Sunday Rerun: How do you call Mike Rowe? Use a Mike Rowe Phone!

 I know.  It's cool, it's sassy, it's smart-assy.  

You top someone in a match of wits, you "drop the mic."

You retire from playing soccer, and announce your future plans to visit Bourbon St, you drop the mic twice in one evening.

Abby Wambach, soccer player, did that just the other night, and while I take nothing away from her brilliant career in the most boring game in the world, and while I don't blame her at all for making a flamboyant exit, I wish she could have said what she had to say and handled the mic properly.

Same with musical performers and others who top someone else and strut off after dropping a microphone.

To the generation that so loves to use the adverb "literally" for every verb, I ask you to not literally drop microphones.


Microphones are sensitive electronic equipment.  As someone who made a living speaking into one, I believe they should be cared for and respected.  The symbolism of someone dropping a mic onto a stage floor or a soccer field reminds me of those who would love to take the microphone of speaking freely away from us, and that's not good. 

Not to mention this. What does that say to the audio tech or concert hall sound rigger who has to pick up that mic and clean it off, hoping to be able to use it again?  It's disrespect, almost of the highest (lowest) form.

Thanks for listening to me on this vital topic. (* leaves mic on stand, bows humbly, and walks off smiling*)

The Saturday Picture Show, February 15, 2025

 

I know this looks like part of a Smithsonian exhibit called "America's Westward Expansion: To The Prairie and Beyond," but this is the homemade home of Theodore John Kaczynski, a/k/a the Unabomber, a homegrown terrorist whose own brother ratted him out. The FBI keeps his crude hut in a warehouse.

We can put the football season to rest by noting that for the Eagles to win, they almost certainly had to count on something no one ever saw before: a bad game by Patrick Mahomes. It's likely the last such outing you'll see for a long time, if ever. 

"Hey look! I'm in the book!"

All the reasons for not letting the office humorist know where the label maker is kept here.

 

Say hello to our friend the Cassowary, a big, flightless bird from Australia known as the second most dangerous bird in the world, the first being the turkey that your cousin Harry cooked in the hot oil fryer two Thanksgivings ago.

I'll bet you anything, when he comes up for dinner, he's wearing a alligator shirt.

He's a literal RINO: Rhinoceros In Name Only 

Something  tells me there won't be an LGBTQ Night at the ballpark this year. What a sad way to go.

For years, the symbol for Coca-Cola was this little sprite with a bottle cap for a hat
 No one knew why.

So many  things to love about Denmark: Danish pastry, Danish ham, and these pretty Danish woods.

Wrap it up

In my working era, there were jobs which required ties, and jobs where no one cared what I wore, as long as I was a) there and b) capable of speaking. I guess everyone had that kind of situation now and then. 

I had them all!

Most 9-5 office jobs used to require men to wear ties, and women to dress at a similar level of dressiness, but, ladies and gentlemen, we're going casual now. I think that started with Casual Friday, an offshoot of Hawaiian Shirt Day, and now it's all week long! 

And maybe there's medical science behind the open neck movement. In 2018, a study revealed that wearing a necktie can reduce the blood flow to your brain by up to 7.5 per cent. These symptoms are similar to falling in love, in that they  can make you feel dizzy, nauseous, and headachy. You wrap that cravat too tightly, and up goes the pressure in your eyes. And ties can carry germs around, depending on where you have lunch.

I still insist on wearing the full boatload to funerals (the rule is, "you die, I wear a tie") and it's nice to attend weddings not looking like a recent graduate of a delousing, but for day-to-day, what needs a tie? Who are you, already, Tony Curtis or something? 

Lend me a dime

Mr Preparedness here, the kid who taped a dime inside his binder in elementary school and junior high, in case I needed to call from the pay phone for a ride home or bail money.

Today's kid: "What's a binder? What's a dime? What's a pay phone?"
They still know what a ride home is, though.

One of the oldies stations played "Too Much Monkey Business" by Chuck Berry the other day, and the verse that said "Pay phone, something wrong, dime gone, will mail; I ought to sue the operator for telling me a tale" rang true. I remember the pay phone days, back to when it cost a dime or two nickels to call for a ride, and the various tricks people used to fool the poor phone (stuffing thin plastic strips down the quarter slot while dropping a penny in the nickel slot was said to give you a call for that one cent, although I wouldn't know anything about it.)

I Googled "closest pay phone to me" and the answer I got was for a monastery clear on the other side of town. There has to be one closer to here, but where there used to be a million of them, I'd be surprised if there remain a dozen.

But we have it made now, right? Everyone has their phone right in the pocket or pockeybook (Baltimore style, hon!) Except, what if you don't? What if your phone is lost or stolen or broken and you need to make an important call?

I wonder what the protocol is there. Has anyone ever asked you to let them us your phone for a minute to call someone in such a pinch?

I'd like to know. 

In the barrel

Earlier today, someone mentioned the old Panzer pickle company located here in Baltimore, and just the mention of that name made me smile. Baltimore is a big delicatessen town. The very word delicatessen means a place to get tasty foods, and just walking into one of our neighborhood delis means you'll be hungrier just being there than you were before because of the sights (all those hams and pastramis and cheeses, lined up for your inspection) and the smells (the piquant cheeses hanging up, the fresh yeasty loaves of bread, the spices!

Just by getting some cold cuts on a roll, some chips and a dill pickle that, moments before, was swimming in a briney barrel, puts you in food nirvana like few places will. 

But, what accounts for the fact that we can still remember the aroma of pleasant things? Not just food...once you've sniffed a bough of honeysuckle, it stays with you, like spring rain, like freshly cut grass and so many happy smells.

The word for memories forever stamped in our noggin is "eidetic,"from the Greek meaning "seen." Some people have that photographic memory, meaning that once they see their grocery list, they won't forget the corn flakes when they get to the Try 'N' Save.

But eidetic memories are more than visual. We save in our minds (what's left of them) details about senses of hearing, and feeling, as well as taste and smell.

Panzer and Co. went out of business years ago, but ask anyone from our town how great their food tasted and smelled! 

"Not for me, not to me"

 Hello football fans! Were you happy with the Super Bowl? This is a good time of year to turn the sports page, as it were. Football, college and professional, is over until August, it's time for baseball to come out and blossom, and everyone can indulge in the fine art of what-iffing.

Such as...what if the Chiefs' big pass-catching threat Travis Kelce hadn't dropped those passes? What if Kelce had planned to ask Taylor Swift to take his gigantic hand in marriage, but changed his mind in the sadness of defeat? What if, what if...

If you saw the game, you probably knew it wasn't Kansas City's night within, oh I'm gonna say the first two minutes. Some you win, some you lose...

With no hugely dramatic plays to talk about all day Monday, the talk on-line and, I guess, in all the corner cubicles turned to the half-time show, which featured music star Kendrick Lamar, a whole passel of dancers and featured performers, and a 1987 Buick Grand National. 

I only saw glimpses of Lamar's act, being involved with my patented Lazy Guy chili (sautéed onion, ground beef, add 3 cans of Rotel, two cans of kidney beans, chili powder...let it simmer...and serve with plain yogurt and Fritos) cleanup, so outside of hearing music, and catching flashes of dancing out of my eye corner, I can't talk knowledgeably about his show. I'm far removed from being in Kendrick's target audience and that's OK. I have respect for a performer who attracts an audience that size, at the venue, and more important, in the global TV audience. I hope everyone enjoyed it. I wish those outside Kendrick's audience could stop disparaging his act, because it's likely that many of those doing so spent the second 1/2 of halftime up to their wrists in clam dip anyway. 

The man has the talent to catch the attention of tens of millions of people. I think it's foolish to dismiss his performance and say,  "I don't understand this, therefore it's not valid." Mine is the very generation that asked to be heard when we were coming up. Now, we're saying, "I don't want to hear younger people"? That's foolish. 

 Maybe sometimes it's good to read about new things, or ask someone to clue us in.

Congrats!

 OK, I'm writing this on Sunday afternoon,  or "yesterday," as English-speaking people put it. The Super Bowl is still hours away, but I don't know which team will win, of course. To be honest about it, I'm rooting for the Eagles.  Their quarterback Hurts went to Alabama; that's the main reason, although I might add that I think we've all seen enough of the Kelce family stomping around in victory. Feel free to disagree with that. 

But here’s something I want to say. It's getting tiresome to see so many posts saying that "the referees are all in for the Chiefs." That's an easy way to explain how your team lost to the Chiefs, instead of giving credit to Mahomes & Co. for being great players.

People with lots of time on their hands have even photoshopped pictures of referees with little KC logos on their striped shirts.

Of course, no one ever comes forward with any evidence of chicanery at all. It's just something to say.

Congratulations to the winners, and let's not sully their accomplishment by ascribing it to anything but hard luck and skill.

Sunday Rerun (from 2022): One Shining Moment

 I'm not a basketball fan but I do know enough about the college game to know that Indiana U is a traditional power. But last Thursday night, they got their Hoosiers handed to them by the mighty Gaels of Saint Mary's College in the NCAA tournament, and I wouldn't even be talking about it, except for the fact that the two best Indiana people in uniform that night were not on your scorecard!

Indiana was ranked 12th in the nation before that loss, but by now everyone in the world with a TV has seen the heroics performed by Nathan Paris and Cassidy Cerny. You see, what happened was, the basketball got stuck between the backboard and the shot clock, some 13 feet in the air, and nothing was going to happen unless that ball was retrieved. 

They tried hollering at it, poking at it with a broom handle, and asking 6' 10"  Saint Mary's center Matthias Tass to reach up and grab that thang, and nothing worked.

Paris, a senior cheerleader from Floyds Knobs, Ind. (add that to the list of towns we have to visit someday!) offered to get on a folding chair to go for the ball, but the refs nixed that as being too risky

So Nathan said, I have an idea! I'll just lift my cheer partner Cassidy (a sophomore from Avon, Indiana) skyward, as we often do during football and basketball games, and let's see if she can reach it...

 

Nathan and Cassidy were on the tv Friday more than the My Pillow guy, and let's say hooray for them! They are a nice couple of young people, from all appearances, and I will go so far as to say if Cassidy ain't cute, grits ain't groceries! 

Too bad it was the worst game of the year for Indiana, but because of our hypermedia world, Mr Paris and Ms Cerny had 24 hours of fame that they certainly didn't expect when they put on their socks Thursday afternoon!

And they can look forward to sharing their time in the sun with their children and grandchildren in the years down the road, as part of the innumerable "Whatever Happened To...?" stories we'll see!

The Saturday Picture Show, February 8, 2025

 

You have to feel a little sorry for Jaden Smith. He's tried and tried to get our attention over the years, through music, acting, and I don't know what-all else. So, the other night at the Grammy Awards, rather than sucker-punching a comedian like his father did,  Jaden showed up in a house hat, and everyone said, "Ohhhhkay."

This is said to be one of the last, if not the last, photos of Buddy Holly before his ill-fated plane ride in February 1959. It's been skillfully colorized and shows the native Texan in his element. Was he important to rock and roll? A couple of English fellows named John and Paul named their band The Beatles because Buddy's group was The Crickets. 

You won't see the offensive phrase "End Racism" in the end zone tomorrow night because a certain politician doesn't like those words. But...if you are against ending racism...hmmm.

In America, we have Rama Lama Ding Dong, by The Edsels. In Australia, you have to choose between Borroloola and Bing Bong. Decisions, decisions. 

The ancient art of Origami turned one piece of paper into a real doll.

This looks like a scene right out of some fantasy movie, but it's a real place in Watkins Glen, New York.

I'm so confused! 

Reminds me of that door I see at the mall which says THIS DOOR MUST BE LOCKED AT ALL TIMES as it sways gently in the breeze. But surely no unauthorized personnel could get past this checkpoint, Charlie. 

Did you find any? Me neither.

America wanted to know how to split one sandwich three ways. America's skilled geometry corps went to work with their protractors and compasses, and here you have your answer.

Must be in the form of a question

 Winning 1.6 million American smackeroos on "Jeopardy" made Amy Schneider the ninth biggest winner of all time in American game show history. Ms Schneider owns the second-longest win streak in the quiz show's long and storied history, trailing only Ken Jennings.

 Ms Schneider has written her autobiography.  I think it's safe to say that anyone selected by their eighth-grade as "Most likely to win on Jeopardy" would have quite a story to tell. I'll add it to my want list at our library. She's on Facebook drumming up sales for the book.

Some people on the FBook had some things to say to Ms Schneider, whose status as a transgender American seems to trouble people who have met the Enough brothers and can't leave Well Enough alone. 

Nasty comments ensued, and I wonder why it's a deal to some people if others change their gender to the one in which they feel more comfortable. One of the nasty Nellies made it clear that she advocates FOR cat adoption and AGAINST human vaccination. So she has mercy for a cat who needs two square meals alongside places to poop and snooze, but none for a fellow human being who struggled and, one hopes, found peace.

Well, I'll tell you what, if she's going to be all "I can do what I want, but you can't!," I hope her cat refuses to snuggle her anymore until she learns to live and let live.

There goes the judge

Up in rural Petersburgh, New York, they need a new town justice.

Former Town Justice Richard T. Snyder was ridden off on a rail because he said something out loud that he really should have not said (let alone thought): in an effort to get himself excused from jury duty, he actually said, "all defendants are guilty."

He said this to another judge, who adjudged Snyder egregiously wrong, and quickly reported him to the state Commission on Judicial Conduct, which august body conducted a lengthy investigation.

Summonsed for grand jury duty, Snyder introduced himself as a judge, and said he couldn't do the job of a juror because he figures all the defendants brought before him are guilty.

So, he couldn’t be impartial. 

“I know everybody come in front of me, I know they are guilty,” he told the presiding judge, according to the court transcript. “They would not be in front of me.”

That was enough to get him off the jury. But then he explained himself to the Commission: 

“I meant that, reason why people got tickets is because they did something wrong, but I know people’s [sic] not guilty. They’re innocent until proven guilty,” he said. “I know they’re guilty because they did something wrong. That’s how they got a ticket.”

 “I mean, that they were guilty because they did something wrong. But they’re not guilty till they come to court. They’re innocent till proven guilty.”

His Honor is seen here either hauling off a box of extra robes and gavels, or working a new delivery job. I can't say.

The Commission sent him packing with a promise that he go far, far away, and never seek a judgeship again.

in the words of Commission Administrator Robert Tembeckjian, “It is bad enough that a judge would seek to avoid such a fundamental civic responsibility as jury service. It is astounding that the judge would claim an inability to be impartial, and to declare under oath that the accused must be guilty or they would not be in court.” 

You think you've heard it all; now here's a judge who hadn't heard a word in freshman Civics.

Trust me on this

 Really, trust me on anything, because I never developed the skill of saying one thing and meaning another. 

If some doctor ever ankles up to me, white jacket on, stethoscope around his or her neck, and a clipboard in hand, and says to me, "Well, Mr Clark, all the test results are back, and I'm sorry to tell you this, but you must never eat chocolate again..."

I can assure you that I'd say, "Is that all?"

I know, I'm living in a country where National Chocolate Day is celebrated three times a  year (July 7, October 28 and December 28) but I'm not there for any of it. 

I know many people who live for their next chunka chocolate 🍫 but you can have mine!

Hey, are you gonna eat that whole shrimp egg roll? I'll be glad to go halfsies with ya...

I just don't like chocolate! 

Attention pharmacy clerks!

Some 5,000 volunteers have signed up for the Citizen Archivist program, and you can be #5,001, if you hurry. 

The deal is, our National Archives - the nation's dusty file cabinet - is bulging with old letters, deeds, wills, and other ephemera...papers that could yield tons of information valuable to historians and casual browsers alike, except...

There weren't typewriters available for Josiah Goodpasture as he fought Ye Olde Revolutionarye Warre; everything was written in pen. And not a handy Bic Stic, oh no. They plucked feathers 🪶 and made a point of turning them into ink pens.

And now, in an era when kids can only read a digital clock and don't even learn to write in, let alone read, cursive, the only chance to get these ancient documents put into readable form is to have Citizen Archivists help "unlock history" for the edification of the scholars of today and tomorrow.

The Nat'l Archives digitizes tens of millions of old pages, using artificial intelligence, real intelligence, and a gizmo called an optical character recognition device to turn the words of 1776 into the preserved text images of 2025.

Uhhh...what, now?

Interested? Just go to secure.gov.login and follow a techno-trail that Josiah and his friends never got to see.

“There’s no application,” Suzanne Isaacs, a community manager with the National Archives, tells USA Today’s Elizabeth Weise. “You just pick a record that hasn’t been done and read the instructions. It’s easy to do for a half hour a day or a week.”

Josiah would fairly beam with joy if some modern people could see his original payroll records from so long ago.

And archivists who excel at online translation will be given a chance to help me read my handwritten grocery list every week. Does that say "a lb. of butter" or "a leg of mutton"? 

I need to know. 

If You Knew

 On the sad anniversary (the 66th) of the deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson) in a plane crash in Iowa, a couple of tidbits...

In this picture we see Peggy Sue Gerron, Buddy Holly,  María Elena Santiago Holly, and Buddy's drummer, Jerry Allison. You've heard Buddy's song "Peggy Sue" from 1957. Most people figure Buddy had a girlfriend by that name,  but such was not the case. Buddy and Jerry had written a song with a paradiddle drum beat and fit the words "Cindy Lou" into the beat to honor Buddy's cousin eponymously. But Jerry asked if they could change the title to "Peggy Sue" after he flipped over Ms Gerron. Buddy's girl in those days was the enchantingly-named Echo McGuire. 

But that was a high-school romance that didn't last, and seven months from the end of his life, Buddy met and married María Elena, who survives him to this day. She was pregnant and heard the news of the fatal plane crash on the news, a shock that caused her to suffer a miscarriage. That tragedy led to the change in policy in use ever since in broadcast newsrooms under which such bad news is not broadcast until the next-of-kin are notified. 

And speaking of flipping...you've heard of the legendary coin flips that decided who got the other two seats on the ill-fated plane. Waylon Jennings, bass player, lost his seat to Big Bopper before going on to fame in country music, but until his own death in 2002 was haunted by his taunting final words as the doomed three boarded the Beechcraft Bonanza: "I hope your damn plane crashes!"

The other coin flip loser was guitarist Tommy Allsup, whose seat went to Ritchie Valens when Valens correctly called "Heads."

Allsup would later own a Dallas saloon called "Tommy's Heads-Up Saloon."

Sunday Rerun: You Never Know

 I remember the first few weeks after I quit smoking at 9:10 AM on September 17, 1988 (but who's counting?) because most everyone was supportive, and from that day to this, I haven't smoked, not a puff, and have no desire to.

'55 Buick

But, within a week of tossing away the butts, I was walking back to my truck after work, and saw a woman driving one of those gigantic 1955 tu-tone Buicks on Chesapeake Avenue in Towson. She couldn't have been more than 107 years of age, and was gripping the wheel with one hand as she piloted the barge through the pedestrians and other cars.

The other hand was occupied holding what I guessed was a Pall Mall cigarette that she was hooving on like it was the last cig she would ever enjoy.  Puff, puff, puff.

And it dawned on me that she was going to live and smoke forever. For all I know, she is even today cruising around the traffic circle in Towson, on her way to the Safeway for another carton of Pall Malls.

Happy Birthday, Ms Sullivan!

I thought of that lady when I saw this story from Texas
about a woman named Elizabeth Sullivan, who recently blew out 104 candles on her birthday cake, and attributes her superannuation to drinking three cans of Dr Pepper per day. "Every doctor that sees me says they’ll kill you, but they die and I don’t," Sullivan told CBS as she reached for another chilly 12-ouncer . "So there must be a mistake somewhere.”

In Texas, Dr Pepper flows from many public drinking fountains, it's so popular.  I don't like soda at all anymore but I used to like Coca-Cola and ginger ale. Dr Pepper, however, has a curious cherry taste that reminded me of carbonated cough syrup.

Their slogan used to be "Drink a bite to eat at 10, 2, and 4," which was designed to have consumers drink three Peps a day to ward off the slump between meals by slipping a cup of liquid sugar into their bloodstream.

Still, I don't see myself living to be 104, since I don't smoke or guzzle Dr Pepper, but if I did, it would mean I lived long enough to see Ms Sullivan dating Keith Richards in the year 2055.

The Saturday Picture Show, February 1, 2025

 

A painting of a horse is much less costly than a real hoss, and the bonus is, you don't have to clean up after him.

Autumn Sunday evenings in Baltimore are for watching Sunday Night Football and realizing you have to go work on Monday morning. But! At least you don't have to work with Cris Collinsworth, seen here in his playing days...

Interesting! If you're small, you can park your carcass on these handpainted curb chairs.

The good old days of Computer Lab 101, so long ago that the keyboard was still part of the machine! Perfect for learning Lotus 123 and Word Perfect. 

Nappin' in the snack aisle with Mama Duck and her ducklings!

This little guy can get on your finger for fifteen minutes and get you a money-saving quote on your auto insurance. 

Anyone for mountain climbing? OK, you go ahead...

This is the companion joke to the one about the nudist who knew how to go pick up a dozen donuts 🍩 to go...

Who's going to be the one to tell a polar bear he shouldn't snooze half the day away?

Maybe my lifelong dream of becoming a country singer will come true, now that I've chosen a fake name...Rusty Wheeler.