Why is he popular?

I have not said much about Baltimore's Own Luigi Mangione, scion of a notable local family who's facing the death penalty for imposing the death penalty on an insurance executive.

Two reasons: I continued to think that Luigimania would die down, and it seems to have done so somewhat, and I just could not believe the amount of people who insisted that killing the HMFIC of an insurance company was acceptable.

We've all had beefs with our health and car insurance, and even if you feel particularly aggrieved because a dear relative died and you are certain that the insurer could have done more, approved something else, made arrangements for other medications in their case, I don't think that justifies murder. Sorry, I just don't. Sue the bastids, take them to court, show up at their offices daily to demand accomodation, but when you take out a gun to take out a CEO, you are doing what you said he did to your mother or whomever. 

And I like to think that right-thinking Americans are better than that. 

It helps some to regard young Luigi as a picaresque Robin Hood sort of guy...local preppie, valedictorian, descendant of business leaders and a Republican Maryland State delegate. Some apparently see a resemblance to some video game character. He's a folk hero to some, and it reminds me of when John Dillinger was running around the country holding up banks in the 1930s. Some got the idea that Dillinger was so sort of good guy, and they convinced themselves that he divided the loot he looted from banks among the needy in the towns where he stole. And he never did anything of the sort, but depression-era America needed a hero, and there he was.

In February, someone sent Luigi a heart-shaped note hidden in a pair of socks delivered to him for wearing to a court appearance.

Let me know what a Google search gives you on "John Dillinger soup kitchens" or "Dillinger pays mortgages for hard-hit farmers." John Dillinger loved that part of being famous. Towns even posted "Welcome Dillinger" signs along their outskirt roads, hoping to lure the Indiana badman to their town, ostensibly to share his wealth.

I don't profess to know what's going on in young Mangione's head, but even if he thinks he's right to carry the cudgel for those whose insurance companies did them wrong, he's wrong. Go become a lawyer and fight for those people the right way, in courts, or with your Uncle Nino down at the state capital. In becoming a murderer, you became what you found so wrong in others.

And if you think that this man's death changed anything, you're wrong again.

 

Penny wise

At 6' 3", Michael Andrew "Duff" McKagan, former bassist for Guns N' Roses, towers above many people, especially where moolah is concerned.

Duff

His name is not the inspiration for Homer Simpson's favorite beer (Duff, Duff Light and Duff Ice all come from the same vat); McKagan said the Simpsons used his name and the creator of the Simpsons, Matt Groening, says he never heard of a Duff McKagan.

He's not the richest Roser; that would be William Bruce Rose, Jr, better known as Axl Rose.

He doesn't have the coolest name in the band; that honor has to go to Izzy Stradlin, né Jeffrey Dean Isbell.

And McKagan has been thrice married, meaning that he's had three mothers-in-law, and they are all proud of his financial acumen, because in 1994, at the age of 30, Duff was told his time on earth would be measured in weeks, not years, if he didn't give up his dissolute way of life.

Here's the Paul Harvey Rest Of The Story - in order to use up the time that he used to spend on intemperance, McKagan enrolled in college, took a few business courses, and scraped together $100,000 that he had not yet snorted up his nose or run through his liver, and bought stock in three nascent businesses: Amazon, Microsoft, and Starbucks....all local Seattle firms.

Since he bought those stocks,  Starbucks is up 5,337.14%, Microsoft is +2,347.92%, and Amazon is +21,934.67%.

Had you stopped spending all your money on acid-washed jeans and Zubaz pants in 1994, and scraped together $10,000 to buy shares of Amazon, you would be worth $2,203,467 right now.

And we would still love you!

Current estimates of McKagan's wealth range from $30 million to $90 million. 

What's so funny?

Q: What happens once a year and is not nearly as much fun as it used to be?

A: April Fools' Day!

What happened? Have we grown more jaded, more cynical, not so ready to fall for the old switch-the-sugar-and-the-salt gag that I personally got from Dennis The Menace and pulled off successfully in third grade?

The time was, people would go to great lengths to pull off great pranks on this most special of foolin' around days. Hugh Troy (1908 - 1964) was regarded as the greatest practical joker of all time, because his stunts required planning and execution. (I planned my salt-and-sugar bit so well that I was nearly executed, but anyway...)

Troy would buy a large pile of newspapers when a huge event was in the headlines (Lindbergh lands, WWII ends, etc) and save them for a year or so, and then he would take the papers and hand them out to people riding the bus home from work, asking the people to whom he gave the papers to read them intently. Imagine the laughs a couple of April Firsts later when people were shocked to see old news again.

He would buy a park-type bench from, I don't know, Wards or Sears, and take it to a park, sit down and read his paper until he saw a policeman, at which point he would pick up the bench and carry it off, surely to be followed by a cop, for whom he would produce the bill of sale for one park bench.

Today, not so much. Fast food places go on Facebook to announce that they are no longer going to sell their most popular items, and will carry kangaroo burgers instead. Stuff like that. Not up to the standards of Hugh Troy, for sure.

The Washington POST made a weak attempt to claim that gondola service would soon be available in the nation's capital. But nothing has been funny for several months there...

Nice try, but weak.

Keep your orders in order

 I never worked in a restaurant in my life (and at this point, it would seem doubtful that I ever will) but I love restaurant stories, not so much about the food - I can cook my OWN food - but the tales of crabby customers and stingy tips, and the opposites too. 

I know the tips can be good for a server who is willing to go the extra mile. They often find that customers will go the extra twenty bucks with their tip in response. It really takes just a little bit of friendliness in the greeting, a little hustle on the service, and looking out for the little things like topping off water, bringing extra napkins, and so forth. Still, I know it's tough, because when you are greeted by your server, he or she may be a person who was just treated rudely by some lout. It's all part of the wonderful game we call "leaving the house."

And, from what I glean from following the Facebook page "Restaurant workers Be Like," it's not just churlish patrons who give the staff a hard way to go. Owners and managers can be pretty tough to work for as well, how about that? Check this out:

It brings back to my mind the advice I have given a lot of young people who were not smart enough to get away from what I was droning on about, but anyway, one more time: When you have a job, you are hired to perform a service, be it slinging food in a diner, sawing wood at a lumberyard, changing oil in auto engines, whatever. You are paid for that work and that's the deal. So many people think that if they work an extra 30 hours a week, someone will notice this and reward them with a new company car and a trip to the south of France before they move you into the corner office with your name on the door and a carpet as thick as a 30-dollar tenderloin. It just doesn't happen, at least not often enough to make it a good investment of your time.

What's more likely is that you will suffer the fate of poor Frank, above, working hard and doing a great job, and then crossing the Jordan one sad day, and your boss, Chris, is so suffused with sadness over it all that he gives you a standard two-line goodbye before turning your eulogy into a help-wanted ad to bring in the next beloved line cook.

Do your job and then go home and live your life. Don't combine the two. The boss does not care.