Jerry Reed Dead at 71

Jerry Reed, a country guitar player, comedian, and actor perhaps best known for  "Smokey and the Bandit" and other Burt Reynolds vehicles from the 1970s and 1980s, has died from emphysemia at age 71. Sony BMG Nashville Chairman Joe Galante called Reed a larger-than-life personality. "Everything about Jerry was distinctive: his guitar playing, writing, voice and especially his sense of humor," ...

OTB Latenight - John Hiatt

I'd never heard of John Hiatt until I caught him on one of those Delta Airlines playlists in those days before iPods when people listened to whatever music was provided for them and damn well liked it. Given the timing, I was probably on my way back from my tour of duty in Germany and getting ready to start ...

Latenight OTB - r.e.m.

From my favourite album by my favourite band. And just look at all that hair! On Dave, I mean. But, yeah, Michael, too.

Caption Contest Winners

The Spin Cycle Edition OTB Caption ContestTM is now over. REUTERS/Vincent West (SPAIN) ✰ THE WINNERS ✰ First: William d'Inger - With the last U.S. sword factory having moved to Mexico, American pacifists are reduced to beating washers into plowshares. Second: Gollum Stop! - - Hammer time! Third: Charles Austin Entry 3367 of the rejected Peter Gabriel music video themes. HONORABLE MENTION Rodney Dill - ...

OTB Latenight - Depeche Mode

Moving from the very contemporary to something a little more, well... one hates to use the word "classic" for the music one grew up with, but there you have it. I'm still hoping my fellows will join me in giving this Late Night OTB thing another go, but I'll keep at it by myself a while either way.

Rush Limbaugh Signs $400 Million Contract

Rush Limbaugh isn't going to have any trouble affording good cigars, having just re-upped with Clear Channel through 2016 for $400 million, including a $100 million signing bonus.  And you thought pro athetes got paid a lot. Said to be Limbaugh's most lucrative deal ever by far, the new agreement runs through 2016 and includes a previously unheard-of nine figure signing ...

James Cason, Ambassador, Paraguay Singing Sensation

James Cason, the U.S. Ambassador to Paraguay, has achieved rock star status in that country. Literally. [H]e learned the obscure Paraguayan Guaraní language, recorded a music album of indigenous folk songs and sold 1,000 tickets to a concert in a downtown theater. Now, in the final year of his four-decade diplomatic career, Cason has suddenly become the toast of Paraguay, or ...

Caption Contest Winners

The What's Black and White and Red All Over Edition OTB Caption ContestTM is now over. (AP Photo/Xinhua, Chen Xie) ✰ THE WINNERS ✰ First: Cowboy Blob - You gonna eat the rest o' that? Second: John425 - Pandas after the earthquake: "WTF was that?" Third: yetanotherjohn - I said I wanted to PANDER to the voters you idiot. HONORABLE MENTION Bithead - The ...

West Point Going Gender Neutral

West Point is changing its Alma Mater and most cherished poem to be more gender neutral. The head of the U.S. Military Academy thinks it's time to replace the "men" and "sons" in West Point's two most beloved songs with more gender-neutral lyrics. Lt. Gen. Franklin "Buster" Hagenbeck, superintendent of the nation's oldest military academy, told a congressional oversight committee Wednesday ...

Deep South Blues for the GOP

The Democrats have picked up their second Deep South congressional seat in as many weeks, with Travis Childers defeating Republican candidate Greg Davis by a substantial margin in the special election contest to replace Roger Wicker, now serving as the interim junior senator from Mississippi, in the House of Representatives: The seat had been in Republican hands since 1995, and the ...