Screaming!

 I'm going to go ahead and assume that most of us have seen movies and TV shows have heard the sound effect known as the Wilhelm Scream.

Try it out for size on your ears here.

This shriek of rather awful discomfort is known as the Wilhelm Scream in the sound effects business. The voice you hear is that of the actor known as Sheb Wooley. Sheb was an actor in Western shows- he played the drover for the cattle drives on "Rawhide." He also sang country music songs under the gag name "Ben Colder" and rock 'n' roll novelties such as "The Purple People Eater." Oh, and he played the dissolute assistant coach to Gene Hackman in "Hoosiers." 

As for the scream itself, Sheb recorded it in 1951 for the movie "The Adventures of Captain Wyatt," and since that "debut," it has been dubbed into hundreds of  hundred movies, series, commercials and video games...and "Star Wars" movies.

I don't mind telling you that the next "Star Wars" moon pitcha I see will be the first I ever see, unless they all of a sudden have Johnny Knoxville added to the cast as some sort of space guy.

But I would know the agonized yelp of Sheb Wooley anywhere. 

 

Bottom of the barrel

 If you know me, you know my favorite decorating esthetic is the way they do it at Cracker Barrel. While you're chowing  down on your chicken-fried steak or pancakes, you're surrounded by old kitchen and farm implements and ancient soda-pop calendars. 

We were there the other night, and our friend who serves there told us that earlier that day, a customer pried a framed picture off the wall next to her table, secreted it under her raincoat, and ankled right on out of there, presumably to hop on I-95 and make good her escape. 

Now, I mean really.  I understand that people think that whatever is not Super-Glued and triple‐bolted down is available for taking home, along with their indigestion. Restaurants go through salt and pepper shakers and napkin dispensers and Sweet 'N Low packets like Netflix goes through old reruns. I mean, at that very Barrel, when I told another server how much I liked the Cholula hot sauce, she said, "No one's looking. Go ahead, take it." 

I didn't. Possession of purloined pepper sauce is a felony in several states. 

Someone has to help me understand this sense of entitlement that directs some of us to steal what isn't ours.

Easter 2025

 We wish you and yours, and all who celebrate, an Easter Sunday of devotion and reflection.

The Saturday Picture Show, April 19, 2025

So, the next time one of you smart alex has something to say about my many stacks of books - (Read, Unread, Re-Reading) I can just smile and say "Tsundoku!"

I was fortunate enough to be around for both times Shari Lewis and her sock puppet family (including Lamb Chop, above) were famous. She was all over TV in the 50s and then burst back into the spotlight in the 90s with "Lamb Chop's Play-Along" on PBS.  Although Shari (born Phyllis Naomi Hurwitz in 1933) died in 1998, Lamb Chop's image is still popular as a chew toy for dogs. I would have given anything to learn ventriloquism, but everyone says it's better for them that I didn't.

When you see Edward G. Robinson (born Emanuel Goldenberg) performing this scene in "The Ten Commandments," just remember, five minutes earlier, he was hooving on a Lucky Strike, see? 

A nice double rainbow over Citizens' Bank Park in Philadelphia. That's got to mean good luck, right?

From the lemonade-out-of-lemons playbook - if the giant hurricane last fall left you with a toppled tree in the yard, make a chair out of it! Looks like there's enough for an ottoman, too.

You don't get to be as old as the man born Willie Hugh Nelson 92 years ago as of April 29 without acquiring some essential wisdom, and he knows, and we know, that our blessings far outweigh our problems - and we wouldn't trade either with anyone.

You know him better as Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, but to Central Pacific Divers of Lahaina, Hawaii, he is known as Steven V.  Tallarico, Certified Diver.

I have to find some excuse to go to Greenville, SC, to see the home of Shoeless Joe Jackson (Joseph Jefferson Jackson), the great baseball player over a century ago. It's a museum now.

As the Secretary of Education would say, this must be A1. Apparently they're bringing a new season of  The Simpsons to British TV and they wanted Big Ben to look like Really Big Marge. Cheerio!

 An experienced cat gets at least three naps a day, and just fools around the rest of the time.

Warning!

 So there I was, doing the electronic version of walking down to the mailbox, and I got an email in the old ebox that read:

A‏c‏t‏i‏o‏n‏ r‏e‏q‏u‏i‏r‏e‏d‏

I‏n‏ a‏ r‏e‏c‏e‏n‏t‏ s‏e‏c‏u‏r‏i‏t‏y‏ r‏e‏v‏i‏e‏w‏,‏ o‏u‏r‏ s‏y‏s‏t‏e‏m‏ d‏e‏t‏e‏c‏t‏e‏d‏ s‏o‏m‏e‏ u‏n‏u‏s‏u‏a‏l‏ a‏c‏t‏i‏v‏i‏t‏y‏ o‏n‏ y‏o‏u‏r‏ l‏a‏s‏t‏ p‏a‏y‏m‏e‏n‏t‏s‏.‏

A‏s‏ a‏ s‏e‏c‏u‏r‏i‏t‏y‏ p‏r‏e‏c‏a‏u‏t‏i‏o‏n‏,‏ a‏l‏l‏ y‏o‏u‏r‏ p‏a‏y‏m‏e‏n‏t‏s‏ h‏a‏s‏ b‏e‏e‏n‏ p‏u‏t‏ o‏n‏ h‏o‏l‏d‏ u‏n‏t‏i‏l‏ w‏e‏ h‏e‏a‏r‏ f‏r‏o‏m‏ y‏o‏u‏.‏

M‏y‏ A‏c‏c‏o‏u‏n‏t‏

I‏f‏ t‏h‏i‏s‏ i‏s‏s‏u‏e‏ i‏s‏ n‏o‏t‏ r‏e‏s‏o‏l‏v‏e‏d‏,‏ y‏o‏u‏r‏ a‏c‏c‏o‏u‏n‏t‏ m‏a‏y‏ b‏e‏ s‏u‏s‏p‏e‏n‏d‏e‏d‏ a‏n‏y‏ t‏i‏m‏e‏ w‏i‏t‏h‏o‏u‏t‏ n‏o‏t‏i‏c‏e‏.‏

T‏h‏a‏n‏k‏ y‏o‏u‏ f‏o‏r‏ c‏h‏o‏o‏s‏i‏n‏g‏ W‏e‏l‏l‏s‏ F‏a‏r‏g‏o

Well, now, any activity on my account should be regarded as unusual, because the last time I had anything to do with Wells Fargo was watching "Tales of Wells Fargo" on NBC when I was a kid. They had 201 episodes; the show ran from 1957 - 1962.

 

The only other time I remember hearing about that outfit was when their reputation was scarred by scandal:  Wells Fargo & Company and its subsidiary, Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., have agreed to pay $3 billion to resolve their potential criminal and civil liability stemming from a practice between 2002 and 2016 of pressuring employees to meet unrealistic sales goals that led thousands of employees to provide millions of accounts or products to customers under false pretenses or without consent, often by creating false records or misusing customers’ identities, the Department of Justice announced today. (February 21, 2020)

So the thought that I would involve my vast fortune (estimated at well over a million pesos) with these crooks is laughable. And I don't know if they are the ones sending these alarming emails - it even had a red exclamation point!  - to people at large, hoping to trick them into revealing their banking, social security, and driver's license information, but they're treeing up the wrong bark with me.

All my loot is with the credit union. Crimefighters' tip: join a credit union that has hundreds of police officers among its depositors in line to do their bank stuff. It will never be held up.

‏And I would NEVER do business with a bank that said "all your payments has been held up" (sic). So there.

Mystery!

 If you've heard the song "Ode To Billie Joe," the mystery from 1967, you might have wondered how the songwriter and singer of that smash hit is doing.

And you wouldn't be alone.

I was just telling someone the other day about Joseph Mitchell, the New Yorker magazine writer who developed writer's block in 1964 after realizing he had been duped into believing that a certain oddball in New York had written a massive history of the world.

So devastated at being taken in was Mitchell that he did not write another published word until he retired from the magazine in 1996. Co-workers said he showed up for work every day, sat at his desk, and simply was not able to write again. The only utterance he was heard to give out with was an occasional sigh.

Let's do the math on that - 32 years he worked without getting anything done.

Bobbie Gentry, who had a couple of other hits (most notable was "Fancy," later covered by Reba McEntire) and never released more new music after her "Patchwork" album bombed in 1971 (it hardly sold at all, no hit singles came off it) was last seen in public on April 30, 1982 at the Academy of Country Music Awards.

No music, no appearances, nothing. Week after next, that will be 43 invisible, unheard years of a woman with so much talent, but what happened? Rumors say she might be living in a gated community in Memphis, or maybe in Los Angeles. 

I would love to know how she is and what she's been busy with.

And as with Jos. Mitchell, how come the people we like go missing, and the ones we wish would disappear for three or four decades just stay around day after day after day?

Let's Pretend

The longer I live here, the more amazed I am at what goes on. And ever since Monday, I have been following the fallout from the ridiculous "Gayle King Goes To Space" skit that was performed on Monday Morning Live, CBS's answer to Saturday Night Live.

Great idea! Jeff Bezos has all the money in the world that Levon doesn't have yet, so let's dress Gayle, Katy Perry, Lauren Sánchez (soon to be the lucky Mrs Bezos) and three other women (activist Amanda Nguyen, ex-NASA engineer Aisha Bowe and film producer Kerianne Flynn) and shoot them up in suborbital flight for 11 minutes, just past the Kármán line - the threshold of space! - and when they land, they can all call themselves astronauts!

Katy Perry conducts scientific experiment to see if a daisy will tell her whether someone loves her or not.

OK, listen: if riding in this phallic rocket makes one an "astronaut," then falling off a roof makes one a skydiver. And as far as I'm concerned, Gayle, who is usually content just to call herself "Oprah's best friend," can think she's an astronaut, but what a disservice that does to all the women and men who have trained over the years to earn that title.

I mean, the next thing you know, Kristi "K-9 Killa" Noem will dress up in an ICE uniform and pretend to be a customs police officer. And wouldn't that be silly?

Someday, we're going to have to stop pretending to be what we are not just by dressing the part.

 

 

 

Trying to better himself

In Amersfoort, Holland, the Meander Medical Centre was asked in September, 2014, to run some tests and checkups on a patient. Normally, that would not be of interest to anyone save that patient and his/her family, but this patients happened to be 1,000 years of age. Well into the Medicare years...

What had happened was, some researchers brought a thousand-year-old Buddha statue from a museum to the hospital for a CT scan. They found out that within the gold-painted figure was a mummy of an actual Buddhist monk.

CT scan came back nice!

Analysis showed that all the major organs, save the heart, were removed from the body prior to mummification way back then, and then the monk's organs were replaced with scraps of paper printed with Chinese letters and symbols that have not all been translated. 

The belief is that the body is that of Buddhist master Liuquan, who died around the year A.D. 1100. He was a member of the Chinese Meditation School. The Drents Museum in Holland has been exploring the possibility that the monks self-mummified in an attempt to turn himself into a "living Buddha."

It's nice to see that the self-improvement trend didn't just start the other day. 

 

How do you do it?

There are many ways to do it, and as mature adults (pause for laughter) we should discuss them, like civilized ladies and menfolk. There is nothing to be ashamed of; it's a natural process, part of everyday life, and talking about should be done openly, without shame.

What we're talking about is...parking the car. As in, I see discussions on the sociable media in which people say they can't believe someone backed into a parking spot in the parking garage, and how horrible that is.

I grew up, so to speak, across from a fire house, and you will never see a fire engine parked nose-in in the station, because when they have to go somewhere, they don't want to take time backing out.

Either way, when you park, you're going to have to back up. Why not get it done first? Even with the advent of the back-up camera in vehicles, which allows you to see behind you, it can take forever to make sure no one is coming. So do the backing up part, and then go to work or shopping or to see a friend, knowing that you have smooth sailing when you leave?

It's like eating the lima beans at the start of the meal, so you can get to the good stuff.

See you in the garage!

Sunday Rerun: Let's Make a Deal

 We've all heard a hundred jokes that begin with "Florida man..."

They're not always jokes; sometimes, they are real news stories. So this one begins with: Small town in Florida sells its water tower in a bungled real estate deal.

Look at this map! I've never even heard of Brooksville, FL, but here it seems to be a bigger deal than Tallahassee, Jacksonville, Tampa, Orlando, and Miami!

Anyhow, in April, a local business wheeler dealer bought the city-owned building under Brooksville's water tower. He gave the city $55,000 for the building, which used to be used as a storage site for various city agencies; the plan was to turn it into a gym (one where people would constantly look up to the sky in fear of the tower collapsing, but anyway...)

Bobby Read is the businessman here. As the City Council was closing the deal on May 5, he told city officials he thought the legal description of the property went far beyond what he thought he was buying. But officials, relying on the description they had, said no, we're cool, go ahead with the deal.

When Read went to the Hernando County Property Appraiser’s office to get the official address for the site of his new gym venture, the appraiser told him the parcel he bought included the entire water tower site.

Fortunately for many, on May 14, Read signed a warranty deed, transferring the water tower back to the red-faced city (population 8,500).

“I don’t know where the blame falls here,” said Blake Bell, a city council member. “We’re council members and we rely on the city manager. We assume that he has done his due diligence."

City Manager Mark Kutney said a "bad legal description" was to blame for the snafu. No lawyers have resigned yet, but the city's redevelopment agency director quit his job.

“We’re human,” Kutney said. “Sometimes we make a mistake.”

I can assure you, dear reader, that just WHO made the mistake and WHO should have caught it are topics of intense conversation around the town offices these days, make no mistake about that.

The Saturday Picture Show, April 12, 2025

Today, the Orioles will be re-introducing all-orange uniforms, a monochromatic masterpiece last seen here in 1971. Meanwhile, out in Kansas City, it's "Weekend At Bernie's" Weekend! 

This was taken in a room at Ellis Island, in a building where newly-arrived New Americans were quartered on arrival. How many hopes were born, how many dreams began, with a view of Lady Liberty?

An interesting image here...you wonder what the older lady would say to the younger one, and vice versa.

It's a little thing that could be a big thing if we all tried it!

Life is a continuous line.

This is the chow prepared by a husband who was leaving town on a business trip."Cotolette" is Italian for cutlet. I looked it up.

Go ahead and put a quarter in but don't expect too much.

Earth boring. Sky blue. Sea wet. 

Sneezing season begins with a sprinkle of magic yellow dust for your eyes and nose.

Sharing wisdom from Ralph "Where's" Waldo Emerson. 

 

 

You said it

The other day, I told someone who had shared a picture of their impossibly adorable little girl that, "if she ain't cute, grits ain't groceries," and I hope the mom and dad knew what that means. Not that many people eat grits any more, and when they look up the word grits, they find that someone takes dry corn, soaks it in lye to remove the husk (which results in a bowlful of hominy) and then once the hominy dries out, they grind it up so it looks like sand.

Now, you boil that down in some water, add salt and pepper and butter and cheese to the resultant porridge, and you've got something there, I want to tell you.

It tastes better than it sounds, I promise you!

It'll be better with some cheddar.

Bosses and parents used to come out with "put some elbow grease on it." That meant to bear down and work harder, especially in the physical sense. Literalist that I am, I was once told to apply more elbow grease to some task I was supposed to be doing, and I covered both elbows in lithium grease to see if that would make the yardwork go faster. It didn't, but it did slow me down in getting washed up for supper.

This one still confuses people, when I say, "I haven't talked to you since Hector was a pup." They say it goes back to the Trojan War (and many a fight has been fought over Trojans, I must say) and Hector, one of the participants who had been around for a dog's age. I guess. But I can't see Greek soldiers standing around talking about old dogs, what with a war going on. I tend to associate the name Héctor with Héctor López, the old Panamanian-born Yankee outfielder who became the first black manager in AAA minor league baseball. That Héctor was born in 1929, so he was a pup a long time ago. 

And there's always this: "You need to get all the food and the supplies and make the reservation for the picnic grove. Get all that together, and Bob's your uncle."

Bob was not my uncle. Barrett was my uncle. "Bob's your uncle" means you've got the hook up and everything will be taken care of because you know the right people.

I know all the right people, because only the right people read this blog. Thank you for being one of them!

Heat of the moment

Sometimes, our futures are made clear to us in the midst of a hot moment. 

The other morning, 16-year-old Tyler Sowden was on the phone in the family's home in Cleveland. He heard a scream, and unlike many people, he went outside to see what was up. 

What he saw was black smoke pouring from a neighbor's house.

A lot of people would have stood there and said, "Huh! Someone's house is on fire!" So Tyler grabbed a ladder from his garage and beat feet down the street.  At the burning house, a woman, a baby, and a child were screaming for help from the second story porch roof.

Tyler chocked the ladder, climbed up and grabbed the baby with one arm, holding onto the ladder with the other. Down he went, taking the baby to safety before helping the mother and her son down the ladder as well.

A minute later, the house was fully involved in fire.

“It was God who used him like an angel to save our lives,” said Judith Avila Padilla, the mother whose family owe Tyler their lives. She had awakened to acrid black smoke filling her second floor bedroom as she rounded up her 11-month-old daughter, Grace, and her 7-year-old son, Caleb. As they crawled out onto the roof, she heard her other song, Abner, 12, yelling as she jumped off another porch roof.

And then here came Tyler with that 40-foot extension ladder (100 lbs) to make the rescue. He had learned to throw the ladder by tagging along on construction jobs with his father.

It was another minute before the Cleveland Fire Dept arrived. Lt. Mike Norman said, "(Tyler) certainly put himself in harm’s way to help that family."

 And as rain began to fall on the scene, he felt exhausted as he watched the firefighters extinguish the flames. “It was just kind of insane to think what I did,” he said.

And then his mom took him to Taco Bell for a grilled cheese burrito.

And then he slept for more than eight hours.

And then, a few days later, Cleveland Cavaliers basketball star Donovan Mitchell called Sowden one of “the real heroes in this community.”

And then, Tyler decided he wants to be a firefighter when he's old enough (he's already grown up enough!)

“I didn’t really have a plan until this kind of happened,” Sowden said. “I’m like, ‘Maybe that’s a sign.’”

It certainly is.

Buy the book

One of the regular events on my social calendar every year was the Smith College Alumnae Association Used Book Sale, in which books stored in Baltimore attics, basements, back rooms and I don't know where-all else were boxed up, hauled to the National Guard Armory in Towson, placed on long tables, and sold for cheap.

Now the Armory belongs to Towson University and (one hopes) is no longer used for military weapons storage, and the nice ladies from Smith College, after several years of holding their event at the State Fairgrounds, have given up the ghostwriters. 

An event a few blocks east at the public library is almost as huge. It's the 28th annual Friends of the Towson Library Book Sale! It starts today and runs through Saturday the 12th on the first floor of their great building at 320 York Rd. 

They feature books of all types (well, almost all types) and they have a huge selection of children's books, most of which were written by such noted scribes as Gwyneth Paltrow, Jenna Bush Hager, Billy Crystal, and Jimmy Fallon. 

You can't beat the prices, either: $1 to $5 today through Friday, and on Saturday, load up the SUV, Mom and Dad - everything is $5 a foot!

 

Dates and Times 

Wednesday, April 9, noon to 7 p.m.

Thursday, April 10, noon to 7 p.m. 

Friday, April 11, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

Saturday, April 12, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.  

Last year's sale raked in over $21,000, which the FOTL wisely invested in pain and new tables for the library, as well as programs such as Baby Craft Time, Black Business Fair and Teen Chill Time.

Go buy some books! 

 

Look down when you're walking around!

I was at the diner one day for breakfast when I found a really wonderful omelet, and then Ziv Nitzan outdid me while on a nature walk with her folks.

Ziv lives in central Israel. She's three, and that means she does what three-year-olds do on walks - she picked up just about everything the ground had to share with her delighted eyes.  She found a little stone, rounded, just about the size of her little palm. She dusted it off and asked her mom what those little markings were on the rock.

I'm glad (and so are many others!) that the family didn't just toss the stone down, because it turned out to be, not an omelet, but an amulet, 3,800 years old. It dates back to the Middle Bronze Age (2100 to 1600 B.C.E., according to the Israel Antiquities Authority.)

These little stone objects were designed in the shape of dung beetles, or scarabs. Scarabs were considered sacred in Ancient Egypt because they symbolized new life.

That was in the old days in Egypt, but these are the new days, and Ziv's folks knew what to do with the stone. They let Google Lens take a look at it, and then they were off to the Antiquities Authority the next day to share their child's find.

Ziv was awarded a certificate of appreciation for good citizenship, and the amulet is on display now through Passover.

My omelet is long gone, but it deserved a special certificate, too! 

Lighten up

 You may have heard of the "27 Club," based on the folklore of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Kurt Cobain dying way too young at three over two dozen years.

I hasten to point out to readers under 27 that none of the celebrities above were known for their salubrious lifestyles, so it's not like they should worry, as long as they're following reasonable guidelines for safe living.

But there's an odd subtext to this, called the "white lighter myth," a fable that holds that all or at least several of the club members were toting white Bic lighters when they met their maker.

But the claim was soon reduced to Balderdash when someone noticed that Bic didn't even produce disposable lighters until 1973 (I remember!)

And Hendrix, Joplin, and Morrison had long since cashed in their chips by then.

What's more, all the members of Blue Öyster Cult, so beloved for their 1976 anthem "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," outlived their fame by decades, so there's that.

Sunday Rerun: Marriage, Then and Now

We got married in 1973, shortly after the end of the Pleistocene Era, comparatively. Peggy was a blushing bride of 19, and I, the cause of the blushing, was a worldly 22 with a lot of hair and and a 32" waist, both of which have seen some change in the intervening years. But we were right in the midst of how these things were done back in the day. We were kids and we had nothing but love and some argyle socks and a complete collection of the first three years of National Lampoon magazine.

I often think about another couple we met on our honeymoon in Colonial Williamsburg. We were parading around the main drag of the town, Duke of Gloucester Street, and spotted five 20-dollar bills wadded up on the curb. I looked around with my patented furtive look, suspecting at first that it was some sort of "Candid Camera" setup. But, we picked up the loot and called the police, who sent a town cop right over.

He must have spent his off hours watching "Kojak," because he did all he could to assume the affect of a jaded big city police officer. "This found currency WILL be held at our main headquarters for a period of 30 days, after which time you MAY apply for possession thereof, should the rightful owner not be found by that time," he exclaimed, as he took our contact information and rode off, adjusting his hat.

A day went by and no call came from the police, and then, after dinner on the second day, we came home to a flashing red light on the motel phone. The message was from the town police. "The money has been claimed by a young couple on their honeymoon; request permission to divulge your information to them so they can contact you directly," barked the desk sergeant. Sure thing we said; send 'em on over. In just a few minutes, a scared-looking couple of kids, about our age, showed up at the room. We talked for a few minutes; they were from New Jersey, my second-favorite state of them all, and the guy told us how it happened that he dropped five double sawbucks on the street. It seems that someone in the know told him to stash the twenties in his shoes. I remember the shoes.  They were butter-colored, and had thick soles and high heels, the sort of thing that David Cassidy was often seen wearing while prancing about concert halls and tv shows. Ultra-70's. But many's the time I have wondered how things have gone for that couple from the Garden State Parkway State. How is their marriage going? Did they have kids? What have been the highs and lows and whatnot? Why, I'd pay a hundred bucks today to get to see them and hear their story. They were, as I say, just a couple of crazy kids who loved each other. I hope that did not change.

I've done a lot of things over the course of this American life, and I have had varying degrees of success in them all, but I surely got lucky when I fell in love. As anyone who knows me can verify, Peggy is a saint, the most patient person on earth, and definitely the sweetest. I say this all the time, and it's true so true, but she still makes my heart get all skittery just to see her edging near. If you're getting married this spring or this century, I can't wish you anything better than that.

The Saturday Picture Show, April 5, 2025

 

It's a little light on the pixels, but I like this picture of our porch. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to be outside when the Amazon person arrives, and Peggy and I can get in the picture!

I like this quarter-moon moon effect.

I enjoyed it when I had a pair of denim overalls back in the day. Never had to find a belt, lots of pockets and a hammer hanger, and maybe I'll find a new pair on the porch some sweet day.

It's sad to see an old ballpark fall into disrepair and decline, and before Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia (formerly Shibe Park) was demolished to make way for a church, it was home to the Philadelphia Athletics from 1909-1954, the Phillies (1938-1970), and even the football Eagles (1940-1958). Misty, water-colored memories...

This was someone's great idea! People might go to the library to seek information on a touchy topic, and this will guide them if they'd just as soon not ask out loud where to look.

It's a daybed that could be a boat, who knows?

I'll take the elevator, or stay on the first floor...

Warm bagel, toasty bagel...

The amazing thing about those old time TV dinners was not so much that the peas tasted like the carrots, or the little butter pat plucked down perfectly in the middle of the "snowy" mashed potatoes. It was wondering where they found those tiny chicken legs, thighs, and wings!

This skating banana statue is there for you to see, next time your travels take you to Arkansas. 

Why is he popular?

I have not said much about Baltimore's Own Luigi Mangione, scion of a notable local family who's facing the death penalty for imposing the death penalty on an insurance executive.

Two reasons: I continued to think that Luigimania would die down, and it seems to have done so somewhat, and I just could not believe the amount of people who insisted that killing the HMFIC of an insurance company was acceptable.

We've all had beefs with our health and car insurance, and even if you feel particularly aggrieved because a dear relative died and you are certain that the insurer could have done more, approved something else, made arrangements for other medications in their case, I don't think that justifies murder. Sorry, I just don't. Sue the bastids, take them to court, show up at their offices daily to demand accomodation, but when you take out a gun to take out a CEO, you are doing what you said he did to your mother or whomever. 

And I like to think that right-thinking Americans are better than that. 

It helps some to regard young Luigi as a picaresque Robin Hood sort of guy...local preppie, valedictorian, descendant of business leaders and a Republican Maryland State delegate. Some apparently see a resemblance to some video game character. He's a folk hero to some, and it reminds me of when John Dillinger was running around the country holding up banks in the 1930s. Some got the idea that Dillinger was so sort of good guy, and they convinced themselves that he divided the loot he looted from banks among the needy in the towns where he stole. And he never did anything of the sort, but depression-era America needed a hero, and there he was.

In February, someone sent Luigi a heart-shaped note hidden in a pair of socks delivered to him for wearing to a court appearance.

Let me know what a Google search gives you on "John Dillinger soup kitchens" or "Dillinger pays mortgages for hard-hit farmers." John Dillinger loved that part of being famous. Towns even posted "Welcome Dillinger" signs along their outskirt roads, hoping to lure the Indiana badman to their town, ostensibly to share his wealth.

I don't profess to know what's going on in young Mangione's head, but even if he thinks he's right to carry the cudgel for those whose insurance companies did them wrong, he's wrong. Go become a lawyer and fight for those people the right way, in courts, or with your Uncle Nino down at the state capital. In becoming a murderer, you became what you found so wrong in others.

And if you think that this man's death changed anything, you're wrong again.

 

Penny wise

At 6' 3", Michael Andrew "Duff" McKagan, former bassist for Guns N' Roses, towers above many people, especially where moolah is concerned.

Duff

His name is not the inspiration for Homer Simpson's favorite beer (Duff, Duff Light and Duff Ice all come from the same vat); McKagan said the Simpsons used his name and the creator of the Simpsons, Matt Groening, says he never heard of a Duff McKagan.

He's not the richest Roser; that would be William Bruce Rose, Jr, better known as Axl Rose.

He doesn't have the coolest name in the band; that honor has to go to Izzy Stradlin, né Jeffrey Dean Isbell.

And McKagan has been thrice married, meaning that he's had three mothers-in-law, and they are all proud of his financial acumen, because in 1994, at the age of 30, Duff was told his time on earth would be measured in weeks, not years, if he didn't give up his dissolute way of life.

Here's the Paul Harvey Rest Of The Story - in order to use up the time that he used to spend on intemperance, McKagan enrolled in college, took a few business courses, and scraped together $100,000 that he had not yet snorted up his nose or run through his liver, and bought stock in three nascent businesses: Amazon, Microsoft, and Starbucks....all local Seattle firms.

Since he bought those stocks,  Starbucks is up 5,337.14%, Microsoft is +2,347.92%, and Amazon is +21,934.67%.

Had you stopped spending all your money on acid-washed jeans and Zubaz pants in 1994, and scraped together $10,000 to buy shares of Amazon, you would be worth $2,203,467 right now.

And we would still love you!

Current estimates of McKagan's wealth range from $30 million to $90 million.