Going my way?

After we got our pneumonia shots the other day (retirement is a continuing series of thrills!), Peggy and I headed down to my old high school to walk around the track four times and get fresh air and exercise.

As I love to do, I reminisced about my high school days, and showed Peggy where the sub shop and delicatessen called Smetana's used to stand on York Rd.  And how, after detention, I would hurry to get there to join the crowd for a cold cut sub, chips and soda, and how after that I would walk up to Read's Drugstore for an ice cream before cutting through Hutzler's and Towson Plaza so I could get to Goucher Boulevard and Providence Road and hitchhike home for supper.

By the way, I weighed 140 lbs at the time, and had to run around in the shower to get wet.  I could not drink from a straw, lest I fall in.

Anyway, that word hung heavy in the air. Hitchhike! When is the last time you saw someone hitchhiking around here?  Man oh man, the time was that you would see guys and the occasional teenaged girl with their right arm and thumb akimbo, waiting for a ride from a suburban mom in a Buick Estate Wagon, a businessman with time to tell a young person his theories about personal and business success ("And one thing I learned from taking that course is, no matter what you think you're selling, be it cars or buggy whips, you're really selling yourself !"), or a three-time loser with nothing else to lose, driving a stolen Dodge.

Sorry.  That last one was from Dragnet.

Maybe this kind of movie ruined everything

If you moms of teenagers can even think of it, yes, there was a time when we got around by hopping into cars driven by total strangers, without a cell phone or tracking device of any sort on us for our parents or Inspector Flanagan from Police Headquarters to track us with. I know the last time I saw someone thumbing a ride, gas was about 45 cents a gallon but I still didn't pick the guy up.

Frankly, I don't know who stopped hitchhiking first - the kids who were afraid to get in the car of Harry Homicide, or the innocent driver scared to death to stop for Stanley Slasher with his algebra book and his looseleaf notebook with "ME + YOU = ?" on the front in magic marker.

Good times.  Good times.

1-2-3-4-R

It happens every so often and it always makes me smile.

I saw a lady I know, mother of a teenager, mention the other day her son was learning to "drive a stick," which is slang for learning to drive a car with a manual transmission.  Literalists would think that the poor kid is trying to get around town on a broken branch, and how would that look?

She did mention that he stalled the car once. Hey, it happens to the best of us.

I learned to drive on a 1960 Volkswagen, one of the first cars equipped with "260" air conditioning (roll down 2 windows and drive at 60 mph.) It had a manual transmission...four on the floor, plus a handy reverse gear to get out of parking spaces and driveways.

What's really handy about a manual transmission, and I don't know that many people realize this, but you can start a stick-equipped car with a dead battery by getting it to the top of a small hill, letting it roll down in neutral with the clutch engaged and the transmission in 1st gear, and then popping the clutch once the car gains a little speed. Of course, getting your brokedown car to the top of the hill requires three other guys... I did this plenty of times before I came up with the scratch to buy a battery from the Pep Boys.

And this was so long ago, Manny was still smoking!

Now, the only Manny who matters is Machado, and I don't know what he drives, but I think everyone should learn to drive a stick...and then not drive a stick.  Sure, it's fun when you first get a truck or car, yanking that lever, pushing in the clutch, letting out that clutch...and that's just your left leg.  Your right leg is working the gas.  Your right arm is working the radio or holding a soda, and there is some steering being done by the left hand, which is also holding a taco or an electric razor or a mascara wand.

And then, after a month or less, shifting gears every three seconds is far less fun than it was when you were playing Indy Champ video games, and you are ready for an automatic transmission.  

But you won't forget how to drive a stick! I once had to borrow a buddy's truck to haul home some paneling from Hechinger's, and first I had to jump start it, and then I remembered how to shift, after 17 years of being shiftless. 

It's like falling off a bike. You never forget how!

Is that a Balsam, Fir, or Pine tree? I can't deciduous.

You know, one lawn chore I really don't mind doing is raking leaves.  We don't have that many leaves because we don't exactly have a forest of trees here at the Lazy 'C' Ranch, you understand, but when they come down, they have to meet their fortune at the hands of a rake.

It's my long-held contention that most leaves that people rake are not their own.  A lot of what's on your yard right now belongs to your neighbor's maple or elm or ash or pecan (Southern US only) tree. But it all works out, because YOUR leaves wind up next door, or around the corner.  And then someone else is raking them up.

Next time you find yourself raking up the pieces of tree remains that cover your yard in a foot-deep river, here are some leaf vocabulary words to run over in your mind. 

The abscission layer is the barrier of special cells created at the base of petioles in autumn.  The petiole, as any schoolkid knows, is the stalk connecting the blade of a leaf to the stem.

Now, where's a schoolkid, preferably one with a rake, now that the leaves are all over the yard?  Oh, that's right, they're up at the school, learning about abscission layers and petioles and I don't know what-all else.

The forest gumps who know about these things estimate that the average big oak tree dumps 254,480 leaves on an unwilling homeowner, all of which have to be scooped up and put in XXX large plastic bags.  These bags are sold in packs of 24 and come with cuts and rips in them, made by the guy who boxes them up at the factory, so that just after you fill them up with leaves, the bag breaks, and leaves spill all over the yard.

Just so's you know, he used to work for the Trojan company, doing the same work...

Sunday Rerun: Don't Talk Back!

You like to sing in the car, don't you?  Come on!  I see you at stop lights and making sharp turns, belting out a medley of Broadway show tunes, country classics and rock 'n' rollers.  I do too.  It's amazing how great I sound in the truck, and I always think some sharpie ought to hook up a recorder in here and really make some fine records.  Of me singing along with someone else's records.

To someone else's songs.  Just think of how great it would be if we could compose a lilting melody and smart lyrics of our own!  Just think, if we had a happy day and were in the Biscayne heading home and could just write a happy-day song about it all!  How great would that be!

Also great: being Jerry Leiber, who, along with partner Mike Stoller, wrote a few songs you might have heard over the years.  A few!  Such as, for starters:

"There Goes My Baby"
"Hound Dog"
"Kansas City"
"Smokey Joe's Cafe"
"Yakety Yak"
"Poison Ivy"
"Charlie Brown"
"Ruby Baby"
"Stand By Me"
"Jailhouse Rock"
"Love Potion No. 9"
"Searchin'"
"Young Blood"
"Is That All There Is?"
"I'm a Woman"
"On Broadway"
 Baltimore claims Jerry Leiber as a native son, although he didn't hang around here for long.  In fact, he was in Los Angeles, finishing high school in 1950, when he met Stoller and began their collaboration with the tender love ballad "Real Ugly Woman."  (They got better after that.)


Leiber and Stoller wrote "Hound Dog" for the King (left) and also gave him "Love Me," "Loving You," "Don't," "Jailhouse Rock" and "King Creole."

Leiber and Stoller were among the crowd that made what's called "Brill Building" music.  The Brill Building is an office building on Broadway in fashionable New York City, where songwriters sat around all day in the 60's - people such as Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Neil Sedaka, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Neil Diamond, and Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry - and wrote songs that got lots of dimes dropped into lots of jukeboxes in lots of malt shops. You've done songs like "Be My Baby," "Save the Last Dance for Me," "Stand by Me," "Up on the Roof" and "On Broadway" while you were nowhere near Broadway!  But I bet you were somebody's baby, up on the roof dancing with him or her one summer night, and those songs remind you of the then that is always part of the now.

The Saturday Picture Show, November 14, 2015

This guy is running for president at the Elks Lodge on a platform of deporting 11 million moose (mooses??)  He promises to be fabulous if elected!

Vending machine people will tell you that people get crushed by tilting the machine to get what they paid for. But what are we to do? NOT have our Diet Mt Dew?  This machine is doing someone a favor!

This man's name is Jimmie Nicol.  In 1964 at the very crest of Beatlemania, the Beatles were on tour in Australia, and Ringo Starr took ill with tonsillitis.  They sent home to England for a fill-in and Jimmie got the job, flew off down under to do 8 shows as a drummer in 10 days, and here he is at the airport in Sydney, about to fly back to oblivion, except that he is still an answer in trivia games along with Carroll Hardy (the only guy to pinch hit for Ted Williams) and Wally Pipp (the guy who took off for a headache and lost his job to Lou Gehrig.)

I firmly believe that these pyramids were built as burial sites for Egyptian pharaohs. Of carson, I might be wrong. I've ben wrong before.

This mosaic of the Great Seal of the US is at a park in Anthem, AZ, and was so constructed that every year on Veterans' Day at 11:11 AM (the time of the signing of the Armistice of World War I) the sun perfectly illuminates the seal.

This is York Rd, the Main Street of my old hometown of Towson, Maryland.  They are always building something new, and I miss the way it used to be. They say that in the old days, you could roll a bowling ball down this street after 8 at night and never hit a person or a car.

If you've never had oyster stuffing for your turkey dinner, you don't want to wait another year.  "They ain't nothing like it," as we say.

In 1964, 2 semolians got you a lot of music! The Kingsmen did "Louie Louie" and "The Jolly Green Giant," Jimmy Griffin went on to co-found Bread, Freddie "Boom Boom" Cannon did "Tallahassee Lassie" and "Transistor Sister" and the Beach Boys did all right for themselves too.

Ad nausea

I heard an intelligent Baltimore County Police Officer, Officer Bridges, talking to NPR about the duties and limits of being a school resource officer, in the wake of the incident down south where an SRO dragged a young woman out of her chair in an alarmingly brutal fashion.

Officer Bridges correctly pointed out that classroom discipline is not the purpose of school police.  The teacher who cannot handle his or her own students ought to find another line of work.  

And he said that he and his colleagues are trained to deal with adolescents, and reminded that the mind is not totally formed until the age of 21.

I bring this up because one of two things happened in the advertising people of Bloomingdale's, the big deal department store in Gotham. It's either that they hired a 13-year old to write the copy for their Christmas catalog, or the person who did write the words for the picture below is, indeed, above 21 years, supposedly educated, but insufficiently mature to realize that date rape is not so funny.

You realize that most of advertising is based on the power of suggestion. As in, just plunk down some money and make a few dozen lucky choices among football players, and make $137 million.  Or use a certain brand of makeup and have strangers mistake you for Christie Brinkley.  Or drink more beer and have more friends than can fit into a stadium.

Or be a sneaky perv and surreptitiously put alcohol in a woman's holiday egg nog so you can lower her inhibition and decision-making ability and have your filthy way with her, because you know she would never have you if she were stone cold sober.

It's a shame that whoever wrote this and decided to have a Robin Thicke lookalike pose for it doesn't know any better, but (most of) the rest of us have moved along and do not approve of drugging women in order to seduce them.

Of course, once this was pointed out to the Bloomingdale's bigwigs, they about broke their necks to tweet the following: 

So did they also send this ephebic, unsophisticated copy writer back to school for some growing up?  We'll have to see if their spring catalog recommends throwing mud on girls on the playground.

Dream a little dream with me

I really should give up snacking on nuts and sesame stix, because my nights and naps are filled with the craziest dreams anymore.

Take the other night.  Please. 

I woke up thrashing about, having just nightmared that ET came back.  At first, when I heard ET was coming back, I thought, great! The more Ernest Tubb, the better.




But no, it wasn't the legendary country singer still known as "The Daddy of 'Em All" who populated my dreamscape.  It was that little extraterrestrial dude from the movie.

"I haven't been back to earth for 30 years," he said, "So I thought I'd drop down here and see what's going on. What's going on?"

I told him that although many people are hungry and unsheltered, many others are more concerned about the color of the cup of expensive coffee that they guzzle every day than that. I told him that one of our major political parties, facing an election in just one year, has as its two leading candidates a bloviating blowhard whose greatest accomplishment was being born rich, and another man of great accomplishment who nonetheless brags that he threw rocks at cars, padlocks at his friends, scissors at his mother, and caution to the wind, any time he discusses his earlier days.

ET's little brow wrinkled when I told him that America is obsessed with physical fitness, that people spend fortunes on gyms and workout gear, and then have the school bus stop every six feet, lest little Marmaduke or Agatha May be forced to walk further than that to be educated. He also shook his little head when I told him that most of us will leave Home Depot and go get in the car to drive to Office Depot a hundred yards away, wishing that someone could open a mega HomeOfficeDepot to make life easier.

He wanted to know why we blush, and censor the sight of a human body, unless that body is being shot 27 times or run through a log chipper as part of a popular TV series about zombie vampires.

E, as he likes to be called, prefers fruit juice boxes to coffee, but he is stunned that people wait all year long to consume pumpkin-flavored coffee that contains not one iota of pumpkin. "Why do you not just buy some canned pumpkin and put a teaspoon of that in your coffee, if it's so important that coffee taste like pumpkin?" he asked, and received no answer.

He was also puzzled that we have a coin worth one cent which costs the nation more than one cent to make, that people pose seeming questions ("What's up?" and "How ya doin'?") without expecting answers, and that very few of us can name their congressional representatives or 5 Supreme Court justices, but can identify the quarterback and coach of the New England Patriots.

But he was stunned when he saw people watching television ads for car dealers in which the claim is made that this company will sell you a Dodge for less than they paid for it from the factory, and will take that loss of money because they really, really like you!

War! What is it good for?

Of course, it all started with the Nixon-era War On Drugs, and any fool can see how well that has turned out. 

It seems there's another war being fought everywhere you look anymore, and lately, because there just is not enough for Americans to fret about, sage people like Billow Reilly have taken to informing us there is a War On Christmas.

To listen to him, anyone who dares to wish a friend a Merry Christmas will be hauled off in legirons and sentenced to sing all the verses of The Twelve Days of Christmas while sipping egg nog and gorging on cookies and fruitcake until visions of sugarplums begin dancing in their heads.  And they get all spun out of control about store clerks not being able to thank Jews, Muslims, Hindus and atheists with a wish that they will enjoy a holiday they don't celebrate.

America has been defined as a large nation full of almost 320 million people, all of whom are looking for something to get sore about.  I celebrate Christmas and I wish a Merry Christmas to people whom I know to be fellow celebrants.  To all others I extend greetings for a happy holiday season.

I mean, gee whiz. It's Veterans' Day and we're already all churned up about the holidays, and this year, it's the color of the Starbucks cup we are bickering about.

Really.  They use a different color cup every Nov and Dec to sell you 32 cents worth of coffee and caramel color, 50 grams of sugar, carageenan, and bean residue for 6 dollars. This year, in place of the former holiday cups that used to have images of snowflakes, pine trees and reindeer, they are servin' up the java in a red cup with just their logo.  And people are screaming about this being another bulb dropped in the War On Christmas! (Remember, while people are raving mad about what's ON the cup, they don't seem to be concerned with what's IN the cup, such as NO pumpkin in a "Pumpkin" Spice Latte.)

Not even knowing that the stores sell Christmas coffee and Advent calendars, suitably decorated, could mollify the easily-riled.

As always, I see this commotion unfolding and I offer these helpful tips:

• First of all, if the color of the cup in which someone sells you a cup of coffee, coffee that you could make better at home for cheaper, upsets you to the point of having to write to Breitbartsimpson.com about it, you might want to consult a physician or therapist or reiki healer.
• Many Starbucks are located in Target stores.  Why not stop by the stationery department before tossing away your hard-earned money on mocha java?  Buy some crayons and draw whatever Christmas symbol strikes your fancy on the cup, and then be transported back to first grade in your mind as the crayon aroma fills your SUV with the scent of melting Crayolas.
• Someone, please, start a War on War.  

Wasted away again

You know the old line..."He was told to walk five miles a day...here it is a week later and he's 35 miles from home."

Well, I know why "he" didn't come home.  He went to the Perry Hall Park, the magnificent multimillion dollar facility that Baltimore County built for us, right across from the terrific library they built for us.  Any time you hear people hollering about taxes and whatnot, remind them that we have these amazing things available to us, a huge building filled with books, videos, and tons of resources for free use, and lighted fields for people of all ages to play games and get some fresh air in your lungs and dog doody on your shoes.

Yes, I said it. Dog poop, Samoyed stools, Pekingese plop, Newfoundland Number Two, Mastiff muck, Labrador logs, Kerry Blue Kaka, French Bulldog Fudge nuggets, Chihuahua crapola. It's everywhere.

Here's the sitch.  Peggy and I like to walk, we like fresh air, and we don't especially enjoy dodging cars in the street. So now that the temperatures allow people to go outside without passing out from heatstroke, we like going to the local rec & parks facilities and making the pedometer on my phone click off 6,000 steps.  Most of the school and soccer sites near us are remarkably well-kept: the grass is trimmed, trash is picked up, and they are remarkably nice places for a stroll.

But we see people who, if asked, would describe themselves as good, law-abiding, public-spirited citizens, willfully violating Baltimore County Code § 12-3-110, which states that any animal off the owner's property must be on a leash.  Simple.  But we see dog owners bringing good old Fido to the park and standing there as the hound runs around dropping deuces all around.

And then they leave, violating Code § 12-3-106, which states "The owner of an animal shall remove excreta deposited by the animal on public byways, recreational areas, or private property."  Sad to say, the framers of the Baltimore County Code did know as many snappy terms for Airedale apples as I have learned.

Dog owners in the area fought long and hard to get a paw park where their pets can run around for exercise in a vast, fenced area.  It's about a half a mile away at Honeygo Run Park.  But all the dogs are at Perry Hall Park, doing the squat-and-scoot.

The problem is the same syndrome that we see at parades and festivals where people are asked not to bring the dogs out.  But here they are, strutting around, and if asked, the owners will aver that, "Oh they didn't mean Verdell!  Everybody loves to see Verdell!"  And by extension, we all should just step over whatever Verdell had for dinner last night.

Dogs are going to leave their leavings.  Please don't leave the park and leave it behind.  Thank you!

"...And all the sinners, saints..."

Tough guy Gliniewicz

We think we know, and we stumble over the ottoman, rushing to answer the doorbell when Mr Quick Judgement is ringing.

We hear that three men - two white, one black - jump a cop from a small town in Illinois and shoot him with his own service gun, and we turn on the news to hear Megyn Kelly and Ted Cruz and other sagacious observers of the American landscape lay it all at the feet of the Black Lives Matter movement and we say, well, these words came out of the 45" magic picture box on the living room wall, so they must be true.

And then comes news that the cop in question, Charles Joseph Gliniewicz (I'll not use his rank out of respect for those who have earned the right to keep using that worthy title) killed himself. He used his gun to shoot himself once and then fired a second, fatal, shot, and he put it up to look like he was the victim of ruthless American killers.  And then you read the list of charges against this man, ranging from threatening to shoot a dispatcher to stealing tens of thousands of dollars from the police Explorer program he was supposed to supervise to not showing up for work now and then (drunk) to having sex with a subordinate to deliberately putting the wrong court date on summonses he issued...not to mention the story coming out that he tried to hire a hit man to take out the town administrator who was about to topple over his little pile of ill-gotten gain. I tell you, the list of charges against the man is longer than the grocery list I take to the Giant on Fridays. His complete personnel file, for your head-shaking wonder, is here.

And people say, that doesn't sound like the man some of us knew. But others in the police department out there knew what kind of creep he was, and yet, he stayed employed.

Not staying employed is Ben Golden. He was a big marketing executive at Taco Bell.  You know, one of the people who decide that it's time to have a big special on Steak Boss Wraps or Doritos Locos Tacos.

But he went out on a Friday night a couple weeks back and had himself a time, all right.  So he was drunk when he piled himself into the back seat of Edward Caban's Uber car, and when Golden was unable to articulate clearly the destination he wished to reach, he belted Caban roundly about the head and shoulders instead.

Drunken mug shot

Since everything that happens in the world is now on HD video, the images of the Taco Belt were seen on TV, at Caban's lawyer's office, and at the Los Angeles Police Department, where assault charges were filed.

Golden, whose job, after all, was to sell stuff to people that people really don't need, immediately appeared on another camera with a heartfelt mea culpa. He said he is ashamed, extremely remorseful, and hopes to offer a personal apology to Caban.

All good, for what it's worth.  Golden has previous convictions related to drunken misbehavior in his past, so maybe it's twice bitten, thrice shy, and maybe not.  

But then he said the worst thing he could have said, to my mind.

“I’ve seen the video a couple times, and it’s not me, in the video, you know?” Golden said. “It’s not me. And it was hard to watch, and I’m ashamed. What’s taken me so long to talk to anybody is because I’ve been scared. I lost my job, I don’t have a lot of resources behind me, you know? So I just didn’t know what to do. 

There it is. "It's not me."  

Bart Simpson keeps this saying on hand for times of trouble: "I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, you can't prove anything."  But Bart Simpson is an amusing cartoon character on a comedy show. Ben Golden is the sort of man who gets shafazzed and suckerpunches a guy trying to drive him home.

And Gliniewicz sucker punched us all, too.  No one wanted to believe it was he who did that ultimate betrayal of his badge, as his supervisor put it, but it was, indeed.

We think we know.

Sunday Rerun: I think it's time we leave

Every year at about this time, I get the same question from friends and family.  It's always a variation on the same theme, but the question boils down to, "What the hell is the matter with you, anyway?"

No, just kidding.  You know I get that question all year long.  The question that pops up as the nights grow longer and people start looking around for the blankets and quilts they put away in May is, how come the leaves change color every year?

And I thought I ought to look it up, because until I just did, I would have to tell people to ask my friend Mr Damifeyeno.

I got this scoop from www.sciencemadesimple.com and, as with all things scientific, it wasn't quite simple enough the first time I read it, but after a couple of passes, it cleared up somewhat.

Here 'tis...

All spring and summer, plants (which trees are, after all) take water out of the ground through their roots, and they take carbon dioxide through the air. Through photosynthesis, the process we were supposed to learn about in high school science while we were trying to figure out how to get a date with the girl at the next bunsen burner, the trees use sunlight to turn water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and glucose. Like Jumpin Jack Flash, Oxygen is a gas gas gas in the air that we breathe.  Plants use their glucose as food for energy and for growing, as they are not able to shop for food on their own, and very few pizza places will deliver to "The Third Elm on Maple Street."  Chlorophyll is involved in this photosynthesis, and it's chlorophyll, along with envy, that turns plants green.

When autumn is on its way, days get shorter, and the trees get less sunshine, so they figure it's time to put on the winter clothes.  Meanwhile, we have people driving cars and owning property who can't figure out that it's not tank top weather anymore.

Photosynthesis takes off all winter, without light or water to operate, so trees live off the glucose they put in their little wooden pantries all summer long and stop preparing food. Well, there goes the chlorophyll!  And the leaves become yellow and orange.  It's not so much that the leaves turn yellow and orange; they lose the green when photosynthesis ends, and with the green pigmentation that used to cover up the golden colors no longer there anymore, we get what we get. 

Red leaves, such as on maple trees, occur because glucose is trapped in the leaves when photosynthesis stops, and a combination of sun and cool nights turn the leaves red, just as reading The SUN on a cool night makes Robert Ehrlich turn red. For the same kind of reason, oak leaves turn brown from what's left in them when photosynthesis ends. We just don't know why a tree with like 200 leaves on it will drop 200,000 leaves to be raked up.

And that's what I got from the article.  I hope it sheds some light on the amazing natural process known as the changing colors of leaves in autumn.  Next week here on Science Corner with Uncle Mark, let's try to figure out whatever happened to Axl Rose.

The Saturday Picture Show, November 7, 2015

There's a website that shows abandoned things...houses, cars, schools, castles.  Don't you think some royal family could move in here and fix it up nicely?

You might think this manatee is sad and morose, but for all we know he is happy as a clam.  Also, for all we know, he is a she, so what do we know?

There are people with time and expertise enough to carve Bart Simpson on the clay-and-graphite "lead" of a pencil.

Apparently, there was plenty of corn to go around during World War I, enough for everyone to have grits, hominy and corn muffins three times a day.  All right by me!

Buck Owens and the Buckaroos at Carnegie Hall, 1966. left to right, say hi to Willie Cantu on drums, Tom Brumley on steel guitar, Buck on rhythm guitar, Don Rich on lead guitar and bassist Doyle Holly. In 1966, I could not have identified all the Supreme Court justices, but I knew these people by picture.  And I always wanted a suit like the ones the sidemen wore, not a real flamboyant one like Buck had.

I could tell you how great the pizza is at Baltimore's own Pizza John's.  It's a shame that there is a national chain with a similar name, but they sell catsup and cheese on cardboard, whereas Pizza John's is unbelievable!

At this time of year, the only thing prettier than a tree with orange, red and yellow leaves is a stand of bare trees at sunset.

This is one of those albums that I have on well-worn vinyl and cassette and CD and on the iPod.  I add my voice to every one of these songs in my truck with the windows up.  The BEST of American pop rock in the 60s!

Presidential Tunes

We were riding along the other night, my Peggy and me, listening to one of the 14 dozen homemade CDs that roll around in my SUV. Two of the songs, back to back, were "I Can't Get Over Me Not Getting Over You" by Little Jimmy Dickens, and then along came "Raw Ramp" by T. Rex.  We both had to admit that it was highly unlikely that any other couple in all the world was listening to two songs by those two artists at that time.

And so, I thought it would be a good idea to put together a list of the songs I would want played for my presidential inauguration, in case every other person in the country, and several Estonians, turn down the job of POTUS and I am voted in, 1-0.   Hey, a fella can dream, can't he?

And even though I know that the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard all have their outstanding bands, I don't like cover versions, so they can all give their thumbs a rest and play these originals as I smartly approach the podium:

This Could Be The Start of Something:  Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme.  Oh, it would be something, all right...

Sabre Dance by Aram Khachaturian:  The song that they always play when plate spinners are spinning plates. Relax...no fine china will be flying around!     

High school confidential: Jerry Lee Lewis / Joe Jammer The instrumental version of an old Jerry Lee number done in London with a guitarist named Joe Jammer.  This song moves right along, I tell you.

Surrender by Cheap Trick.  Sing it with me..."Mommy's all right...Daddy's all right...they just seem a little weird...Surrender, but don't give yourself away."

Robert Earl Keen Merry Christmas From the Family As President, I might have to send people out to the KwikSak for some diet Sprites and fake snow.  They need to know how!

Bing Crosby  Do You Hear What I Hear   I know the inauguration will take place in January (don't know yet what year, or planet) but it's never too late to hear the finest Christmas song ever!

It IS Steven Tyler, yes it is.

Aerosmith Dude Looks Like a Lady Because everyone deserves to look the way they want to, until they look like Steven Tyler has taken to looking, and then it's time to talk 

Mötley Crüe - Don't Go Away Mad (Just Go Away) Because when I was just a wee lad, my grandfather gave me a propeller beanie that carried this slogan on its front

Sammy Davis Jr Please Don't Talk About me When I'm gone The greatest entertainer of this or any other generation (tie with Jerry Lewis!)

Phil Harris Ding Dong Daddy from Dumas As president, I might request that the military bands play this whenever I arrive at a big ceremony or supermarket

Somebody's been using that thing  Milton Brown and his Brownies- This is one of those records that we used to find in someone's father's record collection as we rifled through it on New Year's Eve while the "adults" were making merry upstairs

Garrison Keillor and Meryl Streep  Gold Watch and Chain  Mr Keillor's movie version of his Prairie Home Companion radio show was the first movie in which I saw Meryl Streep act.  Then I saw her in "The Devil Wears Prada" and I was amazed.  She was able to portray a completely different type of person! Peggy had to sit me down and explain that was she "acting" and that she is the best at it, and that in real life she is like neither of those women.

Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts  Roly Poly  I think that Doug Clark was kin to me, at least in the sense of the comic songs and tender, vivid love ballads we both liked.

Jerry Lewis You'll Never Walk Alone Jerry Lewis, not to be confused with Jerry Lee Lewis, tied with Sammy Davis, Jr, in my all-time list because, like Sammy, he could do anything in any show biz venue.  And extra points for making Labor Day something to look forward to all summer long.

All Summer Long:  The Beach Boys sang about a time when T-shirts, cutoffs and pair of thongs were standard summer attire for all of us.  Note:  not the kind of thongs you're thinking of!

But then again, I'm not the kind of president you're thinking of. But let's enjoy the music again!  Enjoy the inauguration!

It all Depends

When you consider the work of actress Lisa Rinna, star of great cinematic triumphs such as Captive Rage and Night Sins, you recognize her position as a great chronicler of Hollwood history.

She's been married to Harry Hamlin for almost 20 years, a veritable lifetime by Hollywood standards, and we know Harry from the celebrated films You Lucky Dog and Shoot Or Be Shot, which I believe was the life story of Richard "Dick" Cheney.

Sid's final picture

Sid Vicious is listed as the bass player for the Sex Pistols, although he did not know how to play the bass. Sid, born John Simon Ritchie, had joined the original punk band because he hung with the same crowd as singer/leader Johnny Rotten (ne John Lydon) but he did not know how to play a bass guitar any more than you or I do (unless you are Paul McCartney.) So, Sid (who was named for Rotten's parakeet) conveniently came down with hepatitis as the band prepared to record their great "Never Mind The Bollocks" album.  Later he left the band to move to New York and devote himself full time to using heroin, and killed his girlfriend Nancy Spungen at a fleabag hotel.  Upon his bailout from jail, he celebrated by overdosing on heroin supplied by his mother, and died.  

His was not a life to be celebrated. The poor bloke did not quite catch on that show business is half show and half business, and took his punk act to a stupid conclusion.  While he lived, he was fond of attracting attention to himself by wearing clothing with Nazi swastikas, and safety pins in his cheeks.

So this is what they do now

So, Harry and Lisa, with time off from their busy schedule of making commercials for adult diapers, cast about for a legendary couple from a famous movie to portray this Halloween.  Rose and Jack from Titanic?  Scarlett and Rhett from Gone With The Wind? Latika and Jamal from Slumdog Millionaire? No.  They chose to go as Sid and Nancy from Sid And Nancy. 

Harry thought it best to sport a swastika T-shirt on Friday night.

Monday's apology on Instagram read like every celebrity apology you've ever scoffed at: 

"If I hurt you we were being authentic to the characters of Sid and Nancy for our Halloween costumes. It hurt and angered many of you and we are deeply sorry for that. That was never our intention. We did not mean to offend. With love, Lisa and Harry."

Of course, you have to wonder if Harry, faced with career oblivion at age 64, might have thought this was a clever way to get publicity, by traipsing about with the symbol that meant death for six million people. 

And then you realize that it's career decisions such as this that will keep him in the cast of diaper commercials and movies named Quarantine forever.

Is that a phone in your pocket...

I have to stop for a minute and pay a compliment to Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Ann Droid, the people who invented the cell phone.

#iboomarryyou

Tell you why.  We were at a wonderful wedding the other night (Hello, Ben and Samantha!) and except for the professional photographers on the job, everyone was pulling the iPhone and Androids out and snapping pictures like professionals themselves. I don't recall seeing anyone with a real camera camera.

I meant to bring ours, but I left it on the nightstand, where I had put it so I wouldn't forget to take it to the wedding.  And that's the point of cell phones...you might like yours, you might hate yours, but chances are, you'll have it with you, right in your purse or pocket when you need to take a picture or send an email or a text message or check your Facebook or send a private FB message or view pictures on Instagram or Snapchat or figure a tip for a server or listen to voice mail or find your way via GPS or listen to a tune or record a audio message to save or see if something is level or check the weather or watch a video.

And like the guy who turns his hat backwards and then needs to use that same hand that put his hat on wrong to shield him from the sun...don't forget...you can also use a cell phone to CALL PEOPLE on the phone!

Strange, but true!

Since you ask...

Sometimes, younger people honor me by asking for advice.  I don't think this is because they ascribe any particular wisdom to me, and nothing I say or write would seem to nullify that.  But they figure I've been around since Hector was a pup, and just maybe I may have learned a thing or two about affairs of the heart and/or mind, which, believe me, are not always connected.

See?  I learned that pretty well!

The question I hear more often than any other is, "Should I change to please that person I am trying to get with?  Should I lose weight, change my hairdid, take a night course in rug hooking, develop an interest in world travel, learn the fine art of French cooking, become a wine expert, switch my political views and affiliation to match theirs?"

And while that sounds like the perfect answer, the real fact of life is that after you make all these changes, he or she might throw you over in favor of a pudgy, poorly-groomed hermit whose idea of gourmet chow is Vienna Sausages on Ritz crackers and a Cherry Dr Pepper.  It's sad, but the deal is, you have to be yourself.  Just think of this: if you like someone, you like them the way they are. right?  So just as you wouldn't expect someone to change, don't let someone expect you to.

There's a fellow from Oklahoma named Dallas Frazier. (I guess he got that first name because whoever heard of a kid named "Oklahoma City" Frazier?) whose songwriting career started off with "Alley Oop" for The Hollywood Argyles before he went country and wrote for Jack Greene, Ferlin Husky and Connie Smith.  For Connie, he wrote a song called "Just For What I Am," which I recommend to anyone thinking about being what they aren't.

The words are below so you can karoake it yourself as Connie sings:   (This is the version with Connie's husband Marty Stuart backing her on guitar, and Buck Trent on electric banjo.)

Blue ain't just a word, it's a feeling
A feeling of loneliness that I can feel right now
Love has looked at me but tried to change me
I wish that love would take me just for what I am
Just for what I am, I want someone to love me
Someone who won't expect me to be like their old memory
Just for what they see, just for being me
I want someone to love me just for what I am
Cry ain't just a sound, it's a sadness
A sadness that lives with me, and follows me around
Love wants me to be someone I can't be
I wish that love would take me just for what I am
Just for what I am, I want someone to love me
Someone who won't expect me to be like their old memory
Just for what they see, oh just for being me
I want someone to love me just for what I am
I want someone to love me just for what I am

And please always remember, and don't ever forget, you have to be who you are. There is only one you! Don't try to be the fake someone else. The right person is out there being the right person.

Who says?

Maybe it's because I am currently reading a book ("The Class of '65," by Jim Auchmutey) about the high school in Americus, Georgia, a town that refused to integrate their schools until they were forced to do so ten years after Brown v. Board of Education was supposed to have granted equal education to all Americans, but it's irksome to keep seeing instances of how gay people are being abused and discriminated against in a nation that proudly calls itself The Land Of The Free.

I'm not gay or a minority of any other classification, but I don't like it when people are treated shabbily. And it's even worse when the people doing the mistreating are people who run school systems or churches.

Dylan Settles

The latest case in point came from Brookland, Arkansas, where a church told a young man who has been a member there at Woods Chapel General Baptist for six years that he is no longer welcome to attend.

"I'm a little hurt by it but I know how they feel," says Dylan Settles, who had not been attending church all that often lately.  So when he got a letter from Woods Chapel, he figured it was one of those "haven't seen you lately, please come worship with us on Sunday" sort of notes.

But no. The letter told him there had been a vote among the members of the church board, and they voted to take away his membership.

Because he is gay.

"I was like in awe ... I was in so much shock. I couldn't read like the rest of it,” Settles said.

He came out to his parents three months ago, and mentioned on Facebook that he had tried to find a wife or girlfriend but realized that was not his path.  He feels good about having received many messages from people inviting him to come to their church.

The letter from his church went on to say that he can come back if he is willing to repent for his lifestyle, but Settles says, "I don't feel comfortable sitting at pew or sitting beside my parents when all I'm going to see is people pointing their fingers at me because of the lifestyle I chose.”

Please join me in wondering when the people who sent him all that hate in the mail will repent for their lifestyles.  But again, just like Americus GA in the 1960s, there are people all over in 2015 who feel that they are in a position to determine who gets to go to school or pray or eat in a restaurant or marry or get hired or serve in public office or check into a hotel.

And they are wrong to think so.  The people who went to school with one young man from Americus, a young man who was scorned, shunned and abused in many ways because he supported the rights of all Americans to attend all American schools, later sent apologies and reunion invitations to him. That's how the book turned out.

Maybe the people at Woods Chapel could do their apologies and take it all back now, instead of waiting 40 years.

Sunday Rerun: Your call is impotent to us

Yesterday, the computer doohickey attached to the pfisteris that makes pictures and words come up on the screen went down, or "went down," in technical parlance.  WiFi became NoFi! Or maybe WiNo!   And I couldn't see email or any videos in which wide-eyed kids and skateboarding dogs and cats amuse an entire nation, so I called the good folks at Comcast, or "Xfinity," in technical parlance. 

It's always a good idea for a large company to go by two names.  Is it still Comcast, or is it Xfinity, or what, huh?  It's so confusing that one friend of mine, who uses them for phone, cable and internet service, says he has "Verizon Fios," which sounds like a great Greek dessert.  But I assume my friend's check gets to the right place every month, or I wouldn't be getting emails from him.

I wasn't getting emails from anyone, the reason I called Comcast.  By means of answering 27 questions, I got to the lightning round, where I got to sit and listen to Muzak for seven minutes.  It was almost a relief when the problem-solver picked up my call, uttered a sigh heard round the world, and promptly disconnected me.  Within seconds, I was being entertained by that "If you'd like to make a call..." lady, who sounds for all the world like a grade school librarian hollering at the kids for picking up books and not shelving them properly, or at all.

Second call, waiting time was much faster, and as a free bonus, I got to talk to someone and also help him learn a new language: English.  I had to repeat and define something in just about every sentence, but I considered it my "hands across the sea" gesture.  Reading from his script, he told me not to worry, and that he was sure we could get me back on line.  Then he said something that sounded like tech talk when he told me what he was going to do and suddenly, we were like Abbott and Costello:

Him: Fine, sir, at this time I am going to flapper the noddistrand, so please look at your obfuscator and tell me what you see.

Me: What does that mean?

Him: What does that mean, "what does that mean?"

Me: I don't understand what you are going to do.

Him: (Silence)

Me: (two minutes later)  Are you still there?

Him: Yes, do you see the lights going off?

Me:  On the modem, you mean?  Yes they're off, and now here they come, one at a time...

Him:  How can that be happening?

Me:  I dunno, but here comes my email!

Him:  What does that mean, "here comes my email"?

Me: It means my email inbox is filling up with important emails.  I must go at once and reply to the widow of a Nigerian prince.

And then, just like when you go to look at a video, I got a commercial.  The guy asked me  - and I am not making this up - if I planned to put an addition on my house.  I thought at first he wanted to move in and be my tech team, but he said he was asking in case I wanted to add more cable outlets or anything.

Some people just live to torment me.