Barking Carnival

Good Morning, You’re on Tradio.
My great grandfather, my grandfather and now my father were/are farmers in the Texas Panhandle. Needless to say, I grew up spending 70% of my summers on the tractor, while my peers worked on their tan as lifeguards at the pool or sacked groceries at the local store, and further […]

If you’re familiar with Mickey Rourke, you know him as the guy who has had a lot of plastic surgery and happened to steal the show with his performance in Sin City. But I’m telling you, Mickey Rourke was wrecking shit in the ’80s. The guy put together a string of performances that were exceptional […]

For those of you living here in the United States of Amnesia, you probably don’t remember Billy Squier. It’s not your fault. The music industry is fickle, and past stars are forgotten all the time. Rick Rubin can’t rehabilitate everyone.
But Billy Squier was/is a fantastic rock singer and guitarist who put out a great body […]

Every year about this time for some reason I get the urge to brew a large batch of home made beer. Why? I have no idea. Perhaps it’s deeply embedded in my DNA, some biannual farmer/peasant urge tied to thousands of years of festivals and the spring harvest. Maybe it’s just Scottish genetics, like […]

Despite reading numerous articles plainly stating that aggressively changing out your running shoes and getting an assessment from a trained running shop consultant are the keys to pain-free running, I’ve always liked to seek my own counsel. This means buying whatever shoes were on sale if they felt OK walking around the store and […]

Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite
and furthermore always carry a small snake.
One hundred years ago, Barking Carnival would have been blogging enthusiastically about America’s three obssessions: baseball, boxing and horseracing. Blogging back then largely consisted of standing on a street corner crate shrieking incoherent opinions about immigrants while backed […]

How can you tell it’s not football season? We are talking about comic books. I have a feeling that the demographic for this is me and me alone but I’m doing this anyway because Ain’t It Cool News won’t post my reviews ever since I admitted that I liked the second Matrix movie better than […]

I was fortunate enough to have attended New Orleans’ Jazzfest over the weekend, and my brain cells have finally regenerated to the point where I’m able to write about it. Three nights at the Old Absinthe House and two mornings of bloody marys at the Chartre House will have that effect on a person.
BTW, […]

Every decade has its own unique goofiness- the ’40s had zoot suits, and the frontal lobotomy as a treatment for depression, the ’80s had Boy George, but I think one decade in the 20th century sticks out for embracing crazy ideas. This is not a matter of political leanings, or taste; this is about […]

I’m a rocker through and through. Here’s a list of my favorite bands: AC/DC, Van Halen not Van Hagar, Skynyrd, Def Leppard…and now Black Tide.
They’re four teenagers from Miami who are one of only a handful of new metal bands I’ve liked in the last 15 years. The guitars sound crisp and the drums don’t […]