Sometime in 2001 or thereabout VH1 did a bunch of "100 Greatest" lists. For instance, the 100 greatest groups of the Rock era. They surveyed artists and producers and whatever to come up with their list; I surveyed me to come up with mine. We agree on number 1 and basically nothing else. My list follows (just the top 10, 100 is pointless and too time consuming). Here we are with...

Number Ten: AC/DC I won't even listen to anything after Bon Scott died but even so, what they produced in their five or six years together ranks them in the top ten, barely ahead of Metallica, the other kings of great music to listen to while intoxicated. It should be mentioned here that there are no negative points for bad albums, only positive points for good ones and AC/DC have five very good or great ones.

Number Nine: Aerosmith Another good example of a band that started great and went bad, or at least no good for me. Their first four albums include three greats and a very good (Toys In the Attic). They held the title of Best American Rock Band for 1975, 76 and 77. I can't even tell you which album of theirs is my favorite; "Rocks" is their hardest, or at least most metalic; "Get Your Wings" is also good, hard rock with kind of a spacey sound and the first, eponymous album is almost jazzy, the kind of music you would expect to hear in a low-down blues bar or something. Aerosmith rocks!

Number Eight: The Jimi Hendrix Experience Nothing but good stuff from these guys (we'll lump the Band of Gypsys in here too), they were never able to turn bad or "go commercial" because Jimi died so young; it's kind of hard to imagine that happening to Hendrix in any case. Jimi liked to play with toys in the studio sometimes, maybe a little too much in my opinion, but when they were in their groove playing "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)", or "Machine Gun", or "Gloria" you would swear nobody ever played hard blues-rock better. Unless its the guys at seven.

Number Seven: Cream These guys had a shorter career than Hendrix, the shortest of any band on this list but in their two short years together they managed to crank out three studio albums and one live, plus enough other material (singles, live performances, TV appearances etc.) to have three more released "posthumously". Truly a superstar group, they featured one of my top four guitar players (Eric Clapton), possibly my favorite drummer (Ginger Baker) and my favorite bass player (Jack Bruce, also their chief singer/songwriter). I can't think of anything of theirs that I didn't like, their cover of "Crossroads" is the definitive electric blues song. The only reason they are not higher up the list is the brevity of their time together. They were just too good to be true.

Number Six: Alice In Chains The most recently demised band on this list, they were apparently incapable of making happy music. But if I wanted happy music I'd listen to the Partridge Family or something. They seemed to have a perfect fusion of blues guitar, hard, driving beat, gut wrenching lyrics and the voice of utter despair (Layne Staley). Take some acid and listen to the entire "Dirt" album and if you don't die from the hopelessness coming out of your speakers you just might kill yourself anyway. Damn I like that album! (Have never tripped to it) Was anybody surprised by the news that Layne had died of a Heroin overdose?

Number Five: The Doors When I put this list together after watching VH1's list I had these guys at 4 and was surprised that they came out that low but there it is. The original "dark" rock band (or are they blues?) they come out ahead of Alice on the strength of Jim Morrison's greater diversity as a songwriter. They actually do have some songs that could be termed happy, or at least optimistically melancholy (Moonlight Drive, Love Street, Twentieth Century Fox). Also, the fact that they were more than just a rock band but something of a cultural phenomenon contributes to their high ranking. And did anybody ever look more like his voice, or more like a Rock God than Morrison? And he caps it off with the whole "is he really dead?" thing. Beautiful.

Number Four: Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble My favorite guitar player ever, what more is there to say. His very premature death was, to me, the most tragic of all of them as he apparently had survived his self-destructive drinking and drugging phase. He had so much more great music in him. I think he had as much pure talent on the guitar as Jimi or Johnny or E.C. and he had more soul than all of them. God I miss him.

Number Three: Led Zeppelin This was where it all came together, the perfect fusion of blues and rock, or so I thought before I "discovered" Cream and realized that others did it before Zep. Still, no one ever did it better for longer. For a long time their first album was my favorite album and it's still top ten along with Led Zep II. Great guitar, bass and drumming and Robert Plant is THE blues rock front man/singer. Tragic death befell this band too; it seems to be a common thread here.

Number Two: Pink Floyd I still struggle with putting them number two and not one, they're almost co-favorites but I hate cop-outs like that. I always had them very high on my list and then I discovered their first album, "Piper at the Gates of Dawn", the one with Syd Barrett writing most of it as well as being lead guitar, lead singer and band leader. Wow! My current favorite album (for about three years now, maybe four) it is incredibly diverse and a work of absolute genius. Anyone reading this that is not familiar with that album needs to go out and buy it tomorrow, today even, and burn it into his consciousness. The fact that they could lose an artist of Syd's immense talent and still go on to be one of the most successful (and best) bands of all time says quite a lot about the other guys too, doesn't it. They have five, maybe six albums that I rank as great, the most of anyone on this list except... (drum roll please)

Number One: The Beatles! (Anybody just hear Ed Sullivan's voice?) The most venerated rock song-writing duo ever, three great singing voices, (sorry Ringo) and impeccable timing, coming along when they did. More than any other band they were the voice of that era, and it was quite an era. Protest songs (Ya say ya want a Revolution...), introspective songs (I'm Only Sleeping, In My Life, Fixing A Hole) and about a thousand love songs, the Beatles had it all. They were so good, Lennon and McCartney were so prolific, they didn't hardly even use the talents of George Harrison, probably the most under-appreciated musician in rock history. It doesn't seem possible that two of them are dead already. Long live the Beatles!

How 'bout dem Packers?! They needed one of those. Happy birthday number 36 to ol' number 4!

Is anybody still ripping on Brett Favre this week? Watching the game Monday night I came to the realization that not only is BF the Packers' best player, he's the only one they have that is major league quality right now. He's playing behind a make-shift line with ordinary (at best) receivers, no running game and a defense that keeps him playing from behind all the time and he almost willed them to victory. I hope he can find some way to enjoy this season because that was always one of the things that made it so enjoyable to watch him; the fact that he is having fun out there. It is still a game after all, right? Here's a prediction for Sunday: Packers 34 Saints 31 I'll be playing golf but I think I'll tape it. Sounds like a real nail-biter. Go Pack!!

OK, for starters lets just stipulate that God could have made that whole scene possible; he could have miracled a pair of alligators (and crocodiles) into Noah's neighborhood and also two American bald eagles and two western coral snakes and two elephants (of each species) and hippos and rhinos and bison and you get the idea and somehow provided food for them all for six weeks and they all got along and none of the carnivores ate any of the other animals and they all lived in peace and harmony. We'll go past that and look at the why of it all. The stories in the Bible are supposed to each contain some great lesson, or so I've been told. Well what is the great lesson to be learned from this one. That God will go to extreme lengths to punish wickedness? Just then but not now, though, right? That God is all-powerful and can make anything happen? I sort of "got" that from the whole creation story. Any being that can create the entire universe and everything in it out of nothing, just by willing it into existence would not need to keep on proving hinself, would he? And are we really to believe that Noah and his little family were the only people in the world worth keeping? Was anybody almost? Weren't there any little babies then that hadn't had a chance to screw up yet? Or were they flawed right out of the womb? And if so, whose fault is that, anyway? One would think their creator, no?

All questions and no answers so far, doesn't it seem? Well here's one answer: it never happened. All civilizations came up with mythology/theology and most, or at least some, have a great flood story. Primitive people seeking to explain the nature of their environment came up with the God theory and the various stories were fleshed out over the years, growing larger and more interesting with each retelling. Nothing really wrong with that, in my opinion, as long as they are looked at for what they are. Stories. We now know why floods happen, and earthquakes, and tsunamis; it has nothing to do with an angry God or Gods. If I'm wrong may God strike me down this very instant! Arrggghhhhh!!!....

Don't let anyone tell you that the U.S. Senate is a bunch of spineless yes men afraid to stand up to Mr. President, the Grand Exalted G. W. Bush. Just today (all right yesterday, I haven't been to bed yet though, ya know?) they voted to set rules for the rights of foreign prisoners in U. S. custody (terrorists you know). What's next, due process? The Bush administration opposes any such rules, of course, saying that the move would be "restrictive" and would "limit the fight against terrorism". Well duh. The idea that rules will be limiting is not exactly earth shattering, just a new concept to the Bush Whackers I guess.

Here's a quote from John McCain: "Prisoner abuses exact on us a terrible toll in the war of ideas because inevitably these abuses become public. When they do, the cruel actions of a few darken the reputation of our country in the eyes of millions". No shit Sherlock. How many months did it take to come up with this revelation?

Senator McCain went on to say that while the administration might want ambiguity over the terms of reference for detainees, U. S. soldiers were "crying out for clarity."

"We demanded intelligence without ever clearly telling our troops what was permitted and what was forbidden, and when things went wrong we blamed them and we punished them". Don't believe me when I tell you that I didn't see all this months ago. Cuz I did. So did you, right?

Tomorrow (later today) we get to the bottom of that whole Noah's Ark story (I kind of went off on a tangent yesterday, didn't I?)

Just in case you're wondering: my source for the above was the BBC News web page http://news.bbc.co.uk