...but you can't tuna fish

Breaking news: Dateline Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where an armed man has been charged with pointing and presenting a firearm at a person.

Someone else was heating up a fish dinner at the workplace microwave, and you know what kind of unpleasant miasma can result from that. So Michael DeBiase, 46, pulled out a handgun and brandished it toward the person operating the micronuke.

I skipped over the part that would have told you that DeBiase's work title is Police Detective. 

He's facing felony charges, has been arrested and terminated from his job. He's due back in court on August 14 and has made no public statement at this time, but hey! He's got most of the summer off now, and he lives in a resort town, so hit the beach, Barney!

Seriously. The Myrtle Beach Police did the right thing. In days gone by, this would have been swept under the rug, but it's different now.  As they said in a statement to the press and public, "This incident does not reflect the values demonstrated by the men and women of the Myrtle Beach Police Department every day. However, it does demonstrate our commitment to accountability and our willingness to address conduct that falls short of our expectations.”

One has to assume that DiBiase does not possess the right temperament to do his job. But maybe with counseling, he can find work in the field of pre-owned automotive sales.

Or maybe there's a Red Lobster or Bonefish Grill down there hiring.

 

Every year

 Of all the things that are predictable every June (it's too hot, it's too cold, people need an extra ticket for a high school graduation, there are kids playing outside, "there are kids playing outside and they should be in school!") one of the most nonsensical is the animosity directed at Pride Month.

Every year! I don't know if it's the same people every year, but it's always the same complaints! "How come they get a whole month to celebrate? I was in the (Army, Navy,  Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard) and we don't get a whole month!"

Or "Turn your back on sin and repent, lest ye be condemned to a fiery hell!"

And the usual chorus of homophobia. 

It goes on and on and on, but why? 

Please tell me what difference it makes in your life if two people are in love. The older I get (and I'm getting older every day, same as you) the less I care about who does what with whom, as long as they don't wake me up, set fire to my house, or steal my money.

It happens every year, and I keep hoping that people will grow up and find something else about which to natter on. It won't happen, but we can hope!

"We're all out of Tutti-Frutti"

I never got around to asking my World War II - sailor father about the ice cream barges.

The Navy did not allow crew or officers to have alcohol aboard, but they figured that ice cream would be a good substitute for the people out there in the Pacific Theater, so they commissioned three large barges (I don't have any idea if they were all that big, but I do like saying "large barges") to store and distribute frozen and cold food. The barges: USS Hydrogen, USS Calcium, and USS Antimony, were towed in the seas, carrying 1,500 tons of frozen meat and 500 tons of refrigerated vegetables, eggs, and dairy products.

And some smart person thought to rig up each barge with machinery that could make ten gallons of ice cream every seven minutes, or five tons a day.

I know that Dad would have ordered vanilla! 

Color Drenching

I try to keep up with all the trends in fashion and home decor. I mean, I see the trends, but I don't act on them personally, for fear of being accused of being a follower.

I follow a lot of websites and FB pages that offer decorating advice. I didn't need any of it when it came to decorating my den in the popular Early Baseball motif. 

But I have seen this thing they call "color drenching" and I wondered about it. Taken literally, it would seem that it involves soaking your furniture, knick-knacks, bric-a-brac, and objets d art in a huge vat of Sherwin-Williams's finest. 

However, it's not that deep. They just mean drenching the surfaces all in one color. The website OliveandJunehome.com defines color drenching this way: 

In a nutshell, color drenching is the art of using one single color across every surface—walls, ceiling, trim, and even furniture if you're feeling extra.

Speaking of nutshells, Sherwin-Williams has a color called Nutshell (SW 6040). It looks like this, if you want to drench your living room: 

But if that's not your cup of nuts, there's always "Agreeable Gray (SW 7029). 

Go try it! Let's be extra, whatever that means.

Reach out and touch

I was reading about a man named Nick Epley. He's a behavioral science professor, and that's a great field to study. Dozens of people over the years have made a science of trying to get me to behave (and only one has succeeded). 

Epley has written a book called "A Little More Social," and he stresses that just chatting to people - even strangers - has a way of making us feel better and happier. A longtime subscriber to the theory that a stranger is just a friend we haven't met yet, I have never had a problem talking to strangers. I mean, what does it hurt to say hey to someone and ask them about how they like the weather, or how about those Orioles, or do they think this spot on the back of my hand looks like something to worry about.

Just kidding with that last one.  As a Medicarian, I have semi-annual dermatology visits in which every square inch of my epidermis is examined as if it were the hide of a long-frozen yak from the Tibetan plateau.

Start making the first step to reach out to others, is what Epley advises, It's a sure cure for loneliness!  And by doing so, you make new friends. I can't tell you how many times a stranger with whom I shared but a brief interlude in some office building has gone home and told their family, "I met a most interesting fellow today. He asked me to look at the back of his hand..."

Sunday Rerun: Stop! In The Name of Love!

 People are always using arcane laws to try to get a legal toehold in their crackpot cases. You read about someone who sues their neighbor for trespassing when all the guy did was walk up to their door, collecting for a canned food drive, or the guy who sued Michael Jordan for looking too much like him, or the odd case of the man from Minnesota who sued David Copperfield and David Blaine, noted magicians, for using his "godly powers" in their acts. This same man also claimed to have been married to Katie Couric and Celine Dion, so there's that.

But for real, there is a law that dates back to the days when women were considered property. A law known as "alienation of affection" allows a dumped husband in Hawaii, Illinois, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Dakota and Utah to seek damages (namely, money) from a guy who wins the affections of his erstwhile wife.

The present case involves a man from North Carolina whose wife took off with a member of the Philadelphia Eagles football team. The man filed court papers that said that up until his wife met the athlete on a business trip, they had a perfect marriage and it all went to hell only because she met the ballplayer.

Son, let me tell you something. If someone loves you completely and fully, they will love you no matter what. Even though the toilet keeps making that funny sound and the car needs tires and the orthodontist wants to be paid and "happily ever after" seems like three words on a Hallmark card, if two people are really in love, they ain't goin' nowhere.

Likewise, if the love isn't there, no amount of gold-plated toilets and Yokahama yk580 tires and perfectly dentulous children will keep it together.  

Even The Captain And Tennille couldn't stand each other after 39 years, for crying out loud.

I'm sorry for the man whose wife left him, but it's like in high school when someone doesn't want to go out with you...no amount of cajolery will change that.  I refer to the great sage Yogi Berra, who reminded us that "if people don't want to come to the ballgames, how are you gonna stop them?"

The Saturday Picture Show, May 30, 2026

 

If you're a full moon, all you have to do to earn the coveted Blue Moon status is be the second one in a month. Tomorrow's moon (5/31) will just sneak in there!

First chance we get, we'll have to ask Herbert how he's doing.

The perfect last-day-of-school gift for a teacher. I would have had bakeries working around the clock in my schoolboy days. Yes, I know, you're surprised. I talked a lot.

The Spanish is not accurate but for what the mortgage shell-out must be every month, let them have their joke!

This sad banana has a future, and it involves banana bread!

I don't know if this is meant as a joke or if it's a Freudian slip, but this is the decor that one sees in a certain colonoscopy clinic.

I don't know. If you want to live on a boat, why not just do that, rather than building a boat-like house?

I will never again trust a brush manufacturer.

No, these are not those confounded clacker balls from the 1970s. This is a rural fire suppression idea. If a fire breaks out in a barn, when it gets hot enough, the glass globes will break and drop a fire-retardant chemical, thereby putting out the flames. I'm still calling the Fire Department.

Manhattanhenge was this past week, when the setting sun aligns perfectly and naturally with New York's street grids. All of Gotham is agog and takes a break from shooting, robbing, and indicting each other for a moment to gawk, then it's back to the regular.