R E S P E C T

Have you ever heard of a yogurt chain called "Pinkberry"?
Neither have I, but it seems they are all over the place out on the West Coast.  We have a few of those places in our malls, similar shops where people see the word "yogurt" and think "healthy!" when they should think, "It's got guar gum, maltodextrin, sodium citrate, cellulose gum, disodium phosphate and propylene glycol monoesters," which are chemicals found in many popular frozen yogurts. Some froyo is thickened with carrageenan, a goo made of red seaweed. It's a colloidal substance that, according to Dr Andrew Weil, is not very good for you.

Well, this is not a health blog and I wouldn't worry about eating frozen yogurt, unless it's all you eat.  Even the gummy worms, Fruity Pebbles, Rainbow Sno-Caps, Heath Bar chunks, Caramel Turtles, Cheesecake chunks and M&Ms that people pile on before heading for the cash register to pay $11.83 for a chilly snack aren't all that bad in moderation.

Let's say your name is Young Lee, you're 49, and you founded the Pinkberry chain in 2005 with your now-ex-wife.  But in the summer of 2011, a year or so after you cashed out and left the everyday world of "yogurterias," as they call them, you were coming home from someplace with your fiancee when a homeless man approached your car and showed you his tattoo, which depicts two stick figures having sex.

Are you still with me here?

So, Mr Lee, according to the homeless man, Donald Bolding, the police, the District Attorney and the judge who found you guilty last Friday, you became incensed with the display of the tattoo, so you got out of the car, chased and caught Mr Bolding and then took a tire iron and gave him a savage beating.

And then you took off for Korea, only to be arrested in 2012 when you returned to Los Angeles, and remained free on bail until your trial concluded with you being led off in irons.

This is a nightmare all around, and when we break it all down, it's another of those stupid incidents that resulted because of a perceived lack of respect.  Lee told others that when Bolding showed his tattoo to the couple, that constituted disrespect, so that called for a beatdown.

Here in Baltimore, a guy shot another guy the other night because guy #2 had talked to #1's girlfriend.  Talked to her.

Maybe it would be a good idea to respect ourselves a little bit more and not worry so much about how much respect others show us.  After all, what others think of us is really none of our business.

Mr Lee is in custody, awaiting sentencing in January.

I can respect that.

And why is he not in jail?

Do you know who Ed Bolian is?  If you ran a jail, it would be great if you could say, "Yes, I just put him in his cell for the night."  I wish someone could say that.

You may have heard of what this jackanapes did a couple of weeks ago without ever learning his name.

He thought that a nice way to spend 29 hours or so would be to rig up a fast car with extra gas tanks and drive the car from New York to Los Angeles.  This has long been an obsession with the easily-obsessed Bolian, who wasted time in high school interviewing one Brock Yates, whose fertile brain hatched the idea of speeding from coast to coast, which gave someone in Hollywood the idea of making a movie about people hauling across the country, with Mr. Burt Reynolds as lead oaf!

Bolian, a Georgia Tech graduate, installed a switch to kill the rear lights and bought two laser jammers and three radar detectors...all with the intent of foiling the police.  He tried to rig up a radar jamming device, but, sad for him, it wasn't ready in time for his foolhardy venture. He also installed a police scanner, two GPS units and chargers for smartphones and tablets that his co-driver and navigator were to use.  And, like anyone else setting off on a motor trip, he packed some snacks, iced coffee and a bedpan.

Movies are made under controlled conditions, but when halfwits career across highways meant for all of us to use in a safe manner, endangering lives and property all over, that's just stupid behavior.

You can read the articles online if you want to.  Just google Bolian and you'll see them, mainly glowing accounts of the intrepid young man and the friends dumb enough to pile into his Mercedes and the scouts that he had driving 200 miles ahead of him to let him know of, you know, bothersome impediments such as radar traps and people driving at the lawful speed limit.

Young Bolian piped up to say, "Most of the time, we weren't going insanely fast."  This, after driving 2800 miles in just under 29 hours.

Bolian. You've got to love the look of sheer unadulterated stupidity.

We should not allow the incapable to define what sanity is. Had this knucklehead smashed into a stopped school bus or a car driven by an elderly couple, and had people died, the old hue and cry about menacing people on the highway would have been sounded.

But that didn't happen, so let's forget it, ok?

A Sad Anniversary

Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of the murders of David "Stringbean" Akeman and his wife Estelle, and I remember it very clearly.  It was one of those moments when two cultures came into violent collision, and, like when a warm front meets a cold front, bad things happened in Nashville that day in 1973.

Stringbean was a featured player on the Grand Ole Opry...a star, but not among the big stars such as Ernest Tubb or Hank Snow, back in the days when country music still sounded like country music.  His shtick was wearing a goofy getup made from an old pair of "Little" Jimmy Dickens's jeans and an elongated shirt, making comic use of his lanky frame.  And he played a banjo in the old style, strumming it in the fashion of those who invented the only purely American instrument. Here's an old clip that shows what he did so well.

He made a nice living on the Opry and playing concerts, and he and his wife lived outside Nashville on a farm where, as a sideline, he grew ginseng to sell to the Chinese.  He did not drive, but bought a new Cadillac every year so Estelle could drive him to concerts and the radio show and his appearances on TV's "Hee Haw," which brought him to living rooms across the world. Stringbean was as country as country could be.  He hung hams to smoke in a cave on his farm, but would not touch beef or any dairy product.  According to a fascinating article in the Nashville Tennessean newspaper,  String used apple cider vinegar as after shave and rubbing alcohol as deodorant.  This was 40 years ago, and yet, in the ways that matter, he lived as others did 400 years ago.

One other thing about String - like many who lived through the Depression, he did not trust banks.  The Opry and his concert bookers paid him in cash, and Estelle sewed a pocket inside his bib overalls where he hid his hundreds.  She carried money in her bra.

I guess a guy who grew up on a dirt farm and then made a good living playing a "banjer" had reason to be proud, and Stringbean was known to flash his wad of bills around Nashville, a fact that came to the attention of  23-year-old cousins Marvin and John Brown, who, that Saturday night, went to the Akeman home and listened to the Opry on String's radio to hear his last performance at 10:18 PM.  The songs were “Going To The Grand Ole Opry (To Make Myself A Name)” and “Hot Corn, Cold Corn.”

Then, with $3,182 in his overalls, and $2,150 in her bra, the Akemans went home to their fate. The Brown cousins waited in the house, String tried to fight them off, but he and Estelle were killed by their own shotgun - a gift from fellow Opry star Grandpa Jones, who went to pick them up for a planned hunting trip the next morning and found their bodies.

The Browns, predictably, blamed each other for the murders. One of them died in prison and the other is still locked up.

Two simple, country, plain people, who lived their lives as they wished and bothered no one, were killed by two young men who planned to steal their money rather than working for their own.

It's a story as old as time itself and as new as tomorrow.

Life takes funny bounces

I think that writers decided that sports made a great metaphor for life right after Richard Nixon made his Checkers speech in 1952.  His place as running mate to Dwight Eisenhower was in jeopardy after opponents questioned a gift fund that he had been dipping into. Nixon's response was to go on TV, get all misty, and say that he was a humble man of modest means whose wife couldn't afford a fur coat but he would never give back "Checkers," the dog that was a gift to his family, no matter who said what.

He should have mentioned that if people wanted to get mad at him for his crooked ways, they ought to wait twenty more years and he'd REALLY show' em somethin'!

But as the years went on, Nixon would mention, at every opportunity, that he had played college football, and would bother the coach of the Washington Redskins with his suggestions for plays, sort of like a sober version of Robert Irsay.

Fans of the Baltimore Ravens saw a great life lesson yesterday, delivered by James Ihedigbo, one of the safeties on the team. The team was doing great in the first half of the game against the Bengals, but Cincinnati was closing fast as time ran out.  Ihedigbo had made quite a few great plays during the game, and with two seconds left to play, all Baltimore had to do was defend against a long Hail Mary pass to win, but Ihedigbo, playing pass defense, batted the deflected pass up in the air, and a Bengal caught it for the tying touchdown.

He was wearing the Crown of Shame and Disapproval as he went to the bench, and then one of his own teammates, Jimmy Smith, went over to him and berated him for making the mistake of not knocking the ball down. Nice, Jimmy.  But Ihedigbo said he knew he made a bonehead play, and he had a decision to make: to sit and mourn what was already done, or to make a difference in what was to come.

Pronounced eeHEDeebo

If you saw the game or the highlights, you know that the Bengals, in overtime, were moving toward a winning scoring play when our man James, who had been knocked to the ground on a fourth-down play, got off the ground and make the crucial tackle.  And then the Ravens won, once they got the ball back.

I guess I'm writing this more for the young than for us old salts, but it seems to happen so often that we allow a setback to knock us off course.  You can't change the past, as Nixon found out as he packed up his personal effects, but you can't allow the past to keep you on the bench while the future unfolds.

And that's our lesson for today.  Please pass your texts to the front of the room.  Thank you!

Sunday rerun: Albert and his father

Albert Brooks is a funny guy - so funny, in fact, that he has to sit back and be less famous than other "funny" guys such as Tim Allen and Louie Anderson.  But he can stand it.  As he explained the other day on "CBS Sunday Morning," he did not get into show business as an all-or-nothing deal, and if he hadn't made it there, he would "gone and sold shoes or something."

But make it he did, and we've liked him in movies such as "Lost In America" and "Modern Love."  His real story, though, is almost as interesting as some movie plots.

To begin with, he was born with the name of Albert Einstein.  This little joke was played on him by his father, who was a radio comedian born Harry Einstein, who went by the name "Parkyakarkus." As in, sit down right here.  He did funny dialect bits on radio and in movies, and by the time television took over as America's choice of entertainment, he was wealthy from California real estate investments, so it didn't matter that his form of humor didn't work too well on the small screen.

He was still considered one of the funniest comics around, and so it was that on the 23rd of November, 1958, he was topping the bill at a roast for Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz at the Friars' Club in LA when stricken by a massive heart attack.

The odd thing was that he collapsed, just after leaving the audience gasping for breath after a hilarious monologue, into the arms of Milton Berle.  Trust me, the last person you want to be saying something serious on your behalf would have been Uncle Miltie, but that's the way it worked out for "Parky."  Berle stood there hollering, "Is there a doctor in the house?" and the crowd thought it was a gag of some sort.

Parkyakarkus

No joke, but really, even though some doctors actually were in the audience, their efforts to bring him back were for naught, and Parkyakarkus passed away that night.

Albert Brooks had one half-brother, the late Charles Einstein, who was a well-known baseball historian and writer, and two brothers: Bob "Super Dave" Einstein, a stunt comedian, and Clifford Einstein, who was in the advertising business.


One of Parkyakarkus's friends was Frank Nelson!  Which means that young Albert had the thrill of answering the doorbell and hearing this famous "Yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss?"

Interesting lives, all.

The Saturday Picture Show, November 9, 2013

 Our first picture this week finds us in Clearwater, Florida.  You might be joining me in wondering what the devil is going on in the Sunshine State these days.  More weird news and pictures comes from there than, say, Wisconsin.  For example, here is what happened when a stripper was hauled into court and forced to demonstrate to the Honorable Judge Whoosit that her panties were not so tiny as to allow an unabridged view of her whatsis.  The bailiff, the court reporter and the judge were all being paid for their service as this landmark moment in American jurisprudence took place.

 CJ?  Where's the W?  Don't you realize, it's a silent W?

 Toronto's crackhead mayor goof is seen here, posing with America's cracked-head major galoot.

You can talk about your tough jobs...corrections officer in a maximum-security lockup...sewer inspector...refuse collector...John Boehner's tanning machine operator. But I still have to give it up to Mr Harry C Dumler, Shop Teacher at the now-shuttered Towsontown Junior High School, where I matriculated for three straight years. Mr Dumler found it within himself to announce to a room full of 14-year-old boys, "Now men, we have three kinds of files here in this wood shop..the rough files, the smooth files, and the bastard files."  From that moment on, all we could do was ask each other to hand over that bastard.

No words for this,  except RIP Marcia Wallace.

Courting Trouble

Yesterday morning on CBS This Morning, there was a story about a young man in Missouri (the "Show Me" state) who was convicted of homicide on the words of people who didn't know much more about the case than you or I did, and we were all many miles away.  So maybe Missouri should start calling themselves the "Blame Me" state.

But the good news is, the janitor who was pretty sure he saw a guy who was also wearing a shirt at or close to the crime scene and it was probably the same night, so put him in jail for twelve years already, recanted his obtuse testimony and reckoned that he was wrong.  The poor accused man must have had one poor lawyer, if he got sent up with flimsy evidence like that.

I have to share this story from my shadowy past.  In one of my many positions with the County, it was my task to be Custodian of Records for 911.  As you might figure, everything that happens on the phones and the police and fire radio system is recorded, and attorneys for both the prosecution and defense sides often use those recordings as evidence in trials. This meant I spent a lot of time in courtrooms over the years I did that job.  I mean, if you are trying someone for murder and his name is Seamus Ellingboe, and you can come to trial with a tape of the victim's last words on the phone to 911, saying "Seamus Ellingboe just broke in through my kitchen window and he is about to shoot me" and then you hear gunshots on the tape, you can pretty much count on getting your case wrapped up by lunchtime.

So it was one morning as I sat in a hard wooden pew at the old Towson District Court, awaiting my turn to testify in a case I can't even remember.  I sat there, shifting every so often so as to avoid Numb Butt Syndrome, and waited and waited.  One of the early cases that day concerned a man who claimed to be driving his car up I-95 at 3 AM one day, only to be driven off the road by a road-raged 18-wheeler driver.  The State Police got in on it, because after the car driver got back on the highway, he went to a rest area (pre-cell phone days!) and called them, and with the description he gave them, they later made an arrest, and the case went forward.

Remember being 1/2 asleep in Math class and suddenly from deep in your cortex being aware that the teacher just called on you to solve the square root of 144?  I had that dim awareness that morning.  I heard the guy giving his impassioned testimony, and then the Ass't State's Atty. said, "Do you see that man, the man who was driving that truck and forced you off the highway at great speed, placing you in grave danger, in this courtroom today?"

The proverbial hush fell over the courtroom as the man replied, "Yes!  He's right there!"

And he pointed at..............me.

The ASA looked crestfallen, as his case fell apart in front of his sad eyes.

The judge said, "Let the record show that the plaintiff has indicated that Mr Clark from 911 was driving the 18-wheeler. Mr Clark, are you willing to answer whether you were driving a large truck on I-95 at 3 AM on April 16 of this year?"

I firmly stated that I was not.

Then the guy goes, "Oh wait, it was THAT man!"  And he pointed to some other citizen sunning himself among the throng.

The judge pounded on his gavel to quell the excited titter that ran through the courtroom.  "You only get one guess, sir," he pointed out as the ASA packed up his briefcase and I, wide awake now, accepted congratulations from my buddies and dreamed of the retirement that I now so happily enjoy...

TV alert!

Sorry for the late notice, but if it's still this morning when you read this, you'll have time to switch over to the "TODAY" Show on NBC and see Matt Lauer and Al Roker get prostate exams live on the air.

Yes I did say that.  

Long a feature of annual physicals for men over 40, prostate exams are now popular at social gatherings and supermarket openings.  Just invite a qualified medical doctor and let the fun begin!  (Note: in Baltimore, these exams are known as "prostrate exams," even though they're performed with both the star and the supporting cast standing up.)  It's considered proper for the guest of honor to lean forward, his elbows on the end of the exam table, assuming the position, as it were. About.com advises that it goes this way:

• Usually you will be asked to stand, feet apart, facing the examination couch and bending forward so that your arms or elbows are on the couch. If you're nervous about not being able to see what's going on, this is a good time to ask the doctor to describe each step to you before it happens.

As someone who has been down this road a time or two, let me advise those of you who just got on the bus that this is NOT a good time to ask your doctor what he's got in mind.  When you hear that latex glove snap on his right hand, that's all you need to know.  The following questions are permitted, and even expected:

• "Hey, Doc, did you ever do time?"
• "Don't you just hate it when you have an itch you can't reach?"
• "Did you see that special on PBS about Civil War surgical field amputations?"
• "How about those Kansas City Chiefs, huh?"

I am very sorry if this will disappoint you, but I have received word from New York that satin drapes will shield sensitive viewers from the nekkid buttockular regions of Messrs. Roker and Lauer.  However, 8" x 10" glossy photographs, taken at a discreet, tasteful distance, will be available for sale Friday morning wherever fine lubricants are sold.

Good luck, Al and Matt!  Don't forget to send a little thank you note to the doctor!

Tough Beans

The list of differences between my wonderful Peggy and me is seemingly endless.  We've talked about it for 40 years and it just fascinates me, how many things she likes that I don't, and vice versa.

Let's talk about hot beverages for now.  Peggy likes coffee.  I like tea.  If she drinks tea, it's got to be one of those herbal atrocities such as Jasmine-Lavender-Orange Blossom, which sounds like it was on the way to the shampoo factory but wound up in a teabag. Tea.  Regular tea, black tea, the kind with Colonel Lipton on the box, that's what I like. Tea.

For those of you who are not tea drinkers, especially in restaurants, here's the deal.  The server comes around after a nice meal and says, "Who's for coffee?" and all the adults say, "Yeah!" and "Me too" and "Me three" and a couple of them say they want decaf and then the lone tea drinker asks for hot tea and the mood chills instantly, as if a member of the Hasidim had asked for a ham and cheese sandwich.

Minutes later, the server returns merrily, balancing 5 cups of mocha java and a dozen little cups of creamer.  And a cup of lukewarm water and a tea bag with a lemon on the side.

I have been alive for many years and have yet to see a hot tea drinker dump a lemon in their tea.  Just sayin'.

And Lord help you if you want more tea.  The server buzzes back around with the regular carafe of java and the tub o' decaf and everyone gets their fill, and if you ask for more tea, they might bring you some water that they drained out of the relief valve of the sprinkler system the other day, and your used teabag gets to do double duty, while the Jittery Java The Hut lovers smack their lips and say it's "good to the last drop®!"

I hasten to add that this does not occur at the wonderful Friendly Farm restaurant, my favorite in all the world, because they have good coffee there and I drink their coffee happily!

Now.  About coffee.  The specifications!  It's got to be piping hot, scalding hot!  No more than 10 cc of cream! Then they get into the whole latte grande /frappuccino/ cappuccino/ Al Pacino thing.  Caramel brulee!  Macchiato, the forbidden dance! (Not to be confused with Ralph Macchio, the forbidden actor.)

I think the people at Starbucks take a certain pleasure in being confusing, being a land where a tall is a short and gingerbread is a liquid.

And of course, if you like to make your brew at home, just get yourself a Keurig machine, where you use tiny little plastic cups of ground coffee that only cost about $3 each.  And then add a little instant coffee to that so it's strong enough and then by the time you get all that done you need to put it in the microwave to heat it up.

It's true.  Coffee makes me nervous.  Not from drinking it, but from hearing about it!

Men will be boys

This was the story on FOX Sports:

Miami Dolphins tackle Jonathan Martin loves playing football.
But what a source told FOX Sports was an abusive environment that developed during Martin's 1 1/2 seasons with the Dolphins led to him taking a personal leave of absence to spend time with his family.
Martin left Dolphins headquarters last Monday when finally (sic) reaching his limit with the persistent bullying and teasing from some teammates that has plagued him since joining Miami as a 2012 second-round draft choice. As first reported by FOX Sports NFL insider Jay Glazer, the latest taunt – a group of players stood up and left when he tried joining them for lunch – led to Martin getting up himself and walking out the door.
There is no timetable for a return, which could lead Miami to ultimately place him on the reserve/non-football injury list. It also raises questions about his future with the franchise.
This wasn't an abrupt action by Martin, who is Stanford-educated and the son of two lawyers who attended Harvard University. A source said Martin has tried dealing with a slew of indignities that crossed into personal and family insults, including being bestowed with the nickname of "Big Weirdo."
Knowing his background, the 6-foot-5, 312-pound Martin probably felt that challenging teammates to fistfights wasn't the answer to the situation.
It's believed the Dolphins were aware that the cruel actions of some teammates toward Martin went well beyond the customary hazing sometimes given to NFL rookies and youngsters, the source said. Martin experienced some of that when the Dolphins appeared on the 2012 season of HBO's Hard Knocks.
The Dolphins declined comment to FOX Sports about whether they were aware of the bullying issue allegedly surrounding Martin.
Veteran players also apparently failed to help support Martin and draw a line as to where the bullying should end.

OK.  First of all, I loathe bullying in all its forms, but this reminds me of that deal in Texas we talked about in which a group of parents claimed that their kids were getting bullied in a football game, when all that really happened was that they were getting the hell beaten out of them.  It's not the same, and to call it bullying diminishes and demeans the integrity of people making a claim of real bullying.

Second, these are men of considerable means playing in a multi-million dollar sports industry.  Since all this broke, the Dolphins have suspended another offensive lineman, the curiously-named Richie Incognito, for conduct detrimental to the team. One of his offensive lines was the one in which he allegedly demanded that Martin shell out 15,000 semolians so the veterans on the line could fly to Las Vegas, presumably to enjoy an evening of Celine Dion in concert.

To me, it's a real shame that we live in a society in which the truly defenseless - the 12-year old girls picked on by their peers to the point at which they see no way out short of suicide, the nerdy kids, the different ones, forced to live lives of shame and fearful hiding in school and out at the hands of their loutish schoolmates, and the members of minorities, be they racial, ethnic or religious, the world over, victimized by the some of the majority in the name of a deity - now have the yoke that surrounds their pitiable necks, the scourge of bullying, be applied as a name for some overstimulated jocks driven mad by the Miami heat and their own overindulgences. The team leaders need to step up and deal with Martin's grievances, which, legitimate as they are, are not in the same class as a scared middle schooler, any more than a dahlia is as stout against the elements as an elm tree.

Who said, "A handshake agreement isn't worth the paper it's printed on" ?

We never know how much of what to buy for Halloween.  There are no young children on our block, but the surrounding streets are full of families with kiddies.  There was a time we had a steady stream of trick-or-treaters, so much so that we used to get a pizza and sit in the bed of my old pickup in the driveway, chomping pizza and guzzling National Boh and handing out Snickers, Milky Ways and I don't know what-all else to kids dressed like Pee Wee Herman or Edward Scissorhands.

And then, we would have plenty of candy for November and December.

Now, neither of us really wants 147 Three Musketeers bars around. So, we give out wee bags of Pretzels or Goldfish crackers, and this year, we have a few left over.  So, of course, with Goldfish on my mind, I started thinking about the MGM movie studio.

MGM - Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios - was formed by merging
Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer Pictures.  Goldwyn Pictures was the corporation in the early early days of Hollywood owned by two brothers named Selwyn, and a man named Samuel Goldfish.  For real! Goldfish, a Hasidic Polish Jewish immigrant, was born Szmuel Gelbfisz, which he translated to Samuel Goldfish for business purposes. Later, he changed his name to Goldwyn when he teamed with the Selwyns.  Interesting man, and one of the original movieland moguls.  I can only imagine that if Goldfish crackers had been around by the time he left MGM to Mayer and made his own movies and big money, theaters would never have sold popcorn.

Samuel Goldwyn
1879 - 1974

Goldwyn is often recalled these days when the talk turns to malapropisms (the use of a funny word, often unintentionally) and wry twists of phrases.   For example, he said, "I don't think anybody should write his autobiography until after he's dead."  And, "In two words: im-possible," and the motto of bosses everywhere: 

"I’m willing to admit that I may not always be right, but I am never wrong."

I don't go to movies anymore, except for movies with Johnny Knoxville in them, but when we do get there to see "Bad Grandpa,"  I will have my teeny bags of Goldfish crackers in my pocket!

Sunday Rerun: The REALLY social media

I'm on Facebook and so is my wife and so are hundreds of people we know well, and some we know only as FB friends.  And we like it, and it's fun, so no problem.

I have 600 and some-odd friends.

Except for Rev Cedric Miller, who tells his New Jersey flock that they can't be married and be on Facebook because being on FB makes people want to "know" their friends on that biblical level.

I like the quote from Ms Dawson of that church: "It can be a useful tool, but it also can cause great problems in a relationship. If your spouse won't give you his or her password, you've got a problem."

Here we go with the snooping and the computer checking and the steaming-open-of-letters and the listening in on phone calls and so on and so forth.  If you are married or otherwise committed, you should trust the person you are with.  If you can't trust them, why are you there? 

Peggy does not need to give me her password.  We use the same password all over the place ("O U C I 8 3 BLTs", a tribute to my favorite sandwich) so there is nothing to hide.  Peggy has been keeping a journal since the early days of our marriage, and none of that will stand up in court  I have no need to snoop into any of the 47 volumes she has written about her life and ours because we have nothing to hide.

It's like this:  People always drag out the old tales about how, if you just don't talk to teenagers about sex, they won't be interested in it.  And you saw how well that works, didn't you, Sarah Palin?  Teens are interested in each other and they will find ways to get together.  The job of their parents, guardians, teachers and mall security guards is to arm them with wisdom and encourage proper choices.

Facebook is a microcosm of society and, as such, there are opportunities to shine and opportunities to sin.  If you are really interested in getting horizontal with someone who sat next to you in 7th grade US History, you can locate that person and recreate the Battle of Big Ol' Horndog if you care to.  If you enjoy sharing stories and pictures, thoughts and inspirations, with friends old and new, it's a delightful place to do so.

And if you feel that you are a bit short on self-restraint and maybe you might be too tempted if you see one more picture of your old flame at a cookout, then you also might be tempted to tell everyone else that they shouldn't look at cookout photos either, lest they be so tempted.

But that would be overlaying your values and issues over an entire group of people, wouldn't it? 

The Saturday Picture Show, November 2, 2013 (Special 'Happy 88th birthday to my mom!' Edition

This is the scene where, on January 31, 1957, New York gangster Sammy Santoro met his end by being shot 4 times in the head.  It's at 475 1/2 Hicks St in Brooklyn.  The black and white 1957 images were photoshopped in with a current photo of the building.  I am shocked - shocked! - to see that gangsters wore white socks.

 The only word I know in Swedish is "IKEA, " so I don't know how they say it over there, but "glorious" is the word that comes to mind to describe this Swedish sunset.

It was a foggy night in New York City.  That's how millions of stories have begun.

This appeals to my decorating sense, such as it is. I saw this in Lancaster, PA, the other day.  Now,  I have two old, beatdown, wooden ladders in the shed, and I never dreamed that they could be a handy stand on which to put other things.  Instant display! I will sell either of my paint-dripped wobblers for $500 each, or two for $1200. 

Speaking of whom...

They call it Illeism,  from Latin the Latin word  ille meaning "he", and it just means talking about oneself in the third person.  Athletes and musical performers seem to be particularly prone to illeism, for which there is no known cure, except for shedding half a ton of ego.

Here are some examples of people sadly afflicted with illeism:


"I wanted to do what was best, you know, for LeBron James, and what LeBron James was gonna do to make him happy." - - LeBron James

"Without the fans, Floyd Mayweather wouldn't be where he's at today." - Floyd Mayweather

"You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference." - Nixon

Nixon could just as easily have said,
 "You won't have #12 to
kick around anymore"

"Elmo loves you!"  - 

Elmo


 "Making a decision prematurely to pull out of this project wouldn't hurt Barneys or Shawn Carter but all the people that stand a chance at higher education."  - Shawn Carter

Shawn Carter gets special recognition, because he is perhaps better known as Jay-Z, so for Jay-Z to speak of himself in the third person as Shawn Carter is, maybe speaking in the 4th person.  Or sixth.  

Mark Clark can't decide.

Hees the man

It's a shame that somehow my tastes outgrew "the great taste of McDonald's" because now, after 40 years of tormenting customers with bitter, vinegary Heinz catsup, they are changing suppliers and they plan to carry other brands.  If I still ate there, I would hope they would go with Hunt's catsup, but I just checked the messages and the HBFIC (Head Burger Flipper in Charge) had not called me for an opinion as of last night.

It's fun to read that all this came about, not because suddenly people came to the realization that Heinz makes a pretty poor catsup, but because some dude who used to run Burger King, one Bernardo Hees, now runs Heinz.  He got tossed out on his crown at the King and jumped over to be CEO at Heinz when the catsup and pickle giant was bought by Warren Buffett.

You knew that his name was going to play into all this, didn't you?  There is a snowball stand around the corner from me which might be the last business in the country into which Buffett has not bought, but they re-open in March, so let's see what happens then.

My grandmother made her own catsup - and I say and spell it that way in honor of Arthur Spooner, who also said it that way -
- and she told me that the big catsup makers purchased rotten, squished or pockmarked tomatoes to make their burger sauce.  That has stuck with me, and I like to think that the good people at Hunt's, who were kind enough to sponsor "My Three Sons" for years, are out there first thing in the morning in the vast tomato fields of Southern California, wiping droplets of dew off each and every Box Car Willie tomato and getting it ready for the burgers and fries I can't touch anymore.

Chirpy Chirpy Cheap Cheap

I'm going to let you read this story for yourself and then, let's talk about what went on out there in America's heartland: 

OVERLAND PARK, KS (KCTV) -

A 20-year-old waiter provided exemplary service at an Overland Park Italian restaurant, but his anti-gay customers refused to tip him because of his sexual orientation.

The man works at the Carrabba's Italian Grill near 107th Street and Metcalf Avenue. His mother also works as a hostess and she was very upset by what was written on the back of the check earlier this week after he waited on a couple. As word has spread through social media, other customers are coming in to offer words of encouragement and tip the young server extra.

"Thank you for your service, it was excellent. That being said, we cannot in good conscience tip you, for your homosexual lifestyle is an affront to GOD. (Homosexual slur) do not share in the wealth of GOD, and you will not share in ours," the customer wrote. "We hope you will see the tip your (homosexual slur) choices made you lose out on, and plan accordingly. It is never too late for GOD's love, but none shall be spared for (homosexual slur). May GOD have mercy on you."

The server and his mother declined to answer questions on camera, referring questions to restaurant management.

Carrabas said in a statement that the company does not tolerate discrimination from either employees or guests.

"We embrace diversity and believe in treating everyone with respect," the company said.

However, Carrabas officials would not say what action if any would be taken if the anti-gay couple returned.

The anti-gay message has galvanized support for the server on social media with a campaign underway to flood the restaurant on Friday. Dr. Marvin Baker and his partner had lunch at the restaurant on Thursday and asked to be seated in the server's section.

"I was angry. I said this is not Christian as I know it," Baker said. 

Coincidentally enough, the hostess who led them to their seats was the server's proud mother.

"I said, 'We are here to meet your celebrity. The one who was mistreated.' She said, 'That's my son. Would you like a table or booth?' I said, 'Wherever he's serving,'" Baker explained.

Baker served as a pastor for many years and currently leads a Bible study group for LGBT members. He said the couple's behavior was ungodly. 

"This does not represent Christianity. I called them Pharisees," he said. "God really loves us. And God does not advertise or promote hate. That is not love."

Baker said the server indicated to him that he appreciated the support. They agreed that gays experience too much rejection and hurt, and that "it is nice to know that someone cares."

Copyright 2013 KCTV (Meredith Corp.) All rights reserved

What say you?  I'm sure there are people who regard this action as being the right thing to do in the name of God.  I have received many heavenly messages in my time, and not a one of them ever said "Go around telling everyone how to live their lives, and whom to love."

And I also feel that "that being said" is just a way to say, well, here comes the probe.  Please prepare for it.

I have eaten in many a restaurant in my day, and I think it's fair to say Peggy and I are fair tippers.  But I have seen a lot - a whole big lot - of people who look for ANY reason to get cheap at tip time.  

"There was too much ice in my ice water!  No tip for her!"

"They put yellow salad mustard on my Rhinoburger and I wanted Dijon!  Why should I leave a tip for the guy who brought me what the chef cooked?"

"These servers, they have it made.  Just bring someone a plate of food, plop down a soda, and I should pay their salary? Hah!"

I therefore conclude that this whole Carrabba's commotion certainly resulted from the guy and his wife just being too damned stingy to leave a tip. Because, surely, no real Christian, no one who has known the mercy of a loving God, would then use his religion as a cudgel, a club, a way to punish others.  

Right?

Eye Eye Eye

Our favorite eye doctor is featured in this news story on Channel 2 in Baltimore, concerning the fad of wearing fake contact lenses to make it appear that one has no pupils (the all-white eyeball) and the cat-eye lenses (like Michael Jackson in the Thriller video).

For reasons I have told over and over, Dr. Melissa Connolly is my favorite doctor of all time; she even edges out Dr Delanois, the man who made things all right with my left knee, and Dr Pham, King of All Local Dermatologists.  I've been itching to call him that.

Dr Connolly gives nothing but good advice, and when she says don't put illegal non-prescription non-medically-approved lenses in your eyes, you should listen.  I know, it's the cool thing at Halloween to look like you just got dug up from a crypt, but how about just going out tricking and treating as Punky Brewster, like you useta?

Here's something you can help me figure out.  How come so many people shudder at the thought of eating red meat, recoil in horror if someone fails to spend 12 hours a day exercising, and gobble quinoa even if they can't pronounce it - and then will light up a Lucky Strike while sticking a piece of plastic of spurious provenance onto their eyeball?

Moderation in all things, including moderation.  But no fake lenses, please. There's a lot happening, and you want to be able to see it!

Texas Priorities

If you drop a few drops of hydochloric acid and spill them on your shirt, your shirt will soon resemble Swiss cheese, being all hole-y and all.

If you drop those drops into a 55-gallon drum of water, the potency of the acid will be diluted to a point of ineffectiveness, and you'll have to find other ways to put holes in your shirt.

It's like that with other things too, even beyond the field of organic chemistry, of which I know next to nothing.

I'm thinking about the parents of the football players at Western Hills High School down in Texas, where high school football is like a religion, only with better attendance, and a marching band.  Their redoubtable Cougars football team recently took on Aledo High School down in Fort Worth, losing in a photo finish, 91-0.

91-0.

There's a great scene in the movie "The Last Picture Show," also set in Texas, when the local 11 get shellacked, and the next morning, the adults are hectoring some of the players, saying "Y'all ever heard of blocking and tackling?"  And one guy, when another spectator says he'd like to be proud of his hometown team, says, "Be easier if you had a better home town."

He.Could.Go.All.The.Way!

I set out to write about this, because those football parents in Western Hills actually filed charges of bullying against the team that beat their inept sons, 91-0.  "How dare they be better than Jim Bob and Donnie Jeff?" they fumed, as they went online to send in the formal complaint, which was soon found groundless by authorities.  I was all set to write about how this dilutes real cases of bullying, in which some kids are real true victims of sociopathic behavior from their classmates, many times with tragic consequences.  When a 12-year-old girl is harassed to the point at which suicide seems her only way out, that's bullying, and that's horrible.

Losing a football game?  It happens. It isn't bullying.

And here's what makes me want to file charges against Mr and Mrs Outraged Texans.  Google "Western Hills High School" and you come up with this story from 2011, when two baseball players from that august school were accused of killing baby chicks in some bizarre ritual intended to help them play baseball better through voodoo.

There is no record of outraged parents being thoroughly fed up and filing reports of bullying against the ballplayers. I mean, killing baby chicks?  No problem in Texas.  But don't you dare score more touchdowns than Cletus, Beauford and Wrangler Slim did.

'Cause we'll file papers on ya, consarn it!

Sunday rerun: Darn Old Duck

Heaven knows, I don't know the secrets of how to be attractive, but I think most men would agree that there's one sure way to be un-attractive in the female division.

That would be to pose for pictures with that duck face on your kisser.

I see this all the time now, and Facebook is awash in pictures of pretty women making this mallard-face.  Viz:

On the right we see a with-it young fun couple.  He is posing in the modern young man manner, which is to say he has plucked his eyebrows, applied "product" to his hair and lip gloss to his snout, and wants to be mistaken for that The Situation guy from that Jersey Shore.  His girlfriend has a bit of a situation going on too; we can't tell what she is trying to accomplish with those pursed and pushed lips.

 

To quote the great Phil Dunphy, "WTF: Why The Face?"

And here's ten bucks that says, what if someone had gone up to all these young ladies and said, someone is  going to take your picture for a worldwide social networking site, but instead of smiling when they snap the picture, would you consider wrenching up your lips so that you look like the grille on a '65 Pontiac LeMans?

I don't think so.

Now here's an old picture of a young lady, taken before this quacky-face fad got underway.  She's no longer with us, but the lovely Sandra Dee smiled in the old fashioned way, and she didn't have to change her name to make herself well known.  Good thing she did, though.  It wouldn't have sounded right in "Grease" to have Rizzo sing "Look at Me, I'm Alexandra Zuck."

The Saturday Picture Show, October 26, 2013

I enjoyed the October photo challenge so much, I went out and looked up the November version.  Come on and play along!

If you don't like autumn pictures, please stop at the box office on your way out because the whole Picture Show is all autumnal all day today!

Imagine pedaling along a lane like this, and being all the happier because it's not up to you to do the raking!

I'm pretty sure this is going to be my new wallpaper on the pc.

They even have autumn in Russia!

Picture This

 When the cell phone was invented, people thought, "Oh, how nice!  This way, I can always stay in contact with friends and family, and the kids can reach me if they need to, and if I'm going to be late because of a wreck on the road ahead I can call Jim and Sally and tell them to keep dinner warm!"

And then there were those who thought, "Put a camera on that phone and I can take dirty pictures with it!"

In the amazing pantheon of Marylanders In The News, make room for Dr John Yacoub, a gynecologist from my home town of Towson.  Dr Yacoub is in deep trouble.  His medical license was suspended earlier this month because a) he had pictures of female genitalia on his cell  b) there are allegations that he used and distributed illicit drugs   and c) he distributed some of that dope to a woman with whom he has been enjoying unsanctified congresses (doin' the Hibbidy-Dibbidy!) At least, that's what the authorities allege, although, as lawyers, they refrain from calling it the Hibbidy-Dibbidy.

His lawyers about broke their necks getting to the news with breathless announcements that no one need worry about the pictures.  They were medical pictures, you understand, taken for purely clinical reasons.

Well, let's see if that pans out. There is a precedent in this case. When a group of my fellow classmates in fifth grade were found to possess a photograph of Busty Russell in her bosomy glory, our claim that it was merely preparation for future anatomy classes fell on deaf ears.  And Ms Russell's ears were the last thing we were looking at, I'll tell you that.

Notice how I initially claimed not to be part of the ogling mob and then admitted it.  I should have gone into law.

And here's another noteworthy Marylander!  Say hey to Adam Bartsch, a TSA agent who was sitting on a plane, dipping his cell camera way down low to take pictures up the skirts of female passengers. And a grandpa from Tennessee grabbed that phone and Bartsch ran off, only to be grabbed by police. He admitted that he was taking pervy photos, apparently failing to remember to claim that they were medical pictures intended for purely clinical use.

I am reminded of the words of the great Tony Hendra from the National Lampoon:

Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls would scarcely get your feet wet. 

Rock Heads

I've known people who were Scout leaders.  Most of them were in it for the right reasons, such as showing young people a good way to live, passing along survival tips and woodland lore and the like.

Several of them were in it for the wrong reasons, and you can just imagine what I mean by that.  

But in any group of people set up to do good things, you will always find a few participants for whom seeming to be doing a good thing makes an excellent cover for what they're really up to.

Which brings us to the three butteheads from Utah who went to the Goblin Valley State Park and toppled rock formations that had stood for 200 million years, until they showed up. Think about it.  These rocks had stood unmolested through wars, American westward expansion, and the popularity of Madonna, and then along came David Hall, Glenn Taylor and his son, and boom!  Down went the rocks, along with a little more of our national intelligence.

Me smart.  Me destroy nature.

Their claim of preventing a tragedy by moving precariously-placed boulders holds about as much truth as a Rand Paul campaign speech, but these louts, these clodhoppers, are standing behind the Boy Scout uniform, saying that, “Some little kid was about to walk down here and die, and Glenn saved his life by getting the boulder out of the way.”

By the same logic, I once averted a bank holdup by not going into a bank and asking for a lot of money in a takeout bag, and only my quick thinking prevented a fire at the gas station the other day when I cleverly failed to shove a lighted flare into my gas tank. 

Gleeful idiocy

The gleeful idiocy with which they topple the rock and then dance about merrily makes me shake my head, fearing for the future of a country in which knuckleheaded galoots are advisors to young people.  And now, deducing that this crime might result in his loss of his cherished green uniform and Smokey Bear hat, Taylor laments, “I wish we would have been smart enough to go get a ranger, ‘cause it was wrong of us to be vigilantes, and I’m sorry I did that. If you’re a felon, you can’t be a Scouter and that would break my heart. But I did the crime.”

And I hope he also does the time.

Overprepared

Otis Redding was one of about a thousand people who did the old song "You Don't Miss Your Water" ('Til the Well Runs Dry)." It's true!

As I write this, there is no running water running into the house.  A big water main break a couple of miles away has left us high and dry, and that's when you appreciate the face that we have progressed past the frontier days when getting water meant going out to the pump and giving the handle a workout. Then, you had to haul the water inside and heat it on the stove if you wanted it hot.  No wonder the Wild West was so full of ornery people, ready to shoot each other in gunfights or hang people or drag them behind wild horses.

But the least we modern townspeople can do is to be prepared, which is why I keep three or four cases of bottled water around for drinking and washing up, and then I keep old gallon milk bottles down in the basement for doing the dishes and what-all else.   I don't expect the outage to be in effect all day, anyway. By this evening, we'll be taking big sudsy bubble baths or long steamy luxuriant showers and just letting that water run and run and run.

For now, though, water is liquid gold.  Better store some away for the winter!

I still miss Kerouac

I am often surprised that there is little interest among the younger set in the life and work of Jack Kerouac, who died on this date in 1969.  Kerouac was an American poet and author from Lowell, MA, most well known for writing "On The Road," the account of his travels across the country, often in the company of Neal Cassady and other progenitors of the "Beat" movement.  To write that book, Kerouac taped together long sheets of paper into a 120-foot scroll, and began typing from his notes and rough sketches.  Having the continuous sheet of paper freed Jack, a noted speed typist, from having to change paper every five minutes.

Among the critics, Truman Capote said that Jack's writing "wasn't writing, but typing."  Capote missed the point.  Kerouac led the movement that saw writing as a free-form exercise, and his works reflect a stream of consciousness that sounds
more like someone is talking with you than writing at you.  And, several years ago, the word-for-word version of the original scroll was published, and comparing that to the published editions shows pruning and editing done by his publishers, people who had no experience with a writer of his magnitude.  They just didn't understand what he was doing, and that is often the price of genius.

I was a college freshman the year Kerouac died, and his death marked one of the first times that I dealt with the passing of a hero.  He was 47 when he died, and of course, at 18, I thought, well, he had a rich and full life, living that long.  I was soon to learn that he had become rather dissolute in later years, a querulous, somewhat cranky old man, actually rather conservative in his outlook.

Of course, now that I have zoomed past the "47" mile marker on Life's Highway (and am desperately searching for a rest stop) I realize that Jack left all too soon.  And of course, I have come to respect that he was the first to go out and among “the only people for me... the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars” and then write about it.

As opposed to writers such as J. K. Rowling, unless there really is a Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry somewhere.