I wrote a blog book about ten years ago. Here are a few of the entries:
Dancing with the Stars, 2011
The latest national joke is the announcement of the “Dancing with the Stars” celebrity lineup for the upcoming season.
This TV show used to be pretty interesting; Charlie and I watched it every year. In the early years, Olympic athletes, famous professional actors and performers, and a few minor celebrities made up the “stars” component, matched up with professional ballroom dancers. But, in recent years the “stars” have included so many nobodies that we’ve given up on it.
The upcoming year’s cast is a motley crew of B-list actors, famous exes, celebrity progeny, and other misfits, with not a “star” to be found.
Chaz Bono, singer Cher’s one-time daughter Chastity now-turned husky guy, is one of the contestants. He (or she) will be stepping on the toes of a female partner. Carson Kressley, the flamboyantly gayest of the “Queer Eye” interior designers, will be the male lead in his twosome, if you can believe that. Hope Solo, a female soccer player (so, probably a lesbian), will do her best to perform as a woman. Ron Artest, a forward with the Los Angeles Lakers and one giant, hot-headed MF’er, will lead-foot it around the dance floor until he either gets kicked off the show or kills one of the judges. Other celebrities include David Arquette, actress Courteney Cox’s quirky ex-husband, and Rob Kardashian, who would be a totally unknown shlub except for the fact that his sisters are the camera-hogging, reality TV central characters of a messed up Beverly Hills family that hangs out with a bunch of other bored rich kids. (How that makes Rob a celebrity or a “star” is anyone’s guess.) Another weird cast member is Nancy Grace, an ex-prosecutor and current TV show host, who is infamous for using her program to convict (in the court of public opinion) accused people whose case has not yet gone to a jury. (I’m going on record right here by declaring that Nancy will have no “grace” on the dance floor; she will be the first contestant to be declared guilty of wasting the judges’ time.)
Speaking of them, I feel sorry for the DWTS judges, as the talent pool has become so diluted in recent years that they have had to hold their noses and control themselves from laughing out loud as couple after couple of crappy dancers stagger across the hardwood like characters from the Night of the Living Dead.
Who can forget the pathetic efforts of stumblebum Chloris Leachman, octogenarian astronaut Buzz Aldrin, or 7-foot basketball player Clyde Drexler, who danced with the look and grace of a Black Frankenstein. I’m surprised that ABC hasn’t signed Bozo the Clown, O.J. Simpson, Hannibal Lecter, and Bernie Madoff to fill out this year’s dance card. Let’s hope that the newest crop of carnival midway freaks puts on a better show. Oy vey!
UPDATE:
Charlie and I, for some inexplicable reason, decided to watch this season’s “Dancing with the Stars” series on TV.
As it turns out, there are a few talented couples competing for the mirror ball trophy this year. Broadway actress/talk show hostess Rickie Lake, ex-army hero/soap opera star J.R. Martinez, and reality show actor Rob Kardashian lead the best teams in the competition. The winning team should feature either Rickie Lake or J.R. Martinez, in my opinion.
As usual, however, the weekly eliminations are being stage-managed by ABC/Disney to maximize ratings. The absolute worst dancers happen to be folks with recognizable names (like Chaz Bono, singer Cher’s daughter/son and super-gay fashion stylist Carson Kressley) and the “secret” public vote presumably keeps them in the competition while eliminating people who can actually dance. Finally, last night, Kressley was booted off the show, about four weeks too late.
The professional judges have consistently given crappy marks to Chaz Bono, but less deserving teams have been shown the door because, in the words of one of the judges, Chaz “is showing so much courage” and we’re “so proud of him” (for pretending to be a man!).
Everyone in the competition is supposedly being judged on musicality, footwork, and actually remembering the choreography. Not so Chaz Bono: he-she bounces around the room like an overweight Cheshire Cat, bungling the steps, looking like a fool, but every week the sexually-confused doofus is still there, while more competent competitors are found wanting. This would, of course, not be the case if his/her mother was named Cherie Scroggins.
Travesties like this have occurred every year that we’ve watched this show. Ratings draws have been kept in the show weeks longer than justified by dancing skills. Some of the more recent graceless stiffs have included Paul McCartney’s one-legged ex-wife, and a deaf woman (Marlee Maitlin) who couldn’t hear the music. I suppose I can understand why ABC plays footsie with the scores: it’s pretty obvious that the winner is going to come from one of the three so-called “stars” that I mentioned (Lake, Martinez, Kardashian), so maybe it doesn’t matter in which order the non-competitors get shown the door before the finale.
ABC/Disney, and their shill announcer Tom Bergeron, milk this ratings winner shamelessly, stretching a one-hour show into two hours, and then having a one-hour follow-up show the next night to announce the eliminated team. Three hours of programming and commercials, including endless plugs for ABC programs and Disney products, are a bit much. Yet, this turkey is in its 13th year on television, which is an indication of the depth to which television entertainment has sunk in recent years. As some wag once said, “There’s no accounting for taste.”
The network has just about exhausted the B- and C-list “celebrity” wannabes of the world and Hollywood flotsam, so they’ll have to troll pretty deep to dredge up contestants for a 14th season, if there is one. How about these losers: that “Tattoo” midget from Fantasy Island, Abe Vigoda, Larry Flynt, Moms Mabley, Son of Sam, Peewee Herman, Charlie Sheen, Rush Limbaugh, , and that quadriplegic lady who Nate Berkus is building a house for? Is Mahatma Ghandi still kicking? I’ll bet Star Wars’ Chewbacca could cut a rug.
Spare us.
Hall of Shame 2011
This year, Jim Thome, a baseball player with the Minnesota Twins, hit his 600th career home run. That is quite a career achievement, only surpassed by a few guys including Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron and Willie Mays. There is talk that Thome will be elected to the baseball Hall of Fame after he retires. And I think he deserves it. However, becoming a Hall of Fame player has become very political in recent years. The folks who do the voting on who gets in and who doesn’t are a select group of the Baseball Writers of America. Yeah, they’re not even peers of the players… who would be in the best position to know.
It used to be pretty automatic that if a pitcher won so many games or a batter hit so many home runs that he was guaranteed a spot in Cooperstown (home of the Hall of Fame museum). However, that has changed in the last twenty years or so. The element of “political correctness” has entered the picture, and the writers (electors) have become less rational in their judgments.
I think it all got out of whack with Pete Rose. He had an extraordinarily long and productive career and amassed more hits than any other batter in history. This is an obvious automatic qualifier for the Hall of Fame. However, after his playing career, and before Pete could be elected to the Hall, he became a manager of the Cincinnati Reds. It was during this time that he evidently placed bets on the outcome of games, a cardinal sin in professional baseball. It has never been alleged or proven that he bet against his own team, but just the fact that he was gambling with his own money on ballgames totally pissed off the baseball Commissioner… who banned Mr. Rose from baseball for life. Of course, Pete’s gambling addiction when he was a manager had nothing to do with his 4,000 plus hits and brilliant career as a player. But, the baseball writers, in holding on to some high moral ground or something, have steadfastly refused over the past twenty years or so to elect Pete Rose to the Hall of Fame. In my opinion, this makes a travesty of the Hall of Fame. It is supposed to honor the achievements of players…while they played!
However, that was only the beginning.
In 1994-5, Major League Baseball owners and players locked horns in a strike that canceled 938 games and the post season (there was no World Series that year). The fact that the “National Pastime” had been trifled with over money enraged baseball fans throughout the country. There were fan protests, boycotts, merchandise sales fell, and ticket sales were way off in the following year when big league baseball returned. MLB players and owners had laid an egg and they needed something to give the sport a shot in the arm. Amazingly, in the following year (1997-98) two sluggers, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, assaulted the long-standing home run record of Roger Maris and both shattered it, with McGwire hitting 70 home runs. This Home Run Derby spectacle pretty much brought all of the disaffected fans back to Major League Baseball.
It was a miracle, or so it seemed.
In a couple of years, Barry Bonds, a very good player who had never hit more than 40 home runs in his early career, all of the sudden, in the twilight of his career, became Hercules and hit 73 home runs. Obviously, the baseball writers and team owners, not to mention the MLB Commissioner, who slavishly followed baseball history and its statistics, knew that something was fishy. Older players do not get better with age, and they certainly don’t grow larger hat sizes. However, baseball popularity was booming, newspapers were selling, stadium turnstiles were spinning, merchandise sales were going through the roof… and, so, everyone who was in a position to know what was really going on kept their mouths shut. One could argue that Mssrs. Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, and all of the pipsqueak banjo hitters who were now stroking balls over stadium roofs were actors in a well-plotted drama designed to boost the flagging fortunes of Major League Baseball.
Duh.
Years later, when ex-player Jose Canseco and others blew the whistle on the steroid abuse that had been rampant in team clubhouses during that era, all the principals clammed up and protested their innocence. “We had no idea this was going on” was the common refrain from the Commissioner’s office, team owners, and the baseball writers. Yeah, those same baseball writer guys who are so protective of the “game”, its traditions, and statistics. Yep, the same respected folks who elect worthy players to the Hall of Fame. It was only when the scandal became viral that the writers/HOF electors became holier than thou, raining down on the alleged cheaters with the attitude of, “How dare you!” They’ve now, almost as one, declared that all those players from the so-called “steroid era” have suspect, bloated credentials, and do not deserve to be considered for the Hall of Fame, no matter what their achievements.
Barry Bonds is the primary focus of the moment. This is partially because he broke several of the most cherished records in MLB history, and partially because his cranium grew to the size of a watermelon in his late 30’s when he amazingly began to swat baseballs 500 feet on the fly. However, it is also because Barry Bonds is a major league prick who has always treated the media like he treated everyone else he met, like dirt under his feet. No one likes him, especially the writers whom he would snub when they needed an interview to spice up their report. So, the media has conveniently made Mr. Bonds the scapegoat of the entire “steroid era”, a villain that everyone can blame… and then wash their hand of the whole mess.
That Barry Bonds, undoubtedly one of the top ten greatest players of all-time, should end up in the Hall of Fame is a no-brainer, like Pete Rose. However, like Pete, Barry doesn’t stand a chance. The writers will conveniently throttle his election, blaming him for all things “performance enhancing”, while using this smokescreen to hide their own culpability. They knew about the “juiced” athletes, kept their mouths shut, and their typewriters busy grinding out stories extolling the Home Run Derby.
The whole baseball Hall of Fame deal is a sham anyways. For one thing, all of the individual baseball records prior to the 1950’s are bogus, because African Americans were banned from playing against Caucasians until that time. The great pitchers like Cy Young and Christy Mathewson never had to get a fastball past Josh Gibson nor did Babe Ruth or Ty Cobb ever have to hit a pitch from Satchel Paige. Within a dozen years of the “breaking of the color line” by Jackie Robinson, most of the really great players in MLB were Black. So, what does that say about the fantastic records of the legendary white players? Well, it probably means that they were inflated, doesn’t it? The competition was watered down.
All the recent brouhaha about performance-enhancing drugs ignores the fact that “speed” (amphetamine) pills were as plentiful as tobacco chaw in MLB locker rooms during the 1960’s through the 1980’s. According to ex-players, there were large bowls of “greenies” available to players to help them stay alert during a long home stand with many night games. Those bowls of amphetamines were provided by the club to be ingested by anyone who wanted them, as many as they could handle… without prescription. Gee, that’s illegal, and those “greenies” wouldn’t have been provided by club management unless they enhanced performance, would they? Of course, baseball writers hung out with the players in the club houses back then, so they absolutely knew about this form of performance enhancement. But, no one made a big deal of it, and no one mentions it today, either. Now, with performance enhancement being a dirty phrase, all the current ball players are being viewed with suspicion… as if the oldtime players were pure as the driven snow. It’s a joke.
Several of the oldtimers that the writers have elected to the Hall of Fame were known, and admitted, spitball throwers. The spitball is, and always has been, an illegal pitch. Therefore, these guys were cheaters, violators of baseball rules like Pete Rose when he gambled on baseball. Yet, the performance enhancement of a ball doctored with spit, jelly, vasoline, or the like, even though illegal as hell, has been ignored by the baseball writers. Why are some cheaters vilified while others are celebrated? So, Ed Walsh, the creator of the spitball, and his modern day acolyte Phil Niekro, are enshrined in Cooperstown as baseball heroes, while Pete Rose, arguably the best hitter of all time, can’t get a foot in the door because of things he did after he quit playing baseball.
(Interestingly, the Football Hall of Fame still includes O.J. Simpson, a guy who murdered two people…after his football career. How politically incorrect is that!)
Roger Clemens, the greatest pitcher of my lifetime, is also on the current hit list of suspected drug users. The fact that this hasn’t been proven doesn’t seem to bother the hypocritical baseball writers. They might have turned a blind eye to what was going on when steroid use became rampant, however, now that it’s is out in the open, they’ve become modern day witch hunters, accusing everyone that played well during the 1990’s. Why is that? Well, obviously it’s because scandal sells newspapers. Roger Clemens was the best pitcher in baseball long before Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa began to “roid up”. He’s now being accused of doing the same… simply because he was so good at what he did and he happened to play during the steroid era. He is the only pitcher I know of that has been accused of using performance enhancing drugs. Could it have anything to do with the fact that a large number of his wins came at the expense of the New York Yankees, the glamour franchise in MLB? Would a witch hunt after Clemens be popular in New York? What do you think? Yep, maybe it’s about readership.
But, really, what is wrong with this picture? It’s that the makeup of the Hall of Fame is determined by baseball writers. In some ways they have been, and still are, too close to the action. Their job is to promote interest in baseball and create a readership in their newspaper column. Yet, it’s very personal to them, and objectivity often loses out. Players who are chummy with writers get good press, even when they don’t play that well, and get “passes” when they screw up. Arrogant players with big dollar contracts (like Clemens) or who have little time for the writers (Bonds) become targets of the media, who wait for the opportune time for payback. In the case of Bonds and Clemens, that time is now, and the writers are reveling in it.
I can’t say that it upsets me much that Mr. Bonds is taking a drubbing right now, because I have met him (he used to be a fellow member of Bear Creek Golf Club) and he is definitely a world-class asshole. But, having said that, he is, without a doubt, one of the greatest baseball players who put on a jockstrap.
If Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens doesn’t gain entry to the Hall of Fame, then there shouldn’t be one. It should be renamed the Hall of Shame, for the joke that it has become, thanks to the baseball writers who have taken subjectivity, vindictiveness, and political correctness to new levels of absurdity.
Sept 11, 2011
The NFL season really gets underway today on this tenth anniversary of the terrible “9/11” attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. There have been commemorative TV specials all week leading up to today, and the NFL games of both New York teams (Jets and Giants) will have somber half-time ceremonies, etc.
I haven’t watched any of the 9/11 specials because I really don’t want to relive it. It was a horrible day for all Americans. I happened to be on a long-range deep sea fishing trip at the time of the attacks, far out at sea and out of touch with the real world, and wasn’t glued to the TV set watching events unfold like most Americans. That probably helped soften the blow a little for me. There’s nothing like seeing something happen right before your eyes and you’re powerless to do anything about it. So, not actually seeing it going down, nor having a relative or friend directly impacted by the tragedy, nor seeing my own city suffer a grievous wound, my perspective on the whole thing is different than some.
Looking back on 9/11 many years later, I can see that it dramatically changed America in many ways. There was certainly a loss of innocence as regards geopolitical realities. Yes, the United States was the world’s only superpower at that time, but the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington D.C. revealed that America was a “paper tiger”, to some extent, as vulnerable as any third-world country to guerrilla warfare. The attacks also demonstrated the hatred and rage of many Middle Eastern people over the meddling of the United States and the other Western powers in their countries’ affairs since World War I. The perception of Americans in general for over half a century was that their nation was the “leader of the free world”, some sort of “policeman” for democracy, and that the American way of life was the God-ordained, highest evolution of existence.
Proud people in the Middle East, the cradle of civilization, with their own religion and culture, greatly resented the Western powers bullying them, taking their oil, and treating them like inferiors. That an ad-hoc, guerrilla fighting organization made up primarily of these marginalized Muslim Arabs could strike a mortal blow to the United States, the “Great Satan”, was a tremendous psychological boost to the entire Arab world. That is not to say that the Al Queda goals and tactics are or were popular with all Muslims and Arabs. But, for most of them, it was a comeuppance for Uncle Sam that was long overdue.
The reaction of most Americans to the attacks was immediate horror that quickly turned into rage. Much like the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the 9/11 attacks were viewed as an act of cowardice… hitting us in the gut while we weren’t looking. The anger and desire for revenge of the American public was vented on Washington D.C. and the imperative was for us to strike back with force. Of course the beauty of Al Queda, if one can call it that, is that this loose-knit terrorist organization is nation-less. The United States military, the strongest in the world, is designed to inflict catastrophic damage on nation states, with defined boundaries, capital cities, military bases, and standing armies. Al Queda has none of these. The leadership lives in mountain caves and does its business over the Internet, or with disposable phones, uses improvised explosive devices, doesn’t operate under the rules of the Geneva Convention, and targets civilians more often than soldiers. They are terrorists, which means their acts are basically aimed at destabilization. The 9/11 attacks successfully destabilized the U.S. economy and the Federal budget in one fell swoop.
The United States quickly attacked Afghanistan (to seek out and destroy Al Queda leader, Osama Bin Laden) and shortly followed up that wild goose chase with an attack on another Middle Eastern country, Iraq, to seek out and destroy Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs). Looking back on 9/11, it’s apparent that American leaders did exactly what Al Queda wanted them to do… economically and morally bankrupt themselves in the Middle Eastern quagmire in a war that they couldn’t win. Al Queda learned from the lesson of Afghanistan, where the Russians got bogged down in an expensive war that they couldn’t win. That fiasco helped bring about the downfall of the Soviet Union. This is what 9/11 has wrought. In our haste to seek revenge for the thousands of good people slain by the Al Queda “cowards”, we have stumbled right into an expensive and bloody trap, one that is helping to bankrupt the country and inflicting mortal damage on our world reputation and national psychology.
Too few people actually analyze what has been and is happening vis a vis these Middle Eastern conflicts. Sadaam Hussein is dead, Osama Bin Laden is dead, and yet we’re still bogged down in unwinnable “police actions”, ostensibly to help nations establish democracy. That these countries’ religions and cultures don’t respect democracy is seemingly of no importance to our leaders. We’re trying to cram our way of life down these Muslim Arab throats even as they scream, “We don’t want that!” My question is: How much longer are we going to doggedly try to pound the square peg into the round hole?
Since 9/11, “patriotism” seems to be defined as supporting the military actions of the U.S. even if they’re stupid. The War in Vietnam showed us clearly that our government can have a misguided policy. The real tragedy of Vietnam was that the American people disrespected the soldiers who fought there, as if the soldiers had set policy and had caused us to lose the war. Our more recent endeavors in the Middle East have, thankfully, not had that impact. We have, as a nation, learned that our fighting men need all the love and support we can give them. In the recent conflicts, our soldiers have overwhelming support at home, although their mission (which is not of their making) grows more and more dubious by the day. The ironic thing is that it is widely considered to be politically incorrect to question these police actions, despite the fact that both Afghanistan and Iraq have not been democratized after ten years, billions of U.S. dollars, and thousands of Americans dead.
I believe that the word “hero” has been overused since 9/11, cheapening it much like every actor is nowadays called a “star” in the tabloids.
Clark Gable, Cary Grant, John Wayne… now those were stars. I’m sorry, but CSI actor David Caruso is not a star, nor is Ashton Kutchar. The same goes for policemen, firemen, and soldiers. They are not heroes simply because of their occupation. In fact, brave acts are required as part of the job, and are a reason (in the cases of firemen and policemen) that they are well-paid. The rules and policies that policemen and firemen live by would not allow hundreds of officers to run into a burning building that everyone knows is going to collapse. The fact that hundreds of policemen and firemen rushed into a burning building to help people get out is a credit to their professionalism, but does not make them heroes as a group. The real heroes of 9/11 are the people who did incredibly brave things not because it was their job, but because it was the right thing to do. A good example would be those passengers of United Flight 93 who stormed the cockpit and caused the airliner to crash short of the terrorists’ target, the White House.
Unfortunately for us, other cultures view heroism a bit differently than we do. A ten year-old Iraqi boy, strapped with explosives, who blows up himself and some American troops, is considered by his Muslim friends and relatives to be a hero, while we would consider this to be an act of cowardice. As long as “jihad” is being taught in Muslim madrassas (church schools), then there will be a never-ending supply of would-be-heroes available to Al Queda and other terrorist groups. We need to find a way to stop that type of religious indoctrination, the type that portrays outsiders as “satans” and “infidels”.
Probably the first step would be to stop it here, in the United States, where conservative, fundamentalist Christian doctrine demonizes Islam. It is amazing how this attitude has permeated American society. No wonder Middle Eastern people feel threatened and are hostile. Especially when an American president (George W. Bush) actually used the word “crusade” to kick-off Operation Desert Storm. People in the Middle East have long memories, in the thousands of years, and are pretty resentful of the Christian Crusades into the Holy Lands. So, anyone striking a blow against a perceived “crusader” is going to be considered a local hero, even if the perpetrator is a terrorist like Al Queda. An old Arab saying goes, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
Another old saying, “Blood is thicker than water”, might describe the other problem we have in combating Al Queda. The terrorists are being funded by oil money provided by our supposed allies, the Saudis and other Arabian Peninsula sheikdoms that we protect. Although they appreciate the military umbrella that we provide them, underneath it all they are Arabs, and most importantly, they are Muslim. The terrorists are also being aided by the Pakistani government, which has been funneling them information from their allies, the U.S., and looking the other way while Al Queda uses Pakistan for its base of operations. Pakistanis, while not Arabs, are predominantly Muslim. So, again, blood is thicker than water.
If the U.S. ever expects to gain some footing in its war on terrorism, it is going to have to do three things: (1) Lower the anti-Muslim rhetoric here in America; (2) Find a way to stanch the flow of oil money to Al Queda; and, (3) Stop Pakistan from sheltering and aiding the terrorist leaders. Until our leadership does these things, America will continue to piss against the wind, and there will be more 9/11s.
And the next ones may be more catastrophic.
Great News 2011
I got wonderful news today.
President Donald Kaberuka of the African Development Bank e-mailed me to let me know that I was the beneficiary of $5 million in unclaimed funds in Africa. He further directed me to immediately contact Reverend Kampson Lars to arrange for the wire transfer to my bank account here in the U.S.
Wow, that’s neat. I’ll definitely put that on my “to-do list”, right after brushing my teeth, emptying the trash, and picking up the dog poo. I can hardly wait to get the money… Charlie’s American Express bill is getting out of hand.
Although President Kaberuka and the Reverend Lars sound pretty sincere, I think I’ll pass on this no-brainer. As the old saying goes, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” That plus the fact that Nigerian “419” internet scams are infamous. Many gullible people have been bilked out of tens of thousands of dollars apiece in search of their pot of gold.
A recent television documentary exposed a few of the scam organizations, with the CBS reporter going undercover in Europe and Africa to meet up with the principals and “stinging” them at meetings that were recorded by a hidden camera. The well-dressed black men, who looked like diplomats, bankers, or attorneys, were attempting to obtain “earnest money” to grease the skids for the transfer of the windfall funds to the lucky beneficiaries. When the scam was exposed by the reporters, the confidence men fled on foot. There’s something unseemly about a heavily sweating black man in a fine suit running at full gallop through a crowded downtown London boulevard.
Too many people are gullible and susceptible to scams. The con men know just what to say to convince such people to allow their trust and faith to override reason. Heaven-sent “miracles” are common sales pitches.
One of the best fraudsters of all time was another “Reverend”, Robert Tilton. At one time, Pastor Tilton was purchasing 5,000 hours of TV air time per month, and his half-hour “infomercial” could be seen in all two hundred and fifty-three U.S. television markets. Tilton’s Word of Faith Church was raking in $80 million per year by 1991. Once a sucker landed on the Tilton mailing list, he would be barraged with free gifts (i.e. mailings chock full of testimonials to his good works, accompanied by “magic pennies”, cheap metal crosses, anointed rubber bands, blessed lengths of yarn, holy swatches of carpet, etc.) Each was a part and parcel of an intimate religious ceremony that the gullible recipient could conduct in the privacy of his own home. One of Tilton’s most famous scams was the Miracle Cloth that he sent to his mentally-challenged constituency. “Right now this cloth is plain fabric”, the accompanying literature read, “But after you send it back with a $1,000 vow, it will be a Miracle Cloth saturated with the presence of God. Open the enclosed package of special oil and anoint the point of your need. Let the Holy Spirit lead you in applying this Miracle Anointing Oil and Miracle Cloth in faith to pictures of your loved ones, to your billfold, to the doorposts of your home, and to your body…for special miracles.”
Anyway, I forwarded President Kaberuka’s good news to my brother Terry, asking if he’d be interested in advancing me $5,000 so I could speed up the wire transfer from Reverend Lars in Africa. Terry responded by saying, “I love you, Bro, but money is money. I’ve decided to cut you out of this once in a lifetime opportunity and send the money direct to the Reverend myself… Why split a sure $5 million with anyone?”
Sonofabitch… what a double-crossing asshole he is! I’ll remember this treachery.
Maybe Terry would be interested in some Miracle Healing Cloth…
I’ve decided to hook up with my new African friends and waste some of their time. There is a scam baiting site called “419 Eater” that has lots of tips and techniques to use in annoying the con men. With plenty of time on my hands, I think maybe I’d like to dabble in it. After all, when you’re retired you’ve got to find something to do, right? So, I shipped off a reply to the good Reverend Kampson Lars by simply inquiring, “Is this real?” In some boiler room in Lagos, Nigeria a skinny black teenager sitting in front of a computer is probably high-fiving one of his associates, saying, “We’ve got a live one!” Actually, in Nigeria, the word the con men use is “mugu”, which roughly translates to “fool” in English.
When the scammer responds, reassuring me that my good fortune is indeed real, I’m going to redirect him to a safe e-mail site (jnylovesjesus@gmail.com) and give him a fake name (John N. Yewoff). He can call me “Jack”. I hope I can string him along for a while and see what tricks he uses to get personal information from me or how long it takes for him to ask for money.
UPDATE: I succeeded in wasting a lot of Reverend Kampson Lars time. We spent about a month exchanging e-mails. At first I was innocent, thanking God and the good Reverend for this miracle because I’d just lost my job and my wife had cancer, etc. The Reverend was pleased to help. All I needed to do was forward him some personal information. I did so, with a phony name, address, etc. Eventually, my benefactor needed some earnest money (for African duties or payoffs?) to free up the escroed money, etc. I played along with the bandit and said, “Whatever God needs” to make it happen, I’m okay with that. Finally, my African friend needed a bank account number that he could draw the money from. I gave him a phony bank routing number. He got back to me in short order and said that it didn’t work. Oh, I said, can you repeat that number? Of course he got it wrong…a digit was out of place. Again, he went back to work, trying to heist the money. Nope. At least a week passed, then I got a very stiff, email message from the “Reverend” advising me that I was “not a serious person” and that the $5 million would be going to some other sucker.
I hope this Nigerian “skinny”, sitting in a Lagos boiler room with fifty other sweaty guys, staring at monitors and furiously punching keyboards, gets in trouble with his supervisor for non-productivity. Hopefully, the time that he wasted on me kept the crook from screwing a few other suckers.
Bar Fight 2012
On the radio yesterday, a player in this coming Sunday’s Super Bowl was asked what he expected in the game, and he said, “Have you ever been in a bar fight?”
Oh, I get it. There will be guys breaking bottles and chairs over one another, dudes throwing other dudes through windows, and someone having to restore order by shooting a shotgun into the air. This could be quite entertaining, better than most Super Bowls I’ve watched.
I was actually in a bar fight once.
I was in college (Cal State L.A.), and the Greek Council was throwing a social among all of the fraternities (I was in Delta Chi) and sororities on campus. Normally, most of the fraternity bar-hopping was done just down the road at a place called Itchy Foot Mose. But, on this occasion, the event was held at an auditorium up in South Pasadena. The bar was in a separate room at the back of the auditorium, with one access point. Anyway, I was up in the bar to get some drinks amid a large group of frat guys (and, maybe some local outsiders). All of the sudden, like an explosion, a fracas started up, and within seconds there were maybe 40 guys involved in a “bar fight”, with bodies and things a-flyin’. Terrified, I put my back to the wall and made ready to defend myself. I had taken some karate by that time and might have had to use it. But, almost as soon as the thing started, it ended. Security must have come in the door or something. Anyway, the place was a mess, and everyone slipped out of there nursing black eyes, swollen lips, and bruising. I walked out of that place feeling like Roy Rogers, my outfit still neat as a pin and not a scratch on me. But, my heart was racing about a million miles per hour, and I got my ass out of that party.
As I was thinking about that bar fight near-miss, I remembered the greatest bar brawl I ever saw in a movie. It was in a Chinatown combination bar/restaurant in New York City, as I recall. Steven Seagall, the 6’6” Anglo with black ponytail, martial artist star-turned bad actor, strode into the place where a Mafia guy and his associates were having a peaceful lunch. There must have been a half dozen Guidos surrounding the mob guy when Seagall insulted the Mafia don, looking to start a riot. And, he did. The boss’s bodyguards, who were all packing guns, attacked Seagall with their fists, tableware, and available furniture, but to no avail. He proceeded to break arms, legs, throw guys through walls, savagely stomp testicles, and generally wreak havoc on the place. Reinforcements were called in and a half-dozen Chinamen went after Seagall using various forms of jiu jitsu, karate, numchucks, Samurai swords and kung fu. By that time, the annoyed Seagall was limbered up, and pretty much pureed his attackers into chop suey with a combination of haymakers, head-boinking, joint-dislocations, flying knee-drops, and such. By the time Seagall was through, there were at least a dozen guys seriously injured and the bar/restaurant was totally destroyed. The only fellows who were completely unharmed were the Mafia boss and Seagall, who hadn’t broken a sweat. (Oh, did I mention, Seagall was a member of New York’s finest.) Our cop hero then said, “Let that be a warning to you, Asshole!”, or something like that, and headed back to the squad room for lunch.
I like his style.
John Wayne was another guy who could clear a bar. He would generally cold cock his opponent, throw a guy off the second-story hallway onto a table, or cave in the guy’s face with a spittoon. John Wayne had style, and could take a punch, too. Usually, in his fights, someone would get the drop on him and flatten him for a brief moment, but woe unto the Pilgrim when big Ol’ John got up off the floor. Many of these brawls ended when Wayne would simply bash the guy in face with the butt of a rifle or break a chair over his noggin. Ooooh, that had to hurt! No bad for a 50-year-old geezer with a limp.
I seem to recall that the early Western stars rarely resorted to brutal mayhem, but usually just shot the pistol out of the bad guy’s grip from 50 yards away with a quick drawn pistol. (That’s a trick!). That’s how Roy Rogers and Gene Autry used to do it. Occasionally, they’d get into a gentlemanly fist fight to take the desperado down or they’d sing a song or two to make the guy give it up. “Hey, stop that infernal racket… and I’ll let you hang me!”, the desperadoes probably felt.
I always chuckle a bit when I watch modern TV and movie mayhem. The bad guy’s machine guns never seem hit anything, while the good guys, shooting inaccurate pistols, can strike down a villain from 100 yards. Did you ever notice that movie villains in action flicks starring martial arts experts like Steven Seagall, Jet Li, and Jackie Chan, never use guns on the heroes but, stupidly, want to engage the Black Belts in hand-to-hand combat? And, they line up single-file to do it, never attacking the hero as a group. What good luck that is…for the good guys.
One of my favorite “action” movies is “First Blood”, which I believe was the first in the Rambo series starring Sylvester Stallone. In it, the character, John Rambo, is a Congressional Medal of Honor winner who has returned to the U.S. disillusioned by the War in Vietnam. He’s just hitching rides across America, minding his own business, when he runs into a mean, small-time sheriff, played by Brian Dennehy. The sheriff kicks Rambo out of his town because he doesn’t like the cut of his jib. Boy, was that a mistake! By the time John Rambo calms down, he has defeated an entire battalion of National Guard, set fire to most of the town, leveled the Police Department headquarters, and shot-up the villain Police Chief. The funny thing is…Chief (Dennehy) was warned, early on, that Rambo was the “finest killing machine ever produced by the American military”. That should give pause to any bully. Yet the pot-bellied, Good Ol’ Boy Police Chief determined that he and his squad of Barney Fifes could handle this cold assassin, declared war on him…and, accordingly, reaped the whirlwind. Go figure.
(Our hero Rambo is later re-enlisted, in subsequent sequels, to single-handedly wipe-out operational Vietnamese military bases and the entire Soviet army in Afghanistan. With a bow and arrow and K-Bar knife! Impressive.)
A common theme in action movies is the bully villain picking a fight with the wrong guy. You’d think Brian Dennehy would learn from his experiences, but, gosh darn, the lawman did the same stupid thing in “Silverado”, when soft-spoken Kevin Kline had to put him down. Gene Hackman’s bully Sheriff character made the mistake of pissing off Clint Eastwood in “The Unforgiven”. Now there’s a dude (Eastwood) who you never want to anger, in any of his movies: you wouldn’t want to make his day. What about Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus character in “Gladiator” messing with Maximus (Russell Crowe)? In that case, a spoiled-brat son of a Caesar decides that he can take down a young, handsome, muscular, ex-General, undefeated champion gladiator in hand-to-hand combat. Gee, who’s going to win that one? Or, just about any movie in which the bad guys take on pint-sized, banty rooster Mel Gibson. (He’s producing and directing the movie; who do think is going to win?)
Another good one: Tom Cruise as “Jack Reacher”! If you’re familiar with the Lee Child books starring ex-Army military policeman Jack Reacher, you would recognize that diminutive Cruise is totally miscast as the hero Reacher, who stands about 6’5” and weighs in at a lean 250 pounds or so. Reacher is an ass-kicking Neanderthal who doesn’t take shit from any man…or police force, for that matter. I have to laugh when I see Tom Cruise, in the Reacher role, warning groups of gang members to “just walk away” so that he won’t have to dismember them in hand-to-hand combat. That would be a pretty good trick…in his fucking elevator shoes! HaHa.
Like a lot of red-blooded American men, I think I like these movies because I know, at some point in the story, that there will be some street-justice meted out to the wiseguys and local toughs.
Grammys 2012
The Grammys will be awarded this week to the most outstanding musical talents of the year. These awards have regularly been criticized for politics. Tremendously popular performers have often been slighted in favor of one-hit wonder “nobodies”.
I read today that Diana Ross is going to get a Lifetime Achievement Award. This is some sort of “excuse me” from the Academy for failing to recognize the iconic entertainer during her prime. Ross was, of course, the lead singer of the Supremes, the biggest Motown success story of all. This group had twelve Number 1 singles on the Billboard 100, making them the most successful female group in recording history. They made a movie about the group, “Dreamgirls”. How many Grammy award winners can say that, or boast that they’ve sold hundreds of millions of records, or note that every single Black woman in the 1960’s tried to look like a Supreme? Heck, Michael Jackson had scores of facial surgeries in the futile attempt to look like…Diana Ross. And he was a man. (Well, sort of…)
The Grammy-less Ross is not the only monumental boner that the Academy has pulled over the years.
Can you believe that the Beach Boys, the most popular American band of all time, the creator of a dozen lyrics and melodies that every American knows by heart, never received a Grammy? The same goes for Led Zeppelin, maybe the most famous hard rock band of all time. And, would you believe that Queen, led by Freddie Mercury, the iconic English band that owned the 1980’s, is Grammy-less? In a recent poll, Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” was named the Number 1 rock ‘n roll song of all-time. And, it was written and performed decades ago. Where was the Academy when Freddie Mercury was writing and belting out that jewel?
Who else has been dissed, you ask? How about The Who, the creators of the iconic rock opera “Tommy”, and the theme songs for all three C.S.I. televisions shows. Those guys were the stars of Woodstock, for God’s sake.
Chuck Berry!!! The most influential figure in the history of Rock n’ Roll never won an individual Grammy. Nope, Johnny not B. Goode enough.
All I can determine from these many Grammy omissions is that the Grammys are meaningless. They aren’t a recognition of musical and performing excellence, but something else entirely, probably just industry politics.
Here’s an interesting quiz. What do these entertainers have in common: The Swingle Singers, Bob Newhart, Debby Boone, A Taste of Honey, Bruce Hornsby, Jody Whatley, The Starland Vocal Band, Marc Cohn, and the lip-synching Milli Vanilli fraud duo? They got Grammy’s as “Best New Artist of the Year”.
Say what?!!
Who were losers in this category? How about The Four Seasons, Led Zeppelin, Elton John, The Eagles, Madonna, The Bee Gees, Taylor Swift, The Rolling Stones, and Lady Gaga. You guessed it…these legendary performers didn’t cut the mustard.
Missing the boat on these superstars of the industry is like talking about the Grand Ole Opry and not mentioning Hank Williams. Or, having a Sack Lunch Hall of Fame and not including Peanut Butter and Jelly, or a Baseball Hall of Fame without Babe Ruth. Or talking about Oscar-worthy actresses and not mentioning Meryl Streep. How can the Grammys be taken seriously when they whiff so often?
When his band Pearl Jam won a Grammy in 1996, frontman Eddie Vedder commented on stage, “I don’t know what this means. I don’t think it means anything.” Another honest musician, Justin Vernon of the indie band Bon Iver, probably said it best, “We should not be gathering in a big room and looking at each other and pretending that this is important.” Right on, Brother!
The many Grammy fiascoes bring to mind other industry “awards” honors that have missed the mark. Of course, one of the most notable is the Baseball Hall of Fame which fails to include the leading hitter of all-time, Pete Rose. How about the list of Best Picture Oscar-winners: do Citizen Kane, Wizard of Oz, Singin’ in the Rain, and Vertigo ring a bell? They’re ranked in the American Film Institute’s Top 10 films of all-time, but they didn’t win the Oscar. How about the fact that neither Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Apple’s Steve Jobs, nor Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg have won Nobel Prizes? Perhaps no three men have so changed the world in the past thirty years than these gentlemen, but I guess they don’t measure up. Go figure.
So, to bring the Diana Ross story back into focus, I suppose that when industries supposedly objectively evaluate their peers, a certain degree of nearsightedness and petty politics can be expected.
Do you think?