Wha?  Why?  When?  Actually it’s a pic of Kenny from his high school yearbook, and for reasons unknown he is sporting a skirt and a lovely blouse/hat ensemble.  It looks like some kind of goofy assembly, but we may never know the details.  It’s part of a slide show that USA Today put together of celebs’ yearbook shots.  Here’s another one of Kenneth:

And Garth, too!

The whole slide show is here.

Why? because he’s now an MBA.  Much to the surprise of his classmates, Garth walked across the stage last week at Oklahoma State University to get a diploma…a REAL diploma, not one of those honorary ones.  People at the commencement were tweeting like mad about their famous classmate suddenly appearing out of nowhere, and most speculated that he must have taken classes online since they hadn’t seen him around campus.  Garth being Garth, he stayed around to pose for all kinds of pics, like this cute one:

So there’s a new DVD-CD set out today by Billy Joel, which was recorded at a huge show he did a few years back.  “Live at Shea Stadium” shows the last-ever concert at that venue before they tore it down, and it features a visit from none other than Garth Brooks, who sings Shameless with Billy Joel.  What’s the connection?  Well it turns out, that’s a Billy Joel song!  He wrote it and released it on an album in 1989, though he never had a hit with it like Garth did.  Okay, maybe you knew that, but for some reason I DID NOT!  So even I learn something in my own tidbits.

As you have probably heard by now, Larry King’s last day as CNN host is coming up soon on the 16th.  Looks like one of his last guests will be none other than Garth Brooks.  This Friday night, ole Lar-Bear will spend a full hour with Garth, which should actually be very entertaining.  In fact Garth gives it two thumbs up!

Oh, you know me. You know my teases. So you probably know that this isn’t dirty. It’s about ticket sales. And it’s about Garth Brooks. He announced recently that he was planning to do a big old Garth Brooks concert in Nashville (his first since 1998) to help raise money for flood relief. So the tickets went on sale last week. And they sold out within minutes. So another date was added. Sold out. And another. And so on and so on, until Garth had sold out NINE SHOWS. Geez Louise. That raises $3.5 million bucks for flood relief, and with 140,000 tickets sold it blows the old record out of the water for ticket sales in one day in Nashville, which was held by Michael Jackson (72,000).

They used to do it all of the time, with songs by Kenny Rogers and others.  Remember “Harper Valley PTA” and “The Gambler”?  Well they’re doing it again, this time with Garth Brooks’ 90s mega-hit “Unanswered Prayers.”  Garth himself will be the executive producer on this Lifetime project, which will air in November and star Eric Close from “Without A Trace.”  All we know right now is that it’s about “love, family and second chances.”

It must be fun to be Steve Wynn. He’s the guy who owns all of those casinos in Vegas, and who has so much clout he can get Garth Brooks to come out of retirement to play at his resort. So imagine you live in Sun Valley Idaho and you’re brainstorming about a fundraiser for the local symphony. People are throwing out various ideas. Steve Wynn is there because he lives in Idaho part time. And he says, “How about we bring Garth Brooks to town and he does two shows, one with just his guitar, and the other with the symphony backing him up?” Ummm, do we need to take a vote on this? Probably not. So that’s what Garth will be doing this Summer, on August 1. No word yet on how to get tickets, but I’ll keep looking into it.

He presented the president with his second Grammy award for spoken word, and received an award himself for his work advocating for musicians’ rights.  This video is pretty cool and reminds you what a gentleman Mr. Brooks is…

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But why?  Doesn’t Garth Brooks have a private plane?  Well here’s the deal:  They’re taking THEIR very own greyhound dog, Emmet, whose show name is “Gaia Woodland Waltz”  to the big kahuna of dog shows, the Westminster, in New York City at Madison Square Garden.  Garth and Trisha are co-owners of this three year-old showstopper, so they’ll be there in NYC Monday and Tuesday cheering him on from the sidelines.  You can catch the Westminster dog show on Animal Planet both nights.