Sunday Rerun: Take me out

 Today's stories are from the world of baseball, but they really don't have as much to do with the sport as they do with the way people act (as opposed to the way they ought to act!)

The Liberty Bell tattoo is not your pass to annoy
everyone from here to Valley Forge

Story The First took place in Philadelphia, the town where Santa Claus was pelted with snowballs during a football game.  As the Phillies were playing the Giants, a leather-lunged fan sitting behind home plate was hollering at umpire Bob Davidson, apparently suggesting that the ump had something in common with an industrial vacuum cleaner. For six innings, the verbal assault continued, loudly enough to be heard all over the ballpark, and Davidson fixed things by calling time out and signalling to security in the stands that it was time to send this "fan" to the shower.

The shame.

Story The Second comes from Cincinnati, where the Cardinals were taking on the hometown Reds.  Reds first baseman Joey Votto went over to the stands to try for a foul popup, only to be blocked by a hometown fan getting in the way.  Before returning to his position, Votto took time to grab the man's Reds shirt to emphasize where his loyalty ought to lie, and then shook his head balefully.

The Phila story wraps up with the (apparently) intoxicated fan being given the gate, waving his arms and displaying a real red neck as he departed to the applause of other fans in the area.

In Cincy, Votto autographed a ball for the pushy fan, inscribing it with "Thanks for being so understanding when I acted out of character."  Then they posed for a selfie and everyone went home happy.

In both of these cases, we see illustrated one of the basic problems of today's society: that "It's all about ME" attitude that makes everyone think they can be involved in everything just because they WANT to be.  Short and clumsy?  Demand a place on the basketball team anyway!  Can't walk without tripping over linoleum?  Get out there and dance your pants off! Not enough grazing land for your cow? Occupy federal land and just take all the acres you need! Can't pronounce "Tanzania"? Run for the highest office in the land anyway!

You wouldn't like it so much if you went to a classical music concert and some joker two rows ahead pulled out a harmonica and began honking away to the Rondo Alla Turca. Out for an evening of fine cuisine, you do not expect someone's cousin from Kankakee to go to the kitchen, elbow the chef aside, and prepare your ricotta and asparagus quiche, nor would you want the dining room to be fouled with the colorful billingsgate of the loading dock.

Simply stated, the people sitting near the contumacious Phillies fan paid their way in and deserve to enjoy a ballgame without his profane word-assault.  And the people watching the Reds game want to see Joey Votto play baseball, not you.  

Just enjoy the game, be it baseball, Parcheesi, or life itself. 

The Saturday Picture Show, January 30, 2021

 

Sure, we know that camels can go for miles and hours without water, but I didn't know they were so strong that they could pull this much weight. 

This person did not pay attention (got to be a man!) to his  mother saying, "Stop playing with your food!"

Dairy Queen coupons! They have to be available on line, but here's one up on the billboard, and someone is ready to slice! Of course, they ran this special to salute incoming SCOTUS Justice Amy Cone Barrett.

Ah, so sweet, the sight of a country road. It's just begging for hikers!

Here's a truck spill that no one will Snicker over...it's two tons of chocolate all over the interstate.

Baby Platypus says hello!

In 1982, we all foresaw a future in which every office worker could tune in to their story or their game show or "Bewitched" reruns on their watch. Now, you can see it all on the phone and we still complain there's nothing on.

Here's a town (I can't find out where this is though) whose Parks And Recreation people are smart enough to put park benches on tiny tracks so they can be moved, depending on whether the sitters with sunshine or shade.

We can't be sure of when this was sculpted, nor can we say with certainty that Roman rats of the first or second century actually played the trumpet. If they did, did they take lessons? And where did they find the tiny trumpets?

Next time you pack up the pack in your minivan and schlep them all to 17 different locations, just think of this mother gharial. Gharials, or fish-eating crocodiles, have developed a system for transporting their young down the river, and you can bet that at least one of them is kicking her right now!

As George Carlin said, "How can you be a guest and a host at the same time?"

I'm sad to see that the Packers won't be in the Super Bowl, because that means that the Buccaneers will, and that means even more exposure to the irksome Tom Brady. But that gives the Packers' quarterback,  Aaron Rodgers, time to take a turn as a host on "Jeopardy!" 

In 2015, Aaron appeared on a celebrity edition of the show - the version we non-brainiacs like because the questions are much simpler ("This baseball team wears pinstriped uniforms and plays their home games in Yankee Stadium"). He let that cat out of its bag on a TV show a couple of weeks back, although he wasn't supposed to say anything about it.

A "Jeopardy!'' spokesperson, asked to verify all this, declined to, saying that nothing about future guest hosts has been made official in the wake of Alex Trebek's passing.

"I may have jumped the gun a little bit, so I apologize to 'Jeopardy!' if they wanted to announce it," Rodgers said. "I just got so excited on the show earlier. It just went down the last couple of days, us figuring it out. It is very exciting. It's for the offseason. We'll be even more excited when that opportunity gets a little closer, but, man, the show has been so special to me over the years. It's been a staple at my house here in Green Bay for the last 16 years -- 6 o'clock watching Alex [Trebek] and trying to get as many questions as I can."

After a long battle with cancer, Alex Trebek died on November 8. But Rodgers recalls, "When the opportunity came up [for 'Celebrity Jeopardy!'] in 2015, I mean that was a dream come true -- it really was -- to be on there," Rodgers said. "To get to meet Alex was just such a special moment, and we're all obviously sad about his passing.

"There's this nostalgic connection to certain figures in our life based on our childhood and where we were at and the times we had those memories, it almost makes these people feel like family, like you know them."

Rodgers puts Trebek in really high company, comparing meeting him to the times he met legendary sportscasters Keith Jackson, Dan Fouts, Pat Summerall, and John Madden.

"We all have so much love and affection, I think, for what [Trebek] meant for that half hour, that 22 minutes of our lives on a daily basis for those of us who were big fans of the show," Rodgers said. "So to be able to be a guest host is really, really special for me, and I can't wait for the opportunity."

I'll take NFL quarterbacks for $500, please:

This Golden Bear from Chico, California, sets high "marx" for passing every season.

Sometimes it's hard to believe we live in the same country

I understand that a lot of people like to hunt. I do too, but my hunting involves looking for a copy of Bob Greene's book about Alice Cooper, "Billion Dollar Baby," for less than a hundred bucks. It was a great story about how Greene, before he launched into his habit of despoiling young women who came to him for career advice, actually toured with and performed in Alice's show. 

But others enjoy putting on their camo gear and trooping out into the woods to shoot at deer who have the day off from running into cars on back roads, and that's fine. Whatever you like. 

But if you move to Oklahoma, "where the wind comes sweeping down the plain...Where the waving wheat can sure smell sweet when the wind comes right behind the rain..." you can strap on the Timberlands and go hunting for Bigfoot! That's right. One lawmaker down there wants to issue Bigfoot hunting licenses and set up a Bigfoot hunting season.

 But leave your rifle behind, because they don't want you shooting Sasquatch, the apey critter who is said to strut through the forests of North America JUST AS PEOPLE HAPPEN TO HAVE THEIR CAMERA READY and leave man-size footprints. They don't want him shot. They just want to make money from people who think he might be alive.

“I want to be really clear that we are not going to kill Bigfoot,” says state Rep. Justin Humphrey, a Republican. “We are going to trap a live Bigfoot. We are not promoting killing Bigfoot. We are promoting hunting Bigfoot, trying to find evidence of Bigfoot.”

However, here is what the bill directs the Oklahoma Wildlife Conservation Commission to do: Create rules, dates, license and fees “establishing a big foot (sic) hunting season.”

By the way, the word Oklahoma comes from the Choctaw words okla and humma, meaning "red people."

There must be plenty of extra money sitting around in Oklahoma, because Humphrey says he wants to put up a $25,000 bounty for someone who traps the cryptid (a being whose very existence is rumored, but unsubstantiated, such as Tiffany Trump.)

In fact, don't book a room at the Broken Arrow Motel 6 just yet. "We use science-driven research, and we don’t recognize Bigfoot in the state of Oklahoma,” Micah Holmes of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation told a local news station down there. Holmes says the bill would make them create a new season and a new license for something chimerical (see Tiffany Trump). 

But look at how many tourists and hunters will come on down there, counters Humphrey!

“Having a license and a tag would give people a way to prove they participated in the hunt,” Humphrey told KFOR. “Again, the overall goal is to get people to our area to enjoy the natural beauty and to have a great time, and if they find Bigfoot while they’re at it, well hey, that’s just an even bigger prize.” 

If you recognize the name Justin Humphrey, it might be from the time in 2017 when he put forth a law making it illegal for a woman to have an abortion without the father's consent. He used the term "host" for pregnant women.

Cowboy hat, check. Bolo tie, check.

So he's 0 for 2 in the "good idea" category.

The 3MMM

 Since so many people tell me I need some good advice, I never miss the "Ask Amy" column in the Baltimore SUN, written by Amy Dickinson.  I always like to compare my imaginary answers to her real ones, and I notice that she rarely suggests to her correspondents that they simply "knock it the hell off."

But the other day, she shared a letter from David Thoele, M.D, a pediatrician from Chicago. In order to help his patients deal with stress and anxiety, so prevalent during these times of COVID-19 and its attendant concerns, he suggests that they keep a journal, and he recommends what he calls he "Three Minute Mental Makeover - the 3MMM. 

To do the 3MMM, write:

• Three things you are grateful for, and be specific ("My dog when she wags her tail," "My dad when he bakes cookies.")
• The story of your life in six words (example: "Born, School, Work, Work, Work, Work.")
• Three wishes (Pretend you have a magic lamp. List your wishes.)

I am going to do this, and I can promise you that my answer for the second question won't have nearly as many mentions of the word "work."

I'd love to see your answers!

Cheeky

 There's an old expression that says, "Man is the only animal that laughs, and has a state legislature." I always figured that the former was because of the latter. Maryland's state legislature is always full of embarrassment for the entire state and we don't need any more of that. This latest episode, which features a male delegate who has been in plenty of trouble before telling a female state delegate that she is more attractive than another female who previously testified, is the sort of thing that makes good people cringe and shake their heads.

Cringing is sort of like blushing, and as Mark Twain put it, "Man is the only animal that blushes, or needs to." I know that we humans like to ascribe human characteristics to animals - they call that anthropomorphism - but I am fairly certain that dogs don't smile and cats don't laugh and giraffes don't cry at sad movies and alligators don't register joy and iguanas don't feel excitement and deer don't feel contempt.  It seems that the animal kingdom deals with basic emotions that concern having food to eat and water to drink and shelter from the elements and an occasional new outfit, and that's it. They really don't have time to envy another cow or hold a grudge because of something that happened six months ago.

I'm not saying that your pet doesn't love you. They do. But it's a simple kind of love. They love you for providing them with those basic elements, and you love them for keeping your feet warm at night, so you and your warm feet get up in the morning and dole out the kibble and water and clean up the poop. 

Our neighbor who passed away in December left behind a dog who loved her very much, and she in turn loved the dog too and arranged for a friend to adopt the pooch. With the sense that God gave a dog, the chances are that Roxy is happy and healthy in her new home. She misses her original companion, sure, but her instinct tells her to live out her days as well as she can.

Meanwhile, a man drives to Annapolis to make laws for us to live by, and he lacks the sense that a dog would have, not to insult the looks of another person, or judge the validity of someone's case based on their appearance.

I think we would be better if we were more like the animals.

I wish I were an Oscar Meyer Driver

I'm not much for giving advice to young people, solely because I'm somewhat crazy, but I want you young 'uns to listen tight when people tell you that you have to finish college if you want to get a good job.

Sure, there are trades that pay well for those who complete an apprenticeship, but jobs as plumbers, carpenters, mechanics and so forth come and go all the time. Today's Smart Young Man and Woman want to build a solid career based on driving the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile!

You have to show the sheepskin from Old Siwash to land this position, but think of the fun you'll have, piloting a tubesteak along the highways of America. The Wienermobile came to our Giant Food way back in 2012, so we are due for another visit soon!

There are actually six of the hot dog cars on the roads across our nation, so Oscar is looking for a whole squad of hotdoggers. The job is for a year, but you have to figure, if you're really good at it, they will keep you forever!

For the gearheads among us, the chassis of a Wienermobile comes from a 2018 Isuzu medium-duty truck. It carries a 27-foot body, propelled by a 6.0-liter, 330-horsepower V8 engine. The headlights come from a 1995 Pontiac Grand Am, and the taillights are from a Camaro.

If they could only find a way to get it to run on catsup or mustard, they'd really have something!

Sunday Rerun: Where the roadrunner lives

 My grandfather used to subscribe to a magazine called "Arizona Highways." Every month, the mailman dropped his copy into the house through the mail slot at his front door, and eventually, I'd get to read it, and every month, I'd thumb through it, and see page after page of pictures of cactuses, you know, what the Latin-speaking population called cacti. 

Great spiny prickly desert plants and vast arid desert scenes! That's what the magazine was all about. And then people started talking about moving to Phoenix, Scottsdale or Tucson for retirement because it's so warm there and you don't have to shovel snow and so what if it's 128° there - it's a dry heat!  Just like in your oven!

I know some fine people who live in Arizona, and I really don't have anything against the state by and large, but I think all that heat must be getting to some people I do not know.

For instance: this recent tweet from the Arizona Dept. of Public Safety.  

"It appears an artist got creative near Casa Grande and turned a cement truck drum into a space capsule! Caused a stir on #I10 this morning."

What happened was, decades ago, someone abandoned the drum part of one of those cement mixers - those big trucks that drive around stirring up future sidewalks - alongside highway 110 in AZ, and recently, an artist named Jack Millard decided to turn it into a piece of art.  

"Henry! Is that Apollo 12?"

He turned it into what is supposed to look like an old Apollo spacecraft. Look at the picture.  Does it really look like something that's been to the moon, or came FROM the moon?

Still, people called the police to investigate it. And after an exhaustive study, they were able to determine beyond any doubt that it was, in fact, an abandoned cement mixer.

Millard, as artists will, turned the matter into a struggle for artistic freedom for all those working in the field of painting and decorating old cement mixers:

"As an artist, you know when you're on the right path when those in authority question you for what you're creating. This encounter turned out peaceful and even a few laughs. - Don't give up hope," he wrote.

He's also trying to find a way to move this thing closer to the highway, and of course, after that will come the parking lot, the admission fee to see the sight, the souvenir stand, the "I Saw The Cement Mixer From Outer Space" T-shirt, and the movement to have the whole episode memorialized on a commemorative US postage stamp.

The Saturday Picture Show, January 23, 2021

 

All my life I have been fascinated with giant versions of things or tiny versions of things. Now in the case of Lady G G here, from the other day, is this a real life-size version of a dove, or a giant size version of a small, modest dove brooch? Maybe it's a miniature representation of a huge dove. I can't figure it out, but at least she didn't wear her meat dress again.

I know, I know. It LOOKS complicated and like a grande deal, but look again. All it is is 4 sticks and some shadows.

The nation's capitol really put on the ritz the other night. I thought it was a very nice inauguration all around.

You'd want to scream too if those doggone kids got a hold of your paper clips!

I guess it took a few years for this practical joke to bear fruit, as it were, but what happened here (Oregon) was, when they reforested this part of the, uh, forest, they slipped in a few larch trees in the time honored design. Wooden you love to talk to the guys who did it?

There's nothing on earth more determined to get to some lichen than a mountain goat.

NFL shoulder pads are getting smaller, as seen by the ones worn by Marshawn Lynch on the right. Back in the 90s, they looked (left) like players were carrying their luggage with them on Sunday.

Next time you're served a nice baked russet potato, remember its first stop on the way from the fields of Idaho to your fork was a giant warehouse with a guy who waves at potatoes.

These two have a lotta lotta lovin' getting ready to go on Valentine's Day...remember, it's just a few weeks away!

If you take the Baltimore Beltway all the way around to the Southeast side, past where the steel mill used to be, you will have the chance to cross over the harbor on the Francis Scott Key Bridge, from which you can see this abandoned fort built on a manmade island. It's called Fort Carroll and it was originally planned as a defense outpost for the port and city of Baltimore. It has been deserted for years, because the defense of the port and city is now handled by an armed vigilante force which roams the city by night. Fort Carroll is currently the home of some amazing wildlife - check this drone video! Fun Fact: The whole project was designed by Robert E. Lee.

Zip it!

Police officers, penitentiary workers, and lovers of bondage everywhere were rankled several weeks back when the insurrection was raging and people were seen running in and out of the Capitol with flex-cuffs. Their rankle-rage stemmed from the fact that some were calling these ersatz handcuffs "zip ties." They are also called "flex cuffs," but they work on the same principle as that zip tie I use to seal my trash bags every Monday night.  There is a flexible tape with "teeth" that grab a little thing called a "pawl." When the tape is pulled tight, the teeth engage the pawl with a ratchet action that cannot be reversed, forming a tight link that our refuse collectors always seem to appreciate.

Just as William Claude Dukenfield is better known as W.C. Fields, zip ties have a real name. Their brand name is Ty-Rap (why hasn't some hip hop artist chosen that as a stage name?) and their origin is one of those stories I love to share, so here 'tis...

A man named Maurus C. Logan worked for Thomas & Betts, an electrical company. He happened to be touring a Boeing aircraft plant one day in 1956 and was watching people assemble wiring for airplanes. As you might imagine, the wiring for an airplane is a tedious, cumbersome undertaking, a lot more complicated than repairing a lamp or an extension cord. There's so much wire, they had to lay it out  - thousands of feet of it - on 50-foot long wooden sheets to be bundled up into thick cords. Back in the day, people wrestled these thick cords and tied them together with waxed nylon rope. Each knot of the rope had to be pulled tight by hand. Logan, in talking to the workers, heard that their hands became so callused by hundreds of tiny cuts that they referred to each other as "hamburger hands." He figured there had to be a way to gang these wires with something than bound them quickly and safely.  

It took two years, but he developed and patented Ty-Rap in 1958, and from the aircraft industry to the weekly task of sealing my trash bags, they are everywhere now. 

And while I was researching all this, I found these some other uses for zip ties on a site called https://www.onegoodthingbyjillee, so why not share them, I thought? 

1. Key Ring

2. Binder Rings

3. Organize Cables - you'll save a lot of hassle if you put a red zip tie on each end of cords and cables running to your pc. One day when you're guessing which plug to pull out of the power block, you'll be glad!

4. Luggage Lock- run one between two zipper pulls. But he sure you have a knife on you to cut it off when you get where you're going! Be funny if the knife were inside the sealed carryon bag.

5. Bubble Wand - a small loop at the end of a long zip can be a bubble wand, sure!

8. Childproofing cabinets - zip two adjacent knobs!

9. Plant Support - a loosely-looped zip around a plant stem, with a pencil for a stake in it, and there you go!

and the most amazing of all: Zip Tie traction aids for shoes! 

Some icy morning when you're headed out to scrape ice off the car, run a zip tie around the toe of your shoe, and pull it tight, with the fastener pointing to the ground, trim the excess, and away you go!

Tasty Way to Help

Down in Norfolk, Virginia, good neighbor Sam Peavy (AKA the Lasagna Lady) set a goal to whomp up 1,000 pans of lasagna this past holiday season. I hope she accomplished that goal, but I see no followups on the web. But what a great thing to do for people in need! Who doesn't love lasagna!?

There is an art to cooking a meal for your family, and quite another to cook for a thousand families, but Ms Peavy has been working on this for 25 years now. She teamed up with the Women's Club of Norfolk and the Norfolk Fire Department to bring warm, comforting meals to that group of familiesin need at the holidays.

 "I love making lasagna, to me lasagna is lots of love, so I thought I should call this Love and Lasagna," Peavy told local news station WTKR. The Love and Lasagna squad does their good work at the Women's Club kitchen.

"You are meat and cheese, and you guys are sauce and noodles," Ms Peavy was heard to say to her volunteers, assigning each one a task.

It was last autumn when Ms Peavy came up with the idea. As she put it, "I'd like for everyone in Virginia, or in our community anyways, to have lasagna for the holidays, just to have something warm or some type of centerpiece, just for them to conversate, for them to heal. For whatever they may need it for."

Told that many people are really up against it in wintertime, Ms Peavy said again, she wants to serve up kindness along with pasta, beef, sauce, and cheese: "What better way to have this square piece of love," she said. 

All it takes is for good people to do something...

We'll remember always, Inauguration Day

 Knowing of the wide-ranging disdain I have for the "man" who departs our White House today at noon, many friends, acquaintances, passing strangers, and bill collectors have asked me if I plan to write some scathing, scalding, denunciation of the short-fingered vulgarian "with curly eyes and laughing hair."

The answer is no. A man who stares into the sun during a solar eclipse, redraws the path of a hurricane to reflect where he wanted it to land vis-a-vis where nature placed it, who autographs copies of the Holy Bible as if one the chapters was written about him, salutes North Korean generals, and tosses paper towels at Puerto Ricans is not interested in my opinion, nor yours, to be frank.

The White House is undergoing a thorough disinfection and cleaning out, in every sense of the word. We're moving on.

We've had our Phil

Heaven and Hell, that was Phil Spector, the record producer who died on Saturday night. He had an ability to produce great music - Wagnerian operas for the 1960s, or "little symphonies for the kids, as he called them - and at the same time, the most-used word in descriptions of him from those who knew, worked with, and married him was "vile." And the list continued with "nasty" and "psychotic" and so on down the line.

Yes, he produced hit records for The Teddy Bears, The Crystals, Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, The Ronettes, Darlene Love, Ike & Tina Turner, The Righteous Brothers,The Beatles, George Harrison's first solo album, John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band, and The Concert for Bangladesh. 

He married Ronnie Spector of The Ronettes and tormented her, waving guns in her direction and making her a prisoner in his mansion until she escaped barefoot one day. He was said to brandish handguns regularly, probably as compensation for his small size and nerdish persona. He made a practice of cheating people in business, even his own musicians and singers. They were the backbone of what he was selling, but he saw them only as tools to be used in the fulfillment of his artistry as producer and hitmaker.

He was convicted of murdering actress Lana Clarkson at his mansion. At first he admitted that he had shot her, but later claimed she shot herself, wresting a gun out of his hands. He was sentenced to 19 years in California prison and lived there until he died on Saturday, apparently from COVID-19.

In glory days and in prison days

What to say about a man who had such a musical gift and yet possessed the demonic soul that did such damage? I have puzzled over this for years, because, as much as I love Phil's music (and you just heard the songs on his Christmas album a gazillion times last month and they still sound terrific) it was with a certain hesitation, like finding out that the painting of a pastoral Indiana farm scene was done by John Dillinger, or that the author of a great how-to manual on car repair was Timothy McVeigh. 

And all day Sunday, as news of his death competed with football playoffs and presidential comings and goings, I tried to understand the contrast, but then I was stopped in my tracks by a woman named Beth, the younger sister of friend named Ben. She said this: "Good riddance, he was vile human..a genius with music but you can tell music never touched his soul."

So like a great chef who never enjoys his food, a painter who never looks at his finished products, or an athlete who only plays for money and not for the enjoyment of the sport, Phil made soul-stirring music, and yet somehow he did not come close enough to let that music stir his soul.

Which means that, when he produced "Today I Met The Boy I'm Gonna Marry" by Darlene Love, he was already married and would marry twice more and never let the love of another person get ahead, or even next to, his love for himself.

Some say that when some of us die, there is a period of time spent in the hereafter to allow for expiation - to atone for our sins and see the errors. I imagine Phil Spector has some things to work out up there. 

"Life's most persistent and urgent question: What are you doing for others?" - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

Sunday Rerun: What Matters Most

 As so often happens, it was just a flash of one of those TV news headlines that caught my attention. It was on Good Morning America, and the promo for an upcoming story said

"MAN SHOT BY DANCING FBI AGENT SPEAKS OUT"

It wasn't until we saw that story that most of us even knew the Federal B of I was hiring 14-year-olds as agents, because anyone over 15 (except Plaxico Burress) knows better than to stick a gun in one's pants and go to a go-go. 

They should have been playing that "Disco Duck" song at that club in Denver. "Disco! DUCK!"

My point, and thanks for waiting around long enough to hear it, is that armed law enforcement agents ought to take themselves a little more seriously. Only a fool does backflips with a gun in his pants. And you'll notice, I said "his" pants. I can't remember the last time I saw a story where a woman acted similarly foolishly.

And then the Kate Spade story. I know she was enormously popular in the field of purses and women's clothing and had sold her line for 2.2 Billion With a B dollars, and yet did not find either happiness or a way out of the gloom of depression. Gee, maybe it is true that money is not the ticket to happiness, and what is also true is that when someone we love is fighting mental illness, we have to get closer to them and send unceasing love and support. These things need to be taken seriously.

I guess what's on my mind today is that some things need to be taken more seriously, such as gun safety and emotional disturbances, and we can find the way to do that by taking some of the things we take soooo darn seriously a little less so.

Like a little mess in the corner, or an untucked shirttail, or the need to attend every single "important" social event. "Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it," said the wise Oscar Wilde, who knew a thing or two about everything, and only lived to be 46.

The worldwide king of taking oneself too seriously.
Bono's real name is Paul Hewson, but he calls himself
"Bono Vox" because that is Latin for "good voice."

So that's my goal: pay more attention to what matters, and let the rest sort itself out. Not shooting other people, for instance, matters. Never hearing another U2 song in my remaining years does not matter one whit to me.

Oscar Wilde also said, "What a pity that in life we only get our lessons when they are of no use to us."  I'm going to try to use what I learn more and more.

The Saturday Picture Show, January 16, 2021

 

Threading a needle is very easy if you have a large magnifying glass. Otherwise, I need that little wire thing or I'll spend an entire day poking at it.

The big cats- tigers, lions, pumas, what-have-you - sleep as many as 20 hours a day. They have to make sure they are protected, and what better than this for a quick 40-hour nap?

I will make it my life's work to find this kid and award him/her the Presidential Medal of Freedom that Bill Belichick turned down.

Sunrise over Baltimore's Inner Harbor. So serene. All hell breaks loose after lunch.

Our Deanna the cat has a way of propping her elbows on the arm of the sofa to look into the kitchen and observe the merry goings-on in there. Perhaps the cactus got the idea from her.

Lots of nature pictures this morning. I'll never egret doing that.

"Honey, we're leaving for the weekend and this IS the Namibian Desert, so are you sure you closed the windows? They're calling for wind."

The dates for 1897 work the same for 2021. I couldn't find one that covers the entire year, so after March 31, just keep going.

Another baseball legend gone

"I believe managing is like holding a dove in your hand. If you hold it too tightly you kill it, but if you hold it too loosely, you lose it."

That's a quote from Tommy LaSorda, the former Dodger manager who died the other day at 93. I don't know when he said it, or if he had heard .38 Special sing "Hold On Loosely" right before he said it, or if this thought occurred to him spontaneously, but he was right. It's a valuable piece of advice for anyone in any situation with others. Hold onto your relationships, but don't squeeze them too much. It's a knack, to know just how tightly.

By the way, if you've a mind to, while you're at YouTube listening to that Southern Rock classic, check out LaSorda in his moments with the press after games. Now, I have been around people who can curse adroitly. Construction guys, firefighters, dockworkers, people who just dropped an anvil on their right foot, a couple of women I worked with...all would gather and stand enraptured as the epithets flowed from the mouth of LaSorda.  Truly a master of the art.

Don't get me wrong. Tommy was not a perfect man. He denied that his late gay son was gay, and kept their relationship in a tightly closed closet, but he's clearly not the only such person.

But there was a tape of a speech he used to deliver to Dodger rookies at spring training that Larry King used to play on the radio, and as LaSorda encouraged his new players to go out and give their all for Dodger blue, he gave this nugget that I have shared often: 

Always THINK you're the best ballplayer ever born. Just don't TELL anyone about it!

If I could give a young person a bit of wisdom, it would be that, or possibly this, from Woody Allen:  "Exactly what do we mean when we say, man is mortal? Obviously it's not a compliment."

Tommy LaSorda, like the rest of us, was mortal, yet his words, even the profane ones, live on.

The hole truth

Over in Italy, they had a significant COVID-19 spread this past spring, and then they locked down and things got better, and then, of course, they let up and the virus came back with what they call a vengeance. So they're deep in it again, and they needed this like they needed a giant hole in the parking lot of a major hospital.

They had to go on backup power over the weekend at the Hospital Of The Sea in Naples because a giant sinkhole opened in the parking lot, forcing the closure of a residence for recovering COVID-19 patients. It was fortunate that backup systems kept water and electricity working well enough, and no injuries were reported. Regional governor Vincenzo De Luca said the residence would be open again once utilities were fully restored.

The hole is 66 feet deep, 21,527 square-feet on the surface swallowed three cars on the visitors' parking lot. There would have been many more cars there, but visitors are currently restricted.

“Frankly, we were also worried about the collapse of all utilities and that the activity of the hospital could be jeopardized,” De Luca said. “Thank God, this did not happen. We had a power break, but electricity was restored and now we don’t have any problem in providing care.”

Chief firefighter Cmdr. Ennio Aquilino told an local television channel called SkyTG 24  that it all might have been caused by a huge infiltration of underground water underground after heavy rains there recently.

The U.S. Geological Survey says sinkholes are most often natural events that can take place in a huge area suddenly, or happen slowly over time. Mankind can create them inadvertently, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Sinkholes can be dramatically fast, or happen over time. They can also be "human-induced" through construction and pumping groundwater.

Impressive as it seems, a 66-foot-deep sinkhole is nothing, compared to the world's largest, a 2,100-foot echo maker found in China in 1994.

And we thought 2020 was over with.

No, he wasn't wearing Crocs

I'm lucky enough to have friends online in Australia, and it never fails to fascinate me that they are the middle of summer when we are in the middle of winter. leaving me with a huge desire to move there every April and return home every November, thereby ridding myself of the agony known as spring and summer forever.

Accordingly, it was no surprise to read that it's fishing time in Australia, down under (do they call our part of the world "Up Over"?) and two guys landed a whopper all right.

Can you think of three worse words together than "crocodile-infested mangrove" or two worse words than "naked fugitive"?

No. Well, Cam Faust and Kevin Joiner were in a small boat deploying crab traps in East Point, a suburb of the town of Darwin the other day, and they heard someone calling for help.

"We heard this faint like 'ahhh, ahhhh' -- (I said) to me mate 'is that guy saying help?' So we got a bit closer and said 'I can see you,'" Faust told 9News.

Admit it: you read that in the voice on Angus Young, right?

Cam and Kevin looked out, and there was the bloody, swollen, muddy body of one Luke Voskresensky, 40, clinging to a tree. 

 

 Voskresensky had papers on him for allegedly breaching bail over an armed robbery. He had broken free from his ankle monitor several days before, and told the news that he had been living in the mangrove (a shrubby tree that grows as coastal vegetation) for four days. 

So let's see: he was floating around unclothed in brackish crocodile-infested waters, banged up, thirsty, living on snails.

During his temporary freedom, Voskrensky decided to go to a New Year's Eve party, and, true to his crummy luck, he got lost and then stuck in the tree.

Watch for his forthcoming book, "Boy, Did I Make A Wrong Turn!" I hope the book will offer details on just how one loses his pants, shirt, and shoes on the way to a party.

Faust and Joiner were cool; they gave Voskresensky (who was happy to be rescued) a cold beer and Faust chipped in with a pair of shorts so old Luke wouldn't have to go to court nekkid.

 Arrested, Voskresensky is being treated for exposure at Royal Darwin Hospital.

"He's in hospital with handcuffs on with two cops babysitting him," Faust told 9News.

Better than two crocodiles eating him!