Law and Order SUV

One of the many joys of not working is not having to be out in traffic with the throngs of people going to work. Not that I don't like people; I happen to love almost all of them, but traffic is not fun.  When I did work I always was lucky enough to avoid the 9-5 shift, and I preferred working earlier, going home earlier, and missing the frantic zoom-zoom of cars and trucks.

And THAT was just in our driveway, I wanna tell ya......

But here's the thing.  There are still kids riding school buses, and they happen to be on the road to Sunnyvale Elementary, Mark Twain Middle, and Southwestern Regional Tech High at about the same time that commuters are racing to get to work on time for the first time all week.  And the school bus stops approximately every ten feet along the roads, because heaven forfend that little Abner or Hortense should walk to the corner!

So...when the bus stops, so should all drivers! If you need a little brushing up on the rules as concern kids and buses and you in your mighty SUV, here is a link to information from the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration.  


Failure to heed these rules could cost at the least a fine of $570 and three points on your driver's license; at the most, it could cost you and the family of a dead or maimed child a lifetime of pain and regret.

So it's really not that important to get to work, if the price is that high, right?

If a farmer eats at a restaurant and takes the leftovers home, is that farm-to-table-to-farm?

When no one was looking, restaurant owners came up with a new term for their cuisine..they said, "Let's call it Farm To Table, and then people will figure that the string beans they are eating were hanging on a pole in some farmer's back yard three hours ago.

Listen, I know there is a diffy-diff between fresh chow and something that has Libby's Libby's Libby's on the label label label. Why, young barefoot Mark would run to the back 40 and grab corn off the stalk, shucking it on the way back to the house, once the water was boiling in the big stockpot, so when I gobbled corn on the cob back then, the corn was as fresh as could be.  That was the great thing about the life in the real Farmville...our house bordered a big farm and we were able to get corn and berries and melons and pay the farmer at his stand down by the church on Sundays.  

You will never get that much flavor out of a can or frozen bag o'corn.

And beyond certain curiosities such as New York City eateries being able to offer "local" honey because there is a certain goodness from the pollen gathered in Central Park and all those high-rise flower pots on the Lower East Side, all that gourmet grindage you enjoy at Chez Quis comes from somewhere. Assuming that the lumps in your crabcake did not come from the chef's crabtraps on Middle River, does it matter if they are lumps from Carolina or Florida or elsewhere?

It didn't take long for a reporter from the Tampa Bay Times to investigate the claims of farm-to-tableness and find many of them bogus.

My thing is, having heard so many stories about diners substituting cutout circles of shark for scallops (and this is really awful when they use a pool shark!) or lobster bisque that is totally devoid of lobster, just serve me what I order and don't try faking me out by claiming it's local or never frozen or never canned.  


And, yes, please, I will need a go-box. 

Sunday Rerun: Up to you

You know, I just don't get how some people are.  They have to force their wills and beliefs on others to an extreme point.

Not trying to start a thread about religion here.  I have my faith and deeply-held beliefs, and you have yours, as you see fit.  That's why the Pilgrims came here all those years ago, remember?  That, and the availability of much better seafood than they had been getting. And some people seem to enjoy feeling that they are more religious, or more favored by the Deity, than the next guy, and if that makes them happy, I guess they can stay happy.

But.  Down in the hopping town of Winter Garden, Florida, a citizen of the United States was forced to leave a town commission meeting.  Not for throwing bombs, or chairs, or epithets, but because he would not stand up for a prayer as ordered by hizzoner Mayor John Rees. The prayer thanked God for “allowing us to live in a country where we’re free to believe, think, and pray.”

A man in the crowd, Joseph Richardson, said, “I don’t believe I have to do that, thank you.” After the prayer, Rees told Richardson to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance as “children have to in school.” Richardson again politely demurred.

And then the mayor had the cops make him leave the meeting.

Well, Mr Mayor, you have by now read the case of "WEST VIRGINIA STATE BOARD OF ED. v. BARNETTE," a 1943 US Supreme Court decision - handed down at the height of World War II - that sorted out the matter of the West Virginia Board of Education, which had set a policy saying that a student's refusal to salute the flag was "insubordination," punishable by expulsion and charges of delinquency.

In a 6-to-3 decision, the Court held that compelling public schoolchildren to salute the flag was unconstitutional, saying that such a salute was a form of utterance and was a means of communicating ideas. They went on to say that "Compulsory unification of opinion" was against the First Amendment's prohibition of laws concerning religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to peaceably assemble and the right to petition for a governmental redress of grievances.   

All of this is the long way of saying that Americans have the right to participate as they see fit in patriotic or religious moments, or not participate at all.  I have to love the irony of the mayor beaming with pride over a country where we're free to believe, think and pray as we wish...and then throwing a guy out of a public meeting because he wished otherwise.

I pray, I salute the flag, I proudly recite the pledge, but if the person on the left of me follows suit and the one on my right does not, I don't judge.  It's the American way.  As I see it.

The Saturday Picture Show, September 17, 2016

I've always thought this was a whimsical cover for The New Yorker back in post-World War II days.  Business moguls and corporate bigshots realized that with the war over, it was time to gear down from making bombers and tanks and Jeeps to making toy mice riding trikes.

This is a porcupine. My contribution to animal husbandry is the suggestion to breed a porcupine and a skunk, the offspring of which could shoot quills at you as you gag from the stench!

People are always amazed at the beauty of nature and its vegetables.  These cabbages are all hoping to play the part of "Sauerkraut" at this year's Thanksgiving dinner. If you don't have kraut at your turkey day, you just ain't from Baltimore, hon.

This is what autumn views all aspire to be!

The perfect table, all set for Autumn dining!

Business in the sales of adult coloring books should top $13 billion this year, up from $1.58 last year.

This is a rare color view of the Japanese surrender after World War II, aboard the USS Missouri.  My father and his ship were at anchor in Tokyo Bay along with some 250 other vessels that day, September 2, 1945.

Of course, you turn to the Picture Show every week for interesting examples of Our World On Parade.  F'rinstance, here's a two-headed alligator from Tampa, Florida.

Our new commander, General I. Zation

All generalizations are foolish.

Including the one above.  But sometimes, the common rule of things holds true.  Yes, most people like pizza, and almost every music lover loves some rock 'n' roll.  Hardly anyone would choose a big steamin' bowl o' broccoli if they had to choose between that and some ice cream.  

People always assume that as a tall American, I love basketball, but I don't care for it.  

It goes on and on, but I am going to speak to and for men right now, if I may.  

We men need to understand that it seems to be in our DNA, or whatever binds us together, to be "fixers."  No, not the guy who pre-arranges the outcome of a race at Pimlico, and no, not the guy who makes the icemaker work again in the Frigidaire. 

Pardon me, vegans

A guy's mind works like this: his buddy tells him that he has two tons of rocks in his back yard that need to be relocated. Mr Man's mind swings into action and arranges to borrow a pick-'em-up truck, round up three sober buddies on a Saturday (not always easy) and get some shovels and get to it!  By that Saturday night, all the rocks are in the riverbed at the state park and the five guys are at Five Guys belting back burgers and scarfing free peanuts, basking in the glow of collaborative effort.

And then comes Monday, and the same guy goes to work and his work wife tells him that her boyfriend has been cheating on her, keeping company with a woman of lesser degree from Accounts Receivable.  Again, Mr Man's mind swings into action, and he stomps down to Acc'ts Rec'ble and tells Tootsie to keep her mitts off of Linus, or whatever his name is, and then he invites Linus over for a private showing of "Fatal Attraction."  (He needed to return Linus's truck anyway.)

In example 'A' above, Mr Man did the right thing.  That's called being a fixer, and helping a friend get his rocks off is always a good thing.  

I could not feel worse about that joke, by the way.

In example 'B' we need to throw the penalty flag.  Sometimes, people just want to vent and do not want us slipping into a phone booth, taking off our glasses and our suit, and emerging as Superman, able to fix all things and heal all wounds, righting all wrongs and wronging all writes.  It would be better, before charging all over Hell's 1/2 Acre, to just listen.  With two ears and one closed mouth.

Plus, just try to find a phone booth these days! I once knew a guy whose job it was to collect the nickels and dimes and quarters from phone booths all over town.  I guess he isn't nearly as busy as he once was. I'd call him, but I don't have a quarter right now.

It was good enough for Einstein

Here it is, September already, so of course our thoughts go to pumpkin-flavored food and drink. Notwithstanding the fact that very few people eat, and even fewer bake, real pumpkin pie anymore, everyone about breaks their necks to get to 'Sbux for a cup of coffee that also has pumpkin spice syrup (sugar, condensed milk, annatto - for that realistic pumpkin color, stirred together with "natural and artificial flavors.")  And if you taste nutmeg, you're really tasting something called sabinene. 

And your coffee may taste like cloves.  You smell cloves, you inhale clove-y goodness, and you're sure you taste cloves, but brother, that ain't cloves.  It's good old-fashioned eugenol.

And I'm no doctor, no food scientist, but I do read a lot, and I read that a grande (16 oz) cuppa PSL delivers 40 % of your daily portion of saturated fat.  And you haven't even had breakfast yet!

And you get  10% of your sodium (240 mg) in that cup, along with 50 grams of sugar. That's a little more than 3 TABLESPOONS of sugar (not teaspoons) so you'll feel sweet all day.  Or something.

I'm a very simple man.  I like pumpkin pie, yes, prefer sweet potato, but I'll be honest enough to say I look at both of those pies as a vessel for delivering vast amounts of Reddi-Wip into my cavernous maw at holiday dinners.  And my hot beverage of choice is tea.  Plain old black tea, not Earl Grey or Herbal or peppermint or chai or Pu-erh.

If I wanted my tea to taste like pumpkin pie I would stir a little bit of pumpkin puree into my mug and add a little nutmeg and cinnamon. I suggest that to people to try with their coffee and they look at me like I told them to sit around their porch wearing fuzzy slippers.

It doesn't matter if you're rich or famous

Lena

Again, I don't know how to feel about this story.  Here's the deal: Lena Dunham, the creator, writer and star of the "Girls" series on HBO, went to a big deal fashion event in New York last week, something called the Met Gala.  I've never been invited to it, and that works out perfectly, because I have no interest in attending.  

Odell

But Lena wound up sitting next to Odell Beckham, Jr, star wide receiver for the New York Giants, and she got all worked up because, rather than sit and talk to her, he fooled around with his phone, flipping through Instagram.

So Lena, whose show I have not seen and whom I could not pick out of a photo array, decided (pick one):

• to finish her tomato aspic and pheasant under glass
• to talk to the person sitting on her OTHER side
• to Tweet that "it was like he looked at me and he determined I was not the shape of a woman by his standards so he kept on looking at his cell and did not say a word."

Yes, she did the last.  She was hurt by what she took to be his rejection of her, deduced that it had to do with her looks, and told her friend Amy Schumer, "It was like we were forced to be together, and he literally was scrolling Instagram rather than have to look at a woman in a bow tie. I was like, 'This should be called the Metropolitan Museum of Getting Rejected by Athletes.' "

Well, really.  To be honest with you, I am a stranger to the selection committee for George Clooney Look-Alike Contests and no one is calling me to ask me to pose for their catalog or magazine. (AARP Digest was my last hope, and nothing.) And if I were seated next to a person who paid me no attention, I would chalk it up to "the whatevers" and move on.  

But Ms Dunham felt hurt, and we need to respect that.  All feelings are valid.  Chances are, Mr Beckham has not seen her show and did not know who she was in the first place, and it's certainly not as if he did something rude or nasty.  

And she gets credit for saying this, a few days later:  

I owe Odell Beckham Jr an apology.
Despite my moments of bravado, I struggle at industry events (and in life) with the sense that I don’t rep a certain standard of beauty and so when I show up to the Met Ball surrounded by models and swan-like actresses it’s hard not to feel like a sack of flaming garbage. This felt especially intense with a handsome athlete as my dinner companion and a bunch of women I was sure he’d rather be seated with. But I went ahead and projected these insecurities and made totally narcissistic assumptions about what he was thinking, then presented those assumptions as facts.

She was big enough to take back what she said.  I wonder, can we, as a culture, be big enough to start looking at what would cause a woman who is regarded as clearly bright, intelligent and witty feel this bad about herself?  

Frank with one of his fans

I keep thinking about the words of Frank Zappa: "There will come a time when everybody who is lonely will be free to sing and dance and love."

Looks like I picked the wrong week to fly from Glasgow to Newark

Let's say you want to take a long trip.

"You want to take a long trip."

OK, now let's say that you want to go from place to place with minimal trouble.  If you want to get to another place within the 48 contiguous United States, you can drive.  

Greyhound? Trailways?  Interesting ways to meet new people.  

AMTRAK? Faster than the bus and there is usually no traffic to slow them down. 

Cruise ship?  Does a weekend go by that we don't hear about some SS Princess Of The High Seven Seas having to come back to port six hours after embarkation because half the passengers have the cyrus virus and tanorexia?  

Airplane?  Now you're talking.  Yessiree, let me stand in line for three hours, have to take my shoes off and have an involuntary wand colonoscopy just to get on the plane so I can sit between a traveling sump pump salesman and the guitarist in a Rod Stewart tribute band.

And then there was this...

In Scotland a couple of weeks ago, two United Airlines pilots were getting on their plane to fly 141 souls to Newark NJ when airline security swooped down on them like they were after a couple of alleged drunks.

Because they were!  Allegedly. United Flight 162 from Glasgow to Newark Liberty International Airport was scheduled to depart at 9 on a Saturday morning, but they didn't take off until 10 hours later when a sober crew could be rounded up to take the plane to New Jersey.  

Britain's Daily Mail identified the allegedly schnozzled pilots as Carlos Roberto Licona, 45, and Brady Grebenc, 35.

"The two pilots have been removed from service and their flying duties,” a United rep said. "We are cooperating with the authorities and will conduct our own investigation as well. The safety of our customers and crew is our highest priority."

Otto will fly us home, no problem

Years ago, Lenny Bruce did a bit about an airline pilot being overheard saying, "Boy, that guy at the airport bar can really make a martini!"  And that was funny then, because no one even dreamed that someone would get high before going high in the sky.

Just a month ago, two Canadian pilots were arrested at the same airport and charged with trying to FWI (fly while intoxicated).

Has anyone thought of talking to the bartender in Glasgow? 

Let's All Go to the Movies!

In a tribute to the good old days of the Don and Mike Show, please allow me to introduce a new feature to these proceedings:

Reviews Of Movies I Haven't Seen Yet

Let's talk about "Sully," the one with Tom Hanks playing Capt Chesley Sullenberger, the courageous, heroic, and most important, CAPABLE airline pilot who plopped his plane down in the Hudson River after some geese flew into the plane's engines, meaning that their flight ended his (and theirs).

Dirty Harry and Forrest Gump 

We all remember that day in 2009 when Sullenberger put the plane down on a surface much softer than a highway or airport too far to reach.  He made sure that all 155 people aboard made it alive, and wound up as the toast of the nation, appearing on Letterman and all the other big TV shows with the possible exception of the Home Shopping Club, which lost a possible fortune by not hiring him to hawk flotation devices for future passengers.

Anyway, Sully did well and it's only natural to make a movie to help us relive the experience.

But Clint Eastwood directed the picture, and apparently, the last bit of cheese fell off old Clint's cracker a few years ago, as evidenced by the conversation he once had with no one sitting in a chair.

I judge movies by the ads they run on TV and the occasional quick interview with the stars on "GMA" and "CBS This Morning."

And I find it irksome that old Clint just had to introduce some made-up drama into this drama. In the clips, we see Tom Hanks as Sully, and someone is calling his name, but "Sully" is just doing that hundred-yard stare, so we are to think that the trauma of that water "land"ing caused the good captain to go into flashback mode.

And of course, they show scenes of an investigation before an august committee of stern-faced individuals asking if Sully realized he could have just as easily glided to a nice stopover in Cleveland or if he had been hitting the sauce moments before takeoff or if he had been arguing with his wife.

None of this happened, to my memory, which is fairly reliable for stuff from seven years ago. 

I hate it when movies have to create a conflict or commotion where clearly none exist, just to have a peg to hang a movie on. 

For his part, Sullenberger has issued a statement about the film: 

 "The story being told came from my experiences, and reflects the many challenges that I faced and successfully overcame both during and after the flight. I was involved in the development and am thrilled it’s being brought to the screen by master filmmaker Clint Eastwood, starring Tom Hanks."

Gee, that doesn't sound like it was written by someone at a movie studio at all, does it?

By the way, the importance of show-biz timing is demonstrated here by master comic Norm Macdonald, who went on the Conan show a month after the original "land"ing to claim he had made a movie called "Sully Sullenberger: Airport Pilot" six months beforehand.   He said he didn't have a suitable ending...at the time.

Sunday rerun: Archery Bunker

I was in 9th grade when our English teacher decided it was time for us to stop diagramming sentences and read a short story.  Apparently, she chose one by picking a slip out of a hat, and we wound up reading "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson.

Shirley was to write four more stories for The New Yorker; today, this quintet of tales is known as the Jackson 5.

I would have made that joke in 9th grade, but the timing would have been off.

If you've never read it, it's a good one and I can recommend it to you and can even hook you up with a link right to the June 26, 1948  New Yorker where you can read it right off the original pages!  Just click here and away you go!

But I thought that people had forgotten "The Lottery" until last evening, when I heard a radio dramatization of it on The Big Broadcast on WAMU 88.5 FM from long ago, and it reminded me that just a few short weeks ago, every teenager in America was lined up to see the movie version of "The Hunger Games."  No, I haven't read that book, nor did I see the movie, but enough people who have experienced the book, the movie and the Lottery tale have said what I suspected: the setups for both stories are very similar, although the endings are quite different.

If you're a school kid and have finished your summer reading, I urge to you to read "The Lottery" and compare it to the "Hunger" book.  Of course, if you're a school kid, I urge you to subscribe to The New Yorker and read every single issue from 1925 on.  All those back editions are yours free to read online as a subscriber, and you will learn so much about everything that your grades will improve exponentially, your allowance will treble, and your newly-expanded vocabulary will help you vault to the top of the SAT standings.

And, that person you've had your romantic eye on since 8th grade will fall helplessly, hopelessly under your captivating spell.  And, my friends, that's what's called winning the Lottery the right way!

The Saturday Picture Show, September 10, 2016

With tomorrow being the sad anniversary of 9/11, I thought that I would share today eight images of what I think are some of the best parts of the United States of America, a country which has been great for all of its time and will continue to be so.  Choosing eight images was not easy!  But how about the way we fly the flag proudly!  We are free to do so as we please.

Any time there is a disaster in the world, we are among the first to show up with help and necessary goods.

We are free to vote for whom we wish to serve us in office. Those who fail to vote, and then complain about who won the election, get all the scorn they deserve.

If we don't like something, we can say so.  As always, people's right to swing their arms ends where their neighbor's nose begins, but you can speak your mind here. Not so everywhere.

These are the amber waves of grain that we sing about, producing food for the world.

The old expression "American as Apple Pie" still holds (although I prefer cherry!)

We can work as hard as we choose and live well on our earnings in most cases.

We can gather together to share our bounty and give thanks for all we have.

In the days following 9/11/01, we saw a wellspring of kindness and courtesy towards each other that lasted for a good while.  Can we try that again for a good long while?

Going Up

The older I get, the more I go to the medical building which houses our doctors and their staffs.

It would be better to take the stairs to go to the 3rd, 4th, 5th floor or whatever, but to do that would be to deny me the human drama I like to call "Taking A Ride In The 515 Fairmount Elevator."

Who clambers aboard?  Other patients. Occasionally a doctor. (Once, on my way to see Dr Delanois for a one-year check-up on my newly installed left knee, I found myself sharing the elevator with Dr Delanois himself.  I told him why I was there.  He asked to see my flex the knee, asked if there were any problems with it, and then said, "Save the copay, go home, you're fine.")  A lot of delivery guys with their hand carts full of paper and medical supplies.  People who work elsewhere in the building.  Kids on their way for a checkup.  Kids who just had a checkup and are enjoying lollipops. Medicine salespeople wheeling carts full of sample drugs and the promotional gewgaws they hand out: desk pads, hand sanitizer, pens, giant paperclips, mugs, everything. Lunch delivery people stanking up the car with goat cheese gyros and I don't know what-all else.

OK?  All aboard?  Now comes the portion of the show we call "Name That Floor," and everyone names their destination and the pilot - the person closest to the button panel - pushes the proper buttons and then waits for the door to close.  And waits and waits.

Eventually, someone will call out, "It'll close if you hit the    button, but of course the pilot cannot hear this because, by that time, the door is closing.

And we arrive at the second floor (Pediatrics, Family Planning) and you can count on this as the door slides open:  someone waiting to get ON will push his way past people trying to get OFF because he got off on the wrong floor and needs to go to the third floor (Urology) in a hurry.

Another fun aspect of the ride is that there are floors that have no occupants listed on the directory.  Are they vacant?  Or are they home to some secret government organization that tracks our comings and goings and flu shots?

Another is that there is often a guy among the six or eight humans wedged into the steel box of joy who will pipe up, "I suppose you're all wondering why I've asked you to meet me here today..."

I won't give his name, but his initials are Yours Truly. 

O-Double-Good

We talked before about American breakfast habits being in a state of flax. (Pause for laughter...)

While news clips still show us amber waves of grain, the fact is that we just don't eat cereal so much these days...and the incredible reason given is that today's young people are in too much of a hurry to get out the door to chase after MaccuPicchu and the rest of the Pokemon gang to take 10 sec. to wash out their bowl and spoon.

Cereal companies are talking up how great it is to eat a lot of whole grains...at the same time they are selling cereals such as Cinnamon Mini Buns and 17 different flavors of Cheerios.  But the big brains at Kellogg's have come up with a great way to sell breakfast grindage.  

What's the trend in dining out?  They call it "fast casual," and so, welcome to the new "Kellogg's NYC" in Times Square (home of the Big Apple Jacks!) 

Breakfast isn't just for breakfast anymore! McDonald's knows that, which is why you can get a McGriddle at 3 in the afternoon and Hash McPotatoes as midnight approaches.  Kellogg's NYC is open from 8 AM til midnight (does no one in Times Square want their breaky before 8?) You choose your cereal and you can have milk, soy or almond milk, Greek yogurt, or soft serve ice cream along with it.  

No fresh fruit? I don't like cereal without berries or peach slices. And...they do not accept cash as payment.  

How very 2016!

Quiz time!

I got this quiz from faraway FB friend Sharon O'Neill in California. Remember when the internet was young and we passed these back and forth all day?  Let's have some fun!

1. ARE YOU NAMED AFTER SOMEONE? Yes - Mark in the Bible! Which often comes as a surprise to those who see me as less than saintly, and to those who assume I was named for the WWII general.  Fact is, my Dad was a Navy man, so it's lucky I wasn't named "Nimitz."
2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? When we lost our beloved Deanna Griffin, 7/10/14.
3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? No, and neither would you.  It is awful.  Whereas, my mother won penmanship awards in high school, and even when my father was writing little notes ("Mark: cut grass, pull weeds, wash car, pass Math") his hurried writing looked like calligraphy, and his calligraphy looked like that of a master.
4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? rare roast beef
5. DO YOU HAVE CHILDREN? I always answered "no" before, but here we are, late in life, parents to two cats, Edwina (named for Peggy's father Edwin) and Deanna (named for our Deanna).
6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? Yeah, what the hell.
7. DO YOU ENJOY DOING LAUNDRY? For years and years, Peggy did it all and now I like to do it.  The idea of tossing dirty clothes into a steel box for 35 minutes, pushing a button, and coming back to take clean, but wet, clothes and tossing them into another steel machine for 40 minutes to get dry foldable duds just appeals to me so much! Drop off your baskets to Mr Mark's Wash-O-Mat...in by 9, out by 5!
8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? I am that one person in 10,000, according to my doctor, whose tonsils used to get infected yearly...and then just disappeared one year!  I asked my hypothalamus and my duodenum and they claimed to know nothing about the tonsil caper.
9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? I don't like to break any laws, especially the one concerning gravity.
10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? Store-brand Crispix or Shredded Wheat.
11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? No need...I slip right back into the Rockports!
12. DO YOU THINK YOU'RE STRONG?  Yes. Why do you ask? Have you heard something?
13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? Breyer's original vanilla for everyday use, and Haagen-Dazs chocolate brownie for special.
14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? That I am about a foot taller than they are.
15. RED OR PINK? Red socks every day, and Crimson Tide football!
16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF? My overly-nit-pickiness about spelling, pronunciation, and grammar errors.  
17. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU wearing? Maroon gym shorts and sox, no shoes.
18. WHAT IS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? A piece of toasted hippie bread with peanut butter on end and butter on the other.
19. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO right NOW? Sirius SM Sixties on 6. Just heard "Summer Rain" by Johnny Rivers.
20. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? My alltime favorite - Burnt Sienna.
21. FAVORITE SMELL? Those Yankee Candles that smell like autumn leaves
22. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? The nice lady from the eye doctor's office
23. FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH? Orioles baseball, Alabama football, Ravens football
24. HAIR COLOR? Born blonde, went brown, now mousy gray
25. EYE COLOR? Murky bluish green
26. WEAR CONTACTS? No need. Had cataract surgery and all I need is reading glasses
27. FAVORITE FOOD? All-American comfort food - hot roast beef sammies, mashed potatoes and string beans
28. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? Happy endings. Hallmark movies never you down!
29. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? Animal House for the 147th time
30. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? Purple
31. SUMMER OR WINTER? Winter please!  All year!
32. HUGS OR KISSES? Both
33. FAVORITE DESSERT? Peggy's Brownies with ice cream
34. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU CURRENTLY READING? The history of the song "Louie Louie" by Dave Marsh
35. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? Elvis
36. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT? Orioles baseball and several newcasts
37. FAVORITE SOUND? Someone shouting "Baba Booey!" during a live tv broadcast.
38. ROLLING STONES or BEATLES? Beatles up to and not including Rubber Soul, and Stones ever after.
39. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE TRAVELED? Eleuthera, Bahamas when Peggy won a trip to Club Med!
40. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? Telling inappropriate jokes at inopportune moments.
41. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Baltimore MD, delivered by a Baltimore MD

Noodle This Out

Bad news for people who a) smoke and 2) get sent to prison in Maryland.  Let's say it this way: you can get sent to prison, but you can't smoke when you get there.

Which is good, to my mind.  As a former smoker (1966 - September 17, 1988) I always advocate against the habit.  It's bad for your health, it costs a lot, and it makes you smell like cigarette smoke, when for just a few pennies you could smell like English Leather, or Jontue, depending on your preference. 

But as you know, there are no atheists in foxholes, or checking accounts in prisons. Prisoners use other things as currency as they trade for goods and services (!) or pay off football or poker bets. When they could smoke, residents of the Walled-Off Astoria would swap packs of Lucky Strikes or Camels, and now, they are using....ramen noodles.

Yes. Michael Gibson-Light, a doctoral candidate in the University of Arizona School of Sociology, has written a report that says inmates are trading ramen noodles - and not just because more and more prisons don't allow you to smoke.

Gibson-Light says this trend reflects a new sense of "punitive frugality," meaning that prison systems now are looking to save money, and they are feeding the boys up in Cell Block 17 bare-bones meals. If jailbirds want special treats like these dry noodles, they have to get their own. Or have their friends on the outside bring it on Visitors' Day, or Conjugal Visit Weekend.

"Punitive frugality is not a formal prison policy, but rather an observable trend in prison administration practice in institutions throughout the country," Gibson-Light says.

The report goes on to say that stamps and envelopes are also popular forms of prison wampum, although they are not quite as tasty when dropped into boiling water.

Back in the day when I worked 911, we kept our lockers filled with food for emergencies like blizzards, hurricanes, presidential elections and other civil insurrections, those days when we stayed for days on end. I gobbled my share of ramen - in those days, we could get ten packets of these dried wheat noodles and reconstituted broth for a dollar at the BuySumMor.

Then, it was revealed to us that ramen can be a delicacy when prepared at a fine Asian restaurant, where their noodles taste like the Maruchan brand about as much as tuna steak tastes like Chicken Of The Sea.

In his report, Gibson-Light will ask for America to take a thorough look at prison food services, on the grounds that punitive frugality will mean a lower quality of care for prisoners.  

America will reply to him that people who wish to eat gourmet chow ought to avoid long prison terms.

Happy Labor Day!

Sunday Rerun: The Sound of a Fury

The past few Septembers have been dotted with a non-specific sort of agitation, as if something somewhere were missing in my life.  I took inventory of my emotions (confusion, mild rage, skepticism, scorn, delight, joy, happiness and pure bliss) and found them all intact, and then it hit me.

September used to mean new TV shows and new cars.  And not any more, for the most part.

Man, I'm telling you, the time was that TV networks would show promos for new shows coming on right after Labor Day and excitement reigned.  "They're making a 'Dennis The Menace' situation comedy," people screamed! "How many more days must I survive until the premiere of 'CPO Sharkey,' starring Don Rickles?" pondered many.  "I can't wait until that new 'Maury' show comes on!" cried many.  And then it came on, and many more cried.

Now, instead of three networks with new shows that no one wishes to watch, there are 237 networks, and the only shows that people are looking at feature poorly-educated, un-shaven-and-shorn rustics.  We revere televised individuals from whom we would move away, were they to sit next to us in a diner.

This is a Plymouth Fury.  It was not a rocket ship.

And, even worse, do you remember the tiny thrill you got when the new cars came out!  "The new Plymouths have tail fins the size of half a cow!"  "Dad wants to go down to Rustee Ford to look over the new Galaxie 500 XL!" "Is it a Falcon or is it a pickup?"  All these huzzahs rang out every September, in a country not that far away, not that long ago.

Today, the Toyota Camry changes the door on the gas cap every couple of years, and that's about it.  The NASCAR cars all look like the same non-NASCAR cars.  And can you tell me three differences between a Corolla and a Civic?  What in the devil is a Passat, a Tiguan or a Touareg?

Every kid could tell you the difference between the Chevies..the el cheapo Biscayne, the moderately-priced BelAir, the top of the line Impala, and the top of the Impala line, the Impala Super Sport.  Ford, Mercury, Plymouth, Dodge, and the rest of the GM line (Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Cadillac) of cars all had major changes from year to year, and the new models all came out every September, while Liberace never did.

The Saturday Picture Show, September 3, 2016

 And of course, this is an eye surgeon performing eye surgery on a crocodile.  I can only wonder whether the doctor is wearing crocs.

This took place when the California Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim California visited the Cleveland Indians of Cleveland.  A rainbow is seen here serving as the barrier between two skies.

I heartily approve of this private school's stance on helicopter hovering parents who come running to the school to bring Abernathy's or Ursula's homework or athletic supporter or sense of obligation, in case they forgot them.  That teaches the child that helping themselves is not up to them.  This plans makes the student accountable - primarily to themselves!

Fall starts in 18 days.  Hoodies on alert!

I have an idea.  Let's get one of these and tell someone who has no idea what it is that it connects wirelessly to a Bluetooth printer. Then we bring in a giant blue tooth with a printer in the middle.

Monday is Labor Day.  Thank a union member for your weekends and your 8-hour day and your overtime and just about every good thing we have on the job.

B-movie queen Peggy Cummins is 90 now, but before she retired she starred in some great drive-in movies, such as Dentist in the Chair, Your Money or Your Wife,  Curse of the Demon, Hell Drivers, Meet Mr. Lucifer, Always a Bride, If This Be Sin, and Salute John Citizen. I would rather watch all of them in one sitting than anything with Julia Roberts.

I have never seen - or even heard of - a water bridge, but here it is, the Magdeburg water bridge on the Elbe River in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.  

Voldemort is not a large city in Maryland

It's just me talking, but I am not a Harry Potter fan.  I don't think that all the inconveniences in life can be solved by casting spells, and speaking of spell, I wish that people would learn to! Muggles and mugworts and people named Petunia do not exist in the real world, and even as a kid, I was all about learning facts, not imagining how great it would be to be at Gryffindor.  

But hey!  If you're into it, it's fine.  When we started reading in elementary school, I went right for books about history and the wars and the presidents.  Other kids were reading novels and short stories, and today's kids still do, which has made Joanne "J.K." Rowling, author of all those Harry Potter books, a very very rich woman over in England.

But it was charity that made her a rich woman, no longer very very rich.  Sure, she made a pretty bundle, but high British taxes and her penchant for making charitable donations ($160 million and counting) pulled her off the Forbes magazine billionaire list.

I know we live in a world where one of Warren Buffett's deal snags him $8 per second, and a senator's daughter makes $18 million a year for denying lifesaving medicine to people.  

But giving $160,000,000 to people in need is the better way to go. Not saying that Warren Buffett isn't similarly generous, but the point is, I think that life gives us gifts and opportunities. It's what we do with them that counts. For example, Ms Rowling has the ability to come up with these story ideas and weave her tales into books that people want to read and movies that people want to go see.  

But she's not about to sit in some castle, counting golden coins and hiring someone to walk ahead of her strewing rose petals in her path (that was Mick Jagger) or feeding her dogs Kobe beef sauteed in truffle butter. You know how they ask for a dollar at the supermarket checkout to fight childhood diseases now and then?

Imagine shelling out a dollar 160 million times!

Good for her.  And Ms Rowling, don't feel too bad.  I'm not on the billionaire list either.

Make this cargo faster

Boy oh boy, man oh man.  When I was a kid, everything had to be just so...the right Weejuns, the right sox (calf length, with garters), the right khakis, the right buttondown shirt, and either a rep tie or a club tie. 

Stop borrowing kiddie clothes!

Kind of like the man pictured above, but no fedora.  And, oddly enough, in those days, when your sports coat sleeves were up to past your watch and your trousers became "high water pants" it meant it was time to go to Frank Leonard's or the Oxford Shop and buy bigger clothes. Today, young men dress to look like Pee-Wee Herman, but that's not my concern.

I am concerned that people on CBS are trying to tell me cargo pants and cargo shorts are not cool and and the news threw me into a sartorial snit, because if Marky Mark ain't wearing cargoes, Marky Mark ain't leaving the house.

This fellow up in Phila wrote his doctoral thesis on the importance and history of multipocket pants, and here we were thinking that you only got a PhD by writing about space travel and the Peloponnesian Wars.  No, Dr Pants says he grew up watching Banarama and Fun Boy Three videos, and they were always wearing baggy pants with a lot of pockets, so he figures it's ok.  I just stopped caring about the fashion rules a while ago, but...

I just decided, I am going to get my PhD in the field of Goofy Topics Other People Got PhDs In.  Wish me luck.  I will need a large grant from a think tank. 


And here is a woman named Heather Dockray, the Web Trends reporter for Mashable.com, who calls for the violent overthrow of the entire cargo kingdom. Lighten up, Heather. You're a female, and as such you can tote around a bar or purse or pockybook to carry your phone and change and keys and alcohol-based skin sanitizer and flashlight and knife and granola bar and datebook and pens and I don't know what-all else.  Men need pockets for all that, and we don't care that all that junk makes it look like our thighs are the size of Hibbing, Minnesota as we walk into the Dollar Tree for more stuff to carry.

We stopped worrying about what our thighs looked like the last time we were measured for a suit and actually enjoyed having our inseams measured.

A tape measure! Something else to carry around in my cargoes.