FAN: RIP Kaye Cowher

I was totally shocked today when I looked at Google Trending and I saw Bill Cowher at #2. Usually that means you just died. Well, close. I didn't even know Kaye was suffering from skin cancer but she died earlier today.

I feel terrible for the Cowher family. 54 is so young. My mother passed away when she was 47. I'm sure she'll be missed by Steeler Nation. She stayed out of the limelight while in Pittsburgh but I'll never forget when her and one of their three daughters met Bill at the tunnel entrance after losing Super Bowl XXX to the Cowboys. She was crying. Bill told his daughter everything would be OK. I'm sure a scene similar to that went down today as well.

FAN: RIP Ronnie James Dio

I forgot to mention this earlier this week. A sad day for metal indeed. I just saw him this season on That Metal Show and from what Eddie Trunk was saying the outlook wasn't all that bad. He took a turn for the worse and just like that, the big C ended his life.

I remember buying Dio's The Last In Line in 1984. I was 16. I already had my drums and I used to play along to Mystery. It was one of my favorites. Rainbow in the Dark had much more staying power and is now a metal staple. I bought Holy Diver shortly after TLIL even though it came out first. There was nothing I liked more than playing those songs and banging the hell out of the big bell on my ride cymbal.

Rest in peace, Ronnie.

FAN: BIH Michael Jackson

While RIP suffices for Rest In Peace, has anyone ever considered using BIH for Burn In Hell? Crimes against children are bad enough before you have one, but after being a parent, it takes on a whole new meaning. A business associate I had lunch with today said she cried when she heard about MJ. Cried? I felt nothing. Was I a super fan? No. Did I own Thriller? Yes. You'd be hard pressed to find somebody my age who didn't. I had that on wax! I have 3 Jackson 5 songs on my iPod as well as Don't Stop Till You Get Enough which predates Thriller. I think it was on "Off The Wall" but I'm not sure. Anyway, when I said "the world is free of one less child predator today" she took offense. Oooops. I'm sorry. Did I say something inappropriate? ME?? C'mon. She then said he was sick and we should just imagine instead of his predisposition for children we should just pretend he had cancer. Hmmmm. Interesting. If he never hurt a fly in his life and committed suicicde, I could equate it to thinking he had cancer. But he didn't. If three kids (or however many) came forward with allegations, doesn't that mean 12-15 had Jesus Juice and had to pet the magic spitting puppet? I don't know. When you pay millions to make the court cases go away you do nothing to clear your name in my mind. If most people are going to think you did it anyway - fight the case to prove your innocence - don't pay to make it go away. In the end, if you want to talk about Karma, which is something I could subscribe to, you know he was guilty. He hurt those kids, maybe ruined them for life...maybe they are currently molesting children or addicted to drugs or beating their wives or something because they can't deal with what happened to them...shit, he could be at the top of a very tall pyramid of abuse that could last for generations.....and he paid for it. He lost his musical edge to write relevant material. He lost his money. He lost his nose....well, his face. He lost it all. He went from being a person who could change the world to being a person who changed the world for a lot of innocent kids. Did he change his appearance because of self loathing over his love for little boys? Dunno. Somethng to think about though, right? Karma. He couldn't Beat It.

FAN: RIP Farrah

Guilty. I had the poster hanging on my bedroom wall. What guy my age didn't? I don't know if any of you guys did this or not - but when I was 10-16 and went to the mall - I would go in any store that sold posters and browse through them one at a time. I had every poster memorized for years. When a new one came out, you knew it was new just because you had never seen it before. Whether it was Murphy's, McCrory's, National Record Mart, Hills or Gee-Bee's - I headed straight to the music and posters section. Do kids still do that? I don't think so. Mine doesn't. She has a 4x6 foot cork bulletin board that I made her covered with pullouts from tweener magazines - but not a single poster. Even when I got to college, my roommate and I had a decent collection of babe posters, the best being a door size poster of Brandi Brandt that was on the ceiling above my top bunk parallel and centered on the bed. Sweet. Is it true Ryan O'Neal is trying to get Cheryl Ladd to replace her? Sorry....couldn't resist.

Theo Bell

Rest In Peace.

Former NFL wide receiver and return specialist Theo Bell, whose 10-year career in the league included a pair of Super Bowl victories with the Pittsburgh Steelers, died Wednesday at age 52 after a long battle with kidney disease. Bell was diagnosed in 2000 with polycystic kidney disease, a condition in which cysts attack the kidneys. More recently he also suffered from scleroderma, a disease which causes a hardening of the skin and damage to internal organs. The scleroderma had severely damaged Bell's lungs. Bell, the Steelers' fourth-round choice from Arizona in the 1976 draft, played five seasons in Pittsburgh (1976-80), then signed with Tampa Bay as a free agent in 1981, and played five seasons with the Bucs (1981-85). With the Steelers, he won Super Bowl rings for victories in Super Bowl XIII and Super Bowl XIV, playing as the team's No. 4 wide receiver and as a punt returner and on special teams coverage units. In 10 seasons, Bell appeared in 127 games. He caught 136 passes for 2,375 yards and eight touchdowns and returned 189 punts for an 8.0-yard average. After his career, Bell, who had been raised in a series of foster homes in California, became involved in a number of charitable endeavors in the Tampa community. The most prominent was the GEARUP program, which originated at the University of South Florida, in which a mentor counsels a group of children from middle school and follows their progress through high school. Bell was particularly involved with Blake High School in Tampa. At the time of his death, Bell was on waiting lists for kidney and lung transplants, but had been hospitalized for two months and was undergoing dialysis three times a week.