Hoosier Buddy?

Back when the Colts played in Baltimore, I used to go to their summer training camps to watch them get ready for gridiron glory (or ignominy.)  For a couple of years, there was a goofy-looking ball boy stumbling around the sidelines, doing menial chores and generally looking about as useful as Jerry Lewis at a brain surgery.

"That's the owner's son," someone sighed, and that was to be the first look at I ever had at the bumptious oaf named Jim Irsay.

Bob

Jim Irsay

  Irsay, son of Bob Irsay, a man who went to his reward in 1997 and left the Colts (since moved to Indianapolis, in case you missed the story) to Sonny Jim.  Bob Irsay was the plumbing and heating contractor who traded the Rams for the Colts with Carroll Rosenbloom, a man so anxious to move in higher circles that he became the sixth husband of a former showgirl named Georgia.  Rosenbloom moved to LA with his trophy wife and drowned seven years later under circumstances not entirely clear, and it was to be some fifteen months until Georgia found solace in the arms of Dominic Frontiere, who was her steadfast companion until he went to jail for scalping Super Bowl tickets.  When Dominic walked out of the Walled-Off Astoria, Georgia dumped him, but gave up on marriage after only seven tries, and became the companion, for nineteen years, of a man named Earle Weatherwax.

And you think YOUR family is screwy?

But Robert "Bob" Irsay, whose hand I personally shook as he, drunk as a lemur, staggered through the stands at Memorial Stadium during a game in 1978, is the man whose own elderly widowed mother called him "the devil on earth."  

That had to sting.

Kerouac and scroll

Anyway, the thing is, Bob kicked the bucket and left the team to Jimbo, who is the owner of the original scroll on which Jack Kerouac typed his first draft of "On The Road"  and George Harrison's guitar.  So he is a preserver of our pop culture as well as being almost as big a jackass as his father, because, having run quarterback Peyton Manning out of town several years ago, now decided this past week to trash all that Manning, quite possibly the best ever to play his position after Johnny Unitas, did for him while wearing a horseshoe helmet.

Peyton Manning

Looking back on Manning's 14 years in Indy, Jim said, "You make the playoffs 11 times, and you’re out in the first round seven out of 11 times.  It leaves you frustrated."


So, you only won the Super Bowl once, and you're gone. You filled the seats, got the Colts a new stadium with the fan support of your play, and you've moved on to a new job. It was not a sporting, or pleasant, or warranted slap at the memory of a man who actually went out and accomplished something in his life.  Jim Irsay became the owner of the Colts because he was his father's son.  

And that is really too bad.

Sunday rerun: Arrhythmia of the night

The election is over, and I won.

All right; don't panic.  I'm not going to be president or anything.  But the annual Philistine convention, meeting in secret congress, overwhelmingly voted me the least cultured individual on earth.  I narrowly edged out Gary Busey, and observers attribute my victory to my adamant refusal to enjoy "The Phantom of the Opera."

We go back a long time, this musical and I.  In 1988, Peggy dragged accompanied me to New York to see it on Broadway.  I remember walking around the fabled streets of Gotham, having an authentic slice o' pizza and then shuffling into the Majestic Theatre for a matinee.

And the next thing I knew, some candelabra was plunging toward us all.  Having always associated overly baroque lighting with Liberace, I was stunned at first, so I woke up confused.  The legendary showman had passed away the previous year, and yet here was this shimmering stalactite, swaying six inches from my face.

Down below a pretty woman was wading through what appeared to be a sewer, or the River Styx.  A man with a horrible case of goiter was darting after her.

And there was also a play, right on the stage.  People were singing.  As a matter of fact, playgoers really got a lot for their money, because the lady, the ogre and the guy in a tuxedo were all three singing different songs!  But the crowd really roared with applause when they sang "The Music Of The Night."  And do you know how they sang that show-stopper!

Slowly.

And Gently.

Oh Lord, how slowly.  It seemed to take the rest of the afternoon.

The man in the hat sang

Night time shahpens, heightens each sensation
Dockness stirs and wakes imagination
Silently the senses abandon their defenses

And so I abandoned mine. Speaking of abandoned mines, this whole sorry episode blew up in my face again on Sunday evening, when channel surfing led me to Public Television's broadcast of this dreadful event. Here's a little taste of what I saw, in case you missed it.

So all right, I prefer Stripes to A River Runs Through It, and the only Iron Lady I recall seeing was a woman at the State Fair who caught a cannonball in her plush solar plexus.  I can't be the only person who doesn't see the deal with POTO.

Can I?

The Saturday Picture Show, October 19, 2013

 So you want to decorate the yard for Halloween, but the budget is a little tight, huh?  Well, take that orange traffic cone that the paving crew threw into the ravine two years ago and paint it to look like a giant candy corn!  And there you go!

 This is a plant that, as the caption says, was grown from a seed that had been frozen for 32,000 years.  The seed came from a roll packed for the lunch of the young Abe Vigoda, and he was kind enough to turn it over to the proper authorities.

 This week's free wallpaper from Castles Made of Sand is of a corn field.  I don't know where this is, but it's pretty!  And nice to see.

 We don't always give children credit for their innate intelligence.  This is the schoolwork of an 8-year-old who, it's plain to see, is being raised quite well.  Instead of forming a committee to prevent further playground violence, or filing a class action suit to benefit all those who have ever fallen off a Teeter-Totter, this kid knows his soup.  Get up and deal with it.  Would that we all knew how.

Just because John Gross asked for more pictures, here is #5 for this week.  A lone tree by a field by some woods.  What could be more wonderful?

One For the Books

A friend, in her blog, posted a quiz that's all about books and the books we love.  One of the questions was to name my favorite book.

I could no more do that than pick my favorite fish from the sea, although I will answer the question somehow.

What my favorite book is at any given moment will depend on what I am interested in at that moment, although it is safe to say that my tastes run out of the bounds of what's most popular.  So, no James Patterson, no John Grisham, not even J.K. Rowling, thanks.

I have always been a book reader, a magazine reader, a cereal box reader.  Even as a kid, I would read books about the presidents, baseball, the Civil War (yes, it was over by then.) And for sure, a newspaper reader, and that seems to be a fading habit for many.

Emily Dickinson said, "There is no frigate like a book, to take us worlds away."  And she said this in a poem, which was in a book.

Not to speak for Ms Dickinson, but her point is that you can read about everything in a book.  Not all of us have the werewithal, the time or the opportunity to travel around the world, but anyone can get a book and read about people, places and things far away and near.  And library cards are free, and books can be borrowed, taken home and enjoyed for free!

I've known people who love not to read, but I couldn't imagine life without it.

Thank you for reading this!

Believe It or Else

I just took a deep breath as I reached for the keyboard.  I am about to talk about two things that caress every aspect of American life, the length and breadth of the nation, concepts that define us, strengthen us, inform our souls, balm our sorrows and heighten our joys.

I'm going to talk about religion and Oprah Winfrey.

The well-off television performer recently sat down on her television show on her television channel and told a woman who says she is an atheist that she is wrong about that.

The woman is Diana Nyad, the distance swimmer who recently swam from Cuba to Florida.  She was on Oprah's Super Soul Sunday show on Oprah's Oprah Winfrey Network and said she is a person filled with awe at the the things of nature.  She said,  “I can stand at the beach’s edge with the most devout Christian, Jew, Buddhist, go on down the line, and weep with the beauty of this universe and be moved by all of humanity — all the billions of people who have lived before us, who have loved and hurt and suffered. So to me, my definition of God is humanity and is the love of humanity.”

But she does not believe in religion, or God.  She does say she is inspired by what she sees around her.

On the other hand, I don't see why Diana Nyad hasn't the right to feel as she does, but Oprah Winfrey stuck her down that if she feels that way, she can't be an atheist.  Oprah said, “I think if you believe in the awe and the wonder and the mystery, that that is what God is. That is what God is. It’s not a bearded guy in the sky.”

So, you tell Oprah how you feel, and she defines you in her own terms.  Gee.

Nyad and Winfrey

I have a good friend who is an atheist and we certainly differ on religion.  I am a Christian, but I don't see any right given to me to tell others how to feel or how to label their beliefs.  If someone wants to call themselves an Oldsmobile, that's their privilege. (But I will insist that you get an annual emissions inspection.)

What is it about some people that fills them with this desire, this need, to tell other people how to feel, how to live, how to live, what to do, where to do and how to pray?  It's all I can do to keep up with raking the leaves around here these days.  You all are on your own about religion.  I'll tell you about mine if you ask.

Only if you ask.

Mummies invented wrap music

My mother moved into the senior high rise in Towson on the day Tim Russert died, June 13, 2008, and spent three years in the Independent Living section.  That's a tower full of nice apartments; people are free to come and go as they please.  All they have to do is check out if they leave to go shopping or to hang with the family or something. And there are little niceties about that place, such as, if you don't do something by 10 AM to show the motion detectors in your apt. that you're up and about, security will call to make sure you're ok.  

She had three pretty good years there until her health declined to a point where it was necessary to move to the Assisted Living section, which took place on the day of the East Coast earthquake, August 23, 2011.  I was there, helping to move her furniture, clothing and I don't know what-all else when the earthquake made the building as shaky as John Boehner's grasp of history at 1:51 PM that day.  (Interesting: the staff and visitors were all like, "Whaaaaaaaaaaaa?" and the residents were all like "When's dinner?" while terra firma got less firm for that minute.  And the people who work in the office building across the street filed out like kids in a fire drill, lest the building collapse on them...and then stood there at arms' length from the building, lest the sun get on them.)

Of late, Mom's dementia has gotten to where she becomes agitated and goes rolling off in her wheelchair, and several times she was found at places in the giant building other than her own area, so it became necessary for her to move again, this time to a section where one needs to enter a code and push open a heavy door to exit.  All day Monday, as Peggy and my sister and I relocated her belongings, I waited for something major to happen.  Nothing earth-shaking this time, but there is an activity at 10 AM and 2 PM every day for the residents, and not just Parcheesi or a blurry movie on a VCR.  They have musicians and other entertainers, speakers, and lessons in history.  And Mom is fairly happy and totally safe, which is the best we could hope for.

Walking by the activity room, I overheard a woman telling the assemblage that the Nile River froze in 829 AD and 1010 AD. I mean, the Nile, in Egypt, Africa, is not in an area where parkas are generally required.  But this all took place before things warmed up. I looked this up.  A cooling period began at about the same time as the Roman Empire formed, and it lasted until about 900 AD.   We can only suppose that the 1010 Freeze came about as the result of a very chilly day.

I'm picturing two Egyptians carrying Starbucks cups with hieroglyphics on them, on their way to work building pyramids, and complaining about how cold it was the night before.  I will visit Egypt the next time the Nile freezes over, as I wish to ice skate while wrapped up as a mummy.

He who steals...

Some folks I used to work with were talking the other night.  One of them went to eat her lunch at work and it was gone, ripped off by someone.

The kind of job these folks do is not the sort of job where one can disappear for an hour, driving down to McWendy's for a Pound-and-a-Halfer with fries.  They get half an hour for lunch, so you pretty much have to bring it and hope it's there when it's your turn to gobble.

I've always been interested in theft and how people rationalize it.  I know someone who is planning to cheat the government with a scheme, and this person's rationale is "I should have that money."

We have all seen stories about people who hold up delicatessens, break into desks or hold up fruit stands to steal money, merchandise, or what-have-you.  And that's the key phrase - what-have-you.

As in, I have a roast beef sammy and a bag of chips and an apple,  and YOU feel you're entitled to some or all of my lunch?  Without asking, you would just steal it and shove it all down your neck and not even wonder what I would eat?

I just don't get that sort of thinking.  We have gotten to a point where that Robin Hood mentality invades our more conscientious thought.  "Hey, you're a rich guy and I'm not, so I'm stealing your car / cell / sandwich."  And I worked with a woman once who would get her teenaged daughter up early on weekends.  Why?  "So she can sneak upstairs and steal the neighbor's newspaper."

And maybe some people don't even stop to think or rationalize, but, rather, see things and just rip them off with no remorse at all.

But either way, when something gets stolen, someone gets stolen from, and it's wrong.

I'm sorry I even have to mention it!  And I didn't steal this blog, either.

Cool story

You've seen this fellow Andrew McCutchen if you watched the recent National League playoffs.  He plays for the Pittsburgh Pirates, a team that, like our Orioles, lingered around the bottom of their league for many years.  Last year, the Orioles finally put things together and got to the playoffs, and this year, the Pirates did the same, giving fresh hope to baseball fans in two great cities.

McCutchen just turned 27, and yet somehow he has acquired wisdom and grace that usually go with being much older.  He grew up in Fort Meade, Florida and was playing high school baseball - and batting .591 - when he was in 8th grade.  He's a naturally great ballplayer.

One of the things I love about kids in America is how they learn to earn what they want.  Down in McCutchen's hometown, there is a group of 12-year-old girls who have a softball team, the Mulberry Lady Panthers.  Doing the traditional money-raising things, such as bake sales and car washes, the young ladies raised $2,000 for new uniforms and sent the money off to a company here in Maryland (to our shame).  They did not receive any uniforms for their money. I can't find a story that says what happened, but the bottom line was, the girls were out the money and had nothing to show for it.

In a move that flies up against the many who say that today's athletes are spoiled selfish oafs, Andrew McCutchen worked with the Nike people to get uniforms for the team on his dime.
Here's what he said:

I was once in that position as a kid who had to find ways financially to be able to play baseball. These girls worked hard to raise what they needed, and then it was swept out from under them. Hopefully they can recover their money from that company, but I contacted my rep at Nike and we decided we were going to take care of their uniforms. It's the right thing to do. These girls are supposed to be on a field having fun, not worrying about if they can play or not because they don't have uniforms.

This is where I grew up. My hometown is just down the road from them. One of these girls attended my clinic in Fort Meade last year. It's hard to hear of a story like this happening to anyone, and this one really hit home.

Sure, he's a big baseball star making millions, but he hasn't lost his place in the lines we all wait in, no matter how rich or poor.  I love the fact that the most down-and-out among us are entitled to one vote each, same as the fat cats. And I love it when someone who could just as easily say nothing speaks up.

Sunday rerun: Dress Down Day

At a legal function the other day, I saw a young family in attendance. The father was wearing an oxford dress shirt and blue jeans, with the tails of the shirt rakishly blowing in the breeze, had there been one.  

I, good old hidebound traditionalist that I am, raised an eyebrow in opprobrium. I don't think that dressing as if one is heading out to sweep out the garage is the proper mode of apparel for interacting with the justice system. 

This is hardly the first time I have been reducing to headshaking this way.  Not that many years ago, I had to wonder about a guy who showed up in District Court on theft charges, and thought it would set a nice tone for the trial by going through his extensive t-shirt wardrobe and choosing one with the slogan "Don't wait up for the shrimp boats; I'm coming home with the crabs" neatly emblazoned on it.

And just two days ago at the grocery store, I encountered a woman who betrayed no sense of irony while wearing a t-shirt that read "You know your from Kentucky when..."

It was over thirty years ago that my very foundation was rocked by seeing a guy show up for a wedding wearing a flannel shirt.  And these days, if you get married anywhere between April and November, count on seeing guests who look like they just got dropped off on their way home from the beach.  

My point is that it shows a certain amount of respect for the law, for the church, for the deceased and for the other guests to wear a tie and jacket or dressy clothes to court, preaching, funerals and weddings.  Shirttails a-flappin' are perfectly fine for casual events such as going to the mall or unloading freight trucks. Legal and solemn events are not casual, and we undermine our dignity by treating them as if they were.

Yes, I'm old fashioned, but it feels nice to know that I cared enough to leave the bib overalls home for a day. 

The Saturday Picture Show, October 12, 2013

I love to see recycling in action.  This fellow has a fortune in plastic right there...There used to be an aluminum recycling truck at the Giant grocery store on Joppa Rd.  One winter I took a notion to save beer cans and soda cans, smash them all flat, and get enough money to take a nice vacation.  So I saved and I scrounged, brought cans home from work and did my best to keep the National Bohemian brewery working on overtime.  I mashed 'em and bagged 'em and took a whole lawn and leaf bag full of squashed cans to the truck and handed it over to the attendant.  As I stood there and envisioned trips to the Bahamas, London or Paris, the attendant came back and handed me my new fortune...$8.61. A whole winter for this?

I love the way the clouds seem to be trying to fill the branches, which just lost their leaves.

Don't you love it when a lake is so still as to resemble a mirror?  Wait a minute and enjoy this pastoral scene, and then watch...here comes a guy driving a waterskier around, zooming about like Captain Titanic.  Never fails.

But it SAID to use the stairs!

They run and hide their heads

As I sit here typing on a Thursday afternoon, I am enjoying hearing an old Jack Benny radio show in which Jack is talking about his trip to Scotland, and also enjoying hearing the soft sweet sounds of rain on the roof.

I once met a man from Scotland, a soccer player here to play for the Blast, and he told me that in his hometown of Edinburgh, it rained every day.  Not all day, of course, but even on the sunny days, you could count on it raining at some point.

"O'er a' the ills o' life victorious!'' -
Robert Burns

This might account for why Scotland is awash in verdant green lush landscapes.  It rains.  It has to rain for plant life to survive.  We all know that, but yet...

 Cocoa doormat

It doesn't seem like it has rained around here since right after the Fourth of July.  By late September, it had been a month since the guy who cuts our lawn had cut our lawn.  Speaking of our lawn, I was thinking of cutting it into rectangles and selling it for doormats - the kind that you can scrape your shoes off with.

We got a little bitty storm the other day; the weather people had called for a good amount of rain but we only had an hour's worth.  But last night a cold front came in and brought with it breezes, chilly air, and rain. Glorious rain.  Sweet, wet, life-giving rain, the gift of Heaven.  You could hear the lawns gulping it up, the reservoirs filling up and the late summer crops (Swiss chard -the kind with holes in it - kale and broccoli) enjoying the shower.

That Mayhem jerk

So, of course I turned on the morning TV news so I could hear the traffic reporter say there were so many accidents that she couldn't even think of mentioning them all.  This is because of the legions of people who only drive when it rains, and then they drive like that Mayhem jerk in the commercials.  Bang zoom.

Rainy Day Anchor Face

And then came the complaints!  The anchor teams have to put on the sad puppy faces and deliver the bad news.  Yes, folks, the unspeakable has happened, and you might just have to dust off the umbrellas before venturing out into the mean mean world.  They give you the sad eyes and then the weather guy comes out and finalizes the tragedy by saying it might rain tomorrow, too.  In the news segment, we see pistols and cyanide tablets being distributed for the convenience of those who just cannot face another day of clear liquid hell.

Somewhere along the way, after we came to this new land and settled it, winning battles against invaders, wild animals and disease, we became so wussified that just a little rain throws us into an unbeatable tailspin.

Let's see if we can't all face this new watery world with a minimum of moaning.  After all, wasn't it Little Awful Annie who sang, "The sun'll come out the day after tomorrow, or Sunday at the latest!" ?



 

Don't read all about it

There was a time when every family on every street subscribed to at least one newspaper, and often they took more than one. And the people would watch Huntley and Brinkley or Walter Cronkite do the nightly news on the network of their choice.

One of my favorite childhood memories was running into the living room at 7 PM to watch Douglas Edwards, the immediate predecessor to Cronkite, do the CBS evening news.  During the commercials, I would read the Baltimore Evening Sun, having finished the Morning Sun over breakfast.

So, naturally, as I "grew up" and met other adults in conversation around water coolers and balky office printers, I would often try to get a convo started by mentioning some news item that had caught my attention.  Imagine my shock when a woman I worked with - a college graduate - had no idea what was going on as Operation Desert Storm got underway a couple of decades ago.

"Oh, we don't watch the news or read a paper," she said. "I really don't want to know what's going on in the world - it's just too crazy."

 At first, I figured her for the only person I knew who deliberately shut herself off from the events of the world, which continued to unfold around her despite her benightedness.  But I was wrong, and now this story tells me that more and more, people care less and less to know what's happening in Hong Kong, Baluchistan or Nome. 

According to the Pew Research Organization, “News organizations have been confronting the problem of a shrinking audience for more than a decade, but trends strongly suggest that these difficulties may only worsen over time.”  And the story goes on to say that today's young hipsters watch/read less news than their parents, who in their day were reading/watching less than their parents.

A news story about people spending less of their time becoming acquainted with news stories.  It's sad that people willingly choose not to know what's going on, but that makes it easier to fool them when the "newscasters" can't tell a fake story from a real one. I can only assume that this fool Anna Kooiman was raised in one of those nescient homes.

It makes me think of the chefs on the Titanic.  Did they pass out a dinner menu as the great boat continued filling with seawater?  

Where have you gone, Harry Caray?

I've been watching baseball on television and listening on the radio since I was knee high to a fungo bat, and I've always loved the game broadcasts a lot.  In fact, I prefer it to going to the ball park, not because I am cheap, but because every time I go to the ballgame in person, we always wind up sitting between the beer guy and his best customer, and right behind a guy who is out on his first date with a woman whom he wishes to impress by trotting out his deep and wide knowledge of everything about the game.

"Uh yeah...that's called the hit-and-run...the pitcher hit the batter with the ball so the batter gets to run to first base..."

"This guy's gonna bunt right down the first base line."  (Need I tell you where the home run he hits winds up?)

Anyway...that was a great game on Monday night, when the Tampa Bay Rays pulled ahead of the Red Sox, the Red Sox tied it up in the top of the ninth, and the Rays won it with a two-out walkoff homer off Sox closer Koji Uehara in the bottom of the ninth.   That's why baseball will always be a game for the heart and the mind.

So, in the morning, I was flipping around with the remote and saw a statistic on the crawl on the bottom of the ESPN screen:

FIRST NINTH INNING HOMER OFF A UEHARA SPLITTER SINCE 2009

How to hit a splitter

How to hold
a splitter

Uehara, a Japanese national who came to the Orioles in 2009 after nine years with the Yomiuri Giants in Japan (and who was traded to the Rangers in exchange for pitcher Tommy Hunter and home run champion Chris Davis in 2011), is a relief pitcher whose best pitch is the split-fingered fastball.  That's a pitch made with the ball tucked between the index and middle finger.  When thrown well, the pitch tends suddenly to drop down a few inches, as the batter swings at where the ball would have gone if not for the drop, and hits nothing but ozone. When thrown not so well, the ball winds up in the bleachers for a home run, and that's what happened the other night.  But some Figure Filbert plowed through the last four years of box scores and game reports to tell us that ol' Koji had not lost a game under these circumstances since the early days of H1N1 flu.

I suppose it's because the age of the computer has taken over baseball broadcasting - all sports broadcasting - because back in the day, the announcers did not have access to such arcane data, either during or after the game.  The most insight you would hear would be something such as "Old Lefty usually throws a curve on a 2-0 count" or "Wilmer has three mules on his farm back in Morrisville, MO."

I think I liked hearing about Wilmer's mules better.  The devil is in the details.

Can't win for losing

This is not a big deal, but it came to me after I saw that internet ecard that said, well here it is >>>. I can't say it better than the writer did.

You see this all the time when people are talking over difficult things such as buying a new car or choosing an upholsterer.  You say what you want and the other side says what they can give you for the money you have to spend...and so it goes.  The quote would remind us to listen to what the other guy is saying and then formulate a response based on that, not on what we hoped or expected him to say.

So what brings all this to mind?  Another of my long winded stories , I'm afraid.  See, not so long ago, my lovely bride and I went to dinner at a local branch of a chain restaurant that features a rustic atmosphere. To protect their identity, let's call them the "Backer Crarrel" restaurant.  No one will ever figure out that complicated code!

The ride up to the restaurant was nice and the server greeted us promptly and kindly.  We jackpotted back and forth a little and then ordered up.  I always come close to ordering something different, but in the end I always go with Grandma's Pancake Breakfast with a side of grits.

It being dinnertime, Peggy ordered dinner food.  Right?

Well along came my chow.  The eggs, which were supposed to be over easy, were scrambled.  Marky no likey.  The grits were cold, and they gave Peggy spinach instead of the tiny baby carrots she loves (and had ordered). So when Nichole the server came by, we told her what was wrong and she took care of it right away. In a twinkling she took the wrong food away and in a trice she was back with eggs over easy, new hot grits and an order and a half of rabbit food.

What struck me was that Nichole acted as if it had been her dinner that the guy got wrong.  Discussing it with us as I shoved grits down my neck, she told us also that the cook had run her a little attitude and told her that she made more moolah serving than he did cooking.  As if that mattered to my eggs and grits and Peggy's carrots.

So, being a guy who likes to point out good things when I see them, I wrote to the good folks down at the Backer Crarrel Corporation, and was flabbergasted days later to get this form email response:

Thank you for taking time to contact us here at (you know where).  It's always a pleasure to hear from our guests.  

Please know we take all our guest comments seriously and view them as opportunities for improvement.  Of course, it disappoints us to hear of unsatisfactory visits to our locations however we accept the challenge before us to improve.

I am certainly sorry to hear of your recent disappointment while visiting our store in Bel Air, MD.  The District Manager for this location has been notified of your unpleasant experience and will take the proper steps to ensure policies and procedures are being followed and that all employees are properly trained.  

We hope to have the opportunity to serve you again soon and will certainly strive to make your next visit much more enjoyable.

Sincerely,

The thing of it is, I hadn't gone into detail about the cook and what he said to the server, as that is filed in the "Nunnamye" folder (Nunnamye business).  All I had done is tell the friends and neighbors at corporate HQ about how Nichole had turned the situation around, and whoever read that original email read about two lines and said "Send him the "sorry we didn't cook your food right but we will use this as a learning opportunity for Clem the Cook" email."

When I got the above, I wrote back that instant and told them they totally misread my email and could someone please just tell Nichole thanks for her extra efforts.  I haven't heard back from them.  I guess they don't have a "so THAT'S what you meant!" form email.

SDWSOTRHO

I don't intend to turn this blog into a music sharing review.  I think it's better that we keep it as it is, a frank and honest discussion of our modern times, our national aspirations, and the public weal.

For instance, I notice as I parade around the neighborhood on my daily walk, I really love certain songs on my iPod.  And I have to tell you, most people would be raising one or both eyebrows if they saw some of the songs I love.  I mean, most men my age are not supposed to enjoy AC/DC this much.  And The Rolling Stones, all of whom at least have a good lead on me on the race to the finish.

And that brings me to the new playlist I am starting on the iPod.  I call it "Songs During Which Someone On The Record Hollers Out."

This is a longtime interest of mine, how a musician will be so moved by the music being played that he or she will ejaculate* if you will, during the song, or as it fades.

Arthur Lee 1945 -2006

For instance, let's take my favorite, Arthur Lee, leader of the 60's band Love. Love had three great albums, ok, maybe 2, but he was a genius, way ahead of his time.  In 1972, he became a vegetarian and put out a solo album called "Vindicator," which contained the anti-meat anthem "Hamburger Breath Stinkfinger."  Not a subtle man, Arthur.  But on that album there was a song about how he met a woman who came to a party at his house by jumping through the bedroom window. Listen to "Love Jumped Through My Window," and hear Arthur give himself a shout of appreciation for his guitar skills at 1:08 into it.

Another CD that Peggy thinks sounds better in my truck and should therefore stay there is "Gorilla," by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.  That late, lamented group specialized in comic novelty numbers and parodies.  At 2:59 on their Dixieland takeoff "Jazz - Delicious Hot, Disgusting Cold" you will hear what you always hear during Dixieland records...someone hollering "Oh yeah! Oh yeah!  Oh yeah!"

The other Dixieland record I can stand is an English version of an old Russian classical number.  Of course, we're talking about "Midnight In Moscow" in which, 2:20 into it, as the trombonist does what every trombonist does and drags that tube all the way down, someone else can be heard to holler "Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Two more, then I got to go.  On "Respectable," Mick Jagger is leading the Rolling Stones and introduces a break by second guitarist Ron Wood by shouting "Aw, Ron Wood!" at 2:08.

And that's the exact time in "Happy Jack" that Pete Townshend of The Who hollers "I saw you!" to drummer Keith Moon, who, against orders and logic, kept trying to sing on the song with the others in the band.

And now I have to go for a walk.  Thanks!

*Merriam-Webster, definition 2: "to say (something) suddenly and forcefully"

Sunday rerun: Peanut Butter and traffic Jam

Today's rerun is from January, 2011...when it used to snow, when we used to have winter...these mid-80's temperatures in October are not autumn-like at all!


Wow, is all we could say.  On Wednesday, the Baltimore area had a once-in-a-lifetime weather and traffic mess, which will give us something to chatter about in malls, office lunchrooms, hair "saloons" and small claims courts for years to come.

The day dawned with a couple of inches of snow dappling our landscape, and if you haven't had your landscape dappled lately, let me tell you, you're missing out.  The weather people had been saying that it would start to rain overnight and rain like all get-out during the day, so it snowed instead and then the sky turned rather pouty and rainy.  Then the weather people said it would start to snow just about the time everyone left to go home from work, but we took a wait-and-see attitude  toward that.  I get off at 3:30, and when I headed home it was raining sort of hard.  I stopped for gas on the way, and the wind kept blowing my hood off my hooded chore jacket, and then by the time I got back to the Lazy 'C' Ranch here, it was sleeting.

Peggy and I enjoyed a nice dinner and, unable to take our usual 20-minute after dinner walk on the court we live on, we took walks around the house we live in.  I was going up and down stairs for exercise, walking through the house, and had the odd experience of running into Peggy as she left the dining room.  "Hi there, " I said, with an amiable nod.  No, we're not insane.  Really.

So, with nothing on TV, I was idly thumbing through Facebook and started seeing messages from people who were stuck in huge traffic jams on the beltway and other highways.  I mean, it was like 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock, quarter to ten, and they had left their work at 4, 4:30, 5!  Seven hours became the commute home for many people, and no, they were not cheered to think that on another night - most ANY other night - they could have shuffled off to Buffalo in that much time!

What happened was the perfect storm, the one with no Geo. Clooney.  The snow got fierce just as the traffic did, and how are you gonna get a snow plow through to plow the snow off streets already clogged with SUVs? Reports of people waiting two hours on a Beltway exit ramp surfaced.  Our favorite traffic reporter Candace Dold reported that it took her 7 1/2 hours to get to work - a normal 30-minute ride.  Highways were shut down, cars were abandoned, people slept in hotel lobbies.  And one person decided to go the wrong way on a major highway.

And then later, the streets were clear!  Zipadeedoodah!

This seems like a good time to remind one and all living in areas prone to snow of several things. First, sneak out of work early when a big snow is headed your way! (Not applicable to public safety personnel, news reporters, and grocery store cashiers!) Second, in the winter time, keep the car full of gas as much as you can - lots of people ran out of gas on the beltway. And it's a good idea to keep some granola bars, peanut butter doodads and bottles of water in the car just in case.

And also - an empty water bottle.  You'll see why!

The Saturday Picture Show, October 5, 2013

 I found all of today's pictures in an email that my buddy Bill Blair sent to me.  It was entitled "20 places that don't look real..." and I chose my four favorites.  If you'd like me to forward the entire email to you, just let me know by email to markkclark (at) comcast.net.  This first one is a bamboo forest in China.

These are lavender fields in France.

 This is a picture of a tulip field in the Netherlands.

And here are the Tianzi Mountains in China.  All of these might inspire us to want to travel the world, but first I need to see Graceland, Opryland and the Britney Spears Birthplace and National Monument.

Even Little Sister is watching

The Egyptian who imported the
abacus was told to "keep mummy"
about it.

On Tuesday, after visiting Mom at the nursing home, I took the chance to walk a mile on their indoor track.  It takes 28 laps but you can't lose track of many times you've done the stroll, because they have one of those Melissa and Doug abacuses (abaci?) on the wall. You move a bead each time you walk past the Egyptian calculator, and when you've done that 28 times, you're finished.

It's like learning to be a radio announcer.  You start out learning to speak with a dozen marbles in your mouth and learn to enunciate with all that in your way.  Day by day as you improve, you take one little glass sphere out, and when you have completely lost your marbles, you're an announcer.

Well.  The point is, if it ever comes to where I need to prove that I was nowhere near Ted Cruz's office snickering on Tuesday, October 1, from approximately 2:15 - 2:45 PM, just get the security tape from the home and there it is, time-stamped proof that my iPod and I were there at that time.

On CBS yesterday morning, they showed video of a motorcycle rider in Los Angeles leading police on a long chase, only to evade them, park the bike, run into a house, emerge in different clothing and go to an auto parts store.  I guess he failed to notice the news helicopter hovering ten feet overhead. The reporter in the chopper reported the guy's location to the law and was able to get video of the guy being arrested.

Also arrested was one of the bikers in New York, one of the swarm who surrounded a family in an SUV, apparently triggering a road rage fight that ended in many injuries because of really stupid behavior.  All this was caught on video by another biker's helmet cam.

Every child born in the last ten years has almost every waking moment of their life on video, or at least, still photography. From birth to their birthday parties to their proms, the main memory that today's kids will have when they live where my Mom currently dwells will be being asked to "do it again so Daddy can get the camera."

My Reagan mask - very good likeness!

So, if you're planning a crime or some other sort of caper, better wear a good disguise and a mask.

I put a spell on you

In the course of writing my daily blatherings, I often go to the Merriam-Webster website to check on spelling, word usage and etymology.  I love words and use thousands of them in daily speech and writing, and yet I don't find that same love in a lot of other people who commit sins against the language.

Nothing to do with the story, but I have
friends who like to see pictures of a
weepy John Boehner.

The amount of people who write "I should of known better" stuns me, but when this error is pointed out, the bad writer will reply with "Your a looser."  Looser than what? comes the question, and what is there to say to that?

Even professional writers, people who get paid to compose articles, commit atrocities such as "At the age of eleven, his mother died."

I tend not to correct other people's errors unless they ask me to vet their résumés, love letters or grocery lists.  But, while I don't say a person is of less value because his or her grammar and spelling are on the low side of proficiency, I can't help but shake my head when I see "your to dumb to even no it" as someone's reply online.  Conversely, I knew a man who had a radiator shop, and he was perfectly correct in his language skills, which allowed me to reckon that his skills in re-coring radiators would be similarly stellar.  And they were.

I revere Keith Olbermann

But it turns out I'm not alone in hoping for better English for a better America ( and all other English-speaking nations.) Beside the ever-vigilant Keith Olbermann, it turns out that Samuel L. Jackson is One Of Us.  This appeared on the Merriam-Webster website: 

Sam'l. L. Jackson

In an interview, Samuel L. Jackson responded to being called the "grammar police" on Twitter for correcting other people's English: "I'll take that. Somebody needs to be. I mean, we have newscasters who don't even know how to conjugate verbs."

Conjugate means "to list the different forms of a verb that show number, person, tense, etc."

Mr. Jackson was probably referring to instances in which newscasters have said things like, "he had went" instead of "he had gone."

We do not know how widespread the problem of newscasters using incorrect verb forms actually is, but Mr. Jackson was arguing that grammatical sloppiness is symptomatic of "a society where mediocrity is acceptable."
Mediocrity is a stranger in the house in which pride dwells.

Dance the night away

I had a good friend, now departed, who loved to post videos on social media and say, "Whatcha think about this?"

Well, what do you think about this video?  The young lady is Marina Shifrin, and she has decided to move on after a few years with a video production company.  She said she gave up her time, energy and relationships for the firm, and so she danced away the blues in the video.


I happen to love watching people dance when it's an enjoyable step they're putting out there.  Not talking about ballroom dancing and formal stuff -in fact, I imagine that practice and formal training, while earning style points on TV's "Who in the Hell Told You You Could Dance?" would make your interpretive stompin' much less delightful to my eye.  I also used to love the way that couple danced in the Volkswagen commercial - the ones who got in trouble with the neighbors for pogoing to Kings of Leon music, so they took their Jetta to B.A. Buys and bought new bigger speakers for their new bigger house.

But the point is, should Marina quit (up to her) and should she quit that way? (I wouldn't.) People don't expect to stay with the same employer for 30 years anymore, and they hop from job to job like Taylor Swift changes boyfriends.  I have known and worked with people who all but bragged about how they gave it all up for their job - marriages, friendships, personal time all thrown to the curb for the sake of doing one more statistical breakout.  That's what is changing.  People don't feel downward loyalty from employers, and so they don't feel obligated to work like pack mules for 50 years. But here's some advice - amusing as this video is, it's not the kind of thing that the boss will enjoy seeing, as he/she suddenly realizes that good old Marina is gone, with no notice.

She might have given notice and then left the video behind. That way, future prospective employers wouldn't look askance at her application, knowing that when she's had enough, she's apt to ankle away at a moment's notice.

On the other hand, I think she ought to go be a dancer somewhere.  I'd love to be able to hoof it like that.

Either way

I can't stay up until midnight to see how the politicians, lobbyists and lunatics that populate the nation's capital decided to handle the looming government shutdown.  You'll notice the word "looming" for being one of those "news words" that you only hear if you listen to the news.  I mean, did you ever hear Pete down the street saying that he felt that a fiscal crisis was looming in his household, given the children's propensity for watching pay-per-view Wrestlemania events on cable?

Other "news words"? - "Shots rang out," "the blaze roared out of control," and "Security was beefed up."

But anyway, let's do this.  If you woke up this morning and the government did in fact shut down, read this:

Millions of Americans are waking up this morning to the awful spectre of a government that's out of business on this, the first day of the new fiscal year.  Congress has the Constitutional responsibility to ratify spending bills that keep the government in operation.  Essential services such as the mail delivery, the armed services and airport and border security will go on as before, but national parks, postal services such as passport applications, and processing small business loans are activities under suspension until Congress and the White House can reach accord on the budget.

And if sanity prevailed at the last minute and the ship of state resumed its standard course, here's your story:

At the last minute as the clock approached midnight on the morning of the first day of the new federal fiscal year, Senate and House conferees reached agreement on a federal spending bill that will keep the government in operation, avoiding the first shutdown of government services since a 21-day lapse in the winter of 1995-1996.  The battle over the Affordable Care Act, the stumbling block in the negotiations, will resume shortly, but for now, the nation can let out a huge sigh of relief.

Just because it's better to look at them than to see John Boehner.

Charlie setting Robbie straight

And of course, as much as I love watching Norah O'Donnell in the morning, that enjoyment is always tempered by having to see politicians being interviewed, which is why I DVR "My Three Sons" every morning.  It's cool.  They're up to the Robbie and Katie have triplets episodes these days, which reminds me, if Congress had an Uncle Charlie, this nonsense would end today.

I'll believe it when I believe it

Let's say you're out driving.  It's been one of those days, boy. The stupid alarm clock didn't go off, you had to stop for gas on the way to work, you were late, the boss wasn't, they left the salami off your salami and cream cheese on date-nut bread sammy for lunch, but you had a hot date all set up for after work, so every prospect pleased.

Off work, run home and SS&S (shine, shower and shave) and then to the date, who leaves a note Scotch-taped to her apartment door saying sorry, but she left town earlier with a traveling saxophone player she met while picking up her dry-cleaning.  And in the note, she asks that you call her boss and let him know that she won't be back to work, and that he can mail her final paycheck c/o General Delivery, Schenectady.

Since you are her boss, you don't have anyone to call.  Never truer.  But lookie!  Here you are, with a free Friday night, all to yourself, so let's get the phone out and check out Yelp to find out where's a good place over here in Biscuitville to get a sandwich, maybe dance a little, see a movie, buy a book...

I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but it's now estimated that 20% of the reviews on Yelp are phonier than Hollywood cleavage.  What a world, where proprietors of carry-out shops, bowling alleys, fruit stands and muffler garages can plant their own reviews on the local review site!  The San Francisco-based company says that they have filters in place to make sure that the person saying that Crazy Wayne's Wayback Tacos are worth driving across town for is not Crazy Wayne himself.  But, as they say, "who" can you trust?  (Trust people who say, "Whom can you trust?")

99% fake

Gee whiz, what else do we have to question?  What other sacred institutions must crumble and fall?  Next thing you know, that Norman Rockwell original you bought, the one that shows a cop giving directions to a lost hitchhiker on his iPhone, will turn out to be a forgery too!

And when you buy one of those counterfeit-bill detector pens, how do you know it's a real one?

Sunday Rerun: No peaking!

Here's the deal. The Baltimore Gas and Electric Company, the energy giant in our town, offers a program called "Peak Rewards."  In return for giving customers a break of around 200 bucks in summertime, the electric company (still known to longtimers around here as "The Gas Company") installs a radio-controlled gizmo on said customers' central air conditioners. When the temp hits 106°, as it did the other day, and generators from here to Iowa are generating all the juice they can squeeze, BGE cuts off a certain amount of air conditioners for a certain amount of time.

Certainly you understand this is a gamble that some customers are willing to take, in return for 200 shekels, and certainly you understand that taking the risk also means there are going to be times when your AC is DOA.  A deal's a deal, am I wrong?

Well, the other day when the mercury was about to burst out of the top of the thermometer and the tv news was all over itself showing firefighters and roofers and guys working on asphalt trucks and cookies baking on car dashboards and polar bears bobbing around with giant fish-flavored popsicles, the paper had a top of the front page article about people howling because their air conditioners were cut off when it got so hot.

So, to recap, people sign up for a program where they can expect to have their air conditioners taken away from them on the hottest days of the year, when they need them the most.  But they get some money for it.

And, being people, they're hollering, screaming bloody murder.

And, like most things in life, it all reminds me of an Albert Brooks movie.  Do you remember "Lost in America," the 1985 picture in which Albert and his wife (played by Julie Hagerty) get rid of their status-y possessions, buy a Winnebago and set out to drive across the country and "touch Indians"?  There's a great scene - SPOILER ALERT! - in which Albert's wife gambles away their entire nest egg in Las Vegas, and Albert tries to talk the casino manager into giving it back, as if it all never happened.

The people who signed up for the Peak Rewards program knew they were gambling a day's comfort in exchange for a couple of hundred semolians, and yet they get to do a complainologue because they lost a day's comfort.  It's not as if they were unaware of how this worked, and it's not as if they didn't get their two thousand dimes from the BGE.

A note of clarification:  My father worked for Baltimore Gas and Electric from 1929 - 1978, taking time out only to go fight in World War II.  He was so loyal to the company that it was said there was no other firm from whom he would purchase electricity!

The Saturday Picture Show, September 29, 2013

 "But I want my breakfast NOW!  Whaddya mean, you're closed???"

 This is going on in Germany...people putting clever pictures on the sides of vending machines to make it appear that people are inside of vending machines making music, or coffee, or whatever you want from a machine.  This might scare children in real life, though, right?

 Peggy, during her working days - which ended yesterday - liked to detour through the Hampton neighborhood to see a herd of deer that were always out having breakfast on someone's shrubbery at about the same time she was supposed to be at on her way to work.  I have seen these deer parading around as well, and from time to time there is an albino deer in the pack.  Now, here is a picture of an albino raven.  The Baltimore Ravens football team, named for a poem by Edgar Allan Poe, has three mascots running around named Edgar, Allan, and Poe. This guy would have to be named Edgar, and you know why.

Speaking of guys...we see the guy in the sunglasses w/ backward cap at most of the home Orioles games. I think the other guy might be Elvis, to tell you the truth. His seat is right behind home plate, so you see him watching the O's whenever a right-handed hitter is up.   I always wondered if I would have the Hart to ask if his name was Corey.  But now we know it isn't.  Click here to find out what it is!