Sunday Rerun: "I ran so fast, my breath came in short pants"

All I know about human biology is that men ♂ and women ♀ are different. 

And that's more than I know about calculus!

But I saw a gaggle of teenaged guys the other day, traipsing through BuySumMor in that 15-year-old manner, which means picking up every item not fastened down, examining it for 1.2 seconds, and putting it back down with a chuckle.

You see, 15-year-old boys do that because 15-year-old girls look them over for less than 1.2 seconds before putting them down and running off with college guys.

It's been tough being 15 since Adam was 15.  But Adam wore a loincloth or something, not pants.

The worst thing about being a male of 15 was always that your back-to-school pants, which fit so perfectly in August when you stood there in Sears wearing long pants for the first time in two months, are climbing up your legs.  

By Thanksgiving, all those pants that were so perfect on Labor Day are useless unless you have a little brother or something. "Growing pains," kindly old Dr Pratt said, as I looked around the office for a fresh copy of "Highlights."



I learned all the tricks when I was coming up. If I had pants with cuffs, I could always turn them down for an extra inch or so of pantness, but that sort of looked like something The Darling Family would do when they came to Mayberry, so I just wound up hitting the family treasury for some new khakis.

For a while, I was concerned, because I wasn't seeing so many young guys with calf-pants, but then I came to realize that the fashion world hath decreed that ALL men should dress like Pee-Wee Herman now in ill-fitting itty-bitty suits, so there's another problem solved.

The ill-clad man at left is probably the manager of a hedge fund valued in the billions, and yet, I wouldn't go out front and trim the hedges dressed like that.  

The Saturday Picture Show, June 8, 2019

I don't think I would fit in very well with the California lifestyle, but you have to admit, even their bridges are pretty out there.

We've all seen the staged photos where it looks like some tourist is holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but here's someone who has figured out a new way to dress up the old monument!

In the animal kingdom, they know how to take care of each other. This family of duck siblings came to be in need of shelter and mothering, and look who stepped up to help out.

A man who has a dog who always sticks his snout into his waterbowl and spills it everywhere found a way to soak up the splash in a natural pretty way!

As a kid, I always wanted a bunk bed. I just hope whoever bunks here on the top does not have a sleepwalking problem.

Here's your free wallpaper for the week. There's a whole world of beauty out there.

I used to do a lot of meal prepping when I worked, and I understand this perfectly. Sometimes, you get sick and tired of your own sandwiches and salads and veal parmigiana and you want burgers and fried chicken. Variety adds spice!

So many pictures from England this week, and here's my second favorite: a guy who caused the Tower Bridge in London to be shut down while he took himself a sunbath.

The Compost Office

I must say, the old days, when everyone who left this mortal coil got two days worth of viewing at the funeral home, followed by a proper funeral and interment in a one-person bungalow with service handles, are coming to an end.  A lot of us plan to be cremated, which really burns me up.

And now there's this. It's out in Washington State, where Gov. Jay Inslee signed SB 5001, “concerning human remains.” Congratulations, Washington State! You are now the first US state to legalize human composting.

Of course, they're not going to call Uncle Nutsy or Aunt Thelma "compost," even though the tomatoes will never be redder or sweeter or juicier after next May, when the law goes into effect. What will happen to the dear departed will now be called “natural organic reduction.” To help the process along, a process called alkaline hydrolysis (“liquid cremation”) will also put your second cousin twice removed to work among the cantaloupes.  Or beneath them.

There will soon be a hilariously-named project called "Recompose" in Washington- the first urban “organic reduction” funeral home in the country.
It will work a lot like a crematorium, but instead of In By 9, Out By 5 like at the dry cleaner, Recompose will take a while longer to perform the miracle of "organic reduction," or human composting.

Using wood chips and straw, the process takes about a month to turn that guy down the street with the really nice hydrangeas into topsoil for his wife's second husband's hydrangeas. Farmers have been doing this for years with deceased livestock.

It'll be just my luck to be lying there as the staff enjoys a Pentatonix marathon on a music streaming service.

Come see me. Not anytime soon, but someday.

Mini Driver

There was a time last fall and winter when we got our mail delivered to the house as late as 10 pm. All the neighbors who stopped the poor letter carrier to ask why he was so late all the time found out that our 21234 PO was short staffed, so our route was covered by whoever felt like working a double shift that day (and not breaking any speed limits while doing so).

Meanwhile, there is this development: The Postal Service has started a test in which mail will be hauled across three Southwestern states using self-driving trucks. Self-driving trucks are also known as autonomous vehicles, which sounds so much better than "runaway trucks with no drivers."


A company from San Diego called TuSimple (and I'm sure it is!) says their undriven trucks will begin dragging your letters and birthday cards from Aunt Agnes between USPS facilities in Phoenix and Dallas as a test to see if it will cut down on costs and times. But they're hedging their bets! There will be a "safety driver" at the wheel in case the trucks needs something like braking or steering. Also an engineer will perch in the passenger seat, fooling with a slide rule.

“The work with TuSimple is our first initiative in autonomous long-haul transportation,” USPS spokeswoman Kim Frum says. “We are conducting research and testing as part of our efforts to operate a future class of vehicles which will incorporate new technology.”

Ms Frum says no tax money is in play here. The USPS rakes in their money from stamps and charging $39 to return a pair of pants to Mr Pants Incorporated. And TuSimple has found people willing to invest $178 million in this insanity.

To our friends in the great Southwest, these runaway mail trucks will be driving  on major interstates in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.  Maybe you should detour through Idaho for a few months.

“This run is really in the sweet spot of how we believe autonomous trucks will be used,” says Chuck Price, who holds the title of Chief Product Officer over at TuSimple.

“These long runs are beyond the range of a single human driver, which means today if they do this run they have to figure out how to cover it with multiple drivers in the vehicle.”

This is just another blow to organized labor.  Truck drivers will be getting their layoff notices delivered by unmanned trucks. But a dollar will be saved! Keep those investors happy.

You Don't Have To Live Like A Legatee

In his lifetime, he had hits such as "Runnin' Down a Dream," "Refugee," "You Got Lucky," "I Won't Back Down," "Don't Do Me Like That,""Free Fallin'," and "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around."

Tom Petty had great success in music and is widely respected, even after his death in 2017.  There will be endless repackages, remixes, greatest hits releases and live performances that no one ever knew were recorded to keep the money rolling in for his record company and publishing concerns, but his eldest daughter, Adria, recently came up with a novel method of making the cash register ring that sweet song a few more times before people forget the leader of The Heartbreakers.

The plan did not sit so well with Adria's stepmother, Dana, who blocked it, accusing Adria of "selling out" and creating a “sad perversion of Tom’s legacy" as she ran to the nearest courtroom.

And what was Adria's idea?  Apparently inspired by the (Paul) Newman's Own line of supermarket items, she was going to make a selection of Tom Petty Salad Dressings and whatnot.

“Tom would never have permitted such a thing, he never ‘sold out’ while he was alive and refused to do any such thing despite numerous opportunities. Dana is certain Tom’s fans would also find it a sad perversion of Tom’s legacy" said one of the 2,395 lawyers who will have their fingers in this bottle of Bleu Cheese dressing by the time it's all over.

Turning up the heat a notch, Adria, 44, told a probate court that Dana has been “misappropriating” money from Tom’s estate and intellectual property for her own gain. In a counterclaim, Dana points out that she considers Adria "unhinged.”

When Petty died of an overdose at aged 66, his daughters from his first marriage, Adria and Annakim, each got a 1/3 say over the matters of his estate along with Dana. I imagine it took less than 5 minutes before the sisters Petty turned on old Dana to fight it out.

A few weeks ago, Adria filed a petition in Los Angeles probate court seeking to wrest control of Tom’s music catalogue, said to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

In happier days

Dana married Tom in 2001 and now says she should be the sole trustee of his trust.  And as she files her papers, she is also busy arguing with Adria over the artwork for the forthcoming 4-CD box set of Petty songs to be called "An American Treasure," containing songs that all his fans have on vinyl, cassette, CD and MP3 already.

It's got all the earmarks of the kind of trial that Court TV will carry - the grieving widow, trying to eke out a meager existence on two hundred million dollars worth of old songs, almost all of which were recorded before she came along to marry the singer, and the daughters, trying to chisel every nickel they can.

Dana will be able to show what she considers to be “abusive” text messages allegedly sent to her by Adria.

And Dana will be represented by attorney Adam Streisand (!), who said, “Dana Petty would have done almost anything to avoid all of this. Over the past weeks and months, however, the behavior of her stepdaughters Adria and Annakim has gone from unconscionable to unhinged – and it needs to be stopped.

“Tom Petty entrusted his wife Dana to choose how all three women could work together to carry on Tom’s legacy. But Adria and Annakim thought they could bully Dana and cast her aside. In the process, they’ve threatened, maligned and sued the people Tom worked closely with for decades.

“Her loyalty to her husband and the people he loved and trusted gave her the strength to fight, not only for herself, but for the whole Tom Petty and Heartbreakers family.”

 Adria and Annakim Petty are ably assisted by attorney Alex Weingarten, who wants it known that Dana's allegations are “completely false.”

He says that all the Petty daughters are trying to do is to do the right thing for their father, claiming that it is Dana who is difficult as she tries to take over the whole Petty-ness.

Weingarten said, “Dana and her lawyer are basing their case on smoke and mirrors. Every claim they make is demonstrably false.

“Adria and Annakim are laser focused on one thing – honoring and protecting their father’s legacy and enforcing the terms of his trust, as written.”

He concluded, "Creamy Italian or Thousand Island?"

"And in conclusion, all's well that ends well, and there's a divinity that shapes our ends."

This link: https://toofab.com/2019/05/31/high-school-principal-caught-plagiarizing-ashton-kutcher-for-graduation-speech/
will take you to the video of what we're talking about here.  It gets complicated.

It's quite apparent that what happened was that Kenny DeMoss, principal of Parkersburg (W.Va) High School, was, shall we say, a bit too influenced by a speech that Ashton Kutcher made at the 2013 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards when he composed his graduation speech.

You watch the video, and you see the unmistakable duplication of Kutcher's words.  One of his graduates had the video of the address, and remembered Ashton's words, and made a mashup video that's been seen almost as many times as the video of Billy Bush and a certain politician discussing how to meet women.

In a day and age when everything is taped and YouTubed, I have to wonder why this DeMoss thought no one would recognize the amazing similarities. Maybe he hoped no one would notice what he did, just as he hoped no one would notice a white pick-'em-up truck parked just behind the podium at the commencement (late arriving speaker?)

The principal, who now rues the day that video technology came to exist, says he didn't MEAN to use someone else's words. He also stammers that he should have cited his sources, all right, but said the ideas were his own.

Really.  In essence, he said, "The ideas I cribbed from Ashton Kutcher were mine."  Maybe Kutcher stole from HIM six years ago.  Yeah. That's the ticket!

"I did not get all my ideas from Ashton. Format yes, thoughts and ideas were from my heart," DeMoss wrote, adding that he's upset the speech has taken the attention from his graduates.

DeMoss wrote an email on Friday and said he's putting the incident behind him.

"Me and my family are the only ones being hurt here. My accuser isn't. I love kids and love this school and this will only make me better," he said.

Wood County Schools Superintendent Will Hosaflook did not immediately return a reporter's voicemail seeking comment.  I, predictably, will write to Hosaflook to ask his thoughts on a principal who says "Me and my family" instead of "My family and I."

Yeah, I remember MY first beer too...

We got to talking about school field trips the other day. Living in Baltimore, America's Greatest City*, we are close to terrific places for schoolchildren to visit as part of their academic enrichment*. Sixth graders used to go to Williamsburg, VA, for what is for many the first time they have slept away from the watchful eyes of their parents. I don't know if they still do this.

Nor do I know if journalism students go to New York for the School Paper convention held at Columbia University, and who knows if the 8th graders go to Washington DC anymore?

I remember the trip to Williamsburg very well, and I bought a paisley tie at the Columbia bookstore that I still wear, and the trip to DC was fun too. I always loved the Smithsonian Museum and all the cool stuff they show.

Speaking of being shown stuff in DC, say hi to Michael Comeau, erstwhile principal of Holy Family School in Louisiana. I say erstwhile, because he just resigned his position, about 12 seconds before he was going to have a can tied to him.

On Friday morning last at 0220 hours, District Police responded to the Archibald Gentlemen's Club for a report of “an intoxicated man refusing to pay his bill,” according to report in The Advocate.  Arriving police found Comeau “standing in the roadway, refusing to move.”

The popo asked the drunk principal time after time to get out of the street, but he was having none of it (he had already had plenty of something else). So they popped him on charges of public intoxication and possession of an open container.  All this took place within a mile of the White House, that well-known bastion of rectitude and clean living.

Back home in Bayou Country, the Diocese of Baton Rouge confirmed the incident, but took pains to point out that all the students were in their hotel rooms being supervised by chaperones while the principal was getting shafahzed in a nudie bar.

We were foolish enough to go to Williamsburg a few years ago during spring break week, meaning that we wound up in a hotel with dozens of testosterony and estrogenified 14-year-olds. One poor chaperone told us they had to take shifts sitting in a chair in a hallway, lest young Rupert gain entrance to Priscilla Mae's chambers as the clock struck 2.

I can't speak for (ex)Principal Comeau, and I don't know what he will tell his family when he gets back in LA, but I know this much for sure: the kids on that trip will have a story to tell their children's children's children.

Sunday Rerun: You never sausage a dent

I noticed this years ago when we drove to Florida.  To look around at the shops and stores, we could have been in our own neighborhood! There were Walgreens and CVS and Home Depot and Barnes & Noble and of course, McDonald's and Burger King everywhere. There seem to be no more purely local stores, or, at least, not many of them.

And apparently, the old saying about "people being the same everywhere" is true after all, just like your old Uncle Gustav used to say.

A case in point is this story from Neubrandenburg, Germany, where a man was driving his BMW too fast for a man who was trying to cross a street with his son in tow.  The angry German hollered "Stop!" as the car zoomed by, but the car failed to slow down, so the man threw a foot-long sausage at it.

The story concludes with the news that the sausage dented the back right-hand door of the automobile.

OK...to sum up:  What have we learned?

• Some Germans drive too fast, just like some Americans
• You can dent the door of a BMW with a sausage
• Germans have been known to walk around while carrying foot-long sausages heavy enough to dent steel

I have to admit, the same thing could have happened right here in Baltimore, Bakersfield or Beaumont.  The best idea is to drive slowly...you never know what people are toting around on the sidewalk!

The Saturday Picture Show, June 1, 2019

We stopped at a Burger King on our way to Williamsburg last December and had a very tasty lunch. Just a Whopper Jr and some fries and a sparkling water and we were refreshed and back on the road. Fast food can be good. This old ad reminds me of the early days of the King around here on Joppa Rd over by the now-closed Giant Food.

SO you're a photographer, eh? And you decide to lie on your back in our cathedral to take pictures of the ceiling? Well, we just wanted to make sure you were all right.

This tub is in the mail room of a large office. Some time ago, they decided to save all the staples they wisely removed before shredding sensitive papers.

It does not surprise me that Steve Martin does not wish to stop and sign his name on things for people, nor does it surprise me that he is kind enough to have these little cards handy for people who approach him on the street.

This is downtown Baltimore, where there is both great commerce going on, and great unrest as well. Not far from here are the stadia where the Orioles and Ravens play, and Harborplace, where a nice summer evening can be spoiled by a couple hundred rampaging kids. The city government is currently in the grips of a computer hack that has slowed its operations to a crawl and now we find that the hack was developed by the NSA and somehow leaked. I do wish someone would step up and take this country by the shoulders and sit it down for an old-fashioned talking-to.

It's hard to believe that the low-speed chase was 25 years ago this month. I hope you get this.

Pictures #7 and #8 go together this week.  This is Old Bay Seasoning, and even if you don't like seafood, you would like the smell and taste of this tremendous blend of spices.

And if you like steamed crabs, this is the best use for Old Bay. This is Maryland summer in one picture - crabs, newspaper for a tablecloth and a can of beer.

Where there's no will, there's no way

There was a lot to R-E-S-P-E-C-T about the late singer Aretha Franklin, but I have to say, her attention to the legal matters that, like it or not, are part of everyone's life, is not among them.

As you might recall, it was said that Aretha left no will when she passed on last August, and now three handwritten wills have been found in her Detroit home.

Two of the new-found wills were locked up in a closet, the key for which took since last summer to find, and then they found another will hidden under the cushions of her sofa.

So now, of course, the whole matter of who inherits what from the music legend will be tied up for years and years in court proceedings. These documents are written on 16 scrawled pages. No one has even verified that the handwriting is that of Ms Franklin. And even if it can be proven that she wrote them, it will be up to judges who probably haven't been born yet to determine the validity of the wills.

One of the pages of the purported wills.

Aretha Franklin had four sons, and there is a person who has been appointed as personal representative of her estate. So all those people are lining up for their share of the soup, and it will be a while before all get a chance to dine.

Assuming that the wills were written by Aretha, they do indicate her desire to make sure all four sons are to be treated fairly. They indicate that her assets are to be divided equally among her three younger sons, with detailed instructions for the care of her eldest son Clarence, who has unspecified special needs.
Clarence is 64 and was born when Aretha was only 12. These wills deny the long-held account that his father is one Donald Burk (or Burke), a classmate of Aretha, claiming that Clarence's father is really Edward Jordan, Sr, father of another of the singer's sons, Edward, who was born to Aretha at age 14.

That will also holds this declaration concerning Clarence's care: "His father, Edward Jordan Sr., should never receive or handle any money or property belonging to Clarence or that Clarence receives as he has never made any contribution to his welfare, future or past, monetarily, material, spiritual, etc."


There will be a hearing to start sorting all this out on June 12.

Your lawyer friends, and your friend Mark, will advise you strongly to get a will made up before you die.

After that, it will be just too late.

'"And so, in conclusion..."

There are often incidents at graduations. People are told not to applaud each individual cap-and-gowner, or else you'll all be there until midnight. Some family members get there at 3 in the yawning to hold seats for the others who will arrive just as Elgar's "Pomp And Circumstance" starts pomping it up.

And there will always be a long-winded speaker who is just getting started as the grads in the back row start to doze off.  And the valedictorian who figures no one else ever made the point that "Commencement isn't the END of anything; it's the BEGINNING of all our adventures as we blah blah blah..."

But we have to hand it to one member of the class of 2019 at good old Towson University, right here in my home town. For all-around asininity, this guy (it HAD to have been a guy, right?) takes the cake.  Here is the official statement from the university:

Earlier today during a commencement ceremony, a graduating student released an unknown substance in celebration while walking across the stage. The ceremony continued as planned, as the student was removed and questioned by TUPD, and at no time was anyone in harm’s way. After the conclusion of the ceremony, out of an abundance of caution, Baltimore County Hazmat was called to the scene to investigate, and determined that the substance was not a hazardous material. We look forward to the continuing commencement celebrations and ask that all participants follow commencement safety guidelines to ensure everyone in attendance can enjoy this celebration of academic achievement.

Now, because this happened in America in 2019, it was discussed on Facebook, giving people the chance to show their complete lack of depth.  Because it did not take long before helicopter parents and laissez-faire bohemians started saying "Well, no one was hurt! and it was an honest expression of joy! So what the heck, huh?"

"What the heck is" that the university police and Baltimore County Hazmat units responded, which puts lives and property in danger as they roll to the scene, not to mention the possibility that someone else in the county would be in need of that crew and their apparatus at the time.

Not to mention that the other students being graduated and their friends and families were there to celebrate, not to have the afternoon turned into a melee. Given the current worldwide fear of mass incidents, it was not out of the realm of possibility that this could have turned into a stampede as people raced for the exits in fear of being poisoned or blown up or caught in a fire.

Word is, the bright student involved tossed a cup of cake mix in the air as a celebration.  That's why I said he takes the cake.

And of course, the university's failure to charge this clown with a crime only opens the door for someone in the class of 2020 to try to top him.

Say it again with me. What the hell is it with some people?

"Holidays and salad days, and days of moldy mayonnaise..." - Zappa

How fondly I remember the salad days! (It's clear that I do; I sure talk about them enough!)

The first time I saw the phrase "salad days" was when I was reading "The Godfather," seeking career guidance. There was a reference to a button man in the Corleone mob who looked back on his early days as a legbreaker. Of course, faced with a new term I didn't know, I looked it up and found that "salad days" dates back to Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" (1606). There's a scene in which old Cleopatra says, "...My salad days, When I was green in judgment, cold in blood..."

The brilliance of W. Shakespeare is that he mixes the metaphors of being green (inexperienced) with the colors of a salad. And in modern use, the term also refers to people just starting out having to scrimp on food, so they just go with the salad bar. I'm picturing Shakespeare reaching in for some more lettuce and tomatoes and piling bacon bits and bleu cheese dressing on top.

Another fun part of being young and living on your own for the first time is coming up with rent money or salad money or gas money. I remember friends throwing "apartment parties" where we BYOBed and also brought our own Fritos and were offered stuff to buy by the rent-starved hosts: records albums, books, framed posters of Frank Zappa sitting on a toilet ("Phi Zappa Crappa").

And when we were really hard up for burger money, there was always the option of rooting through the sofa cushions for loose change.  Ha ha, you say?  Well, read on...

The Transportation Security Administration plans to use loose change left in trays at airports to partly fund the $232 million that its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, has requested to help pay for border operations if Congress doesn’t agree to its $1.1 billion funding request.

That's a real news story up there. Your federal government is so short on your tax money that they are going into the business of scooping up loose change from airport scanner trays to pay for their security operations. The story goes on to say that there are almost a two dozen agencies within the DHS, and they are all being asked to chip in to pay for border operations because, bleak as things are in this country, things in other countries are even worse, leading people to seek asylum here.

The TSA is just one of almost two dozen agencies under the DHS umbrella, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, that could be forced to dole out millions of dollars from their budgets to pay for the ramped-up operations along the United States’ southern border.


“The Department is considering all options to address the humanitarian and security crisis at our southern border,” a DHS spokesperson said. “We will continue to work with our workforce to find dynamic solutions and funding to address this very serious problem.”

The things we can look forward to! DHS bake sales at airports! The Army having Used Tank Sales on abandoned corner lots across America! The long-rumored "email stamp" coming to life so it will cost you 55 cents to email a picture of Grumpy Cat to your feline-fancier friends!

A special Ben Carson cookie that, when purchased, comes with a free abandoned house!

Jailhouse Rock

This is just awful! This poor man is 61 years old and is living in New York, cut off from the world at large, his friends, his family, everything. All he can afford right now is a small room with limited television access and not the best of bathing conditions.  Exercise, for him, is whatever he can manage to do in that small room.

It's understandable that he has come down with mental fatigue, sleep deprivation, daily headaches and ear pain. People are not meant to be cooped up in substandard housing like this.

Won't YOU help?

Oh, before you run off to write a check...the man we're speaking of here is Mexican drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

He's been in the federal hoosegow for 27 months and he's got the itch to get out and breathe free fresh air again, which is probably why he had his lawyers make requests of U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan the other day: El Chapo wants two hours of outdoor exercise every week, commissary access, permission to buy six bottles of water a week and earplugs.

"This deprivation of sunlight and fresh air, over an excessive 27-month period, is causing psychological scarring,” the attorneys said, claiming that locking this international murderer up is “cruel and unusual punishment” in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

As you'll recall, Guzmán faces multiple life sentences and will be sentenced in federal court next month. The Sinaloa Cartel boss ran one of the world's largest drug trafficking enterprises. And he didn't just sell his drugs. He murdered people right and left (on one occasion, he allegedly shot a rival cartel member and buried the victim alive) so he's not the goofy hippie down the street who sells a little extra Maui Wowie to keep his van running.

And El Chapo escaped from two prisons in Mexico. Poof! Just vanished into thin air, the air he now seeks to breathe from the prison roof where a helicopter might swoop down and take him far away...

“An escape via rooftop, using a helicopter, or any related means would be elementary," the prosecutor wrote in his response to the court.

Courtroom sketch art is the greatest art known to mankind

Guzmán is not permitted to have unmonitored phone calls. He cannot send or receive mail, and as a matter of fact, his attorneys are the only people he can communicate with.

Now THAT'S a punishment!  See ya later, Joaquín.

Celebrate Memorial Day 2019

It's odd to say, "Happy Memorial Day," or to commemorate the day by having a big sale on Nissans, beds or chaises longues.

The fact is, Memorial Day is the holiday set up for remembering and honoring persons who have died while serving in the United States armed services.

That being said, today isn't the day to salute surviving veterans (that's Veterans' Day) or currently serving soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen and women and Coast guard personnel (that's Armed Forces Day).

I think it's important to pay homage to the people who gave up their lives to make sure our lives continue as they have. That's today; that's Memorial Day.
God bless all of them.

Sunday Rerun: Your hypothalamus is trying to talk to you

My doctor was telling me the other day that the reason we People Of A Certain Age cough after meals is because there is neurological confusion between our salivary glands and our mucus glands.  While we chow down, the saliva flows, and then we stop and the mucus glands get the opposite message, and our throats get all tickly, and sure enough, as they say at funerals, here comes the "coughin'."

My doctor is a great guy and thoroughly learned in the medical arts. I am borderline acceptable in most situations, and nowhere near his equal in doctor-type knowledge, of course, although I can hold my own in a game of "Operation." 

I have to hold my own; they don't allow someone else to hold your probe.

But there are many other cases in which parts of the body get mixed up; although I did not share all this with Dr D, I can cite countless examples of intra-body confusion.  Such as when someone has their head in totally the wrong area, resulting in a severe case of rectal-cranial inversion.

You see a lot of this being reported lately, and to our shame it is totally a male problem.  They say men have two brains, and the trouble begins when they start doing all their thinking with the smaller one, if you follow.

How many times have you loaded up a plate at a buffet, and then couldn't get all those meatballs and chicken wings down your gullet? A perfect case of your eyes being bigger than your stomach.

People who dance like the south end of a horse heading north often say they have two left feet, but just try buying them shoes.

When we count our body parts, we are often reminded of why The Creator gave us two ears, to listen twice as much as talk.

We may never know why our tear ducts begin to flow at weddings, and why we laugh at funerals. I mean, it's understandable in the case of Chuckles the Clown dressed as a peanut and crushed by a rogue elephant, but why the tears at a wedding (unless we know the husband-to-be is a total drip)?

The Saturday Picture Show, May 25, 2019

I like Brad Garrett, the comedian. He's on that situation comedy "Single Parents," and in one scene he told about a restaurant whose salad bar has "ranch dressing as thick as new cement."  You decide what looks better! (I'm a blue cheese dressing guy).

You might think you have a busy day ahead on Monday (or Tuesday) but look how busy this guy is!

There is a veterinarian who has a comfort dog on staff to serve as help to dogs who are staying the night. What a great idea! We have comfort dogs for people; why not comfort dogs for dogs?

American teenagers on a field trip discovering an ancient artifact.  It would be worth the quarter to see how they'd work it.

Talking about comforts for dogs - this is a homemade doghouse with a front porch!

You know...no, there is nothing to know. I just hope he doesn't say, "I wonder why everyone is staring at me."

American TV has always wanted to represent every possible segment of the population, so in the late 1950s, clean-cut all-American lover boy Dobie Gillis (right) had a beatnik for a friend. Maynard G. Krebs ("the G. stands for Walter") eschewed work, regular habits, and trivialized an important movement in literature. But it was cool, man.

Backyard barbecue! Have a good time, and be careful, please!

Arthur! Arthur!

One of the wonderful things about this internet thing is that I have made friends all over the world on it, and trust me, I get questions all the time about Life In These Here United States.

Lately, most of those questions have concerned what's going on down south.

People worldwide are confused, and rightly so, because they read that America is the land of the free and yet they see basic rights being abrogated at the whim of local officials, judges, and people elected to oversee the states and the nation.

Here's the latest example, and if this nonsense from Alabama keeps up, I might have to think about changing my college football allegiance to Slippery Rock State or some such.

Alabama Public Television did not show the season premiere episode of  "Arthur" from PBS because it included a same-sex marriage.

The other 49 states managed to see the May 13 episode without anything falling apart. Imagine the horror in Alabama, where people could not see a show in which Arthur and his friends go to see their teacher Mr. Ratburn marry his partner.

APT preempted the episode, showing a re-run of Arthur in which no one got married.

For those who have never seen the show, Arthur is an aardvark with human qualities, such as the ability to love other people and allow them to love others as they see fit.

Mike Mckenzie does not have that ability. Mckenzie is director of programming at APT and he says that in mid-April he got word about the episode entitled  “Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone” and decided that the world would fall to rack and ruin if kids down in Sweet Home Alabama saw evidence that the world has continued to evolve.

“Parents have trusted Alabama Public Television for more than 50 years to provide children’s programs that entertain, educate and inspire,” Mckenzie said in an email. “More importantly (sic) – although we strongly encourage parents to watch television with their children and talk about what they have learned afterwards – parents trust that their children can watch APT without their supervision. We also know that children who are younger than the ‘target’ audience for Arthur also watch the program.”

Alabamians with sharp memories for times in the past when APT pretended the antebellum South still existed recalled when the stations pulled an episode of Arthur in 2005, when Buster, a bunny character in Arthur, visited a girl who had two mothers.

Lord have mercy! I have the vapors!

I'm reminded almost daily of the friend of mine who told me that as his children grew up, he would make sure they knew nothing of sex or drugs, and therefore would have no interest in either.

And all the time, we see people who are thoroughly convinced that if they ignore things they don't like, those things will cease to exist, like dodos and winning baseball seasons in Baltimore.

So, friends, both American and wherever, that's the report for today. There are people here who feel they were born special, with the ability to decide who should love whom. The secret is, they were not.

The banned Arthur episode is available online at pbs.org.

This will bug you

The Top 20 Countdown is in, and my town is #15 with a bullet! Or a stinger.

The list we speak of is the list of the most mosquito-ridden towns in America, to wit:

1. Atlanta
2. New York 
3. Washington, D.C. 
4. Chicago 
5. Houston
6. Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas 
7. Detroit 
8. Philadelphia 
9. Charlotte, N.C.
10. Raleigh-Durham, N.C.
11. Phoenix 
12. Los Angeles 
13. Boston 
14. Miami 
15. Baltimore 
16. Richmond, Va.
17. Nashville 
18. Tampa 
19. Indianapolis 
20. St. Louis 

Actual Jersey Mosquito

By listing Philadelphia at #8, the good people at Orkin, who produced this list to remind you to use their services, must be including the South New Jersey area as well, because, as fierce as Baltimore 'skeeters are, the ones in New Jersey are the only ones I have ever seen with their own hangars.

Now and then, someone will say, "What a wonderful world it would be if there were no mosquitoes!"  Come on now, George Bailey, there is room for all of God's critters here on earth.  But mosquito larvae are very important for the ecology of aquatic life, because others bugs and little fish eat them, and then become food for bigger feeders.

So, then. Mosquitoes are here to stay, and there are ways to at least keep them away from your place.

1. Dump out any standing water near your home. Mosquitoes will date, mate, and reproduce in 14 days (faster than Harry and Meghan!) if there is still water in any old container around the yard. So if you have a pond, have a waterfall or fountain put in to keep the water moving around.

2. Keep them outside. Use screens on the windows.

3. Use a mosquito repellent. You pick the brand, but make sure to slather it on your ankles, feet, lower legs and wrists. That's where your skin is thinnest, making you easy pickin's.

4. Wear light-colored clothing outdoors. Colors such as black, navy blue and red stand out to a bug, according to bug eye doctors (as opposed to bugeyed doctors). Also, wear clothing outdoors. You know why.

5. Stay indoors at dusk and dawn. That's when the little anklebiters are hungry for breakfast or dinner. You're safe at lunch; that's when they all go to the buffet.

6. Make yourself less of a target. Don't drink beer or fail to shower - they love the odor you put out when you're belting back the Buds and haven't used your Irish Spring yet. BUT slather on a little Victoria’s Secret Bombshell perfume or Avon’s Skin So Soft Bath Oil, and the bugs will leave you alone for someone who had one beer and zero showers. — a popular mom’s remedy.




Feel free to print this out, and mount it on stiff cardboard, which you can use to swat mosquitoes.

Completely biting off the hand that feeds her

If you've seen "Crazy Rich Asians," you know who Constance Wu is - the Asian-American actress who played Rachel Chu, who was hit with lots and lots of surprises when she accompanied her boyfriend from New York to his best friend's wedding in Singapore.

If you watch "Fresh Off The Boat" on television, you know Constance Wu as Jessica Huang, who's anything but the usual sitcom mom. She's married to an Asian-American who takes his family from Chinatown in Washington D.C. to open a Western-themed steakhouse in Orlando.  And I'm sure that all sort of hi-jinx and merry mixups ensue, but I've never seen the show, which was recently renewed for another season on ABC.

So that made Constance happy, right? I mean, another season of guaranteed work and a steady paycheck, probably syndication deal in the offing, fame and fortune, who could ask for more?

Well, Constance could.

She went ape on Twitter a couple of Fridays ago when the renewal was announced. I mean, she was throwing f-bombs like the peanut guy at the ballpark tosses goober peas, bemoaning her fate of having to keep working on a low-prestige TV show when she was all set to play a drug addict who goes on a trip from Iowa to Alaska with her sister to find their mother, in a picture to be called "You And Me Both," if they ever make it.

The next day she apologized and said she was having a bad day, and really is looking forward to a making lots and lots of new episodes of this situation comedy, uh huh.  And her fellow actors must really be looking forward to being back on set with her, now that they know how highly she regards their work together.

Listen, Wu is both extremely attractive and thoroughly talented in acting. "Crazy Rich Asians" required her to show a whole lot of emotions and reactions, and she was convincing all the way.

And yes, we all know that there's a hierarchy in acting, with Broadway at the top, feature films right up there with it, and then it drops down to television.  The guy who used to be Wojo on Barney Miller is now playing an Alzheimer's patient on one of the soap operas (not the one I watch!) and I'll venture to say he is glad to have steady work.

Not to turn this blog into Extra or one of those shows, but just yesterday we talked about a comedian who blew chance after chance by blowing drugs up his nose, and here we have a woman whose career has hit a milestone - a sixth season on a hit show - that many other people would give their right loafer to have. Wu was included on the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world last year, so she is making a name for herself, but she shouldn't alienate the people who are walking with her down this hall as she tries to get upstairs, so to speak.

Like she's ever going to read this and then say, "hey, great idea!" But when did that ever stop me?

The Mighty Have Fallen

He was on MAD TV, he co-starred a movie with Norm MacDonald, he played a lead role in Norm's TV show "Norm," he starred in his own movie "Beer League," he was a performer and writer on Howard Stern's radio show, he's written two autobiographies ("Too Fat To Fish" and "Crash And Burn") and he did standup comedy for years.

Now he's doing standup at the Exxon on Route 31 in Clinton Township, New Jersey through May 26.

You know whom I'm talking about here.  It's Artie Lange, as raucous and funny a man as ever breathed, and now his drug addiction has taken him to the point of pumping petrol in New Jersey (the one state I know of where there's no self-service at the pumps.)  So pull in to that Exxon and you might hear some of his classics.

On the job now

Mugshot from the old days

New Jersey 101.5 radio reports on their website that Artie has this job through the auspices of a halfway house in Glen Gardner, NJ, and he told someone who went to see him squeezing the go juice that he has 111 days sober now and is losing weight.

He told that visitor that Stern gave him chance after chance to get straight, to take as much time as he needed for rehab, but he refused the help, admires Stern for the offer and the support, and plans to return to show business in a few weeks.

I'm a huge fan of Artie and wish him well. Anyone who can hang with comedy biggies like Howard and Norm has a great talent, and I'm hoping Artie will make the most of this one last chance.

I just don't think I understand how some with great talent and the confidence to excel in his chosen area can, at the same time, say, "Yeah, cocaine. That's the ticket for me."  It's not like he hasn't heard the warnings...but everyone thinks they'll be the one to beat the odds.

They won't.