High School Hi-Jinx

Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, students at South Philadelphia High School who cut more classes than they were allowed to  - and they are allowed to cut 20 classes per year - are not being allowed to attend their senior prom unless they make up CARE packages for soldiers overseas.

These acts of grace have a good outcome, at least.  The students run out and procure $25 worth of beef jerky, nuts, sunflower seeds, granola bars, Crystal Light singles and lip balm, and the USO is paying to ship the boxes to soldiers in Afghanistan, one of whom is a 2012 Southern graduate.

South Philadelphia High, known as Southern High up in the City of Brother Lee Love (the name of a DJ who used to work there at WFIL) is the alma mater of many a luminary of our society, such as Al Martino (born Jasper Cini), Frankie Avalon (Francis Thomas Avallone), Fabian (Fabiano
Anthony Forte), Mario Lanza (Alfred Arnold Cocozza), Jack Klugman (Jacob Joachim Klugman), Joey Bishop (Joseph Abraham Gottlieb), Chubby Checker (Ernest Evans) and James Darren (James William Ercolani).

From this, we have learned two things: the principal of South Philly High, one Otis Hackney III, has a very strict policy as regards skipping classes, and students are only allowed to cut 20 times before feeling the ruthless hand of Hackney's Law on the back of their rented tuxedos.

Eddie Fisher (center) poses with his
first (r) and second (l) wives.

That's 20 cuts, friends.  20.

But this seems appropriate for a school from which no one seems to be graduated under their own name.  Say hi to Edwin John "Sonny Boy" Tisch from the class of 1946.  You knew him as Eddie Fisher.

Airport!

I love my friends and l love driving my car and I love doing the opposite of what the GPS ladyvoice says to when I'm driving to the airport to pick up a returning friend.

I do love picking people up at the airport but every time I go, I give thanks for the fact that Peggy and I don't travel far enough to need to be leaving on a jet plane.

I was walking around BWI - Marshall Airport the other day and it was like when you see one of those bees-under-glass things at honey shops (we have plenty of them!).  If you're not actively engaged in going to Santa Fe to see your cousins or you're not jetting off to a vacation in the Great Dismal Swamp or winging it to Allentown to meet the Gurneys and a dozen gray attorneys, you're kind of in the way.  All the purposeful, resolute people regard you as an interloper and play Dodg-'Em with their Suitcases On Wheels as you stand like a cigar store Indian and watch the hurly burly hurl right on by.  They all have wrinkled brows and firm unsmiling mouths.  And wheeled luggage.

And talk about a captive marketing experience...I chanced to pick up an umbrella for sale at a newsstand. Don't worry about it if you're coming to Baltimore for the rainy season.  Before you even leave the baggage claim area, you'll have the chance to buy yourself an umbrella, just like the ones back home at SmartMart that you can get for $3.95.  You'll pay $24.95 at the airport, but at least they won't hit you for $25.  Antihistamines, cough drops, air sickness pills and pain relievers, same deal.  Just a little higher in price, is all.

Oh!  And I was looking for directions to the American Airlines terminal, so I ankled up to a TSA agent and said, "May I ask you a question...?" And she said, "No!  Psych! Go ahead, what is it?"

I should have said "Does this bomb I have in my underwear make me look terrorist-y? Psych!" but these people are not noted for their senses of humor.  Although the maintenance man walking by got a laugh at her "joke."

Speaking of maintenance men...are they ever going to FINISH this airport?  Every ten feet there was construction, deconstruction or reconstruction in progress.  Baggage-go-round #9, which was supposed to be bringing out the checked luggage on my friend's flight was occupied by a beefy repairman, who was sprawled upon it, going over a schematic diagram with a yellow hi-liter.  Their belongings were to be shooting down chute #7 instead.

One final thought.  If you're looking for work and you want the kind of job that requires standing behind a counter, staring at the middle distance with a sort of blank countenance, get right on down to the airport at once. They have dozens of people doing just that, and some of them seemed very tired.

It was fun to go meet my friend and drive away from the airport.  I just hope never to fly away from the airport.

Quizzical

I stumbled over this list on a site called "edating.com" because it was on the other end of a link advertising a list of questions to "keep the conversation going."  For shy people, it must be the hardest thing on earth to spark a conversation into a roaring blaze of chatter and laughter and promises of future conversations.  "What am I supposed to talk about?" they ask, standing there with their phone in one hand and someone's phone number scrawled on a torn piece of paper.

Well, let's look at the list! some of you are saying, along with my idea of the answer you hope to hear:

Do you have any crazy internet dating stories? Hope for "not really" because a Yes might involve more weirdness than you're ready for
What is your most embarrassing moment? Hope the answer has nothing to do with "this one time, at band camp..."
Best way to relax? Please say, "Sitting around reading quietly!"
Favorite movie star?  If it's Johnny Knoxville, good. Keanu Reeves, not so much.
Dog or cat? Can't go wrong with either.
Do you exercise?  Best done alone...sweating on dates is just wrong.
What is the weirdest thing about you? Keep your fingers crossed that the answer to this does not involve any sort of implant or after-market body part.
Favorite all time movie? Look for anything with Die Hard in the title.
Beer, wine or coffee? Two out of three ain't bad~
If you could retire tomorrow what would you do? Hope that the answer to this is outside the realm of being a South American military dictator.
Super powers you wish you had? You want to hear "Levitation" and "transmutation of water into beer"
What would you do with your lottery winnings? Listen closely for your name!
Are you neat?  If the preceding answer contained your name, disregard this question!
What is one food you will never give up? If they say cous-cous or hummus, you're golden, because you don't want any of that, right?
What compliment do you usually get that doesn’t have to do with your looks? Ok now about your looks.  Look for "everyone talks about how generous I am and how I'm willing to overlook little faults in others."  About the looks, if they say "I'm often mistaken for (Mila Kunis/Bradley Cooper)," no more questions needed!
Do you have a nickname? Ever had one?  Run, if it's "Skankface"
What’s one thing that if your mom knew about you, she would freak out.  "That I finally forgave her for making me wear auxiliary underwear all through high school" is a definite deal-breaker.
If Hollywood made a movie about your life what would it be rated and who would be the star? Who cares about the rating as long as the name "Mila" or "Bradley" comes into play?
Tell me a secret.  You're on your own here...
Do you like the taste of beer? Tricky.  If it's "yes," good.  If it's "I don't care for it, but let them take it who choose to do so." is also good, but "Only the worst type of human would drink a beer" means run for it!
Do you have any tattoos?  If it has the names of 7 or 8 previous lovers inked over, that might be cause to keep a-lookin'.
Do you have any piercings? Anything is cool except a pierced thorax.
Do you work out? You want "toned," but not "so musclebound as to be unable to walk right"
If you could travel anywhere in the world where would you go? "My getaway in Afghanistan" might be a problem.
Play an instrument?  Banjo, accordion, guitar, drums, saxophone are all winners.

Good luck, diving into the dating pool!

Respecting My Elders

Every time I drive past a certain corner in Hampton, St Francis Rd and Westellen Rd, to be exact, I think about something that happened there in 1968 and I wonder how far we have come since then.

I was in the Fire Department then, and we got a call for a woods fire at the location shown in the yellow oval above.  When we arrived, we found, not a woods fire, but a large pile of yard debris - about the size of the foundation of the average house.  A very large pile of felled logs, trimmed limbs and old branches, burning merrily on a humid Saturday night, and a man standing there with a rake.

He told our captain that he was burning off yard materials, although he had no burning permit, and that we needed to leave his property right away because he was a close friend of Spiro T. Agnew, who at that time was the former Baltimore County Executive, current governor of Maryland, and was just a few months from being chosen to run with Richard M. Nixon as #2 on the Republican ticket for the White House.

Our captain used the radio to call for police.  While we waited for the cops to arrive, I recognized the man as a big shot from our church, the father of a girl who used to go to school with the rest of us but somehow had been transferred to the newer high school, the dreaded Dulaney High.  I had heard people talk of how connected he was, what a fine, staunch family man he was, a local businessman, with a sterling reputation and on and on and on.

Yet, here he was, throwing his influence around, illegally burning in violation of county law and bothering his neighbors with his smoke and soot.

The cop came and told the man he needed to go inside and let us put the fire out.  The big shot stepped right up to the officer and said the question that all public officials love hearing: "Do you know who I am? I could have your badge for this!"

The cop said:  "You can have my badge, but you still can't break the law as long as I'm wearing it.  Now step back, sir, or you're going to get awfully wet."

We put the fire out and went back to the station feeling like we had overturned a rock and seen something sort of...slimy.  Or like we had been walking past a house whose walls suddenly fell down and we were seeing a nasty family fight in progress.

Spiro T. Agnew went on to serve almost two terms as vice president before resigning from office in the face of a bribery scandal.  Like some two-bit local highway official in the middle of some backwater village, he had been taking canvas sacks full of bribe money from paving contractors in the county courthouse, in the State House in Annapolis, and in his White House office.  Shortly after his resignation, he was disbarred in our state for being "morally obtuse" in the eyes of his fellow lawyers, and he claimed that Richard Nixon and Alexander Haig, another top White House factotum, had planned to assassinate him.

These are the sort of people that I was expected to respect.

Sunday Rerun: Take Me To The Other Side

If you get the chance, please click here and go to the New York TIMES website to read a very nice article about Steven Tyler, and how his "rock 'n' roll affability" is doing so well replacing the acerbic Simon Cowell and his tight t-shirts as star judge in the star chamber known as American Idol.  It's funny; Peggy and I watched AI faithfully for many years and so far this year, we haven't tuned in.  For one thing, the early shows feature a succession of oddballs, lunatics and plain old nutbags, and you sort of feel as if you're picking on the village fool for watching people who are clearly deluded about their ability to carry a tune.

Then again, many people with similar delusions are earning a handsome dollar singing on records, in concerts and in nightclubs, so what do I know?

And when they get down to the serious competition among the two dozen or so finalists, we will probably watch again.  But one night we happened to tune in to the last few minutes of the show.  We were getting ready to watch FOX45 News At Ten.  There must have been a snowstorm going on and we figured it would be a way to see the weather forecast and also get a good look at Keith Daniels standing at a salt dome as front-end loaders loaded up the back ends of dump trucks with enough salt to line every tequila glass from here to Juarez.  At the end of the Idol show that night they showed a young man whose fiance had been in a car crash and is now, so sadly, afflicted with huge physical challenges.  The TIMES article goes on about the affecting way that Steven Tyler (real name: Stephen Tallarico) had of greeting the woman and encouraging her. He was most kind, and he showed the bearing of a man who has met thousands of people and put them at ease.  The paper goes on to say that he knows how to do that because he is a professional.

To me, there are few words of higher praise than to be called a "professional."  It indicates that someone has been down this road a few times and knows what she or he is doing, and can handle the unexpected as well as the expected.  Let's face it: everyone loves young people and hopes they do well as they embark on their careers, but who wants to be the first patient for a brand-new brain surgeon?  Put me in the hands of someone who knows what to do when something goes south.  

A pro is one who can handle everything that comes their way with equanimity and grace.  That's when you can really spot a professional: when a curveball comes their way.  I think of that goofy weather guy Chad Myers on CNN when Katrina was hitting the Gulf and how he tossed a little hissy (and his clipboard) as Carol Costello literally begged him to explain things in terms that could be understood by breakfasting Americans who do not hold advanced degrees in meteorology.  Watch him - it's the best definition of unprofessionalism I can offer.  

A professional is where he or she is supposed to be at the time he or she is supposed to be there, trained, prepared and ready.  Have you ever had an appointment with someone who was not there at the appointed time, and then strolled in fifteen minutes later, wheezing about the traffic, or the lack of dry towels at the gym, or who parked in their private parking spot?   

So, big ups to Steven Tyler.  He was really nice to another person, and that's a rare thing.  You can see the entire sequence right here and know that he's the kind of man who can step out of his flamboyant persona and reach out to another person who really needs a boost. 

The Saturday Picture Show, May 3, 2014

I'll bet that I have tried to eat with chopsticks over a hundred times in this life o' mine, and have met with no success whatsoever. I always give up and grab a fork, and then look around the House of Chow to see some guy eating soup with sticks.

 Snoqualmie Falls, Washington.  Hello? (Larry King voice)

 Just to show what a big old world this is, with so much the same and so much different...if I said this is an old New England town with several shoe factories and a scrappy high school football team that always does well in the regionals, you might think so, but there would always be someone to say, "Hey no!  This is Vilnius, Lithuania!"

 We've seen those 3-D chalk artists on the streets all over the place, but here in New Zealand, they do these amazing 3-D stunts on the sand.  Which is your favorite?

 Richard Gere is making a movie in New York; he plays a homeless guy.  The lady shown here is a French tourist who thought he was a real homeless guy, so she got him a slice of pizza.  For an actor, this is a two-faced coin: his acting is good enough that she bought him in the part, but she didn't recognize him! In a story I've told a thousand times, Gere was here in Baltimore County making that "Runaway Bride" picture when my mom's friend's son ( a movie prop man) took both ladies to the set at the church in Long Green from where the runaway bride...runs away.  She said Gere was as normal and down to earth as the guy who works at Sears changing tires, but the crew were not allowed to make eye contact, nor speak directly to, Her Majesty Miss Julia Roberts, who at last report was still only tangentially in show business.

This is a radio tower in Shanghai.  Is that rust I see on that one piece of metal?  How sure can he be that it's not all rusty and about to give out?

In a moment of youthful ignorance

Jameis Winston, student and athlete at Florida State University, is in trouble again.

There was the time he was supposed to be involved in a BB-gun fight on the FSU campus, the time he was accused of stealing soda from a Burger King, and, most troubling, an accusation of sexual assault against a female student.

Ah, but the first two offenses were just swept under a big red carpet, and the State Attorney for Florida "declined to bring charges" in the alleged rape, because of "lack of evidence."

It's just like any college kid to fool around with a BB gun, and he certainly was not the first ever to get the idea to take a ketchup cup and fill it with unpaid-for Pepsi.  And since neither you nor I were present during the encounter with the female student, we can't say what happened that night in December 2012.

But.  This past Tuesday, young Winston, the sophomore, reigning Heisman trophy winner, quarterback of the national championship football team, and a very good pitcher and designated hitter as well for the baseball team, admitted to walking into a Publix grocery store down in Tallahassee, ordering $32.72 worth of crab legs and crawfish, and then just walking out without paying, and going home for a big ol' seafood fest.

The store called the police, the police went to Winston's apartment, and he said that he "forgot" to pay.

I'm sure we've all done that, right?  Oh, I FORGOT to pay for this Toyota I just drove off the lot!  This case of beer, this pizza, this I don't know what...

Serving suggestion

Here is the second-worst part of this whole thing: the police down there, in an effort to cut down the crime rate, have just changed what it takes to have something considered a crime.  This would be like the Fire Department claiming to have lowered the amount of fires by just not counting fires in brick buildings, or those that occurred between midnight and 7 AM.  It cuts the amount of crimes way down if you stop calling every crime a crime.

The worst part for me is that Winston's lawyers drafted a statement to hand out to the press, allegedly his words: "As reported in the news, last night I received an adult civil citation for petit theft from a local supermarket. I went to the supermarket with the intent to purchase dinner but made a terrible mistake for which I'm taking full responsibility. In a moment of youthful ignorance, I walked out of the store without paying for one of my items.

"I realize that I am in the public spotlight and my conduct needs to be above reproach. Over the last year I've learned that my accomplishments on the fields can be a wonderful thing for my school, teammates, friends, and family. At the same time, I must realize that my mistakes are magnified and can bring great embarrassment to all those who support me every day. I make no excuses for my actions and will learn and grow from this unfortunate situation. I hope and pray my friends and family will view me as the 20-year-old young man that I am, and support me through this unfortunate situation.

"I am grateful to be able to participate in the adult citation program where I will complete community service."

I love sports as much or more than anyone else around, but what happens when a young man is told, from the age of 8, that he is special because he can throw a ball or hit a ball or catch one?  He gets the feeling that the world owes him $32.72 worth of seafood. And the "adults" who ought to be showing him otherwise stand back and wait for the next football game to start.

And you lawyers?  Could you at least TRY to make these words you put in the mouths of your defendants something even close to words they might have said?  Do you have to do EVERYTHING for them?

"What I Am" is "The Boxer"

Paul Simon has had quite a career in the music industry.  From his early days recording poppish almost-hits with Art Garfunkel as "Tom and Jerry," to his early-sixties days as a member of Tico and the Triumphs ("Motorcycle," 1962) to his more important contributions to the folk-rock era with Simon and Garfunkel, he has been involved in musical culture for over half a century.  In fact, you might say that no song more perfectly reflects the nature of folk-rock than S&G's "The Sound of Silence," recorded first in 1964 in a pure acoustic version- without commercial success - and then, reproduced with drums and electric guitars and bass, it was re-released as "The Sounds of Silence," and became a #1 hit. 

And from there, they went to record many other popular songs, and then came the inevitable decline from popularity, and Simon's "I can't be embarrassed by this because I am playing a guy who is embarrassed to be wearing a turkey costume on Saturday Night Live" era, followed by the saddest days of all: touring with Sting.

Yes, that is Paul Simon.  And have
you met his wife Edie (r)?

Now 72, Simon spent Monday afternoon in court in his current hometown of New Canaan, CT, after he and his wife, singer Edie Brickell, 47, were booked for disorderly conduct on Saturday night. There was a dispute between the two, so the story goes, and then Edie's mother decided to call the cops.   His lawyer put the weight on the mother-in-law for dragging the law into it, and Edie herself said, “I got my feelings hurt and I picked a fight with my husband. The police called it disorderly. Thank God it’s orderly now.”

Yes, Edie (last famous in 1988), the police will tend to regard as disorderly any conduct they are called to handle with people flailing away at each other, verbally or otherwise.

I mean, for crying out loud, can't you people sit up there in Connecticut with your money and your old records and behave yourselves?  If I have to come up there and straighten things out, I'll give you something to be sorry for!  I'll bring Sting (left) with me!

What a revolting development

If this is the biggest deal I can grumble about today, I guess I am pretty well blessed.  But for crying out loud, could the developers of new housing developments around here be a little more creative with the names of their, well, developments...and street names.

I'm sure this happens all over the world.  Let's say the more desirable section of your town is called "Swankytown" by those who live there and by those who wish they did.  The seedier section, with the car parts in the yard and the brothers-in-law wearing wifebeaters while sitting on folding patio chairs in the front yard, hooting at passersby and teasing the bloodhound, let's call that "Skidville."

There is no more land available to build new houses in Swankytown, so builders will buy former gravel pits and farm dumping sites in Skidville, lay down 1/4" of topsoil, and start building houses on 1/5 acre lots in new developments called "Swankytown Overlook," "The Reserve at Swankytown East," and "Swank's Choice."  From all of these sites, you wouldn't want to have to walk to Swankytown proper without packing a nice lunch.

Then the developer starts naming the streets.  Now that every Scottish, Irish and English town name in the atlas has been used for road names in Baltimore County, they have taken to naming streets for their own grandchildren, so you pass streets named "Heather Nicole Court" or "Brooklyn Grace Drive."  Or the portmanteau streets, from chopping up names, e.g. "Logagail Lane" or "Makaymonic Place."  



It gets worse when developers can't spell. Right around the corner from us is "Britinay La", the result of someone who can't spell Brittany and has forced everyone who lives there to repeat, a thousand times a year, "No, it's B-R-I-T-I-N-A-Y!"   And just the other day, we saw a road down in Cowenton, a part of town that is doing all it can to be called "White Marsh." That road is called "Morning Dove Way," but a quick googlization shows the same mistake being made in Oceanside, California and Marsing, Idaho.

I'm officially in mourning for the English language. 

Medical Assurance

Alan King used to do great routines about doctors and lawyers and house painters and such, and they were funny.

  An elderly man went to the doctor complaining of aches and pains all over his body. After a thorough examination, the doctor gives him a clean bill of health. 
“Who asked you to make me younger? Just make sure I get older!” 

“You’re in fine shape for an eighty-year-old. After all, I’m not a magician – I can’t make you any younger,” said the doctor. 

It's not as funny, for real, when a real doctor makes a real mistake. My mother, whose health is not at all good at age 88, recently underwent a series of iron infusions to try to get her past the anemia that has plagued her since childhood and is now making things ever more difficult as she battles other issues.  At 88, you need all the strength you can get, that's for sure.

So we were hopeful for good news when we went to see the doctor for the results of blood testing after the iron went to work.  We waited as the med tech took more blood for testing, and soon the doctor appeared, with notebook computer in hand. If you've ever seen the movie "The Hospital," where the bumbling doctor walks into a patient's room, takes a cursory glance at a chart and says, "Well, Drummond, you're none the worse for wear!" and the patient explodes, "I'm not Drummond, you monkey!" then you know how I felt when the doctor knit his brow and pursed his lips and said, "Your mother's iron levels are low...I'm going to recommend that she comes in for some iron infusions..."

And I did not call him a monkey, but I said, "Are you talking about the same procedure she's just had for the past month?"

Oh, how he blushed.  He got all tomato-faced, reminding me of the quote from English temperance leader Clara Lucas Balfour, defining a blush as "The ambiguous livery worn alike by modesty and shame."

But, did he say, "Wow!  Look at me, almost sending your mom to repeat something she already had done!"  He did not.  He stuttered and stammered, "Well, I had not reviewed her files before I came in... I mean...er...uh..."

Not trying to harsh out the good doctor here.  The point is, everyone is going to make mistakes, from the best to the worst of us. (The worst of us just make our mistakes on nationwide TV.) Something they might want to teach in medical schools, yea, in all schools everywhere, is how to be gracious enough to say, "Whoa! I was wrong there!  What I should have said was..."

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Victor Newman!

I can say this because I have a track record of being wrong about things and have learned that it's just best to say so and get things back on the right track.  Like when soap opera actor Eric Braeden (born Hans Jörg Gudegast) told Keith Olbermann that soccer would one day eclipse all other sports in popularity in the US, we're all wrong now and then.  Another piece of advice: if there is a chance that you are going to be wrong, do not be wrong in front of Olbermann.  He is not "Frozen." He will not let it go.

Nicknames In The News - 1980s edition

I'm fascinated by nicknames, and love finding out where they came from.  This might be attributed to being a man married to a "Peggy," whose real name is Margaret.  It took years to figure out that "Margaret" became "Meggy," which then became "Peggy." 

Bon Scott (l)

This does not explain why the nickname for "Mark" is not "Park," but I let it go because I wondered how come flamboyant pint-sized AC/DC frontman Bon Scott, born Ronald Belford Scott in Scotland, came to be called "Bon."  I've heard two stories.  In a radio interview, the late singer (alcohol overdose, 1980) said that his mother thought he was such a "wee Bonnie lad" that he came to be called "Bon," but another account holds that after his family moved to Australia in his childhood, there was also another "Ron" in the class, so the kids riffed on "Bonnie Scotland" and called him "Bon" Scott.  I'll provide this 1979 German TV clip so that my friend Ruth will have something to start off her day!

Another interesting nickname is the one carried around by former New York Yankee manager Billy Martin. If you thought he was born William Martin, sorry.  Nothing was ever that easy for the man born Alfred Manuel Pesano Jr. in Berkeley, California in 1928. Pesano Sr. deserted the family and young Alfred(!) was soon adopted by his mother's next husband (she had a few) who was named Martin.  His Italian grandmother, noticing what a darling, adorable little boy she saw running around in the yard bullying the other kids, began calling him "Bello," Italian for "beautiful."  By the time she was fitted for corrective eyeglasses, the name had morphed into "Billy," although the late Alfred (DWI accident in his own driveway, Christmas 1989) did plenty of bellowing during his playing and managing days.

That's it for today!  Next time, let's look at why they call Richard Bruce Cheney "Dick."

Sunday rerun: Dated Comments

Note: this is from 2012, so don't go off thinking that we're in another leap year, please.   -- Ye Ed.

I'm a bit of a dumpster diver, I'll admit it.  And I'm always on the lookout for boxes to use for recycling, so I snag 'em from the recycling area at work to take home and fill up with used newspapers and beer cans.  

So today I was over there in Papertown and I saw a 2001 calendar that someone had gotten rid of.  It was striking, to see that.  It reminded me of when you see a rusted, junky hulk of an old car on the side of the road, steam spewing out of its snout like a Gingrich tantrum, and you think of the day some happy family got that Delta 88 when it was brand new, and how they all piled into that Oldsmobile for a ride over to Cousin Al's and then a stop at Scoops, the ice cream parlor.  For the first few weeks, until Dad spilled egg foo young all over the front seat, no one was allowed to eat in the car.  Ah, the memories!

When this calendar was printed up in late 2000, the world had been through its Y2K crisis and everything seemed to be OK, but a few hanging chads later, things changed.   Still, there was nothing about Tuesday, September 11, 2001 that seemed to augur anything evil.  Just by looking at the calendar, it was going to be another Tuesday, that was all.

I have framed in our garage a work schedule that my father made up for the last three months of 1941.  I keep it around because it is an early example of the perfect calligraphy that he used every time he wrote anything.  From a formally done wedding commemoration, to the face on the grandfather clock he made us, to a note to an adolescent me reminding me to change the oil in the Plymouth, cut the grass and sweep out the workshop, everything he wrote was a work of art.  So I figure it was during the summer of 1941 that he laid out the calendar for the final quarter, and you can look at this chart and see who was working at the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company in his department on that Sunday morning, December 7, "a day which will live in infamy."


They're all just dates on a calendar, 365 per year, except this year when we will have 366.  Until something happens that makes a day of memorable happiness or one of memorable enormity, we never know. 

The Saturday Picture Show, April 26, 2014

 First stop today is at an Irish castle, somewhere near the peaty shores of Glocca Morra.  (You remember Peaty Shores as the affable weather guy on the six o'clock news, right?) These places, when you read about them, were always built in like 1238, and you can only wonder what a tough time the contractor had getting materials to the jobsite, with so few Home Depots open then.

 Here's a backpack having a whale of a good time.

 These are kids in India who want to learn.  So desperate are they for education that they do not mind sitting under a bridge abutment, barefoot, while learning from men in their town who have made ersatz chalkboards on the walls of the abutment of the bridge that these young people will take as a bridge to success. Meanwhile, back in the United States, children protest having to wear decent clothing to class while I read about a boy in India whose deepest desire is to own a pencil.

You can climb a mountain, you can swim the sea, you can jump into the fire, and you can go to Mars, and there will be a police force on duty, because some people just can't seem to behave without them.

 From the Allman Brothers Band Museum in Macon Georgia, this is a picture of the bedroom of founding member Duane Allman as it appeared a year before his death in 1971. The Buddah represents Duane's interest in people and their ways all around the world; the egg timer is there because one of the early incarnations of the band was a group called "Hourglass."

I am not about to turn the Picture Show into some sort of cheesecake gallery where gratuitous pictures of pretty women are displayed for no reason other than to present pictures to be ogled. This young lady is Julia Lily Kova Zabolotnikova, who was born in Russia and has since moved to Miami to pursue work as a model and singer. The one and only reason I present her lovely image to you is to tell you that all through my primary education, I was told that Russian women all looked like Nikita Khrushchev, and I share this picture to prove that theory wrong.

They used to call "making out" "necking" and now they don't even call it "making out" anymore

I have nothing against tattoos, in case you were asking.  Adorn your skin as you see fit, but all I ask is that you ignore my guffaw at "TOUCH OF CLASS" tramp stamps. Meanwhile, I've always planned to have "I'm the only hell my mother ever raised" emblazoned on my bicep, so who am I to judge?

However.  Teardrop tattoos just below the eyes generally mean something not-so-great about the wearer.  Either the person has been in jail, or has been involved in a murder, or has lost a loved one in a violent manner: those are the reasons behind most tattletale teardrop tats.

Looks good on you, though!

Add to that the word MURDER in ALL CAPS around your neck, and you have the visual presented by Mr Jeffrey Wade Chapman, who is about to stand trial in Barton County, Kansas for the 2011 murder of Damon Galliart.  Represented by Attorney Kurt Kerns, Chapman is appealing to the court out there to allow the jail where he currently sits in stir to send over a tattoo artist to remove the MURDER word from his neck.

So, there it is: A man on trial for murder who once went to a tattoo guy to have the word MURDER etched into his body now does not want a jury to see the word MURDER on his body, for fear that they will convict him of murder because of it.

The State of Kansas says they don't care what he does about it, knowing full well that local sheriff Brian Bellendir knows a) that under state law, a tattoo artist can only practice at a licensed facility, b) the local hoosegow is not a licensed facility and c) there is no way on God's green earth that the county will take Chapman on a field trip to get his neck cleared up.

No one has been executed in Kansas since 1965, although the state still does maintain a death penalty law, with the prescribed method being lethal injection.  There was a time when all executions in The Sunflower State were by hanging, leading me - a a death penalty opponent but also an opponent of murder and having MURDER tattooed on one's neck - to suggest that if Chapman has any sense of humor, he will have "PLACE ROPE HERE" written on the back of his neck. 

Meanwhile, in Portland

Did you know there is a Dallas in Portland?  Not the whole city, but one Dallas Jeffrey Delynn, 18, who lives in that Oregon city, and like every single one of us, has to go to Tinkletown now and again.

The difference is that most of us find proper plumbing fixtures when it's time to see a man about a horse.  Young Delynn, at 1:11 AM on a Wednesday several weeks ago, found himself at Portland's Mount Tabor Reservoir #5 and found it necessary to make his bladder gladder, so he let it fly into the water supply.  This action was seen on surveillance video.  Delynn was charged with trespassing, public urination, nepotism and violating the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act,  and the two friends with him were also booked on trespassing and interstate flight to avoid infusion.

Delynn shakes hands with
his best friend (from official video)

Because Delynn could not wait to go home to break the seal, the city of Portland, just 618 miles from the Napa Valley of California where grape ranchers, wine fanciers and Boone's Farmers are screaming and crying for water, decided to dump the 38 million gallons of water in Mt Tabor #5.  Also, all birds flying over the reservoir have been outfitted with diapers, and the rats, mice, squirrels, chipmunks and warthogs who dwell on the banks of the artificial lake have been served with restraining orders and have been told to "Go to a Denny's or something" when they need to go Number One, thus keeping the water pure as mountain air.

Two other steps have been taken:  the city has contracted with TarpMasters Ltd for the purchase of a 17-acre canvas cover for the reservoir, and Dallas Delynn has been grounded until like forever, dude.

Look out, all of you alligators who live in the drains!  Here come 38 million gallons of h20!

Water is a big deal in Portland, like coffee in Seattle and grits in Alabama.  The water bureau there has its own Facebook page and slogan ("From forest to faucet, the Portland Water Bureau delivers the best drinking water in the world") but only 174 people like their page, which is certainly not a high-water mark.  They have a YouTube page, which must contain fascinating video of water flowing here and there, a Twitter account, and a blog.

Who in their right mind has a blog?

But I keep trying to get back to the fact that not all that far from Portland there exists a huge drought, and there ought to be a way to get those 38 million gallons of water from there to there.  UPS and FedEx are two ideas, along with a really long pipe. But according to Jaymee Cuti, spokesperson for the water board ( I knew Dick Cheney was involved in this!), "We're not in a drought in Oregon. And we don't supply water to places that are in drought."

Not even if they come up there with 38 million buckets.

Take Me Out OF The Ballgame

I watch a lot of baseball games because I love a) the game itself and 2) my Orioles.  Maybe not even in that order, but I marvel at the men who can throw a baseball 60' 6" and hit a strike zone not much bigger than some totebags, or men who can hit that baseball 450' or run and catch a ball that someone else hit.

The ballplayers I was raised watching had names like Clint "Scrap Iron" Courtney and Enos "Country" Slaughter, monikers that left no doubt about their commitment to hustling and giving every ounce of the effort they had as they cavorted around in soggy wet flannel uniforms.  And I am happy to see that I rarely if ever see a poor or lackadaisical effort on the part of my local nine, rakishly clad in tailored polyester as they are.  Sure, they make mistakes; they drop balls, they throw the wrong pitch in the wrong place to the wrong hitter, and they strike out.  As is often said, baseball is the only endeavor where you can be a huge star by being successful 3 out of 10 times.  It's not the results, it's the effort.

And that brings me to this Bryce Harper fellow who plays for the Washington Nationals.  On Saturday, his turn at bat resulted in a grounder back to the mound, so he jogged halfway to first base and then veered off to run to the dugout even before the play was complete.  Sure, it's one time in a thousand that this play doesn't result in an out, but the point is, a true competitor (and showman, because let's face it, these people are entertainers as much as athletes) gives full effort every time on every play.

No kidding: Harper's investments include ownership
 of a company that sells that eyeblack goo. Here,
he models two weeks' worth of his product.

For his blatant dogging (and is that fair to dogs, who always run when we play with them?) Harper was shown to a seat on the bench, the ultimate humiliation for a man who apparently considers himself the greatest ballplayer who ever lived.  I have to applaud the Washington manager, Matt Williams.  If he doesn't expect the big stars to follow the little rules, how can he expect the rest of the team to do so?

Thomas Boswell, writing of this in the Washington Post, says there are two kinds of ballplayers: those who have been humbled, and those who are about to be humbled.  I think that works for all of us in whatever walk of life we pursue. As another writer long ago put it: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest."

And while I'm picking on baseball players, let me say this to the Boston Red Sox:  just because you don't swing at a pitch does not necessarily mean it's not a strike.  The O's just played these people four games, and every time a strike was called on a Red Sock, you would have thought the umpire was asking to commit an act of defenestration with the guy's sister, so great were their looks of outrage and dismay.

Batter up!

"Other than that, Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?

Rocky: "I can't see nothin, you gotta open my eye.
 Cut me, Mick."
 Mick: "I don't wanna do it."
 Rocky: "Go ahead, cut me."

Being so busy training for upcoming marathons (they are about to rerun the entire Murphy Brown series on Encore, and there's always the Rocky marathons on TCM) that I neglected to write about this on April 14,  I hope today is not too late to learn about something that was probably on one of those "Rest Of The Story" deals that Paul Harvey used to do.

April 14, 1865 looked like a pretty good day for President Abraham Lincoln.  Although he had no way of knowing that we'd still be arguing about it in 2014, the Civil War had ended with Robert E. Lee surrendering at Appomattox, VA.  All of the soldiers were sent home, with prisoners freed and sent home as well. The nation was set for Reconstruction, and all prospects pleased Lincoln, except that his wife wanted him to go see a play.  "It's only one night," he probably thought as he went about his presidential business, signing this and proposing that.

One of the bills he signed that day, the last day of his life, created the “Secret Service Division of the Department of the Treasury.”   That's what we call the Secret Service today, men and women who accompany the president on his travels, protecting him, and also getting drunk and having intoxicated arguments with prostitutes around the world.  Lincoln could not have predicted this that day. He signed into law the bill that created the agency that today protects the president, we hope, and went off to see "Our American Cousin," devoid of protection.  Because?

Because the reason for the creation of the Secret Service in those pre-FBI days was to stop the flow of counterfeit currency.  They figure that one-third of all American money in circulation in those days was fake.  With diligent effort and hard work, today we're down to just one-quarter of our folding money being bogus. People wishing to make counterfeit nickels might as well go ahead, since it takes so many of them to buy anything anyway.

But rooting out the scourge of fakeout dollars was the prime focus of the Service for decades, until presidents James Garfield (1881) and William McKinley (1901) were assassinated.  Presidential security became their goal after McKinley was shot by a man inevitably referred to as "crazed anarchist Leon Czolgosz." (Garfield - the president, not the cartoon feline - was shot by the man inevitably referred to as "disappointed office-seeker Charles J. Guiteau.") Theodore Roosevelt, McKinley's uneasy successor, was the first president given Secret Service protection, and also the namesake of the Teddy Bear.

All high school history students may feel free to print the above and turn it in as evidence of how hard they studied over spring break.  All the facts are true,  just made more amusing with the addition of whimsy, which is in short supply these days.

So You Shouted!

"Every time I go to a ballgame, I always get the same seat: between the hot dog vendor and his best customer," said American philosopher Alfred E. Neuman. 

We go to lunch or dinner and the same guy is always there.  This is really weird, the way he can morph into being an old guy or a young guy or a guy in a lawyer suit or a guy who is the subject of lawsuits. He is always just a table or two away.  He is never alone. He is always male, for He is Mr. Loud Talking Man.

At first, when I was confronted by having to hear one end of a conversation from ten yards away (the other people at LTM's table never raise their voice, if they even manage to chisel a word in edgewise) in which I have no interest, I thought well, this poor fellow must have been born and raised in a machine shop, indoor gun range, or in the foundry where they made Hell's Bell.  Hearing loss would seem to be the only reason why a person, otherwise completely civilized, would bellow, hoot and holler like a guy rooting home a hoss down the backstretch at Old Hilltop.  

But as I came to see these people more and more, and saw that they did not employ ear trumpets to hear what their beleaguered dining companions had to say while Mr LTM paused to catch his breath, I ruled out deafness, and remain puzzled.

The other night was a good example.  We went to OMFGLOLFriday's with some good friends, and in the next booth was a guy belting back the Jack while bragging to some poor woman unfortunate enough to be his lucky date for a magical evening.  He bragged about how much he a) drank and b) screwed things up royally while attending college and yet here he is, enjoying great success as Regional Second Assistant Vice President for Corporate Sales, Baltimore Division, of a Fortune 4,000 firm specializing in industrial adhesives and solvents.  I think the company name is HiDryCloNoMoCo, Ltd, but I could be wrong. His whole sales approach to the young lady, for whom I felt more pity than any woman in the world since when I found out there is a Mrs Bill O'Reilly, seemed to be "I'm a lovable scamp with a drinking problem; you gotta love me!" which she clearly was not going to do in any sense of the word.

What's funny about these men is that when they finally shut up for half a mo to breathe or shove some food down their necks, the room quiets down and you look around like when the refrigerator stops running and that's when you notice the refrigerator had been running.

It's my bet that when he went to drop her off that night, she said, "I'd love to invite you in for a cup of coffee, but drove me crazy all through dinner, so why don't you just drive yourself on home and forget we ever met?"  At least I hope she did, and then had a blessedly quiet night.

Sunday Rerun: Chin Chin Cheree

Vinny "The Chin" Gigante was a mobster in New York, and from everything that I ever heard, a nice enough man.  I certainly have no grudge against him...

But I thought of him the other day when I read that all of a sudden, the most popular form of plastic surgery in this nation is chin augmentation, in a nation which, to listen to certain people, is in the grips of the worst national economic depression since they lined up to sell apples in 1934.

They call them "chinplants" and they are just the thing for people who don't think that their current chins stick out far enough.  Aging baby boomers who see a jowly countenance in their morning mirrors and teenaged girls who demand a greater resemblance to Jennifer Aniston are lining up to take one on the chin.
Aging males who have always wanted to look like Nixon or Jay Leno can now have that desire become a reality.

What's the difference?

People are saying that they really need a more youthful jawline when they are on Skype, videochatting with their friends and former prom dates, and they realize they don't look quite chiseled enough.  New Jersey is leading the current revolution; chinplant procedures in the Garden State are up 71%.

New Jersey is also a great place to get cantaloupes and blueberries.

Saying that makes about as much sense as going to a plastic surgeon to get a new chin.

The Saturday Picture Show, April 19, 2014

Quite a mixed bag this week...let's look at the big pictures!

The only thing funnier would be to have the guy smoking a cigarette while carrying a 5-gallon bucket of gasoline.  The very people who exhort us to practice safety sometimes need more practice themselves.

 For all the home handypeople, this is called "Drilling a pilot hole to insert the wall-gripper with a hook so you can hang up the picture of the grain silo that Artesia painted so well."  It's also the prelude to having to get the vacuum cleaner out to suckulate the drywall dust that the hole makes.  This handy idea is worth it! I just put a pad of sticky notes in my handy-tote!

 I saw this on several fire dept websites this week.  These ramps are used to allow traffic of the motor vehicular sort to proceed along a roadway without damaging the charged hose line or cutting off the flow of water.  They won't do a daggone thing except get squished when a train comes along, but at least the thought was there.

I love this one, not only because it uses the word "snigger" about snide morons, but because it's a demonstration that sometimes the cottage-cheesy cracker barrel folksy common sense lore that some find so enchanting is just not based in scientific fact, no matter how much it's repeated.  Space exploration is best left to people who know what they're doing; I think we can all agree on that.

 I once told someone that I examined the early, classic Simpsons episodes with the same intensity that a Kennedy scholar uses to look through the Zapruder footage.  Question is, is this an intentional "mistake" or an actual goof?  The photo shows Moe Szyslak, nefarious bartender, addressing townspeople along with Mayor Joe Quimby beneath the statue of Jebediah Springfield, founder and namesake of Bart's home town.  Eagle-eyed readers will be able to spot the boo-boo and write back to me, telling me what they spot.

I understand that Clarence Thomas, who holds a position on the Supreme Court, has not spoken out loud there, has not so much as asked a question or posited anything during legal arguments, since February 22, 2006. Perhaps he has been thinking over what would be an appropriate punishment for these jackanapes who gridlock traffic around the clock.  Clarence, speak to me!

Time for a new jersey

Oh, Lorde

Don't feel too bad if you don't recognize the name Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor, or if you think she's the high school girl who wound up babysitting for Abercrombie and Hildegarde a couple of weeks ago when your brother-in-law and his wife, who were supposed to watch the kids while you went to the Rotary Club dance and installation of new officers for 2014, cancelled at the last minute because of reasons which will be fully aired at the next family birthday party.  I mean, she may very well have been the backup babysitter if you lived in New Zealand, because that's where EMLY-O'C comes from.  You know her as Lorde, a pop singer who has a real fascination for royalty and aristocracy, which led her to write a song called "Royals" when she was 16.  She took that name to highlight her love of all things royal, and frankly, given the way many Americans drool over foreign royalty, it would not be a surprise to see more kids from Kentucky or Oregon named "Wills" or "Duchess Kate" or "Boy George" soon.

16-year-olds will write about what they are obsessing about, which is why I wrote a series of poems (as yet unpublished) at that age with titles such as "Girls," "Beer," and "When I Get My License I Am Going To Hit The Road Like Kerouac."  I also dabbled in the limerick form that summer, with most of my efforts starting off "There once was a lady named Hewitt..."

The picture that
launched a career

But young Ella was serious about her songs, and added an 'e' to her assumed stage name to make it Lorde, a more feminine form. One day, flipping through a National Geographic magazine, she happened upon a 1976 picture of onetime Kansas City Royals baseball great George Brett, surrounded by autograph seekers while wearing his home "ROYALS" jersey.  She was gobstruck with the picture and sat right down and wrote that song, which apparently was a big hit record last year.  

I listened to the song, and it's not so bad lyrically; it's about not getting caught up in material success and so forth.  Wikipedia says it's about how bad it is to be "aspirational," and I guess that is bad, if all you can think of is the next pile of money you intend to jump into.  Musically, I think the song could have used a fiddle or two and a steel guitar, but then, I think that about every song.

News broke out of Las Vegas the other night that, at long last, Ms Lorde and Mr Brett had met, and she had the chance to tell him how the picture inspired her muse.  All very good, and I am thankful that she did not see a similar picture of a member of the Tampa Bay Rays togged out in his home jersey, or she would have written a song called "Rays," saluting all famous Rays, such as Ray Charles, Ray Liotta, Ray Lewis, Ray Rice, Ray Stevens, Ray Romano, Ray Manzarek, Ray Milland, Ray Bolger, Ray Walston, Ray 'Boom Boom' Mancini, Ray Kroc, Ray Nitschke, and Ray Stern. 

The kid stays in the picture

There's this video, you might have seen it, that shows a teenaged Dutch girl growing from itty bitty baby to full-fledged teen in 4 minutes of time-lapse photography.

If you could go back and ask my parents, they would tell you that it seemed to take about 4 centuries for them to see me turn 14.

Lotte, age 9

But anyway, this proud papa of the Netherlands, Frans Hofmeester, decided, after baby Lotte was born in October, 1999, that he should get her to sit down once a week and be videotaped against the same rumpled white background.  14 years later, he has edited it all into a video that I am sure she is hoping that Dad won't get the idea to show to all of her prospective boyfriends.

How to get a child to park it once a week and sit for the camera? I suggest promising not to play any Tim McGraw/Faith Hill duets. That promise would induce me to do anything!

Another example of this real slow life sped way up is the 1971 movie that John Lennon and Yoko Ono made called "Erection." I can still picture John telling Mike Douglas the name of this opus. We didn't have color TV at the firehouse, so I didn't get to see Douglas's face turn red at the very mention of that priapistic pun. Mr and Mrs Lennon simply took a photo every day of the London International Hotel being built across the street from their flat, and strung the pictures together so you can see what it takes to build a hotel, in case your name is Hilton.

There are movies of Paris Hilton as well, but that's a topic for another day...

Edwina Farrell Browning?

We stopped at the Goodwill store the other day on the way home from BJ's just because you never know what you'll see there.  And everyone who walked in there that day saw a real live portmanteau!

"I didn't know they had pets at the Goodwill store!" some will cry.

You know portmanteaus if you've ever watched "I Love Lucy," stayed at a roadside place on the way home from a trip to Lake Chaubunagungamaug, picked up Labradoodle poop from the lawn, or stirred your Vodka-and-Clamato with a spork.  Or watched "Titanic" for all those scenes with the rich people's luggage being loaded onboard. (Poor people, played by Leonardo D. Caprio, used their left pocket as their luggage.) Those giant two-part suitcases that look like wardrobe closets with handles on top? Those are called portmanteaus, a French word made up from combining the words "Porter" (to carry) and "Manteau" (an old word for clothing). French linguists in need of a word to describe two-part luggage came up with "portmanteau."  English linguists in need of a word to describe two-part words came up with stealing "portmanteau" from the French, who immediately invited the English over for a turducken dinner.

So it's a portmanteau to say "motel" (combining motor and hotel), "DesiLu" (Desi and Lucy), "Labradoodle" (Labrador retriever and poodle), and of course, the deadly "spork," scourge of high school cafeterias all over, is an eating implement that's 1/2 spoon and 1/2 fork and completely useless as either.

Egg-Free Brunch? Emergency Food Bank?

This portmanteau for sale at the Goodwill looked like the one pictured here, but it had the initials "E F B" neatly painted in Times New Roman on the top.   And ever since, Peggy and I have played the EFB game, trying to figure out who he or she was.  Elbert Fabian Bolton?  Elinor Federica Bonaventura? Employee Fringe Benefit?

Imagine the places that portmanteau has been and been seen in, and now it sits in a Goodwill store in Perry Hall, Maryland, yours for $300.  Perfect for your friend Earleen Fay Bailey, who always liked to end her day with a nice Eucalyptus Foaming Bath!