Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. Come inside! Come inside! Just a little Emerson Lake and Palmer to get us started. I just got back from a week at the Jersey shore with my family. They say Houston has the worst air quality in the country. I don't know how that can be true with all the hair spray those Jersey girls use. By the looks of all that big hair, there should not be an ozone layer in that part of the world at all. After the shore, my wife, who is a Rockets Power Dancer (yeah that's the ticket) and I attended a wedding in Long Island where the accents are stronger than the coffee and the bagels are bigger than my belly. Enough about my vacation. (Clutch's inner discourse = My whole life is a vacation. I'd better shut up now before the powers that be realize I have fooled them into financing my life of Riley.)

Song break. "Get a hair cut and get a real job!" thanks to George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers. If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone tell me to get a real job I'd have enough to afford Johnnie Cochran to represent me the next time some Lakers fan tries to sue me for squirting him with silly string. You had it coming Jack! Just let it go.

The NBA mascot conference is all next week in Las Vegas, Nevada. Can you believe that? Our team's actually send all of us idiots across country to learn how to be bigger idiots from each other in the idiot capital of the world. Isn't life idiotic. How many times do you think I can fit the word or some derivation of the word idiot into a sentence. E-mail me and let me know how many times I used it in the third sentence in this paragraph. I will send the first 10 people with the correct answer a free full-sized autographed Clutch poster. If you happen to be in Vegas next week stay away from the Grand Palm Hotel and Casino because it is going to be overrun with animals.

Before I go to the desert and lose all my money that I sweat so much to earn, I will be stopping out to see the kids at Ford Elementary up 45 North to help them start preparing for the new TAKS test taken later this year. I'll see you guys out at Ford on the 20th between 1:30 and 2:30. That's p.m. not a.m. for all you party animal kids. When I get back I will be visiting with Moochie and hopefully a lot of you at his billboard debut signing party. Look for more details on that to come.

The team is looking good. All the correct pieces to the puzzle have been found. Now we just need to put it all together. And I do mean "WE." You fans are the most important part of that puzzle. The power of our collective fan base is the most important element to our success. The home court advantage can and will be our strongest asset. I know you guys are excited just like I am. See you at the game!

P.S. Oh, by the way, "BE PART OF SOMETHING BIG!"