on the sofa with the girl that said no, can't touch that. 

So why is it that I drink? I'll try to remember more. If I could figure out settings where my audience could interact with me, we'd all come up with some great ones. But I'm dumb and I can't.

So the big story in my town is that the Cubs will "flip" two more pitchers at or before the trade deadline. Presumably, this will net 4 or 5 more prospects that other teams and MLB consider "can't miss." You know those five tool phenoms like Corey Patterson. This year, it appears that a hometown, homegrown kid, a former tight end for Notre Dame, Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel will be gone. I can't repeatedly spell Samardzija and I refuse to call him Jeff, so I'll just call him him by his number- #29. Well 29 is 29 years old and just turned down a 5 year $85 million contract offer. He was being offered Homer Bailey* money- roughly 17 mil a year. Now I know pitchers are a major commodity, but the Cubs are in purgatory now. They are are rebuilding and restocking their farm system, something that has served perennial winners for years. It's what the Blackhawks needed to do for years but never did, until ownership took their heads out of of their asses and hired scouts who did their jobs. And that paid off as the Hawks left hockey purgatory in the early part of this decade and have won 2 Stanley Cups in 5 years. When you lose nearly 100 games a year, the following year, you get very high picks in the amateur draft. Add that to getting prospects from "flips" and well, you see where I'm going with this. Eventually, you field a young team with talent and they contend for years and as a fan you don't have to laugh off the haplessness of the Cubs by saying, "well, anybody can have a bad century." The Cubs haven't been to a World Series in 69 years (1945) {"you could look it up" as Casey Stengel used to say} and haven't won a World Series since 1908. If you're a fan, that's more than brutal.

*Homer Bailey is a pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds who went from making $5.3 million last year to a slight raise in pay this year as I captioned earlier in this piece. That's a nice chunk change for a 28 year pitcher whose career record is 56-48. He does have two no hitters. Makes you wonder why many of us get a little cynical when we see people doing a pretty mediocre job and getting paid that kind of money.

As they say, watch this space. 

And you didn't think I could write a piece without mentioning-- you know.....