Free Stinky Feet

Posted: December 31st, 2008 | Filed under: Pop Culture | 24 Comments »

A few months ago, I wrote this column about a wonderful guy named JIm Cosgrove. You have to be a wonderful guy to happily call yourself “Mr. Stinky Feet.” Jim has been performing music for kids for a decade now as “Mr. Stinky Feet,” and he’s excellent. There’s an artform to performing (and writing) for kids* … you have to keep it simple but not too simple; you have to be obvious but not speak down; you have to reach for something inside you that is not easy to keep once you get older and see the world as an adult. Jim is one of those real-life Peter Pans.

*People have always told me that I need to write some children’s stories … I’m not sure I have that gift. Of course, it could be that people are telling me this simply because I’m striking out in the grown-up genre.

And, while I’m not sure how many people out there are parents of young children, I have to link to Margo’s blog*, where she is giving away five free copies of Jim’s new CD “Upside Down.” Free!

*No, really, I was told that I have to.

The CD is great for kids, and by that I mean that kids will love it AND you will not want to bang your head against the wall after listening to it four times in a row. And this CD has the very sweet song “Let’s Stick Together,” which was inspired (as I wrote in the column) by the day that Jim’s infant daughter was hit in the head by a foul ball at a minor league game. The story, for those of you who don’t want to click on the link, has a happy ending, and it’s a touching song. And, I’ll repeat again, it’s FREE! Leave a comment on the blog, include your email, and — between you and me — chances are that you will win one of these things. Margo, bless her, doesn’t get that many comments on her blog.*

*And she LOVES comments. I’ve never known anyone who loves reader comments as much as Margo. Go on over there, enter the deal. Even if you don’t have kids … even if you never want kids … even if you DESPISE kids … you will want to leave a comment, get in the drawing. Makes great music! Makes a great gift! Makes a great coaster! And it’s FREE!

24 Comments on “Free Stinky Feet”

  1. 1: Shelby said at 10:50 am on December 31st, 2008:

    Awesome stuff.

    Also, They Might Be Giants has some great kids albums that adults can enjoy as much if not more.

  2. 2: KCVEINS said at 10:52 am on December 31st, 2008:

    Hey Joe,
    I didn’t realize that this was a long hiatus from the blog :-)

  3. 3: Doug French said at 11:01 am on December 31st, 2008:

    Good work. I left a comment.

    I know that you “had to” because as they say, “If Momma ain’t happy, ain’t NOBODY happy!”

  4. 4: joe said at 11:02 am on December 31st, 2008:

    i haven’t heard mr. stinky feet, but… i have heard of dino o’dell and he’s also local. the songs he writes for kids is pretty fun stuff! i got a kick out of the flapjack song.

  5. 5: Chris said at 11:11 am on December 31st, 2008:

    I’m scared to click the MargoBlog link. I think it might be filled with 09/09/09.

  6. 6: Johnny said at 11:14 am on December 31st, 2008:

    My kids like that “Mr. Waffles” guy. I think he may be a drunk, though.

  7. 7: James said at 11:40 am on December 31st, 2008:

    He has got to be better than the Wiggles.

    (Boy, you can tell from the comments, who has kids.)

  8. 8: EdB said at 11:42 am on December 31st, 2008:

    I like your brothers’ blog, too… The Anti-Jared. Losing 200 pounds is a big deal, and the guy is funny, too:

    http://theantijared.blogspot.com/

    Apparently all of the the Posnankis have a blog now. Look forward to seeing what your kids start posting, Joe.

    Happy New Year, and thanks for a great source of information and opinion, always well-written. 09/09/09 it is.

  9. 9: Bobby A said at 1:54 pm on December 31st, 2008:

    Happy Wife, Happy Life.

  10. 10: Curtis said at 3:04 pm on December 31st, 2008:

    Joe McDermott is the South Texas equivalent to Mr. Stinky Feet. My daughter adores him, and he puts on a good show. I get the song, “Great Big World” stuck in my head for an hour at a time, and it is a good thing.

    Thanks for the recommendation.

  11. 11: Wade said at 9:53 pm on December 31st, 2008:

    Jeez, you say things are slowing down and then…. BAM. A post for something I could use. But, by the time I get there, Margo already has 38 comments. The least you could do is give us a year end retrospective of the Royals, right?

  12. 12: KCJoe said at 9:54 pm on December 31st, 2008:

    Joe,

    I wrote an email to you when your Mr. Stinky Feet column ran. I have known Jim for many years and his daughter and my son are at the same preschool. I intended my earlier comments to be private but I will say this much publicly: Mr. as well as Mrs. and the 2 Miss Stinky Feet are absolutely wonderful people. The situation with Willa was scary for Jim and Jenny and Lyda but it truly has seemed to be a happy ending.

    I hope you all have a Happy New Year.

  13. 13: David in Toledo said at 11:59 am on January 1st, 2009:

    31 votes in, and I’m front-running happy for the new year — my four votes track the top four vote-getters, though my #4 has only 71%. . . .

  14. 14: McKingford said at 1:21 pm on January 1st, 2009:

    Happy New Year All!

    My HOF vote:

    Blyleven
    Cone
    Henderson
    Raines
    McGwire
    Trammell

  15. 15: David in Toledo said at 7:44 pm on January 1st, 2009:

    356 votes in now, and the top four keep dropping in percentage, with #4 down to 60% and #3 below 75! Who said democracy was a good idea?

  16. 16: Richard Aronson said at 7:48 pm on January 1st, 2009:

    My HOF vote:

    Blyleven

    Henderson

    Raines

    Smith

    Trammell

    I’m not sure I’m ready to vote for McGwire. The rest of the list were all guys I believe belong in the HOVG. I won’t be offended if many of them get in, with Rice, Dawson, John, and Murphy atop my list, but I’m not voting for them.

    By the way, I’m rather surprised about the lack of love for Lee Smith. When he retired, he was the all time saves leader. Of the HOF eligibles, he has the best ERA and ERA+. Yes, saves are a relatively recent construct. But every save means a team victory in a fairly close game (or three innings pitched; Smith wasn’t getting many of those, if any). It’s a stronger correlation that between triples or steals and victories. And since virtually every successful team in baseball is now using an ace closer, I think we need to accept it as a valid specialist role, in the same way that we accept Ozzie Smith as a defensive specialist and Harmon Killebrew as an offensive specialist. So if saves are a valid specialization, then Lee Smith belongs.

  17. 17: David in Toledo said at 9:32 pm on January 1st, 2009:

    I understand Richard Aronson’s case for Lee Smith. I am 95% in favor of voting for Smith. Or, to put it another way, I see him as deserving of a 70% overall vote, not that this is any consolation to Smith’s 100% supporters.

    I’m in favor of Smith because of Richard’s argument and because Smith did his job long enough to collect 198 win shares. 200 seems a good presumption level for a relief pitcher (300 for a starting pitcher or a catcher, 325 for a shortstop, etc.) Eckersley 301, Wilhelm 256, Gossage 223, Fingers 188, Sutter 168. 198’s in that ballpark, and Smith may be a better choice than one of those.

    But . . . in the last nine years, if I read the results correctly, only three pitchers have been chosen, and all three have been basically relievers. It may not be entirely fair to Lee Smith, but with Mariano to come soon, and with the judgment that a great 20-year starter is really more important than a reliever, I voted for a pause. And yet . . . the more I think about it, the more I think I probably should have voted for Lee Smith.

  18. 18: Aaron M. said at 11:06 pm on January 1st, 2009:

    Sorry Joe. Mr. Stinky Feet’s songs *do* make me want to bang my head against the wall. And I have one 13 month old and another on the way.

    I just can’t see how McGwire doesn’t get the necessary votes. It’s sad really. It feels a bit like the newest Batman movie, where at the end of the movie, the public needs a villain to chase, and Batman becomes that person. Well, McGwire has become ours. McGwire saves baseball after the strike with a few sidekicks, and when we find out how he/they did it, we publicly villify him. I’m pretty sure in 20 years we’ll look back and laugh at this as PEDs will become part of the game (they’re here to stay).

    Raines deserves to be in over Blyleven, the 22 year career stat accumulator. Bert had just one 20 win season. That’s an average of 13 wins per season. His K:BB ratio is about 3:1 which is good, but his K:IP ratio is about 3:4. So he got a little more than 6 K’s per 9 innings on average. He was just mediocre for a very long time.

  19. 19: Alex said at 12:39 am on January 2nd, 2009:

    6 K’s per 9 innings isn’t bad at all, *especially* when you have a 3:1 K:BB ratio. If you don’t walk a lot of guys, you don’t have to strike as many out. Plus, he’s got a career ERA+ of 118, and a career WHIP of 1.198. Both very solid. He averaged 13 wins per season, but it’s, I hope, common knowledge by now how wins just aren’t a very good statistic, and furthermore, he finished with 287 career wins, so if you *do* care about wins, he’d be a shoo-in for the HOF with just 13 more…

  20. 20: David in Toledo said at 8:03 am on January 2nd, 2009:

    Aaron, with respect to Bert Blyleven, check out the company on this list:
    http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/5672

    With respect to Mark McGwire, one man’s “saves baseball” is another man’s “ruins baseball.” Over at The Hardball Times, an ethicist says it is great that Barry Bonds has been blackballed because he broke “the record” with juice, whereas Bonds was just the second man into the fight, and the first guy to do the same thing may be about to be rewarded.

    (I think neither McGwire nor Bonds merits banishment. One can contend, however, that McGwire’s 342-win share career does not match for total accomplishment that of Frank Thomas (406), Jim Thome (350), or Tony Perez (349). McGwire’s peak, of course, was Everestian, but one can contend that that is a problem for his case, rather than an asset I dunno — the Dark Knight was too dark for my taste.)

    593 votes in, my #4 is now #5, and #2 has dropped to 77%. I’m feeling somewhere between Charlie Brown and Plato.

  21. 21: Gate said at 9:08 am on January 2nd, 2009:

    I think it’s pretty telling that even among (I would imagine) a pretty sabermetrically inclined voting audience, Tim Raines (along with Alan Trammel and McGwire) can’t crack 75%. The lesson of this is: for all the (understandable) griping we do about the BBWAA, getting 75% of any group of people to agree on choices like this is extremely difficult and is always going to leave deserving people out.

    This of course is why Bruce Sutter’s induction into the Hall of Fame remains one of the strangest things that has happened in my life time.

  22. 22: gogiggs said at 11:18 am on January 2nd, 2009:

    What I want to know is, who are the 24 people who think that Ricky Henderson isn’t a HoFer and how do they manage to operate a computer despite this clear evidence that they are profoundly stupid?

  23. 23: David in Toledo said at 1:25 pm on January 2nd, 2009:

    With reference to Aaron’s characterization above about “mediocre for a very long time,” here are TWO lists (one cited above) to compare:
    http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/baZd
    http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/5672

  24. 24: David in Toledo said at 2:49 pm on January 2nd, 2009:

    I voted for Rickey. However, with respect to Gogiggs’s question about the 28 people who didn’t vote for Rickey (probably “as a first-ballot Hall of Famer”), consider this list:
    http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/D8NJ

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