Sunday Rerun: They Made Rex Of Themselves

 Do you remember Rex Smith?  I mean, at one time, he had all the irons in the fire. He was in "Grease"on Broadway, he had two hit records (a solo "You Take My Breath Away" in 1979 and a great duet version of "Everlasting Love" with Rachel Sweet in '81), he was in the movie of "The Pirates of Penzance" in 1983 when America went through a short-lived Gilbert and Sullivan revival, he played Jesse Mach in the 1985 TV show Street Hawk, and played Daredevil in the Marvel Comics show.

Right around the time of the end of the 70s and the start of the 80s, you saw his mug on 16 Magazine and Tiger Beat while you waited in line at the supermarket to pay next to nothing for filet mignon.

Now, a couple of nice filets will cost you close to 50 dollars, and do you know what else you can get for that much?

A video greeting from Rex Smith! Personalized, just for you, so like if your cousin from Delaware is still holding a torch for old Rex since the day he took over hosting TV's "Solid Gold" from Andy Gibb, and she's coming up on her 50th birthday, you can just go to https://www.cameo.com/ and make that magic happen. He'll cut a video for Cousin Kate. Hell, for another double sawbucks, you could probably get him to drive over and bring her a cake.

Cameo.com is the home of the almost-famous, the used-to-be-famous and the never-gonna-bes, and for varying prices, these people will record quick video greetings for you.

Scrolling through the pages of people who willingly offer their services, you can't help but feel sorry for some of them. And then you see Tommy Lee is there, asking $250 for his time, and Michael Vick wants $500, doggone it.

The Saturday Picture Show, June 29, 2024

 

By all means, print this picture out, and glue it onto one of those refrigerator magnets you got at the festival. Then, any time you reach a state of serious perturbation, put it on the front of the Coolerator as a sign for everyone to back off just a tad...

Willie Nelson under arrest in Texas, July 1960. Charges: Speeding, and driving without a license. He beat the rap.

I was working at the A&P when the manager told us of a future day when the cashiers would not have to enter the price of everything on a cash register, but just wave each item across a magic eye that would ring up the sales. We thought he had been into the Rum Life-Savers again...

An entire family of six can get into this ATV Camper, as long as they are also all jockeys. 

Grit and determination: "Had a stroke. Open next week."

Mr. Snuffleupagus, waiting for a friend.

 

Music fans can get a few cobs, but the pirates running this produce stand want more than a buccaneer.

The cargo ship Dali is seen her departing Baltimore harbor the other day. She's now in Norfolk to have damage repairs done. The repairs to Baltimore, and the replacement of the Key Bridge the ship knocked down, will take years.

If you have never seen "Uncle Buck," change that status right away, please. I think it was John Candy's best picture. When you've seen it, you will know who "Lyndon" and "Johnson" are!

You might be too young to know what this is about, so click away: 

If he had a hammer

I know nothing about video games and don't think I will ever learn. But someone can please help me understand how people take a game so seriously.

Here we have a 20-year-old guy who got on a plane in New Jersey and flew to Florida, where he stopped at a nearby Ace Hardware (the place with the helpful hardware folks) to buy a hammer and a flashlight.

OK no crime then. It is perfectly legal to fly to Florida, although rarely advisable, and any citizen can purchase a hammer and a flashlight.

The problem is that this guy, Edward Kang, went to the home of a dude with whom he was playing an online video game called ArcheAge, entered through an unlocked door (seriously?) and lay in wait for the guy to go to the bathroom, at which point he assumed an "anticipated strike position" while wearing all black, gloves and a mask.  Then he ALLEGEDLY beat the victim with the hammer. Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper said during a press conference that this wholesome, fun game allows players to fight and kill each other's characters, so Kang tried to make that happen for the real.

Kang

Apparently Kang forgot that the game should stay on the screen, not in the house. There exists a great deal of confusion in some minds as to what is real and what is on a screen. The authorities say Kang told them the victim "is a bad person online."

Sheriff Leeper called the whole fiasco "a weird one" and summed it up nicely: "Some things make you say, hmm. Some things you just can't make up. There are some things that make you say, 'What in the world was he thinking?' And there are some things that make you say, 'You're not going to believe this.' Well, this case makes you say all four of those."

Both the assailant and the victim were treated and released from a local hospital with the victim suffering severe head wounds. and Kang suffering from so much delusion that he asked how much jail time he might be facing for breaking and entering and assault.

"I would say, Mr. Kang, it's going to be a long time before you play video games again," Leeper said during the press conference.

Not Maxwell's Silver Hammer, but, rather, Kang's red one.

 

"Well, Your Honor, it's like this..."

I understand that everyone is considered innocent until found guilty in a court of law. We all watched COPS enough to know that. But this news item caught my peepers:

Maryland House Minority Leader Jason Buckel, a Republican from Allegany County, was arrested on DUI and other charges, court records show.

It was 11:23 pm, Thursday before last, that the State Police pulled him over on eastbound US 40 near Campground Rd. and cited him for:

• Driving under the influence of alcohol.
• Driving while impaired by alcohol.
• Driving on a suspended license.
• Negligent driving in a careless and imprudent manner.
• Failure to display a registration card upon demand by a police officer.

A few days later, Buckel wrote about his “regret that this incident ever occurred,” but denied that he was impaired, driving erratically or too fast.

He did not address why he seemed to be driving on a suspended license. Court records say that suspension occurred last summer after he was doing 79 mph on I-68. 

Del. Buckel went on to say that on the day in question, he was feeling so unwell that he took an over-the-counter medication, later stopping at a restaurant to watch a hockey game. But as he wrote, “I did not over consumer [sic] any alcoholic beverages.”

Buckel, a lawyer, said he will continue to work on legislative matters, deal with the legal process, and "abide by the outcome."

The matter of the license suspension was cleared up by paying a fine for last summer's violation the day after these current charges were placed against him. He'll be in court on July 24 for an initial hearing.

This is normally where I would go on one of my rants about people elected to make our laws and then violating those same laws, but no one is perfect, right? 

I just wish our lawmakers would try a little harder to be. And watch those over-the-counter medications!

Goofy and Daffy

I'm not a fan of fiction at all, and since everything Disney is a made-up world of ducks and mice that talk and Frozen princesses that wanna build snowmen and so on, I'm not interested in their Magic Kingdom with its rules and regulations. Old Walt Disney was notoriously illiberal, hated unions, colluded with the government during the Red Scare...yuck.

I wouldn't want to work there, but I understand people would, so, fine, but it's not part of any magic when you see things like this:

Two members of a Walt Disney Company product design team sued their employer on Tuesday, alleging that the company pressured them and several others to relocate from Southern California to Orlando to join a new office that was scuttled shortly after they bought new homes.

Disney asked employees Maria De La Cruz and George Fong in 2021 to relocate to Lake Nona, a planned community in Orlando, and courted them with the promise of affordable housing, strong schools and a new office with extensive amenities, according to the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Those who didn’t relocate would lose their jobs, managers allegedly told the team.

So here's the deal: move from LaLaLand to FlaLaLa, sell your old house, and buy a new one (probably in a place that looks like the set of The Truman Show) and then sit there with your thumb up your backyard because The Mouse fought with The Louse and you're the one who lost.

I like how Disney told these people to move on down there and wait! And like cruel second-graders playing Hide and Go Seek at a birthday party, they can wait until Walt thaws out, for all the company cares.

“Disney upended 250 families for no reason whatsoever, without fully compensating these individuals for the significant losses relating to the unnecessary move,” says Jason Lohr, an attorney for Fong and De La Cruz.

And after Disney scuttled the new project for which these families moved to Hell With An Amusement Park Florida, the Fong and De La Cruz families, among others, tried to move back to Cali, only to find it hard to sell their new houses (since the project tanked) and harder yet to find housing like what they sold in the first place.

“We truly regret the disruption you’ve all faced due to this initiative,” a Disney representative told Fong and De La Cruz in an email, according to the lawsuit.

Maybe they should offer the families free hats with big round ears.

Soaked

The official state motto of the state of Vermont is "Freedom and Unity," and one would think that a state representative there would be free from childish antics performed by another representative, but look how wrong we can be.

Rep. Mary Morrissey, currently wasting time in her 13th term in the legislature, had to stand on the House floor and apologize for behavior that she called "most unbecoming."

Morrissey, a Republican, has, for the past five months until a surreptitiously-placed camera caught her wet-handed, been pouring water into the totebag of a Democratic colleague, which was hanging in the cloakroom. The totebag, that is. The colleague was on the house floor, trying to do the people's work, while Morrissey did her water sports.

That other representative is Jim Carroll. Both of them represent Bennington, where 15,000 citizens expect better behavior from Morrissey.

 House Speaker Jill Krowinski (D) said in a statement that Carroll should file an ethics complaint because “This is a truly disturbing situation that is at odds with our legislative practices.” 

Carroll says he used to get along with Morrissey, but not since he has supported enshrining the right to abortion on the state constitution. She thinks he's all wet on that issue.

She made a formal apology (although she was dressed in daytime clothing), saying she would work toward “resolution and restoration through our legislative process.”

She called her juvenile behavior "poor judgement." I'm sure that once Carroll dries off, they will get along swimmingly. 

This is how we govern now: "I lost the election, so I will send thousands of goons to try to kill Congressmen and women and tear down the House." "And I don't like your stance on abortion, so I will douse your personal property."

Put her in a dunking booth.

 

Why we like Ike

 We don't have people like Dwight Eisenhower anymore, which is a shame. It's hard to imagine what went through his mind when he sent thousands of mainly young men into battle in the D-Day invasion.

Any commander faces the fact that even in victory, there are losses. The death toll was tremendous on that French beach, and family after family in America was devastated to find that their soldier, sailor, or Marine was not going to be coming home, having traded their life in the effort to defeat fascism.  Thank God that effort was successful.

But General Eisenhower knew he had to face both possible outcomes, and he jotted down these words to share with the world in the event that things went horribly wrong on 6/6/44:

"Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops," Eisenhower wrote. "My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone."

He underlined mine alone. In a day when we see our leaders almost breaking their elbows off to point fingers of blame in other directions, how refreshing it is to look back on a man willing to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.

He folded this note and put it in his wallet. How wonderful that he had no need to share it for real.

Sunday Rerun: We're so sorry, Albert Einstein

 After the first few times someone in elementary school hollers out "Smooth move, Einstein!" when we fail to conjugate the verb "machacar" (to crush or grind) correctly, or identify the man who shot Alexander Hamilton to death in a duel as "Raymond" Burr instead of "Aaron" Burr, or know the answer to 7 x 6, we learn that they aren't calling us that as a compliment.

But the BBC website recently had a list of the things that made the real Albert Einstein so doggone smart, and even though it's far too late for me to to wise up, this is a good time of year for those with kids still in school to share brain tips from the biggest noggin of them all.

I'll shorten the list and leave out things Einstein recommended, such as smoking a pipe, (I mean, really), and share the brain food that might not lead to diseases, stanky clothing, and tiny burn holes in your pants.

At staff lunches, they always made
Einstein figure out who owed what
and what to tip.

 - He recommended getting ten hours of sleep every night and taking little naps (known to the sleep community as "naplets.") Most Americans now get 6.8 hours of sleep a day, and even if you are smart enough to calc out how long .8 hr is, that's still not enough for the big E, who sacked out for ten and still dozed off for a bit during the day. Apparently he went to a lot of meetings.

See if this sounds Einsteinian to you. He would lean back in his armchair with a spoon in his hand and a metal pan directly below it. The minute he nodded off, the spoon would drop, the pan would clank, and he'd get back to work. 

The article also said that Einstein came up with his theory of relativity ("LS/MFT") while dreaming about cows getting electrocuted. 

 - Like me, Einstein went for a walk every day, often walking a mile and a half to his desk at Princeton University. He was known for driving to work, and forgetting that he done so, as he walked home.  Unlike me, Einstein got stuff done on his walk, noodling out the great secrets of the physical world. In my defense, though, if Albert had an iPod, as I do, he would have enjoyed hearing "Little" Jimmy Dickens and Hank Williams on his walks, as I do. When LJD starts in on "Take An Old Cold Tater (And Wait)", who can think of calculus?

It turns out that the very act of walking forces your melon to concentrate a little on the very act of putting one foot of the other and perambulating, and this allows the frontal lobes to relax and figure stuff out while we think left-right-left-right.

 - He carbed up! Some say he was a spaghetti fiend. And his brain needed a lot of fueling. I mean, what's on my mind right this second? What time the ballgame comes on tonight! And if Einstein were alive, he would have much more important stuff going on up in his loaf. The brain gets tired when blood glucose drops, and a tired brain won't help you figure out the quantum description of light, so bring on the San Giorgio! And pass the grated cheese.

-The last item on the list was something I did all the time back in the day and would not dream of doing nowadays. Going sockless. The Big "E" loved not wearing socks. He complained that his big toe always put a hole in his socks, so he gave up socks for sandals. That's the kind of brainpower that is killing the sock business, but it worked for him.

The BBC article closes with a quote from the man himself: 

The important thing is not to stop questioning; curiosity has its own reason for existing.

Which brings to mind the old gag about the two psychiatrists passing each other in the hall and the one says, "Good morning," and the other one goes, "I wonder what he meant by that." 

Curiosity is a curious thing. 

The Saturday Picture Show, June 22, 2024

 

A true field of beauty among the tulips in Holland.

For whatever reason, I have always gotten a boot out of these walkways between buildings. There was supposed to be one from the courthouse where I worked to the new county office building that they were going to build, but the building never happened, so, no. But being able to go from building to building without fretting about getting run over ("runned over" in Baltimore parlance) always appealed to me.

What a cool idea! Just dropping a note by mail to pass along a compliment. I think it's something we should do "every day" (hint hint).

In the days when they were cranking out episodes of "The Dukes Of Hazzard," the ground-breaking dramatic series that took a hard look at life among the unlettered, there was someone whose job it was to cruise parking lots and find 1969 Dodge Chargers, leaving a note offering to buy the cars, which were then painted orange with a loser flag and wrecked as offerings to a culture on the skids.

"I never saw a purple starfish; I never hope to see one, but this I'll tell you anyhow, I'd rather see than be one." 

This is a traditional washing machine from Romania, known as a vâltoare. The rushing water beats the clothes against the wooden barriers so efficiently that there's no need to use soap! The agitation gets everything clean.

Here's glassy-eyed entertainer Justin Timberlake on his way to face the court commissioner following his DUI arrest the other night in the Hamptons. Of course, he said he had "one martini," and that may be right. Long ago, I had a boss who whipped up a pitcherful of deep-dish olive pie every night, drank it right out of the pitcher, and said he one had "one martini a night." Adding to Justin's embarrassment: the officer who ran him in had no idea JT is "famous." When the pixilated popstar told him, "This might mess up my tour," the cop said, "What tour?" Bravo, officer!

Every geographic term illustrated. It looks a lot like Eastern Baltimore County to me.

My face too. Just don't get it, but that leaves more for you if you like it!

I'm sure the fire marshal will have no problem with the placement of this vending machine. "Who needs a fire extinguisher, anyway? You only want one when there's a fire, and we never have fires here!"

Fetty Rap

If you like noodles with butter and cheese (and who wouldn't?) you can say thanks to the DiLelio family.

Alfredo DiLelio was a cook in a Roman restaurant that his mother ran. It was 1907 that Alfredo's wife, Ines, gave birth to their first child, Armando. But she lost her appetite post-partum. Maybe it was accidentally for the best that people in those days did not have the benefits of counseling for post-partum depression. Ines and Alfredo handled the situation - and it's vitally important for a woman who's just given birth to maintain her nutrition, of course - with a hearty helping of rich eggy wide fettucine noodles, butter, and fresh grated Parmesan cheese. 

Alfredo prayed to St. Anna, protector of pregnant woman, as he served it to Ines. And she loved it and soon her health was restored.

Alfredo added the dish to the bill of fare at his mom's restaurant, and in time, he opened his own place in Rome. 1920s movie stars Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks dined there, and labelled Alfredo "King Of The Noodles." 

With that sort of publicity, it was only a matter of time before the whole world was tucking into bowls of delicious fettucine. 

Make mine Alfredo!

Down on the Coast this Irish Spring...Hog Wash!

Down in Ocean City, Maryland - an Atlantic seaside resort that's like Mayberry all winter long and like Times Square on New Year's all summer long - a guy named Sam Delauter runs the Sunrise Diner. If you've dined there, I'd like to hear your reviews of his chow...and his hand soap. 

There is a connection...

You see, like everyone else in the world, Sam was fretting about the costs for everything, from his eggs to his bread and rolls to his bacon and the cost of soap.

Can't do much about supply costs in a world where everything is changing, but maybe you can do something with what you have. Sunrise Diner produces about 1,000 lbs of bacon grease a year. Like most everyone else, Sam used to throw it away. (I save mine in a little jar and use it instead of Pam for the pan, but that's old school me.)

Then, Sam remembered that the only soap his grandfather Russ ever used was homemade bacon grease soap.

Sam's great-grandmother Hazel began the family tradition of bacon grease soap back when everyone had to scrimp. 

All soap is, is what you get what fat and alkali meet and buddy up. Sam pours water onto his grease, which gives a layer of lard on top when cooled. Bacon bits and whatnot remain in the water, and when he adds lye to the lard and lets it harden, presto, soapo! 

Sam and his soap

Sam cuts this product into soap bars, which he sells, and that cuts 80% off the price of the bacon he needs to make the thousands of BLTs he makes. He offers a variety of scents he adds to the soaps. including lavender, patchouli and cedar mixed with cardamom.

So he is dumping less trash onto the world and keeping his business afloat with a scented Lifebuoy.

You know what I mean.

  

Sammy

Baltimore and Pittsburgh are a lot alike, everyone says, and even though the Ravens and Steelers football teams are sworn enemies, it's a good rivalry. 

Baltimore is home to lots of good foods, but I have long had my eyes on Pittsburgh's famous Primanti Bros. sandwich, which was invented so that truckdrivers could steer their Macks right past the Big Mac place while eating a one-handed sandwich in a beefy hand.

The sandwich offers meat (I'll take pastrami), provolone cheese, french fries, cole slaw, and sliced tomatoes on sliced Italian bread. They call it "Pittsburgh in a Sandwich" and I like the concept.

Now they are expanding their empire and our waistlines into Maryland for the first time. They're opening a Primanti Bros. Restaurant and Bar in Linthicum Heights today, and giving away free chow to the first 100 people in line.

Linthicum Height is way down by the Baltimore/Washington International Airport, and that's a way away from the Lazy 'C' ranch here. I will await their arrival in our part of town before I get to tucker into one of their delightful sammies, unless I have some reason to go to the airport, which I won't.

The Primantis say they're bringing cold beer, big portions, and lots of fun with them. It all sounds great if you're lucky enough to live in South Baltimore!

"Do me a favor?"

You might have seen this commotion online commotion online last week. I'll give you the Reader's Digest version of the story, because it do go on and on and on.

Tiffany Moore is 31 and plays the violin for a living. She must be pretty good at fiddling because she can get $2500 for a wedding job, so good for her!

Her backstory is that she was bullied in high school and repressed by her family, so he took her instrument and sought a better life, and it looks like she found it, if getting paid 2500 clams to saw her way through "All Of Me" is any indication.  Again, good for her.

But one of the girls who tormented her in high school recently texted her as if they had ever been friends, proposing that Tiffany give her an afternoon of her services as a wedding gift. Ms Bride-To-Be said that the exposure would be good for her.

In reply, Tiffany said she's doing fine and doesn't need practice or exposure and what are you trying to be nice for now when you never were before?

And they go back and forth and it gets really nasty.

Tiffany Moore

And Ms B-to-Be's fiance sees all this back-and-forth on social media, deduces that the harridan involved is his intended, and breaks it off with her.

So you can read the whole long thing if you want, but that's the gist. But why people expect freebies from people they hounded long ago is beyond me.

And I offered to let The Rolling Stones play at our wedding "for the exposure," and I never got an answer.

Or maybe I did.

 

  

Pack Your Trunk

Peggy asks me all the time about the nicknames guys have for each other, at work, hobby, whatever.

I hate to break her heart, but the nicknames guy have for each other don't tend to be sweet or endearing.

Women call each other "Miss Thang" or something like that, and men imply that their friends' genitalia is benumbed by cold, or that something like someone's size 13 boot has been conducting an impromptu colon inspection, or that their IQ might fail to make an adequate grade on the Stanford-Binet scale.

Kind things like that.

Meanwhile, research is telling us that  African elephants call each other by names - a different one for each elephant - and the pachyderm being called responds to his or her name.

Very few animals do that, as you might imagine.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that one elephant sees another elephant in the wild and trumpets, "Hey there, Leon!"  What they do, is make a low rumbling sound that can heard all across the savanna. Scientists who have time to figure this stuff out now theorize that animals with social structures such as families and bowling leagues can separate for a while and then reunite, and remember each other's names.

Stuart Pimm, an ecologist at Duke University, says, “If you’re looking after a large family, you’ve got to be able to say, ‘Hey, Virginia, get over here!’”

Stuart was not involved in this study, and I don't think he should have been, if he can't take it a little more seriously.

We humans have names, most of them spelled wrong, and of course you know that a dog will come when called providing he/she damn well feels like it. 

But the elephants are now huddling up and choosing names for themselves. Going fast are obvious choices such as "Jumbo," "Peanut," and "Babar." Less popular, but still on the list: "Frozen," "Adolf, " and "Don, Jr."

 

Sunday Rerun: Big League All The Way

 In 1964, essayist Tom Wolfe wrote a piece that wound up in the anthology "The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine Flake Streamline Baby," his collection that is still a great amount of fun reading for someone interested in the 1960's in America as seen by the inventor of a new form of journalism.  One of the pieces was called "The Big-League Complex," concerning the habit of New Yorkers to have to be the best of everything and be the best at everything.  I mean, if you're a New York firefighter, you are one of the best firefighters in the world, and it's similar for whatever your occupation is.  The finest restaurants, the media capital, the home of the best magazines...all there in Noo Yawk. 

Remember, this was over 50 years ago, and it's still true, as Wolfe writes: "New York is the status capital of the United States, if not the whole hulking world," and he goes on to say that "this has curious effects on everyone who lives here. And by that I mean everybody..."

If you really want to see The Big League Complex in action, take a ride up to Amish Country in Lancaster, PA and see a busful of NYC types, down for a day of shopping the outlets, going to a smorgasbord and finding themselves served by Sarah Hannah Stoltzfuss.  

Or, read about what happened to New Yorker Reilly Flaherty, who ran afoul of a Big League pickpocket up in Gotham.  He went to a concert in Brooklyn and came home without his wallet, and he figured he would never again see his cash, IDs and credit cards again.

Flaherty figured he had had his pocket picked by a big-leaguer and would never see it, or any of its contents again, but no!

Two weeks later, here came a package in the mail, and the thief had mailed back his credit cards and driver's license.

No cash.  But a note in the package explained that:

'I kept the cash because I needed weed, the MetroCard because, well, the fare's $2.75 now, and the wallet 'cause it's kinda cool. Enjoy the rest of your day. Toodles, Anonymous.' 

Subway fares are up, so he kept some of the loot to pay for the "A" train, and of course, the price of New York weed must be sky high.

You have to figure it is, because from thieves to recreational drugs, they get the best up there, yessir!

The Saturday Picture Show, June 15, 2024

 

The next time someone tells you that you're as cute as a nestful of two-day-old robins, here's what you can picture!

So you want to be a country music star? Here's the cover photo for your first album, "Sundown On The Tracks." I'll start you off with the lyrics for your first hit, then you take it from here:  "Oh, there was sundown on the tracks the night she left me, and her mom said she had gone to Kankakee, but I always thought that if she ever dumped me, she'd'a left me for some dump in Tennessee..."   Your turn! 

New wall paint color coming soon from Sherwin-Williams: Robin's Egg Blueberry Blue.

But Wu-Tang is forever. Write that down.

Baltimore once was the hub of all umbrella-making, and even then, no one thought to umbrellate an entire city block.

The original poster said they've been feeding this stray cat and her family, and every night when they put the food down, the mama makes sure her kids get all they need before she even takes a morsel. True love.

I don't know, but if I got this fortune in my Chinese cookie, I might have to seek help just because of what this said!

So when you register this car with the MVA, under "color," just say "All of them."

Where Are They Now? 2024 edition: Apparently, Mr T is teaching math to some unruly cake-loving kids. I pity the fools!

The building in the background - the one that looks like it's leaning over onto a very jampacked neighborhood - is the Hotel Grand Lisboa in Macau, China. This picture won the NatGeo Travel Photograph of the Year Award in 2010.

The Employment Line

It was not my favorite part of being a supervisor to hire and fire people, but I hadda do what I hadda do. In fact, I was once transferred to a better slot because I knew how to get rid of people who refused to work and at least stay around for an entire shift.

Interviews...I could tell you a million stories...the guy who showed up late wearing a torn shirt and said his main weakness was punctuality...the one who explained a nine-month gap in his employment history by saying "I was working for Hechinger's and the boss asked me to do something, but I was on my lunch hour, and I don't play that s@&t!"...

...the many others who cursed, spoke disrespectfully about everything and everyone...the ones with all sorts of conditions ("I don't work nights, weekends, holidays, or snow days"), the one who put his feet on my desk in mid-interview (I can still see the soles of his Nikes in my mind's eye)  and the ones who claimed technical expertise or experience they clearly lacked ("You worked for Permits And Licenses?" "Yes, I worked for both of them." "They are the same agency." "Not when I worked there." "When was this?" "Oh, it's been YEARS and YEARS.")

But the clear topper of them all was the dude who sat down while telling me he knew he was getting hired because his mother told him so. I just had to know more and so I asked who his mother was. She was a County employee, not in any position of influence over anything at all, but she had told Sonny Boy that the fix was in, and all he had to do was show up and get put on the payroll. I started to think it was some sort of Candid Camera stunt. He mumbled half-answers to whole questions, he had no idea about what the job entailed, and he had no experience, as I recall, beyond being the cart guy at Food-A-Rama or some such. He really acted like he had left his bowl of Crispy Critters at home and wanted to get back to finish breakfast before it got all soggy.

Sure as you're born, his mother was on the phone the next day to wrap up the details and find out when he would be up for Employee Of The Year. She asked me straight up, was he hired? I told her that was privileged information between the applicant and the Office of Personnel.

Her reply? "But I'm his MOTHER!"

I still wonder if he ever got a job anywhere. 

Parents, do your children a favor and let them handle their own lives at work. I counselled a young woman for repeated lateness reporting to work, and her mother called to complain about it!

I wonder where she wound up, as well.

Buffaloed

Out at Yellowstone (not Jellystone) National Park the other day, an 83-year-old woman received serious injuries by being gored by a bison.

The park recommends that visitors on two feet remain 25 yards away from large animals like bison and 100 yards away from bears and wolves. This woman apparently wanted to get up close and personal and this is the result. The bison was simply defending its space when it gored the South Carolina woman, lifting her a foot off the ground with its horns.

The park also noted that more people have been injured by bison there than by any other creature. I guess they look approachable and friendly.

"Bison are not aggressive animals but will defend their space when threatened. They are unpredictable and can run three times faster than humans," the park warned.

These animals are the largest mammals in North America, larger than even Travis Kelce, and they don't mind you watching them from afar. Google maps tells me I am currently 1770 miles away from being gored if I don't get any closer.  

I think that's afar enough. I won't even go to Buffalo, New York, just to be safe.

NAAW!

June is National Accordion Awareness Month!

There was a time when every town had a television show on Saturday afternoons, usually called something like "Talent Time," and there was always some kid wailing away on an accordion.

I love the sound of a squeezebox.

Somewhere around the house I have an old CD called "Legends of Accordion." Peggy always said it sounded so much better in my truck, so maybe I should leave it there. Hmmm. 

For those who might say the accordion is not hip or cool or whatever the hip or cool people say now, I say listen to this version of "So What's New?" by Milton DeLugg (before he had the Band With A Thug.)  Listen to it and I promise you will tap your toe 'til your corns start to hurting.

Milton DeLugg led the band with his accordion on the first version of the Tonight Show.

Let the rest of this month ring out with accordion favorites day and night! Roll out the barrel and let's hear it! 

Back to the Past

The BBC tells us about a couple, Liberty Avery and Greg Kirby, from Ditchingham, Norfolk, England. Liberty and Greg are totally into history - specifically the 1940s - and totally into living as if it were still the 1940s!

She's 24 and he's 29, so it's not like they have any living memory of the decade marked by World War II, the Berlin Airlift transporting food, fuel, and medicine to West Berlin during a Soviet blockade, the 1948 London Olympics (Germany and Japan were excluded), Big Band music, great movies and theater performances, and books by Dr Spock on how to raise kids and by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry on how to raise a little prince.

But they're into it! They get traditional style clothing from the era, drive a 1942 American Jeep (we left thousands of them behind!) and have their house furnished in all vintage 40's furniture.

Greg says, "It's just a simple life, really.  We tried to make our wedding as 40s as possible; traditional, as perhaps our grandparents would've done it," he pointed out.

"They wouldn't have necessarily spent a huge amount, so we didn't, either."

For her part, Liberty says, "The reaction to us when walking down the street is generally positive. We do get the odd joke but it's a nice way to meet people because people do approach us."

As you might expect, these two aren't sitting around on Facebook and Instagram all the time. They play board games in the evenings and look for dances to attend on the weekends. And Liberty bakes, using recipes from the era, and makes reproductions of clothes using old patterns.

And then...every now and then, when the old black-and-white war movies get too heavy, they give "Mrs Miniver" a shove aside and "watch something recent now and then."

And how did these happy honeymooners meet? He walked into a hair salon where she was an apprentice, and that was it!

"He hasn't been able to get rid of me since," she laughs.

Make me wanna shout

On my mind today: unconventional behavior among  people.

I don't know if it started when that goober Addison Graves "Joe" Wilson Sr, Congressman from S. Carolina, hollered, "You lie" (he didn't) during an address to a dual session of Congress from President Barack Obama in 2009. 

Maybe it was before that. I can remember drunks taking part in a wedding ceremony in a church, so sloshed that they had to lean on the altar rail for support. People think nothing of hollering at servers and cashiers and bank tellers, creating awful scenes. People go to church services and funerals dressed as if they were headed out to the beach in a minute. Who hasn't sat down somewhere where the previous occupant left behind peanut shells and banana peels? 

The list goes on and on, and just when I thought I had seen my fellow citizens model every type of rude behavior, here came this, in the Baltimore SUN this past week. There was a story about the former general manager of the Baltimore Blast indoor soccer team, who admitted to ripping the team and its owner Ed Hale off to the tune of over $100,000.

They had a trial for this person in Baltimore County Circuit Court. Let the newspaper clipping show you how some people can't tell the difference between a courtroom and a soccer arena:

A spectator during a court proceeding stood up and hollered an exhortation to    a businessman during a trial, as if he were at a ballgame and screaming for a batter to slap a sharp single between second and third. Or whatever they want a soccer player to do. 

In a day when people call teachers by their first name and heat up fish in the office microwave and cut other people off in traffic, nothing should surprise us. 

I want to holler about it all, but in an appropriate manner, time, and place.

Sunday Rerun: Big Shot

 Yesterday, we spoke of the folly of chugging 25 energy drinks.

Today, as much as I wish it weren't necessary to even bring it up, we need to spend a moment on the non-salubrious effects of shooting each other in the head with a pistol.

The location is a restaurant in Memphis and the event is the "No Lackin' Challenge," the latest fad in a year that began with children biting down on detergent pods. My wood-workin' whittling Dad used to know an old guy who demanded a dollar payment from any of his friends who couldn't produce a pocket knife on demand, but this challenge means that you'd better be able to show your friend a shooting iron if he asks to see yours.

You can go on the YouTube thing and see videos of this nonsense. It's just supposed to be an excuse to pull out your substitute phallus and show it off. No bullets are supposed to be fired.

But at the restaurant, E's Cafe on Union Avenue, a 17-year-old guy was shot right in the melon.

According to police, 21-year-old Sherman Lackland was sitting in a booth with two friends, playing the No Lackin Challenge, when he reportedly, accidentally, shot his friend.

Thomas Fitzpatrick was inside E's, and says there was a "a real loud bang, then I see the guy across from him fall in the floor."

There's no report on the condition of the young man shot, but Lackland is now facing charges for playing this dumb game.

Memphian West Moore spoke for all sensible souls when he said, "It's something that you shouldn't tamper with. It's too many kids being killed as it is."

So we wrap up another week of Tips For Healthy Living by reminding all people of all ages and genders not to eat soap, or chug-a-lug dozens of caffeine drinks, or shoot others in the head.

We really should set the bar a little higher, no?