A well-prepared pair

It's becoming apparent why the Republicans kept Gov. Sarah Palin away from the probing questions while they tried to school her on what to say and how to say it. They let her out of class a tad bit early, it seems. She still doesn't know enough to answer a question. Last night someone asked her to dispel concerns that she lacked foreign policy experience. She responded by saying she expected critics to look for things to attack. “I think because I’m a Washington outsider that opponents are going to be looking for a whole lot of things that they can criticize,” she said. (Do you remember getting caught coming home at 3 in the morning when you were 17? How did it work when your best explanation was, "I knew you were going to look for something to pick on me for!" ? Also, mention that you're an outsider! It makes you seem like a maverick hockey mom.)

“As for foreign policy, you know, I think that I am prepared and I know that on Jan. 20, if we are so blessed as to be sworn into office as your president and vice president, certainly we’ll be ready,” Palin said.

“I’ll be ready, I have that confidence,” she continued. “If you want specifics with specific policy or countries, go ahead and you can ask me, you can even play ’stump the candidate’ if you want to, but we are ready to serve.”

There you have it. I am ready because I am ready. The official Palin family crest, under a field of crossed hockey sticks, bears the family slogan, "Ego Sum Paratus, Ergo Sum Paratus." ( I am prepared, therefore I am prepared.) When your history professor asked you for causes of the Peloponnesian War, when Professor Pomfritt asked for a chemical analysis of some mystery solution, when Mrs Mulligan in 4th grade wanted you to call out some timeses and guzinthas, you should have said, "I know this stuff. I am ready to answer, if you want specifics. I have confidence that I know the answer you seek."

She changed questioners and topics before the announced game of stump the candidate could begin. But that is a good way to answer a question. Tell you what, next time you're considering brain surgery and are choosing a surgeon, look for one who tells you they are sure that they know the medulla oblongata from the fusilli carbonara. No proof needed, as long as they tell you that they know stuff.

Last night, Sen. John McCain took a question as to whether he would invite the prime minister of Spain, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to the White House if, God forbid, Americans elected him president.

"I would be willing to meet with those leaders who are friends and want to work with us in a cooperative fashion," came the confused reply. He then mentioned Mexican President Calderon, who he said "is fighting a very tough fight against the drug cartels."

So when the reporter said again that the topic was Spain, McCain responded: "I know the issues, I know the leaders."

So the reporter asked again if he would invite Zapatero. Here is what old McCain said:

"All I can tell you is that I have a clear record of working with leaders in the Hemisphere that are friends with us and standing up to those who are not and that's judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America and the entire region."

So that's your Republican ticket. The man on top confuses Spain and Mexico, placing Spain in the Western Hemisphere, and seems unsure about who governs where. The second banana answers questions by saying she knows the answers to questions. "I know this stuff!"

Somehow, in some undisclosed location, Dick Cheney is laughing his head off.

American Jurisprudence

Here's the news story:

Thomas Jane has pleaded no contest to drunken driving after he was clocked doing 120 mph in a Maserati.

The star of last year's movie "The Mist" and 2004's "The Punisher" pleaded no contest Tuesday to a misdemeanor count of driving under the influence. Jane wasn't in the courtroom but made the plea through his lawyer.

Jane, who's married to Emmy-winning "Medium" star Patricia Arquette, was sentenced to a year of probation, $1,700 in fines and must take alcohol abuse classes.

Two other alcohol and drug charges and two speeding tickets were dismissed.

Police stopped the 39-year-old actor twice on Interstate 5 in Kern County last March for speeding. After a third stop, he was arrested for drunken driving.

Here is what I would like to say, your honor. I shall keep my remarks brief so that the honorable court, this jury, and the crowd in the gallery can dash home and see Mr Jane play Mickey Mantle in the engrossing biopic "*61." (pause for laughter.)

Your honor, Judge Whoozit, those of us who reside in the world of actually doing responsible things were kind of wondering how it is that Mr Jane did not actually have to take time off from his busy schedule of making movies that no one ever goes to see in order to drop by the courtroom and see how his trial was coming along? What could possibly have been more important on the day of his trial that he had to send his mouthpiece to the courthouse instead? I'm certain that Kern County Cali has plenty of sheriff's deputies, police officers and crowd control experts who could have dealt with what certainly would have been a roiling throng of Thomas Jane admirers, hoping to see his slumpy grin light up your courtroom.

And Mr. Jane, Baltimore native that you are, and soon to turn forty: have you given much thought to the way you are conducting your life? Do you not see a problem with driving your Maserati at 120 miles per hour on a public road? Twice? Three times, and while intoxicated? While you were cruising about that March day, did you wonder if anyone else was on the road, or did you even care? Sure, anyone can make a mistake, judge not lest ye be and all that, but come on, Mr. Jane.

I was all set to talk about the picture above featuring your pneumatic wife and you with the Stanley Laurel haircut, and Oliver Hardy jacket and tie and I don't even know whose plaid kilt. Drunky McDrivey, maybe? I just have to wonder, and I seriously ask this of the public, of the judge and of Mr Jane, what possible reason is there for not putting this no-talent assclown in jail for at least a couple of months? It's how we teach our recalcitrant children; we punish them.

If this man had killed someone you love...think about it.

And a haircut, two bits

THE MIDNIGHT RIDE

OF PAUL FOR BEER

LED TO A WARMER

HEMISPHERE

Burma Shave

Altho insured

Remember, kiddo

They don't pay you

They pay your widow

Burma-Shave

If you see this doggerel and say,"what is this?" that means you never saw a Burma-Shave sign, because if you ever saw them, you never forgot 'em! Before we zipped along the eight-lane superslabs, we took the regular roads to get to places, and a lot of times that meant tootling along some farm country road, where the Burma-Shave company posted sets of signs spaced along the road so drivers and passengers could read and enjoy the signs and their poetry, which usually was about road safety, mixing in a little plug for their brushless shaving cream along the way.

I don't know what the deal was for the farmer or whoever owned the land where the signs were placed. Maybe they gave him a case of Burma-Shave.

Well, I'm not getting any celebrity endorsement money for this, but I have to tell you, if you have something that needs a good shavin', break your neck to run out and get a Gillette Fusion razor. I remember reading about this new shaving technology in The New Yorker when the good folks at Gillette were working night and day to bring us this razor, and as someone who has been dragging a foam-covered piece of steel across my face for some time now, I have to admit, I did not put a lot of faith in the account. In fact, I didn't buy the razor; I got it for free in the mail and saved it while I used up some of the other razors I have. But friends, I don't know if it's the five blades or the pivoting head or just what, but this razor fairly glides across the stubble and leaves the face feeling smoother than a...than a freshly-shaven face. Not going to say "than a baby's behind" because that only invites unpleasant comparisons.

So, again, I don't know what kind of compensation deal was worked out in the past, but I'm stating that in return for a case of these razors, the Gillette people can put these signs on my front yard (pending zoning approval, of course):

MARK LOVES HIS RAZOR...

NEW GILLETTE FUSION...

YOU SEE STUBBLE?...

OPTICAL DELUSION!

GILLETTE!

We all know the feeling

This diet I have been suffering through is now one week old. It's already easier to walk away from dessert, to skip mayonnaise on a sammy, to make a breakfast of lowfat yogurt and wheat germ rather than an Egg Mc Markin. But one of these days, I'm afraid I'll wake up hungry and just be a bear about the whole thing:

I like the songs, # 11-20

back to the list:

11. Longhaired Redneck - David Allan Coe - we have a long-standing American tradition of people who are famous for being famous: Zsa Zsa Gabor, Paris Hilton, and current veep nominee Zsa Zsa Palin. But David Allan Coe got out of an Ohio prison, bought some sort of old Cadillac hearse and put decals all over it billing himself as the Legendary Stardust Cowboy. It got him a certain amount of attention, and for a while he cut and wrote some pretty good songs, such as this one, but today as he ekes out a living touring the biker bar circuit, he's back to where he began when he left the Big House: famous for WANTING to be famous.

12. Highway to Hell - AC-DC "May I first point out, St. Peter, that I in no way liked the message of nihilism espoused in that song? That bantam-sized lead singer Ronald "Bon" Scott made the lyrics come hauntingly true when he drank himself into a early grave? You see, St. Peter, all I liked about that song was the vocal performance and the amazing chunky guitar of Angus Young. So may I come in now, please?"

13. Roundabout - Yes - A long one, and a bit close to the dreaded Art Rock of the early 70's, but something about a wonderful world where mountains come out of the sky and they just stand there dragged me along. In or around the lake, it sounded good.

14. Bristol Stomp - The Dovells - Ibid

15. Buddy Holly - Weezer - I liked Weezer doing their song "Buddy Holly" and it made me wonder if Buddy, were he still alive, could be doing a song called "Weezer." The Beatles got their name as a tribute to The Crickets, Buddy's band, and of course Weezer got their name from the derisive nickname applied to leader Rivers Cuomo, a childhood asthma victim. They made a great video of this one, a takeoff on Happy Days.

16. The Other Side - Aerosmith - You have to admit that for being almost twenty years old, this song still sounds great on the way to work in the morning. I don't know if Steven Tyler can still scream the line "I'm looking for another kind of loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooove" in quite the original fashion anymore, but don't ever count out a Toxic Twin.

17. Young Americans - David Bowie - After Bowie got out of his epicene cross dressing glam rock glitter phase, he started putting out some records that really had something to say, and then he quickly stopped doing that and put out dance hits. So my favorite Bowie era was when he was writing stanzas such as
Scanning life through the picture windows She finds the slinky vagabond He coughs as he passes her Ford Mustang, but Heaven forbid, she'll take anything But the freak, and his type, all for nothing He misses a step and cuts his hand, but Showing nothing, he swoops like a song She cries "Where have all Papa's heroes gone?"

and then it ended.

18. Life - Sly and the Family Stone - "Life! Life! Clouds and Clowns! You don't have to die before you live!" It's a book's worth of wisdom in a quick pop song. You talk about a wasted talent. Sly Stone was a DJ, he produced those hits by the Beau Brummels ("Laugh Laugh" and "Just A Little") and then he formed the Family Stone, the first integrated, gender-diverse group ( except for Lawrence Welk, but you know...) So many great songs, and then he looked down at his nose at everything and lost it all. He had to look down his nose so he could shove drugs up it. Pity.

19. Dance To The Music - Sly and the Family Stone - I couldn't choose between these two by Sly, so I squeezed them both on my list. This was their first hit, and probably their most well-known. Like very few other hits from 1968, this one would still sound like it was recorded today if you listened to it tomorrow. So why don't you?

20. In Dreams - Roy Orbison - there are some voices that no one else's voice sounds a bit like. Roy Orbison, Burl Ives, totally unique. The "Big 'O'" (!) from Wink, Texas, did not sound like anyone else ever has or will, and this wistful one from the early 60's must be a sweet balm to any yearning heart.

Welcome Isabella!

The official announcement is here



and here also are the return sticker pictures from the envelope:



very cool! Great-uncledom brings me a lot of pride and joy. I have to go now because I am all out of pink ink. Blessings to all!

Pavlovian

The audiologist in my building (a cool guy) says I possess something called eidetic memory. I said I do not possess any such thing and no one can prove otherwise! But he said it was a good thing - relating to the ability to remember a lot of things, sometimes by sense memory. As in, I don't have a bloodhound's sense of smell, but if you take me back to my junior high school cafeteria, it probably still reeks of the pungent floor wax they used back in my day. And reading the Information Please Almanac as a youth filled my noggin with useful items such as Donna Reed's real name (Donna Mullenger) and biographies of some lesser-known US presidents (James Polk, we hardly knew ye.)

What's weird is that I can recall minutiae from long ago, unimportant factoids that take up space in my melon that really ought to be used by the name of our insurance agent (Mike Somebody?), where my spare sunglasses are (a booth at Applebees?) and how to replace a garbage disposal (call a plumber?) It used to be that I remembered names for a day or two, and now it's down to where I meet someone new and by the end of the conversation I can't remember their name. As Edd "Kookie" Byrnes (born Edward Byrne Breitenberger) used to say, I've got smog in my noggin.

But on the second floor of the building, one of the offices has one of those bells that is the same kind of bell that we had at the good old A&P, in the days when the shoppers would ding the bell and whichever clerk was close by in the store, loading eggs or cheese or preparing a handful of whipped cream to be dumped on an unsuspecting coworker from atop the dairy cooler (I know nothing about that), would scoot over and grind the coffee for them. I hear that bell when I walk past that office, and I still involuntarily whirl around to see if anyone needs their coffee ground.

What's really troubling is that last week, two people did!

Porkfest!

Spent some time this evening poring over old photo albums, and I came across this classic shot from the early 90's.

Did you ever have company that just loved the same meal every time, so that's what you always put out? We had friends who just loved what I called the "Pennsylvania Porkfest" menu - they were both from north of the border *, as it were, so this put them in mind of home. We always had a great time at this!

There were no appetizers, no preprandial canapes, nothing to amuse the bouche. All bouches were amused by the real thing, the main course, the pork loin roast grilled on the charcoal grill and slathered with KC Masterpiece Bar-B-Q sauce. Pork gravy, mashed 'taters, and sauerkraut more than filled up the plates, and then I would make a cherry pie and top that with a scoop of Breyer's vanilla ice cream the approximate size of Delaware. A cuppa mocha java, and it was time to let the belt out a notch or two.

And then, hours later, when we were cleaning up the dishes ("putting supper away," in Pennsylvania parlance), daggone if I didn't feel hungry again! And then the midnight choice - cold slab of pork roast or rice cake?

If I were to become president, and that looks quite doubtful unless I suddenly become a hockey dad (that seems to be a deal-making attribute with the plebiscite all of a sudden) I would be ready for that 3 AM phone call, because I'd be up anyway, looking for the bicarbonate of soda.

Memoirs of a life well-lived...


* The Pennsylvania - Maryland border, that is!

Come On, Baby, Let's Twist the Do!

'Tis said there are statistics and there are statistics...but here's one for you. Owing to some sort of math that we may never understand, Billboard Magazine has declared "The Twist" by Chubby Checker as the most popular single in the 50 years of their Hot 100 chart.



If you read the article, it turns out that the Einsteins at Billboard had to "weight" the charts differently from the long-ago days when the most popular records were actually the most popular records. Who knows how they figure it today, but how many times have you ever heard the answer to, "What is your favorite song of all time?" come back as "Why, it's 'The Twist', by Chubby Checker! Was there any doubt?" Asked for a comment, Chubby (born Ernest Evans but renamed in honor of Fats Domino; one can only surmise that "Porky Parcheesi" was already taken in the adipose tissue- child's game name contest) had this to say: "I'm glad they've finally recognized it." Not a lot of elaboration from a man who clearly has all kinds of time on his hands, you say? Well, wait! There's more! El Chubaramo compared "The Twist" to the creation of the telephone as a groundbreaking moment. Pause to let that sink in. How does that come, Mr. Checker, that recording "The Twist" is as important as getting the first phone call from Alexander Graham Bell? Well, it's because, he said, it was the first time people were dancing "apart to the beat."

"Anyplace on the planet, when someone has a song that has a beat, they're on the floor dancing apart to the beat, and before Chubby Checker, it wasn't here, and I think that has a lot to do with me being on the charts," he said. Attention! Celebrity-referring-to-self-in-the-third-person alert!!

I know you might think I have a sense of folly, and I might open up a can of silly in the name of satire, only to have it close on Saturday night. But this is all true. Poppa Chubby inserts himself high atop the pantheon of rock's immortal performers, because, you see, before he came along, no one ever danced apart. I guess all those people who claimed to be doing the Charleston, the Big Apple and the Madison never really existed!

One last blast of Chubby's ego: "My music is less played than any performer that has been a No. 1 chart man on the planet," said Checker, who also had hits with "Pony Time," "The Fly" and "Let's Twist Again," which earned him a Grammy. "I don't get the respect that Rod Stewart gets, or the Rolling Stones, or Frankie Valli. ... But I have to deal with it."

Ah, Chubster, so do we all. As the noted novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald said, "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." It's a past in which Chubby Checker was more important than the Rolling Stones, and General Tso was a great military leader in China who operated a chicken carryout on the side. And Art Deco was an interior designer, and Frankie Valli got respect? Who knew?
thanks to Yahoo! Entertainment for the original story!

I like the songs the whole world sings

It all started with an innocent question, and much like the Watergate hearings, that innocent question led to thousands of hours of research, and several high-ranking officials were forced to leave office in disgrace. All right, not so much that last part, although there has been some talk of the Parks Commissioner of Albert Lea, MN, abdicating over the bogus Milli Vanilli concert held on his watch.

The innocent question came from friend Jonie, out in California: What are your 100 favorite songs? I took it to mean, if you had an mp3 player that could hold 100 tunes, which songs would you load on it before taking a three hour tour? (A three hour tour!)

I was a DJ, which means that my basement holds about 10,000 45 rpm records, most of them with white labels bearing the inscription "Radio Station Copy - Not For Sale." Albums? Got to be a couple thousand of them down there. Audio cassettes - a veritable plethora. CDs - almost five hundred purchased, plus another 200 or so home-burned. In other words, if I started listening to every recorded song I have right now and never did anything else again until I had played the very last record ("Jim Dandy", Black Oak Arkansas) I would be listening for a long long time. And I don't talk about all this music to brag - there's a lot of OCD in all those CDs. Chances are that I will never want to hear "Jim Dandy" again, but I just can't start throwing records out. And don't even get me started on my elementary school report cards, all downstairs in a box.


I'm pleased to share the songs with you, ten at a time, and this is coming in no particular order, except in the order in which I thought of them. I'll be tickled to hear your opinions!

1. Dear Hearts and Gentle People - Bing Crosby The perfect example of someone supremely talented in show business and totally lacking in human relations, "der Bingle" sure could sing, even though he was quite the patootie in his personal life.

2. He Stopped Loving Her Today - George Jones Talk about perfect examples - this is a perfect example of the good old country music so fervently mourned by many of us. It's the story of a guy who never got over getting dumped until he moved into a one-man bungalow with silver handles.

3. She Loves You - Beatles - 1964, we had just lost JFK, plunging the nation into a torpor. Timing being everything, the Beatles' popularity across Britain had reached fever pitch in time for their arrival here in February. They did this one on The Ed Sullivan Show, and for all we know, the other networks had a reanimated George Washington wrestling rebirthed Abe Lincoln that Sunday night.

4. Yes It Is - Beatles - Not a big hit, the flip side of "Ticket to Ride" featured what music experts call dissonant three-part harmony. I like it because it makes a stark emotional appeal, so rare today.

5. White Room - Cream - Not a one of us had any idea what they were talking about - In the white room with black curtains near the station. Blackroof country, no gold pavements, tired starlings, huh now? Proves that sometimes it's the song, not the lyrics. How do you know if a starling is tired?

6. Norman - Sue Thompson - (Didn't I tell you there would be some doozies on this list?) In this song, written by John D. Loudermilk, who also sent us "A Rose and a Baby Ruth," Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye," and "Indian Outlaw," Miss Sue is fending off offers from Jimmy, Joey and Billy, but she's holding out for Norman. Bonus: this is the intro music the Letterman band plays when Norm MacDonald saunters out on the show to prove once again why he is the funniest Canadian in America.

7. Surrender - Cheap Trick - I promised a guy I worked with at 911 that I could arrange to hear this song at least once a day for the rest of my life. There couldn't have been but a handful of days that I missed. Everything about Cheap Trick appealed to me: the stupendous playing of drummer Bun E. Carlos and guitarist Rick Neilsen, the semi-operatic singer Robin Zander, and the interchangeable bassists. The sound, the lyrics, the way Rick looked like Huntz Hall, and the fact that no less a critic than Homer Simpson says, "I prefer to listen to Cheap Trick." And "Surrender" has this deathless line: "When I woke up, Mom and Dad were rolling on the couch....rockin', rollin', rollin' numbers, got my Kiss records out..." We're all all right!

8. California Man - Cheap Trick - I burned a CD with the studio version of this followed by the live version from Budokan. I often play them back-to-back and over again, listening for the subtle nuances, and I can't choose a favorite recording. They didn't write this one, but The Cure got healed for the line "I don't care if your legs start aching, I'm a California man!" Whatever that means.

9. Statesboro Blues - Allman Brothers Band - Gregg Allman has seen his share of sorrow. The death of his brother Duane, his own descent into drug addiction, marriage to Cher: it's a blues festival weekend whenever he looks back. But this live version of an old blues number features Duane's amazing slide and Gregg's keyboard and vocals, all stunning.

10. Road Runner - Joan Jett Maryland's own Joan, from Rockville, and a huge Orioles fan (and there aren't that many huge Orioles!) It's easy to forget that she was a leather-clad trailblazer, not quite like Daniel Boone, but she did some great things. A lot of people will put "I Love Rock and Roll" on their list, and that's a cool song too, but I'm partial to this one and Joan said it's ok to be yourself in these matters.

Ironically enough

A couple of years back, because Alanis Morissette
wrote and recorded a song called "Ironic", the lyrics of which were pretty much free of irony, there ensued a discussion in academic circles about what irony really is. Irony is best illustrated in stories such as O. Henry's "Gift of the Magi," in which the guy sells his watch to buy pretty combs for his wife's hair, and she sells her hair to buy him a watch fob. (Such failures in planning by married folks have been a constant in network sitcoms dating back as far as Ozzie and Harriet.) It would have been amusingly ironic had the publisher of the Magi story paid the writer with a check made out to O. Henry, because that was only his nom de plume (French for "to each his own"), having been born Wm. Sidney Porter. Try cashing that check, and the teller's going "Yeah right, 'O' ! Your ID says Porter and you want to cash a check made out to Mr Henry?"

Rain on your wedding day, lighting a smoke in a no-smoke zone, having a plethora of spoons when all you want is one knife: these are not ironies, but coincidences or mockeries of what should have been, had things worked out. Although, ironically, you're better off not smoking...

Lovers of the ironic have long noted with a shake of the head that Keith Richards, the man whose dissolute lifestyle has regularly astounded even his debauched and libertine friends, is as of this writing (and I just checked CNN.com and the Comcast home page, just to be sure!) completely alive, and, as you see here, the very picture of health and refined living.


On the other foot, Jim Fixx passed away after running, and he was well known for extolling the health benefits of running. It's not known if Keith Richards ever read Fixx's books, being busy as he often was having his blood drained and changed to overcome the toxicity of opiate abuse.

Whatever, à chacun son goût,(pen name, as they say it in sunny France.) It's his life, and until the day he "rings me up" on the "telly" and inquires as to my wellbeing, it's none of my concern.

But this is irony: Dave Freeman died the other day way too young, at the age of 47. That is way too young to fall down and hit one's head and die from it for anyone, but for the guy who wrote 100 Things To Do Before You Die, it has to mean that he left things undone. Reading his book just made it onto my list of things I want to do before I head up to that big express checkout, as is making my own list of 100 things I want to do. I've been planning to write a list of the 100 songs I would load onto my desert island mp3 player, because my friend Jonie asked me to, and the list is ready! I will blog about it. Trust me, there are no esoteric, rare cuts on the list...I just pointed a finger at the clipboard and it came to rest on "Suspicious Minds" by Elvis A. Presley...but it does list the songs I can listen to over and over. Ironically, none of them are by Alanis Morissette.

This Old House

After a rather one-sided discussion with my doctor, it has been decided that, much like a man riding a donkey for a long time, I need to get off my ass and do some walking. OK. There's a lot that goes into choosing just where to walk. Doing laps around the various rooms of the house is hard on the carpet and really, really boring. Driving to the high school to do laps around the track is fun, but let's face it, when you do that you are deliberately placing yourself in the company of some exerwalkers and joggers who take themselves pretty doggone seriously. Here's where you'll see the iPods with the bicep strap, the special lightweight track shorts and thinclad tank tops, and sneakers purchased for a sum that rivals the defense expenditures of several emerging nations (my favorite: Chad!) My iPod came from the drugstore and is not really an iPod, but rather a cheap imitation that, if lost, stolen or flushed, will not cause despair. I always have another twenty bucks somewhere, or I could always get another cheap imitation iPod off eBay. My shorts and t-shirts are off Target (!) and my shoes, Rockports: The Favorite of Mall Walkers Everywhere.

By the way, last time I was at Harford Mall, I saw a sign advising of a Mall Walkers Association Meeting to be held one morning. I can just hear it now. What important business do they have to discuss? What smells better in the morning - the cinnamon buns or the coffee? Which employees of which department store tend to arrive earliest? latest? Compare and contrast.

I hear Holden's classmates hollering "Digression!" at me. On we go. I walked home from Mars tonight and I experienced something that I've noticed before, which is that you see a lot more when you're walking than you do when you're driving. When you're walking, you notice things along the side of the road that you just can't take time to examine while driving, what with being so busy changing CDs, sending text messages, adjusting the air vents and ogling the driver of that little silver job that just rolled up next to you. What, you didn't think we saw you, eyes all a-bulge like a Chuck Jones cartoon?





So, even though we've lived in this neighborhood for 21 years, I can't say that I've really seen this house before:




It is an old farmhouse-y kind of house. My gift of description just defies description sometimes. I just said that a house was house-y. Thackeray, Hemingway, Capote...move over. But it seems to be abandoned; at least, unlived-in. And the rest of the way home, I wondered about the people who lived there over the years. That house probably knew its share of joy and grief...when the new baby came home...when someone took ill...when they bought the new Chevy that time...when the Plymouth lunched its tranny that time over at the mall parking lot...when Dad got a new job and they all looked forward to it so much, what with the extra money coming in, but then it turned out to be bad because he didn't like the new duties, the hours weren't so favorable, and he would just as soon have gone back to the old job on the line...Were people conceived there? Did anyone pass away there? A house provides the stage for our lives, and I think this one would love to have people trim back the bushes it has grown in front of itself to hide its loneliness, come in and update the appliances, slap on a new coat of paint and get some living going on!

As Edgar A. Guest once said (and it's likely he repeated it over and over until his wife, a Mrs. Guest, begged him to stop), "It takes a heap o' livin' to make a house a home." Of course, he also said, "I want to be able, as days go by, always to look myself straight in the eye."

Sometimes I look myself straight in the eye, generally while shaving. I like to do that little thing where I pooooch out the cheek off of which I am whittling the whiskers. Could someone please go shave in that lonely old house so it can feel like a home again?

Your Own "TODAY" Show

I don't know if you've heard anything about this, but in February of 2009, if you don't have cable tv or a converter box to fool your television - and that's only fair, since your television has been fooling you for years and years - you will LOSE YOUR SIGNAL! Nothing but static.

Well, most people either have cable or could get it, and for the rest, those converter boxes can be made cheaper with a coupon that you can get free for the askin'.

But let's say you don't want cable, don't want to pay for it, and the whole converter box thing is just too doggone complicated. There's no need to panic. You can have all the benefits of TV right in your home.

For instance...NFL football. Go get a couple of jerseys for the teams playing in the big game. Listen to the radio. Reenact all the big plays in your cavernous living room. Benefit: free exercise!

Any sitcom based in any workplace: Get those wiseacres and smart Alex* at the office, store, plant or potato patch to sit around insulting each other for 13 minutes. Then have one of them take you aside and confide in you about a personal problem: broken heart, missed opportunity for promotion, pierced thorax. Three minutes. Then, for the next three minutes, gather the gang around and discuss how to help the hapless one: fix 'em up on a sure thing date with an overly libidinous member of the opposite sex, sabotage the person who actually got the promotion by hijacking their blog and filling it with obscenities directed at the boss's spouse, transplanted right pleural cavity. For six minutes, put the plan into action and watch the ensuing hilarity. Break for a final commercial for a stool softener or Viagra, then come back for a winsome, wistful wrap up scene, after which everyone goes home happy.

Alternate sitcom: have the youngest person in the family come home and say with big wide eyes that he heard someone in school was a drug user, or one of the people in the neighborhood has an alcohol problem, or someone's parent has become a practitioner of an alternative lifestyle. Have everything come out just peachy at the end, and call it a "Very Special 'Palin's Place' " or whatever you decide to call your show.


Your Own 'Today Show': Have Bud and Sis and Crazy Cousin Annie and Good Neighbor Alvin come over for breakfast. Constantly say the magic "Today Show" mantras:

--- "We're back right after this" (are you back or are you not?)

--- When someone else has finished speaking, say loudly, "Bud! THANK YOU!!!"

--- When Sis has finished talking about how four different people in this very block have recently suffered a pierced thorax, frown a little, and then say "Switching gears now..." before launching into a story you heard about an English farmer who can play "God Save The Queen" on his whistling lung. This demonstrates that you appreciate the severity of the other story, but enough seriousness this early, ya know?

---Be elaborately formal for no reason: call someone "Mr." when their first name has always been sufficient.

---Everyone talk at once!
(* stolen from Ring Lardner)

What the "hell"?

I refer to the excellent blog called the "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks (http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/) and I see the disease they are tracking is spreading like wildfire.


Three things about punctuation never fail to raise my hackles, and if you read a lot, you'll know why I hardly ever go around with unraised hackles.
The unneeded hyphen, the uncalled-for apostrophe, and the undesirable quotation marks are the triumvirate of dumb. One can usually score a trifecta by visiting automobile repair shops and looking for a hastily scrawled sign that reads something such as ALL-TYPES REPAIR'S DONE "BY OUR CERTIFIED STAFF".

As faithful readers (thank you!) know, I am loyal to the Mars Supermarket
(http://trulyregalmanners.blogspot.com/2008/06/kool-kid.html) chain for many reasons, not least of which is that they don't demean the Fire Department by placing signs on their standpipe connections that would question the veracity, the competence, yea the very existence of the Fire Department, as does another local grocer:



I guess I ought to be more careful about buying their "beef" or "chicken."

Hanna Americana

Well, we've been waiting all day for this Hanna storm (isn't she a broadcaster on ESPN?) to arrive. Pictured above, Hanna Storm. It's heading our way fairly soon. As of last night, our meteorologists were fairly certain that by this time of day, the worst would be over and here it is, this time of day, and the ship hasn't even hit the sand yet. But in an hour or so we have to head out to round up the family for my sister's surprise birthday party...so I will delay publication on the off chance that she's reading this...and hope there is electricity in the house (knock on wood) when we get home.

Ladies and Gentlemen, here's Hannah Storm, of ESPN.

I believe she used to be on the Early Show on CBS, but I'm hardly alone in not being sure about that.


This smiling visage greets all visitors to Delaware; Hanna will be one of them this afternoon, but it's unlikely that she will have need to enter a Happy Harry's Drug Store. That's Harry, beaming down on all who enter his emporia - which are statewide in the Blue Hen state - and I really have to hand it to him for coming up with the greatest name ever for a drug store. I mean, what do we have around here - CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid? All of them lack in the name pizzaz of Happy Harry's! Doggone it, having a Happy Harry's in the neighborhood would make you want to run down there right now! to load up on Alka-Seltzer, hair preparations and those luxury creams and lotions so helpful in the prevention of chafe.

Springfield, home town of the Simpsons, has some highly cool names for stores...The Leftorium, Hairy Shearers (where Homer goes for haircuts) and Jittery Joe's Java Hut, among them. And while it's fun to need groceries and say "I have to go to Mars," it would be fun to have a Happy Harry's to visit as well. I don't ask for much.

One more thing to worry about

Just in case you woke up today, concerned because there is nothing else to worry about except how well the Ravens can do this year with a rookie quarterback playing (or, in sports talk, with a "freshman QB at the helm,") or the affects of Hurricanes Hanna, Ike and Josephine, or the likelihood that Bristol Palin's boyfriend, who just had her name elegantly tattoed on his ring finger in the style popularized by Hollywood's - and America's - sweethearts, Pamela Anderson Lee and Tommy Lee Anderson, will soon be appointed Secretary of Hockey, I offer this, from the wires of the Associated Press:

ELKTON, Md. -- A species of stinging caterpillar more common in southern climates appears to have arrived on the Eastern Shore.

Francis Breeding, a pest management consultant with the Queen Anne's County Extension Office, says a woman needed medical treatment last week because venom from a puss caterpillar traveled up her arm to her lymph nodes.

Breeding says puss caterpillars don't bite, but their hair contains the venom.

Now, I had thought that civilization had reached a nadir some time ago when I first got word of the notion of warming Dr Pepper in a saucepan and serving it as an apres-ski libation (with a slice of lemon floating atop), but this is even worse. I can see a new reality show on TLC next month: Nature's Deadliest, One-on-One! In which the puss caterpillar will duke it out with a tapeworm for the rights to take on a hissing dung beetle for the interstellar crown...

.

Tough Losses

In a world...where there will still be movies...they just won't sound the same any more, because Don LaFontaine
has passed away. His was the voice that did the voiceovers for half a million movie trailers, commercials and other recordings over the years.

And in that world, there will still be country music singers, comedians and guitarists, but there won't be Jerry Reed, a man who could do it all better



than most.

Two talented men, both lost on the same day. What a shame.

But You Can Copy Off My Paper

I got one of those quizzes and I will leave my paper out on my desk so you can copy off of it if you wish...

Four jobs I have had in my life:

A&P clerk, radio deejay, teacher, 911 Supervisor

Film I've watched more than once:

Caddyshack, The Music Man, Stripes, the entire Jackass oeuvre

Four places I have lived:

Providence, Pocomoke City, Prince Frederick, Parkville

Four places I have been:

Cape May NJ, Pensacola FL, Eleuthera, the Bahamas, and Williamsburg VA

Four people who e-mail me regularly

Peggy, Jonie, Cheri, Becky

Four of my favorite foods:

Rare pit beef, pizza, flounder, shrimp

Four places I would rather be right now:

Williamsburg VA, Cape May NJ, Baseball Hall of Fame, The Price Is Right stage

Four things I am looking forward to this year

Football season, Thanksgiving, fall foliage, snow

Four TV Shows that I watch at the moment:

That 70's Show (still funny!), King of Queens, Monk, Prison Break

Four reasons to vote for McCain / Palin:

Giuiliani ("America's Mayor!") figures that being mayor of some Inuit fishing village is good enough experience to prepare people for being president of the United States, Palin's daughter's boyfriend is bound to get into some hilarious hi-jinx once he gets to the mainland, McCain's wife's father owns a beer distributorship, and Giuiliani pronounces Alaska as "Alasker" and "Obama" as "Obomber."

Don't even mention the Dalai Lama

But first - live, local, legbreaking:

Things I have learned from listening to cracker jackass right wing radio shows:

...When John McCain left his wife, well, that was understandable, and when he married the daughter of a beer baron, well, who wouldn't, ya know? But when Bill Clinton had a brief affair, he should have been burned at the stake, the mountebank, the lothario, the despoiler of all things pure and good.

...When a Republican changes his or her mind about something, he or she updates their position or revisits the issue or makes a revision, based on newly-acquired information. A Democrat who changes his or her mind about something is just a flip-flopper.

...Jamie Lynn Spears was the most horrid slattern on earth, and should have joined Clinton at the Bill-B-Q, because she had a child before getting married, and this makes her a terrible example of the evils of sex and the unbridled libido. Jamie Lynn's annual income probably affords her the chance to raise her baby in relative comfort. Bristol Palin is a fine example of the American Way, a shining light in the Alaskan sky, because she like totally intends to like get married maybe one day next week if her Mom can like write her a note and she can get out of Algebra!!!

Now back to our regularly scheduled program, already in progress:

The debate has raged for years, mainly within me, over how to pronounce the name of that animal called the llama, that hump-lacking, smaller-than-a-camel South American cud-chewing animal. Any schoolkid* can tell you these beasts with the amusing Latin genus designation Lama glama (originally, Lama glama ding dong) are widely used as pack animals by the Incas and other natives of the Andes mountains, a South American mountain range where chocolate-covered mints grow wild and are harvested by locals riding...uh, guess what?

*Any schoolkid with access to Google and nothing better to do right now.

But while you can bet your bottom peso that South Americans say this cartoonish animal's name 'yama' (with the same "ll" sound as in 'Tortilla'), you can also bet that any time I would say it that way, I was sure to get a look of disapprobation. In fact, in one landmark decision, I got six months' disapprobation. I would ask friends whose native language was Spanish about it, and they all said sure, "you say 'una yama.' '' { "LL" is its own letter in the Spanish alphabet, although the Spanish were obliged to give up the letter "K" and a third-round draft choice to get it.} But not so with my English-speaking friends, who all looked at me as if I were Bristol Palin at an abstinence rally for using the original (correct) pronunciation. In that case, I would posit, we need to start calling the flatbread in which burritos are wrapped a 'tortila' and then where does that lead? Right down the slippery slope to anarchy!

But I concede now; I give up. Mr. Garrison Keillor, broadcasting from the Minnesota State Fair this past weekend, called them "lamas" so there's no further point in my carrying on about it. I never question Mr. Keillor's use of any language, so saddle up your llamas and ride on, vaqueros! My name is Mark; como se llama usted? Oh no, here we go again.

Labor Day Tradition

As a kid, I always knew that Labor Day meant we were piling into the Plymouth along with the neighbors and heading for the carnival and outdoor supper up at the Glyndon Volunteer fire house. Then, it was back to school the next day. I'd put on my desert boots, khaki pants and plaid sport shirt and head back to the salt mine. Substitute "Rockports" for desert boots and nothing much has changed in the wardrobe.

The past 43 years have meant that I obsessively watched the Jerry Lewis MDA telethon.


I make no apology for admiring Jerry as I do. He has his faults, a titanic ego being chief among them. But he has done so much - raised over 2 'BILLION with a B' dollars for muscular dystrophy and other allied afflictions, such as ALS, the dreaded "Lou Gehrig's disease." You can't take that away from him. And as a performer, he knows few peers in his niche of clowning. Shoot me for thinking it's funny for him to jam a water glass in his mouth and make it appear that he has a glass snout! Put me in jail for convulsing when he hollers "Hey Laaaaaaaaaaaaaa-dy!" File charges against me for re-running the classic scene from "The Nutty Professor" in which the professor drinks the potion that turns him into a monster - who turns out to be an unctuous egomaniacal nightclub performer, based on Jerry's own self-image.

He do get complicated, don't he?

But the showbiz corn-lover in me, the guy who thrilled when Sammy Davis, Jr., sang "What Kind of Fool Am I?", who nodded ruefully when Debbie Reynolds got dumped by Eddie Fisher and then broke her neck to race out and record "Am I That Easy To Forget?" - the same guy who thrills every December at the first "thrum, thrum" of "The Little Drummer Boy" - finds nothing more heartwarming than the end of the MDA Telethon, when Jerry does one last check of the tote board, and as the electronic numbers dance across the LED screen, Jerry straddles a stool, croons "You'll Never Walk Alone" and then walks off. Alone.