“ ‘Til we meet again, may God bless you. Adios.”
Saturday, August 16, 2014
The Saturday Picture Show, Special January 8, 1935 - August 16, 1977 edition
“ ‘Til we meet again, may God bless you. Adios.”
Friday, August 15, 2014
Nickel-and-diming him
Some people just don't think about the consequences of their actions.
Out in Los Angeles, a man named Andres Carrasco, apparently an upright clean-living citizen, retired bus driver, used to have his car insurance through Adriana's Insurance, but one day he went to their office to find out why they had dropped him.
An employee of Adriana's Insurance attempted to explain the situation to Mr Carrasco by bodily throwing him out of the office.
So Mr Carrasco went to the courts to sue the insurance company, and he won a settlement of $12,000.
So the good people over at Adriana's decided that the best way to shell out that kind of change would be to send over that kind of change.
Eight paint buckets full of American coins were delivered to Mr Carrasco by eight goons working for the Adriana firm.
His attorney, Anthony Gallo, said he can't even lift the buckets and he doesn't feel that Mr Carrasco, recently recovering from hernia surgery, should even try.
"I am disappointed by the way Adriana's treats their customers and the elderly," Carrasco told KNBC-TV. "We might be poor, but we are people too."
Even if he were not poor and elderly, and I wish he weren't either one of them, Mr Carrasco has a right not be assaulted by insurance agents. It doesn't sound like Adriana's is a firm with which I would do business. My car insurance company has a cute little gecko and Little Richard doing their commercials; Adriana's just doesn't seem to care how many people hear about their nastiness. It cannot be good for their business to treat the gentleman this way.
The one bright note in all this is that Mr Carrasco now has 8 paint buckets! You can never have too many of them around the house.
Out in Los Angeles, a man named Andres Carrasco, apparently an upright clean-living citizen, retired bus driver, used to have his car insurance through Adriana's Insurance, but one day he went to their office to find out why they had dropped him.
An employee of Adriana's Insurance attempted to explain the situation to Mr Carrasco by bodily throwing him out of the office.
So Mr Carrasco went to the courts to sue the insurance company, and he won a settlement of $12,000.
So the good people over at Adriana's decided that the best way to shell out that kind of change would be to send over that kind of change.
Eight paint buckets full of American coins were delivered to Mr Carrasco by eight goons working for the Adriana firm.
His attorney, Anthony Gallo, said he can't even lift the buckets and he doesn't feel that Mr Carrasco, recently recovering from hernia surgery, should even try.
"I am disappointed by the way Adriana's treats their customers and the elderly," Carrasco told KNBC-TV. "We might be poor, but we are people too."
Even if he were not poor and elderly, and I wish he weren't either one of them, Mr Carrasco has a right not be assaulted by insurance agents. It doesn't sound like Adriana's is a firm with which I would do business. My car insurance company has a cute little gecko and Little Richard doing their commercials; Adriana's just doesn't seem to care how many people hear about their nastiness. It cannot be good for their business to treat the gentleman this way.The one bright note in all this is that Mr Carrasco now has 8 paint buckets! You can never have too many of them around the house.
Thursday, August 14, 2014
You've been!
Out of the following two things, I bet you have heard about only one of them...
....AC/DC's rock anthem "Thunderstruck"
....the Stuxnet computer virus
Because we AC/DC fanatics tend not to delve into the intricacies of computer malware and the dirty things that governments do to each other in the name of waging peace, I know the song, but not the bug.
The Stuxnet virus was cooked up in 2010 with the specific intention of derailing Iran's nuclear program. There has been talk that the hackers were, indeed, employees of the American and/or Israeli government(s), but who's to say?
What we do know about it is that, in the middle of one dark Iranian night, 20% of Iran's nuclear centrifuges went berserk because the computers that control them told them to spin like a record playing at 45,000 rpm. Used in a dairy, a centrifuge separates cream from milk, leaving us with tasty Almond-Pistachio ice cream cones for dessert. Pistachios are grown in Iran, and until that night so were nuclear reactors, which require enriched uranium. You get enriched uranium from nuclear centrifuges, but 20% of the Iranian centrifuges don't work anymore because "someone" put the Stuxnet hex on them, causing...
...the centrifuges to spin out of control, burning themselves up
..."Thunderstruck" to come blasting at top volume out of the speakers of the affected computers. They couldn't turn the music off, either. While it attacked the computers and the uranium spinners, it soaked the Iranian atmosphere with a good uncontrolled dose of Angus Young's guitar and Brian Johnson's vocal.
I have never loved the world's computer geek squad more in my entire life.
Thunderstruck!
....AC/DC's rock anthem "Thunderstruck"
....the Stuxnet computer virus
 |
| Freedom Fighters! |
The Stuxnet virus was cooked up in 2010 with the specific intention of derailing Iran's nuclear program. There has been talk that the hackers were, indeed, employees of the American and/or Israeli government(s), but who's to say?
What we do know about it is that, in the middle of one dark Iranian night, 20% of Iran's nuclear centrifuges went berserk because the computers that control them told them to spin like a record playing at 45,000 rpm. Used in a dairy, a centrifuge separates cream from milk, leaving us with tasty Almond-Pistachio ice cream cones for dessert. Pistachios are grown in Iran, and until that night so were nuclear reactors, which require enriched uranium. You get enriched uranium from nuclear centrifuges, but 20% of the Iranian centrifuges don't work anymore because "someone" put the Stuxnet hex on them, causing...
...the centrifuges to spin out of control, burning themselves up
..."Thunderstruck" to come blasting at top volume out of the speakers of the affected computers. They couldn't turn the music off, either. While it attacked the computers and the uranium spinners, it soaked the Iranian atmosphere with a good uncontrolled dose of Angus Young's guitar and Brian Johnson's vocal.
I have never loved the world's computer geek squad more in my entire life.
Thunderstruck!
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
This Ain't Vegas
Not to get into all the debate over Ray Rice and his weak punishment for assaulting his fiancee at a casino in New Jersey, but have you noticed that casino business up there in Atlantic City is not exactly booming?
As a matter of fact, the Revel Casino-Hotel, the site of Ray's indiscretions, was supposed to be on the proverbial auction block this week, but at the last minute, several "Credible offers" to purchase it seemed to crop up. That leaves two other casinos that might close down by the end of this year - the Showboat Casino Hotel, and the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino. Donald Trump, man of great modesty, is suddenly embarrassed to have his name on the Trump Plaza, and is suing to have it removed. From a business he invested in, when things were looking good for that business.
I have to tell you, I've been in exactly one (1) casino in my life, and that was because we heard the buffet at Maryland's Hollywood Casino in luxurious Perryville was pretty good. It was! But you have to walk through rows and rows of people playing slot machines and other gambling devices, and if any of them were having a good time feeding money into those machines, they surely hid it well. I don't see it as fun, but my tastes and choices often run counter to the popular.
I don't know how the casino business in Maryland is doing. I know they're just about to open another huge pleasure palace down near the ballparks in Baltimore, and the one at the Arundel Mills Mall seems to be packed all the time - so much so that the people who hang around the attached parking garage to wait for winners to emerge with their pockets full of twenties so that they can hold them up at gunpoint are having a hard time finding parking, and often have to park at satellite locations and get bused in.
The television commercials show young, zesty, lusty people tossing dice and playing cards, raking in chips, sipping the finest liquors and just having one Big Night Out, and I wish them the best, for all concerned. Up in New Jersey, the Atlantic City boom seems to be ending, and I'd hate to see that happen here before it even really begins.
 |
| The Revel |
I have to tell you, I've been in exactly one (1) casino in my life, and that was because we heard the buffet at Maryland's Hollywood Casino in luxurious Perryville was pretty good. It was! But you have to walk through rows and rows of people playing slot machines and other gambling devices, and if any of them were having a good time feeding money into those machines, they surely hid it well. I don't see it as fun, but my tastes and choices often run counter to the popular.
I don't know how the casino business in Maryland is doing. I know they're just about to open another huge pleasure palace down near the ballparks in Baltimore, and the one at the Arundel Mills Mall seems to be packed all the time - so much so that the people who hang around the attached parking garage to wait for winners to emerge with their pockets full of twenties so that they can hold them up at gunpoint are having a hard time finding parking, and often have to park at satellite locations and get bused in.
The television commercials show young, zesty, lusty people tossing dice and playing cards, raking in chips, sipping the finest liquors and just having one Big Night Out, and I wish them the best, for all concerned. Up in New Jersey, the Atlantic City boom seems to be ending, and I'd hate to see that happen here before it even really begins.
...Keeps the doctor away
Here's a report from NBC the other night that tells about a study claiming that taking an aspirin a day has been found to be helpful in preventing certain cancers - esophageal, stomach and colon among them. Years ago, we found out that taking an aspirin a day was good for preventing heart attack and stroke.
Now, I'm no doctor, regardless of what I told certain people when I was on dates with them at age 16. But I know that an aspirin a day is fairly safe, although they say that one person in a thousand suffers stomach bleeding from regular aspirin use. I'll take those odds.
But, whenever I tell people that I "pop a Bayer" every morning, sometimes they look at me as if I had just said I shoot speed with my bagel. (To be honest with you, I don't buy Bayer or any other name brand aspirin, since all aspirin ARE alike, except when you pay for them. You can get five bottles full of many Dollar Tree aspirins for what you'd pay for one small bottle of the big brand. But - go ahead if you wish!) They're aghast! "You take an aspirin every day?" they demand.
And think, what if I didn't take my daily 325-mg dose of acetylsalicylic acid - aspirin - which is not only an analgesic to relieve aches and pains, but also an antipyretic to reduce fever, and also an anti-inflammatory? I might have pain and fever and be all inflamed! And one pill saves all that!
Now, I'm no doctor, regardless of what I told certain people when I was on dates with them at age 16. But I know that an aspirin a day is fairly safe, although they say that one person in a thousand suffers stomach bleeding from regular aspirin use. I'll take those odds.
 |
| Pop a Bayer |
And think, what if I didn't take my daily 325-mg dose of acetylsalicylic acid - aspirin - which is not only an analgesic to relieve aches and pains, but also an antipyretic to reduce fever, and also an anti-inflammatory? I might have pain and fever and be all inflamed! And one pill saves all that!
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Fiddling Around
It's just short of two and a half minutes and it was filmed when Eisenhower was president, for crying out loud, but it still cracks me up to this day!
It's a video of Jack Benny and Gisele MacKenzie doing a violin duet on "Getting to Know You." Jack Benny was the American man for whom the clarification was made: a comic is a man who says funny things, a comedian is a man who says things funny. Or says nothing, funny. I'm sorry for those of you who missed seeing Jack in his weekly TV show or hearing him on the radio. He developed a character over the years of a stingy, vain, foolish miser, who claimed to be 39 perpetually. The classic joke was when a stickup man stuck him up and said,"Your money or your life!" and Jack, pausing with perfect timing, finally gasped, "I'm thinking it over!"
Of course, he was nothing like that character in real life, but we loved that guy - probably because deep within us all there is a hidden desire to be a little bit vain and tight-waddish. We keep that hidden but like to see it acted out.
Gisele MacKenzie, born Gisèle Marie Louise Marguerite LaFlèche (1927 - 2003) was from Canada and was quite a fine singer, violinist and even an actress (in 1986, when Jeanne Cooper took sick for a stretch, she filled in on "The Young and the Restless" as Katherine Chancellor!) So she was a versatile entertainer, and Jack had her on his show in the 50's, helping her become known in America.
It was a naturally funny idea for Jack and Gisele to team up on this duet. "Getting to Know You" was a popular song from the Broadway and movie musical "The King and I," and has a pretty melody that lends itself to a duet. But watch what happens when Gisele breaks off and adds a little flourish of her own! Jack can't help but put himself out there, and the result is something that people have been laughing at even longer than they've been laughing at The Twist, 3-D movies, and making out at drive-in movies, three other amusing aspects of the 1950s.
It's a video of Jack Benny and Gisele MacKenzie doing a violin duet on "Getting to Know You." Jack Benny was the American man for whom the clarification was made: a comic is a man who says funny things, a comedian is a man who says things funny. Or says nothing, funny. I'm sorry for those of you who missed seeing Jack in his weekly TV show or hearing him on the radio. He developed a character over the years of a stingy, vain, foolish miser, who claimed to be 39 perpetually. The classic joke was when a stickup man stuck him up and said,"Your money or your life!" and Jack, pausing with perfect timing, finally gasped, "I'm thinking it over!"
Of course, he was nothing like that character in real life, but we loved that guy - probably because deep within us all there is a hidden desire to be a little bit vain and tight-waddish. We keep that hidden but like to see it acted out.
Gisele MacKenzie, born Gisèle Marie Louise Marguerite LaFlèche (1927 - 2003) was from Canada and was quite a fine singer, violinist and even an actress (in 1986, when Jeanne Cooper took sick for a stretch, she filled in on "The Young and the Restless" as Katherine Chancellor!) So she was a versatile entertainer, and Jack had her on his show in the 50's, helping her become known in America.
 |
| Jack and Gisele |
Monday, August 11, 2014
Picture this
The other day, I listened to a conversation on WAMU's Kojo Nnamdi Show, in which several restaurateurs, a restaurant critic, and an etiquette expert talked about the use of cell phones at dinner, and in restaurants. One man, owner a few different types of beaneries in the DC area, forbids taking pictures of food and/or making or receiving phone calls at one of his more formal places, but allows those practices in his pizza place and another casual location.
Some callers to the show averred that they are renting a space while tying on the feedbag at an eatery, which grants them the right to take a picture of their chow if they so desire. And after all, if that picture lands on Instagram or Facebook or any of 101 other similar sites, it's good press for the hash house involved. One of the restaurant people said that taking a picture of your dinner adds ten minutes to the meal. (That must mean that someone brings in a professional photographer with those reflective umbrellas and big flash guns to take a picture of your bacon cheeseburger.) Other people said that other people's flashes going off during the meal irritates them, and then a woman called up all around the bend because the other night a young couple brought their little daughter to a estaminet, and the little girl opened up her iPad and watched a movie, with headset on, while sliding mac and cheese down her neck.
And that's worse than doing the Crayola all over a placemat, somehow? I don't think so.
It really got goofy when a guy said that some restaurants in the Los Angeles area confiscate cell phones from incoming chowhounds. Yeah. Try that here!
For the record, if you want to take an entire photo album of the meal that God's bounty has provided you, it's oke by me. If you want to check your email or update your Facebook or do your fantasy football draft while you tuck away your supper, have at it. I'm not a fan of LOUD TALKING during meals but I do enjoy hearing people's stories, so I have that going for me.
One topic I want to hear about in one of these discussions is why there is no such thing as a nice slice of bacon anymore. No matter what sort of greasy spoon or swanky joint you're in, from a side of bacon to a fancy omelette, all bacon these days is Applewood Smoked bacon.
This must be why apples cost around a dollar each, since all the trees where they used to grow are apparently being used to smoke bacon.
Some callers to the show averred that they are renting a space while tying on the feedbag at an eatery, which grants them the right to take a picture of their chow if they so desire. And after all, if that picture lands on Instagram or Facebook or any of 101 other similar sites, it's good press for the hash house involved. One of the restaurant people said that taking a picture of your dinner adds ten minutes to the meal. (That must mean that someone brings in a professional photographer with those reflective umbrellas and big flash guns to take a picture of your bacon cheeseburger.) Other people said that other people's flashes going off during the meal irritates them, and then a woman called up all around the bend because the other night a young couple brought their little daughter to a estaminet, and the little girl opened up her iPad and watched a movie, with headset on, while sliding mac and cheese down her neck.
And that's worse than doing the Crayola all over a placemat, somehow? I don't think so.
It really got goofy when a guy said that some restaurants in the Los Angeles area confiscate cell phones from incoming chowhounds. Yeah. Try that here!
For the record, if you want to take an entire photo album of the meal that God's bounty has provided you, it's oke by me. If you want to check your email or update your Facebook or do your fantasy football draft while you tuck away your supper, have at it. I'm not a fan of LOUD TALKING during meals but I do enjoy hearing people's stories, so I have that going for me.One topic I want to hear about in one of these discussions is why there is no such thing as a nice slice of bacon anymore. No matter what sort of greasy spoon or swanky joint you're in, from a side of bacon to a fancy omelette, all bacon these days is Applewood Smoked bacon.
This must be why apples cost around a dollar each, since all the trees where they used to grow are apparently being used to smoke bacon.
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Sunday Rerun: Driving Me Crazy
I am always intrigued to see the gadgets and gizmos that people have on their cars. I love those rear-deck cameras that allow you to see just what you're about to run over or back into! (Don't try this at home, but you can always ask the driver to put it in reverse to activate the camera, then scamper around to the back bumper, drop trou and show 'em how pretty the moon is tonight!) Some cars allow you to plug your iPod - and soon, probably, your iPad - right into the sound system to jack out the hits. No self-respecting kiddie-hauler SUV is complete without twin rear fold-down plasma DVD screens so that little EmmyLou and Jim Bob can see a movie while enroute to the movies. (Heaven forbid that the children go without entertainment for 10 minutes!)
Radar detectors, satellite radio, intelligent parking assist (I.P.A.), under the grandstand (I.P. Daily), and on the Prius, Toyota offers something called the Pre-Collision Package, which is supposed to "help minimize the effects of a collision." Another thing that helps to minimize the effects of a collision is paying attention to the road and the traffic around you, instead of fooling with the entertainment systems in your car, but hey, that's just I.
This parking assist thing. Would you really sit back, press a button, and allow your car to parallel-park itself? Wouldn't you want some sort of input into the process, or would you rather just sit and sip your lemonade as the Biscayne parks itself 'neath a tree of shade? What's more American than a grumpy Daddy riding shotgun in the Rambler on some huge empty parking lot while Bud or Princess try to learn to parallel park between two upright posts - goal posts, if you will - so spread out as to allow parking for a 1962 American LaFrance fire engine? And, as I have advised countless youngsters over the years, once you pass the driver's test, you will never have to parallel park again for the rest of your life, unless you want to!
Same advice for struggling math scholars: get past Algebra, and you will never have to solve for 'x' again unless YOU want to! And this business with the one train leaving Albany at 4:18 going 135 mph towards Brattleboro...and what time will it meet the 5:27 train coming from Brattleboro...you tell your teacher there is no answer to that one, because in all of recorded history, we find no evidence of any time when two trains left their respective stations on time!
But anyway. I just thought of one more option that the new car manufactures ought to consider. We have fog lights and hazard flashers, hi-beam headlights, lo-beam headlights, parking lights, turn signals, every which-kind of light. But...for those people who sit through an entire red light, with 17 cars behind them in traffic, only to turn on the left turn signal when the light turns green...for those who pull onto a highway ramp behind you and then pull out and cut you off...for those who ride behind you for 23 miles through the pine barrens of New Jersey with their headlights illuminating the interior of your car like a crime scene...for those who pull out from a side street right in your path, only to putter along at 23 mph in front of you...for those who pull up next to you in traffic on a quiet morning playing the latest CD ("The World Is A Terrible Place Full Of Pain And Suffering") by a band of the same name...for these goofs and so much more...
How about an optional light that would look like this, for the rear window?
Radar detectors, satellite radio, intelligent parking assist (I.P.A.), under the grandstand (I.P. Daily), and on the Prius, Toyota offers something called the Pre-Collision Package, which is supposed to "help minimize the effects of a collision." Another thing that helps to minimize the effects of a collision is paying attention to the road and the traffic around you, instead of fooling with the entertainment systems in your car, but hey, that's just I.
This parking assist thing. Would you really sit back, press a button, and allow your car to parallel-park itself? Wouldn't you want some sort of input into the process, or would you rather just sit and sip your lemonade as the Biscayne parks itself 'neath a tree of shade? What's more American than a grumpy Daddy riding shotgun in the Rambler on some huge empty parking lot while Bud or Princess try to learn to parallel park between two upright posts - goal posts, if you will - so spread out as to allow parking for a 1962 American LaFrance fire engine? And, as I have advised countless youngsters over the years, once you pass the driver's test, you will never have to parallel park again for the rest of your life, unless you want to!Same advice for struggling math scholars: get past Algebra, and you will never have to solve for 'x' again unless YOU want to! And this business with the one train leaving Albany at 4:18 going 135 mph towards Brattleboro...and what time will it meet the 5:27 train coming from Brattleboro...you tell your teacher there is no answer to that one, because in all of recorded history, we find no evidence of any time when two trains left their respective stations on time!
But anyway. I just thought of one more option that the new car manufactures ought to consider. We have fog lights and hazard flashers, hi-beam headlights, lo-beam headlights, parking lights, turn signals, every which-kind of light. But...for those people who sit through an entire red light, with 17 cars behind them in traffic, only to turn on the left turn signal when the light turns green...for those who pull onto a highway ramp behind you and then pull out and cut you off...for those who ride behind you for 23 miles through the pine barrens of New Jersey with their headlights illuminating the interior of your car like a crime scene...for those who pull out from a side street right in your path, only to putter along at 23 mph in front of you...for those who pull up next to you in traffic on a quiet morning playing the latest CD ("The World Is A Terrible Place Full Of Pain And Suffering") by a band of the same name...for these goofs and so much more...
How about an optional light that would look like this, for the rear window?
Saturday, August 9, 2014
The Saturday Picture Show, August 9, 2014
Friday, August 8, 2014
"Women hold up half the sky" - Mao Zedong
I'll admit to being from that generation when everyone's mother was like June Cleaver...home all day, vacuuming and making a nice layer cake while wearing a smart dress and pearls. It was a different era for women, and for the American family all over the place.
I've told this a thousand times, but now it just seems impossible. In high school I worked for the A&P, a nice union job paying $2.15 an hour. Guys twice and thrice my age were at the top of the clerk pay scale, earning $3/ hr for 40 hours of work - a gross of $120 a week. And they were raising kids, buying houses and cars and groceries, on that salary.
Things change, and now the family structure quite often has both Mom and Dad out there working. Sometimes the mother is home with the kids, and sometimes the father is. It's whatever works these days.
If you remember the first time you saw a woman in a police uniform who was not a 'meter maid' or matron to protect female subjects, that was a step, along with women doing just about any job there is. It's been a long time since anyone said anything disparaging about woman doing a "man's job," because there isn't really such a thing.
So it's a little sad to see people in the shoe business expecting women to take backward steps by casting them as man-hunting she-devils in tiger shoes. This shoe company, which I will not name except to say that they are about Nine miles West of reality, puts everything in ancient terms in this ad campaign for the right kind of shoes to wear while searching for a 'starter husband." Yes, companies selling to men use the same sort of sexist approach, but that hardly makes it right. Women today can do just fine without starter husbands to bankroll them til the right sugar daddy comes along, and they certainly can handle dropping off the kids at kindergarten without dissolving into the puddle of tears in which swim the ghosts of long-ago stereotypes of helpless women.
So let this make you feel better about the world we live in today: the San Antonio Spurs basketball team has hired Becky Hammon as a full-time assistant coach, and no one, least of all the men on the Spurs, has been heard to say, "Ewwwww, a girl!" She's qualified by dint of her experience in college, Olympic, and WNBA basketball, so let her do the job - in whatever kind of shoes she feels comfortable.
I've told this a thousand times, but now it just seems impossible. In high school I worked for the A&P, a nice union job paying $2.15 an hour. Guys twice and thrice my age were at the top of the clerk pay scale, earning $3/ hr for 40 hours of work - a gross of $120 a week. And they were raising kids, buying houses and cars and groceries, on that salary.
Things change, and now the family structure quite often has both Mom and Dad out there working. Sometimes the mother is home with the kids, and sometimes the father is. It's whatever works these days.
If you remember the first time you saw a woman in a police uniform who was not a 'meter maid' or matron to protect female subjects, that was a step, along with women doing just about any job there is. It's been a long time since anyone said anything disparaging about woman doing a "man's job," because there isn't really such a thing.
So it's a little sad to see people in the shoe business expecting women to take backward steps by casting them as man-hunting she-devils in tiger shoes. This shoe company, which I will not name except to say that they are about Nine miles West of reality, puts everything in ancient terms in this ad campaign for the right kind of shoes to wear while searching for a 'starter husband." Yes, companies selling to men use the same sort of sexist approach, but that hardly makes it right. Women today can do just fine without starter husbands to bankroll them til the right sugar daddy comes along, and they certainly can handle dropping off the kids at kindergarten without dissolving into the puddle of tears in which swim the ghosts of long-ago stereotypes of helpless women.
 |
| Becky Hammon |
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Get the truck out of here
I am making the conscious decision to watch and read less news, because after following world events all my life, now, in my dotage, it is dawning on me that knowing what's going on doesn't give me the power to do anything about it.
So I'm planning to do a lot less with Alex Wagner and a lot more with Honus Wagner.
But one thing I enjoy on the news is the American influence all over the world. For instance, you watch the Super Bowl and the other championship ball games, and within 3 seconds of the game being over, the winners are pulling on their WORLD CHAMPS t-shirts and caps, which were made up in advance, clearly, for both teams.
Which means that the losing team has a couple thousand shirts and caps that are no longer applicable or wearable. This apparel is immediately sent to third-world countries, which is why you'll be watching Brian Williams With The News and see a report about a story in deepest Africa and see a guy wearing a t-shirt that says "TEXAS RANGERS WORLD CHAMPIONS" or a guy in Gaza with a cap saluting the Denver Broncos for being Super Bowl champs in their minds only.
Another thing - advertising companies, take note. How many stories have you seen in which a Toyota pick-'em-up truck is carrying 17 men and their guns and equipment through some distant war-torn area? Why is Toyota not using these men to endorse their legendarily tough Tacomas and Tundras? Have you ever seen a story in which it was reported that a group of terrorists or defenders intended to wage battle, but couldn't,
because their truck needed a hotshot?
The world would be a more peaceful place if everyone planning to fight a war had to drive Ford Explorers.
So I'm planning to do a lot less with Alex Wagner and a lot more with Honus Wagner.
But one thing I enjoy on the news is the American influence all over the world. For instance, you watch the Super Bowl and the other championship ball games, and within 3 seconds of the game being over, the winners are pulling on their WORLD CHAMPS t-shirts and caps, which were made up in advance, clearly, for both teams.
 |
| This never happened. |
Another thing - advertising companies, take note. How many stories have you seen in which a Toyota pick-'em-up truck is carrying 17 men and their guns and equipment through some distant war-torn area? Why is Toyota not using these men to endorse their legendarily tough Tacomas and Tundras? Have you ever seen a story in which it was reported that a group of terrorists or defenders intended to wage battle, but couldn't,because their truck needed a hotshot?
The world would be a more peaceful place if everyone planning to fight a war had to drive Ford Explorers.
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
No Homophones Aloud
 |
| Blogger Torkildson |
Homophones! Why, the very idea! That may (seem, seam) to be the sort of thing you would discuss in your (cellar, seller) with your closest friends, but using the (phrase, frays) "Modern Homophones" will get your name (tact, tacked) up on the list of Former Employees where this man worked.
I'm sure he feels that everyone is (teeming, teaming) up against him, but he knows what his boss doesn't - that a homophone is a word that has an aural twin, another word that sounds the same, with different spelling and meaning. For example, when you see someone send a text that says they are sorry for all you've been "threw," that's a sad example to put you through. To hear Frankie Valli sing the theme song from the 70s musical "Greece" is another one.
After the blogger, Tim Torkildson, was (shone, shown) the door one recent (summery, summary) day, he told the Salt Lake Tribune that he was fired from (some, sum) school called the Nomen Global Language Center.
This is a school that teaches languages! And the owner fired him, complaining, "now our school is going to be associated with homosexuality." He said that because he didn't understand the (dual, duel) meanings, I guess.
I'm not going to (mints, mince) words here...
It just makes you (sigh, psi).
As Herbert Hoover said, "I'll be (dammed, damned)."
[Editor's note: last week when my orthopedist was examining my left (humerus, humorous) bone, I (told, tolled) him I didn't find it funny at all.]
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Way off Target
"I don't want to sound complaining, but you know there's always rain in my heart..." The Beatles, Please Please Me
I really don't mean to sound complaining, but there is something I want to share about the way certain people run their stores. I don't want to mention any names, but I'm sure I'll hit the Target if I mention the store's name to you. Everyone who works there has to wear a red shirt, which does not bother me. But it seems like everyone who works there also has to have a 500-watt walkie talkie to exchange information with people one aisle away. At top volume.
Getting specific, we went to Target the other afternoon, the new one down in Canton. It's good for us to walk and strutting around a store that size is a nice walk if you do a few laps. Usually, it's nice and peaceful in a Target, but a few minutes in this store showed me that the establishment is suffering from the heartache of HMS.
You've all seen HMS in action, and, sad to say, many of you have had to deal with it in your own profession. HMS is my code for Hyper Manager Syndrome and it manifests itself in the big head cheese stomping around barking out orders to his staff like Capt Bligh. And in the new modern age, he has his walkie talkie (and they have theirs) so he can get things straightened out in Electronics while he's rearranging a display in Home Decor.
And it's not just the almost-constant caterwauling from Barney Fife On The Floor, rebroadcast over a couple of dozen radios. Other people join in ("ALL DEPARTMENTS prepare for inventory check" "Congratulations to our Guest Service Team for achieving top scores in the region") and soon the air is full of words, when all you wanted was some peace and quiet, the perfect atmosphere for looking for no-show socks and taco shells. And then everyone from the cashiers to the guy working the machine that brings back 150 carts at a time joins the Roman chorus and chimes in.
As it happened, I had just decided to go hang around Harris Teeter instead. (They surely have taco shells, and quite possibly, socks.) As I turned to leave, the Loud Logorrheic chirped up with a sprightly, "Are you finding everything ok today, sir?" and I said, "What I hoped to find was a tranquil time to shop, but your radios are loud and annoying," and he said, "Yeah! Welcome to MY world!"
Or goodbye to it. Harris Teeter took me in kindly.
I really don't mean to sound complaining, but there is something I want to share about the way certain people run their stores. I don't want to mention any names, but I'm sure I'll hit the Target if I mention the store's name to you. Everyone who works there has to wear a red shirt, which does not bother me. But it seems like everyone who works there also has to have a 500-watt walkie talkie to exchange information with people one aisle away. At top volume.Getting specific, we went to Target the other afternoon, the new one down in Canton. It's good for us to walk and strutting around a store that size is a nice walk if you do a few laps. Usually, it's nice and peaceful in a Target, but a few minutes in this store showed me that the establishment is suffering from the heartache of HMS.
You've all seen HMS in action, and, sad to say, many of you have had to deal with it in your own profession. HMS is my code for Hyper Manager Syndrome and it manifests itself in the big head cheese stomping around barking out orders to his staff like Capt Bligh. And in the new modern age, he has his walkie talkie (and they have theirs) so he can get things straightened out in Electronics while he's rearranging a display in Home Decor.
And it's not just the almost-constant caterwauling from Barney Fife On The Floor, rebroadcast over a couple of dozen radios. Other people join in ("ALL DEPARTMENTS prepare for inventory check" "Congratulations to our Guest Service Team for achieving top scores in the region") and soon the air is full of words, when all you wanted was some peace and quiet, the perfect atmosphere for looking for no-show socks and taco shells. And then everyone from the cashiers to the guy working the machine that brings back 150 carts at a time joins the Roman chorus and chimes in.
As it happened, I had just decided to go hang around Harris Teeter instead. (They surely have taco shells, and quite possibly, socks.) As I turned to leave, the Loud Logorrheic chirped up with a sprightly, "Are you finding everything ok today, sir?" and I said, "What I hoped to find was a tranquil time to shop, but your radios are loud and annoying," and he said, "Yeah! Welcome to MY world!"Or goodbye to it. Harris Teeter took me in kindly.
Monday, August 4, 2014
The Dollar Store
I don't know the first thing about selling real estate and I doubt that I'd be very good at it, because my sales pitch would be along the lines of "Do you like this house? Well, then, I think you should buy it" and that might not be enough to get me into the Top Sellers' Club.
But these deals I hear about on the radio...a guy who has made a fortune in the real estate business is coming to town, pitching both his tent and his foolproof plan for making your own million. All you have to do is get a bunch of people who own houses that they are willing to sell you for maybe $200,000. Then you turn around and flip that dwelling for $250,000, pocketing the 50 grand for yourself and heading for one of your many vacation getaway spots.
I used to work with a guy who had "figured out a surefire way" to make money by betting on horse races. He was willing to let me in on the scheme if I would just pony up (get it?) half a hundred G's to get the plan off the ground.
Every so often, someone will come along and offer to let you in on their business, which involves them buying soaps and other home products from a large company and selling it to you so you can sell it to your friends, neighbors and co-workers. The big company makes a mint, the local distributor makes half a mint, and you make space in your cellar for cases of unsold laundry detergent.
And don't forget this one - a man ran an ad in the National Perspirer or whatever they call it. The ad said "Make $100,000 in direct mail marketing - send $1 to Box XXX Itchy, Indiana for details." And people sent off their singles and got back a xeroxed sheet that said "Buy an ad that says "Make $100,000 in direct mail marketing.."
All of these plans rest on the generosity of someone who knows how to turn a dollar bill into a million just like it, and the incredible thing about it all is that they are so willing to share it with you and me, rather than just keeping all the money for themselves and their indolent brothers-in-law! How very kind.
But these deals I hear about on the radio...a guy who has made a fortune in the real estate business is coming to town, pitching both his tent and his foolproof plan for making your own million. All you have to do is get a bunch of people who own houses that they are willing to sell you for maybe $200,000. Then you turn around and flip that dwelling for $250,000, pocketing the 50 grand for yourself and heading for one of your many vacation getaway spots.
I used to work with a guy who had "figured out a surefire way" to make money by betting on horse races. He was willing to let me in on the scheme if I would just pony up (get it?) half a hundred G's to get the plan off the ground.
Every so often, someone will come along and offer to let you in on their business, which involves them buying soaps and other home products from a large company and selling it to you so you can sell it to your friends, neighbors and co-workers. The big company makes a mint, the local distributor makes half a mint, and you make space in your cellar for cases of unsold laundry detergent.And don't forget this one - a man ran an ad in the National Perspirer or whatever they call it. The ad said "Make $100,000 in direct mail marketing - send $1 to Box XXX Itchy, Indiana for details." And people sent off their singles and got back a xeroxed sheet that said "Buy an ad that says "Make $100,000 in direct mail marketing.."
All of these plans rest on the generosity of someone who knows how to turn a dollar bill into a million just like it, and the incredible thing about it all is that they are so willing to share it with you and me, rather than just keeping all the money for themselves and their indolent brothers-in-law! How very kind.
Sunday, August 3, 2014
Sunday rerun! Keep this under your hat!
 |
| Maybe it was a pizza shell |
People from here drive through Cambridge all the time on their way to the ocean, and we don't see how anyone from a nice town on Maryland's Eastern Shore would want to move to England, but it's up to her. There is an opening in Kentucky if she and her husband wish to move down there; he could be the new Duke of Paducah. He could crack 'em up down at the Grand Ole Opry! I can hear him now..."I'm not saying my brother is awkward, but he tripped over a cordless phone! I say! Jolly good! Cheerio, stiff upper lip, by Jeeves!"
Anyway, we all thought, gee, what a pretty girl he chose to be princess, and possibly queen someday, because it looks like his grandmother Liz is good for another couple of decades, and no one over there seems to want his father Charlie to be king, since that would put Camilla Parker-Carr in the position of queen, and well, we just shan't have that, shall we?
 |
| Kate and her hat |
And he said something like, "Sure, m'love, because Zara is going wear a tiara that once belonged to her great-grandmother, whose name was Princess Andrew."
 |
| Zara Phillips wore a tiara belonging to her great-grandmother, Princess Andrew of Greece, for her wedding to Mike Tindall in Edinburgh, Scotland |
Saturday, August 2, 2014
The Saturday Picture Show. August 2, 2014
Lemons are good for a million things, eating and drinking chief among them, but they have other uses. The sign would be more helpful if it recommended adding a splash of orange juice to your lemonade...it cuts some of the bitterness while adding another delightful citrus taste!
Friday, August 1, 2014
Manual Labor
I think I have figured out why there are so many trees growing in your town and mine. That big old beech tree, the pine down the street, and the weeping Willow Smith in the park...all are signs that we are not cutting down trees like we used to do.
Because we sure aren't using the trees to make paper to print owners' manuals for new devices!
It was time to upgrade our phones the other day and we are tickled to death with our new Galaxy S5, not to be confused with the curiously misspelled Ford Galaxie popular among Mayberry's law enforcement community. And it was time to get a new iPod for me.
Neither of these fine devices came with more than a rudimentary pamphlet that mainly said to turn them on and use them and don't let the battery get all run down, although our friend at the Verizon store did a great job helping us to set up the phones.
The iPod wouldn't sync to the music on my iTunes so I got a cup of iTea and picked up my non-iPhone to call the good people at Apple, where I was greeted with, "Hello, Mark! I see you recently purchased an iPod Nano...Is this the device you are calling about today?" This is was impressive, and I'll bet you if you were to call KFC, they wouldn't answer with your name or know that you recently purchased a 12-piece bucket.
And the nice lady served me a nice bowl of Apple sauce and plenty of information. We got the tiny music box 1/2 filled with tunes that you aren't lucky to hear elsewhere, and she reminded me that help is always available on line these days.
I guess printed instruction manuals are passé now, which is good for the trees and the recycling stations. I don't think many people ever read them, anyway.
Because we sure aren't using the trees to make paper to print owners' manuals for new devices!
It was time to upgrade our phones the other day and we are tickled to death with our new Galaxy S5, not to be confused with the curiously misspelled Ford Galaxie popular among Mayberry's law enforcement community. And it was time to get a new iPod for me. Neither of these fine devices came with more than a rudimentary pamphlet that mainly said to turn them on and use them and don't let the battery get all run down, although our friend at the Verizon store did a great job helping us to set up the phones.
The iPod wouldn't sync to the music on my iTunes so I got a cup of iTea and picked up my non-iPhone to call the good people at Apple, where I was greeted with, "Hello, Mark! I see you recently purchased an iPod Nano...Is this the device you are calling about today?" This is was impressive, and I'll bet you if you were to call KFC, they wouldn't answer with your name or know that you recently purchased a 12-piece bucket.
And the nice lady served me a nice bowl of Apple sauce and plenty of information. We got the tiny music box 1/2 filled with tunes that you aren't lucky to hear elsewhere, and she reminded me that help is always available on line these days.
I guess printed instruction manuals are passé now, which is good for the trees and the recycling stations. I don't think many people ever read them, anyway.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Plaque buildup
Only one percent of the men who ever wound up playing major league baseball also wound up in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, a town which was not, as is commonly believed, named for author James Fenimore Cooper, but, rather, his father, Judge William Cooper, who founded the sleepy town in 1786.
Only one percent of the people who see recent inductee Greg Maddux's plaque at the HOF will object to the grammar violations contained thereupon, so that's how that goes. People often tell me that grammar is an ever-evolving thing, fungible and protean. Well, they don't put it that way, exactly. What I hear is, "Everybody talks this way, so shove it!"
As fans of excellent woodwork enjoy seeing perfectly-dovetailed joints in a cabinet, as lovers of fine cooking oooh and aaah for the perfect soufflé, as admirers of beauty relish the very sight of a sunrise over a field of lavender, so do I adulate a well-turned phrase, a perfectly-constructed paragraph, a book that I will re-read just for the experience of wading in the words the author chose. I'm not saying this is for everyone. If you're happy with John Grisham or James Redfield, fine!
But look at the Maddux plaque. "Preparation, command and study of batters made him part-scientist, part-artist, winning..." A part-scientist would be someone involved in the scientific study of parts! A part-artist would be someone making art of parts! This overuse of hyphens is like the signs on certain auto shops lettered "ALL-TYPES-REPAIR'S MECHANIC-ON-DUTY" or the one around the corner from us: "FIREWOOD-FOR SALE." A dash is supposed to be used to set off parenthetical sentence elements, not as a spacer between words.
And also, as Mr Olbermann said, the look on Mr Maddux's face on the plaque is like the look he'd have if someone walked up and said his car was on fire outside.
The Hall of Fame will have to do better by the time Adam Jones is inducted!
Only one percent of the people who see recent inductee Greg Maddux's plaque at the HOF will object to the grammar violations contained thereupon, so that's how that goes. People often tell me that grammar is an ever-evolving thing, fungible and protean. Well, they don't put it that way, exactly. What I hear is, "Everybody talks this way, so shove it!"
As fans of excellent woodwork enjoy seeing perfectly-dovetailed joints in a cabinet, as lovers of fine cooking oooh and aaah for the perfect soufflé, as admirers of beauty relish the very sight of a sunrise over a field of lavender, so do I adulate a well-turned phrase, a perfectly-constructed paragraph, a book that I will re-read just for the experience of wading in the words the author chose. I'm not saying this is for everyone. If you're happy with John Grisham or James Redfield, fine!But look at the Maddux plaque. "Preparation, command and study of batters made him part-scientist, part-artist, winning..." A part-scientist would be someone involved in the scientific study of parts! A part-artist would be someone making art of parts! This overuse of hyphens is like the signs on certain auto shops lettered "ALL-TYPES-REPAIR'S MECHANIC-ON-DUTY" or the one around the corner from us: "FIREWOOD-FOR SALE." A dash is supposed to be used to set off parenthetical sentence elements, not as a spacer between words.
And also, as Mr Olbermann said, the look on Mr Maddux's face on the plaque is like the look he'd have if someone walked up and said his car was on fire outside.
The Hall of Fame will have to do better by the time Adam Jones is inducted!
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
A sweet little vignette from a summer afternoon...
There's a family up the street from us here on the court; we hardly know them at all. It makes me sad to realize that's how things are in America 2014, because when I was a kid, everybody up and down the street knew everyone else down and up the street. It was great then, but it's not that way anymore, and why even talk about it? We're fortunate to have good neighbors on either side of us, and no one is throwing hams at our house like the people who live next to Oz E. Osbourne have to put up with.
One thing that hasn't changed, never has and never will...boys and girls, they will get together. This family has a daughter; I guess she is maybe 13 or 14. She walks past our house during the school year, going to or coming from school, and the poor thing carries so many books, and I guess a laptop, a printer and a French horn in her backpack that she resembles nothing quite as much as the cover to Led Zeppelin IV.
She usually has the dour expression of someone sentenced to middle school, for which I really can't blame her, but I always try to say something encouraging or at least pleasant when I see her mosey by. Talking to people who may or may not wish to talk back is an old family habit.
But the other day, it was all different. I raised the garage door just as she walked by with a male kid about her age. In the time-honored fashion of 7th graders, they were giggling and goofing. I was headed for the Bag 'N' Save, and as I drove down the hill, I saw them turn to make sure they were out of eyeshot of curious eyes located inside her house, and they gave each other the most chaste little peck and hug around the neck you ever saw. It was just the cutest thing you ever saw. Older kids, you see them saying goodbye to each other at mall dropoff points and high school detention halls, and it looks like a four-armed amoeba eddying around, osculating and schqueezing and so on. But not these youngsters, not at 13.
And even though Hamas and Israel are bombing the hell out of each other and big old jet airliners are being blown out of the sky and the Russians can't get along with themselves and 21,000 children die around the world every day and the ecology is all shot and the bee population is being wiped out, two kids are going to flirt and hold hands and exchange a sweet little kiss on the sidewalk in front of the house down the street.
The good parts, somehow, survive.
One thing that hasn't changed, never has and never will...boys and girls, they will get together. This family has a daughter; I guess she is maybe 13 or 14. She walks past our house during the school year, going to or coming from school, and the poor thing carries so many books, and I guess a laptop, a printer and a French horn in her backpack that she resembles nothing quite as much as the cover to Led Zeppelin IV. She usually has the dour expression of someone sentenced to middle school, for which I really can't blame her, but I always try to say something encouraging or at least pleasant when I see her mosey by. Talking to people who may or may not wish to talk back is an old family habit.
But the other day, it was all different. I raised the garage door just as she walked by with a male kid about her age. In the time-honored fashion of 7th graders, they were giggling and goofing. I was headed for the Bag 'N' Save, and as I drove down the hill, I saw them turn to make sure they were out of eyeshot of curious eyes located inside her house, and they gave each other the most chaste little peck and hug around the neck you ever saw. It was just the cutest thing you ever saw. Older kids, you see them saying goodbye to each other at mall dropoff points and high school detention halls, and it looks like a four-armed amoeba eddying around, osculating and schqueezing and so on. But not these youngsters, not at 13.
And even though Hamas and Israel are bombing the hell out of each other and big old jet airliners are being blown out of the sky and the Russians can't get along with themselves and 21,000 children die around the world every day and the ecology is all shot and the bee population is being wiped out, two kids are going to flirt and hold hands and exchange a sweet little kiss on the sidewalk in front of the house down the street.
The good parts, somehow, survive.
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
By Any Other Name
I think it all started with Bruce Boxleitner.
Boxleitner, the actor, came along in the 1980s and if he wasn't the first, he was among the first of the people from "fair and frantic Hollywood" who did not change their name to something more...more...show-bizzy, like "Brice Box."
Even before that, performers were breaking their necks to run to the courthouse to change their names, which is why you never heard anyone talk about Arnold George Dorsey, the noted singer. He only became "noted" after he changed his name to Engelbert Humperdinck, ripping off the name of the German composer who tossed "Hänsel und Gretel" into the musical oven. Humperdinck the singer became popular in the 60s, the decade in which it became fashionable to stop naming movies "Dark Obsession" and start calling them "Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad."
Listen, I lived through all that and I never did get the point. Anyhow, time was when a guy named Arthur Kelm showed up to try his hand at movie acting, and some guy behind a desk puffing on a Cheroot said, through a veil of smoke, "All right, see? We'll call you 'Tab Hunter'!"
Thus did Roy Fitzgerald become Rock Hudson, Bernard Schwartz became Tony Curtis, and Aaron Chwatt became Red Buttons, although I think there would have been a certain great value in going around being named Aaron Chwatt, Man of A Thousand Gags.
Women? Same deal. Tula Ellice Finklea = Cyd Charisse. Shirley Schrift = Shelley Winters, and Lucille Fay LeSueur = Joan Crawford.
I think there needs to be a Name Commission to decide these names, because I think that "P.J. Clapp" is a far better name for the man we know and love as Johnny Knoxville. The Knoxville name should have been saved and given to someone who desperately needed a fake moniker.
So hold on, Benedict Cumberbatch! We'll think of something!
Boxleitner, the actor, came along in the 1980s and if he wasn't the first, he was among the first of the people from "fair and frantic Hollywood" who did not change their name to something more...more...show-bizzy, like "Brice Box."
Even before that, performers were breaking their necks to run to the courthouse to change their names, which is why you never heard anyone talk about Arnold George Dorsey, the noted singer. He only became "noted" after he changed his name to Engelbert Humperdinck, ripping off the name of the German composer who tossed "Hänsel und Gretel" into the musical oven. Humperdinck the singer became popular in the 60s, the decade in which it became fashionable to stop naming movies "Dark Obsession" and start calling them "Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad."
Listen, I lived through all that and I never did get the point. Anyhow, time was when a guy named Arthur Kelm showed up to try his hand at movie acting, and some guy behind a desk puffing on a Cheroot said, through a veil of smoke, "All right, see? We'll call you 'Tab Hunter'!"
 |
| Bernard Schwartz |
Thus did Roy Fitzgerald become Rock Hudson, Bernard Schwartz became Tony Curtis, and Aaron Chwatt became Red Buttons, although I think there would have been a certain great value in going around being named Aaron Chwatt, Man of A Thousand Gags.
Women? Same deal. Tula Ellice Finklea = Cyd Charisse. Shirley Schrift = Shelley Winters, and Lucille Fay LeSueur = Joan Crawford.
I think there needs to be a Name Commission to decide these names, because I think that "P.J. Clapp" is a far better name for the man we know and love as Johnny Knoxville. The Knoxville name should have been saved and given to someone who desperately needed a fake moniker.
So hold on, Benedict Cumberbatch! We'll think of something!
Monday, July 28, 2014
Would You Believe..?
As if there wasn't enough else to worry about in the mid-to-late 1960s, people liked to sit around inventing crazy stories, one of which was that Paul McCartney had been slain in a bloody car crash. That story amused swingin' London for a week or two in 1967, buttressed by shreds of facts (McCartney's car was in a wreck, but it was being driven by someone who worked for him, and he did wipe out on his moped, chipping a tooth and scarring his otherwise stiff upper lip. He grew a mustache to hide the scar) and people's natural love of pure bullhockey.
And then came 1969, when a fool named Tim Harper (who had like totally, heard all about Paul being dead from a friend who knew a guy who knew the coroner...) wrote a "news story" which appeared in the Times-Delphic, the student newspaper of the Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. Next thing you know, a DJ who should have known better, one Russ Gibb, on WKNR-FM, took a call from a listener who said that Paul was dead, and if Gibb would simply play "Revolution 9" backwards, everyone could hear the Beatles chant “turn me on, dead man.” And then, someone wrote an article in another college newspaper about this great plot to cover up the death of Paul McCartney, and Russ Gibb, seeking an easier way to turn a quick couple of dollars than doing one more teen dance, produced a radio documentary, laying out all the made-up facts. For weeks, an anxious nation - yea, the world - awaited confirmation that the man who later wrote "Silly Love Songs" was alive to sing them. Clues were discussed - he was the only one walking barefoot on the Abbey Road album! - the license tag was 28IF, meaning he would have been 28 IF he had lived! - Lennon mutters "I buried Paul" because who would mumble the words "Cranberry sauce" on a record?!
As was often the case, nothing was clear until LIFE magazine came out in November, with proof that Paul was alive and well and living among many sheep on a farm in Scotland. In the magazine, McCartney told fans that “Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” paraphrasing Mark Twain. “However, if I was dead, I’m sure I’d be the last to know.”
You can add "the last to know" to the people in our town who choose to believe and spread ridiculous myths, the two most often-repeated of which are that a politician and newscaster got busy and had a baby, and that a ballplayer beat up an actor in a jealous rage. You ask for evidence, and all you get is "I knew a guy who talked to a guy whose uncle was like totally there!" People who believe and retell these stories always quote a high-ranking police officer as the source of their veracity.
Sergeant Pepper.
And then came 1969, when a fool named Tim Harper (who had like totally, heard all about Paul being dead from a friend who knew a guy who knew the coroner...) wrote a "news story" which appeared in the Times-Delphic, the student newspaper of the Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. Next thing you know, a DJ who should have known better, one Russ Gibb, on WKNR-FM, took a call from a listener who said that Paul was dead, and if Gibb would simply play "Revolution 9" backwards, everyone could hear the Beatles chant “turn me on, dead man.” And then, someone wrote an article in another college newspaper about this great plot to cover up the death of Paul McCartney, and Russ Gibb, seeking an easier way to turn a quick couple of dollars than doing one more teen dance, produced a radio documentary, laying out all the made-up facts. For weeks, an anxious nation - yea, the world - awaited confirmation that the man who later wrote "Silly Love Songs" was alive to sing them. Clues were discussed - he was the only one walking barefoot on the Abbey Road album! - the license tag was 28IF, meaning he would have been 28 IF he had lived! - Lennon mutters "I buried Paul" because who would mumble the words "Cranberry sauce" on a record?!
As was often the case, nothing was clear until LIFE magazine came out in November, with proof that Paul was alive and well and living among many sheep on a farm in Scotland. In the magazine, McCartney told fans that “Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” paraphrasing Mark Twain. “However, if I was dead, I’m sure I’d be the last to know.”You can add "the last to know" to the people in our town who choose to believe and spread ridiculous myths, the two most often-repeated of which are that a politician and newscaster got busy and had a baby, and that a ballplayer beat up an actor in a jealous rage. You ask for evidence, and all you get is "I knew a guy who talked to a guy whose uncle was like totally there!" People who believe and retell these stories always quote a high-ranking police officer as the source of their veracity.
Sergeant Pepper.
Sunday, July 27, 2014
Sunday Rerun...from January 2011...Peanut Butter and Traffic Jam
Wow, is all we could say. On Wednesday, the Baltimore area had a once-in-a-lifetime weather and traffic mess, which will give us something to chatter about in malls, office lunchrooms, hair "saloons" and small claims courts for years to come.
The day dawned with a couple of inches of snow dappling our landscape, and if you haven't had your landscape dappled lately, let me tell you, you're missing out. The weather people had been saying that it would start to rain overnight and rain like all get-out during the day, so it snowed instead and then the sky turned rather pouty and rainy. Then the weather people said it would start to snow just about the time everyone left to go home from work, but we took a wait-and-see attitude toward that. I get off at 3:30, and when I headed home it was raining sort of hard. I stopped for gas on the way, and the wind kept blowing my hood off my hooded chore jacket, and then by the time I got back to the Lazy 'C' Ranch here, it was sleeting.
Peggy and I enjoyed a nice dinner and, unable to take our usual 20-minute after dinner walk on the court we live on, we took walks around the house we live in. I was going up and down stairs for exercise, walking through the house, and had the odd experience of running into Peggy as she left the dining room. "Hi there, " I said, with an amiable nod. No, we're not insane. Really.
So, with nothing on TV, I was idly thumbing through Facebook and started seeing messages from people who were stuck in huge traffic jams on the beltway and other highways. I mean, it was like 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock, quarter to ten, and they had left their work at 4, 4:30, 5! Seven hours became the commute home for many people, and no, they were not cheered to think that on another night - most ANY other night - they could have shuffled off to Buffalo in that much time!
What happened was the perfect storm, the one with no Geo. Clooney. The snow got fierce just as the traffic did, and how are you gonna get a snow plow through to plow the snow off streets already clogged with SUVs? Reports of people waiting two hours on a Beltway exit ramp surfaced. Our favorite traffic reporter Candace Dold reported that it took her 7 1/2 hours to get to work - a normal 30-minute ride. Highways were shut down, cars were abandoned, people slept in hotel lobbies. And one person decided to go the wrong way on a major highway.
And then later, the streets were clear! Zipadeedoodah!
This seems like a good time to remind one and all living in areas prone to snow of several things. First, sneak out of work early when a big snow is headed your way! (Not applicable to public safety personnel, news reporters, and grocery store cashiers!) Second, in the winter time, keep the car full of gas as much as you can - lots of people ran out of gas on the beltway. And it's a good idea to keep some granola bars, peanut butter doodads and bottles of water in the car just in case.
And also - an empty water bottle. You'll see why!
The day dawned with a couple of inches of snow dappling our landscape, and if you haven't had your landscape dappled lately, let me tell you, you're missing out. The weather people had been saying that it would start to rain overnight and rain like all get-out during the day, so it snowed instead and then the sky turned rather pouty and rainy. Then the weather people said it would start to snow just about the time everyone left to go home from work, but we took a wait-and-see attitude toward that. I get off at 3:30, and when I headed home it was raining sort of hard. I stopped for gas on the way, and the wind kept blowing my hood off my hooded chore jacket, and then by the time I got back to the Lazy 'C' Ranch here, it was sleeting.Peggy and I enjoyed a nice dinner and, unable to take our usual 20-minute after dinner walk on the court we live on, we took walks around the house we live in. I was going up and down stairs for exercise, walking through the house, and had the odd experience of running into Peggy as she left the dining room. "Hi there, " I said, with an amiable nod. No, we're not insane. Really.
So, with nothing on TV, I was idly thumbing through Facebook and started seeing messages from people who were stuck in huge traffic jams on the beltway and other highways. I mean, it was like 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock, quarter to ten, and they had left their work at 4, 4:30, 5! Seven hours became the commute home for many people, and no, they were not cheered to think that on another night - most ANY other night - they could have shuffled off to Buffalo in that much time!
What happened was the perfect storm, the one with no Geo. Clooney. The snow got fierce just as the traffic did, and how are you gonna get a snow plow through to plow the snow off streets already clogged with SUVs? Reports of people waiting two hours on a Beltway exit ramp surfaced. Our favorite traffic reporter Candace Dold reported that it took her 7 1/2 hours to get to work - a normal 30-minute ride. Highways were shut down, cars were abandoned, people slept in hotel lobbies. And one person decided to go the wrong way on a major highway.
And then later, the streets were clear! Zipadeedoodah!
This seems like a good time to remind one and all living in areas prone to snow of several things. First, sneak out of work early when a big snow is headed your way! (Not applicable to public safety personnel, news reporters, and grocery store cashiers!) Second, in the winter time, keep the car full of gas as much as you can - lots of people ran out of gas on the beltway. And it's a good idea to keep some granola bars, peanut butter doodads and bottles of water in the car just in case.
And also - an empty water bottle. You'll see why!
Saturday, July 26, 2014
The Saturday Picture Show, July 26, 2014
Friday, July 25, 2014
They're not right about your rights
As football training camps open, we find that people who choose to discriminate and make ridiculous statements about others are already in mid-season form, forcing the rest of us to double up on our intake of slurs and innuendoes, just to stay up with the dumb utterances of people such as Lauren Cox and Tony Dungy, the latter of whom I used to respect a lot.
We start with Mrs Cox, the wife of a man with the greatest job in the world, save for Charlie Watts, the drummer for the Rolling Stones. Morgan Cox is the Ravens' long snapper, which means that he gets a good sideline seat for all the games and only has to get off the bench when there's a kick coming - a field goal, extra point or punt. When called upon, he uses his natural ability to hunch over and hike a football backwards from between his legs, to the holder or punter a few yards back. Then he blocks opponents as needed and goes back to the seat he only recently vacated and watches the rest of the game, or eats a hot dog, or whatever.
Cox is married to the former Lauren Bell, who writes a blog she calls "The Nomad Notepad." You might expect that she would write about how great it is to have plenty of money, good health and all the advantages of living in prosperity, but nooooooooo! Last week, she chose to complain about the ESPY awards, and how Drake was making jokes about athletes fooling around with loose women. She was aghast that anyone would make a joke about such things! Why, she has “shed tears with so many friends over the issue Drake mocked tonight”!
Maybe your friends need to choose better husbands, is all I'm saying.
She writes like a high school kid who just found out about Pearl Harbor ("Some may think that the families of these players just disappear from August to January while our men are hard at work providing your entertainment as we eat our Thanksgiving meals alone, but you are extremely mistaken.") Poor Lauren, pickin' at a wishbone while trying to scrape by on the $630,000 salary her husband makes.
And speaking of Pearl Harbor, she makes an inapt comparison when she says that Michael Sam is like Hitler and the 9/11 terrorists, because Sam, who only wants to be an NFL player and an out gay man at the same time, believes he is doing what he has the right to do, and so did Hitler as he killed "hundreds of thousands of people" (only off by about 5.5 million there, Lauren) and so did the Twin Towers murderers. Anyone who believes they are doing the right thing winds up in the same sin bin, to her.
You can read it for yourself if you wish, and even enjoy her unapologetic apology ("I apologize for those that I have have offended") if you want. You'll think you're back in Creative Writing 11, I tell you.
And then Tony Dungy, the former coach and current TV analyst, winds up and opens up his thoughts about how he would not have chosen Michael Sam to play on his team. "Not because I don't believe Michael Sam should have a chance to play, but I wouldn't want to deal with all of it,” Dungy said. “It’s not going to be totally smooth … things will happen.’’
So many groups, so many individuals, have been kept out of so many things for so many years because "things will happen." And Dungy is the man appointed by the league to be Michael Vick's personal mentor when Vick got out of prison after serving a sentence for his unspeakable cruelty to animals, and the man who once said he embraced a constitutional amendment making same-sex marriage illegal.
But in the world where Lauren B. Cox and Tony Dungy live, gay people, Hitler, the 9/11 hijackers and every other sinful thing are all mixed up in this big conspiracy to derail their happy little world where all couples have to be boy-girl and no one gets to live the way THEY want to without checking with the Dungy-Cox Committee On How You Have To Live.
We start with Mrs Cox, the wife of a man with the greatest job in the world, save for Charlie Watts, the drummer for the Rolling Stones. Morgan Cox is the Ravens' long snapper, which means that he gets a good sideline seat for all the games and only has to get off the bench when there's a kick coming - a field goal, extra point or punt. When called upon, he uses his natural ability to hunch over and hike a football backwards from between his legs, to the holder or punter a few yards back. Then he blocks opponents as needed and goes back to the seat he only recently vacated and watches the rest of the game, or eats a hot dog, or whatever.
Cox is married to the former Lauren Bell, who writes a blog she calls "The Nomad Notepad." You might expect that she would write about how great it is to have plenty of money, good health and all the advantages of living in prosperity, but nooooooooo! Last week, she chose to complain about the ESPY awards, and how Drake was making jokes about athletes fooling around with loose women. She was aghast that anyone would make a joke about such things! Why, she has “shed tears with so many friends over the issue Drake mocked tonight”!
Maybe your friends need to choose better husbands, is all I'm saying.
She writes like a high school kid who just found out about Pearl Harbor ("Some may think that the families of these players just disappear from August to January while our men are hard at work providing your entertainment as we eat our Thanksgiving meals alone, but you are extremely mistaken.") Poor Lauren, pickin' at a wishbone while trying to scrape by on the $630,000 salary her husband makes.
And speaking of Pearl Harbor, she makes an inapt comparison when she says that Michael Sam is like Hitler and the 9/11 terrorists, because Sam, who only wants to be an NFL player and an out gay man at the same time, believes he is doing what he has the right to do, and so did Hitler as he killed "hundreds of thousands of people" (only off by about 5.5 million there, Lauren) and so did the Twin Towers murderers. Anyone who believes they are doing the right thing winds up in the same sin bin, to her.
You can read it for yourself if you wish, and even enjoy her unapologetic apology ("I apologize for those that I have have offended") if you want. You'll think you're back in Creative Writing 11, I tell you.
And then Tony Dungy, the former coach and current TV analyst, winds up and opens up his thoughts about how he would not have chosen Michael Sam to play on his team. "Not because I don't believe Michael Sam should have a chance to play, but I wouldn't want to deal with all of it,” Dungy said. “It’s not going to be totally smooth … things will happen.’’
 |
| Dungy |
But in the world where Lauren B. Cox and Tony Dungy live, gay people, Hitler, the 9/11 hijackers and every other sinful thing are all mixed up in this big conspiracy to derail their happy little world where all couples have to be boy-girl and no one gets to live the way THEY want to without checking with the Dungy-Cox Committee On How You Have To Live.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)