Quiz Time (I always fall for these)

40 Secrets about yourself.
Be honest no matter what.

1.) have you ever been asked out?
NO

2.) where was your default picture taken?
Havre de Grace right by the town dock

3.) what's your middle name?
Kelley

4.) your current relationship status?
Married for 35 years, headed for together forever

5.) does your crush like you back?
She married me.

6.) what is your current mood?
Pent-up.

7.) what color underwear are you wearing?
Navy blue.

8.) what color shirt are you wearing?
Grey St Louis Cardinals Baseball tshirt

9.) Missing something?
Dark hair, youthful vitality, naivete and innocence

10.) if you could go back in time and change something, what would you do?
I never would have hurt anyone's feelings.

11.) if you must be an animal for one day, what?
the adorable town mutt who sleeps in the sun all day

12.) ever had a near death experience?
Sure did - got last rites and everything

13.) something you do a lot?
infosurf online

14.) the song stuck in your head?
"Fool Me" by Joe South

15.) who did you copy and paste this from?
Paramedic JoAnne Boyd

16.) name someone with the same birthday as you
Mike Tyson, Jazz Bassist Stanley Clarke, Superman.


17.) when was the last time you cried?
15 years ago.

19.) if you could have one super power what would it be?
Ability to save anyone who needed saving from anything.


20.) what's the first thing you notice about the opposite sex?
THEIR EYES!!!

21.) what do you usually order from starbuck?
Plain coffee, light cream.


22.) what's your biggest secret?
My recent transfer.


23.) favorite color?
Brown

24.) do you still watch kiddie movies or tv shows?
No

25.) what's on your walls?
Sports Memorabilia in my den

26.) what are you?
My name is legion, for we are many.

27.) do you speak any other language?
Spanish

28.) what's your favorite smell?
tie btwn bread baking or pit beef

29.) Describe your life in one word.
Cromulent

30.) have you ever kissed in the rain?
YES

31.) what are you thinking about right now?
Feeling sorry for Peggy, sick with a cold and sore throat.

33.) what should you be doing?
Just this

34.) who was the last person that made you upset/angry?
The woman at the Royal Farm Store at Joppa and Old Harford Rds who would not honor an online coupon from WNST.net. Not bad enough that she was ill-informed about how to handle the coupon, but she went beyond implying that I was trying to cheat her -she said I made the coupon up on my computer and that was the same as stealing.

35.) how often do u talk to God?
EVERY DAY

36.) do you like working in the
I like working where I've been working and I hope to love my new position as much.

37.) if you could have any last name in the world, what would you want?
Last name Normus, first name Richard E.

38.) do you act differently around the person you like?
I am always the same no matter who is where

39.) what is your natural hair color?
Born blond, went brown, goin' grey (but at least it's staying around)


40.) who was the last person to make you cry?
No person can make me cry. Try me.

Goose Me

"Pâté de foie gras" is a French term meaning "something I wouldn't eat if you spooned it out to me on golden doubloons with Alexis Grace doin' the spoonin'. With the marvelous economy of words that is a hallmark of the French language, they say so much with so few words, n'est-ce pas? (Literally, "huh?")




What it is, is a French delicacy made from specially-fattened goose or duck liver. This raises certain questions.

• How does a duck get specially fattened?



• How do you get down from an elephant?



• Did the duck pay cash for a Cherry Chapstick?

and right back came the answers.

• A duck or goose becomes specially fattened through a process known as 'gavage,' in which corn is literally forced down their necks in the style of American sycophants being force-fed their conservative doctrine.




• You get down from a duck.




• No, he told the clerk to put it on his bill.

SO there you go. It's someone's job to jam a feeding tube down the throat of a duck or goose - talk about fowl work environments - and then when the liver of said animal is as bloated as Bill O'Reilly's ego, the goose's goose is cooked and his liver is turned into something rich, buttery and delicate and served in various forms. According to Wikipedia, this substance is enjoyed in mousse, parfait or pâté form, along with stuff that people might actually wish to consume, such as toast or steak.

All right, now we come to the meat of the discussion. Out in Columbia, MD, which is an entire city built the ground up 40-some years ago out of former farmland, there is a restaurant which serves this food for their patrons. Suits me. I last visited Columbia in 1971 and have seen no reason to return since, and surely goose liver parfait is not going to be what gets me turned around on that issue.

But, for those who want to have it, let them eat all they want!

Animal rights protesters have raised a stink about the restaurant, known as the Iron Bridge Wine Company, having the guts to sell liver. Listen, this is not my kind of restaurant at all. Most people I know would find it adorable and check out the wine list and have the times of their lives chowing down on food that is "plated" and "presented." Being a Howard Stern sort of guy from a Martha Stewart sort of family, I have experienced both the swanky and the stanky, and let's just say that the one French word I like to hear around mealtime is ''buffet.'' But this is what the protesters (apparently it was done by them, but one cannot rule out copy-cat spray painting by socially conscious graffiti-tagging kids) do when they don't like your menu offerings in Coumbia MD.

Their choices are:

• A) spray "get rid of the foie gras" on the stone sidewalk
• B) break the windows of the place
• C) eat someplace else.

Oh, would that they could 'C' their way clear to a form of protest that doesn't damage the property of others!

Take Me Out

There's been a lot of talk about baseball uniforms around here, since the Orioles are doing pretty well this early this season, thus denying the boo-birds the chance to take up their annual spring litany of complaints about everything concerning the club from the owner to the hotdog hawker.

I like the fact that the new Orioles road jerseys have the word "Baltimore" on them for the first time since 1972. It was taken as a huge municipal insult by many people that it was removed, as the team positioned itself as a regional franchise, hoping to attract fans from southern Pennsylvania and northern Virginia and DC. But they have their own team in DC now, and no one goes to see them, and they doggone well are not trying to get us to drive down there to see their team play. And a survey of all Oriole fans from southern PA revealed that it was all right with both of them if the road shirts said Baltimore again, so all is well.

Speaking of baseball uniforms, if I were a big leaguer, I would go with the BA baggy pants look favored by physical fitness specimens such as C.C. Sabathia. I do not like the sixteen layers of pine tar and tobacco juice that obscure the logo on the batting helmet of lots of guys. I would insist on the real eyeblack instead of the black bandaids now in vogue, and I would wear one of those warm-up jackets on my way to the ballpark and on the way home, just like any other fan.

But that's IF I were a big league ballplayer, and it seems more likely that I will become the winning jockey in this year's Kentucky Derby, although there are those who will tell you that I have a lot in common with the hindquarters of the winner.

The Spector of Violence

First of all, let's say right up front that I abhor gunplay, murder and suicide. You'd think that really did not need to be said these days, but just so there's no misunderstanding, I said it. I curse the day that guns were invented and I direct to perdition all those who commit violence just because they feel like it. And there are plenty of people roaming around who would literally shoot you as fast as look at you, but they tend not to be imprisoned for reasons I tend not to understand.



Legendary music producer Harvey Phillip "Phil" Spector has been convicted of second-degree murder in Los Angeles. You have to figure he was really guilty, what with LA being the bastion of justice unable to get a conviction in the cases of O.J. Simpson, Robert Blake and Michael Jackson.



In 2003, Lana Clarkson, whose career as a model and actress apparently peaked when she played the gorgeous wife of the odd-looking Biology teacher in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," found herself working in a bar where she met the diminutive Spector. He took her home to what is usually called his "Mansion in Alhambra," the implication being that he has a fantastic house in a not-so-great neighborhood. Ironically, the initial supposition was that Clarkson was star-struck and thought that the man who produced such classic hits as "Be My Baby," "He's A Rebel," "Today I Met The Boy I'm Gonna Marry," "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling," and that entire great Christmas album, could possibly do things for her career. But it turned out, she didn't know him from Adam Lambert.

Clarkson is dead, killed by a handgun shot to her mouth. It's been almost six years, and it took all this time through the delays and one mistrial to arrive at this verdict. At 69, Spector faces 18 years in prison at his May 29th sentencing, and, with his legs shackled, seems destined to shuffle off to an ignominious end, barring an unsuccesful appeal. The evidence against him was preponderant. Not only were the prosecutors able to point to countless episodes of Spector menacing friends and loved ones with pistols and brutality in years past, they also had his chauffeur testify he heard a gunshot, and that Phil came out of the death scene with a gun in his hand, saying, "I think I've killed someone." The defense's effort to paint Clarkson as despondent to the point of suicide over her failed career proved unsuccessful.

He was a terrific music producer. His records for the Crystals, the Ronettes, The Righteous Brothers, even the Beatles, still sound great to me after 40-some years. He hired the greatest musicians and assistant producers - one of whom, Salvatore "Sonny" Bono, was his #1 lieutenant until the day he honestly told Phil that he didn't think a certain record was the greatest music heard since Gabriel. Sonny got fired that day and went on to eke out successful niches in show business playing the schlamozel to Cher and the congressman from California. Phil had issues, they say. Problems with rage. Well, his music helped a lot of us learn to love music, and share that love with others.

Where was the help for Phil?

I Had 4 thoughts today and here they are

Ms Peggy and I took the day off for Easter Monday, and just lazed the morning away watching TV, munching toast and relaxing. But the following thoughts darted across my brainpan:

a - what is the reason for all these TV commercials featuring voiceovers done by female announcers to be so uninflected, nasal, and drone-y, if you will? I hear these ads, and the voices are so dull and lifeless, almost like parodies of long-ago telephone operators. But it seems to me that most of the products advertised are directed to female purchasers, and trust me on this about people in advertising, they wouldn't step in out of the rain unless a focus group assured them it was the best way to stay dry. Meaning, they have all sorts of research telling them that this straightline adenoidal delivery is not likely to displease a female viewer.

b - Your results may vary, but one of the side effects of one of the drugs we heard advertised today was tuberculosis. Really, doctor? I can take this drug, and there's just a chance that I'll get tuberculosis? Can you write me a six-month scrip for that?

c - There was a movie on TCM. I didn't get the name of the movie, nor could I name any of the ham-fisted actors who plied their trade in it, but if this was any sort of accurate depiction of American life in the 1940s, I'm not too sorry that I missed a period when people smoked constantly, treated wives like staff members whose main tasks involved whippin' up dinner in a hurry and keepin' the homestead spotless, spent their evenings leaning on pianos in drawing rooms while some member of the group "tickled the ivories," wore two-tone wingtip shoes, talked to each other in the staccato fashion of Broderick Crawford, and punctuated their speech with "Say," and "Why," and "That's super, Allan."

d - All props to the Navy Seals. All props to the merchant ship captain who gave himself up as a hostage to free his crew. But, now, I mean really, Pirates? Is this 1709? Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!

REALLY cool kids

I really want to hand it to the younger generation. It would seem that the millions of years of evolution (or however we got here - see my sixth-grade essay "A Bold Fresh Look At Darwin," for further details) have inculcated into teens the ability to withstand cold.



I leave for work by 6:45 AM daily, so I see lots of high school kids hanging around bus stops on my way in. There are the usual faces - the owlish, bookish ones, the glamour kitties, the guys trying with varying levels of success to glower menacingly, and the band kids (piccolo seems a better choice when you think of the inconvenience of toting a French horn and its case to school) all clustered, peering down the street for their orange chariot. No matter how cold it is, kids today wear - at the most - a hoody on the coldest days. And they don't even shiver. Nor is the hood on the hoody to be employed for covering one's melon. The hood hangs there, as useless as Dick Cheney at a gathering of people who never shot their friends in the face.



Back in the days of my bucolic childhood (see my essay "Shovelin' The Tundra" from National Geographic, January, 1960) we would bundle in more layers than an Inuit nudist. Corduroy pants, wool socks, heavy wing-tip shoes or Weejuns, a button-down shirt, a cranberry V-neck sweater, a wool scarf, leather fur-lined gloves, and a heavy Mackinaw were de rigueur for bus stop apparel and also for walking home from detention.



Just this past Sunday, I added to my extensive collection of Mackinaws, parkas, topcoats, car coats, anoraks, windbreakers and lined jackets by finding a brand-new Carhartt Duckcloth Chore Jacket - brand new - at an antique store for just 25 bucks. There had to be a story for why someone would sell a new 85-dollar jacket for 25, and so I deftly inquired as to why it wound up for sale. "Did someone have a boyfriend my size who didn't want this?" was how I opened the conversation, which did not go much further. I gleaned from the reply that the coat wasn't all that the big guy didn't want. I just hope he's not out in the cold somewhere.



If he is, he should try a hoody.

Happy Easter!

To settle two ongoing debates...

Just in case there's still some doubt about it, yes, there were people practicing Monkey Dentistry as early as 1924. Herewith, photographic evidence:


And, just in case the many dozens of people who are organizing "teabagging" parties in order to express their expressions of expressed disdain on April 15 were wondering, yes, teabagging has more than one connotation.

Paging Dr Freud!

C'est la vie, say the old folks : it goes to show, you never can tell!

Weird yesterday morning, to have heard on the early sports reports that Maryland native Nick Adenhart, 22, did fairly well as starting pitcher for the Los Angeles Angels the night before out in LA. He pitched six shutout innings and left the game in the hands of the bullpen, and the Angels eventually lost the game due to the fact that the Oakland A's scored more runs. But again, it was nice to hear that a guy from Williamsport High in Western Maryland had made it to the major leagues and was off to a good start.

But by lunchtime came the news...Adenhart died early yesterday morning in a car accident in Fullerton, Calif. Three people were killed and another was seriously injured in the three vehicle-accident. Police blame the accident on a motorist who ran a red light with his van and then fled the scene.

According to the news reports, it was unclear if Adenhart was killed immediately or died after being transported from the scene. A passenger from the van was taken to Western Medical Center in Anaheim with minor injuries. A third vehicle, which was stopped in the intersection at the time of the accident, was also involved but the driver was not seriously hurt.

It seems to me that some things are put out there to serve as lessons or thought material. We see a blind guy on American Idol, and we give thanks for our gift of sight and his determination to stride on. We see others with loss of mobility, speech, hearing, cognition, and we get that reminder to be grateful for ours.

But no one watching a big-league ball game on a Wednesday night in Anaheim, California, is going to sit and think that the pitcher who is doing so well on the mound will never make it home. 22, and he had probably been the star athlete and a local celebrity since he put on his first Little League uniform, and he had a bright future, and it's all over in the time it takes a three-car pileup to unfold.

No warning, no sign, no harbinger of doom. That's the way life is: sometimes you get the test first, and then the lesson.

Boo Hiss

I don't want this to turn into a sports blog or a sports talk review blog or anything like that. But this is more of a social commentary.

Over the past offseason in baseball, first baseman Mark Teixeira, who was born and raised down the road from here in Anne Arundel County (inexplicably pronounced "Anne Darundel" in true Balamerese) signed a lucrative (8 years, 180 million dollars) to play baseball for the New York Yankees. Over the course of his career, he had hinted that he would someday like to come home and play for his hometown team, the Orioles. But he did not, for two reasons: the Yankees offered him more money, and they seem much more likely to play in the postseason than the Orioles will, for the next several years, at least.

No one in Baltimore will deny that this is a free country, and people unemcumbered by contracts and other binding agreements can work for whom they wish. If you're sizzling patties for Mc Donald's and the local Wendy's takes note of your advanced talent with a spatula, they might offer you more money than you're finding under the golden arches. Not quite Teixeira money, you understand, but when more money is offered, it's a basic American right to go for it, if you wish.

It's also a basic American right to go to a ballgame and express your disdain for Teixeira and his decision to sell out to the evil New Yorkers and their ill-gotten filthy lucre. That's what thousands of Baltimoreans did at the opening day game here the other day as the local boy came to play for the Bronx Bombers and went hitless, letting his team down in several vital situations. The fans reacted gleefully as the prodigal local came back and did not do so well.

But a certain Colin Cowherd, a sports radio talk show host (got to be proud) on ESPN, said that the Orioles fans were wrong and had no right to hiss and boo at Teixeira. He enumerated reasons, all logical and valid, why the burly first sacker (see? just like in the sports pages!) had no other choice but to go Yankee.

If it's come to where a baseball fan can't even go to the ballpark and boo a Yankee, then, by golly, it's time to form a committee to look into this!

Regular, like clockwork

My birthday is in June, and we're months away from Christmas, but TV's entire Palin Family is just a gift that I get to open every day.



In case you don't remember the matriarch, Sarah Clampett Palin, why she was the g-droppin', nasal-talkin', ill-read, poorly-spoken, ridiculously unqualified candidate on the Republic ticket last fall. At the time, superannuated running mate John McCain stated that she was thoroughly qualified to run the country should ill health or another juicy divorce hamper his inability to run the nation, in the event of his election, which did not happen. Another thing that did not happen was Her Honor getting the Neazod** from the Reazod** as a viable candidate. Last week, old McCain was asked if he would support his erstwhile veep candidate, should she run for president under her own power.


"I'd have to consider all the candidates," rang his ringing non-endorsement.

Then there's all this unpleasantness about that oldest Palin girl, new mama Bristol Connecticut Palin, mother of the sonny jim sired by Levi Johnston, who would be far better off if he could keep his Levi's on. Just when you thought those two crazy kids were gonna work it all out, they broke up! Who'da thunk it? And Levi, gallant to the end, is saying that Mama knew all about the whole lotta shakin' goin' on with him and Bristol, shaking which produced young Tripp.




"Did not!" came the icy reply from the governor's office. And then, just when a little silence from her would be so becoming, she adds that Bristol is now going to concentrate on raising the baby and serving as an "advocate for abstinence."




In a recent Fox interview, Bristol Palin told Greta Van Susteren that “everyone should be abstinent but it’s not realistic… [sex] is more and more accepted among kids my age.”



The younger Palin told Van Susteren that it would have been nice if the pregnancy that produced baby Tripp had happened later in her life. “Of course I wish it would happen in like 10 years so I could have a job and education and my own house… But he brings so much joy. I don’t regret it at all.”





Certainly, one of the most clearly-stated positions in favor of abstinence that I can recall. But that's the great thing about the R's. It's either this, or forget it.





But here comes dessert! Sarah's sister-in-law, one Diana Palin, was arrested on Thursday for allegedly burglarizing a house. Not once, but twice in a matter of days. And because, just like you see on COPS, these people drag their children into all their misadventures, she reportedly brought her 4-year-old daughter along for the heists, according to the Anchorage Daily News.



The paper reported that Diana Palin (half sister to Sarah Palin's husband, Todd) was caught by the homeowner, Theodore Turcott, who was hiding in his bathroom with a gun. He found Palin going straight to a bedroom cabinet where he had kept his cash in the past.



Palin's four-year-old daughter, who had been waiting outside in an aging Camry during the theft, entered the house shortly before police arrived at the scene, according to the prosecutor. The affidavit read that the girl told police she had been to the house days before with her mother. Diana Palin denied this, the Daily News said, and claimed she mistook the house for a friend's place.



Governor Palin and her family have declined to comment on the matter.





Really, now, what more is there to say?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(**Legendary Baltimore DJ Maurice "Commander Hot Rod" Hulbert used to create new words by inserting an "ee-ahz" in the middle of old ones. To him, I would be Maeeahzark, and his sign of approval - a "nod from the Rod" - was a neazod from the Reazod. Undereahztand? Me neazither!

Guns 'n' Loses

From The Christian Science Monitor, troubling observations about an apparent trend in the nation: the economy seems to have played a particularly negative role in the shooters’ lives. And they're not saying that as an excuse, just a common factor cited by friends and relatives of the murderers.

But it would also appear that with these shooters - forty-four people have died in a string of five such incidents in the past month, from Oakland, California to Alabama to North Carolina - there is always something troubling them besides the economy. In Binghamton, New York, Jiverly Voong, 41, barricaded the back door of the American Civic Association Friday morning, then went in the front door shooting at everyone in the room, killing 13 and then shooting himself. Initial reports say the gunman was deeply upset over being laid off and for being disrespected for not speaking English well.

So he shoots up a place where they try to help immigrants fit in.

In Oakland CA, a guy gets mad at his parole officer and feared going back to jail.

So he shoots four police dead with a gun.

An Alabama man strolled his town with a rifle, looking for victims.

Seven seniors were shot dead at a North Carolina nursing home.

And on that same Sunday, six people, including four kids, died in an apparent murder-suicide by gun in an upscale neighborhood in Santa Clara, CA.

The Center for Public Integrity claims that President Bush and his sidekicks made 935 false statements between 2001 and 2003 about Iraq's alleged threat to the United States.

How many times did the counterfeit cowboy from Kennebunkport worry about the weapons of mass destruction being stockpiled within these borders?

How come no one was following Richard Andrew Poplawski around to document his actions? According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, " Poplawski was a young man convinced the nation was secretly controlled by a cabal that would eradicate freedom of speech, take away his guns and use the military to enslave the citizenry."

"Crazy to me is going through the motions," he wrote on his MySpace profile three years ago. "Crazy to me is letting each day slip past you. Crazy is being insignificant. Crazy is being obscure, pointless."

Pointlessly, Poplawski lured three police to a trap on Saturday morning and shot them all to death in his defense of his Constitutional right to keep and bear arms, as part of a well-regulated militia, of course.

"He was really into politics and really into the First and Second amendment. One thing he feared was he feared the gun ban because he thought that was going to take away peoples' right to defend themselves. He never spoke of going out to murder or to kill," said Edward Perkovic, who described himself as Mr. Poplawski's lifelong best friend.

The Post-Gazette also says that both Poplawski and Perkovic appeared to share a belief that the government was controlled from unseen forces, that troops were being shipped home from the Mideast to police the citizenry here, and that Jews secretly ran the country.

"We recently discovered that 30 states had declared sovereignty," said Mr. Perkovic. "One of his concerns was why were these major events in America not being reported to the public."

(Experts agree this these major events are being kept from the public on the grounds that they do not occur.)

"For some time now there has been a pretty good connection between being sucked into this conspiracy world and propagating violence," said Heidi Beirich, director of research at the Southern Poverty Law Center and an expert on political extremists. She called Mr. Poplawski's act, "a classic example of what happens when you start buying all this conspiracy stuff."

Some thoughtful people have suggested that people ought to stop listening to corpulent radio hosts with their whack-job theories. These people who are "really into politics" and really "into" the Constitution are often ill-informed, poorly thought-out, and really need to be "into" learning what they are talking about. But instead of taking time to read and learn apace, it's easier to be force-fed fallacy in a Rush. No need to stop listening. Just a need to stop believing.

C'mon, Get Therapy!

Wisecracking redhead Dante Daniel "Danny" Bonaduce will turn 50 years of age this August, and you really have to say he has packed a lot of living into what will then total 18,250 days on this earth.

He first came to public attention playing wisecracking redhead Danny "Danny" Partridge on the Partridge Family tv show, which ripped off The Cowsills in the manner of The Monkees ripping off The Beatles. That show went off the air in 1974, and even though Danny was very good at playing a wisecracking redhead kid brother, he found but limited demand for his acting services thereafter. Within three years he was doing The Love Boat and making quickie auto theft movies with Farrah Fawcett and the late Sonny Bono (R, CA).

Danny had a childhood which could best be described as awful; his father, who wrote sitcoms such as The Andy Griffith Show and One Day at a Time, is said to have beaten him regularly. This tendency to use fists where wits might serve better was to surface again and again in Danny's life.

But think about it. What would you do? What would you do? Here, one minute you're famous for being on a tv show, pretending to sing along with Susan Dey and getting to hear Shirley Jones and David Cassidy sing for real, and the next minute no one wants you to fake anything. Fame is a harsh mistress. Danny soon found himself a mister without a mattress, homeless on the streets of LA, a drug abuser seriously in need of mental rehabilitation. Cassidy, whose post-teen idol career has not been the second act that there aren't any of anyway even hired him as a supporting act in his Las Vegas show for a while, but that failed to cause a stampede of eager ticket buyers.

What's sad about America sometimes is how we so worship fame that we are even somewhat in awe of those who once had it. Bonaduce came to find out that he could always turn a quick $500 by appearing at KMart stores at the holidays, billed as a Partridge in a pear tree. 500 bucks is 500 bucks, and it led to even greater media exposure as a radio sidekick, and then as the host of his own radio shows in Phoenix, Los Angeles, and now Philadelphia. For one season he had a syndicated talk show titled "Oprah" I mean titled "Danny" in which he tried day after day to show just how pugnacious he was willing to become for money. One sad highlight of that show was his promised reunion of the Partridge Family cast, except that Susan Dey called in with her memories and David Cassidy was too busy recording an album that no one was going to buy. Sort of like saying we were gonna have spaghetti and meatballs except I cut out carbs and meat, so here's some sauce.

Danny, never shy with an opinion that might not be too popular, has taken a sharp rightward turn away from the peace and love of the Partridge 70's, lambasting Jane Fonda and Rosie O'Donnell for expressing political viewpoints unlike his own. But this sort of stuff keeps him in the public eye. In his job as a wacky morning radio host up in the City of Brotherly Love, he regularly incites petty feuds with such as Jose Canseco, former baseball player best remembered for having a fly ball bounce off his skull and over the fence for a homerun, and also for bouncing off Madonna. Recently, Danny boxed Canseco to a draw, the point of the match still being in question.

Yes, we Americans love our stars and still want to keep them in the firmament (maybe to keep a wary eye on them.) As Dante Bonaduce nears a half-century of this life, he can surely look back on the recent show The Smoking Gun Presents: World's Dumbest.. in which he ripped off one of his own eyebrows.

Whatever's best for him, as long as he keeps it classy.

Speaks for Itself Dept.

Castles Made of Sand presents Life's Little Ironies!

Oh it's oh so cool to paint flames on the side of your ride
but here's a guy who is really into simulacrum.



At least he knows where to go to learn better techniques.

Pancake Update #3

I'm a romantic at heart, but many years ago Kenny Rogers gave us all the good advice about knowing when to hold 'em and knowing when to fold 'em, and, you know what, when someone tells you they aren't going to be your partner any more, bow out gracefully and exit, stage left. Right?

Well, not so for Pancake Lady's erstwhile beau, who showed up at her workplace last night with two McDonald's double cheeseburgers and two jumbo Snickers ice cream bars.

Let it be said here that Pancake Lady is one of those fortunate people with a metabolic rate comparable to an Olympic skier or swimmer (duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude!) She says that a couple of McDoubles and two b-a Snickers ice cream bars are just what she needs for an evening snack. Lucky lady, indeed.

Oh, and he was also towing two flower arrangements as additional gifts. I guess her workspace must have started looking like the stage of The Price Is Right, with all the gifts piling up like that. They were disposed of thusly: the burgers, trashed. One ice cream bar snackulated, the other saved for breakfast. And the two probably overwrought floral displays were transformed into one chic bouquet.

And he asked her if she was still going to go to his cousin's birthday party this weekend. That takes after the old salesman's trick known as "closing on a minor point." A guy can't decide whether to buy a car or not, and the salesman says, look, if you WERE going to buy a car, would it be the red one or the green one. Once the selection is made in one's mind, it's a simple tug on the line to reel in another fish.

But Ms Pancake is not biting. She just tells him, for the third time, we are breaking up - we HAVE broken up - this is over, goodbye, no more cheeseburgers, ice cream bars or miniature tributes to the Rose Parade.

Mr Cheeseburgers: please, stop tormenting yourself. Do you really want someone who is only with you as a result of your ceaseless begging? Is that what you call true love?

And stop tormenting her, for crying out loud. You're both young people and there is a whole world of other people for both of you to date and know and, I'm sure, one with whom each of you can fall in love forever.

Easy for me to say, ain't it? She feels bad - a bit guilty - and why? He feels rejection, pain, dismay, and it probably exacerbates any self-esteem issues he had.

Kiss and say goodbye, I say. Tomorrow is another day. Good night.

The Greatest of All Time

Did anyone fake you out yesterday? It doesn't seem that April Fool's Day pranks are as prevalent as they once were. I have to figure that part of this gap in our date-inspired salt-and-sugar swapping and offering of binoculars that leave black eyes on the hapless victim or a rousing cup of cheer served in a dribble glass is owing to our constant fear of being sued back to the Stone Age, the days when Ogg would clobber his neighbor Nogg with a rock to the noggin every 4/1. One day, as Ogg stood outside of his cave giggling wildly, Nogg responded with a sheaf of papers filed by Writt, the first attorney, who had just appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. That's when the fun began to wane.

On English television ("the telly") there used to be a news show (a "newsy showy") called Panorama. On April 1, 1957 that show broadcast a segment about a bumper spaghetti harvest in southern Switzerland. Partially-stunned viewers were told that the crop had come in so well that year because of an unusually mild winter and the “virtual disappearance of the spaghetti weevil.“ The audience heard anchor Richard Dimbleby (ever heard a more English-sounding name?) talking about the magnificent spaghetti crop as the show rolled video footage of a Swiss family pulling pasta off spaghetti trees and carefully placing it into baskets. “For those who love this dish, there’s nothing like real, home-grown spaghetti,“ said Dimbleby, with a straight face, as he closed the show by repeating the date.

There were two immediate results of this gag. First, people all over the British Isles and their allied territories, including the Gilligan Islands, rushed to fill out paperwork to have their names legally changed to "Richard Dimbleby," in hopes that Charles Dickens IV would write a book about their hardscrabble childhoods. Also, hundreds of viewers called the BBC to find out how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. They were given this official answer by the BBC's official horticulturist, Richard Dimbleby-Applebee, “Place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.“

This is still considered the #1 televised hoax of all time, rivalled only by the time George Bush went on tv and convinced millions of people that the mission was accomplished.

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Coming tomorrow - Pancake Update #3 - a scene from that new movie called "He Just Won't Give Up!"

A funny way of putting it

All those years of working at 911 made me quite the literalist. One has to be so when involved with emergencies, and the verbal interaction sometimes leaves a lot of unanswered questions hanging in the air.

The famous example, probably apocryphal, is the one where the guy calls 911 because his wife is about to give birth. He answers all the questions ("how many months is she? Has her water broken? How many minutes between contractions?") until he gets to the last one ("Is this her first baby?") and he answers, "No, this is her husband."

Ba-rummmp. Hey, I'm here all week, try the veal piccata, and don't forget to tip your waiter...they do work hard for you, ladies and gentlemen.

Along with providing the uninitiated with a thorough look at the coupling and separating habits of their fellow citizens (anyone who ever worked there could write an entire chapter called "Funky Stuff that Happened in Motels"), a 911 stint teaches one to hear every word said and consider them all. More often than you'd think, people call and say that "someone broke in and stole the tv- a brand-new 37-inch Sony - and they started a fire in the kitchen and they spray-painted graffiti all over the living room and ran out after smacking Raoul upside his head" and did you notice, in the midst of all that mayhem and poor Raoul getting his melon thunked, that they needed the Fire Department to come along with the police?

Also more often than you'd think, people called with that insouciant tone, saying things such as, "Oh, that son of mine just shot my husband. Would it be too much trouble to send a police car out here?"

So that's I: Mr. Literal. You tell me about a bull in a china shop, and I'm going to get Animal Control to back me up.

Now then. (Ever stop to think about that expression? Now. Then. Which one? Can't be both! Like George Carlin said about "At any rate..." "6 7/8ths!!!")

Now then...I am not a Biblical scholar by any means, although I am fairly religious and hold to the standard Protestant tenets. But when I hear "Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again" from Ecclesiastes, all I could think of was how soggy the bread would be, once cast upon waters, and, really, what good does that do for anyone?

It turns out that some Bible experts figure that the seeds in the loaves of bread in those days, when the Nile had washed away, would sprout again, making new grains to make new bread. Now it all makes sense.

Next: " Pride goeth before a fall." To me, you're strutting around with your pride, and you fall, and THEN the pride goeth...after the pratfall that amused everyone down by the water cooler. Got to go look this one up too, unless you can lend some expertise...

Update on Ms Pancake

Well, for those thousands out there who've been following my new friend code-named Miss Pancake and her attempts to end a relationship that started out as a friendship and really should have stayed that way, here is the latest.

I saw her today and she was fairly dancing about on air, proclaiming, "I'm a free woman! Yes!!!!!!!!"

Turns out that last week when she finally got his attention long enough to tell him it was over, Katie bar the door, 168 pages of Dear John (not their real names, just quoting a song) he stood dumbfounded and actually said, "You mean you're breaking up with me?"

And she said uh-huh.

And he followed that up with "So are we still going out this weekend?"

And "Can I still call you?"

Now, you gotta figure, maybe he was playing it like Milton in "Office Space," the guy who was laid off but kept showing up for work for years anyway. I mean it is theoretically possible to have someone give you the gate but you just keep showing up at their house, and maybe they would say, oh what the hell, and let you back in.

Miss Pancake has a whole wonderful world ahead of her, and she is working to achieve her goals, and she does not need these games or even have time to play them anyway.

Of course, she said that he keeps texting her and calling her and now she is down to the last final BandAid to be yanked - going to his house to Retrieve Her Stuff. There really ought to be a formal etiquette for this move. It would be nice if he would say, "I will be out on Friday from 3 - 5 PM; please come by and get your things, and I wish you a world full of love, success and happiness."

Of course, it would also be nice if the Maryland Lottery decided to pay huge sums to a guy who never buys lottery tickets, just to show how fair they are, and I could be the guy, but that doesn't look too likely either.

Mr Ex in this situation needs to play it cool. Sorry, buddy boy, but love doesn't always come out equal when it ends. Be a big man and step aside graciously. It's good karma, it leaves a pleasant memory, and it definitely says you're mature enough to deal with the truth.

And to other friends out there who might be thinking about taking their relationship past friends to dating status, think it over. It's been my happy experience to fall in love once, and it does not happen gradually with someone that you meet for a latte once a week. The thunderbolt of love knows where to strike - and when. Be grounded!
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Extra - News grammar error of the week! This week's winner is Crime and Justice Reporter Steve Levine of FOX45, who wins the Bloopie for the following sentence:
"The woman was informed that her child had been beaten at Berkshire Elementary School by school officials."

Man! Those school officials really play tough down there. Reminds me of the classic line from the "Police Squad" tv show, only that was fiction...about a kidnapping...

Sgt. Frank Drebin: "Was there a ransom note?"

Capt. Ed Hocken: "Yes. They tied it to a window and threw it into the rock garden."

FD: "Where's the note now?"

EH: "We gave it to the boys in the crime lab...they're asking for a million dollars."

FD: "Why would the boys in the lab ask for a million dollars?"

Fore!

Things I wonder about:

I don't play golf, because that windmill always drove me crazy and on the last hole, the ball always went down this big gopher hole and I didn't get it back. But every time I turn our TV on to channel 3, it's the Golf Channel, and as likely as not, some golfer is missing a five-foot putt. Is this the First-Time Amateur Golf Channel?

And yes, I do have a thing about golf. I wonder how a baseball player is ok standing there 60'6" away from a guy on a hill who is going to throw a small white ball at him at a speed of 80-100 mph while 30,000 people scream their lungs out and cameras are trained on the action at the mound and at the plate and lightbulbs are flashing and the crowd is eddying and Eddie is crowding - while over on channel 3, a man dressed to go to TGIFridays right after this putt is leaning over the ball, which rests 2 feet from the cup, and he studies the lie of the land and consults topographic charts and his caddy brings out an anemometer to check the windspeed and then - at long last! eventually! the great man leans over with his putter in his hand (!) and the crowd is hushed! silence reigns! all coughing suppressed, no sneezing, only the very shallowest of breaths are inhaled and then, when a stillness unseen since that Friday at Appomattox descends upon the multitudes, the golfer taps the ball and it veers off six inches from the cup.

I would also like to know why, with the exception of the greatest meteorologist in the world, so many people delivering the weather to us on TV talk about the high "tempacher" for tomorrow. It doesn't take that much longer to say tem-per-ature.

And let's slow down when we come to talk about upper resp-ir-atory infections, too. All winter long, even on commercials, I have heard people talking about problems of the "respitory" system.

And, in case this question comes up on the 2010 Census, my favorite tv commercial is still the one where the guy drops his Cialis and then two seconds later his kids drop off the grandkids for the weekend. In real life, you know he would have hidden in the garage and faked like no one was home.

Last November, I was in line at the polls for so long before I got to the voting booth, I was afraid I was going to have to call my doctor and report that I had experienced an election lasting over four hours. I live for such moments.

Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient,Cheerful, etc etc

The other day I was cranking about foolish and lethal behavior on the part of some fellow citizens.

Yesterday was Boy Scout mulch day in our town and I feel better.

Every year in mid February, we get a sure sign of spring, even more accurate than baseball managers' spring training predictions of diamond glory for some rawboned (how can anyone be 'rawboned'?) kid pitcher out of Oklahoma or a hotshot shortstop from San Pedro de Macoris. The Boy Scouts drop off the flyer with the prices of mulch for their annual sale. This year, 5 bucks a bag, 50 cents more to deliver.

We always need 10 bags. 4 for the shrubbery around the front of the house, 5 to spread among the various trees under whose shade I will sit and sip my lemonade, and 1 to tear and spill all over the driveway. 50 semolians, and we can mulchify to our heart's content, the first dry sunny day we get.

Now is it worth five more bucks to deliver it? Yes! I'm glad to pay that, so I can sit here watching the Today Show, absentmindedly chewing on my homemade oatmeal muffin, and waiting for the truck to arrive. It beats driving down to the church and picking it up myself.

So they get here, and I open the garage door and offer to help hump the shredded tree bark inside, and the Scout looks at me in the time-honored fashion of Scouts since Baden-Powell tied his first knot and says, "Aww, that's alright, mister. We'll do it."

The money goes to their account so they can go on Scout camping trips this summer. Things have a way of evening out over a week. Kids in Fargo are sandbagging like beavers building dams, trying to save their city. Kids in my town are selling mulch, raising money to go to summer camp.

Things even out. Go on, Boy Scouts. Be Prepared.

Gimme a minute

I enjoyed the exchange between the president and the CNN reporter at the press conference the other night. The journalist, looking for inaction where instead there was only wisdom, asked how did it come that the president, upon hearing the news of the AIG bonuses, did not issue forth from the Oval Office with his hands waving frantically, shouting out his disgust/surprise/shock! shock! to find ill-advised shellouts taking place here. Maybe he was thinking of the cost of the bonuses vis-a-vis the daily cost of the insane wars we wage.

"I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak," said our wonderful new leader, in what could only be regarded as a stinging rebuke to his predecessor, a poorly-informed and verbally maladroit parrot on the shoulder of a Dick.

Dick Cheney.

Not to compare myself with Obama in any way, but I know where he is on this issue. I am frequently upbraided for not blurting out answers or replies with 1.7 seconds of being spoken to. In person, I get the furrowed brow, shifted hip, tilted head, upraised palms and "welllllllllllllllllllllllllllll?"

On the phone, if I dare to stop and think before speaking, I hear, "Are you still there?"

No. I just decided to hang up without another word. Like BaBa Booey, I often "need more time to think."

And I remember this old quatrain - written either by Keats or Edgar A. Guest, don't know for sure...

"Be careful of the words you say
Keep the short and sweet.
You never know from day to day
which ones you'll have to eat."

Come to think of it, that might have been written by Nipsey Russell. But let me think about it; I'll get back to you.

So THAT'S what his problem is!

from Wikipedia: (because I'm not clever enough to make this up!)
Stendhal syndrome is a psychosomatic illness that causes rapid heartbeat, dizziness, confusion and even hallucinations when an individual is exposed to art, usually when the art is particularly 'beautiful' or a large amount of art is in a single place. The term can also be used to describe a similar reaction to a surfeit of choice in other circumstances, e.g. when confronted with immense beauty in the natural world. It is named after the famous 19th century French author Stendhal (pseudonym of Henri-Marie Beyle), who described his experience with the phenomenon during his 1817 visit to Florence, Italy in his book Naples and Florence: A Journey from Milan to Reggio. Although there are many descriptions of people becoming dizzy and fainting while taking in Florentine art, especially at the Uffizi, dating from the early 19th century on, the syndrome was only named in 1979, when it was described by Italian psychiatrist Graziella Magherini, who observed and described more than 100 similar cases among tourists and visitors in Florence. The syndrome was first diagnosed in 1982[citation needed]. The term is often used when describing the reactions of audiences to music of the Romantic period.

Sorry, but the following persons, places, things or concepts will cause me to be overcome , resulting in disorientation, dizziness, palpitations, and sweating, with symptoms lasting two to eight days...

Peggy, Britney Spears, Alexis Grace, the new prosecutor on Law & Order, a whole-wheat crust veggie pizza with the lo-fat cheese melted just ever so, a really well-constructed BLT, TBS, CNN, The Simpsons, Family Guy, the music of Elvis, the wit and wisdom of Keith Olbermann, walking around Harford Mall, Mila Kunis, The New Yorker, the smell of Old Bay seasoning, the taste of Old Bay seasoning, a look of love from a little child, walking the bayside Promenade at Havre de Grace, poems by John Updike, novels by Jack Kerouac, nonfiction by Tom Wolfe, my cheap fake iPod, the first ten minutes of "Wedding Crashers", giving gifts, riding around looking at Christmas lights, diner food, the music of LOVE, Daedalus Books, my cup of coffee after dinner, visiting Williamsburg, dinner by candlelight, the very concept of Kid Rock, my old skool country, Ring Lardner and Jennifer Love Hewitt. And Peggy some more.

Oh well, now, at least there's a name for it!

"I'm gonna be silly for a while"!
"OK, I guess it's that doggone Stendahl Syndrome actin' up again!"

Off the Deep End

This started out to be one of those posts in which I list a smattering of the manifold reasons to be sure that America has gone completely off the deep end. Let's see where it winds up.

This woman, Nadya Suleman, has arranged to bring forth onto this continent 14 more babies, with help from someone who went all the way through medical school. Instead of getting the emotional assistance she so clearly requires, she is now a fixture on the nightly entertainment tv shows, replacing the late Princess Di and Anna Nicole Smith. She's even been dubbed with the amusing sobriquet "OctoMom," and she would so pleased to hear that you think she greatly resembles Angelina Jolie.

The recent Rihanna/Chris Brown unpleasantness still is aboil in many hearts. Oprah broke her neck to butt into it all, warning (wisely) that "he'll do it again." Polls of teenagers, the group from which those two entertainers draw the vast lion's share of their fans, show an unbelievable tendency for young people - male and female - to blame the female victim of couple violence because "she was asking for it." Now comes the National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez, claiming that the result of the feminist movement is that attitude that women sometimes deserve to be brutally beaten by men. After all, says Ms Lopez, the feminist movement made women masculine and men feminine, and therefore Chris Brown just had to lay the smack down, she posits, in the magazine launched by jut-jawed pop-eyed madman William F. Buckley.

Crazy? You be the judge. Or at least, the jury.

Fourteen people get onboard a small plane with a load capacity of ten people. The plane crashes.

The crew of a Fed Ex cargo plane, loaded with highly flammable cargo, goes against the advice of Japanese air traffic control and tries to land in Japan during a severe windshear. Crash, burn, two more fatalities.

A man in Oakland, CA, wanted on a warrant and pulled over for a traffic stop, is "afraid of going back to jail, and mad at his parole officer," so he shoots four police officers. This parolee, with a criminal history that would take quite a while for my slow-speed printer to print out, was driving around with an AK-47 assault rifle. The NRA would defend his right to do so. They would stop, of course, at defending his right to shoot four police. They know there is a difference between his 2nd Amendment rights and the 6th Commandment, by cracky. The difference is, arithmetically, four. Four police. One supposes that the gunman was on his way to a meeting of his well-regulated militia when he just had to defend himself on the streets of Oakland. Let's just remember that he might not have been armed if not for the Constitutional vigilance of those NRA people...people whose wisdom infuses the very marrow of our American existence...people such as Charlton Heston and Tom Selleck.

No need to wonder why I keep photos of our greatnieces and greatnephew around. I like to look at them and bask in the warmth of their pure, pure love. Some days, I need it more than others.

Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy

A fellow resident of Blogolopolis, whom I respect immensely, avers that she will start a non-profit to free The Roots from their current status as the house band on the Jimmy Fallon late-night show on NBC. She has a great idea. There's also the notion to let The Roots play for a solid hour every night and allow Fallon to sit at home and think of something else to do.

I have to say that I expected much better from him. On Saturday Night Live, he was adroit with impersonations, had good comic timing with his lines, seemed affable enough, and played guitar to some of his own songs. But this show he is doing now! Train wreck!

Much has been made of the prediction of Jimmy's eighth-grade classmates that he was the one person in the class Most Likely to Take Over from David Letterman. Well, that was a heavy load to carry around for all these years, and now it looks like they should have voted him Most In Need Of Watching Letterman to See a Pro in Action.

Do you know a guy - and it's always a guy - who wants so desperately to be funny and just isn't? The kind of guy who tells jokes that have the form and function, the rhythm, pacing and syntax of a joke, and then when he's done you realize there was no joke? I worked with a guy once who told the following "humorous" anecdote:

Guy walks into a sub shop and says "Gimme a whole cold cut sub with lettuce, tomato and mayo" and the guy behind the counter says, "You want everything on that, buddy?" and the first guy goes,"If lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise aren't everything, then I don't know what is!"

See? Form was right: set up, poser, punch line. But, like a weekend there in Pittsburgh, there's no there there!

Same way with Fallon. He prances out, all impish, still looking like the suit his mom bought him for college graduation is just a little tight, and he makes with the gags and the punch lines and it just is not funny.

Shame, too. He seemed to have it all going on. Next stop will be playing the wacky neighbor on a sitcom.

And I'm not saying I could do a better job. But I am saying that Gilbert Gottfried could.