Discretion

 Full disclosure: I cannot name a single Justin Timberlake song. I am aware of his musical career, and his time in a boy band. Before that he was a Mouseketeer. I am primarily familiar with his appearance in the David Fincher film, Social Network, where he played the slimiest version of Napster creator, Sean Parker.

Generally speaking, I would say I have an overall appreciation for Mister Timberlake that leans positive. But his arrest for Driving While Intoxicated did give me pause. Like so many human beings, he was pulled over after leaving a friend's house in the early morning hours after having "just one martini." According to police accounts, Justin drove through a stop sign and failed to stay on the right side of the road. 

More full disclosure: I have failed to stop at a stop sign in the middle of a sunny day, without having a drop of anything that might impair my function. I just missed it. 

After being pulled over, Justin reportedly failed the field sobriety test. Shortly after this, he was heard to say, "This is going to ruin the tour." To this, the arresting officer asked, "What tour?" Justin replied, "The world tour."

Thus began a flurry of Internet Memes that lasted nearly four days. Just long enough for the arresting officer, Michael Atkinson to become a footnote to the Timberlake legend. It seems that Officer Atkinson, only three months into his career with the Sag Harbor PD has already got something of a reputation. Some might say it comes from being overzealous. Others might say he was just doing his job. One local described being pulled over by Atkinson after making an illegal U-turn: "It was off season, and no one was around. It was a d**khead move. I felt like he pulled me over just for the sake of doing it."

Continuing with the full disclosure: I was once pulled over on my bicycle on my way to work at my elementary school for rolling through a stop sign. I got a ticket. I paid the ticket. It did not make me happy. But then again, it did not threaten my world tour. 

So the very expensive lawyers in the hire of Mister Timberlake have this matter taken care of abruptly so that he can get on with his very important and expensive life. If this were Mayberry instead of Sag Harbor, my guess is that Sheriff Taylor would have to have a talk with Barney about being more charitable and forgiving when it comes to the folks like Danny Thomas driving through their neck of the woods. 

Or maybe if you're worried about your world tour, maybe you could call for a Lyft? 

Lump

 As the philosopher once said, "C is for cookie."

That's good enough for me. 

Way back in April, I went to the dentist for my semi-annual cleaning and inspection, and while she was poking about in that dark place called my mouth, she stopped. "Have you noticed this lump on your tongue before?" 

I hadn't. So she offered me a mirror to look on with her, followed up by more questions.

"Have you bitten or burned your tongue recently?"

Not that I could recall. Sometimes things just happen in my mouth. I don't keep track of them like I probably should. 

"I'm going to give you a referral to an oral surgeon to have this checked out."

Thus began an odyssey that took me to my doctor, then to an Ears, Nose and Throat surgeon. But first I had to arrange for all of these appointments. And I had to lollygag around because I really didn't want to go to he doctor to get horrible news. You know, the C word that isn't cookie. 

So I spent the next couple months arranging these appointments with destiny, always with a quiet but persistent black thought in the back of my mind that things might not turn out so well. This of course was contrary to most of my recent experience at the doctor's office. The Baker's Cyst on the back of my knee: Oh, it will get bigger and smaller, but it's nothing to worry about. The quarter-sized hernia just below my rib cage: Just pop it back in, you'll be fine. The sprained knee I got from bowling: Just stay off it for a week or two. No surgery. No tumors. No invasive procedures. All just a part of making it around the sun sixty-some times. 

So when I finally got out of the chair where the ENT doc plucked out a chunk of the lump on my tongue, I was assured that it was probably nothing. But I would have to wait for the tests to be sure. 

And so I waited. With that black thought still in my head, conjuring up visions of a life without a tongue. Something that might bring relief for those around me, but I have become very used to having that muscle and the thought of living without it gave me pause. So did the idea of living without living. 

So I waited. 

Then the news fell into my inbox. Benign. Non-threatening lump for which there is no prescribed treatment except to live with it.

I can live with that. 

Have a cookie. 

Sports Metaphor

 Eight years ago, the Denver Broncos won Super Bowl Fifty. They did this in spite of having a stellar game from one of the game's premier field generals, Peyton Manning. 

It's hard to look back on the season that preceded Super Bowl L, as it was known in Rome, without remembering the struggle that took place in the weeks and months leading up to The Big Game. As a Broncos fan, I was delighted when my team was clever enough to take a chance on this old guy whose best years had by his own account passed him by. Peyton Manning was a bit of a gamble, having been out of football for a year rehabbing from surgery to repair a bulging disc in his neck. 

He came to Denver at the ripe old age of thirty-six. As damaged goods. To the surprise of many, Peyton seemed to pick right back up where he left off, adding to his Hall of Fame resume, rewriting records that he had set himself and adding even more gloss to what had been a stellar career. Even with all those offensive fireworks, it took a couple of seasons to get the Broncos back to the Super Bowl. 

In Super Bowl Forty-Eight, the Broncos were embarrassed by the Seattle Seahawks, with a highlight reel that included the first snap going over Peyton's head, ending in a safety for the Seahawks. Manning did not throw a touchdown pass in that game.

So there was some grumbling around the Mile High City when the old guy was back the next year. In a season when he broke still more passing records, the Peyton's Broncos were unceremoniously bumped out of the playoffs in the first round. 

The next year, 2015, Manning agrees to a pay cut in order to return to play quarterback for Denver. He proceeds to miss seven games due to injury, and the folks around organized football figured he was through. In January 2016, Peytong came off the bench for the first and only time in his career and leads his team to a victory that ensures that the Broncos will have home-field advantage for the playoffs. 

Then he went out and beat Tom Brady in the AFC Championship game. But this didn't calm the critics, who were correct when they noted that his role was more one of game management than the pinpoint passer that he had been just a year before. 

Peytong Manning did not win Super Bowl Fifty. His team did. A swarming defense kept the Carolina Pahthers' quarterback Cam Newton from being able to settle in and operate as he was accustomed. Newton's two fumbles and one interception were enough to keep them from winning. Peyton Manning was essentially a non-factor in the game, throwing for just one hundred forty-one yards and no touch downs. His final pass was for a game-sealing two-point conversion that put the Broncos over the top. 

Peyton Manning retired from football a month after that. 

This is pretty much how I feel about Joe Biden's performance in the first debate. 

It's a metaphor. 

And Again

 It didn't stop. 

It never stops. 

I just stopped writing about it for a while. 

Four people died in Fordyce, Arkansas last week when a grocery store parking lot became a free-fire zone. Shoppers and store employees ducked or ran for cover as going down to the store to pick up a few things became a life or death situation. 

If this sounds familiar, that's because it is. It was May 2022 that a lone gunman killed ten people and wounded another three starting in the parking lot and working his way inside the store where he was eventually apprehended. Before that in March 2021, ten people were shot and killed in and around a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado. 

The carnage in Fordyce wasn't as extensive as its predecessors, and the wag in me suggests that it may be all the active shooter drills that have been put in place over the past few years in grocery store parking lots across this great land of ours. 

Too soon? 

Too late? 

Thoughts and prayers continue to be the best our government seems to be able to muster in the meantime. The motive at the time of the shooting was unclear, as it so often is, but perhaps there is a thread here that needs to be taken up: The capacity for generating thoughts and prayers may be at the bottom of all of these seemingly random acts of violence. 

What is potentially even more terrifying is the looming shadow of what might happen if things don't go a certain way once sentencing of the convicted felon and his train wreck of a campaign continues to generate more threats than thoughts or prayers. 

It won't stop. 

Let us pray. 

Spiritually Bankrupt

 Can I have an amen for Pastor Robert Morris? 

You may remember him as the one-time spiritual advisor to the former "president" and convicted felon. You may also remember him as a child molester. This "Man of God" recently confessed to having had a sexual relationship with a twelve year old girl. Since this sort of thing happens with absurd frequency here in the land of the free and the home of the brave, this inappropriate connection may have missed your notice. 

Perhaps because he kept it a secret for twenty years. The abuse took place between 1985 and 1987. The good news? Pastor Robert claims that this behavior has been “confessed and repented of."

Well, that's a relief, huh? 

For Pastor Robert, maybe. But then there's also the matter of the actual victim in this matter. The girl, now a woman who was seeking to find justice and closure on this matter. What did Morris have to say at that time? “Debbie and I really do care for you and we sincerely want God’s best for you,” he wrote, speaking of his wife, Debbie. “My attorney advises that if I pay you any money under a threat of exposure, you could be criminally prosecuted and Debbie and I do not want that.”

In other words, don't try to blackmail me because I will expose you as the twelve year old victim of sexual assault. That was back in 2005. The girl was not a young woman, looking for some sort of resolution. She wrote back: “Men that have over one hundred counts of child molestation go to prison. Men who pastor churches that have over one hundred counts of child molestation go to prison and pay punitive damages. You have not had to do either.”

Now, some forty years later, these emails have surfaced and Pastor Robert has resigned as head of the Gateway Church, where their website proudly announces that "we’re all about people." Apparently they're the kind of people who will gladly accept a piece of damaged goods like Morris after he "took some time away from the church" before the Gateway folks put him in charge of their flock. 

Until now, that is. Once the truth was out, I guess Pastor Robert decided that he should "take some more time away from the church." While we wait for more revelations, if you'll pardon my biblical pun there. 

Stay tuned. 

Out There

 When I heard last week that Donald Sutherland had died, I started reeling in his filmography. The Dirty Dozen. Kelly's Heroes. M*A*S*H. And I noticed the line of war movies. Then it occurred to me: He was anti-war as the day was long. He was, as they say, an Oddball who was stuck in one man's army looking for a way to get out. What cemented this notion forme wasn't just those featured roles, but rather a cameo he made in Dalton Trumbo's classic Johnny Got His Gun. Sutherland played Christ in the color sequences of the film. This tale of World War One and all its atrocities kicked open a door in my mind. I saw this before I saw M*A*S*H and it prepared me for the ironies I was going to face about the horrors of armed conflict. Seeing it after the first couple seasons of the TV series made me appreciate the movie just a little more.  

It wasn't long before I stumbled onto Klute. Donald wasn't a soldier or a dirty this time. Just a conflicted cop trying to save the life of a high priced hooker, played by Jane Fonda. It was these two stars' off screen association that captured my interest, not that the suspense of the film did not. They worked together on what was essentially an anti-USO show, touring initially around the United States, then traveling to The Phillipines, Okinawa, and Japan. The FTA Show, as it was known, was the antithesis to Bob Hope. It provided a place for GIs who were fed up with the war in Vietnam to laugh at what was happening to them. It was a cultural milestone in American Patriotism. 

Donald Sutherland's career continued after that. He continued to play offbeat and eccentric roles, a couple of which were in two of the scariest movies made in the seventies: Don't Look Now, and the remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He was also initially the "star" of Animal House. Sutherland got the job because years before he had befriended a young man who was working as a gofer on Kelly's Heroes who eventually grew up to be hot shot comedy director John Landis. Such is the stuff of film legend. 

Along the way, he appeared in more than one hundred fifty films, including Ordinary People, where he played Calvin Jarrett, the father caught between his suicidal son and his unforgiving wife. That one left a mark for me that has lasted. 

So as usual, this comes as a belated thank you for all the Terra upon which Donald Sutherland stomped. He will be missed. 

Thou Shalt Not Shalt

 If you're like me, and if you aren't by now, keep reading, the first question you asked yourself upon hearing that Louisiana was going to insist that every public classroom in their state displays the Ten Commandments was this: Does the state of Louisiana have the death penalty? 

The answer for all of us like minded but still individuals is "yes." 

This puts a damper on the state's insistence that we prescribe to these Old Testament Rules when the state seems to have a very specific problem keeping up with at least one of them. The "thou shalt not kill" one. Of course this is quickly ameliorated with the Old Testament refrain of "an eye for an eye," but since the Ten Commandments are primarily found in Exodus, leaving us with still another sixty-four books left in The Good Book to try and sort the whole thing out. 

Maybe it's the Charlton Heston angle. He played Moses in a motion picture that continues to be trotted out around Easter/Passover each year. After he finishes hosting a series of plagues on Egypt, he negotiates a release of "his people." By killing a whole bunch of Egyptians. Which is probably why he and "his people" get chased across the Red Sea which was conveniently parted by the God who will eventually lay down the law for Moses and his tribe, but only after a whole bunch more Egyptians are killed when the Red Sea stops being conveniently parted. 

So, from here on out, says God, "Thou shalt not kill." Which is a little bit hypocritical, since we're just a couple books into the Old Testament, and there's still a whole lot of killing left to be done. The circumstances are really key. Especially if you break any of those first few commandments about not worshiping the right way. 

It's not until we find ourselves in the New Testament that we start forgiving our trespasses an those who trespass against us. This New Wave God, who usually goes by the name Jesus is more about bringing back life. Resurrection, if you will. No one is asking for the Lord's Prayer to be stapled to bulletin boards inside every school in Louisiana. That comes a distinctly different section of the Bible, like thirty-eight books later. Some might suggest that there was a change in doctrine somewhere along the line. That's what I think. I've read the Bible. Front to back. A few times. There's a lot of amazing ideas in there. I have also read Slaughterhouse Five a few times. But even though I find the ideas in that book as compelling as some of those in the Bible, I am not asking for the state, any state, to command that they be posted as reference inside every public school. 

That said, I can also speak from a good long service as a public school teacher. One of the things that has been made clear to me over the years is that teaching children lessons about what NOT to do is never as effective as teaching them what TO do. "Thou shalt not" is a tough way to teach anyone what you really want them to do. Instead, why not tell them how you'd like them to behave: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." 

I know. It doesn't sound nearly as cool coming from a burning bush, but since when do you remember kids listening to flaming shrubbery? 

Disconnected

 It makes sense that the Los Angeles School Board would wait until school was out for most of their students and staff when they decided to go ahead with a ban on student use of cell phones during the school day. This ban which will take effect by the spring 2025 semester, and goes beyond the school district’s existing policy, which bans students from using cell phones during class instruction and limits social media use at school to “educational purposes.” The vote was five to two in favor of eliminating all student cell phone use during the school day. 

Wouldn't I have liked to see the text threads on that one. 

Los Angeles is not the only school district to take such a stand. It is most certainly the largest. I have made a habit out of complaining about this issue, primarily from the standpoint of how ridiculous it is that we as educators are competing with Snapchat. In the district where I work, the minimally stated policy on cell phones is that they should be "out of sight" during the school day. This creates a bit of cat and mouse for those of us with the will to try and monitor such activity, which is exacerbated by a number of adults who have simply given up trying to enforce it. 

While we are checking the text that just came in from the principal. 

But that's different. Because we're grown ups. 

In spite of that soupcon of hypocrisy, my mind reels at the reasoning behind a first grader carrying around her own personal cellular device. Locked, loaded, and ready to text. Or play. Or take video in the bathroom.  Because those things happened. In first grade. Fourth and fifth grade boys and girls seem to flaunt the use of their phones during the day. Daring us to tell them to put them away. Turn them off. 

Leave them at home. 

But what about emergencies? How will those kids be able to reach out to their parents in the event of some sort of crisis? We have been spoon fed those anguished calls between children and their moms and dads during school shootings. Did we really want to be the ones keeping those moments of contact from happening?

Well, let's remember that those incidents are the tiniest percentage of all cell phone use by students on school grounds. The ones who flaunt convention still further by wearing their ear buds as they walk down the hall, sending the message that whatever we have to say to them will have to wait while they take this call or finish this video. The sounds and images coming from those devices for many young people have taken precedence over the people standing directly in front of them. It's no wonder that the U.S. Surgeon General recently announced, "We are living in the middle of a youth mental health crisis, and I have said publicly that this is the defining public health challenge of our time. I firmly believe that. And social media has emerged as an important contributor to that youth mental health crisis, so making social media safer for our kids -- warning kids and parents about the harms associated with social media -- is urgent." 

So kids what we're saying is wait until you get home to turn on your cell phones. Then you can ignore your parents. 

What We Elevate

 This is a story of two different networks. Two different shows. Both of these "reality-based" series got their start in the early twenty-first century, a time when entertainment was searching for an identity. Something that would ring with the masses. 

Though it was the second of the shows to appear on the scene, the Columbia Broadcasting System offered up Undercover Boss. The premise of this slice of life was to offer corporate big-wigs a chance to go, as the title suggests, undercover and work alongside the employees who are not necessarily among the profit-sharing. For example, the President of Waste Management, Larry O'Donnell put on a fake mustache and went to work scrubbing porta-potties and sorting recycling. Over the course of his on the job training in various less office-based chores, he learns of the struggles and realities of the rank and file. In subsequent episodes, CEOs and COOs and Presidents of companies experience a Dickensian opportunity for awakening of the struggles that exist for those not appearing on the corporate registry. Each show ends with the big reveal, where the employees are summoned to headquarters where they find out that the guy who didn't know how to put on his own hair net was really the one signing their checks. And then they are offered a chance to move up, but not too far, and hear promises of new programs that will make cleaning porta-potties a more dignified way to spend forty hours a week. 

Prior to this, the flip side of the coin was found on your local NBC affiliate. You may be familiar with a little slice of TV history called The Apprentice. If not, the premise here was that a dozen or so business types were brought together to try and get a chance to work for the real estate empire of one (checks notes) Donald Jessica Trump. Each episode made a game out of some task that would elevate the teams' brand name and when one of the teams was declared the winner, the losers were called into the board room where the titular head of the company would single out one member to receive the ultimate penalty and catchphrase of the show: "You're fired." D. Jessica Trump was eventually fired from the next job he had, but he seems willing to debase himself as well as all those around him by making a show of trying to get that job back. 

What I find interesting and terribly sad about this is that we as a culture didn't choose to make a cultural phenomenon out of Undercover Boss. Instead, we tuned in by ridiculous numbers to watch a man of little or no moral center screeching "you're fired" at those who might disappoint him. How could we not have seen what was coming? To be honest, I think I would tune in to see D Jessica Trump put on a fake mustache to clean porta-potties for eight hours. Anybody with me? 

Dirt Day

 When kids ask, I tell them that I am as old as dirt. 

This is an exaggeration, of course, since dirt was around for quite a while before I showed up. I can say with relative certainty that I have moved my share of dirt. Mostly from one place to another, but also smoothing it out as I make me way across the surface of my home planet. 

I was alive when the Beatles were recording the music that would become a forever and always. I can remember when there was a somewhat legitimate discussion to be had about whether the Monkees were a better band than John, Paul, George and Ringo. 

I used to worry about being drafted into the Army. I watched a war in Vietnam on television. I understood just how bad things could get when the powers that be stopped listening to the people. My parents let our hair grow long and my mom sewed us dashikis. 

I saw some of the greatest minds of my generation destroyed by success, failure and assassin's bullets. I'm now old enough that all of this can be referred to as "the good old days." Moon landings. A U.S. President resigns. Televisions were clunky boxes that weren't necessarily in color. We watched until the end of the broadcasting day. 

I knew that littering was bad, but recycling cans and bottle was a discovery we made when we stumbled on the notion of ecology. The pollution we had been spewing into the air became a concern and the waterways stopped carrying away our debris. I grew up with a sense that the world was actually a fragile place. If we weren't careful, we might just use it up. 

Watergate, holes in the ozone layer, wars that don't seem to end including the undeclared war we seem to be waging against one another in the shopping malls, schools, churches and parking lots. And yet, I continue to find interest in exploring each new day. There are still so many people to meet. There are still so many songs left to sing. Some of them are by the Monkees. 

And there's still all that dirt left to redistribute. 

Meat

 I don't make a secret out of the fact that I once worked at an Arby's. There are moments when I wear it like a badge of honor, not unlike the  name tag I wore on my polyester beef-serving tunic. It was a time in my life when I discovered that there were alternatives to college. Working in fast food gave me a window unto the world of work. Real work. Real greasy work that became the ladder upon which I climbed. All the way to the closing manager position. I did math. I carried a clipboard. Still wore a name tag. 

Which is why I have such a hard time getting upset with service employees in general. These are not the ones making the decisions about how the food they are about to consume got there. They are merely the conduit through which the grease was passing. These are the ones that took the job because, not unlike myself, it was an entry level position. They are not the ones who decided it would be a good idea for a roast beef restaurant to introduce a chicken sandwich, for example. 

Instead, these are the people who came to work one day and found that the comfortable existence they hand led with seven featured sandwiches, five beef a turkey and a ham and cheese that was cleverly renamed Hamchy, was suddenly made infinitely more difficult with the addition of NEW menu items. I was happy that I worked at a location that didn't have a fryer. No french fries. Everything went through the three ovens in the back: beef, potato cakes and turnovers. Then one day, the national office decided to roll out their version of sub sandwiches. Not only did they require a whole new set of buns, but the three varieties promoted by the corporation needed portions sliced and arranged ahead of time, including new and exotic salami and pepperoni, and their construction was more of a horizontal endeavor rather than the vertical stack to which I had become so accustomed. 

Then, shortly before my time adjacent to that big brown cowboy hat ended, the guys who owned our franchise brought in two plug-in fryers. This would be the chicken station that I had been hearing about. Hot oil was not introduced to the terrors of the workplace that had previously been limited to the razor sharp blade used to slice beef. Customer service remained mostly unchanged, but pity the poor sandwich maker and the now seemingly endless combinations of tasks involved in filling just one order. All of it made to order. Extra cheese? No problem. Horsey Sauce instead of Super Sauce? No worries. Double toast that bun? Why not?

So I fled. I left that world behind, but the memories/scars are always just below the surface. A few years back when I started hearing Ving Rhames announce that Arby's has the meats, it made me sad for all those folks who had just received their name tags and were thrust into a job where there were now dozens of menu selections, all of which could be specialized at the point of purchase. And only recently, the place that used to proudly announce itself as an alternative to the hamburger has now enthusiastically joined the ground beef ranks. Now Ving is shilling Waygu Steakhouse burgers. 

And I suspect that a whole new group of name tags were just turned in, leaving to find a job that didn't require so much thought. Like teaching. 

Chores

Tuesday: Laundry

Wednesday: Round up the trash and recycling

Thursday: Take the trash cans to the curb

Friday: More laundry, bring the trash cans back inside

Saturday: Water the indoor plants

Sunday and Monday: What did I miss? Who fed the cat?

Every other day throughout the week: Water the outdoor plants and garden

Repeat.

The word "chore" sounds a lot like it feels to do them. A little like "choke." A little like "bore." The things that need to be done. There is some adventure in making meals and cleaning up the kitchen. Sometimes these things happen because I have a roommate. Sometimes they don't. This element of surprise keeps things interesting. Less like the chores I mentioned above. 

When I was a kid, chores were assigned to me. The really cool top tier things like mowing the lawn went to my older brother. I was relegated to picking up after the dog in our back yard. Only after my older brother went on to high school did I ascend to mowing, leaving that highly skilled operation of grass cutting technology to me. My younger brother was left with the shovel. Little did I know that there were tasks like vacuuming and kitchen prep that were still beyond my pay grade. Dusting? I'd heard of such an activity, but was never fully cognizant of what it might entail. When I encountered dust on an object, my reaction was to do my best to blow it off. Literally and figuratively. 

Every so often there were ritualistic jobs like washing a car or two, and certainly shoveling snow was a part of growing up in the foothills of Colorado. Cleaning my own room was simple enough if I never let it descend too far into chaos. But mostly chores provided an effective means of marking the passage of time. If it's Friday, the trash gets picked up. If it's Tuesday, this must be Belgium. 

Chores are a way of testing us to see if we're still alive. 

Where Do You Go When The Music Stops?

 So as it turns out Disco, in spite of all kinds of suggestions to the contrary, does not suck. 

Back in ths Spring and Summer of 1977, it seemed that the country that had only a year ago banded together to celebrate the Bicentennial was on the brink of being torn apart. The two factions were those who were enthralled with things disco, and those who wished it death. 

Pop music had brought us all to the brink. As for myself, I was firmly in the anti-disco camp. Not because I had any particular stored hate for this genre. On the contrary: I owned my share of records that could have been construed as disco. The kid down the street who was our acknowledged arbiter of taste had us all make a trip to the record department of K-Mart where we each bought a 45 RPM single of one of the hits that was currently being played ad nauseum on the local AM station. I believe he had first pick, and so he selected the biggest hit, KC and the Sunshine Band's "That's The Way I Like It." I was shoved in the direction of Siver Connection's "Fly Robin Fly." These purchases were made in the summer of 1975. By the summer of 77, we were on a collision course with what would be the high water mark of the disco experience: the release of Saturday Night Fever. 

But in that summer before the winter of my disco-ntent, I was finally going to get off the nerd bench and was going to go out to the big ninth grade dance. Having never made this kind of commitment to a social life prior to this, it became apparent that I was going to need a change of wardrobe. T-shirt and jeans was not going to cut it. My mother took me shopping. I got new shoes, new pants, and a shirt. 

Let me pause here to explain: This shirt was made entirely of man-made fibers. It had stripes. And it shone. It was a disco shirt. Not too terribly different from the ones that Tony Manero would wear as he took control of the dance floor of the 2001 Odyssey disco. It was mine, and I would wear it to the last dance of my junior high career. 

There is an episode of Judd Apatow's Freaks and Geeks in which Sam Weir buys himself a Parisian Night Suit. If you have not availed yourself of any or all of this TV series, if you are ever interested in what life was like for me and many of my compatriots this is a window unto that world. I lived a very similar experience to young Sam, and without spoiling anything, I can tell you that my own mild disco period ended somewhat abruptly after that night in rayon. 

It was easy for me to jettison my disco 45s. It was much easier for me to support the T-shrit and jeans aesthetic of rock, riding the cusp of the wave that would become Punk. 

But even that was too committtal for me. Punk Rock was the other side of the musical and cultural trough, but I couldn't fully embrace that either. I could, however, get completely into trashing what had been a minor fixation of mine just two years before. 

Now I'm nearly fifty years away from that summer. Elvis died and the Sex Pistols broke up within months of one another in 1977. I can now listen to Bee Gees and even Silver Convention without flinching. 

I have no idea what happened to that shirt. But I do not miss that. That shirt sucks. 

Science Fiction

 So, here we are in the middle of 2024. Let's all take a breath together before we push on into the latter part.

Ready?

Okay. So as I mentioned, this is 2024, and we have a presidential election coming up. Which is interesting because there are still a whole lot of pointy heads out there with their own versions of how all that stuff back in 2020 went down. Court cases are still pending for those who attempted to finagle the final results. Those results of that election have been referred to as "one of the most secure" in our nation's history. 

No matter. We continue to chase the relative truth in hopes of teasing out some sort of non-negotiable. "Sure, that's what they want you to believe," is one of the most prevalent responses from those who use red baseball caps to cover up their pointy-headedness. Which is completely legitimate because there is no way to be sure that anything outside of my own limited perception is what it actually appears to be. Like in the Matrix, where Thomas Anderson was living a quiet normal life as a code monkey but it turned out that he was actually the savior of the human race who had all been enslaved by machines generations ago. He just had to take the red pill and unplug himself.

Why couldn't the Democrats have done the same thing? 

Then there's Dwayne Hoover, one of the protagonists of Kurt Vonnegut's novel Breakfast of Champions. Dwayne was doing just fine, living a life of upper middle class comfort until the "bad chemicals" in his brain knock his trolley off its tracks. That's when he becomes convinced that everyone around him is actually a robot and he is the only one with free will. He gets this idea from a book written by the other protagonist, science fiction author Kilgore Trout. So the possibility that someone got hold of a copy of this book and read any part of it could have disturbed the tiny brains of any of those pointy heads that have such a challenge distinguishing fact from fiction. 

Or maybe they're just stupid. If one considers that there is someone out there who is the Average American with Average American intelligence, it follows that nearly half the county falls below that mark. Which may be the reason why there as so many Americans willing to lap up the Kool-Aid. 

Stay tuned for the second half. It should be interesting. 

Pater Familias

 I did a lot of borderline stupid stuff when I was in my twenties. The prevailing attitude around my house was clearly defined by my older brother, who worked in law enforcement: "I can't get you out of jail, but I can make sure you get a good room." 

These words came floating back to me this week as I thought about Hunter Biden's conviction on all three felony counts stemming from a 2018 gun purchase. This is what we heard from the White House: "As I said last week, I am the President, but I am also a Dad. Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today. So many families who have had loved ones battle addiction understand the feeling of pride seeing someone you love come out the other side and be so strong and resilient in recovery."

There were plenty of times when I was living life a whole lot closer to the edge that I wondered I was going to end the night on the wrong side of the law. Or in drawer in the morgue. My father was never the President, but he definitely was a dad. He led his own checkered past and I grew up at his feet hearing stories about hijinks in which he participated. Perhaps I took too much inspiration from these tales and not nearly enough caution. By the time I was living my own version of the wild life, I know that I put him and my mother through plenty of late nights and groggy mornings. 

And I am pleased to say that my father lived long enough to see me come out the other side, strong and resilient in recovery. Especially because not all the bets coming in were on me. I did not own a laptop back in those days, and I am glad that digital photography was still a decade in the future for me. Evidence of my own time on the edge is now mostly anecdotal. 

For better or worse, I have shared many of those anecdotes with my own son. I have been careful to explain that these are war stories, and that they are all to be taken with a great big fist-size grain of salt. In response, I have heard of some his escapades. He has been clever enough to allow a certain amount of time for the statute of limitations to expire. Nothing I have heard has made me think any less of him as a person, or made me love him any less. When he has struggled, his mother and I encourage him. When he succeeds, we congratulate him. Neither of us is President, but we are proud of the man he is today. 

Much in the same way that I am around to be proud of the man I am today. 

Father's Day. 

Mark Zuckerberg's Artificial Intelligence

 Ah, Facebook. Whither thou goest, I won't necessarily goest with.

Somewhat recently, I wrote about how it seems that my daily commenting on all things in all ways all the time seems to run contrary to some or all of the policies that The Book of Face have in place for its contributors. They even suggested that I was doing all of this for "likes." 

Well, in a word: Duh.

If this were simply a journal for my own private edification, I wouldn't need a display case in Al Gore's Internet Wondarium Enclosure. I would simply scribble my odd thoughts in a notebook that I keep stashed under my mattress. 

If you really want to read the scribblings in the notebook I keep under my mattress, please feel free to ask because some of the ideas that find their way into this relative daylight of sharing came from that place. 

Okay. I don't really have a notebook that I keep under my mattress anymore. And it never really was under my mattress, because that would be prohibitive to me actually taking it out to use if for its intended purpose. Scribbling, that is. 

No, dear reader, for better or worse these days you are the recipient of those notions that meet the criteria I have set for myself. First of all, is it more than a paragraph? Second, s it something I feel is worth your time and mine? And finally, can I get a tiny bit of validation for stringing the words together? 

Oops. I'll bet you caught that, didn't you. I wrote this stuff down and have been for a couple decades or so just so that someone might enjoy it. Or, to use the parlance, "like" it (insert thumbs up emoji here). It would be fun to imagine that someone out there, some nefarious troll, is making it their chore each day to report the posts that have been automatically fed into the Facebook hopper to be redistributed to those who feel more comfortable getting their pithy little observations with a predominately blue and white color scheme. For your inconvenience, I apologize.

And I encourage you to shout at The Facebook, for all the good it will do. I don't believe it's one person with a vendetta after all. I think it's a series of programming bits and bytes that have made the oblong decision that what is going on in this corner of the Wadarium Enclosure is somehow not up to the high standards that Mark Zuckerberg's artificial intelligence. And wouldn't that make a great blog title? 

Meanwhile, keep looking for me here. 

Jumping The Proverbial

 I am not making this up: 

So I said, let me ask you a question and he said, nobody ever asked this question and it must be because of MIT, my relationship to MIT. Very smart. He goes, I say, what would happen if the boat sank from its weight? And you're in the boat and you have this tremendously powerful battery and the battery is now underwater and there's a shark that's approximately teny ards over there, by the way, a lot of shark attacks lately, do you notice that a lot of shark? I watched some guys justifying it today. Well, they weren't really that angry. They bit off the young lady's leg because of the fact that they were, they were not hungry, but they misunderstood what who she was? These people are. He said there's no problem with sharks. They just didn't really understand a young woman swimming now. It really got decimated and other people do a lot of shark attacks. So I said, so there's a shark 10 yards away from the boat, ten yards or here, do I get electrocuted if the boat is sinking? Water goes over the battery, the boat is sinking. Do I stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted or do I jump over by the shark and not get electrocuted? Because I will tell you he didn't know the answer. He said, you know, nobody's ever asked me that question. I said, I think it's a good question. I think there's a lot of electric current coming through that water. But you know what I'd do if there was a shark or you get electrocuted, I'll take electrocution every single time.

Those were the words a "very stable genius" had for a crowd of folks standing out in the middle of a desert in one hundred plus degree temperatures. Authorities said that six people were sent to the hospital and twenty-four more were treated on site. That was for the heat. Who knows what sort of treatment they may need for the cognitive demands put upon their brains beyond the heat. This might also have something to do with the steady stream of MAGAts fleeing the site before the convicted felon completed his "prepared remarks." These included the opening act of Large Marge, with one of her greatest hits: “The Democrats and the fake news media want to constantly talk about, ‘Oh, President Trump is a convicted felon,’” Greene told the red hats during the Vegas rally. “Well, you want to know something? The man that I worship is also a convicted felon, and he was murdered on a Roman cross.” 

Not eaten by a shark? 

Maybe it had something to do with the lack of shade, water or sense available. Given the choice between electrocution and a Trump rally, I think I'll have to get back to you on that.

SMRT

 This is something of a confession, and it will pain some of  those closest to me. 

I thought I was done with learning. That was one of the reasons I decided to become a teacher. I figured that should just about make me an apex predator on the knowledge scale. Nothing else for me to learn here. I'll be dispensing ideas from here on out, thank you very much. 

But it turns out that there are still so many things I don't know. Which is why in the middle of just about every week at school all the teachers gather in a room and learn a little bit more. Over the summers, when we send the kids away to go play in the sprinklers and try to forget all that we have taught them, we go to seminars and conferences where we learn more things. I suppose this has the effect of keeping us all ahead of the average fourth grader, but still, when will it be over? To paraphrase Working In A Coal Mine, "How long will this go on?"

I was a precocious lad, who read War of the Worlds and Dracula and Frankenstein before I was twelve. I was the kid who infamously read Michael Crichton's Andromeda Strain before I entered fourth grade. For Christmas each year my parents would buy me film encyclopedias which I would read, cover to cover. As if they were assigned reading. You didn't need to tell me that I was sitting with the "smart group." 

I knew it. 

By the time I got to high school, some of that specialness began to wear off. Being a good student and a teacher's pet was all well and good but there was this little matter of a social life. I got into college, twice. Once when I wasn't quite ready for it and once again when I figured it had to be better than working at Arby's. 

See? I really was smart. 

In college I studied a lot of things. I got a liberal arts education. Nothing that translated into what you might call a trade, but I did amass enough knowledge to put in a couple years' service at the University of Colorado Trivia Bowl. As it turned out, all those hours spent in my formative years paying strict attention to the movies, TV and music that played around me was useful, if only enough to reach third place. 

And of course I have all those clever friends. The ones who read books and watched TV as well. They still want to talk to me about something they learned. Which has the annoying habit of becoming something else for me to learn. Then there's the matter of the son whom I raised who went out and learned things about cars and video games and movies I missed. He wants to pile on that heap of understanding that has been full for some time now. 

Or is it? Maybe it has more to do with being lazy than being too smart. Steve Miller once suggested that the question to everyone's answer is usually asked from within. That comes from Jungle Love. In case you were curious. 

Bright Side

 Creeping toward yet another birthday, I found myself thinking of my parents. The ones that brought me into this world. Last year I rounded the bend on the lifespan of my father. I have now taken up a spot on this watery ball of rock longer than my old man was able to. I still have a score plus to catch up to mom. 

So here I am, with time left on the clock, I have to consider how I'm going to spend it. Back when I was ten, I looked at life very differently. The world was full of opportunities. Amusement parks. Motorcycle rides. Junior High School. When I was twenty, there were still frontiers to explore. College. Career. Marriage. At thirty I was gassed up and ready to go to California. College was in the rearview. Marriage was imminent. Career was still a series of jobs away.

At forty, the career was getting locked down. My wife and I had a son. We named him after my dad, who had passed on by then. Life, by then, had begun to slow down. Which was about the time I started hearing my mother complaining, periodically, about feeling the need to stop. Stop taking up space. Stop being underfoot. Stop living. 

At fifty I had solidified my place in education. I had lived long enough in one home to build things in it and around it. Replaced them as they fell apart. Because that happens when they get old. 

At sixty, my mom left this world. My son had moved out on his own adventure. And my life began to look like a third act. There was a lot of talk about making plans for retirement. How to finance that last stretch? 

And suddenly I found myself wondering if my mother had felt any of this ennui after she turned sixty. With so much left to be done? Looking for the bright side. 

Wheels Turning

 We are being asked, periodically at least, to put our trust in the courts. We should put faith in a legal system that, for the most part, delivers justice. 

Rather than get stuck on the competing trials of Trumps and Bidens, let's wind back the tape a bit, shall we?

How about the financial crisis of 2008? One person went to jail for the bursting of the housing bubble. U.S. banker  Kareem Serageldin was sentenced to thirty months in prison and agreed to return twenty-six million dollars in compensation to his former employers, Credit Suisse. The rest of the financial world was handed a great big government bailout. Six million Americans lost their homes. Eight million lost their jobs. 

One guy went to jail. 

Fast forward again to the nearly present: Mark Fuhrman, former Los Angeles Police officer, who was one of the initial investigators in the OJ Simpson murder case and later found guilty of lying under oath was barred late last week from being a law enforcement officer in the state of California. The lie which Mister Fuhrman told the court was that he had never made anti-Black racial slurs over the previous ten years, but a recording made by an aspiring screenwriter showed he had done so repeatedly. This, in turn, uncovered an ugly streak of racism that ran through the entire Los Angeles Police Department. For his part, Fuhrman "retired" from the force back in 1995. This most recent hearing just made it official that the now seventy-two year old former officer never could be one again. When reached for comment by the Associated Press, he responded, “That was thirty years ago. You guys are really up to speed.”

Which I suppose is the lesson we are learning. Justice takes time. And we shouldn't confuse it with revenge. That's what bad guys do. 

Bloodletting

 When I donate platelets, I surrender to the rigors of sitting still in front of a screen for two-plus hours. The very kind folks at the Red Cross Blood Center were clever enough to mount a bunch of thirty-six inch TVs in front of each recliner, making it easy to remain prone for the technicians to scrape the platelets from my nice healthy blood from one hose and return it back to me through another. I try not to dwell on the procedure too much since it has, over a period of years, become pretty routine. 

Still, the selection of a movie is the challenge. The running time needs to be longer than two hours so that you don't end up with some odd bit of time staring off into space and trying not to think about your precious bodily fluids being strained through the machine that makes periodic chirps and slurps. 

All of which is the introduction to the movie that I selected for my extraction distraction: The 2022 version of All Quiet On The Western Front. The initial factor was indeed the running time, which was two hours and twenty-seven minutes. The other consideration I had was "would my wife be sad that I didn't pick this one to watch together?" Let's see: Horror of War. I don't imagine this one would fit into any of our Date Night plans, so let it roll. 

I found myself transported to a familiar place. I was once again in the trenches of World War One, the War To End All Wars. Having seen the previous versions of this story, I didn't expect many surprises, but the reviews suggested that I would find this one up to snuff. The story of young Paul Baumer, an initially enthusiastic enlistee in the German Army is one that has been told twice previously on the screen. Once in 1930, which went on to receive the Best Picture Oscar for that year, and another for television in 1979 that won a Golden Globe and an Emmy. This most recent iteration was nominated for Best Picture in 2022, and ended up winning four Academy Awards for its nine nominations. 

But I wasn't there for the trophies. I was there for what is for me the quintessential anti-war film. Watching the young recruits slowly become more disillusioned and eventually killed continues to resonate with me. So much so that when the bell rang and my platelets had been locked away and bandages applied to the crooks of both of my arms, I still had nine minutes left. When it came time for me to leave and pick up my souvenir T-shirt, the Armistice had been signed, and the troops on both sides were waiting for the eleventh our of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. 

Spoiler Alert: But that wasn't good enough for the German generals. They commanded their soldiers make one last charge at the French lines. Another hundred meters of territory. In the last fifteen minutes of the war. A fine tuning of the novel's original ending, but it was earned. I had to rush home and watch the Paul's last moments. Just to see how it all turned out. 

Sadly, just like it always has. And for every war before or since. 

Maybe a nice romantic comedy for the next trip  to give blood. 

Appearances

 So, in the big book of "yeah, but what about..." I submit this recent bit of news fluffery.

The folks at Faux News have been making a fuss about Doctor Jill Biden's appearances at Hunter Biden's trial on federal gun charges. The current First Lady took the time to come across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to support her stepson. In what appeared to at least one of their talking heads as "mob mentality," Doctor Jill was there starting with the jury selection, and then for opening statements. 

Like a concerned parent. 

Or the leader of a crime family, if you happen to subscribe to the mentality of Judge Jeanine Pirro. Get this, conspiracy buffs: She even stopped to give him a hug during breaks. What sort of message does that send? 

Maybe this: Jill has raised Hunter since he was two. She has lived through the ups and downs of his life, watching him struggle with addiction and put himself in situations that would make any mother step or otherwise cringe. 

She's there. Like she has been since she cared. Not to make political speeches on his behalf, but to make a family connection. Much in the same way that Don Junior and Eric milled around outside the New York City courtroom where their daddy was on trial. That one wasn't for gun possession. It was for covering up the payments he made to keep the affair he was having with their daddy's affair with a porn star. Donny and Eric were often obscured by the parade of Republican knee benders who were there, skipping votes in Congress, to supplicate themselves at the feet of their dear leader. 

Which one sounds more like an episode of The Sopranos? I leave that to you to figure out. 

And maybe I missed the report from Judge Jeannine or one of her Faux counterparts explaining why neither Melania nor Ivanka could be bothered to drop by the proceedings in New York that culminated in thirty-four guilty counts for the only convicted president in our nation's history. 

Stay tuned. 

Goodbye, Mister Caven

 I realize that I am going through a little bit of withdrawal. 

It's not unusual for the summer to catch up to me in different ways. Getting out of bed when I feel good and ready is definitely one of the perks of having a summer vacation. Still, I do my share of arguing with the voice inside my head that wants me to get up and be useful. Having this blog helps. Having a place to go to "work" when so many of the people I know and love are on their way to jobs takes some of the edge off being able to do as I please. I spend nine months out of the year answering to a bell and then waiting for the next crisis to unfold or be resolved. Not having a fire burning is a treat.

Even if I don't know how to deal with it. 

But that's nothing new. 

This year I believe I have isolated the thing that I am missing more than just about anything else: Mister Caven. When I signed on to Horace Mann nearly three decades ago, I was given my "school name." The lady who hired me had some very clear guidelines. Your kids could be hanging from the light fixtures and cursing up a storm as long as the bulletin boards outside your room were neat and up to date. She also liked to close meetings with the same words, "Questions, comments, concerns." That might have been a request for feedback, but after a couple shots at making a comment or asking a question it became apparent that this was simply a refrain that would let us all know that the meeting was over and we were to go about our business. And none of us were to have first names. 

When I was at school, I was Mister Caven. This lingered on into the teacher parties I hosted at my house where more than one inebriated educator wandered into my kitchen asking, "Mister Caven, where is your corkscrew?" This trend continues on today with even my wife getting into the spirit. For any question, comment or concern that is connected to my job, she will inevitably address me as Mister Caven. When kids ask me what my "real name" is, I know what they mean. When they press and insist they need to know my first name, I tell them, "Mister." 

But now it has been a couple of weeks, and Mister Caven has gone into hibernation. Nobody needs to be escorted to the office. No one needs a ball off the roof. Mister Caven has left the building. If anyone asks, he's somewhere doing good deeds. Like finding that corkscrew. 

Nice Things

 Hey. Mexico, our neighbors to the south just elected their first woman president. They join an ever-expanding list of countries that have a female chief executive. Claudia Sheinbaum won the election with nearly sixty percent of the vote. Second place went to Xóchitl Gálvez, another woman. Some guy came in third with eleven percent. This is what we call a landslide. 

Not a queen, mind you. A democratically elected President of the Republic. For the first time in two hundred years. And get this, she's Jewish. And she's a Nobel Prize-winning climate scientist. In her victory speech, Sheinbaum said she would continue to enforce policies enacted by former president Andres Manuel López Obrador, such as his social welfare programs, to address economic inequality. 

And I couldn't be more depressed. 

This is just like when Colorado got around to legalizing pot before California. With all due respect to the Mile High State,  why couldn't we get our granola heads around that kind of legislation here in the Golden State? 

Oh well. It's not like we haven't had our chances. You may recall that a former Secretary of State and New York Senator once ran for our nation's highest office back in (checks notes) 2016. A Ms. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote back then, but lost the election because of a bunch of made up junk about her emails and using a pizza joint as a front for a pedophilia ring. I am not making this up.  

I suppose there are those who might still argue that we were better off over the past eight years because of our non-election of Hillary, but these are probably the same lemmings who believe that wind turbines are causing cancer. 

So now it appears that it will be at least another four years before Americans get to go to the polls and elect their own female Nobel Prize winning scientist. Meanwhile, I wonder if the wall on our southern border will be able to keep U.S. citizens in. 

Celebrate

 Pride. In the name of love. 

Yes, I know Bono had a very precise moment and person in mind when he wrote that song. Even though he managed to mess up the actual time of the assassination of Doctor Martin Luther King this ditty by U2 has been played for decades as a hymn to those who fought and died for civil rights here in the United States. 

But since it's June, and we are all endowed by our maker certain inalienable rights, I figure we might as well include those members of the LGBTQ+ community within the chorus of that track by Ireland's chief export. 

It was in 1970 that the first Pride March took place, marking the one year anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City. In 1969, in most of these aforementioned United States, homosexuality was a criminal offense. The Stonewall Inn was a gay bar that had its share of harassment and raids, but it was on June 28, 1969 that something changed. Rather than just cowering and letting the abuse by local police, the patrons and onlookers fought back. The ensuing melee went on for days, sparking what would become the Gay Rights Movement. 

Suddenly, gay men and women found their own voice in a sea of change that included African-Americans, Latinos, and a burgeoning Women's Liberation movement. Punches, bottles and bricks were thrown. Blood was spilled. But no one died. The voices raised that night in Manhattan echoed across the land. The closet door had been kicked down, and all sorts of people came pouring out. 

Fifty-five years later, things have changed. There are Pride events scattered across a full month of awakening. Hate fueled by ignorance and fear make the progress hard to see sometimes. Each time an LGBTQ+ person is elected, awarded, appreciated, we still give a nod to the "firstness." There are still those who would like to turn back the clock and return to a world that didn't ask or tell. 

But in the end, it's all about love. There isn't enough of that in our country. In our world. Making room for that exists between us all is what it's all about. Not in 1969. Not in 2024. 

They could not take your pride
In the name of love.

The Long Haul

 There's one of them Internet widgets down at the bottom of the page that is keeping track of how many days we have left until the next Presidential Election. Here in the United States, that is. It will be here in November. That's on the other side of the summer. And even though most sentient beings on this planet have made their choice already, there are still moments left to try and sway those who will show up at the polls.

So we'll wait while that undecided group in the so-called Swing States try and figure out left from right, up from down, and let them decide the future of our once great democracy. 

I frequently run past a ballot box on one of the routes I run over the course of a week. I could just go ahead and punch my ticket now. Wake me up when the balloons fall. I'm fed up already. 

This past week, Salem Media Group said that it would not longer distribute the film or the book titled 2000 Mules. This was the "documentary" slapped together by Dinesh D'Souza in the wake of the last election, the one that was held four years ago, to uncover "widespread voter fraud" that culminated in the only former president to become a convicted felon losing. Not because of an attack of conscience, mind you, but because of a defamation suit brought by a man in Georgia, Mark Andrews, who was shown in the film dropping off five ballots way in November of 2020. The company issued this statement, just before they announced that they would no longer be swinging the voter fraud hammer: “We apologize for the hurt the inclusion of Mr. Andrews’ image in the movie, book, and promotional materials have caused Mr. Andrews and his family.” As it turns out, like so many of the examples in this now thoroughly discredited conspiratorial hack job, there was a very simple reason for the five ballots: Mister Andrews was dropping off ballots for his family members. 

In February of this year, the organization called True The Vote that supported the making of this now thoroughly debunked made up cabal admitted in court that there was no evidence of the voter fraud they had made such a fuss about. 

And yet, here we are, just a few months left on the clock before we all head out once again to the polls and these ninnies are still frothing about a "Stolen Election." Right before the pending election. And don't you think that this one has all the potential to be even more full of pointy-headed idjits screaming about how unfair it is when convicted felons don't get the fair shake they deserve. The same guy who called Georgia's Secretary of State asking him to "find 11,780 votes." 

To paraphrase the poet, wake me up when November ends. 

Office Visit

 "So, Mister Sam, is that correct."

"Yes sir."

"Well," says the doctor as he flips through the chart, "You seem to be in pretty good shape for someone who is - let's see -"

"I'll be two hundred forty-eight come this July."

"Very impressive. What is it that brings you here today?"

"Well doc, I gotta be honest, I feel pretty good most of the time but lately I've been having a lot of pain in my extremeties."

"Hmm. Could you describe the pain?"

"Well, it kind of feels like I'm being stretched. Everything in my middle feels like its being pulled apart."

"Interesting. How long have you had this feeling?"

"Well, for some time now, but it's been getting more acute since COVID."

"Any problem breathing?"

"Sometimes it feels like I can't get my breath. But it's mostly that feeling like I'm being stretched in two directions, and I can't explain it."

"According to your chart, you were last in here about a century ago for, let's see, growing pains?"

"I have been meaning to get back in here, but you know how things get. Holidays, elections, world wars."

"Ah, yes. It says here you were on the winning side for both the War To End All Wars and the Sequel."

Blushing slightly. "Well, yeah."

"And what have you been doing since to keep yourself fit? Exercise? Diet? Getting plenty of fiber?"

"Well, I do a lot of volunteer work. Being the world's policeman isn't exactly laying around in the hammock."

"Sure, but what about getting some of that core working for you. Your middle that you say seems to be getting pulled every which way?"

"I gotta be honest doc, with all that flailing around on the left and the right, I may have neglected my middle."

"Maybe you should be paying more attention to the things that hold you together, instead of what threatens to tear you apart."

Sighs. "You're probably right."

"You know I'm right. Someone of your age and stature really should be taking better care of, well all those nieces and nephews."

"Thanks, doc."

"Is there anything else I can do for you today?"

"Oh yeah - do you validate?"

Missing Links

 Sometimes I get nostalgic for the way things used to be. I can remember, for example buying a ticket to see a movie for seventy-five cents. I can remember sitting at the breakfast table eating a second bowl of cereal just so I had a chance to reach the prize inside before my brothers, and also to finish reading the entire back panel of the box. Sometimes, I even miss chewing gum, but then my father's voice intrudes: "You look like a cow chewing its cud."

Thanks, dad. 

Then there are some other things that I don't really miss. Drinking comes to mind. Alcohol to be more precise. Drinking alcohol to excess to be as clear as possible. I spent a great portion of the Reagan/Bush regime looking for that next buzz. It was an obsession. It was self-medication. It was an addiction. I did not miss many opportunities to anesthetize myself in my twenties. Some might refer to this as "a drinking problem." On the contrary. I was very good at drinking. It's just that I was a terrible person after I got a few drinks in me. During this time I racked up my share of war stories, the kind that make those hearing them for the first time smile. Those who were there are more likely to wince at the memory. 

Eventually the problems created by my drinking were such that I decided to stop. No more Friday and Saturday nights spent searching for Penny Lane. No more family gatherings where I was the designated scene generator. Friends drifted away. I got so very good at drinking that I was able to do it all by myself. 

And so it was time to quit. 

Now every so often I see some guy quick-stepping into the local liquor store, ready to start his evening or afternoon off with a bottle or a six pack. And wouldn't it be nice if he was able to have a few cold ones with the boys and then call it a night? He might be able to remember his trip home, and maybe even avoid the demon hangover that always accompanied my own trips to the Disneyland of Beers. The pounding headache and the queasy stomach was all a part of the fun I used to have. 

Fun. 

My dad never used to tease me about my drinking. Perhaps because he was all too aware of where I had picked up the habit in the first place. My dad didn't chew gum, but he certainly enjoyed an adult beverage or two. Or more. 

I miss my dad. 

I don't miss drinking. 

Jerry: A Look Back

 I have written a bit about the way things used to be here. It's not like the olden days. We didn't have electric cars when I was growing up. Nowadays, you can be walking across the parking lot at Target and be frightened half out of your wits by someone creeping along behind you in their EV SUV. For that matter, we didn't have SUVs when I was a kid either. We had station wagons. Or pickup trucks. We didn't even have Target when I was a kid. Just the blue light special at K-Mart. 

But get this: Things were not better then. For instance, I much prefer shopping at Target than K-Mart, and I am relieved and happy that I never have to parallel park a Dodge Polara ever again. In this way, it was not a simpler time. My ability to drive a stick shift or tune in four different channels through a complex series of adjustments to a set of rabbit ear antennae did not figure into me being accepted at the college or my choice, nor did it help me get a job doing anything. Anywhere. 

The fact that I can remember such things only means that I have the capacity for memory. 

Which brings me to yet another in an apparent ongoing series: What's The Deal With Jerry Seinfeld? Jerry recently turned seventy, and apparently he's entered the phase of life in which his version of nostalgia turns into "you kids get offa my lawn." Last week on Bari Weiss's podcast, the "comedian" waxed on about the lack of "real men" these days. He went on to list macho heroes from his past likeJohn F. Kennedy, Muhammad Ali, Sean Connery and Howard Cosell as his Mount Rushmore of manliness. He rambled on, suggesting, "I miss a dominant masculinity. Yeah, I get the [toxic masculinity] but still, I like a real man." Like Howard Cosell. 

Like George Costanza? Like his namesake on his eponymous sitcom who spent nine seasons whining about puffy shirts and smelly cars? And parking spaces? It would seem that time and plenty of money have provided a cushion to Jerry's reality and his look into the past. 

At the end of the interview, he talked a little about how critics are responding negatively to his directorial debut, a comedy about the invention of the Pop Tart. "It doesn't matter what you think of me. Why would I think that I'm going to make something that everyone will like? What sense does that make? You gotta be insane to think that."

Does anybody remember when Jerry was funny? 

You're Not My Real Dad

 Once the ICC finishes up with Netanyahu and Putin, I would love for them to investigate an even bigger criminal conspiracy: The deaths of dozens of parents in the sixties and seventies here in the United States. Think about it: back in those days you could scarcely turn on a television without witnessing a story about someone's mom or dad that had mysteriously disappeared. How did we react? We just watched, passively while the carnage continued. 

Case in point: Andy Taylor's wife. The sheriff of Mayberry, North Carolina is raising his son with the aid of a fussy old maiden aunt and no one thought to ask, "Yo Andy, whatever happened to the boy's mother? Sure, I can accept that we don't want to bring it up around the boy, for fear of activating trauma, but no mention at all? You'd think that the town's super-sleuth, one Barney Fife, would lay awake at nights wondering how his boss got away with it. Then again, there seems to be an odd predilection against mature relationships of any sort in Mayberry. Once Andy finally decided to tie the knot with his son's teacher, they had to leave town.

What were they hiding? 

Then there's the obvious double homicide committed by the new Mister and Missus Brady. What a nice coincidence that both of their former mates perished in some well-timed catastrophe that left them both without a spouse so they could merge three boys and three girls into some sick experiment in cohabitation, celebrated by the boys' dog running amuck during the ceremony. What message was Tiger trying to send us? 

Then there's the case of Uncle Bill, whose quiet bachelor bacchanalia was interrupted by Buffy, Jodie, and Cissy. And that terrible Mrs. Beasley. Good luck returning to your Playboy After Dark lifestyle now that those three meddling kids and that awful doll have moved into your spacious penthouse apartment. Mister French went almost immediately from mixing hangover cures for his boss to whipping up Sloppy Samuels for his new and myterously appearing young charges. Didn't anyone wonder how this all came to pass? 

Following this thread, there is the strange circumstances behind the courtship of Eddie's father. Sure, all of a sudden dad and son have all this extra time to spend making montages of walking on the beach and attending the local carnival, but did anyone check on Mrs. Eddie's father? I'm guessing that Eddie isn't the innocent waif he appears. 

Sherwood Schwartz, I look forward to seeing you in the Hague.