Blog #51

Things end. Let me repeat – Things End!  The Roman Empire ended; Egypt of the Pharaohs is no more; the Soviet Union is gone; The Ottoman, Mongol and Aztec Empires live only in history books.  Even Breaking Bad ended.  And the powerful and glorious experiment in freedom that is America can and will go the way of the Pharaohs.  Is that scary?  I think so, especially when watching how our government has turned into two gangs of six-year-olds shouting “Did Not” and “Did So” at each other.  Politics is corrupt and horrible!  Just look at its Latin origins:  poli meaning many and tics meaning blood-sucking parasites.

But at least out in the local governments we have reasonable people coming up with innovative ways to govern.  Like the new law proposed in California that will make it illegal for a waiter to give you a plastic straw.  I don’t need to make this stuff up.  I only need to read the news from California.

When you buy a Coke for a buck

I’m sorry, but you’re out of luck

‘Cause there’s a new law

Says you can’t get a straw.

Now only the lawmakers suck!

Want a quiz?  I know you love quizzes.  This one is about State names.  If you remove all the vowels, Mississippi would become MSSSSPP and Colorado would become CLRD.  Here are the names of four states with all the vowels removed:  HW – TH – DH – H.  What are those four states?  Oh, and what one-word state has six vowels?  Answers later.         

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well.   It’s March! Change your calendar page.  Do you still have paper calendars with pictures of fuzzy little cats or waterfalls or grandchildren?  Or do you just do all your planning on your smart phone?  If I know my audience, I’m betting on the fuzzy cats.  My calendar has pictures of my grandchildren.  Which brings up a story.  If I’ve told you this before, forgive me.  Who can remember!

When Zachary, my first grandchild, was born, my office desk began to accumulate pictures of him sent by my daughter.  Some were in little frames but most were just lying helter-skelter on the desk.  We went to visit Baby Zach in North Carolina and, when I returned, I found something new on my desk.  My partner had taken all the Zachary pictures lying there and had them framed in a lovely collage to hang on my wall.  Wasn’t that nice?  I looked at all the pictures and smiled with pride until I came to one in the bottom row.  “That’s not Zachary,” I said.  “Well, who is it?” my partner queried.  “It was on your desk.”  And that started an intense investigation culminating in the conclusion that the little boy in the bottom row was the display picture that came along with one of the little frames I had.  I still have the collage – 15 pictures of my little boy Zach and one of someone else’s little boy.  I’ll bet his Grandfather loves him.

If you have flipped your calendar page, you will notice that March is full of interesting stuff.  First comes π Day, the 14^th of March.  You see, March 14 is otherwise written as 3/14 and since π starts out 3.14, some mathematically inclined and otherwise unoccupied clown decided it would be a good day to celebrate π.  I don’t exactly know how they celebrate, but I’m guessing they eat pecan π and πnapple and all kinds of sπcy foods. 

Right after π Day comes the Ides of March, the day when Brutus brutally (see the connection?) stabbed Julius Caesar.  The event sparked widespread rioting to encourage the Roman Senate to pass Knife Control legislation.  Half the Romans wanted to ban knives completely, but the RKA (Roman Knife Association) wanted to make sure everybody had a knife.  Wasn’t that silly?  Anyway, on the 15^th of March, watch out for anybody named Brutus.  Then on the 17^th, watch out for little green men.  Yes, the 17^th is St. Patrick’s Day.  So in the short space of four days, you could get a π in the face, a knife in the back or an Irishman passed out on your couch.  March is a great month!

And March means our little two-week road trip to Florida and North Carolina.  Currently, we are in Florida.  It’s a lot of driving, but always great fun.  I brought three pairs of pants and three pairs of shorts.  Carol brought 400 assorted pants, shorts, jeans, pedal-pushers, bloomers, toreadors and jodhpurs each with at least one associated top.  Matchy-matchy.

I started this blog with the words things end.  I was talking about empires and governments - have you forgotten already?  But do you know what else ends?  Microwaves.  Ours ended.  More than that, it committed suicide in a pyrotechnic flash worthy of the Olympic Opening Ceremony.  So, we measured the space and measured again and took our measurements to Best Buy, where we purchased a new microwave.  I shall call it Microwave 1.0.  It was way too small, but it worked.  It worked for two weeks, after which it started squeaking like an attractive model being squeezed by Al Franken.  Back we went to Best Buy where we replaced it with Microwave 2.0, which was bigger than 1.0 but sure to fit.  We measured, didn’t we?  Any three-year-old baboon can use a tape measure, so it goes to reason that two graduates of Washington University in St. Louis, one with a major in education and the other in mathematics, can be counted upon to use a stupid damned tape measure!  We brought it home and it fit into the opening perfectly.  We were proud.  So, we re-attached the metallic molding around the opening and guess what?

I know you can guess what happened.  I know for two reasons.  One, it’s probably happened to you before and two, you know how useless I am with intricately difficult machinery like a cloth tape measure.  The actual microwave door was too big to fit through the opening in the molding and we took it back.  We now have Frequent Microwave Mileage at Best Buy.  But, every cloud has something or other and Microwave 3.0, though a little small, opens, heats and beeps.  Whew.  It only took a month.  Where was I when they handed out the Competency Gene?  Probably reciting The Raven.

Well, I’d better go practice – once upon a midnight dreary – so I’ll let you go.  Here are the state answers:  HW=Hawaii, TH=Utah, DH=Idaho, H=Ohio and Louisiana has six vowels.  I know you got them all right.

Stay well.  See you next week.

Michael                                             Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #50

I am currently at home watching Olympic Curling.  That’s the event where they slide a big rock (which they call a stone) down the ice while sweeping its path with a broom (which they call a broom).  It’s played like Shuffleboard or Bocce and has all the excitement of a Lawrence Welk accordion solo.  I know you have to be good to compete, but would you call that “athletic prowess”?  Should darts be an Olympic sport?  Or chess?  And the brooms just make them look sillier than Al Franken trying to apologize.  To me, Curling is a Winter Olympic embarrassment. 

The Summer Olympic Embarrassment is the event where two guys on bicycles go as slowly as they can for two laps, then as fast as they can for one lap.  I’d rather watch fish die.  I mean, if they aren’t strong enough to pedal hard for three laps, they shouldn’t get a medal anyway.  I’m getting ready for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.  I’m entering the Chewing Gum While Reciting The Raven event.  I think I have a chance for a medal.

It’s always interesting watching the Olympics with my wife.  We were watching the figure skating last night.  The announcers – you know, the blonde lady and the guy whose hair looks like a pineapple?  Well, these announcers were describing the triple flippers and the quadruple moocows and the quintuple lollipops.  The skaters were magical, flying down the ice and soaring through the air.  And you know what Carol said?  “I don’t like her outfit.”  These skaters have practiced for thousands of hours – exercised, suffered, sacrificed.  They are superb and seasoned athletes.  But one polka-dot out of place?  Get the hook!

Yes, she does say some memorable things.  Like the time I was in a North Carolina hospital.  She was talking with a good friend back in St. Louis.  “Oh my God,” said the friend.  “Michael had quadruple bypass surgery and then a heart-attack and they had to shock him back to life?  How horrible.”  “You think that was horrible?” said my wife.  “I had to drive back to my daughter’s house in the dark at 5:00 am.  And it was sleeting and it took me ten minutes to defrost the windshield!  Now that was horrible!  You think having your chest cut open with a bone-saw is bad?  You think having your ribs spread apart by a huge vise is disgusting?  The cafeteria’s chicken-salad had sweet-pickle in it!  Now that’s what I call disgusting!  And I didn’t like the nurse’s outfit.”   I just love her to pieces.

You all know that Prince was Prince Nelson, Liberace was Wladzju Liberace and Madonna is Madonna Ciccone.  But can you recognize any of the personalities on this list?  Each one is known by a single name.

          Cherilyn Sarkisian          Gordon Sumner

          Paul Hewson                  Leslie Harby

          Edison Nascimento         Alecia Moore

Answers later.

The new type of commercial we saw during the Super Bowl has now bled over to the Olympics.  No product is ever mentioned in these commercials.  There is just singing and hugging and empowerment and hope and support for the oppressed.  The point is to show how loving, caring, diverse and multi-cultural the sponsor is.   It never mentions the product!  Apparently, the product is no longer the point.

We’ve done everything that we should

We’ve adopted each kitten we could

We love Cher and The View

And the immigrants too,

So who cares if our product’s no good?

Welcome back, everyone.  I hope you are feeling well and staying out of trouble.  Every week I try to entertain you and make you smile, but I’m finding it harder and harder to compete with those clowns we have sent to Washington.  Nothing could be funnier or more ridiculous than them!  I mean, if you want to laugh (and cry at the same time), all you have to do is read the news.

For instance, the Obamas unveiled their official portraits last week, and everyone is still talking, arguing and pontificating about them.  You’ve seen them, haven’t you?  His is entitled Potus Salad and hers is called Bland Is Beautiful.  Did you notice that the Ex-President’s left hand has six fingers?

And speaking of presidents, last Monday was Presidents Day.  Did you celebrate?  Did you vacuum the house with your Hoover or drive your Ford or play with your Lincoln Logs?  It’s not good to be a dead President anymore.  I mean, all of them had slaves or mistreated their wives or fooled around or tweeted.  Take Washington for instance.  Remember him?  He was the one who declared Independence, defeated the British and invented the furniture sale.  But he sinned and soon we’ll be tearing down his statues and taking his picture off the dollar bill as well.   

Here’s what I think we should do for the dollar bill.  We should have two different bills.  One should have Oprah’s picture and the other should have a picture of an automatic rifle.  In Smith and Wesson We Trust.

Last week, one of my students at the jail tried to hang himself with a towel, but, just like the rest of his life, he screwed it up and has survived unharmed. It makes you pause to re-examine your life, doesn’t it?

How’s your hearing?  What?  HOW’S YOUR HEARING!  Yes, as we get older, as we reach the age where Happy Hour is a nap, some of us are beginning to turn up the TV volume and learning to read lips.  One of my friends just got a new hearing aid.  “I just bought a new hearing aid,” he told me.  “It cost me four thousand dollars, but it's state of the art. Perfect!”  “Really,” I replied. “What kind is it?” “Twelve thirty,” he replied. (Thanks to my friend, Myron, for sharing that joke.)

Ok, here are the answers:  Cherilyn Sarkisian is Cher, Gordon Sumner is Sting, Paul Hewson is Bono, Leslie Harby is Twiggy, Edison Nascimento is Pele and Alecia Moore is Pink.  Did you get them all right?  Did you get any right?  That’s ok, you can still come back next week.  I’ll be waiting. Stay well, and remember, you do not need a parachute to skydive.  You only need one to skydive twice.

Michael                                             Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #49

Welcome back and Happy Valentine’s Day.  I hope you are feeling well.  Did you get a lot of Valentine’s candy yesterday?  I have a Valentine story to tell you, but I hesitate to do it.  It is 100% true, but a little . . . well, embarrassing.  One Valentine’s Day, many years ago, I went out and bought Carol all her favorite candy and a gushy, frilly, loving card.  She got me a pair of boxer shorts, no card.  The boxers were pink with dozens of little red hearts.  Ok, we hugged and I threw the shorts in a drawer while she ate her delicious candy.

Six years later.  I had been alone for five days.  Carol was at a spa somewhere in Utah, but from there she was flying to Phoenix and I was going to meet her for a little vacation.  The night before I left, I finished packing and went to bed early.  In the morning when I began to dress, I noticed that I had either worn or packed all of my underwear except one folded up pair of boxers scrunched at the back of the drawer.  I grabbed it.  It was pink with little red hearts.  Well, shoot!  All the rest were packed and nobody was going to see them anyway.

Four hours later.  I landed in Phoenix and was picked up by my friend Frank.  Before dropping me at my hotel, he first wanted to pick up something at his house.  We got there, and when he opened the front door, Rosy, his seventy-pound killer Rottweiler, lunged past him and immediately bit me in the ass.  Frank was beside himself with regret and concern.  He begged me to pull down my pants so he could see if I was bleeding.  Well, I didn’t care if I was bleeding!  I didn’t care if I had rabies!  I didn’t care if Lon Chaney Jr. jumped out of a potted palm and told me I was going to become a werewolf!  All I cared about was that I was wearing pink underwear with red hearts and I was not about to expose them to Frank or anyone else.  He insisted; I refused.  Did your mother ever tell you not to wear torn underwear?  You might get hit by a bus and the doctor will see, she would say.  Mother was always right about those things.

Yesterday was also Ash Wednesday, and the Catholic Church has come up with a fantastic idea.  This is the news from a St. Louis suburb:

SUNSET HILLS, MO — People are heading to churches this Ash Wednesday to get their markings. If you are a little short on time some churches are making it as convenient as possible to get your ashes.  They're offering a drive-thru service.

Now that’s clever!  Drive through services!  Get your divinity in your Infinity.  We’ll get you to heaven in your Porsche 9-11.  They should have hired me to do their ads:

If you’re on the fast-track to Hell

Come drive up and ring the church bell

Just roll down the glass

And we’ll save your ass

And rotate your tires as well.

Drive up your Hyundai on next Easter Sunday.  Now that’s what I call a Service station.  I forget the name of the church.  I think it was Our Lady of the Catalytic Converter.  The Catholic Church definitely needs my services (pun intended) to help with their messaging.  Today I passed a cemetery with a sign in front that read: St. John’s Cemetery – Non- Sectarian.  Non-sectarian?  St. Johns?  Why don’t they just name it St. Johns Holy Catholic and Papal Cemetery of Jesus Christ, Our Lord – Non-Sectarian?  Sometimes, I think people don’t realize how silly some of the things they say sound.  Like the sleeping-pill ads that say at the end, Side effects may include drowsiness.  Duh!

Last night we ordered in Chinese food.  It was delicious.  You know, the Chinese civilization is about 3400 years old.  But the Jews have been around for 5700 years.  That means for 2300 years my People could not order in Chinese food.  I wonder what Egyptian carryout was like.  Egg Foo Camel, Tut Stickers and General Ramses’ Chicken, I guess.  How about Sweet and Sour Sphinx?

A couple of years ago I did some research and discovered that all the Chinese food in America is made in Toledo each day and distributed to Chinese restaurants all across the nation.  Have you ever noticed that all the menus are pretty much the same?  Now you know why.

Ok, if the Ash Wednesday thing hasn’t lost you as a loyal reader, another Valentine story should do the trick.  I have a wife and three daughters.  When the girls were little, on Valentine’s Day I would always buy lots of candy and crap for all my Sweethearts.  Even when the girls left home for college and beyond, every Valentine’s Day a package would arrive from Daddy filled with sugary garbage.  Finally, in 1998, my wife told me that all the girls had privately pleaded with her to make me stop sending them stuff that was bad for them and that they wouldn’t eat.  I was sad.  I was crestfallen.  I felt as lonely as Kevin Spacey’s booking agent.  I felt as useless as a Munchkin at a Globetrotters practice.  But, alas, that year I only sent a card.

The next day, February 15^th, 1998, I received three phone calls.  “Where’s my candy?  Don’t you love me anymore?  What kind of father are you?  I’ve been dieting for two weeks waiting for your package.”  You see, my wife believed the candy wasn’t good for them and, I would never say that Carol “lied”, but she made up every damn word of the whole thing and now I was in big trouble.  I immediately went to the store and mailed them a box full of chocolate junk.  Plus, I drafted a letter of apology assuring them that yes, I still loved them.  I sent a copy of the letter to each daughter.  That was back in 1998, and every week since then – 20 years, 1040 letters – I have sent a three-page letter to my daughters.  And at the end of each one, I tell them that I love them. 

And I guess my family liked the letters so much that they encouraged me to start a blog.  So here we are, you and me, talking about Valentine’s Day.  I hope yours was special.  I got boxer shorts.  Stay well, eat lots of chocolate and come back next week.

Michael                                             Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #48

Well, Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow this year.  In fact, he didn’t even make it out of his burrow.  No, this year it was Punxsutawney Phyllis who was raised from her burrow at Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, PA and, seeing her shadow, predicted that the Eagles would win the Super Bowl and that all the Academy Awards would be won by women.  In China, it’s the Year of the Dog, but for poor Phil and all of us other males, it’s the Year of the Doghouse.  The women are taking over and Phyllis let Phil know in no uncertain terms that she was going to be in the spotlight this time.

But you know, whether it’s Phil or Phyllis, I trust the overgrown rodents more than I trust the weather-folks they have on TV, all of whom begin their broadcast with “Good Evening” and then proceed to tell you why it isn’t. Did you ever notice that they go nuts when there is bad weather?  They love it!  They live for disaster!  And if the disaster isn’t frightening enough, they invent words to make it seem worse.  Wind Chill Factor, Heat Index, Black Ice, Category 5, Bombogenesis.  Plus, they love to dive right in.  Fires in California?  There’s Miguel Almaguer singeing his boots on the roasting remains of someone’s house.  Hurricanes in Florida?  There’s Chris Cuomo up to his navel in water, begging you to stay inside. 

I think we should let the groundhog do the weather.  A couple of squeaks from Phyllis while she’s gnawing on a turnip would convince me more than that bunch of Chicken Littles they call meteorologists.  Or is it Chickens Little?  By the way, a groundhog is also known as a woodchuck.  I wonder how many meteorologists could a woodchuck chuck?  St. Louis has its own groundhog – Ferguson Freddie.  He poked his head out last week and was shot by a drug dealer.  I guess that means we’ll have six more weeks of protests.  Rodent Lives Matter.

And speaking of animals, my daughter Abby went on a vacation for a few days, and my job was to visit the house each day to feed the cats and the fish.  I like animals and they like me, so I talked to the cats and petted them.  Then I went upstairs and fed the fish.  I always leave the television on for the fish.  They like:

Dancing With the Starfish or Eel of Fortune, but their favorite is Orange Roughy is the New Black Roughy.  Or I just put on South Pacific.  Their favorite song is Salmon Chanted Evening.

And speaking of music, my wife went to the symphony with some girlfriends.  The seats were close, but too far to the left and all they could see were the violins, so they moved closer to the woodwinds and . . . well, I never thought the symphony was a visual experience.  I don’t get a thrill from watching a guy blow into a clarinet or a bunch of well-dressed ladies bowing their violas.  It’s the music I go for, not the scenery.  Classical is not actually my favorite kind of music, but I can handle (make that Handel) most of it.  I’m really not a big fan of most art (make that Mozart), so when I go I just close my eyes and lean back (make that Bach) and relax.  But to Carol and her friends, the visual is everything.  It thrills them more than shopping (make that Chopin).  I’m pretty sure it’s a sexual thing.

The trombone goes out and goes in!

The stroking of each violin!

The Conductor’s baton

Turns all the girls on

And the woodwinds are sexy as sin!

That’s why one of the woodwinds is called a sexy-phone.  And don’t even get them started about the pipe organ!  And the piano player?  I must admit I’m a bit jealous – must be a case of pianist envy.

Howdy, Y’all and welcome back.  That’s a little Southern lingo because so many of my friends have headed south for the winter.  Are you down there in San Diego or Naples or Palm Springs?  Well, wherever y’all are hidin’ (make that Hayden), I’ll find you and try to make you laugh.  I hope you’re feeling well and staying toasty.

Wasn’t the Super Bowl fun?  Only one punt in the whole game!  For me, the hardest part of watching the game was figuring out what product the commercial was plugging.  The typical commercial was a bunch of people hugging and adopting pets and singing and loving everyone regardless of race, creed, color, sexual-orientation or point-spread.  Then at the end they would flash Honda or something.  Apparently, the new trend is - “Hey, buy my product because we love balloons, hired a lot of women and adopted a three-legged dog.”  Kumbaya!

I had to call an insurance company yesterday, so I called the 1-800 number.  I was instructed to “press one” if I wanted to proceed in English.  I guess if I hadn’t done that, it would then instruct me, in Spanish, to press dos for Spanish.  Then press 3 for Mandarin, 4 for Viet Namese and subsequently to Korean, Hindu, Arabic, Swahili and a list (make that Liszt) of eighty other languages until it gets to Cherokee where it tells you, in Cherokee, that if you hadn’t let all those white sons o’ bitches immigrate in the first place, they could have done the whole thing in Cherokee from the beginning.  Poor Indians!  That was the first Amnesty – let those white folks land here; there are only a few of them.  They work hard and they’re good for the economy.  Press 89 for Cherokee.

From time to time I get lovely compliments from some of my readers, but I also get some criticism.  One group of critics says I spend too much time talking about how old I am, when the truth is that I’m only 72 and don’t look old or act old.  So, to that group I apologize profusely.  Another group says that I sometimes sound angry.  I’m really, really, terribly sorry.  You see, I’ve been married for fifty years and have become very experienced at saying I’m sorry.  In fact, every night, before I close my eyes, I turn to Carol and say, “Goodnight, Honey.  I’m sorry.”  It saves time.  So, to those who say I’m too angry or talk about being old too much, I’m sorry.   But the truth is I’m pretty pissed that I’m old!

That’s enough.  I know you’re very busy (make that Bizet), so I’ll finish up.  Stay well, practice your Cherokee and I’ll see you next Thursday.  And don’t forget next week is Valentine’s Day.

I’m sorry.

Michael                                             Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com