It wasn’t too long ago that I questioned the inclusion of the Dave Clark Five in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
And I suppose I still do.

But this is sad.
Less than two weeks before their induction, lead singer Mike Smith has died.
Smith gave the DC5 its sound…a little harder-edged, a little more rockin’ than the Beatles.

At the height of their shared popularity, everybody knew John, Paul, George and Ringo. Each had distinct personalities and images.
But everybody was less sure who was who in the DC5. As a matter of fact, there were people who thought Smith WAS Dave Clark, because he was the lead singer and keyboard player. Clark was the drummer. (In the picture, Smith is second from the left, Clark in the middle.)

Still, for a while in the mid-to-late 60’s, the DC5 gave the Beatles a run for their money on the charts, and for appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show” (a dozen!).
They broke up in 1970, and unlike the individual Beatles, never again achieved international success.

Mike Smith’s passing didn’t make our newscast Thursday night.
Turns out I was the only person in the newsroom who knew who he was.

Damn.

As I mentioned last week, I’ve scheduled a colonoscopy, and you should too if you’re of a certain age or have a family history.
So today, this story crosses the wire.
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HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- The Aetna insurance company says it will delay a new policy that would no longer cover the cost of using anesthesiologists during colonoscopies.
The policy had been opposed by a group of New Jersey doctors.
The policy was to take effect April 1. Aetna now says it will be implemented after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves other forms of sedation.
Aetna says that groups and individuals not identified by the Hartford-based insurer have misinterpreted the policy as no longer covering sedation. It says the confusion could make patients hesitant to undergo cancer screening or other procedures.
Aetna initially announced its policy in December. It says the price for colonoscopies can increase up to $1,000 if an anesthesiologist prescribes propofol.
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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I’m not covered by Aetna. Obviously, they don’t want you to have a colonoscopy without being sedated, which is awfully nice of them.

Spoke to a friend this afternoon for the first time in a couple of weeks. She was home, I was at my desk.
The last time we talked, I was in my car and she was in Hawaii.

Today’s conversation was so much more pleasant, because we were both on regular old telephones.
The exchanges were clear, and there was no pausing or raised voices.
I like the clarity of the regular old phone, and I still like the heft of a receiver in my hand.

I’m not the biggest fan of cell phones. I find them intrusive.
I don’t often want to talk, and I don’t often want to be talked to. Or even found.
And yes, I do understand they are useful under certain circumstances and in emergencies.

The last time I exchanged my cell phone for a new one, the clerk checked my record.
“Can we talk you into more than 300 minutes a month?”
“Can I talk you into fewer?”

Right now, my cell phone is where it belongs. In the car. Off.

Just walked into the beautiful NBC 30 cafeteria for a cup of coffee, and caught the last two seconds of a commercial.
Sometimes two seconds is all you need to be glad you didn’t see more.
Sometimes two seconds is all you need to be totally turned off.
Sometimes two seconds is all you need to make a snap judgment. Which this is.

It was the end of a commercial with an attorney touting a legal web site.
Not just any attorney. An OJ attorney. Robert Shapiro. And it turns out he’s billed as a “co-founder” of the web site.

Tiger Woods says he’s playing the best golf of his life.

I'm sure kids on vacation think it's a waste of a good snow day, but it really is a GOOD SNOW DAY.

The headline in the paper this morning said, “Obama’s Wife Watches Mouth.”

That’s too bad. I enjoy it when the candidates and their spouses act like…well…human beings.
God knows Hillary Clinton’s husband…Bill, is it?…has proven time and again he’s only human.

And apparently Michelle Obama has been put on notice after her statement that “for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.”

Really...unless you’re one of those who thinks what the talking heads on cable and radio tell you to think...it wasn’t hard to figure out what she MEANT.
It doesn’t take a genius to understand what she was saying, but it was like raw meat thrown to the PoliTalk attack dogs.
Should she need to be interpreted all the time? No. That wouldn’t be good.

So I had my annual physical last week.
The prognosis: I’ll live.

But as a bonus, I got to make an appointment with another specialist. That brings to SIX the number of specialists I’ll see for one thing or another, not counting my regular doctor. (Who I really like, by the way, just in case he should see this.)

And the thing is, I’M HEALTHY! (Relatively speaking.)

It’s not that I mind seeing the specialists. I don’t mind being poked, prodded or probed. (More on the probe part ahead.)
It’s CALLING them I’m afraid of.
I just know that I’ll get caught in a maze of, “If you’re calling for Dr. Feelgood, press one. If you’re calling for Chinese takeout, press four.” And on and on.

I made three appointments today. Two of the calls actually went pretty well, and for some reason, the new specialist’s office already had my information.
Turns out I’d seen another one of the group’s specialists several years ago. Once you join the club, you’re always in, I guess.

Now, back to the probing. One of the appointments I made was for a colonoscopy.
If you’re of a certain age, and you haven’t had one…shame, shame.

I'm not gonna go all Katie Couric on you, but don’t make me nag!

Look at the time this was posted.

If Brad is right, we can all look forward to some sun and 40-something degrees. Finally.

What an awful week. Bitter cold Monday, snow Tuesday, build-the-ark rain Wednesday, and just-try-to-shovel-your-sidewalk Thursday.
Of course, we had a better week than Roger Clemens, who probably wishes he could turn back the clock 20 years and report to spring training.

“Pitchers and catchers.”
Sounds good, doesn’t it?

America loves the NFL, but we don’t talk about the NFL much after the Super Bowl. And yeah, we’ve got the Celts and UConn in season.

But fans talk baseball all year long, and now we get to see what we’ve been talking about since the Red Sox burst the Rockies’ bubble.

Sox fans get to see if Ellsbury’s everything he seemed to be late last season.
Yankees fans can see if Joba’s everything he seemed to be after his call-up.
And Mets fans get to see their new crown jewel who IS everything he seems to be, Senor Santana (above).

I’d say, “Let the yapping begin,” but it never really stopped.

Ain’t it great?

When did the issue of performance enhancing drugs become a partisan issue?

How much money do you think Roger Clemens has donated to the Republican party?

Do you think the Yankees are worried where Andy Pettitte’s head is right now?

We’ve done a couple of stories on the therapeutic (mental and physical) effects for seniors who bowl using Wii, the Nintendo video game system.
Sometimes these stories actually hit home, and this one does, because MY MOTHER KICKS ASS.

I really wanted to put it a more delicate way. After all, this is the station’s web site, and she is my mother.
But there’s no way around it. The woman wants to put a whuppin’ on your butt.

Bowling used to bill itself as “fun for the whole family,” and you know what? It still is.

We all played on Super Bowl Sunday…bowlers ranging in age from 9 to 78 (guess who).
She’d already Brunswicked her grandchildren, and that day she put a royal King Louie on her son. (If you don’t get the references, you never watched the PBA Tour on ABC growing up.)

So yesterday, I call her for…I don’t even remember…and her big news was, “I got a 236.”
“What’s a 236?”
“Bowling.”
“You got a 236??? Really?”
“I was really on.”

I remember years ago she was in a women’s bowling league. At least, she said she was. Had her own ball. Looking back, I might have suspected she used it as an excuse to just get out of the house and far, far away from her 3 boys.
But now I believe.

Last night was the first time I totally passed on watching the Grammys. Not even a minute. I just didn’t care.

I do know that all of the buzz was about Amy Winehouse (left), AKA “Brilliant But Troubled Artist.”
A pop/rock star with a drug problem? Really?

Hey, Generation X, Y, whatever they call you...come up with something better than Jim Morrison being found like a beached whale in a bathtub in Paris…Janis Joplin (right) drugging and drinking herself to death in Beverly Hills…Jimi Hendrix choking to death on his own vomit in London (which may or may not be true)…or Mama Cass choking to death on a ham sandwich (definitely not true, but a great story).

Sean Phillips reported this week on the troubles of a Meriden gravestone company and the frustration of its customers.
Basically, the guy told Sean he didn’t have enough help, and fell way behind filling his orders. The details are here.

Aside from it being a very solid story, what attracted my attention is the man’s admission that he screwed up. Plain and simple. No excuses.

Maybe it's a trend. This is the third time in recent months that our reporters have confronted a business person who said the magic words: I screwed up.

And that’s really very smart (unless, I suppose, you’re gonna get your butt sued off.)
With the utterance of the magic words, you go from villainous to empathetic.
And to make the admission on TV!

None of these people seemed to be “managed”; they certainly didn’t hire crisis consultants. They’re just real people with real problems who were honest enough to admit they weren’t always honest enough.

I, too, have used the magic words (or their first cousin variation). They work well. There’s no real comeback to them except, “Oh.”
Or, “Don’t let it happen again.”

You don’t want to use them too often, but if you’ve never uttered the magic words, you should try sometime.
You know you’ll need them sooner or later.

WE ALL DO.

That’s what they might be asking in Nicaragua or Romania, when they put on their brand new “New England Patriots Super Bowl Champions” tee shirts.
In case you missed it, the NFL packs up all the losing team’s gear and ships it off to poorer countries through World Vision.

I missed the old lever voting machine.

Dear Pats Fans,