Weekend Update

It's been a long day. I'm observing the way I always have by watching the Concert for NYC that I own on DVD.

Saturday Night Live has added two members to the cast for the new season.

Bill Hader and Andy Samberg will be aboard when SNL kicks off its 31st season, Oct. 1, the Hollywood Reporter said.

Hader is from Second City Los Angeles and most recently appeared as a "field agent" on Ashton Kutcher's MTV celebrity prank show, Punk'd.

Samberg was one of three writer-performer-filmmakers known as The Lonely Island, The Reporter said.

Emma Watson, Liam Aiken, and Kay Panabaker are slated to appear in Airborn when it is released in May 2006.

Albert Pujols needs one more home run to become the second youngest player to reach 200 career home runs. Mel Ott reached 200 at 25 years, 144 days. Eddie Matthews reached 200 at 25 years, 242 days. Currently Albert Pujols is 25 years, 238 days. Morris started today and picked up the loss. Suppan got the win last night. Mark Mulder starts tomorrow. On Thursday, John Gall hit his first career home run.

David Ortiz has yet to hit 40 homers this season to join Yaz as having two consecutive seasons of 40 home runs. Boston lost to the Yankees today.

A look at the 2007 hopefuls.

Johny Barbata has released his autobiography. I'm sure this will be a bestseller for some.

"To top it all off, sitting at the booth next to us was John Lennon and Ringo Starr, who were our idols as we were only 21 years old. I asked our manager to go over and see if we could meet the Beatles and they said, 'Sure, come on over.' So I'm sitting between John Lennon and Ringo Starr, totally smashed on French red wine, and I didn't know what to say to John Lennon. He was smoking a cigarette very casually and one of our roadies came over and tripped and spilled a whole pitcher of beer on John Lennon, who kept smoking the cigarette as if nothing had happened. At that point I leaned over and apologized to him and said, 'I guess if it wasn't for the Beatles and The Turtles we wouldn't be here,' and he replied, 'Everything we got, we stole from Chuck Berry.' And that was my first experience with the Beatles and that's just one of the stories in my book, The Legendary Life of a Rock Star Drummer."

Neil Young performed a new song, "When G-d Made Me," for the Katrina victims during Friday's telethon. This was performed at Live 8 and will be on his new album, Prarie Wind.

Paul McCartney reflects on his life, love, and of course, yesterday.

The new CD's title combines lyrics from two songs. "There is a long way/ Between chaos and creation," McCartney sings on "Fine Line." On "Promise to You Girl," he writes about "looking through the backyard of my life." But although the cover features a 1962 photo of the singer, he downplays the notion he's recalling his past.
"The interesting thing is if you look at my songs when I was 24, like 'Yesterday': `I'm not half the man I used to be.' Well I was 24, half the man would make me 12," McCartney laughs. "'The long and winding road that leads to your door': it sounds like someone who's about 80. 'Looking through the backyard of your life,' I could have written that lyric when I was 24. It just would have meant my days in Liverpool or my days in school. Now it's got more significance because it's a bigger backyard."

Evan Bayh is heading back to New Hampshire soon keynote the Jefferson-Jackson Democratic Dinner.

Bayh, who is considering running for president in 2008, will be the keynote speaker at the New Hampshire Democratic Party's Jefferson-Jackson Dinner on Oct. 29.

It will be Bayh's second trip this year to New Hampshire, home of the first-in-the-nation primary. He spent two days in the Granite State in July, meeting with party leaders and activists, environmentalists and local media, and touring a plant.

Bayh's cultivation of New Hampshire began before that, however. Former New Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, who was the national chairwoman of John Kerry's 2004 campaign and ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 2002, was a top recipient of money Bayh raised through his political action committee. Shaheen remains an influential Democratic player.

But Bayh is one of many potential presidential candidates courting the state.

The Indianapolis Star gave Eric Clapton's Back Home 3 stars.

Mick Jagger is unable to gain weight due to the constant schedule of touring.

The Wrath of Katrina will mess up the landscape in future elections due to the slow responses.

Stonecipher sees the New Orleans area losing Democratic voters and a political network that was of great benefit to Sen. Mary Landrieu and other Democrats.

"On Election Day there is a well-oiled machine that knows how to turn those votes out from specific neighborhoods and in specific ways," Stonecipher said.

Landrieu was elected in a 2002 runoff by a 52-48 margin, a difference of just 42,000 votes. New Orleans was the base of her support.

"If that's compromised, that could be a problem for her," said John Maginnis, who publishes a political newsletter in Louisiana.

Landrieu is not up for re-election until 2008. Kathleen Blanco, the Democratic governor, who also won by a 52-48 margin, faces re-election in 2007.

Ray Nagin, the Democratic mayor of New Orleans, is up for re-election in February. No one knows if the city could even hold an election by then.

Overall, said Maginnis, Republicans have made gains in Louisiana in recent years and "the effects of the storm aftermath probably will help them." President Bush carried the state in 2000 and 2004; Democrat Bill Clinton did so in the previous two presidential elections.

Still, demographic shifts within the state could work to the Democrats' advantage in some cases, Maginnis said.

For example, if the sizable evacuee population now in Baton Rouge, the capital, decides to settle in, that could make the 6th Congressional District, a politically competitive one now held by GOP Rep. Richard Baker, more Democratic.

In Texas, which stands to gain the largest number of evacuees, analysts do not expect much impact on statewide races. But local races - for everything from school boards to legislative seats and perhaps even congressional districts - could be affected.

The place to watch is Houston, which has taken in the most evacuees, at least temporarily.

Richard Murray, director of the Center for Public Policy at the University of Houston, said Republicans hold every elective office in Harris County, which takes in most of Houston, but do not win by much.

"This could accelerate the tipping of the county, which was expected to happen in the next four to six years," he said.

While politics is taking a back seat for now to the urgent needs of the hurricane victims, "my Democratic friends are smiling," Murray said.

Bob Stein, professor of political science at Rice University in Houston, said the political impact on Texas depends in large part on how concentrated or widely dispersed the evacuees are.

He noted that sprawling Houston is one of the nation's least segregated big cities because it has no zoning laws, so hurricane victims could well be broadly scattered, diluting their impact in any particular race.

In any event, though, with Texas' Hispanic population surging and its black population growing faster than the white population, demographic shifts already are pushing the state toward the Democrats. Katrina could help hasten the trend.

"Our politics may be Republican," Stein said, "but that's just a temporary condition."

Coldplay's "Fix You" made it's debut on the British charts at #4.

Pete Townshend has said a new album by The Who may take a few more years. Only two original members are still performing under the name of The Who.

Before I go, it appears that Gov. Fletcher endorses phone sex.

The problem is, the second phone number listed for the Red Cross (ending in 4637) is actually for a phone sex service.

Man, that is pathetic. Take care.