The Saturday Picture Show, October 10, 2020

 

Some things just go together perfectly...Hall and Oates...shower and shave...bagel with cream cheese and lox.

Nature gave this guy the ability to stick his nose into places and get the food he needs, and then named him the Kingfisher to make it clear to all...

This is almost as sad as it gets...advising motorists to allow room for people on bicycles by putting up a sign that takes away room for bicyclists.

Bibliophile to the end, I love the very notion of libraries, where one can borrow all the education one needs, for free! And in the days when we "signed out" books by writing our names on the card, we left stories behind. Why, in the spring of 1945, did Sheila Slaughter need to borrow this book twice? Was she working on a term paper about James Russell Lowell's Biglow Papers, a 19th-century satire by the author of Tom Brown's School Days? Sheila, if you're still out there reading, let me tell you, that book is available free, online, at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/22680/22680-h/22680-h.htm

The Environmental Studies majors are probably studying what effect all these discarded plastic bottles will have on the environment.

This warehouse wall is in Wheeling, West Virginia, where chewing tobacco was popular back in the day. The Mail Pouch people would paint a farmer's barn for free! The only hitch was, the paint had this ad on it. Still, a good deal.

Fall comes to Williamsburg, Virginia, and we can walk back in history in a cheery atmosphere. We honeymooned there a hundred years ago and still go back every five years!

Do you remember when people still drove around in gas-powered tank-sized cars like this? I guess this guy was the counterman at White Tower. Look at that car! It's hardly much smaller than the burger joint.

You might get two chances. Rarely, a third.

Life is a series of challenges, and sometimes, when you have climbed down a hill and crossed a stream and then climbed back up the other side to a peak, that's when you get to look back and appreciate how far you've come.

I hope there is a moment like that - many of them, in fact - for this country singer Morgan Wallen, who this week stood on the precipice of fame and acclaim and took a spectacular swan dive into an empty pool.

The metaphors just pour out of me some mornings, and I'm sorry. 

Wallen is a 27-year-old rising country star. You can tell that he is, because he dresses as if he were here to clean out the garage and haul bags of leaves to the dump. But that's the way they dress now, I understand. 

Last weekend, the east Tennessee native was lucky enough to see Alabama whomp Texas A&M, and he hung around for parties with Tuscaloosans...parties that included guzzling hooch and sucking face and grabbing butt with 19-year-olds, all while failing to wear a mask or practice social distancing.

For the record, he is not the first man, nor will he be the last, to indulge in such pursuits.  But he will long be remembered as the man who was set to perform in one week on Saturday Night Live performing the tender ballad "7 Summers," which has propelled him to the top of the Billboard charts, until...

He WAS set to do that, until Instagram video of his Alabama antics hit social media, and then he got the call from SNL bigshot Lorne Michaels, disinviting him.

Fancy clothes for the ACM Convention

With a certain unintended irony, Wallen went on Instagram to share his sad news.

"I'm not positive for COVID," he said. "But my actions this past weekend were pretty short sighted, and they've obviously affected my long term goals and my dreams. I respect the show's decision, because I know that I put them in jeopardy."

After a long layoff, SNL went back on live last weekend with countless protocols in place. All performers, staff and audience members undergo COVID-19 testing, and non-performers are wearing masks at all times.

While last week's headliner Chris Rock was shown preparing for the show in a mask and keeping proper distance, Wallen was partying it up, and chirping, "Hey, I’m sitting out here in Tuscaloosa, hanging out with my new friend" in a video widely seen.

In May, Wallen was arrested and charged with public intoxication and disorderly conduct outside of Kid Rock's downtown Nashville bar. 

After getting the call from Michaels, Wallen said, "I take ownership for this. I’d like to apologize to ‘SNL,’ to my fans, to my team for bringing me these opportunities, and I let them down."

“And on a more personal note, I think I have some growing up to do,” he added. “I think I lost myself a little bit. I tried to find joy in the wrong places and, I don’t know, it’s left me with less joy, so I’m going to try to work on that. I’m going to take a step back from the spotlight for a little while and go work on myself. I wish I could have made country music and my fans proud this Saturday, but I respect the decision once again.”

Of course, to look at the comments on his Instagram, his like-minded fans seem to think that he should be awarded a Nobel Prize in the field of dissolute behavior. But they are young, too, and don't realize yet that there are two words in the term "Show business."  Wallen might be able to pick and grin and sing like nobody's business, but he's in business to do shows, and reckless behavior like this has now cost him a chance to be seen and heard by millions of people around the world.

He stands at that valley we spoke of earlier.  All is not lost; he can certainly climb back up the hill and make something good out of this. Heck, there are now more people who know his name than there were two days ago. And it's noteworthy that he recognizes his need to grow up, instead of blaming the world for his predicament.

Wallen says Lorne Michaels said he would try to give him another shot down the road, and let's hope that works out. It's up to Wallen to decide if he wants to be a professional, or someone whose name will pop up in the "Whatever Happened To...? column in five years.

Oh, and to his fans who say "COVID is a hoax"...the president got it.

Stubborn Town

Up in the scenic, mountainous Adirondack Mountains (not to be redundant) of upstate New York state (again), they have some towns with those quaint old Early American-type names such as Cheektowaga, Coxsackie, Schenevus, Niskayuna, Oswegatchie, Swastika, Poughkeepsie, and Rensselaer.

Uh, excuse me? There's a town called "Swastika"???

For real. It's just an unincorporated hamlet, not even a full town of its own. Not far away is the town of Black Brook (population 1,500) which, in the manner of small-town America, has jurisdiction over Swastika.

A man who passed through the foul-named burg lodged a foul with the commissioners of Black Brook. They put the matter on their agenda for the monthly meeting in September, discussed the matter for five minutes, and held a vote about renaming S-Town.

The four commissioners voted unanimously. AGAINST the proposal.

"Swastika was named by the founders of the area who settled there," said Jon Douglass, Black Brook's town supervisor. Douglass attended the meeting but has no vote.

I mean, he's only the supervisor, for crying out loud.

Douglass does say that the name was given the town long before Hitler and World War II came along and befouled the earth. He goes on to say that the word itself is Sanskrit for "well-being," (you have to like the irony) and the swastika symbol, which you will not see here, is used in Indian religions as a good-luck sign.

Douglass says that the issue has been raised before, not long after the war, and some of the local veterans who had fought against the fascists (ANTIFA, ya dig?) said they would not stand for their town's name being besmirched that way just because Hitler did what he did.

So even though a) very few people in the town speak or write Sanskrit, and b) India is far, far away, the council saw no good reason to abandon the name just because it is now associated with hateful white supremacists.

"I think that's probably, maybe some viewpoint that it's associated with hate. But then I believe there are others that do not associate it with hate," Douglass said. "Did the Hindus and the [Buddhists] and all them, did they erase it from their religious history because of the Germans?"

Predictably, some of the locals are bristling about "some out-of-towner" trying to meddle in their beeswax.

But it seems so incongruous that a town blessed with such natural beauty would want to be reminded of the most evil empire in world history every time the town's name is mentioned.

Would you name a baby "Cancer" or "Depravity"?

Boxing

 Back in the days of Nixon and all those people, Americans actually had to go to their local polling places to vote. We would often stand in line for hours, and the only benefit, besides the utter joy of feeling that our vote made a difference, was that we got to stand in the hallway of the elementary school or the church vestry and see what was going on the in the worlds of education and religion while we waited our chance to get in the booth and pull the handle and do our thing.

Of course, now there are other ways to vote. Sure, you can still go to the polling place on election day if you wish, but there are going to be far fewer of them this year due to the you-know, and the lines might be long.  

The alternative is to vote on paper, either by mailing it in or dropping it off at a secure box at one of the election sites. We dropped ours off the other day at the Honeygo Run Regional Park, which is not only a magnificent park featuring two lighted ball diamonds, three athletic fields (one artificial, two lighted), a 13,000 square foot indoor rec center (where the voting machines will be), a lighted roller hockey court, an ADA-accessible playground, two picnic pavilions with space for 60, a pedestrian bridge to make for safe access for the neighbors across Honeygo Boulevard, plenty of parking, and a beautiful path and trail system to take hikers through the park's wooded areas.

(I always like to enumerate the great things at the park for those who bellyache and say they "don't git nothin'" for their tax money.)

Oh, and there's also the Perry Paw Dog Park, where for a nominal annual fee, one gains access to a fenced in area, one for big pooches and one for anklebiters, where Marmaduke and Daisy can run to their heart's content.

Anyway, the collection box is there now, the place will be open for early voting as the election draws closer, and of course they're there all day on Nov 3. 

Meanwhile, down in Anne Arundel County, election officials report that person or persons unknown are going door to door, claiming to be from the election office, and offering the kind service of collecting your ballot and taking it to the drop box.

Of course, this is totally bogus, and while I have to wonder about the gullibility of someone who would hand over their precious franchise to some random door-to-door salesman like that guy on Pee Wee's Playhouse.

Nowhere in the instructions for your vote-by-mail does it say that an official will be coming to your house to collect your ballot. Take it to the correct location. Vote for whomever you please, but vote!

Curses!

A guy I know fairly well (because he was I) used to make a point to talk a walk during lunch hour in fashionable downtown Towson, Maryland. There was a bar there called The Crease, and in front of the bar, on the sidewalk, in a cage, lived a vociferous parrot.

I've always been interested in animals, especially those that can do more than one thing. For instance, yes it's great that chickens lay eggs, but you show me a Rhode Island Red who can serve up two over easy, and you have my interest.  Or take a meerkat. Sure, they're cute and interesting to watch in their community-building sociology, but you show me a meerkat who can write a coherent plan for reviving an aging building in a seedy neighborhood, and I will support that little critter's efforts.

Parakeets, macaws, cockatoos, and parrots have for years demonstrated the ability not only to speak, but to do so with great diction, pronunciation, and very few errors in grammar. I mean, how much effort would it take to say "Polly wants a cracker" instead of "Polly want a cracker"?

For sheer ability to talk, you can't top the African Grey Parrot, and I believe that was the species of the parrot who worked for The Crease. So easily suggestible was he/she that just having a raffish wag come by every day squawking "Reagan lied! Reagan lied!" was all it took to get him/her to repeat it without prompting, to the immense satisfaction of that doggone wag. At the height of the Iran-Contra Scandal, we foolishly believed that was as bad as things could ever get. Ha ha ha.

Facts about African Grey Parrots

Anyway, over in a wildlife park in Jolly Olde Britain, they had to give the boot to five parrots who could not stop swearing at customers.

This happened at Lincolnshire Wildlife Park in eastern England. The five winged warblers were tossing out expletives and personal descriptions at both visitors to the park and to the very staff charged with bringing them their *@!(!~ dinner. And they had only been there for a few days! Talk about a break-in period.

Steve Nichols is the head man over there, and he reports, "It just went ballistic, they were all swearing. We were a little concerned about the children."

And he got right to the point: "I get called a fat t**t every time I walk past," Nichols complained.

I need someone English to tell me what a t**t is.

These African greys  — Eric, Jade, Elsie, Tyson, and Billy by name — came to the park from five different families, and spent a few days in quarantine together, honing their act before going out in the front of the public. It's hard to imagine someone named "Tyson" breaking bad like that.

But, instead of flying, all they did was fly off the handle, dropping F-bombs along with other stuff. Nichols says the F word was easy for them to learn, but they soon mastered the entire lexicon of the average eighth-grader.

And, let's hear it for the English! The park visitors were tossing invective right back at the birds! "The visitors were giving them as much back as what they were giving to them," Nichols said.

He has to keep the kids in mind, of course, so the park split the five up. They're all in separate quarantine now, in the hopes that they will be more decorous as solo acts.

This is nothing new for the experienced zookeeper: "To take in a swearing parrot isn't an unusual thing; it's something that happens probably three or four times a year," Nichols told CNN.

I should write to Mr Nichols to ask if he heard about the guy whose wife calls him at work to say she had brought home a parrot that used to live in a brothel. The guy gets home, and walks in the kitchen, and the parrot goes, "Oh, hi Frank!"

It will go on and on

How would you like to cruise on the New Titanic? People are still planning to build a replica of the ill-fated ocean liner, and if you aren't superstitious, there's a cabin with your name on it, or there will be, at least.

Someone first floated this idea (note the irony) in 2012, but there was a financial dispute with the Chinese government in 2015, so the whole deal was put on the back burner. But Australian businessman and politician Clive Palmer, who is currently at the helm of this voyage-to-be says now that shipbuilders are back to work on the big ship.

Word has it that the new Titanic will be an exact copy of the original except for the huge gash amidships because, why not? It worked so well the first time around.

But this time around, there will be enough life boats for all who wish to avoid drowning, and they are making this hull by welding it, not riveting it. And of course, there will be modern navigational tools. And Radar.

Allegedly the new ship will be an identical copy of the infamous liner, which sank in 1912 following a collision with an iceberg.

"The ship will follow the original journey, carrying passengers from Southampton to New York, but she will also circumnavigate the globe, inspiring and enchanting people while attracting unrivaled attention, intrigue and mystery in every port she visits," said Palmer in a statement.

For the maiden voyage, the plan is to sail from Dubai to New York sometime in 2022.

Ther will be nine decks, 835 cabins, room for 2,435 passengers holding first-, second- and third-class tickets -- just like the first Titanic. And this one will have all the swanky fittings, like that grand staircase that starred in the movie by James Cameron.

For those who are really into history more than sailing vacations, just put up $105,129, and the American company OceanGate will take you on a dive trip to the site of the wreck of the 1912 ship. 

Just as a reminder, for those of us who believe in hexes, over 1,500 died on the Titanic in 1912. Many of them were just ordinary folks, but some of them were super wealthy. The sea did not respect that as they sank.

It's what's known as an Astor risk*.

* No, there are no limits to how horrible my puns become. Like the people on the Titanic who enjoyed the music because there was ABandOnShip.

Sunday Rerun: One from column A, one from column B

 Stop me if you've heard this one before...

An elephant walks into a Chinese inn.

That's it! That's the joke, folks. I know you're out there, I can hear you breathing. What is this, an audience or an oil painting?

But, what happened was real, and here are the facts. A wild elephant did indeed wander into a Chinese inn, and he spent about four hours feasting on corn and oranges.

Xu Hongwei is the owner of the place.  It's in Yunnan Province. Xu said he told guests at the inn to remain on the second floor at about 4:30 the other morning, on the grounds that there was a wild elephant on the first floor. And what's more, Mr Xu is a member of the local elephant patrol team.

I have to say that again: the local elephant patrol team. There are such things, I guess, and I'll bet they have really cool hats and jackets. Maybe even a basketball team!


I'm going to call him "Jumbo."  Jumbo tied on the feedbag for four hours, chowing down on corn, oranges and other food stored inside.

According to Xu, this elephant was known to the locals from the previous times when he wandered into the eateries in town. Rather than trying to cajole Jumbo to leave, they gave him some time to stroll and gobble, while they held up traffic outside. 

There were no injuries to anyone, either with two legs or four really really big legs, during Jumbo's time out. but he did leave behind a big mess, according to Xu.

Turning to the horticultural news, residents of Yunnan Province are reporting larger-than-everrrrrrr tomatoes and corn this autumn.

The Saturday Picture Show, October 3, 2020

 

Ah, for the world of Nancy, back in the days when newspaper comics were great. Nancy lived with her Aunt Fritzi Ritz (and probably, Fritzi's bf Phil Fumble) and she had a friend named Sluggo who, against all odds, lived alone in a house, even though he was just a kid himself. I don't think he had electricity in the house, because he burned candles in old bottles as lamps. His sofa had springs popping out, and the wallpaper was peeling off, showing the lath and plaster wall beneath. But Fritzi was always getting on Nancy for whatever infractions, and I can hardly imagine what she did to get in THIS much of a jam.

Her spirit will live on, wherever justice reigns.

Here's our weekly pretty fall scene. Be careful on those wet leaves, though...

Some lucky someone met Stephen Root, the actor who played Milton Waddams in "Office Space." If you've seen the movie, you know the legend of the red Swingline stapler. If you haven't, I'm sorry that you haven't.

This is a bit of an oddball Halloween display...a little bit of NASA in your yard...

This person has a lot to answer for. He/she said "a lizard was on a dusty shelf and fell down onto the wireless charger, leaving his prints."  Why not dust that shelf to make the house a little nicer for your squamate reptile housemate?

I like it when people are able to blend some art in with their work. Big heart to this gentleman!

I plan to print this picture out, frame it, and hang it in a prominent place, where I will see it often and be reminded of how fortunate anyone is who can turn a spigot and have clean running water on demand. I believe all such people should show gratitude every day. 

Heave Ho Me Hearties!

I find the most interesting things on this internet thing. Like this, that I found the other day on the site called Gastro Obscura, which has bits about food from all over.  And often, when I eat at a barbecue, I have bits of food all over me, so it all fits.

The island known as Hispaniola, which is where Haiti and the Dominican Republic are found, was where Christopher Columbus landed on December 5, 1492. He called it La Isla Española ("The Spanish Island"), which was soon Anglicized to Hispaniola.  We can thank the Hispanics for many wonderful parts of our lives, and here is one of them: 

By the 17th century, Hispaniola had feral animals running around everywhere. Pigs, boars, cattle, you name it. Hunters came to take what they could, and many Spanish ships, docked in the harbor, had hungry Spanish sailors to feed. The answer for both the hunters and the sailors was to gather, and cook, the bounteous offerings of the island.

Mr Weber had not invented the Bar-B-Q grill by then and what they used was a frame made of wood called a "boucan." The Tupi people of Brazil invented the grill, you might say.  And all that they had to work with was wood, which meant you had to replace your grill often.

Explorers roaming South America and the West Indies brought the boucans to Hispaniola, and the French hunters on the island really took to it, and soon were being called "boucaniers."

They really went for it, and I guess this was before "French cuisine" meant tiny portions with sauce all over it. They boucanned pork, and another favorite was turtle in the shell, which would be popular at University of Maryland Terrapin Club events, if you think about it. The French called this boucan de tortue.

Boucaniers came up with the idea to add marinating the main course prior to throwing it on the grill. A book called "The Sea Rover’s Practice: Pirate Tactics and Techniques, 1630-1730" survives, and from it we learn that these guys were adding salt, pepper, lime juice and crushed pimento to the meat. Salting helped preserve the meat, and that was good because sailors would cook lunch well in advance long before sailing off.  By boucanning the meat, it could be packed away in the days before Frigidaires, and in those days before RadaRanges, they would reconstitute the meat by soaking it in warm water.

BUT! Everything good always comes to an end, just like when they shut down the Old Country Buffet near us. The Spanish officials wanted the French hunters to hit the road, or, more properly, the sea, so they undertook a rather violent campaign to make them leave Hispaniola. The boucaniers, miffed, sailed off, no longer hunters. Some became farmers elsewhere, and many boucaniers took to the seas as pirates, so soon enough, boucaniers became pirates, and "boucanier" became "buccaneer."

But they still had to eat, so as they landed on islands such as as Martinique, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. Jamaicans added the boucan to their "jerking" cooking method, which is why we can get jerk chicken at TGIFriday's if we want.

Backyard grillmasters owe a lot to these long-pirates, who taught us to smoke and season meat and cook it on a grill.

I hope this helps out all of us who, until just now, thought "buccaneer" was a high price to pay for corn.

Turning on the despot's heel

This will probably irritate the irritable, but sometimes, it's good to get rid of something that's been around since Hector was a pup, especially if Hector has turned into a mean old racist cur.

Of course, I'm talking about the official state song for our state. “Maryland, My Maryland” would seem to be on its way out, and no one will be performing it before the Preakness next month because the lyrics are thought by some to be racist.

Over at Pimlico Race Course, where they will run the Preakness before a crowd estimated at 00,000, they're saying the October 3 race day will come and go, and no one will have to hear lyrics that describe Abraham Lincoln as a "despot"  and Northerner as "scum." Written as a poem by James Ryder Randall in 1861, the foul ditty opens with “The despot’s heel is on thy shore,” a reference to Lincoln, and goes on with the charming couplet “Avenge the patriotic gore… That flecked the streets of Baltimore....” 

Speaker of the Maryland House, Del. Adrienne Jones is behind the long-overdue move to abolish “Maryland, My Maryland” as the state song. As she points out, the song has its roots in the Confederacy. 

And the Maryland Jockey Club put out this statement on June 25 in response to Del. Jones:

“The Maryland Jockey Club is respectful and supportive of Speaker Jones’ move to remove “Maryland My Maryland” as the state song, and we look forward to starting a new tradition for Preakness 145.” 

Ms Jones told the SUNpaper, "It’s extremely offensive. People just hear the words, ‘Maryland, My Maryland.’ But if you look at the words, it’s not something you want to hail as the song for the state.”

What fools some people is that the Ryder poem was put to the music of "O Tannenbaum," the Christmas song of German origin. We sing "O Christmas tree, O Christmas Tree," and the melody sounds so benign.

I'm sure we can find a state song that doesn't salute a failed revolution against the United States. 

Not a such a great heritage.

Sparks

By now you have heard the story: a couple of Californians had a gender reveal party. It's the thing now. But instead of slicing into a blue or pink cake or tossing out colored confetti, they took the reveal device into a field of dry four-foot tall grasses and let it go. If they had planned to set a gigantic fire, they could not have chosen better conditions: the day featured triple-digit temperatures, low humidity, dry vegetation and a stiff breeze.

They had their other children along, and someone with a cell phone to record the event (a video which will be played in courtrooms soon). The fire started at once, of course, and spread "like wildfire" as the couple ran back to their vehicle to get water bottles to try to put it out. The fire in the San Bernardino National Forest was labeled the El Dorado Fire. Beside the loss of property and destruction of the land, the awful, awful thing is that a firefighter was killed while working at the scene, the U.S. Forest Service said in a statement.

Capt. Bennet Milloy of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said, "You can’t fight a fire like this with a water bottle. They had no chance after it started. It’s a pretty tragic situation. Obviously this was supposed to be a happy event.”

I'm not writing this to decry the use of pyrotechnics at gender reveal parties; of course I am opposed to such a practice, but my opposition and yours won't mean a thing to the gozzleheads who do these things without a second thought.

That's my issue. The second thought. I wonder. How does it feel to be the couple who, through their own sheer selfish indifference, caused this ineffable agony? Do they spend the rest of their lives in penitence and sorrow? Will they feel awful pangs every time they think of the day they told the world that their as yet unborn child is a whatever gender, and in so doing, despoiled nature of thousands of acres of beauty, and, incalculably worse, deprived the world of a human being who had friends and family and a future with them? 

The officials in California saw the couple, as yet unidentified, has been forthcoming and cooperative. They may face charges up to manslaughter; all that is being determined by prosecutors.

I don't know how anyone can live with that sort of grief and guilt. I know what their attorneys will say in court, if it gets that far. "My clients, in an attempt to bring a little joy into the world, and share their glee over the impending birth of their young one, made a simple error of judgement..."

And you wanna know the crazy thing? That is true. No one is about to say they intended for this to be the outcome. 

But, as many people wiser than I have said before, it's the result that matters. 

I hope this couple gets the counseling they will need to deal with the guilt. I don't see that incarcerating them will serve a useful purpose. Others will keep up this stupid game of Light My Fire until it goes out of style. Perhaps these two can speak out in public about the dangers of sparking fires in tinderbox conditions.

Perhaps someone will listen.

Fish Story

Here in Baltimore, we have the great National Aquarium, the huge fishtank downtown that visitors enjoy. It costs a pretty penny to get in the place, but I guess if the people who run it start to run out of money, they can always a float a loan.

There is an aquarium down south - the North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores -  and although I assume there is an admission charge to get in there, they also have a large waterfall that many folks use as a wishing well, tossing in coins in hopes of finding true love, hitting the lottery, getting hired for a better job, you know the drill...

They've been closed for six months because of you-know-what, and someone came up with the idea to drain the waterfall and see how many quarters, halves, nickels, dimes and slugs were down at the bottom.  Why not? With the national coin shortage and with no income coming in, it made sense.

They dredged up about 100 gallons of coins, and by the time they run all that metal through the coin counter down at the Food4Less, they'll have some operating loot to keep going a while. The money "...will go toward the general care of the aquarium and animals during this time," the aquarium said in a Facebook post last week.

Myself, I toss pocket change into a peanut butter jar and turn it in at the credit union to get money to buy more peanut butter, but I can't even dream up how much 100 gallons of jingly money comes out to.

They're taking guesses on their Facebook page, and meanwhile, while still closed to humans, the aquarium has virtual events, behind-the-scenes tours and animal encounters. All while keeping the facility up and running and taking care for the fishies and other inhabitants.

So, I hope they find it all adds to several million simoleons!

YourTube

In case you missed it sneaking up on us, October will be here on Thursday, and that means two of the greatest days of the year will be here soon...November 1 is the end of the dreaded Daylight Savings Time, and the day before, October 31, is Halloween.

I've been fretting about whether there will be trick-and/or-treating this year. What with the pandemic and all, I'm wondering what will be done for all the little ghouls who want to lurk about in their Stephen Miller masks.  And Miller himself, that little demon with the spray-on hair! What will he do on the spookiest night of the year?

It will be up to each neighborhood to decide what to do, how to hand out the Goobers and Raisinets. There should be costume parties where kids can vie for the honor of having the most realistic Dr Fauci getup!

Here is proof that we aren't the only ones noodling over the topic. Andrew Beattie from Cincinnati, along with his 6-year-old daughter, developed a very simple Snickers Delivery System.  All you need is to find the mailing tube you put down in the basement 17 years ago, knowing it would come in handy, and then spruce it up til it looks like a Cincinnati Bengals uniform, attach it to the porch railing and get ready to slide the Smarties right on down to the waiting hobs and goblins!

And, as Mr Beattie says, "This is something that the kids will enjoy and not think of it as I'm doing this to prevent disease,” Beattie says. “They are doing it to have a good time."

Holidays and fun times are going to be really different for a while, but that doesn't mean we can't still have fun.

Sunday Rerun: Another Brilliant Idea

 OK. A tiger, a lemur, two macaws, and an African fennec fox walk into a high school prom.

That's not the setup for a joke. It's what happened at the prom for Christopher Columbus High School, a private high school in Miami. It's such a ritzy school that they held the prom at the swank Double Tree by Hilton out by Miami International Airport! Imagine swimming in such elegance, or at least dancing in it.

For reasons I will never understand, the people who run CCHS thought it would be a helluva great idea to have these animals on display as high school kids did the Stank Legg. These children spent 12 years in school in order to be taught as a final lesson that it's ok to put jungle beasts in small cages, drag them into a noisy room and flash bright lights all around them.

And, just as you'd think, after Friday's prom comes Monday's half-fast apology from Principal David Pugh:

"Upon reflection, we regret the decision to have live animals at our prom. This decision in no way reflects the Marist values, teachings of the Catholic Church and/or the accomplishments of our young and that of our distinguished alumni."

"Upon reflection" is current American English for "I did not use my brain before, but I sure am using it now!"

I also hope that Pugh never taught anyone how to use words effectively. IKEA assembly manuals are better written than his word salad.

The school just about tripped over itself in putting out a statement that, in effect, said, "Don't look at US! We got these critters from facilities  licensed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission."

"The tiger, which was displayed for a few minutes in a cage, was never harmed or in danger, was not forced to perform, was always accompanied by his handlers, and for the great majority of the time was laying down in a relaxed state, facing away from the audience," the earlier school statement said.


Ron Magill of Zoo Miami doesn't quite agree.

"This tiger's not celebrating. This tiger's not having a party," Magill said to ABC News. "This tiger is being stressed out."

Magill said he "didn't know what they were thinking."

"It's not even walking," Magill said. "It's going back and forth, back and forth; its tail is slashing back and forth; its ears are going into helicopter mode -- all signs of distress."

(I can add that, as someone who is owned by two cats 1/25th the size of these jungle kitties, that tail flying back and forth and perked-up ears mean you are doing something to displease a cat and will soon wish you had not.)

Mari-Chris Castellanos, sister of a guy who goes to the all-boys private school, said on Facebook that  the tiger "was used as an exotic amusement for the mindless teenagers who were present."

Arranged by mindless adults and supplied by more of the same.

Listen, I am not the most stalwart of animal advocates, but I am against humiliation and subjugation of any animal, no matter how many legs they have.  Dragging a caged animal into a noisy banquet hall is not a good idea, to me.

Letting the tiger out of his cage, now that would make for a great prom.

The Saturday Picture Show, September 26, 2020

 

I love fall colors so much, I thought I'd treat us to them twice today. This first one takes some looking up.

Not sure how many of you recognize this fella - he's PacMan's grandfather.

In the season finale of nighttime soap opera "Dallas" in 1986, Bobby Ewing returned from the dead, since he had never been really dead, but still needed a shower. In 1999, "Family Guy" dragged him out and soaped him up again, but this time, when Pam told him it was all a dream she saw on "Family Guy," all Bobby could say were the three most memorable words of December 1999, as we all careered toward who-knew-what in Y2K. He said, "What's Family Guy?"

This building at Ellis Island in New York Harbor is now part of a museum of American Immigration. When this picture was taken, the building was abandoned, prior to refurbishment. But you have to wonder how many came here, saw the Statue of Liberty, and set about making their new life in a new land that very day.

This is the Fearless Girl statue on Wall Street, recently redecorated to salute our beloved fearless Justice Ginsburg.

Young people today might find it odd to even dream that there were men who drove around the neighborhood in the olden days, leaving milk and butter and eggs and cheese on your porch.

Old Corvettes are always a popular attraction at antique car fests. I always laugh to think of the old show "Route 66," in which Martin Milner, along with George Maharis or Glenn Corbett, roamed from town to town across America, finding odd jobs and romance before hopping back in the car, bound for the next burg, and more romance and adventure. What amused me was the thought that with a car like that, they hardly had room to pack more than a toothbrush and comb, and yet every week they were all togged out in all sorts of attire. 

Still lake, mirror image. Happy Fall!

Marshmallow out

I'm going to report this story to you straight, with no editorial comments about how little I care for Peeps, those marshmallow candies so prized by so many who like marshmallow. I do like to keep some on hand, just in case I am dealing with a hole or gouge in the drywall. Peeps make excellent replacement spackle!

The dreadful little things (that's the last one, I promise!) are made by the good people over at Just Born Quality Confections, and they are saying that you won't find Halloween Peeps this year, and don't look for them at Christmastime either!

Pumpkins, ghosts and monsters are all the usual starting lineup for Halloween Peeps, and I guess Christmas peeps look like little trees and gingerbread people, but they're all officially on break until 2021.

And if you're one of those cheapskates whose idea of a nice Valentine's Day gift is a dozen Valentine Peeps, guess what, fella? You're SOL too (Short On Luck).

Just Born is up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and they knocked off all candy production in April due to the you-know-what. They did it to protect the health and safety of their employees during the pandemic.

They made some upgrades to their plant and reopened in May, but that still put them behind in production and stock.

"This situation resulted in us having to make the difficult decision to forego production of our seasonal candies for Halloween, Christmas and Valentine's Day in order to focus on meeting the expected overwhelming demand for Peeps for next Easter season, as well as our everyday candies," according to a company statement.

Of course! Peeps that look like yellow chicks are the big deal during Easter season, so they are throwing all their eggs in that basket, so to speak, and cranking out Peeps at a rate of roughly 2 billion a year.

Oh, by the way, no luck for your Halloween and Christmas Hot Tamales and Mike and Ike fruit candies.

I don't like them either, in case you were heading out to do some shopping today. Peanut M & Ms, Almond Joy, Snickers, and Peppermint Patties, now you're talking.

Resort town says "Stay Away"

Imagine what it takes for the mayor of a beach resort town to ask people to stay away from the seaside this weekend, but that's what's happening in Ocean City, MD right now, because of a "social media event" in which hundreds of carheads will descend on the town to drive their cars, park their cars, do funny things in the public roads with their cars, and generally annoy people with their cars.

Mayor Rick Meehan of Ocean City, Maryland, says attendees of this annual unwanted car rally cause problems by terrorizing the town.

Meehan figures the exhilarated accelerators will be screeching their way into town even now, ahead of the weekend. He worries that people won't be safe and he's put in place strict rules with tough punishments for scofflaws.

Meanwhile, local residents and people who unfortunately chose this weekend for a nice little seaside getaway will get to enjoy lots of noise, traffic delays, and crowds. Businesses are being told to sign up to have police keep an eye on their property, especially after hours.

They call this event H2Oi (I guess for the ocean water) and last year, one of the Phi Beta Kappa candidates racing around out of control hit bystanders on the street. Very nice gathering.

This year, there are new rules allowing the police to write more expensive tickets and impound cars under Maryland's new "Special Event Zone" law. With other agencies lending support to Ocean City's relatively small police force, there will be some 200 police on duty at all times all weekend long. Last year, 1,400 tickets were issued to violators, and odds are that figure will be eclipsed this weekend.

“Due to the pop-up car rally, this upcoming weekend is not going to be a typical fall weekend at the beach,” said Mayor Meehan. “We encourage our residents to avoid traveling on Coastal Highway if possible, as traffic is going to be unusually heavy. In addition, we urge our visitors seeking a family-friendly experience to plan a visit to Ocean City for another weekend. We pride ourselves on being a coastal community that everyone can enjoy year-round, but unfortunately, we are asking everyone to please exercise caution before deciding to visit Ocean City this weekend.”

The mayor added that some bars and restaurants are shuttering their doors, rather than deal with all this commotion, thus losing out on more revenue during a horrible year for business.

And all this is due to these gearheads. Let me say this: all my life, I have looked at cars and trucks as vehicles, useful for getting from one place to another and hauling a load of whatever from A to B. I buy reliable cars and pay people to maintain them so I can reasonably expect that they will a) start  b) stop and c) haul home a case of seltzer.

All this aside, I fully understand that some people are into their cars like I'm into reading, writing, listening to music and baking cornbread. And that's perfectly oke with me. Hunky dory. You want to spend the day in the garage waxing your Willys, go right ahead! Gapping the spark plugs for your Suzuki? Have at it! Putting tires on your Tesla? Good for you! Changing the oil in the Oldsmobile? Be my guest.

BUT - your love of cars and driving them in a flamboyant, illegal manner on the public highway is where we come in conflict. Unless you would be ok with me shutting down a road so I could put my desk out in the open air, or moving my oven into your living room so I could turn out a batch of cornbread, you don't get to close the roads for your hobby.

I urge all who wish to behave like this to buy a very large piece of land and pave over it, and you and your friends can do burnouts and wheelies and modify your cambers to your hearts' content.

Sound fair? 

Bottoms Up

This summer, we saw Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on the news quite a bit. There was unrest in her city and grumpy governor Kemp of Georgia got all up in her business when she required all within the city limits of ATL to wear masks during a virulent virus outbreak and Kemp ruled that no mayor had the right to do so, even though other cities in GA had similar rules and Kemp pretended he didn't know that. As it turned out, Kemp threw out his own dumb rule, making himself look quite the fool.

I have been impressed with her handling of major issues in her town but it came as a whole shock to me when I was listening to the 60s on 6 channel and heard them play the classic Major Lance song from 1962, "The Monkey Time" (#8 Billboard in 1962.) DJ Dave Hoeffel mentioned that Major's daughter Keisha was the mayor of Atlanta, and I hereby forgive all my friends in ATL who kept this vital information from me.

To be fair, some of those friends are way too young to remember Major Lance and his two hits. His other Top Ten Hit, "Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um," was #5 Billboard in 1963. Major Lance grew up in Chicago, hanging around with future stars Jerry Butler and Curtis Mayfield of The Impressions. Mayfield wrote both of Major's hits. Their style of music was called "Northern Soul," and it became very popular in England, so much so that when his records weren't selling here in America, Major moved to England in the late 60s, backed up on tour by a band called Bluesology, whose piano player was a fellow named Reg Dwight.

After returning to America, Major Lance did not know success or peace; he wound up in prison for four years for cocaine possession and distribution, and also lost his sight due to glaucoma. He died in 1994 at age 55, just after daughter Keisha's law school graduation and just before her marriage.

About the funeral, she says, "a group of “eccentric-looking white men” attended Major's service, and Bottoms didn’t realize that one of them was Elton John until he left.

For the record, Elton John was Reg Dwight until he changed his name. I love how the story hangs together in the end!

 

Up Euphemism Creek

  I'm a big fan of Chris Elliott (we have our annual convention in a very tiny room) so I watched the "Schitt's Creek" show when it started out. Back in those days, it was on the beloved TV Guide Channel, which then became Pop TV when people realized that most of us figured The TV Guide Channel was something that showed what time the King of Queens rerun came on.

I liked the show, the whole fish-out-of-familiar water premise, and the trademark Chris Elliott snark went well with the goofiness of the Levys père et fils. I lost the show somehow, heard that Chris had left, and somehow managed to go on with my life without "Schitt's Creek."

I've heard that it was on Netflix now and very popular, and I thought it was nice to hear the other night that the show, and the actors on it, won every Emmy award for this year. 

And then came the morning TV shows, when all the network people shied away from naming the show. On the Today Show, Hoda Kotb grumbled mildly that she was not allowed to say the name of the big winner because NBC only allows them to say "that word" once.

In a nation where the president spews indelicate profanities with the zest of a longshoreman, in a world where any sort of language can be heard on the playgrounds and radio shows and classrooms, it seems to be almost quaint to see Hoda and Savannah with their knickers in a spin over a homophone for poop.

Please don't Bowdlerize my news! 

I can hear you saying, "I would never Bowdlerize your news," but that's a term derived from a Dr Thomas Bowdler (1754 - 1825) an English physician of whom it can be truly said that he was born in a town called Box, near Bath, and is buried in a place called Oystermouth.

And oh yes, he found it necessary to produce expurgated versions of great books written by others. He removed all the words that might make one giggle or blush from fine literature written by that naughty Mr Shakespeare, and others, and for his inane efforts he will be remembered with the word "bowdlerize," meaning to "remove 'offensive' material from the writings of others, rendering the work less meaningful."

Another person whose name became a verb was Horace Fletcher, a 19th century man who, with no background in medicine or physiology whatsoever, proclaimed that we should chew every bit of food 32 times ("one for every tooth"). Fletcher became known as the "Great Masticator" and to this day, chewing your food 32 times is called "fletcherizing" it.

I hope I gave you something to chew on.

Drawing attention

In my long-ago high school days, the joint was so packed with us baby boomers that the administration had to stagger dismissal times. One fleet of us left on school buses and then, when another yellow flotilla of wheeled chariots arrived, more kids got to leave.  

But to avoid having everyone and his/her brother mobbing the halls at the time of first dismissal, only students bearing the coveted "first bus" card could leave their 7th period class. All the rest had to sit around in the time-honored desultory fashion of teenagers everywhere, staring at the bulletin boards.

Most of us who rode the early buses pasted the "first bus" card to the front of their notebooks, to be shown on demand to hypervigilant teachers. I had one, although I rarely rode the bus home.

I was in a hurry to get to Smetana's Delly at York Rd & Burke Av so I could have a cold cut sub and chips and spend some time in the company of lazy Towson State students, before moving along to Read's Drugstore for ice cream, before hitchhiking home to dinner. All while weighing 140 lbs.

But our Spanish teacher, the late Jorge Ordóñez, was hypervigilant about being hypervigilant. One day he proudly told us that he had caught some kid who had gotten some paper the same color as the bus passes, and hand-lettered a fakeroo. Remember, this was long before the days of color xerography and technology.

So impressed was Sr. Ordóñez that he said he decided to encourage the young forger's efforts by requiring him to make 25 more of the fakes, which he then tore up.  Lesson learned, 60's style. I have no idea how long it took to make all those bogus bus passes but it was more than a while.

Which brings us to Kentucky 2020, where a hapless motorist found himself short on the price of a license tag for his beater. So he made his own, with Sharpie and a few hours of work!

The unidentified motorist gets extra points from me for making the 290 JCC characters look faded and worn.  But it was something else that drew the attention of eagle-eyed law enforcement down in Old Kaintuck.

He forgot to add a drawn-on registration sticker up in the corner!

All this took place in bucolic Millersburg, about 100 miles east of Lousville. Officers pulled him over for lacking the sticker, and then found out this loser had no insurance and was driving on a suspended license.

Once he's free to cross state lines, he should drive up here and I would take him to Smetana's for a cold cut sub, chips, and a Coke, except they tore Smetana's down to build a damn Starbucks.

Sunday Rerun: As the nosy landlady said, "I heard a roomer"

When my father reached his dotage, he was still holding up pretty well for someone well into his 80s.

But one thing that went afoul for him was his hearing.  He used to say that he could no longer hear high-pitched, annoying sounds, like the little hourly chirp on his digital watch, and the phone ringing, and being called to do something when all he wanted to do was read his newspaper.

He made hearing loss a gain! Who wants to be disturbed by shrieks, human or otherwise?

And now comes news of a woman named Chen over in sunny China. She has a hearing disorder that is making her the envy of women all over the world: she can no longer hear men’s voices.

Forbes reports that she woke up one day and just couldn't hear her boyfriend speak.

There is a name for this, and I see lots of you looking it up right now. Google "reverse slope hearing loss" and find out that it means she can't hear low frequencies, such as male voices, and the sound of  – which includes the average male voice, Forbes reports.

“She was able to hear me when I spoke to her, but when a young male patient walked in, she couldn’t hear him at all,” said Chen's doctor, Lin Xiaoqing.

It can be a genetic thing, just as if your parents didn't have any children, you can't either. But doctors who know stuff tell us that reverse slope hearing loss could also come from stress and not getting enough sleep.  And being stressed over not getting enough sleep.

Chen has been told that her condition is temporary and she should recover fully. She knows that because a female doctor told her so.

I'm notifying my HMO that a large contingent of female patients will soon descend upon their physicians' offices, complaining of not hearing a word their husbands are yakking.