Only a Game

I love football and baseball and so I root for the Ravens and the Orioles.  The Orioles, for the past dozen years, have been the team that the other teams use for batting practice, beating our locals with a sad regularity.  The Ravens have been an excellent team, have won the Super Bowl and have been to the NFL playoffs for the last three years.

So everyone in town was looking toward Saturday night's playoff game against the archrival Pittsburgh Steelers eagerly.  It was fun all the week, seeing people at work and out and about wearing purple, Ravens jerseys, dying their hair purple, and so forth. There was good-natured taunting with friends who root for the Steelers.  I even heard tell of wagering, and although I have no proof of illegal sports betting going on in Baltimore, I'll give you 6-to-5 that it occurs.

And then, accompanied by great tubs of chicken wings, schooners of cold beer, stacks of pizzas and crystal goblets of Chardonnay, they played the game. It was a fight from start to end, like the old heavyweight boxing matches they used to put on TV to sell Gillette razor blades, Ballantine beer and Ford pick-'em-up trucks.  Guys were shoving and pushing each other around, fists were flying, bruises appeared and so did penalty flags. 

And that was just in the living rooms and bars around town.  It was even worse at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, which bears the name of the family of Teresa Heinz Kerry, the estimable wife of the estimable 2004 Democratic presidential candidate.

I'm just saying.

But, as you might have read, the Steelers won the game, and you know what? I woke up on Sunday and the sun did too. Life went on somehow.

I worry about the people who littered up Facebook on Saturday night with profane denunciations of the referees, the Ravens offensive coordinator, the Ravens defensive coordinator, and everyone right on down to the guy who drives the team bus. 

It's a game, folks.  People do their best and someone is going to win and someone is going to lose and I urge each and every one of us not to take it so damned personally.  It's not a reflection on your worth as a person or our collective worth as a city if T.J. Houshmandzadeh catches a ball or not.

We can be proud of our city and our team and be man and woman enough to tell our Steeler-lovin' friends that their guys played well too and we'll see them again twice next year.

Baseball starts in a month!

Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me

 From Merriam-Webster.com:

Main Entry: so·lip·sism Pronunciation: \ˈsō-ləp-ˌsi-zəm, ˈsä-\Function: nounEtymology: Latin solus alone + ipse self  Date: 1874: a theory holding that the self can know nothing but its own modifications and that the self is the only existent thing; also : extreme egocentrism

At a seminar the other day, there were about 30 of us in a room, listening to an instructor and following along with an overhead projection of a web page. The instructor was wearing a portable microphone and speaking to us on a subject in which we were all interested, purportedly: we had signed up to take the class. It wasn't one of those mandatory trainings (I remember one of them, some years ago, in which we were advised to watch for the tell-tale signs of workplace suicide. Numbered among them was the oral consumption of Wite-Out. I am not kidding) that we all have to attend now and again; we signed up for this. 

Had this been a cheesy detective novel, this would be the point at which "Suddenly, two shots rang out." Well, this is cheesy, but the only thing ringing was some woman's cell phone. This is to be expected nowadays, but what you don't expect is the woman answering the call as if she were all alone in the room and we weren't even trying to hear the instructor over her.

She started doing this thing where she cupped the end of her wrist around the cell to create a sort of sound tunnel out of her hand, to amplify her words, some of which are reproduced here:"Well, did you try to open it with Adobe?""Where is Phil?""I'm at a training seminar...no, go ahead, it's all right...right click on it and what happens?..."This happens every time we open."

I was considering going outside to look for some clay and straw to build her an Adobe.hut so she could work in solitude. The woman to her left was craning and straining to hear what was being said in class, but with the singular devotion to duty that has clearly propelled Ms Cell to the middle of the heap, Ms Cell kept right on talking, murmuring, shaking her head, and knitting her brow in furrows of concentration. Even when we took a break, she sat at the helm, Capt. Smith on the bridge, directing the destinies of her staff.

It struck me that no one beside the woman next to her, whose opportunity to learn was being severely compromised, even paid much heed to this exhibition. The teacher surely was aware of it, but went with that laissez-faire attitude that drives me so crazy: let people do what they want to do, don't kill the buzz, don't be honest. Go ahead, talk in class, take phone calls during movies, pull onto highways without so much as looking to see if there's a opening for your car. Just go go go, do your thing, and don't look back, or around, to see if your thing is bumping into anyone else's.

Oscar, Oscar, Oscar

“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.”

--Oscar Wilde

Ayla Gala

Ayla Brown

It's always bewildered me that people in search of a genre in which to sell recordings of themselves singing songs always say "I'm country, through and through, and that's why I'm moving to Nashville to cut a country record."

The latest to feel a sudden affinity with area code 615 is Ayla Brown.  You might remember Ayla from American Idol a couple of years ago, where she sang nothing that sounded even remotely like country music.  She listed her favorite artists thusly: 

Favorite Female Artist:
Celine Dion, Christina Aguilera, Whitney Houston Favorite Male Artist:
Luther Vandross, Josh Groban, Boyz 2 Men

and I dunno, I don't see Kitty Wells or Loretta Lynn or Ernest Tubb or Tim McGraw on the list.  Things have changed for Ayla since her Idol tryout days; her father was elected to the Senate from Massachusetts and she felt the stirrings of steel guitar and twin fiddles in her musical soul.

This is jumping ahead a bit, though.  Used to be, a person would have some moderate success in pop or rock, and then when the records sales dipped and the concert bookings dwindled down to the occasional Cub Scout Blue and Gold Banquet here and there, they decided to go country.  Alan Jackson did a song about it, and the legend has it that Conway Twitty and his band were playing the Steel Pier in the pre-casino Atlantic City when suddenly he announced to the group, "Boys, we're going country!"

Worked out great for him.  Let's see how the road trip from Wrentham, MA to Nashville goes for her!

One for the Books

We got married on his birthday

It gets a little tricky following my reading habits; I prefer biographies and autobiographies and it's not uncommon to be reading two or three of them at once.  That's the present case; at home I have "Life" by Keith Richards going on as well as "Deconstructing Sammy," which is an account of the nightmarish accounting and legal problems involved in settling the last will and testament of the great Sammy Davis, Jr.  Incidentally, Sammy wrote two autobiographies along with collaborators Jane and Burt Boyar, "Yes I Can," and "Why Me."  If you're pressed for time, the Boyars condensed the two into the posthumous "Sammy, " and I also have a book of writings about SDJr called "The Sammy Davis Reader."

Sammy was many things to many people, but boring, he was not.  And if you ever want to sum up in one sentence the ego that drives talent to the top, how about this quote from Mr Davis: "It got to the point where there were only three important people in my life: Sammy, Davis, and Junior."

And I also read during my lunch hour at work, when I turn around and shove a sandwich down my neck and enjoy a book.  Right now lunchtime reading is "Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke," and I am learning a great deal about the life and sad death of the singing legend, who came up through the gospel tradition and was the lead singer of The Soul Stirrers before stepping out on his own pop music path.

JT - 1937 (?) - 2000

His replacement in The Soul Stirrers was Johnnie Taylor, chiefly remembered for his disco hit "Disco Lady,"  but please do yourself a favor and click here to be taken to the magical You Tube so you can hear Johnnie do "I Believe in You (You Believe in Me"), the 1973 hit that was playing the summer that Peggy and I met, and you know the rest.  All summer long I heard that song and every time I heard it, I knew she would believe in me forever.

If I were ever to write an autobiography, all that would be a great chapter.  Not that anyone would believe that two people could meet on a Thursday and be engaged on Monday, but it happens!  It's my true story.

Half Nelson

Well, the last of the Nelsons has left us.  David Nelson, older brother of Ricky, and first son of Ozzie and Harriet, died Tuesday at 74. Colon Cancer. 

David Nelson (1936-2011)

If you remember "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet," the family sitcom that ran for 14 years (320 half-hour episodes) from 1952 - 1966, you might join me in wondering just where were the "adventures."  It was a show about the nuclear family before that concept was blown to bits, but for a show with the word "adventures" in the title, they sure as heck didn't do much.  I don't think they even went anywhere. That's why I liked their show so doggone much, and wished that I had been named "Ozzie" and could just hang around the backyard all day, being all Ozzied up. Papa Ozzie didn't seem to have a job other than hanging around the house wearing a sweater and yukking it up with his neighbor Thorny Thornbury.  Mom Harriet was always baking cookies or lunching with her ladies club.  Older brother David went to school and nodded a lot, and of course his brother, "the irrepressible" Ricky, was a huge rock and roll star.  But that stardom didn't really figure into the show; most of the time, Ricky was seen going to school (high school, then college) and hanging around the malt shop with his buddies, including a guy named Wally, who giggled and dated Ginger.  


Imagine, though, how it was to be David Nelson.  His younger brother was, by all accounts, the more handsome son, and it was Ricky who became the rock 'n' roll star, with hit records and all that.  The younger child of two always seems to be the one who goes way afield in order to get all the attention, a theory which my older sister and lone sibling will verify any time you ask.  The story goes that young Rick was on a date with a girl who was all infatuated with Elvis, and Rick said, "Well, so what? I'm making a rock 'n' roll record!" and he mentioned it to his father, a former bandleader and recording star, and there we were.  "I'm Walkin' "! "Poor Little Fool"!  "Stood Up"! "Travelin' Man"! Ricky in the Top 10 many times!   Girls chasing him, tearing off his cardigan sweater, vying for his autograph and locks of his hair...and David, the older, quieter, steadier brother. It must have been interesting to be around all this Hollywood hysteria, as in the episode from Rick's real life, according to a biography of Rick cited in this Wikipedia article, when Secret Service agents caught Rick's wife Kris having sex with Ronald Reagan, Jr.  That had to hurt. Or Rick's wasteful, wasted life, which involved wasting his fortune and gulping every drug he could get his hands on, and which ended in a plane crash on New Year's Eve, 1985.


Maybe it wasn't all that bad, being David Nelson.  Slow and steady won the race again.  Farewell to another part of our Golden Era, and may Godspeed.

Theory of Relativity

Watch, listen and learn!

We need to stop and think about relative values.  For example, I have a buddy down Virginia way who is constantly chiding Keith Olbermann for being a "ratings failure."  I will admit that Olbermann is not for everyone, and what's more, he wouldn't be as good as he is were he to try to be as popular as O'Reilly and Hannity and cooking shows and shows about hoarders or Teen Moms and the algebra shows (Kate +8 - Jon = X ).  

Think about it. McDonald's sells a lot more fish filets than all the fine seafood houses sell Dover Sole dinners, but does that make them better food?  The inane poetry of Rod McKuen and Suzanne Somers flies out of bookstores, but does that mean that Keats, Shelley and Frost are inferior?   New Yorker readers know that comparing the sales figures of our favorite weekly to those of US, People, Star! and Time would bring a tear to our eyes.  It's relative.

And for all the braying that comedian Sarah Palin does about the "lame stream media" (and is her voice not that of a girl in your 5th grade class named "Judy," who always told the teacher, "You forgot to tell us what our HOMEWORK IS!" as the end-of-class bell rang?) I wonder how valuable anything like that is.  For instance, I went looking for some background on this Loughner person and wound up on the ABC News website.  Here, America, is what are the most popular videos being watched on that site as I write: 

• Accused Tucson Shooter Says 'Not a Word' to Investigators
• Palin's Now in 'Crosshairs' of Giffords Debate
• Woman Stopped Tucson Shooter From Reloading
• Photos: World's Craziest Airplane Paint Jobs
• Photos: Kate Gosselin Lounges in Tiny Bikini
• Photos: George Lopez Spotted With New Woman

So a deranged individual does what he did Saturday, and three related stories catch our collective interest.


But right after that, it's goofy airplane paint jobs, the surgical enhancement of Kate Gosselin, and a semi-famous comic with a new girlfriend.  

And they say we ain't so smart!

The word "gullible" does not appear in Webster's Dictionary!

All this commotion about the golden-voiced Ted Williams naturally led me to thinking about the other Ted Williams, the sweet-swinging slugger for the Boston Red Sox, whose departure from the game was covered so well in this New Yorker article by John Updike.  "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu" would be of interest even to those who never saw a ball game, since it was so well-written.  Updike knew what we was talking about, and his essay was published in the finest magazine known to man.  

To my mind, there have been three landmark accomplishments in the field of publishing, which is to make public one's thoughts:

• Steve Gutenberg's invention of movable type, which made printing possible
• Mr. Xerox's invention of the photocopier
• Al Gore's invention of the World Wide Web

It was the last of those that has led to so much misinformation and confusion, though.  It's nothing new: before everyone was on Facebook, everyone whose face was not in a real book was photocopying nonsense, such as the flier that kept going around urging people not to buy the soap-and-cosmetic products of a certain firm because "the president of the company went on the Phil Donahue Show and proclaimed that he is a devil-worshiper and that's why the corporate logo has a picture of the man in the moon."

See why I am not mentioning the name of the company?  I don't want to start the goofiness all over again.  

But I got a certain email the other day for the 43rd time.  This one shows up almost as often as the ones used to from the various descendants of kings and potentates of emerging African nations who died and left a fortune of "1.2 million USD" and you could be duked in on a big chunk of that if you would be willing to violate both the laws of the international banking community and the international common sense community.  So in the spirit of getting the facts out there, it's time to remind everyone that the Cindy Williams who was once some sort of minor figure in the Congressional Budget Office, the Cindy Williams who wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington POST several years ago claiming that soldiers were not entitled to a raise in pay, is NOT the same Cindy Williams who once played Shirley Feeney in "Laverne and Shirley."

She didn't do it!

Somewhere along the way, someone got all worked up about this article, and then said,"Why lookit!  This was written by someone named Cindy Williams!  Clearly we can assume that she is the same Cindy Williams who was once a famous actress!"

And so began the emailing, all designed to make sure that all right-thinking Americans knew just how screwy this woman is and to make sure that we all shun the Cindy Williams Film Festival at the Rialto, should there ever be one.  And she didn't write it!  But it has besmirched her name and reputation, just because some hothead made a hasty error.

She says:

"I've done everything to try to squelch it, but nothing seems to work...I have people writing and calling me, even my friends, asking: 'Are you against a pay raise for the military?' And I reply, 'You know me, I'd fight {in the military} if I could, because I am such a patriot. It's been really worrisome. It's terrible to malign people like that. I don't know where to go to say I didn't do this."

Maybe she should appear on Bill O'Reilly or Glenn Beck's show, two reliable outlets for truth seekers.

Nuts and bullets

Do you remember the first "Rocky" movie, in which Apollo Creed agreed to fight a nobody once his scheduled bout had been cancelled, just to make a Bicentennial event still go off as scheduled?  And that "nobody" was Rocky Balboa, and the plan was for him to show up and be defeated, with the champ Creed doing some showmanship at first, to "give the crowd a show," as the announcer said?

And then, it turned out that Rocky showed up ready, willing and able to fight, leading Apollo's worried corner man to say, "He don't know it's a show!  He thinks it's a damn fight!"

Jared Lee Loughner, 22, didn't understand that Sarah Palin and others use violent imagery to stir the easily stirred, so he just got a little too stirred up, and Jared got his gun.

By Sunday morning, as we might have predicted, everyone was all over TV saying that when a tragedy occurs such as a congresswoman being shot and left in critical condition,  and at least six others dead, why, it's time to put politics aside.

Politics is what got us to the point at which this dreadful  Loughner could walk up to a place in front of a Safeway in Tucson AZ - a place where the local ABC affiliate bears the call letters KGUN-TV - and begin shooting his handgun off, wreaking damnable damage while some people were only trying to carry on the nut-and-bolt business of democracy.

Politics such as this:

 

Sarah points out where to shoot

(CNN) – As of Saturday, Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' name appeared on a website titled "take back the 20" as part of a list originally issued by Sarah Palin of vulnerable House Democrats. A map on the site showed crosshairs over the contested Democratic districts.

Palin first posted the list in March 2010, naming 20 House members who voted for health care reform and represented districts that Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona won in the 2008 presidential election.

The post read, "We'll aim for these races and many others. This is just the first salvo in a fight to elect people across the nation who will bring common sense to Washington," and was accompanied by a map with targets over the districts. 

At the time, Giffords responded to the map by saying on MSNBC that her long-serving colleagues had "never seen anything like it."

"The thing is, the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district," Giffords said in March. "When people do that, they've got to realize there's consequences to that action."

After Giffords was shot in Tuscon, Arizona, Saturday, Palin responded on her Facebook page:
"My sincere condolences are offered to the family of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today's tragic shootings in Arizona. On behalf of Todd and my family, we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice."
At a press conference Saturday, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik criticized people who are making a living off "inflaming the American public."

"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government, the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous," Dupnik said. 
"Unfortunately, Arizona has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry."

And Saturday's tragedy was not the first time the Arizona Democrat was targeted. The day after she voted in favor of health care reform, a glass panel at her Tucson office was shattered. 

In November's election, Rep. Giffords was re-elected to a third term in Congress, narrowly defeating someone named Jesse Kelly. Jesse was only too glad to hop on the violence wagon.  He ran an event in which...well, you can see it for yourself:

Get on target! Remove her!  Shoot a gun!  

If you go to Jesse Kelly's website, all this sort of thing has been scrubbed.  The only thing left is a statement about how he deplores the sort of violence that he helped foment.  No longer do we get to see the picture of a man running for Congress while holding his weapon and dressed in Marine garb.

Palin and people like her are masters of sowing seeds of hatred and violence, and then, when hatred and violence leave their ugly mark on society, stepping back and saying how horrible it is that hatred and violence have erupted.  As Sheriff Dupnik said, this vitriol is having a horrible effect on our nation.  Sarah Palin's gun sight imagery, "targeting" Gabrielle Giffords, had its intended effect, didn't it?

I hope the former half-governor is proud.

Those Who Can't Teach

by Jim Fixx

I've often made this point to physical phitness phanatics: Jim Fixx is gone and Keith Richards lives on.

Of course, it's a specious comparison, but there's still a "Colonel of truth" (as I once saw it written) in my contention that one's lifespan will be largely determined by heredity, genetics, and one's disinclination to fall from the roofs of tall buildings.

Toward this end, I asked Santa for a copy of Keith's autobiography "Life" and am currently plowing through it.  I have gotten to the point at which young Keith, in what I take to be the English version of our middle schools, is a boy soprano in a handpicked choir chosen to perform in Westminster Abbey for the Queen.  He says that to this day, that is still the most splendid setting for any performance he has given, and remember, he has played in the Baltimore Civic Arena on several occasions.

Keith in Baltimore, 2006

But then his voice changed, as will happen to a young lad, and it was back to regular school, where he was told that because he missed so many classes due to the choir rehearsal schedule, he had to repeat a year.  This sparked the inward rebellion that led to his joining that ragtag bunch of misfits that we call the Rolling Stones.  Because he felt hoodwinked by the school authorities, Keith has had trust issues with people in authority from that day to this.

I learned a similar lesson, and it had nothing to do with any sort of choir, I assure you.  I was in 9th grade at the exclusive Towsontown Junior High School, warming a seat in a civics classroom under the tutelage of a young teacher who spent lots of class time conveying to us that we could expect him to be out sick the day after St Patrick's Day ("I like to drink, kids!" was the message we took away from that.)

Employing an age-old trick, one day he popped a quiz on us, rather than actually teach a lesson.  One of the questions was to name the governor of California.  I wrote "Pat Brown" and when the quiz came back, that correct answer was marked wrong.  The teacher told me that the answer he wanted was "Edmund Brown."  I told him that Governor Edmund G. Brown, Sr., was universally known by the nickname "Pat," but the teacher said he had never heard that, so therefore I could not be right.  After class I went to the school library and borrowed a copy of Newsweek magazine that had an article about "California's Pat Brown: New Visions for the Golden State" or some such, and I showed that to the teacher, and he said he didn't care how many things I showed him, because if HE didn't know that Mr Brown was known as Pat, that no one else should have to.

That was not the last time I dealt with such intransigence in my life, but it was probably the first time I became aware of the four types of people among us:

• those who know, and know they know
• those who know, and don't know they know
• those who don't know, and know they don't know
•  those who don't know and don't know they don't know

Jerry Brown is back again!

That last group is the most pernicious among us.  Better to avoid them at all costs, because things don't change.  The current governor of California, is, of course, Pat's son Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown, Jr.  



Like Schwarzenegger, he said he'd be back, and here he is!

1/8/35 - 8/16/77

"All my work has been from God, for God, and for my people." - Thomas Dorsey

I find it interesting when a person learns to do one thing well, and fascinating when someone can do two things well.  For someone who can do three things well - for example, writing, singing, and performing monologues - we have the example of Garrison Keillor.  There aren't many others like Mr Keillor, the host of "A Prairie Home Companion" on the radio.  

I will bet you a nickel that Mr Keillor has sung the songs of Thomas A. Dorsey on his show.  His later songs, that is.  Thomas A. Dorsey was an interesting man.  

Thomas A. Dorsey

For one thing, he is not to be confused with the big band leader Tommy Dorsey, who gave Sinatra his big break a hundred and ten years ago.  This Thomas A. Dorsey (1899 - 1993) is today known as the father of black gospel music, which would seem to come naturally to someone whose father was a preacher and his mother, a piano teacher.  Starting in the Roaring Twenties, he was part of such bands as the "Wild Cats Jazz Band," and he performed under names such as Barrelhouse Tom and Texas Tommy or Georgia Tom, under which sobriquet he partnered with a fellow named Tampa Red to compose the pretty love ballad "Tight Like That."  He wrote hundreds of such songs.  Local residents who used to listen to The Greaseman on the radio will remember how Grease would use Dorsey's jazzy "Somebody's Been Usin' That Thing" for comedic effect.  

However, Mr Dorsey was also dabbling in gospel music at the same time, performing at the 1930 National Baptist Convention and working as musical director in several churches.  Music, and his religious upbringing, brought the gospel out in him.

And then, in 1932, his wife Nettie died in childbirth.  Compounding the tragedy, the child she bore died two days later.  Out of the anguish of the man who only years before had written ribald barrelhouse blues came the gospel classic "Take My Hand, Precious Lord."  This song was most famous in its version by Mahalia Jackson, and it was the song played at the rally led by Dr Martin Luther King the night before he was assassinated, and the favorite song of President Lyndon Johnson, who requested that it be played at his funeral.

Mr Dorsey also wrote "Peace In the Valley" and many many other songs performed in churches of all faiths the world over.  Rock 'n' roll music has as one of its foundations the gospel music tradition, and in Thomas A. Dorsey we saw the faithful world meeting the secular long before Elvis and Little Richard joined the two.

I keep waiting to hear Paul Harvey tell us that this was the rest of the story, but oh well...

 

As the Nation Stood Transfixed

I don't know what this man's story is, this man without a home or job, the man identified as Ted Williams.

It was Tuesday night at dinnertime that I first saw the YouTube video, showing this man with one of those golden radio voices, seemingly down on his luck on the streets.  

By the next morning, he was on the CBS Early Show and likely by the end of that day he had been seen on other shows, and the reporting said that he had a job and a home.

Catch up on it here if you haven't seen the latest.

One almost hates to bring this up, but a radio friend told me the whole thing might be some sort of prank or hoax.  Which, of course, introduces a moral conundrum, and I am all in favor of using conundrums when engaged in social intercourse.

OK.  What if the guy really is a guy without a home, with talent that he buried for all these years under illicit and overused substances and a dissolute lifestyle? If that's the case, then what a pity this is.  I suppose that the shoulders of life's highway are full of broken-down vehicles that once were driving promising futures toward admirable goals.  So what, you say, if a guy blew his chance at being a voice talent?  And I say, what if someone who was on the way to becoming a doctor, a spiritual leader, or the inventor of a splendid pain-relief invention had a similar breakdown and wound up on that shoulder?

Or!  What if he is already a radio guy and did this for some sort of YouTube gag? Is it funny to impersonate a homeless guy?  I'm no expert in this area (the only area in which I begin to qualify as an expert would be the category known as Catchy Things That People Say To Each Other On Situation Comedies Or In Movies) but I suspect that the homeless, in their plight, would not cotton to being used as a platform for a prank.  But at least we can be thankful that he was not really reduced to mendicancy.

As tends to happen, the nation seems transfixed on this story; websites, email handlers and the staffs of all those shows that come on between 7 and 8 at night (Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, Inside Edition, Family Guy) are working feverishly on getting the latest info on Mr Williams into their next shows. I keep wondering why the noted photographer and novelist F-Stop Fitzgerald said there are no second acts in American lives.  Wherever this man has been up until this week has all been prologue for what's coming next.  Let's hope it's all good!

 

To Thine Own Self

I found this image online just by stumbling around, and it really struck me that it would be a much easier world to stumble around in if everyone just decided to keep it real.

That's what the young 'uns say, right?  Keep it real.

For one thing, I have always been mystified by people who can keep juggling so many images at one time; it's hard to tell who they really are.  There are people who are willing to talk "street" to some people and then talk all high-falutin' with the swanky set.  I couldn't pull that one off, as I am not smart enough to remember what each different person thinks I am.  But you hear this sort of thing all the time, don't you?

"Yeah, dude, you rule, you're the bomb.  These DVDs kick major butt; thanks for burning them for me. I ain't looking to pay Redbox no dollar when you can copy 'em... Oh, hello, Mrs Worthingsham!  Lawrence and I were just discussing some significant movie releases, and he was kind enough to allow me to borrow his copy of "The Black Swan" so that my little sister can see it.  She so enjoys the ballet."

This is more than being Eddie Haskell; it's more like trying to be all things to all people, and Attention! Everyone who would try to do that: You can't.  You won't.

People who will run games with you, pretending to be your friend while running you down behind your back: more bad news.  How can they remember what they said to whom?  It must be some awful gift they have.

Iron-Bar Hilton at Jessup, MD

Rockports: Mallwalkers' favorites

It's just about the worst thing to be a phony, to have such a front built up that hardly anyone knows the real you.  Personally, I am about as far from perfect as it's possible to be without residing in the Jessup cut, but I'd never try to claim anything but my meager belongings, my little bit of knowledge, and the greatest thing in my life: my wonderful Peggy.  I drive a beat-up truck (I do my own beating-up on it), I generally wear khakis or jeans, a sport shirt and Rockports, and I feel very very sorry for guys who have to look at themselves in the mirror as they shave and see a bogus countenance leering back at them.

It seems that I have been reading a lot about people who have three or four personas going on, and I wonder why they would bother.  If all you have is all you are, and if you're being the best "you" you can be, please be assured that you are doing a lot better than the fakers.  Be yourself!  No one else can do it better!

Shot

The news that Oriole relief pitcher Alfredo Simon is being questioned in two shootings in his native Dominican Republic - one person was killed, another wounded - failed to send shockwaves through the Baltimore community over the weekend. Dominican police said on Sunday they believe Simon shot and killed 25-year-old Michel Castillo Almonte and wounded his 17-year-old brother during a New Year's Eve fight in the northeast coastal town of Luperon.

Two people shot on New Year's Eve.  Same as here in Baltimore, where both of the victims died. 

Anyhow, Simon has turned himself in to police; at right is his picture with the chief of police down there.

People were quick to blogulate and comment on Facebook about all this, saying that being in Baltimore had influenced Simon to the point at which he is acting like a Baltimorean, which is to say, shooting a gun recklessly.

I think it has nothing to do with Baltimore or even Maryland or even the United States.  I don't know what the gun laws are in the Dominican Republic, and I don't know who shot Almonte and his brother, and I don't know why they were shot.  I do know that they were, and that there is one less person on the planet today because of it, and I wish that people would stop toting guns around and shooting each other.  Simon says that he was in the area on New Year's Eve but that he had nothing to do with the shooting.  Of course, who knows what happened?  I don't, and it will be up to the Dominican authorities to determine where to go next with this case.

But back here, we hear so often that young people turn to violence because the futility of their existence, the hopelessness that pervades so many lives, leads them down a path of nihilistic abandon.  They don't care about anything, since they have nothing to live for, goes the popular explanation.

At 6'4", 230 lbs, Alfredo Simon has a God-given talent to pick up a baseball and throw it very hard and very fast.  He has honed that talent to an ability to throw the ball past opposing hitters in a baseball game.  For this, he was paid $400,000 in 2009, the last season for which his salary was available.  You'd have to surmise that since he had a decent 4-2 season with an earned run average of below 5 per game, that makes him a real star on the beleaguered Oriole pitching staff, and so he was in line for decent raises.

Even if he is cleared of charges, even if there is a trial and he is found not guilty, still, a man is dead down there in the Dominican, and people are dead all over our town.  Baltimore just about threw itself a huge pizza party over the weekend because "only" 223 people were murdered in our fair city in 2010, most of them by handguns. 

I keep asking if this is what the framers of the Constitution had in mind, and for someone to explain why criminals are allowed to run around with guns, shooting each other as if this were Chicago in the 1920s, but no one is willing to explain it. 

And people call sports talk radio shows to discuss who might be tapped to take Simon's place in the bullpen this summer.

And still the killing goes on.

UPDATE from late last night: Simon now says that he was firing his pistol in celebration of the New Year and somehow the bullets shot the two men, who happen to be his cousins.  

Spike the Punch

What I wouldn't pay to have a suit like this!

First of all, please remember that this song was recorded back in another era, so its gratuitous reference to random violence and stereotypical mother-in-law jokes must be regarded as coming from an era when people would take a baseball bat to the movies.  It's Spike Jones and His City Slickers, with their song "Happy New Year" and here is where you can see it on the YouTube, and below are the words!

This is my New Year's resolution:
When my mother-in-law begins to yell and shout
Through the window I would like to throw her out.
But I resolve not to do it, here is why:
I'm afraid of hitting someone passing by.
This is my New Year's resolution.

When I'm at the movies watching a love seen
And a lady's hat is blocking half the screen
I resolve not to shout, "Take off that hat!"
I'll remove it gently with a baseball bat.
This is my New Year's Resolution.

When I take a lovely lady out to eat
And she orders caviar instead of meat
I resolve to let the lady have her fill.
And of course I'll also let her pay the bill.
This is my New Year's Resolution.

When I'm sitting with my wifey on a bus
And a dear old lady stands in front of us
I resolve to be a gentleman discreet.
I'll politely offer her my wifey's seat.
This is my New Year's Resolution.

When my mother says, "Come in, it's time to eat."
And I keep on playing games out in the street
I resolve to rush right home now when I'm called
Cause my pop just got a hairbrush and he's bald.
This is my New Year's Resolution.

On the radio this year I hope to score
With some funny jokes you've never heard before.
I resolve not to tell a corny joke.
Hello, what's that? The church burned down? Holy smoke!
This is my New Year's Resolution.

In this coming year I'm going to be discreet.
Have the Slickers playing music soft and sweet.
I resolve to treat Tchaikovsky tenderly
And set his second movement with TNT.
This is my New Year's Resolution.

And for those who read all the way through the lyrics, here is Today's Celebrity Surprise!  Spike Jones is the uncle of the actress named Judy Strangis, whom you will remember as Helen Loomis in "Room 222," Dyna Girl in "Electra Woman and Dyna Girl" and also as Mean Mary Jean in the Plymouth commercials.  

I just found this out and could not wait to share it.  Don't feel too bad; Peggy couldn't remember her either and wonders why I do.

Add Resolutions and Stir Gently

Today's Horoscope: Old Lang's Sign

Just to show you how the mind wanders, I went to Google earlier with every intention of looking up the real original Scottish words to "Auld Lang Syne," which is a song we all sing on New Year's Eve, often without any idea what the words really mean.  I like to know what the words mean, so I Googled them.

But then I landed on some Scottish website and from there I went to an online Scottish radio station.  It's called Black Diamond FM 107.8 and you can tune them in here on your pc.  I have a well-known affinity for Scottish accents, and you have to be careful with them; they are the kinds of things that can get you kilt.

I never promised to knock off the lousy puns, remember?

Peggy and I once waited for about an hour so that I could meet Sheena Easton at the grand opening of a gym near us.  It was worth it just to hear the same voice that thrilled us by singing "Morning Train" say to me, "And how arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre ye todayyyyyyyyyyyyyy?"  I love that accent.

The radio station seems to be some sort of community-owned and operated deal without commercials and plenty of music from the last four decades, so at least I know some of it.  The jocks and newspeople have that amazing sound in their voices and I recommend that you give your local radio a rest for a minute to check these folks out.

But that's the point...the mind wanders, and I went from looking for lyrics to Robert Burns's greatest poem to hearing "Jumpin' Jack Flash" introduced by a Scottish DJ.  Pretty cool!

And as far as those lyrics:

Verse One

Should old acquaintances be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne?

Chorus

For auld lang  syne, my dear
For auld Lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!

Verse Two

And there's a hand my trusty fiere,
And gie's a hand o thine
And we'll tak a right guid-willie waught,
For auld lang sine

Chorus  (repeat)

For auld lang  syne, my dear
For auld Lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!


(Should old acquaintances be forgotten)
(and never remembered)
(Should old acquaintance be forgotten)
(For old long ago)

Chorus

(For old long ago, my dear)
( For old long ago)
(We will take a cup of kindness yet)
(For old long ago)



(And there is a hand my trust friend)
(And give me a hand of yours)
(And we will take of a good drink/toast)
(For old long ago)



(For old long ago, my dear)
( For old long ago)
(We will take a cup of kindness yet)
(For old long ago)

I got this from the World Burns Club website  and I can recommend that you go there too! My goal for 2011 is to forget about 2010 and move forward while staying far to the left!  See you there!

Oh Baby!

Boy oh boy! (or girl oh girl!) we seem to be running out of things to argue out, so let's close 2010 with the raging dispute about how horrible it is that a hospital in Western Maryland is not allowing fathers, brothers, aunts, Steven Spielberg, or anyone else to bring a camera and their artistic eye in the delivery room for the first five minutes of a baby's life.

Imagine that!  Check the news story about a woman who has had the tradition of snapping the lens for all seven of her previous young'uns, and now bemoans the fate of #8, who will not be photographed as he or she plummets into the great new world that she or he just became a part of, a world in which every breath, every movement, every moment of even the tiniest significance is digitally recorded, enhanced, and shared with the world via YouTube, MySpace, Facebook and Judge Judy.

I can understand wanting to have pictures of Sonny Jim shortly after the blessed event takes place.  In our day, the fathers were required to pass the time in a lineoleum-tiled waiting room, smoking Old Golds and pacing.  They durst not go near the delivery room for fear of being asked to boil water.  Now it's much better, and the father, having attended most of the LaMaze classes, and having studied on the current standings of the LaLeche League, is in touch with his inner self and is ready to be of assistance as needed.  But, having been to medical school, the doctor is pretty much ready to handle the birth, leaving dear old dad to set up lights, tripods and those umbrella things for the flash, the better to record the very moment of Stewie's arrival.

Those who are yelping about the policy of the Meritus Hospital, which tells PhotoDad to just cool it with the camera for five minutes, are claiming that the first time they make eye contact with little Junior is a valuable moment that cannot be forgotten.  Therefore, they have to have a picture of it.

Over the years, I have been shown still photographs of the wife of a co-worker, nekkid except for a coating of Betadine all up and down her strike zone, as she lay awaiting the birth of her child.  I am absolutely not making this up.  Much like a flip book, the stack of 125 following photographs could be riffled through to make like a little movie...first you saw the woman and then you saw her giving birth, or you would have, if you hadn't handed the stack back to the dude and run screaming for the door.

Then we were at a friend's once and she asked if we would like to see the baby's video.  Act 1, Scene 1, was our friend's private parts in extreme close-up.  I ran for the door and watched Live With Regis and Kelly to bathe and soothe my eyes. 

So can we agree that birth photos and videos might be a nice thing for the parents to have, and certainly a fine souvenir of the day little Whoosit came to be, but the rest of us are not interested in, or comfortable with, seeing splayed pudenda and legs akimbo of someone we actually KNOW?

And as for the parents' private collection of birth pix, I should point out that this policy was put in place because a doctor at this hospital, attempting to help a woman give birth, had to shove aside forcibly her camera-bug husband so as to get himself in position to save her life and bring to life the baby.

I mean, come on, Doc, let's not get in the way of a good photo-op with all this medicine and whatnot! 

Meet the Little FOXers

On Election Day, 2008, I was conversing with a high-school dropout of my acquaintance.  He was surprised to find that I had a) voted and b) voted for Barack Obama for president.

"He's a (sic) Arab terrorist ," claimed the young man who remains to this day a stranger to knowledge.

And then I heard the voice of Daniel Stern, who narrated "The Wonder Years," and that voice was saying, "That was when I realized that Barack Obama could find a cure for cancer and disenchantment, heal the divisions that pain us all, and find a suitable comeback vehicle for Joe Piscopo, and there will still be those who heap disdain and scorn upon him."

When we saw the news over the past weekend  that the president had contacted the owner of the Philadelphia Eagles football team, congratulating Jeffrey Lurie for giving Michael Vick a second chance at employment, I knew what was coming next.

We've talked about this Vick thing before.  No one - not even Michael Vick - is claiming that his prosecution and 21-month jail term were wrong, and that's quite the rarity in criminal circles.  But no matter where you stand on dogfighting and the abuse involved therein, you have to accept our justice system. Vick did the crime, and then he did the time, and according to everything we hold dear, he is now entitled to go back and try to pick up his life from where he left it.

And let's face it; Vick's job skills were in greater demand than those of the average felon just out of the Walled-Off Astoria, although the Eagles were really the only team that made him any kind of substantial offer.  And as life would have it, Vick is now a better passer, teammate and leader than he ever was before he went up the river.  No one would have predicted this, and therefore the Eagles are to be commended for giving him his second chance.

Right?  Right.

And speaking of the right, FOXNEWS has come out against the president making a phone call.  And to hear what their anchor, Megyn Kelly, has to say about it (clip is here), you would think that the president called the Eagles to congratulate Vick for being so brutal.

Saved By The Bell - The College Years

It reminds me when Lewis "Scooter" Libby, late of the staff of Dick "Scooter" Cheney, committed a crime and outed a member of our country's national security staff, exposing that person to danger and ruining her career.  Libby's sentence was commuted by one-time President George "Scooter" Bush, who said that Libby had paid enough of a price, what with his legal bills and all.

Libby never set foot in a prison, thanks to Bush, the darling of FOXNEWS.   But that was ok by them.  Just don't give anyone else a second chance without sniping behind their back about it.

...and I LIKED it!

Jamie

I am personally acquainted with Jamie Costello, the great anchor/reporter here at Baltimore's WMAR ABC-2 News.  I am proud to call him a friend, and I watch him do the news whenever I'm available to do so.

The other night, he got me to thinking, as he is wont to do.  (He does the news in a much more personal, and therefore enjoyable, style than the Ted Baxter style I see so much of around town.)  He passed along the stunning news that once again, that ol' love bug had hit Hef hard.

Get 'em to the church on time

Yes, folks, octogenarian play"boy" Hugh Hefner and twentygenarian Crystal Harris are planning to be married, and you have to figure her parents are oh so proud.  No word from his.

But Jamie made the point that their iPods might not be so compatible, pointing out that "his has Perry Como on it, and hers has Katy Perry!"

Mine has both!

She just married that Russell Brand guy

I really like Como's way, the way he sang ballads, novelty numbers and Christmas tunes.  And, yes, just ahead of Ke$ha in my hot hits slot in the 'Pod is where you will find Ms Perry doing "Hot N' Cold," "California Gurls" and "I Kissed a Girl."
And just when you wonder why an old-timer such as I can groove to tunes made by and for people a third of my age, I can switch right over to Perry's versions of "Papa Loves Mambo","Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive","'A' — You're Adorable","Hot Diggity (Dog Ziggity Boom)","Zing Zing —Zoom Zoom" and "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo (The Magic Song)."

Later on, as the mood mellows, I can switch to some of his novelty tunes.

If there's anyone else running around with this sort of eclectic taste, please get in touch. Maybe we could do a song called "Hot N' Cold Diggity Dog"!