Monday, June 30, 2025

Ad libs

 I'll need a friend from the legal community to chime in on this, but I wonder why certain prescription commercials end with this curt admonition:

"If you're allergic to BlahBlahBlah, don't take BlahBlahBlah.

Now well, I mean, you're telling me, if I'm allergic to something, I should avoid it? Thank you that salubrious advice! My life will be much happier, and surely a lot longer, if I avoid things that might kill or sicken me.

And then there's the ones that say if you have a parasitic illness, be sure to tell your doctor! You betcha I will, as soon as I let the guy at the produce stand down the street and the woman in the gas booth at the supermarket parking lot know about it. They have both asked me to let them know if I have something fouling my blood.

And why do people think I want to buy insurance from a gecko?



Sunday, June 29, 2025

Sunday Rerun: You know best

 I ran into a former English teacher of mine one day; she was running a used bookstore and proceeding happily in life. In fact, many people who once stood in front of a classroom where I sat have gone on to lead happy lives, once they got over the memories.

She told me that she quit teaching in 1973.  One day she told a class that they would be reading and discussing "Hamlet," and the more outspoken among them told her that they did not wish to read Shakespeare and wanted to read something "relevant" such as Richard Brautigan.

At first she thought they were kidding, in the time-honored tradition of high school kids, and she went on with her introductory lesson about the story of the fresh prince of Denmark. Later that day, the head of the English department stopped by her classroom to tell her that a delegation of students had thronged the principal's office to register their displeasure, and the word came down: Goodbye to the Bard, Hello Brautigan.

And goodbye to a fine teacher. She quit, rather than not teach "Hamlet."

As the years have gone by, I've realized that people who were 17 in 1973 are now 65, busily getting their Medicare cards laminated, but in their 20s, 30s and 40s they raised children, and many of those children were raised to think they needed only to kick up a fuss and their world would change at once to fit their needs.

Now we find ourselves in a world where everyone knows every dang thing.

Homeschooling is a wonderful idea if the people doing the teaching in the kitchen know what they're talking about. I know a lot of moms and dads who are very well qualified to teach their children at home. But the woman who told me that "We don't need none of them teachers with their fancy educatin' teachin' our kids nothin'" was not on that list.

When the pandemic broke out, did we turn to the word of trusted doctors and scientists who had studied such diseases for decades?

We did not. We took counsel from politicians who flaunted their lack of expertise in the matter, bolstered by sycophant lunatics who nodded like bobbleheads when asked if drinking bleach and shoving ultraviolet lights up our apertures were good ideas. 

And when Clorox turned out not to be the answer, someone said, "Let's try sheep-and-horse de-worming medicine" and people broke their necks to get to the farm supply store.

And when vaccines came along, people who were given a plethora of vaccinations before entering school (here's the list for Maryland residents), people willing to eat, drink, smoke and otherwise partake in any number of substances regulated or otherwise slammed on the brakes and said, "I have to do my research before I will take a medicine for me and my family by people who have devoted their lives to public health!"

And now we come back to "Hamlet," because all across the nation, school board meetings have replaced Roller Derby for violence threatened and real, as people who don't know Dred Scott from Judge Dredd pack the rooms to demand the removal of something called "Critical Race Theory" from the curriculum. That was an easy request to honor; CRT is only taught in graduate-level courses.



It's an easy vote-getter for a politician to stand before a crowd and crow that "We need parents to control what the schools teach." If that's how you want it, go ahead. But be sure to allow people in the service department at your car dealership so they can tell the technicians how to gap their spark plugs. Let them go back in the kitchen at the restaurant to add their expertise to the making of a souffle.  And by all means, let them stand next to the surgeon during a nephrectomy and weigh in with their opinions.

I mean, what would Hamlet say?

Saturday, June 28, 2025

The Saturday Picture Show, June 28, 2025

 

Pre-K and Kindergarten teachers can let me know if this is still an approved way of keeping the class together when outside the school. I'm going to guess that it is not, but let us know, please!
There's a lot that's new and still a lot that's old in downtown Baltimore. See the building on the left in front of the four smokestacks? That was a Baltimore Gas & Electric power station back in the 1930s. My dad worked there at the time. The building still stands, although I don't know what's in there anymore. Dad would not recognize the old neighborhood today, but I am sure that even then, he would have said that swimming in the inner harbor was a bad idea. The downtown bigwigs keep pressing to have that happen, and all I can do is ask, are there no pools?
1939, Fourth of July, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. You can bet that these men all knew the best ways to cook grits.
This old Ford tractor, with an agricultural-based symbol, appears to be growling at the fields it will soon be plowing.
So your side mirror broke?! So are you going to go to the Chevy dealer and pay top dollar for an exact replacement, spend days haunting junk yards looking for just the right one, or go to Dollar Tree for something that's pretty doggone close to right? You betcha!
Been so hot here this week, this poor squirrel wonders why he got on that fur coat!
It can make you dizzy, looking down from the top of a staircase to see what you just climbed!
This was graffiti done to school walls, but don't get too upset - the building was days away from demolition, and the kids were allowed to use the walls for an art project that would last just a few days...
Last year, Joey Chestnut was thrown out of the July 4 Hot Dog Eating Competition because he signed an endorsement deal with a non-meat artificial dog. All is forgiven, and he will be back this year at the corner of Surf & Stillwell Aves. in Coney Island for Nathan's Annual GobbleFest. 
Bobby Sherman became a bubblegum idol, and then when that bubble burst, he was able to become an EMT, auxiliary police officer, and emergency medical training officer for the Los Angeles Fire and Police Depts. He was a good man and it's a shame to have to say goodbye to such people!

Friday, June 27, 2025

Yes, there is.

It's the most famous line from A League Of Their Own, the movie about women's baseball...Tom Hanks saying, "There's no crying in baseball!"

Actually, there is, and there will be, as long as humans play the game.

On Tuesday, the Arizona Diamondbacks were playing the Chicago White Sox, and during a 7th-inning pitching change, people noticed that something was wrong with Diamondbacks 2nd baseman Ketel Marte. During the pause in action, he was seen crying on the field. His manager, Torey Lovullo, talked to him on the mound with consoling words and an arm around the shoulder. Lovullo told him he loved him.

What was wrong? It couldn't have been a missed play or an error. No, some knucklehead was hollering about Marte's dead mother, Elpidia Valdez, who died in a car wreck in the Dominican Republic in 2017. That's about as low-grade as one can be.


When Lovullo got back to the dugout, he was able to identify the fan, and signaled to the ushers to remove him, which they did, and as of today the still-unidentified jerk is banned from all ballparks. The White Sox are to be commended for throwing out the trash.

It's sad, but this is all part of that "I'm the tenth man" in baseball, or the 12th man in football, this feeling that as a fan, one should be able to affect play on the field by actions taken while sitting in the stands with a beer in one hand and...something else...in the other.

Hurting someone's feelings should not be a goal.


 

Thursday, June 26, 2025

Name, please?

Here we are, it's June, almost July and that means just three months to go until we're raking leaves and falling off ladders, after chasing leaves in the rain gutters.  That's why it was no surprise when I turned on the TV yesterday and saw the King Of Unctuousness, Ron Sherman, the Leaf Guard Guy, whose oily delivery makes the LG ads so mesmerizing.

Sherman's real name is Steve Jumper. In his business, people often assume other names, often to go by an easier handle to carry, or to confuse zealous fans or process servers. There's no truth that Jumper's Hole Rd in scenic Anne Arundel County is named for him, by the way.

And the confusion continues at his family reunions, since his wife's name is Sheila Jumper,  his daughter is Dianna Stockdale, and his son goes by Ron Jumper.

I guess they need those "Hello My Name Is......" tags.

 

But this name confusion starts in Hollywood where Kirk Douglas, the actor with a mighty prognathous jaw, changed his name from Issur Danielovitch. His son, Michael Douglas, of boiled rabbit fame, had claim to his name in show business, so when a young man named Michael John Douglas aspired to a showbiz career, he wound up calling himself Michael Keaton, which came as a relief to talk-show host Mike Douglas, born Michael Delaney Dowd, Jr.

If you’re still with me...there's a college football player named Gideon Lampron, who has the middle name ESPN. That's how you say it, if you find yourself talking to him..."Espenn." His father added that name in the hospital when his wife was still basking with joy after winning the battle to name the boy Gideon in the first place.

That's all I know about names for now, except that I wish my parents had named me Tito, Leon, or McGillicuddy.  They didn't ask, although I was right there in the maternity ward.





Wednesday, June 25, 2025

What's the buzz

So they asked me if I had seen "The Mosquito Coast," in which Harrison Ford, River Phoenix, and Helen Mirren portrayed a family that moves to Central America, and that's where you lose me. 

I am not interested in anything to do with mosquitoes. This time of year, when those nasty little stingers lurk around every blade of grass and every breeze, I stay inside, or covered head-to-toe after sunset, because mosquitoes love biting me like I like biting anchovy pizza, and that's a lot.

Fun fact: The Greek name for the mosquito is "anopheles," which means “good for nothing.” 

That reminds me of Antisthenes, a remarkably dour Greek philosopher who lived from 446 to 366 BC and was a leading Cynic. On the other hand, his brother, Prosthenes, was always cheery and positive. He is known to have told Pythagoras that he was taking the right angle with his theorem, and consulted with Isoceles to perfect the three-sided polygon.


There was more to learn about mosquitoes, including this: Adult mosquitoes live for about 2 to 4 weeks, unless they land on my kitchen table, which curtails their lifespan drastically. 

Female mosquitoes live longer than males, due to their habit of staying away from my kitchen.

Only female mosquitoes bite people (or animals, if no one is home) to get a blood meal. Female mosquitoes need a meal of my blood to produce eggs, although the price of those eggs has recently fallen by some 400%. 

Male mosquitoes do not bite! They spend their time eating nectar and fruit juice, and lack the mouthparts necessary to bite. At least, that's what they tell their wives.

You should see me hauling the trash cans out to the end of the driveway on trash or recycling night, just to avoid the sting. I haven't moved that fast since the day they handed out retirement paperwork. 

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Way to go

A man named Sunjay Kapur died in England recently at age 53. Kapur was a billionaire businessman, and a friend of Prince William.  And as they say on the news, wait til you hear how he passed away.

You can stop waiting. It's awful. He was at a polo match and swallowed a bee, which stung his mouth, which caused anaphylactic shock, which triggered a fatal heart attack.

"He was full of life, laughing, joking, then gone in an instant,” a friend told the news.

Kapur was the ex-husband of actress Karisma Kapoor, and was the chairman of the automotive technology firm Sona Comstar.


“We are deeply saddened by the sudden demise of our Chairman, Mr. Sunjay Kapur,” the company said in a statement. “He was a visionary leader whose passion, insight and dedication shaped the identity and success of our company.”

It was nice to read this about him: “He didn’t distinguish between his grooms or high net worth friends.  When he had a party, everyone was invited and everyone was equal.”

People also said that Kapur played polo with members of the royal family, including his buddy the prince.

So there was a guy who had everything going. Friends, money, love, great job, and then boom.

So, eat that slice of pie, hug someone and tell them you love them, buy the new car you've been wanting, treat someone to their grocery bill, take your sick time and stay home and read a book, and tell someone else you love them.

And once in a while, let that someone be YOU. There's a bee out there for all of us. Might as well make the days great until, you know....

 

Monday, June 23, 2025

While you're young

Watching the Orioles game the other day,  the announcers started talking about how ballplayers in the past were not allowed (!) to have long hair or facial hair, for fear of not appearing to be All-American youth. 

So, I got to thinking about Bo Belinsky. 

Bo came out of nowhere in 1962, pitched a no-hitter against the Orioles for the Los Angeles Angels, had a great rookie season, and was washed up within a few years, leaving baseball with a negative won-loss record.

BUT he was the first player to be famous for being famous. Sure, Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle and a million other players were household names back then, but Bo was different, in that he was not a star player, but, instead, a star playboy.

He was more concerned with his tan than with his fastball. He dated Mamie Van Doren (an actress known mostly for being well-known) as well as Ann-Margret, Tina Louise, and Connie Stevens.


He made friends with Walter Winchell, the most important gossip columnist of the day, and so his fame spread through radio, TV, and newspaper mentions...but not for the way he pitched, but for dancing until all hours in nightclubs and driving a red Cadillac and being such good friends with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover that when the Angels played the old Senators in DC, Bo was at FBI Headquarters firing a machine gun on the shooting range.

In 1964, Belinsky was 9-8 with a 2.86 earned run average, but he was suspended in August for punching a 64-year-old sportswriter. The Angels let him go, and then he drifted from the Philadelphia Phillies to the Houston Astros to the Pittsburgh Pirates and. finally, the Cincinnati Reds, but he never met with success. His eight-season major league totals: 28 wins, 52 losses.

He died in 2001 following a heart attack. He had dealt with bladder cancer, vascular problems, hip-replacement surgery, and alcohol and drug dependency, but he was sober for his final 25 years.

If there's a lesson from Bo Belinsky's life, it was probably to avoid wasting the talent God gave you. 

Toward the end, Bo reflected on what was, and what might have been: 


''We spend the first 40, 50 years satisfying our egos and the next 20 or 10 trying to wipe the slate clean,'' he said. ''I'm at that second stage.''

 

Sunday, June 22, 2025

Sunday Rerun: About Clovers

 Take a second - 144 seconds, actually, and give a listen to this record from 1948.  Of course, it's Art Mooney, his orchestra and chorus, doing their version of the old song "I'm Looking Over A Four-Leaf Clover," and this version was the #1 song in America for 18 weeks.


Of course, this week, the #1 song in America is the lovely, enchanting "See You Again," by Wiz Khalifa Featuring Charlie Puth. But I'm not telling you anything new there.

This is Jazzbo.  DJs almost always look like
this, which is why they aren't on TV.
But Art Mooney's catchy tune from 1948 gave a Salt Lake City disc jockey a way to get famous enough to work in bigger markets. His name was Al "Jazzbo" Collins, and he took a notion to play the song for hours and hours and hours on end on his show on KNAK until people started calling and begging him to play ANYTHING else.  This is widely considered to be the first (of many) deejay publicity stunts like this. Jazzbo went on to work at big stations on both coasts until he passed in 1997...quite a career!

By the way, why are there four leaf clovers, anyhow?  Most of them are three-leafers!  Four-leaf clovers are a mutation of the   White Clover plant, Trifolium repens.

Why do we consider four-leaf clovers to be good luck? That goes back to Eve, who carried one out of Eden, meaning that if you have one, according to legend, you carry a bit of paradise with you.




















Of course, if you have a dozen steamed crabs and a six of Natty Boh, you also have paradise with you, so there's that...


Saturday, June 21, 2025

The Saturday Picture Show, June 21, 2025

Six great ideas as we skid toward the end of the sixth month! I hope to accomplish all of them.
Not so long ago, Lou Christie (center) replaced the late Bobby Rydell on the Golden Boys Of Rock 'n' Roll, a touring show that featured Bobby along with Fabian (left) and Frankie Avalon (right). Now Lou has left us; taken by a sudden onset illness this spring. All of the Gypsies cried.
There is a Mack Town in the Bahamas (the paint on this building sort of tells me this is there) and there's Mackenzie, British Columbia - a town nicknamed Mack Town, and there is a young man named Mack Town who is a high school ballplayer from Peachtree Corners, GA, so as the sign says, you are welcome to all of them.
This looks like an esthetically pleasing mural of some sort, but this is actually a wall in Seattle where people make a habit of sticking their chewed gum, which is not pleasing to any sense.
Let's see...we have 12 knives, 12 forks, and 13, 923 spoons. Come over and stir something up!
You would think someone would have thought of this way to make a wet floor sign fun, but finally, someone did.  
Looks like a nice place to get away from it all...if they have decent cable...
You might remember, last fall Hurricane Milton literally blew the roof off of Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays. This year, as a consequence, they are playing major league games in a minor league ballpark down there, a park where the Yankees have their spring training.  All things considered, everyone is making the best of it. It's odd for big leaguers to play in a stadium without a second seating deck.
This is a Raven eating a piece of a walnut. Notice how little he looks like the yellow-beaked bird on the Baltimore Ravens' helmets, but he's ok. He's got his walnut lunch.
I'll leave you with a bit of good luck today - these are five-leaf clovers, so that's an extra helping over four. June 21 was a great day for my luck, too...it's the day I met Peggy, and we fell deep in the happy sea of love.
 

Friday, June 20, 2025

Well-deserved

The great national treasure Dolly Parton is about to add an Oscar statuette to her trophy case. Come November, she will be given the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Oscars’ annual Governors Awards. 


Among Dolly's good works is Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, which gives free books to kids from birth to age five. She's been quietly buying band uniforms for Tennessee high schools for years.  She used the songwriting royalties from "I Will Always Love You" to purchase a strip mall in Nashville to honor and support the Black neighborhood it's in. And when COVID-19 hit, it was her million dollars that provided seed money for Moderna to create a vaccine. Dolly's philanthropy is a daily blessing, but, “I don’t do it for attention,” she said when receiving the  Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy.  “But look! I’m getting a lot of attention by doing it.”

And don't forget, she is always the first to donate money and supplies after natural disasters. She's just an all-around good person who believes in sharing. 


Who was Jean Hersholt? Hersholt (1886 - 1956) was a Danish American screen and radio actor. He served as president of the Motion Picture Relief Fund for 18 years. He was credited with playing a large part in establishing the Fund, now known as the Motion Picture and Television Fund. Its purpose is to give help to Hollywood industry employees - not just actors, but people in all facets of the business out there. They help those in need due to illness, old age, or whatever challenges they may face. To honor Hersholt's philanthropy, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - the Oscar people - established the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to recognize an "individual in the motion picture industry whose humanitarian efforts have brought credit to the industry." 

Wonderful things can be said about Dolly and Jean, and of course, I would be remiss if I failed to point out that Hersholt was the paternal half-uncle (by marriage) of actor Leslie Nielsen. Surely, you remember him.

 




 

Thursday, June 19, 2025

Moon Shot

 One of my hobbies is listening to old radio shows on the internet. I particularly like The Great Gildersleeve, a wholesome family comedy from the 1940s and 1950s, a time when we still had wholesome families.


Just kidding! I know your family is wholesome...


Anyway, the shows were live then, and many times they were interrupted by important news bulletins about World War II. Listening back to them today, the juxtapositioning of Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve's crazy madcap adventures raising his niece and nephew while serving as water commissioner in the mythical town of Summerfield and dating every single single woman who crossed his path with the invasion of Anzio was a contrast, for sure. The announcer would cut in, deliver the breaking news, and then go back to the program as, surely, millions of Americans with family in the service said an extra prayer.


My thought today is that, in those days, when people like Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite came on with news, you could believe what they said. Today, one must be more judicious, and evaluate what you read and hear, because of things like this... 


Dan Driscoll, the U.S. Secretary of the Army, was on some channel called Fox News (correct me if I got their name wrong) last week, hyping the upcoming military parade in Washington, D.C. 


Here is a direct quote from the man who runs your Army:


 “As young Americans across the country get to see all of the amazing things that the army has done, whether it’s helping with floods in North Carolina or wildfires in California, or, we talked to an astronaut yesterday who’s on the moon who’s a soldier.”




OK, listen, I know the schools are closed, so Sis and Junior can't ask Ms. O'Hoolahan about it, so let me assure you that no American has been on the moon since Eugene Cernan walked on the green cheese in 1972. I look at it every night and see no one trucking around.


So we are left with the big question: Was someone left behind when Apollo 17 came home? Does Driscoll know more than he lets on? If someone is up there, how will they calculate his overtime pay? Or was there a recent moon shot, possibly when one of Elon's rockets didn't blow up?





Driscoll, who will be played in the inevitable movie by Gary Busey, might have been thinking about Jonny Kim, who is not a soldier and is not on the moon, but is a former Navy SEAL on an eight-month mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS). He's been sky high since April 8 and is expected back on earth this fall.

Unless Driscoll knows something he's not letting on....



Wednesday, June 18, 2025

Yakety-yak

 What I think:

If you really know what you are talking about, that will come through to your listener or reader. There are topics on which I could declaim endlessly (or so it would seem!) and not have to hem and/or haw, or make stuff up.

On the other hand, ask me to write or speak about how nuclear fission works, or how digital music turns numbers into notes, or why the earth revolves, and I can't say much. In fact, my knowledge of the solar system is no minute as to fit into a thimble. I must have been out sick the day that was explained. 

I bring this up because I saw a guy on television the other morning, and in virtually every sentence, he said, "Do you know what I'm saying?" or "You know what I mean?" 

My problem is, I am quite a literal person, meaning that if you ask me a question, you will get an answer if I have one. So, saying "Do you know what I mean?" only slows matters down, because then I answer, "Yeah, so far so good" or "Not a clue" and it slows the conversation. Sometimes it slows it to a halt.


My fear is that the person who asks if I know what they are saying is not so sure of what they are saying at all, hence the need for reinforcement.

So here's a deal - you keep talking and I'll keep listening (or reading) and if I can't figure it out, you will be among the first to know. Proceed apace until I ask for clarification.


Tuesday, June 17, 2025

Heartache is real!

With the wisdom that I gained from many years of being a country music radio DJ, I know a thing or two about broken hearts.

But I thought they were all in the head! No, that's not true.

Turns out, "Broken heart syndrome" is a real heart condition. It can be brought on by dealing with tough times and emotional extremes. As Elvis sang, "When you find your sweetheart in the arms of a friend, buddy, that's when your heartache begins." Getting the old heave-ho is hard on the ticker.  

The doctors say, broken heart syndrome goes away eventually for most...but some people never get over it, apparently. Or they accept the pain as part of their lives and slump along from day to day.


Really, the physical part of this is that sufferers of BHS may all of a sudden report chest pain as the syndrome causes the heart to change the way it pumps blood.

This is a sign that, if sadness overwhelms you, you might need to seek help from mental health providers as well as medical doctors.

And listen to light symphonic music for a while! No country, whatever you do. 


 

Monday, June 16, 2025

Shiny

Lately, the Baltimore Orioles tv broadcasts have had annoying commercials for some energy swill called "Celsius." So I thought I would be "Fair, And Hype" this new product.

There is no depth to which I will not pursue a bad pun. And I don't know any good ones.

So anyway, this energy drink...in the commercial, all sorts of cool people are guzzling it with alacrity, and I want to be cool, but not as much as I wish to continue enjoying my usual tipples - hot tea, iced tea, seltzer water with cranberry juice.

We decided to see what was in this joy-giving elixir, and here's the story:

Celsius energy drinks contain a blend of ingredients designed to boost metabolism and provide energy. Key components include carbonated filtered water, citric acid, taurine, guarana seed extract, green tea extract, caffeine, and various vitamins and minerals like B vitamins, vitamin C, and chromium. They are also formulated without sugar, high fructose corn syrup, aspartame, or artificial colors or flavors. 

And then came this caveat: while Celsius is pitched as a healthy alternative to traditional sugary energy drinks, some individuals may have bad effects from the caffeine and other stimulants, especially if you swig too much Celsius or are sensitive to stimulants.


Looking at what's in the can, ok, carbonated water is my drink, and what is Taurine? Doesn't sound tasty, or salubrious, or even healthy.  Sure, every adult needs a certain amt. of guarana seed extract...and then get this part...CHROMIUM! 

Like hello? You're gonna look like the front bumper of a 1957 Plymouth? Chromium? In my drink? 

I'm gonna say no, thanks. I am not cool enough for Celsius.

Sunday, June 15, 2025

Sunday Rerun: It's The Berries

 I am always in search of superlatives. Tell me something or someone is the best or the tallest or the tastiest, and I'm right there with you, wanting to know more. 


And if Casey Stengel, a man who once doffed his cap at home plate to allow a bird to fly away off his head, says someone is the strangest man ever to play baseball, that man automatically enters my Hall of Heroes.


Stengel said that about Moe Berg, the polymath who played a almost a decade and a half in the major leagues, but never took it too seriously.  What the backup catcher took seriously was learning, and he did that in 12 languages, reading books and newspapers by the ton.  


I can hardly imagine how happy he would be to be alive today, what with the internet serving a torrent of information with the stroke of a few keys! Plus, he would be 123 years of age, so he'd have that going for him.


But today I don't want to write about his baseball exploits, or how he went on a tour of Japan in the 1930s to spread the love of baseball worldwide and wound up taking home movies of Japanese defense plants and munitions storage that wound up being used by US spy agencies in World War II, or that he parachuted into Yugoslavia as a spy, or that he did not speak to his brother, Dr Sam Berg M.D. for over 30 years, or that Moe trained as a lawyer and worked for several of the big firms in New York during baseball offseasons, but gave up the practice of law because he found it boring.


No, I want to give gardening advice, because one of my favorite stories in one of the books I've read about Moe, and there have been a few, came from The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg, written by Nicholas Dawidoff and published by Pantheon Books in 1994.



 And in that book we learn that Moe's sister Ethel, who was a kindergarten teacher for many years and served as a trainer for new teachers, had the habit of roller skating through the halls of her school. And that she raised raspberries in her home garden, raspberries so tasty that she would regularly trade a quart of them for a meal at New York's finest restaurants, where the pastry chefs used them for their finest pies and tarts.


And that the secret to her great raspberries was that she lived a block away from a mounted police stable.

Saturday, June 14, 2025

The Saturday Picture Show, June 14, 2025

Make a note of this! So many of us look out for everyone else first. Remember to put yourself up toward the top of the list every once in a while.
I just had my annual eye exam and then I found this, so I will have to wait 'til next year to slip a Russian eye chart in the machine.
If you see the local firefighters opening the hydrant, it's not that they're trying to dye the streets rusty, but, rather, they are flushing the lines so that the water will flow clean and clear through their pumper, should there be a fire, God forbid.
I have never hung around barrooms so much that I would ever be given the bum's rush like this, but if someone were to hand me this card, I would have to tell them that they should have said "You have been cut off" instead of "cutoff." I don't like to be pedantic, but then again, I do.
Narcissus was a very pretty boy, his image in the brook filled him with joy....so much so that he fell in love with himself, and you know that didn't go very well for him. Later he invented the mirror so he didn't have to hang around the water to get a peek at his lovely self. 
Officials in Maine were forced to call in extra butter trucks from Wisconsin for this big lobster.
Two kids + one camera  = big laffs. Next up, the old wallet-on-a-string gag.
I used to like telling my doctor that it was my plan to die of either rickets, or scurvy. My motto is "always leave them laughing," even during that digital exam.
There are people who purchase those Stik-On Google Eyes and do what they can with them. Support them!

 In Alabama, one has to choose between liking the U of Alabama or second-rate Auburn. The choice is clear. Up in Chi-town, North Siders like the Cubs and South Siders go with the White Sox, whose most prominent fan swapped caps last week and was seen warming up in the bullpen.

Friday, June 13, 2025

Silver threads

Up on top of my melon, melanocyte stem cells (McSCs) were stuck, and unable to make the protein needed to keep my lustrous brown hair brown.  Some scientists are saying this is why I have so much gray hair.

This was all written up in the journal Nature, where researchers from New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine talked about how McSCs "travel between compartments of developing hair follicles in a healthy situation." They figured this using mice, and let's be frank: Mickey is about 100 years old, and I don't see any gray hair on his head.

But in some cases, the McSCs can get stuck in the hair follicle bulge compartment, and that means no pigment cells...and no color except "snow on the roof."


And what's more, scientists should take note that we non-scientists don't like seeing the word "bulge" used to refer to any part of our bodies.

That explains why so many of us are called "fatheads."

Good news: these folks say if they can find a way to get the proteins in our hair to hang around the right compartment in our hairs, we can ditch the Clairol and look like we're still 18 forever.

Or have people say, yeah, he's old, but he sure can throw down.

Or fall down, whatever. 


 

Thursday, June 12, 2025

I hope there's not a third

I almost got to see Brian Wilson, touring with the Beach Boys in 1965, but he was hors de combat by the time the band played at the Baltimore Civic Center (which has changed its name 19 times, but not to me!) so they had a replacement on bass and high harmonies. Fella named Glen Campbell.

We East Coast kids didn't know nuttin' about no surfin', but we learned the lingo and loved the songs from California with the Beach Boys and Jan And Dean. "Surfin' USA" sent us running to the dictionary (no Google in 1963) to find out what huarache sandals were.  Along with the surf music, there were car tunes ("409", "Little Deuce Coupe", "Shut Down") and songs about being cool kids ("Be True To Your School", "Fun Fun Fun") and songs about love going well ("Don't Worry Baby", "She Knows Me Too Well") and love not going well ("Help Me, Rhonda", "Let Him Run Wild") and, well, songs about who knew what? ("Heroes And Villains").  


I never owned or operated a pair of huarache sandals, but I did have a bushy bushy blonde hairdo. Never had a little deuce coupe, but I found true love, and through every stage of my life from teendom on, the Beach Boys were either on my speakers or in my head.

I hope I'm not speaking too esoterically, but Sly And The Family Stone were all that Love with Arthur Lee could have been. Sly Stone - Sylvester Stewart should thank the grade-school classmate who transposed the "y" and the "l" that gave him his nickname - accomplished what Arthur was trying to do, blend rock and soul and jazz and even a little country, and create a whole new music. "Dance To The Music", "Stand", "Hot Fun In The Summertime", "Everyday People," "Family Affair"....so many great songs, and not once did you say, "That sounds just like their last one."


How sad it was that both Sly and Brian are gone in the same week, both aged 82. Both flourished brightly while young, and both fell prey to the traps and trappings of stardom and plenty of money. I'm not the first to try to figure out how to put this in words, but their music will be around as long as there are radios and speakers and whatever medium is available. I can't think of a better way to kick off a dance than with "Dance To The Music," or a better way for a couple to reassure each other than "She Knows Me Too Well."

Nobody asked me, but here is my favorite Beach Boys song out of all of them, from the "Beach Boys Today" album in 1965, listen to "Please Let Me Wonder.

For so long I thought about it

And now I just can't live without it

This beautiful image I have of you.

 

Three simple lines that share emotions every feeling heart has known.