Ray Andres – Redemption Songs – Advert (50 sec)

When the Phoenix Police Department confirmed the identity of a one-legged transvestite prostitute found strung out behind a Taco Bell trash bin Thursday, a city let out a collective gasp.

Cuba Gooding Jr

In the 11 years since he led the NFL with 110 catches and 1,500 receiving yards, then starred in the agent-client documentary “Jerry Maguire,” Rod Tidwell, age 38, has suffered through one disastrous setback after another. Once the face and soul of the Arizona Cardinals, Tidwell gradually lost his career, his fortune, his family, and now, his dignity. “You just wish the best for him,” former Cardinals receiver Rob Moore says. “Because I know his wife and kids are doing great.” Rod Tidwell hams it up during happier times, at the premiere of “Jerry Maguire.”

• Dec. 13, 1996: After trailing Tidwell and agent Jerry Maguire for 15 months, Cameron Crowe releases the documentary “Jerry Maguire.” Costing a mere $6 million to make, the movie wins an Academy Award and grosses $154 million in the U.S. and an additional $120 million overseas. Maguire and Tidwell become overnight sensations.

• Dec. 27, 1996: Following a season in which he catches 84 passes for 934 yards and four touchdowns, Tidwell signs a “guaranteed” four-year, $11.2 million contract extension with Arizona. He learns of the deal during an appearance on “Up Close” with Roy Firestone, and celebrates afterward by agreeing to a new legal bond with Maguire that, unbeknownst to Tidwell, pays his agent 96 percent of all earnings. “Jerry,” he says, “I’d trust you with my life. Take me to the next level, baby. Show me the love.”

• Jan. 5, 1997: McDonald’s debuts a series of commercials depicting Tidwell biting into the new six-layer burger, the McTid, then yelling, “Show me the six layers of all-beef goodness!” Last Chance for Animals (LCA), a national animal rights group based in Los Angeles, demands Tidwell apologize for endorsing a product that slays 12 cows (and 0.4 iguanas) per sandwich. The ads are pulled and Tidwell is released from his contract.

• Jan. 6, 1997: Tidwell is banned for life from a Phoenix-area McDonald’s after stealing the last remaining “Rod Tidwell loves him some McTiddie!” poster.

• March 26, 1997: With Maguire’s blessing, Tidwell and Arizona teammate Larry Centers open the Kwan Café, serving only foods that begin with the letter K. “The Kwan is all about peace, about love, about togetherness,” Tidwell said at the restaurant’s grand opening. “The letter K represents all those things and more.” Writes Kristen Go of the Arizona Republic: “If you enjoy kale with ketchup or kumquat and kiwi with knockwurst on a kohirabi-flavored keiser and a side plate of kidney beans mixed with Kalamata olives, the Kwan Café is for you. If, on the other hand, you like to eat food with flavor, try McDonald’s and the new McRobMoore.” The Kwan Café closes after six weeks, costing Tidwell $650,000.

• April 5, 1997: While walking around Reid Park Zoo in Tucson with his kids, Tidwell tears his right and left ACLs, thus missing the entire ‘97 season. In his place, Rob Moore catches 97 passes for 1,584 yards and eight touchdowns, eclipsing Tidwell’s team records.

• July 22, 1998: Tidwell reports to training camp, enthusiastically telling the media that he’s in the best shape in his life and guaranteeing to “smoke all these fools!” Upon limping toward the space that used to be his locker, however, Tidwell finds that his equipment has been removed and replaced by that belonging to tight end Jarius Hayes. Tidwell storms into the media room, where he seeks out Arizona Republic writer Adrienne Lewin and unleashes a 25-minute expletive-laced tirade. Among other things, Tidwell calls Cardinals GM Dennis Wilburn, “a snake who couldn’t carry my jock even if it was made of feathers,” rips Moore as a “poor man’s Herkie Walls,” describes quarterback Stoney Case as a “little s—” and says, “the beautiful thing is that the Cardinals can kiss my big black ass, because all the money they owe me is guaranteed, and I’ll be happy to sit home and collect every cent while watching ‘Party of Five’ and eating Ho Hos till the break of dawn.”

• July 23, 1998: The Cardinals release Tidwell. Says Wilburn: “Won’t miss that cocky jackass. It’s like the Eagles sing, ‘Some fine things have been laid upon your table. But you only want the ones that you can’t get.’”

• July 27, 1998: The latest issue of Sports Illustrated includes a nightmarish “This Week’s Sign of the Apocalypse” item: “According to the fine print of Rod Tidwell’s contract with the Cardinals, all conditions are immediately voided if Tidwell evokes the name Herkie Walls in any way, shape or form.”

WireImage.com

“William McKinley upheld the gold standard … and you should’ve read the fine print in your contract, Rod.”

• July 28, 1998: Tidwell calls Maguire’s home phone number. Annoying kid answers, tells him the human foot has 26 separate bones, William McKinley upheld the gold standard, beer and snot don’t mix and that Jerry and his mom have relocated to Yigo, where they sell face scrunchers, peddle Scientology literature and live off of Tidwell’s past earnings.

• Aug. 17, 1998: Tidwell’s wife Marci takes the couple’s two children, Tyson and Katie, and moves in with Rob Moore.

• Sept. 3, 1998: Tidwell signs a one-year, $50,000 contract with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League. During his introductory press conference, Tidwell is asked whether he’s excited to be in the land of Celine Dion. “What the hell do you think?” he replies. “I’m a Sun Devil, baby. I’m here until the NFL comes to its senses and brings Rod back in the fold. I’m Jerry Rice, I’m Andre Rison, I’m Mike Irvin — rolled into one. No offense, but f— the CFL. … Next question.”

• Sept. 4, 1998: Tidwell is released by the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

• Sept. 27, 1998: Herkie Walls wins his defamation suit against Tidwell, earning $500,000 for Tidwell “destroying my good name. You don’t f— with Herkie. You just don’t.”

• June 12, 1999: Using all the money remaining in his savings account, Tidwell invests in a screen printing kiosk at the Desert Sky Mall in Phoenix. His business, “Show me … the T-shirt,” only peddles garments devoted to Debbie Gibson’s early work or catchphrases from the “Jerry Maguire” movie. In seven weeks of business, Tidwell sells six shirts reading, “You had me at hello,” three celebrating “Foolish Beat,” two reading, “You complete me” and one reading, “The Kwan.” … By early August his space is filled by a Mr. Pretzel.

• April 15, 2000: Broke and unemployed, Tidwell sells his 12,500-square-foot mansion to pay child support to his ex-wife, Marci Tidwell-Moore. He moves into Room 243 of the La Quinta Inn on North Black Canyon Highway. In exchange for a $15-per-week room, Tidwell agrees to appear at the continental breakfast each morning and serve apple Danish in his shoulder pads and helmet.

• May 6, 2000: Gary Miller of Raleigh, N.C., is the first winner of La Quinta Inn’s highly publicized “Have Rod Tidwell give you a two-hour foot massage” raffle. Coincidentally, Miller was recently inducted into the Guinness Book of World Records under the category “Most contagious case of oozing plantar warts.”

• Dec. 8, 2001: Tidwell takes a leave from La Quinta to try out for the Las Vegas Outlaws of the new XFL. Coach Jim Criner agrees to sign Tidwell under two conditions:
(A) That he go by SHO ME $.
(B) That he accept a secondary role to No. 1 receiver Yo Murphy.

Tidwell angrily storms off and returns to La Quinta, where, in a pastry-filled press conference, he announces his retirement to the Przymylski family of Post Falls, Idaho.

• January 8, 2002: A Fox executive producer tracks down Tidwell and asks if he’d be interested in going three rounds with Mark Fidrych in a new upcoming show, “Celebrity Boxing.” When told Fox will pay $700, plus a flight to Los Angeles, a giddy Tidwell yells, “Sign me up!”

• March 11, 2002: Mere hours before Tidwell is scheduled to fly to L.A., he receives a call from Fox’s Ileana Pena. “I’m sorry,” she tells him, “but we’re going with Ickey Woods.”

• June 12, 2002: A Phoenix radio station, KDUS, reports that a petition demanding the Cardinals retire Tidwell’s No. 85 is making its way around the Internet. “A growing movement to support a legend,” the station reports. “A city taking care of one of its own …”

• June 13, 2002: Having learned that the petition was written from the lobby kiosk of the La Quinta Inn on North Black Canyon Highway, KDUS apologizes.

• Nov. 8, 2002: Upon learning that the WB network is casting has-been celebrities for a new TV program entitled, “The Surreal Life,” Tidwell hitches a ride to New York to meet with Cris Abrego, one of the show’s creators. Blown away by Tidwell’s stinky clothing and lack of integrity, Abrego agrees to place him in a house with Gabrielle Carteris, MC Hammer, Emmanuel Lewis, Jerri Manthey, Vince Neil and Brande Roderick. On the third day, Tidwell drinks six bottles of grape Mad Dog 20/20 and defecates in Hammer’s parachute pants. He is kicked off the set and replaced by Corey Feldman.

• Feb. 19, 2004: Tidwell loses his right leg in a tragic bass fishing accident.

• Dec. 25, 2004: In a story appearing on Page 1A of the New York Times, writer Selena Roberts details the sad fall of Tidwell, the one-time NFL star who’s now broke, hungry, missing a leg and living beneath Phoenix’s Palmerston Bridge. “F— Rob Moore, f— Ickey Woods, f— Gordon Lightfoot,” Tidwell mumbles to Roberts. “I’m Rod Tidwell, and I’m making a galactic comeback on the Planet Kwantoo! Now pass me the ketjap manis!”

• Dec. 26, 2004: Upon learning of Tidwell’s plight, Cardinals owner Bill Bidwell has a fruit basket delivered to Tidwell beneath the Palmerston Bridge. “Shucks,” he says, “it’s Christmastime.”

• September 12, 2005: Tidwell spots a classified advertisement in USA Today that reads: “PROFESSIONAL ATHLETE NEEDED TO EMERGE FROM BAKED GOOD IN NEW YORK. PAY $200, FREE MEAL AND AIRFARE.” The job involves jumping out of an inflatable cake at Mark Brykowytch’s Bar Mitzvah while dressed in a pink bunny outfit. Mark’s father, Marty Brykowytch, has spent the better part of a year planning his son’s big day. Peyton Manning and Tom Brady decline. So do Mary Lou Retton, Cecil Fielder, Tim Teufel, Manute Bol, Henry Ellard, Hugh Millen, David Volek, Zane Smith, Priest Lauderdale, Ila Borders, Clayton Holmes, Claudell Washington, Spencer Dunkley and Herkie Walls. “My wife and I even wrote letters to O.J. Simpson and Mike Tyson,” Brykowytch says. “But they were too expensive.”

“Don’t worry,” Tidwell tells him. “Rod will do the cake.”

• Sept. 26, 2005: Tidwell does the cake jump while screaming, “Show me the Hora!” Attendees love it. Says Aunt Barbara: “How did we get Hootie to agree to such a thing? And why does he smell so bad?”

• July 8, 2006: In a last-ditch effort to save his older brother, Tee Pee Tidwell visits Rod under the bridge and says, “We should start a pizza business!”

“OK,” Rod says. “How?”

“The information superhighway,” Tee Pee says. “It’s gonna be huge.”

Within weeks, Tee Pee has ghost authored his brother’s own Myspace page. It has attracted at least 34 unique visitors.

• Feb. 17, 2007: Still living under a bridge, Tidwell has sold his jersey, cleats and Debbie Gibson CDs in exchange for food. With nowhere else to turn, he dons the pink bunny outfit and begins walking the streets of Phoenix. In his familiar high-pitched cackle, Tidwell shouts out, “Show me the money, sweet thing! Show me …”

• Aug. 27, 2007: Tidwell is found behind the trash bin, high, confused and clutching onto his most prized possession: a copy of the “Jerry Maguire” DVD. “I’m Rod Tidwell,” he tells a police officer. “I air dry.”

Jeff Pearlman is a former Sports Illustrated senior writer and the author of “Love Me, Hate Me: Barry Bonds and the Making of an Antihero,” now available in paperback. You can reach him at anngold22@gmail.com.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Doctors and search dogs, troops and rescue teams flew to this devastated land of dazed, dead and dying people Thursday, finding bottlenecks everywhere, beginning at a main airport short on jet fuel and ramp space and without a control tower.

Haiti dead

The international Red Cross estimated 45,000 to 50,000 people were killed in Tuesday’s cataclysmic earthquake, based on information from the Haitian Red Cross and government officials. Hard-pressed recovery teams resorted to using bulldozers to transport loads of dead.

Worries mounted, meanwhile, about food and water for the survivors. “People have been almost fighting for water,” aid worker Fevil Dubien said as he distributed water from a truck in a northern Port-au-Prince neighborhood.

From Virginia, from France, from China, a handful of rescue teams were able to get down to work, scouring the rubble for survivors. In one “small miracle,” searchers pulled a security guard alive from beneath the collapsed concrete floors of the U.N. peacekeeping headquarters, where many others were entombed.

But the silence of the dead otherwise was overwhelming in a city where uncounted bodies littered the streets in the 80-degree heat, and dust-caked arms and legs reached, frozen and lifeless, from the ruins. Outside the General Hospital morgue, hundreds of collected corpses blanketed the parking lot, as the grief-stricken searched among them for loved ones. Brazilian U.N. peacekeepers, key to city security, were trying to organize mass burials.

Supporting Haiti

Patience already was wearing thin among the poorest who were waiting for aid, said David Wimhurst, spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping mission.

“They want us to provide them with help, which is, of course, what we want to do,” he said. But they see U.N. vehicles patrolling the streets to maintain calm, and not delivering aid, and “they’re slowly getting more angry and impatient,” he said.

In Washington, President Barack Obama announced “one of the largest relief efforts in our recent history,” starting with $100 million in aid. The U.S. Southern Command reported the first 100 of a planned 900 paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division landed in Haiti from North Carolina on Thursday to support disaster relief, to be followed this weekend by more than 2,000 Marines. The American troops “will relieve pressure” on overworked U.N. elements, Wimhurst said.

From Europe, Asia and the Americas, other governments, the U.N. and private aid groups were sending planeloads of high-energy biscuits and other food, tons of water, tents, blankets, water-purification gear, heavy equipment for removing debris, helicopters and other transport, and teams of hundreds of search-and-rescue, medical and other specialists.

But two days after much of this ramshackle city was shattered, the global helping hand was slowed by the poor roads, airport and seaport of a wretchedly poor nation.

Some 60 aid flights had arrived by midday Thursday, but they then had to contend with the chokepoint of an overloaded Toussaint L’Ouverture International Airport. At midday, the Federal Aviation Administration said it was temporarily halting all civilian flights from the U.S. at Haiti’s request, because the airport was jammed and jet fuel was limited for return flights. The control tower had been destroyed in Tuesday’s tremor, complicating air traffic. Civilian relief flights were later allowed to resume.

“There’s only so much concrete” for parking planes, U.S. Air Force Col. Buck Elton said at the airport. “It’s a constant puzzle of trying to move aircraft in and out.”

Teams that did land then had to navigate Haiti’s inadequate roads, sometimes blocked by debris or by quake survivors looking for safe open areas as aftershocks still rumbled through the city. The U.N. World Food Program said the quake-damaged seaport made ship deliveries of aid impossible.

The looting of shops that broke out after the 7.0-magnitude quake struck late Tuesday afternoon added to concerns. The Brazilian military warned aid convoys to add security to guard against looting by the desperate population.

“There is no other way to get provisions,” American Red Cross representative Matt Marek said of the store looting. “Even if you have money, those resources are going to be exhausted in a few days.” The city’s “ti-marchant,” mostly women who sell food on the streets, were expected to run out soon. Red Cross officials have estimated one-third of Haiti’s 9 million people are in need of aid.

The quake brought down Port-au-Prince’s gleaming white National Palace and other government buildings, disabling much of the national leadership. That vacuum was evident Thursday. No senior Haitian government officials were visible at the airport, although President Leonel Fernandez of the neighboring Dominican Republic said after meeting with President Rene Preval that the Haitian leader was in control of the situation, working from the airport.

Saving their friends and family trapped in rubble

“Donations are coming in to the airport here, but there is not yet a system to get it in,” said Kate Conradt, a spokeswoman for the Save the Children aid group. “It’s necessary to create a structure to stock and distribute supplies,” the Brazilian military said.

Edmond Mulet, a former U.N. peacekeeping chief in Haiti, arrived Thursday from U.N. headquarters in New York to lead the relief effort, along with a U.N. disaster coordination team. The first U.S. military units to arrive took on a coordinating role at the airport, but State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley underlined, “We’re not taking over Haiti.”

Wimhurst said the Haitian police “are not visible at all,” no doubt because many had to deal with lost homes and family members, and law-and-order needs had fallen completely to the 9,000 U.N. peacekeepers and international police in Haiti.

Across the sprawling, hilly city, people milled about in open areas, hopeful for help, sometimes setting up camps amid piles of salvaged goods, including food scavenged from the rubble. Small groups by roadsides could be seen burying dead. Other dust-covered bodies were being dragged down streets, toward hospitals where relatives hoped to leave them. Countless remained unburied, stacked up, children’s bodies lying atop mothers, tiny feet poking from blankets.

The injured, meanwhile, waited for treatment in makeshift holding areas — outside the General Hospital, for example, where the stench from piles of dead, just a few yards (meters) away, wafted over the assembled living. Crews began removing unclaimed bodies with bulldozers, dumping them into trucks, possibly for mass burial.

Heavy damage to at least eight Port-au-Prince hospitals severely hampered efforts to treat the many thousands of injured, the World Health Organization said in Geneva. At least 2,000 injured were reported to have been treated at hospitals next door in the Dominican Republic, including the president of the Haitian Senate, Kelly Bestien.

Here and there, small tragedies unfolded. In the Petionville suburb, friends held back Kettely Clerge — “I want to see her,” she sobbed — as neighbors with bare hands tried to dig out her 9-year-old goddaughter, Harryssa Keem Clerge, pleading for rescue, from beneath their home’s rubble.

“There’s no police, there’s nobody,” the hopeless godmother cried. By day’s end, the girl was dead.

At the collapsed U.N. peacekeeping headquarters, search-and-rescue firefighters from Fairfax County, Va., pulled an Estonian guard, Tarmo Joveer, alive and unhurt from the ruins at 8 a.m. Thursday, 39 hours after the quake — a “small miracle,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in New York. But U.N. officials reported that 36 other U.N. personnel, mostly peacekeepers and international police, were confirmed dead and almost 200 remained missing, including top staff.

Nearby, a rescue team from China, with sniffer dogs, clambered through rubble and searched for signs of life. Two excavators stood by, ready to dig for survivors — or dead. A French team, meanwhile, rescued three people alive from the wrecked Montana Hotel, U.N. officials reported.

European and Latin American nations reported scores of their nationals unaccounted- for in Haiti, and a handful confirmed dead. Of the estimated 45,000 Americans in Haiti, the U.S. Embassy had contacted almost 1,000. Only one American was confirmed dead, a veteran Foreign Service officer, Victoria DeLong, killed in her collapsed home.

For the long-suffering people of Haiti, the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation, shock and disbelief were giving way to despair.

“We need food. The people are suffering. My neighbors and friends are suffering,” said Sylvain Angerlotte, 22. “We don’t have money. We don’t have nothing to eat. We need pure water.”

But life also went on. Brazilian soldiers helped deliver a baby girl in an improvised garage-hospital at their base, just hours after the quake hit. Capt. Fabricio Almeida de Moura said the child was doing well, but the life of the mother, who apparently went into labor from the shock of the tremor, was in danger from bleeding, the Agencia Brasil news service reported.

The unimaginable scope of the catastrophe left many Haitians, a fervently religious people, in helpless tears and prayer.

Reached by The Associated Press from New York, Yael Talleyrand, a 16-year-old student in Jacmel, on Haiti’s south coast, told of thousands of people made homeless by the quake and sleeping on an airfield runway, “crying, praying and I had never seen this in my entire life.”

Earlier, she said, one woman had run through Jacmel’s streets screaming, “God, we know you can kill us! We know you’re strongest! You don’t need to show us!”



That’s What Friends Are 4 – For – Dionne Warwick & Friends. (shouts out from BOB and Metka Bahlen.

Check out the cd covers from Ray Andres original, Revolution and the latest cd Redemption Songs. Hope you like.

[View with PicLens]

For the next two weeks, until December 18, officials from more than 190 countries will be gathering in Copenhagen

Copenhagen Climate Conference

to write a new treaty on climate change.  For much of the year, there have been questions about whether the conference would come together and, if so, what it could accomplish at a time when much of the world is preoccupied with the global recession. In recent weeks, however, many of the world’s economic powerhouses and biggest polluters, including the United States and China, have said they’re serious about hashing out an agreement. Of course, with so many countries attending, “success” can mean different things to different people: Some want a political agreement; others want a legally binding treaty. Here are five things that could determine the outcome:

[See a slide show of the Top 5 Issues at Copenhagen.]

1. Developed Nations Vs. Developing Nations

Pretty much all the countries attending the talks agree that greenhouse gas emissions are contributing to climate change. But few want to slash their emissions without first ensuring that competing countries will do the same. Developing countries want the United States and other developed nations to cut emissions the most, since historically it’s the industrialized world that’s responsible for most of the carbon pollution in the atmosphere. But China, India, Brazil, and many others are growing rapidly, so the United States and other developed countries argue that the developing world must get a handle on its emissions, too.

2. Targets for Cutting Emissions

In Copenhagen, this tension will most likely play out in a numbers game. The scientific community says industrialized countries need to cut their emissions 25 percent to 40 percent by 2020 to avoid the worst of climate change. The European Union seems OK with that idea, but the United States has been resistant. President Obama recently announced that he’d call for cutting U.S. greenhouse emissions by about 17 percent. It has gotten a mixed response, with many nations saying the United States needs to be much more aggressive. Meanwhile, a few weeks ago, China announced that it will curb the “intensity” of its emissions (relative to GDP) by 40 percent to 45 percent by 2020. That was hailed as a sign that China is getting serious about climate change, but it has also left some questions. Watch for countries in Copenhagen to press China to be more specific about what its emissions goals mean.

[See photos from the Copenhagen climate conference.]

3. Assistance to Poor Countries

Many of the countries that will be hardest hit by climate change are poor. Some are island nations. Some are prone to drought. Others have big coastlines and

Kids at work

are already seeing the impact of changing ocean chemistry and rising sea levels. To respond to climate change, they say, they’ll need Western help. A lot of it. And that means money. But it’s unclear right now just how much rich countries will be willing to give poor countries (especially when government treasuries aren’t doing so well) in terms of cash and new technology. The World Bank estimates that poor countries will need up to $100 billion a year to respond to climate change. So far, Obama and Western countries have pledged $10 billion by 2012. Clearly, a lot of work remains to be done.

4. Carbon Trading

There’s a general agreement–internationally, anyway–that the best way to tackle emissions is by putting a price on carbon. That means a future involving a busy, lucrative global carbon market, in which people buy and sell permits to emit carbon. These global markets, not surprisingly, are complicated, and there are a lot of tough issues to be worked out when it comes to making sure that markets are honest and transparent. No one wants a repeat of the current financial crisis. But many countries also don’t want an international regulatory body telling them how to run their economy.

5. Pollution Offsets

One way for countries to cut emissions is to switch to cleaner forms of energy or to make their power plants more energy efficient. But there are other options. For example, a power company, rather than trimming its own emissions on site, might find it cheaper to pay a forest owner to plant a bunch of carbon-trapping trees. In other words, the power company is “offsetting” its pollution by paying someone else. As part of the Copenhagen talks, officials will be considering which types of offset programs work and can actually be enforced. (There’s a big potential for fraud here.) Countries like Brazil and Indonesia, for example, are pushing hard for a forest program that would handsomely reward them for not cutting down their trees.