Happy Halloween

If you haven't seen this Halloween e-card, here's your chance!  

Happy Halloween!!!

Same to you, Mr Cheney!

Sunday rerun: Those lucky Mexicans peso much for phone service

Without even knowing it, when you woke up this morning, you had something in common with Bill Gates. I mean, besides the abiding affection for all things Microsoft. Bill Gates is no longer the richest person in the world, and, unless your name is Carlos Slim, Mexican telecommunications giant, neither are you. So, who is this Carlos Slim, Mexican telecommunications giant, and how do we get to know him a little better? Well, he was born in 1940, making him eleven years older than I. (Guess I better get busy gettin' rich!) And, according to Wikipedia, he's a Mexican engineer, businessman and philanthropist largely focused on the telecommunications industry. He is currently the wealthiest person in the world with a net worth of around US$53.5 billion through his holdings. He was able to raise money for a telecommunications company by purchasing standby letters of credit which enabled him to obtain guaranteed loans which provided the capital.


I have to point out that Carlos Slim is a cool, cool name. It sounds like a great name for a cigarillo, or a long lean beer stein, or just any number of cool, cool items. Remember in Spanish class, when everyone was given a Spanish name so they could really feel Spanish while repeating dialogues in a Baltimore accent? And there were people whose names didn't readily translate, as did Mark ("Marcos"), Robert ("Roberto") and Mary ("Maria"). If your first name was Wilberforce, I am truly sorry, but you had to choose from the unclaimed names left over, and you could now choose to bill yourself as "Carlos Slim."

I also need to point out that I shall likely remain a stranger to the list of richest people in the world, as I have no idea at all what is meant by the expression "purchasing standby letters of credit which enabled him to obtain guaranteed loans which provided the capital" and I promise you, I never will. If you held a gun to my head and forced me to guess, I suppose it has something to do with talking people into letting you borrow money that they promise to pay even if you don't make good on your deal. Or it could mean something else altogether. I'd like to have two standby letters of credit, please! Thank you! That should be enough to get me started. Now how do you open these things?????

I mean, think of it. This cat is richer than Bill Gates, richer than Warren Buffett, richer than Jimmy Buffett, richer than a group of fewer than 53 people who only have a billion dollars to their names.

As Arthur said, "I wish I had a nickel for every nickel I have, and I do."

Congratulations, Carlos. You're looking marvelous today, sir.

Saturday Rerun: Another good one is "Have your pet spade or neutered"

Ladies and gentlemen, the point of today's sermonette is to remind all of us to be careful in writing and speaking. Just to set the mood, I'll tell one on myself: some years ago I sent an email (work-related) to someone higher in rank from whom I needed a favor. I knew she had a lot on her plate, as they say at work and at buffets. So I cleverly started it out, "I know you are very busty, but I was wondering if..."

I don't recall her response, but I'll bet she did more than just spell-check it.

Anyway - how about this for an actual web address - it must have made a fine corporate name, but the name that looked just fine on a letterhead suffered a lot from being squeezed together as a dot.com:

Who Represents?, a company where you can check out actors and others who are represented by agents and the like: www.whorepresents.com.And when Liberty Records pressed several hundred thousand copies of Canned Heat's 45 of "Let's Work Together," some poorly laid-out typography made the title of the song on the flip side, something called "I'M HER MAN," appear to be something called "I'M HERMAN." It should have been a munster hit, but that was not to be.

Verbal slips include Sally Field, the actress once most famous for playing Gidget and then most famous for shrieking, "You like me! You really like me!" upon winning an award, doing the spot for "once-monthly Boniva." Except: listen to the way she says it: "One Smonthly Boniva."

All this came to mind on vacation when we heard what we thought was a commercial for a pizza and sub shop called "Uncle Loogie's." At least, that's the way the announcer kept saying it. Outside of calling your business something even more gross than "Loogie's," I couldn't think of a worse name for a sub shop. So I checked it out. It's Uncle Oogie's. Sounds better that way, does it not?

If you're not too busty, how about some lunch?

How to Ty Cobbs together

Picture of Ty Cobb, for no good reason

This past spring and summer, people whose job it is to worry about the National Football League were all upset because they were certain that the game would be ruined by the new rule which moved the kickoff line up by five yards.  "With no more runbacks, a lot of the excitement of the game will be lost," they moaned.

Randall "Not Tex" Cobb

That notion was dispelled in the opening day of the season when rookie Randall Cobb of the Packers  ran back a third-quarter kickoff 108 yards for a touchdown. And if you want to feel a bit older, please read this:  my Lord, Randall is the first NFL player born in the 1990s. (August 22, 1990) Now will someone please make room on the recliner?  After reading that bit of news,"I'm wearied wi hunting, and fain wad lie down," as they say in sunny Scotland.

You see, there's a poem, "Lord Randall," and there's Randall Cobb the ball player, and then there's Randall "Tex" Cobb, the fighter and actor. Some forty years before RC of the Packers made his run to the end zone, Randall Craig "Tex" Cobb was brought forth into this world in Bridge City, Texas.  He became a boxer and kickboxer at about the same time that America became enchanted with the Rocky legend of the Stallone movies.  (As an aside, please try to catch the documentary "The Real Rocky" on ESPN, about the legendary Chuck "The Bayonne Bleeder" Wepner, a former boxer who claims that the Rocky story is based on his life. Since that story, no matter its provenance, has earned billions of dollars for Stallone, Wepner feels he is due a little slice of that pie.  "No, I don't think so, you know what I'm saying to you here?" is Stallone's reply.)

In November 1982, a Korean boxer named Duk Koo Kim was killed in a bout with American pugilist Ray Mancini, leading to discussions about the violent nature of a sport in which two men get into a square "ring" and slug the hell out of each other.  (In high school, "Boxing" is known as "Locker room.") Then, in a nationally televised fight, "Tex" Cobb fought the champion, Larry Holmes, at the Astrodome for the World Heavyweight Title on the 26th of that month.  Those who saw the fight will never forget it.  Holmes slugged, slammed, hit and pummeled Cobb for fifteen rounds, and it was like a child trying to bring down an Frigidaire refrigerator/freezer.  I can't say that Cobb ever landed a punch on the champ, but he stood there like the Colossus of Rhodes all through the fight.  Sure he lost every round on two of the three judges' cards, and 14 out of 15 on that of the third, but he was still standing at the end!  Bloodied, battered and unbowed, he was.  The other predominant memory of most sports fans from that night was Howard Cosell's commentary, a ceaseless diatribe against the sport that was paying him a pretty penny to cover it, and his vow to have nothing to do with the sport henceforth, which Cobb still calls his gift to boxing. 

That wrapped up Cobb's boxing career, but he went on to even greater acclaim, playing the part of Leonard Smalls, The Lone Biker of the Apocalypse, in the movie "Raising Arizona."  I tell you, the man was a great actor, and the look in his eyes when he realized that Nicolas Cage had pulled the pin on a grenade was priceless.  In fact, he really blew up over it. So good was he at acting that I really thought it was he who rained body parts and boots all over the scene right after that.


That wrapped up Cobb's acting career, and I don't know why.  I read that he kept a promise to his mother, went back to college, and graduated magna cum laude from Temple University in 2008. His degree is in recreation and sports management.  I think it would be the perfect thing for young Randall of the Packers to hire old "Tex" as an advisor.  Can someone look into that, please?

Everyone wants to be wanted

Just like many people running for office, I often comment on things I don't know anything about.  The difference is that I admit I don't know the first thing about why people in India would name a daughter a name that translates to "Unwanted."

I stumbled across this, and I didn't want to: 

MUMBAI, India (AP) – More than 200 Indian girls whose names mean "unwanted" in Hindi chose new names Saturday for a fresh start in life.

A central Indian district held a renaming ceremony it hopes will give the girls new dignity and help fight widespread gender discrimination that gives India a skewed gender ratio, with far more boys than girls.

The 285 girls — wearing their best outfits with barrettes, braids and bows in their hair — lined up to receive certificates with their new names along with small flower bouquets from Satara district officials in Maharashtra state.

In shedding names like "Nakusa" or "Nakushi," which mean "unwanted" in Hindi, some girls chose to name themselves after Bollywood stars like "Aishwarya" or Hindu goddesses like "Savitri." Some just wanted traditional names with happier meanings, such as "Vaishali" or "prosperous, beautiful and good."

"Now in school, my classmates and friends will be calling me this new name, and that makes me very happy," said a 15-year-old girl who had been named Nakusa by a grandfather disappointed by her birth. She chose the new name "Ashmita," which means "very tough" or "rock hard" in Hindi.

The plight of girls in India came to a focus as this year's census showed the nation's sex ratio had dropped over the past decade from 927 girls for every 1,000 boys under the age of 6 to 914.

Maharashtra state's ratio is well below that, with just 883 girls for every 1,000 boys — down from 913 a decade ago. In the district of Satara, it is even lower at 881.

Such ratios are the result of abortions of female fetuses, or just sheer neglect leading to a higher death rate among girls. The problem is so serious in India that hospitals are legally banned from revealing the gender of an unborn fetus in order to prevent sex-selective abortions, though evidence suggests the information gets out.

Part of the reason Indians favor sons is the enormous expense of marrying off girls. Families often go into debt arranging marriages and paying for elaborate dowries. A boy, on the other hand, will one day bring home a bride and dowry. Hindu custom also dictates that only sons can light their parents' funeral pyres.

So, not to insult the culture of India, or its 1,155,347,700 residents, but what the hell?  It costs money to raise a girl there and see her get married, so when the stork brings a baby girl into your life you call that baby "Unwanted"?  I don't get it, but, again, it's their culture and their mores, and there just might be the tiniest sliver of a chance that maybe there are some things about our folkways here in the U S of A that don't add up to the folks way over in Mumbai. 

But naming a child something so damning is only going to put them on a tough road all through life.  I salute the people who have helped these girls chance their perspective by changing their names.  With a happy sort of name, or at least a solid, substantial one, a person can feel good about their chances in life.  With a name that says something bad, that's just not about to happen.

Just ask my buddy Bastard O'Hoolahan how it feels.

On the right track

Peggy and I like to go to the track at the local high school to walk a mile.  Four times around the loop and there you go, a nice stretch for the old pins, and some fresh air too.  And, by walking around a track, you don't have to worry about traffic.  No carloads of kids joyriding in SUVs are going to career past you, and really the only thing to watch out for is the occasional Truly Dedicated Jogger, who will reveal himself instantly by being shirtless and mirthless, with the sort of grim countenance usually seen on Rick Perry as he tries to fumble his way out of a debate.  

This one guy we saw the other day...I just wanted to say, Lighten Up, McGraw!  He had a look on his face, that thousand-yard stare into his healthy future, I suppose, that said I MUST jog another MILE to atone for eating that bite of a cheeseburger the other day!  Jeesh.  Unfurrow your brow, son, and come have a beer.

We also see others our age, out strutting around the oval, and sometimes you see people talking on the cell while they walk.  And kids sometimes just come out and run a lap just to burn off the energy.  

The track engirdles the high school football field, and there is usually a pickup game of football going on as we walk.  I always figure, these guys really must know each other well, because there are no uniforms or colors or any other way to tell who is who or who is on which side.  Whatever happened to Shirts and Skins?  You'll see guys wearing various football jerseys, some tattered t-shirts, some the latest Under Armour gear, but when they huddle and break to to the line for another play, it's tough to tell the offense from the defense.  And we all know there is a rule, strictly enforced in most leagues, that only 11 people are to be on a team at any time.  These pickup games look more like auditions for "West Side Story;" so many guys are on each team, and I'm not even sure that it's ever even.  I'd say it averages 15 men per side.  

And this is tackle football they are playing, no flag or touch for these guys.  It gets tough, especially with no pads, but they're having fun.

Of course, as we walk, I always have this Walter Mitty moment in which an errant pass bounces five feet in front of us on the track, and I pick up the football and throw it back to the players, causing jaws to drop as I let loose a perfect spiral pass of some 40 yards.  "Wow, mister, our quarterback just came down with tyrotoxism.  Do you think you could take his place for a while?"

And, with Peggy's blessing, I go out and lead my team to victory.

In real life, chances are that a football that lands five feet away from me will be reclaimed by a kid forty feet away before I can even bend over to pick it up, but it's fun to pretend.

And you know what; I don't even think there is a victory to be won in this game. Just the other day, I saw a little guy intercept a pass in the end zone and thunder the length of the field, and then they came back and played from there.  No point-after-touchdown, no kickoff, just some kids having fun and not keeping score.  To tell you the truth, I admire them a lot.  They know what recreation is all about.  

The Worse for Wear

Were you ever watching a championship ball game - Super Bowl, or the deciding game of the World Serious, for example - and notice that the very second the game ends, two things happen?

• The camera will show the losing team on its bench or sideline with mournful looks as they watch the victors prancing victoriously
• The winners will break out hats and shirts designating them as Champions

So you have to figure, both teams had their "We are the Champions" t-shirts and hats all made up and ready to wear.  What happens to the apparel made up for the guys who, as it turns out not, don't need it?

Major League baseball destroys their unneeded, unearned, un-champion duds, but the National Football League donates theirs to people far, far away.  Always tight about every last detail, the NFL does not even allow the shirts and hats of the losing team to see the light of day in this country, shipping them, still boxed, to World Vision, a charitable organization in Sewickly, PA, which distributes clothing to developing nations. 

This means that from the Super Bowl played this past January, there were dozens of "Pittsburgh Steelers World Champions" hats and shirts made up for absolutely no reason, but should your travels take you to Sierra Leone, Romania, or Uganda, you will see people who have not the slightest idea of the identity of Troy Polamalu wearing shirts that falsely proclaim his team to have won it all last year. 

What's more, you might see people somewhere sporting clothing that salutes Hines Ward for winning "Dancing With The Stars," but not around here, you won't.

Look closely!

In other worldwide sports apparel news, I love to read the great "UniWatch" blog.  Billed as "the obsessive study of athletics aesthetics," this daily weblog examines sports uniforms in minute detail.  Down to the very last stitch!  They recently showed that the 1972 Texas Rangers, recently transplanted from Washington, used old Senators uniforms in spring training by having some unlucky seamstress (seamster?) remove all the old "Senators" names on the front of the jerseys and then appliqueing the new "Rangers" logos.  This reminds me of a guy who was dating a girl named Mary and had her name tattooed on his bicep, only to break up with her over a dispute involving rent and some other woman's foundation garments that Mary found in the back seat of his Rambler.  So he took up with a girl named Mary Ann so he could save his tattoo by just adding three letters.

UniWatch had this picture on display the other day.
It shows that cable TV, and worldwide distribution of media and apparel, have now made us, indeed, one world.  In Libya, Moammar Gadhafi's 42-year run as Champion Of All Things Evil In The World came to a televised end the other day as the uprising of his own people against him finally had its denouement. The guy on the left in the photo is proudly displaying old Moammar's golden pistol, while Mohammed al-Bibi, on the right, played out his part in changing the world while wearing a (fake) New York Yankees hat!

There was a time when people in other countries hollered "Go home Yankee Imperialist Dogs!" whenever one of our diplomats or Nixons set a well-shod foot upon their soil.  It would be hard to yell that while wearing a Yankee hat.

What might have been and now shall ne'er be

I found this article on AOL, and I have to hand it to the bigshots at the Estrella Network, which I have never seen because it's not on our cable.  But someone there is clearly thinking beyond the norm.  Here's what I read:

Singer Jenni Rivera's talk-show debut a no-go

 

 

Although she announced her excitement over the Oct. 19 premiere of her upcoming show, her excitement palatable with fans as she expressed that she was happy to be more in touch with them, plans quickly took a nosedive for Jenni Rivera.

Through her Twitter page, Rivera announced that her show, simply titled 'Jenni' and scheduled to air on Estrella TV, is officially a no-go.

"My esteemed fans and followers...I'm advising you that as of yesterday, I've officially retired from the TV show with Estrella TV. I made the decision after things didn't work out the way we had planned. Maybe in the future, I might offer you the TV show I very much wanted to present to you. My radio project continues to move forward. Thanks!"

It looks as though for now, Jenni Rivera is putting this project, which she plans to revisit again in the future, on hold to continue focusing on singing, her entrepreneurial endeavors, and her radio hosting duties with her show 'Contacto Directo' (Direct Contact), which launched just a few days ago.

 __________________________________________________________________________

How many people can say that they are "retiring" before even going to work?  What a great way to say, in other words, "This idea just didn't work out so well so I'm going to do something else."  I'm sorry for Ms Rivera. I must confess I have never heard of her before, but I have a feeling we will hear more from her in the future.

Meanwhile, as long as people are announcing things, I guess the time has come for me to announce publicly that I will also be retiring from the following jobs I never started doing:

• President of the United States (will consider a run for the White House in 2016)
• Manager of the Orioles
• country singer known for such hits as "Bucket Full O' Chicken (and a Belly Full of You)"
• Apple Products idea man, responsible for such innovations as the "iEye," which is an web-based personal sized portable magnifying glass, and the "iEye iEye iEye," which is a small video player showing endless "I Love Lucy" reruns
• South American military strongman
• Qaddhafi bodyguard
• chauffeur to Ms Spears

If only the people at Estrella tv had worked for the company that gave us Nate Berkus and Dr Oz, look at all the trouble we could have avoided!

If you can read this, teach a thanker!

Paul Harvey, radio newsman, used to include his favorite "bumper snicker" of the day on his broadcasts.  "Drive like hell and you'll get there" was typical of the genre, although he might have said drive like "heck," as repressed as he was.  

Anyway, I come today to speak of slogans and mottoes and saying of this sort.  I feel that sometimes they are funny and useful, and sometimes inspirational, and sometimes they will cause a person to stop and think.  Facebook status messages are like electronic bumper stickers, a way to let the world know what we think of something in a short catchy phrase.

And that's good.  Most all forms of self-expression are good, except for purely nasty spiteful ones.  "Don't follow me, I'm lost too" might have been carved onto the back ledge of a oxcart in Bible days for all we know, and "Eschew Obfuscation" was funny when I was in high school reading the "Saturday Review" on Tuesdays. Today on FB you can see "DEE FLOWER knows what flavor milkshake brings all the boys to the yard" and you laugh while looking for her address and heading for her yard.  

But I saw something on tv, one of these weight loss shows, and a trainer was meeting a new client and he told her "Pain is weakness leaving the body."  I have to say, this might be a little hard to take for someone who is in constant pain from, say, rheumatoid arthritis or something like that.  Not all pain is good, nor should it be disregarded.  In 99 out of 100 cases, our bodies are smarter than we are, so they send us pain signals to tell us to stop sticking our hands in flames or stop pouring so much alcohol down our neck or stop lifting sofas, lest more damage result.  

But do we listen?  Not always, and sometimes it's because we hear exhortations like "pain is weakness leaving..." A physical therapist once told me that "no pain, no gain" is not always a good rule to go by, because pain can be a signal of doing too much.  It's not so good to parrot out slogans like that, to my mind, when they might not be right for everyone's purposes.  As a matter of fact, some of these sayings give me a royal pain in the you-know-where.  And it's not leaving, either.

Ordering The Court part 2

I'm sure this happens to everyone who lives and works in the county seat wherever you live.  I was there the other day for a trial and it happened again; a guy and his wife asked for directions to the Circuit Court building.

In our system of justice, we have District Court, which is for non-jury cases such as minor thefts, assaults, check forgery, speeding and nepotism.  This is considered minor-league justice and is much less formal.  In fact, it can be downright entertaining to hear defense attorneys plead for mercy for their clients with such gems as these:

• "Your honor, my client freely admits that he did drink a glass of beer six hours before leaving the party, and when the officer saw him weaving on the road home, it was because he had swerved to avoid hitting a mother duck and her six ducklings as they waddled along home."
• "Your honor, it is the position of my client that he could not have been speeding along Cromwell Bridge Road at that time because he is well aware that there is usually a speed trap set up there in the afternoons.  Excuse me, your honor.  I meant to say, a 'traffic enforcement zone'."

• "Your honor, my client had every intention of purchasing the purse, and all the merchandise she had placed in it.  She had taken it out of the store to show it to her mother, who was waiting for her in the K-Mart parking lot. She wanted her mother to see the purse and the five blouses she had temporarily placed in there, so she wouldn't have to take a shopping cart out of the store, which she knows to be illegal.  She simply left the store to check with her mother, and was aghast at being stopped by the security officer."

This all reminds of the old Cheech and Chong bit in which the attorney whines, "Your honor, my client had FOUND those drugs, and was on his way to the police station to turn them in when he was apprehended."

Circuit Court is major-league, involving felonies, juries, and long terms away from friends and family for many felons, except those who already have friends and family in the big house.  That's where you'll see the TV news crews outside, all the camera people hanging around together and all the reporters checking their makeup, waiting for trials to end.  Then, they rush to interview the attorneys, who re-try the case there on the courthouse steps.

Not Melanie.

Speaking of the courthouse steps, it was twenty years ago last month that a local radio station convinced the powers that used to be to let them have a free lunchtime concert featuring "Alice Cooper."  Believing that Alice Cooper was a flaxen-haired woman in a chambray shirt and jeans, strumming a guitar and singing songs of people working on the railroad all the live-long day, the town fathers said go ahead with the concert.  They were stunned to see the crowd that showed up for the show, and even more put out when Alice himself took the stage to sing the mountain folk ballads that had made him so popular on the hootenanny circuit, songs such as "Under My Wheels," "Halo of Flies" and "No More Mr Nice Guy."  The band rolled in about 8 speakers, each the size of a small school bus, and the buildings were still shaking, days after the last sweet note of the encore medley of "Elected" and "School's Out" had faded into memory and oblivion. 


But, what happens a lot, that I started to tell you about, is that people who are on trial for the first time in their life - in this jurisdiction, at least - will approach bagel-toting local employees and ask for directions to this court or that.  So it was not unusual for a red pick-'em-up to roll up to me.  The driver, a young man who had dressed for the occasion in a fine white undershirt, asked me where the circuit court was and where he should park.  I pointed to the courthouse and told him he had a choice of three garages: one right here << and two over there>>.


Here's where it got interesting.  His wife stuck her big blond head in front of his and told me, reproachfully, that "another guy said Circuit Court was down that way!"  


I found myself having to defend my directions, and finally thought it best to keep it terse, so I simply replied, "So? He was wrong!"


Trust me!

Ordering the court

I've been in courtrooms plenty of times (only once as a defendant, and my plea for justice in the case of a cleverly-hidden "No Left Turn" sign is probably a landmark in American jurisprudence by now) and I have a pretty good idea of how things ought to be done.  In my professional life, I have testified in trials ranging from homicides to dog bites, and one thing is certain for me:  the people involved: the crooks and the cops, the evildoers and the lawbringers, and the witnesses who saw everything and the eyewitnesses whose eyes were taking a day off that day, all deserve fair treatment and honesty from the bench.

More and more, I came to see judges who seemed to wish they were on one of those Morning Zoo radio shows, with a sycophant or two making appreciative chortles, and a hapless participant in the hot seat serving as the comic foil. All across the country, judges have been criticized, censured and disciplined because they saw the bench as a stage from which to perform their standup act, while sitting down.  Holding a witness up to ridicule, criticizing the section of town that a person comes from, and grandstanding for the police and other lawyers in the room might give them something to share with the room later, but court ought to held with an air of dignity and probity.

It seems to me that a lot of this started with the popularity of Judge Judy, the shrill harridan who shrieks such witty remarks as "Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining!"(whatever that means) to the stunned people before her.  Once she opened the gates, former judges from all points on the compass were flooding into TV studios, hiring a "bailiff," and swinging the gavel.  The way it worked for Judy and the others was, they would find people who had a bone to pick with someone.  Let's say you let your buddy Howie Doohan borrow your ride to run down and get pizzas for the Little League banquet, and on the way home, he backed your hoopty into a dumpster, causing $834.68 worth of damage.

Howie comes back to you, hands you the keys to the dented machine, and says, "How was I to know they put a dumpster right in the parking lot of Pizza City? I'd complain, if I were you!"

And then he tells you he doesn't have insurance.  Here are your choices:

a) pay for it yourself
b) smite him zestfully around the head and face with a softball bat
c) go on Judge Judy.

Judge Judy and the rest of those shows are always looking for flamboyant, verbose people with grievances against former friends, lovers, coworkers, whatever.  The deal is, you both get paid a "talent" fee for being on the show, and everyone goes home happy, except for the poor sound guy who has to try to control the mic output of Judy's voice.  The people on the show are just doing what they would have done in a real court, but with more theatrical value.

There is a fairly new show that caught my eye one day; it's called "America's Court with Judge Ross."  The gimmick on this show is, they don't even make a pretense of it being real.  They hire actors, and the thing is taped in Hollywood, so there's no shortage of men and women willing to play the part of Roommate Who Got Burned On The Rent Two Months In A Row. or Husband Who Caught His Wife Cheating With the Domino's Guy.  At the very end of the show, there is a split-second flash of info on the screen that says that "all characters displayed are fictional and any resemblance to actual persons is coincidental."

So, when watching judge shows on TV, and heaven knows they are popular all afternoon, we now have a choice between real reality and fake reality.  Let us pray for wisdom enough to know the difference.

Police Lion: Do Not Cross

Hanna, right. Guy who looks like Ned Beatty, left.

Question:  What's worse than looking outside your house on a stormy day and seeing Jim Cantore standing there with a camera crew?

Answer: Living near a wildlife preserve and seeing Jungle Jack Hanna standing around holding a press conference.

So, the press conference might not have come as too much of a shock to the residents of Zanesville, Ohio, who are not sound sleepers to begin with, what with Terry Thompson's Home For Dozens of Lions and Tigers and Bears.  

Oh my.

Here's the story:

This Thompson fellow had a farm, but on this farm no one went "Ee-I-Ee-I-O."  They went "growl" and "roar" and "chomp."  He had over 50 animals - mountain lions, grizzly bears, monkeys, tigers, you know, the usual assortment of critters.  There were cheetahs, wolves, giraffes and camels.


Even a giraffe can be pretty tough to deal with.  I saw a guy get looged on at the Zoo once by a giraffe, and it was not all that funny, according to him.


And Thompson had the usual assortment of issues with the local officials, and people called in complaints about the treatment of the animals, and he went bankrupt a couple of years ago.  And the US Dept of Agriculture took away his animal license because he let people wrestle with one of his bears. 


So you see, this is not a stable American we are dealing with.  Or "were" dealing with, more accurately to say, because he had his Richard Cory moment on Tuesday night, shooting himself dead, after letting all the animals out of their cages AND removing the locks from the cage doors so they couldn't be caged up anymore. 


Well, you heard the rest of the story.  The animals left the farm like you'd expect they would. How are you gonna keep 'em down on the farm, after they've seen the farm?  Most of the animals ran off, although it was reported that several of them hailed cabs out on the main road. The local cops, animal control officers, veterinarians and who-all else came running after them.  Did you know that when you shoot a big cat with a tranquilizer dart, it takes eight minutes for the cat to go to sleepytown?  Well, it does, as they found out in Zanesville.  Do you have any idea how far a cheetah can run, and how many things he can do, in eight minutes?    Ask them in Zanesville.


As I am writing this, they are still out there roundin' up the herd, and one supposes that the survivors will be taken to the Columbus Zoo and forced to appear on tv talk shows with Mr Hanna. 


As I am writing this, no humans have been harmed.  But one guy was arrested for trying to steal the body of a dead tiger.

As I am writing this, Mr Thompson is still dead, and as sorry as I am for those who mourn him, I feel he took the chicken's way out, and I'm not lion.  Bear with me.  I didn't steal these jokes; that would make me a cheetah.


As I am writing this, I am wondering just what it takes to be the sort of person who captures animals who belong in the wild and forces them to live in Ohio. 

All in a spin

I like that "Modern Family" show on ABC, and believe it's the best sitcom on the air right now.  It's even funnier than that show with Howie Mandel - "Howie Met Your Mother" - which would be funnier if Howie showed up every once in a while.

And I think that Sarah Hyland, who plays space cadet daughter Haley Dunphy on "MF" is a very funny actress, but I have just decided that even if she pulls up into my driveway and offers to give me a ride to the Asian Buffet, I'd rather walk.  Ripped from the headlines: 

'Modern Family' Star Sarah Hyland Spins Out To Adele's 'Someone Like You'

Modern Family star Sarah Hyland and her boyfriend had a lucky escape last week after they lost control of their car while driving through a storm.

The young actress, 20, was accompanying her beau to an acting audition when their vehicle spun out of control on a Los Angeles freeway, and Hyland admits the scary incident left them "shaken up."

She tells Eonline.com, "It was so foggy you couldn't see 10 feet ahead of you. He (her boyfriend) had an audition and we were going through lines. He would have been focusing on remembering his lines (but) (Adele's song) 'Someone Like You' came on the radio, so we blasted it to sing along to it. And then we hit a water pocket...The wheels turned to the right and locked and then it spun.

"We were just really shaken up."

What I have always loved about showbiz kids is their total dedication to what they like to call their "craft."  Here's Sarah Hyland, riding along with her bf, in weather that calls for extra vigilance, and he's rehearsing his lines and they're blasting the radio to sing along with a lugubrious ballad, and suddenly they hit what they call a "water pocket," which I take to mean a "puddle."  Instead of, you know, paying attention to the road and all. And suddenly the wheels turned to the right, just like the volume control on the radio, and they spun out!

And I bet he kept doing his lines all along!

My free advice to Sarah Hyland - you're making plenty of money now.  Please hire a limo or call a cab if you two can't stop howling along with Adele instead of focusing on your driving!

My free advice to Adele - please sing like this.

Not that they will take my advice...

How I spent my October vacation

We went to Lancaster PA for a couple of days while on vacation last week, and if ever there was a tonic for the soul, it's that part of the world.  Lancaster (say "LANG-kister" if you want to fit in) is in the heart of the Pennsylvania Dutch country, and what fine people live there!

Instead of the usual sounds of gunfire and contumacious disputes that Baltimoreans have for the soundtrack of their lives, up there one hears the gentle klip-klop of horses and buggies rolling by.  Instead of the stank of air pollution, one smells farm smells - freshly mown hay, produce hauled to a roadside stand. And the locals and most of the visitors that we meet are only too glad to chat, offer directions, hints on good places to try, that sort of thing.

We wanted to try the smorgasbord that my friend Fran, the noted locksmith and food expert, recommended, so we headed off from our motel room to the town of East Earl.  And to get there, one leaves the town of Bird in Hand and drives through a town called Weavertown.  To a place with a 160' buffet line.

I would have walked, to tell you the truth, but we took the SUV.  Good thing we took my cell, because I had to crank up the GPS to find our way home.  For one thing, they don't just decide to cut a road through up there, and leave the farmers to deal with a property that looks like a pizza cut up in random fashion.  The roads follow the property lines of the farms, and the twists and turns can be trickier than following the logic in a Michelle Bachmann speech. So the female who speaks to me from GPS Headquarters, barking out the "turn here!" instructions like some sort of car boss, really had to stay on her toes, lest I miss the turn at Zeltenreich Rd off Musser School Rd.

And it was then that I figured out why it must be heavenly to live up there, a scant ninety minutes from crime-ridden Baltimore.  It's dark up there.  And there are no mercury vapor lights to dispel the Stygian darkness along those serpentine roads. And the people don't have to put up stadium-style banks of lights to light up their back yards, the better to see the invading hordes coming to plunder and pillage their sheds.

Big cities spend a fortune lighting up the night, to make it easier for the police to see the crime scene when they arrive.  Small towns have no need to, as Wynn Stewart sang years ago in a song called "The Tourist," live "where lights make night as bright as day, and day as bright as night."

There was a crime written up in the paper up there.  The one-man police department in one of the next towns over was now short one man, so they had to hire a temp.  The officer they had is suffering from being prone to temporary blackouts, so when he heard a call for a hit-and-run auto accident, he scooted right over, and the female in the victim car told him that it was he who had hit her and taken off.  They called in the State Police, and the officer allowed that if she were hit by a town police car, he must have been at fault, because there is only one town police car.

Why we don't all move up there tomorrow, I can't tell you.  She wasn't injured, no big deal, and the food at the Shady Maple Smorgasbord is something to write home about, so I did!

Captured on film

Please excuse the ad for Hungry Howie's, for the love of Pete, but I think this video is really worth seeing. It's the story of a man who was a tail gunner in a fighter plane in World War II.  The plane was shot down, but by a miracle, a navy ship was close by and rescued the crew of the airplane.  Aboard the ship was an officer who happened to be shooting a film that day and caught everything.  You'll see it all when you click on the video link above.

But it brings two things to mind.

One, these days there is video of just about everything. Malls, stores, street corners, all have cameras rolling.  Most of the time, when a crime occurs, police have a variety of surveillance videos to go through before getting hi-quality images of the evildoers.  If not that, why just about everyone is carrying a cell phone around that turns into a tiny video camera in a second, and when it starts raining beer or something, whoop! out come the phones, and the video is on YouTube in about ten minutes.  So, for that navy guy just happened to have the Bell & Howell film camera going that sunny wartime day, that was something, all right.

The other thing that comes to mind is, how come it took all these years for this film to come out.  I don't want to spoil the story for you; they tell you, when you watch, that the film was stored away, but I wonder why the naval officer did what he did.

Unless it was that when he got home, he was just sick of the images of war.  Yes. I think that was it.

Watch, and think of how it must have been to be there.

No happy ending for this story

Crime marches on, according to my local Patch: 
 Baltimore County police shut down an unlicensed massage parlor on Harford Road in Parkville Tuesday evening and arrested a New York woman inside the business charging her with prostitution, according to police spokeswoman Elise Armacost. 
Li Wang, 38, of Flushing, NY,  was arrested and charged with a violation of massage therapy law and two counts of prostitution, Armacost said. Wang is free on $5,000 bond.
Police executed search warrants at two locations, the massage parlor and an undisclosed address related to the business.  Police also found and seized what Armacost called a "sizable amount of cash."
The unlicensed massage parlor was operating on the second floor of a building at 8910 Harford Road.
"We expect more arrests to come out of this investigation," Armacost said.
"We know there have been concerns in the neighborhood about this establishment, and we’ve been anxious to take action against it," Armacost added.

Of course, all those who live in the throbbing Harford Road corridor have been for some time rubbed the wrong way by the presence of a massage parlor in their neighborhood. 

But here is some advice for those planning to open another Handjob Hilton: try a last name different from "Wang."  Believe it or not, the names of the people involved in a business have a lot to do with how long that business will be around! There was a driving school near there for a while, but no one wanted to send their kids to learn to drive at Rex Carr's School of Driving. Dr Butcher, the surgeon, did not fare well either in our town, and the Russian mani-pedi shop owned by Natasha Kutchahandov  was out of business in short order too.

Just a little free advice from the Bitter Bidness Bureau.

Saturday rerun: 3 things I heard today

1 - On an NFL weekend-preview radio show, referring to Denver QB Jay Cutler, "He's more athletic than people give him credit for." He is a quarterback in the National Football League, and even people who don't care for football would have to admit that it takes a certain athletic proficiency to lead the offense of any of its teams.

2 - Same show, "Make no mistake about it; the Cleveland Browns would love to beat the New York Giants this weekend." Hold the presses! A team wants to WIN its game. And they probably will, as long as they are more athletic than people give them credit for. It just depends on whether their guys truly come to play, and make sure to give it 110%. It's really a matter of scoring more than the other team.

3 - On the phone, the outgoing voice mail message of a fairly prominent local businessman: "Hi, this is uh "Hugh Janus" ; uh leave me aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa message and I will uh call you back."

Now. I've talked with the guy plenty, so he is not afflicted with any sort of speech problem. So now I wonder, it's either a) he was too busy to re-record his greeting or b) this was take 27, and the best he could do (although, again, I have spoken with him and seen him speak to a fairly large group, so it's not a speech problem) or c) he figured he's cool, mistakes and all.

The uh only people who are uh allowed to insert uh into their speech are the uh airline pilots.
Here's noted airline Captain Glenn Quagmire speaking to a plane full of freakin' fliers:

[over the plane's intercom] Good afternoon ladies and gentleman, this is your captain Glenn Quagmire, uuuhhh we're lookin' bout a four and a half hour flight time today, uhhhhhhh got clear skies, good visibility. The temperature in Atlanta is sixty-four degrees, uhhhhhhhhhh the flight is gonna be a little longer than we've expected, uh we've got some very strong head winds, gigity. Uh, flight attendants, please prepare for takeoff.

I don't care

Here is brief list of things that I don't think about, in case you were planning to check:

• whether or not being a Mormon is Christian enough to suit conservative voters
• what two consenting adults do in the privacy of their home, parked vehicle or deep enough in the woods that no one has to see
• whether there is professional basketball
• the career of Russell Brand and his humor
• that chicken who pecked me on the knee when I was a kid.  Hey, Foghorn!  Your descendants were tasty!
• how much snow we get this winter
• what's on OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network
• how awful the Orioles are. It's still major league baseball, and lots of towns would love to have a team.
• eating artificial cheese.  There is plenty of real cheese.
• Eric Cantor's belief that the Wall Street protestors are a "mob" pitting "Americans against Americans" when his teabaggin' friends do just that every second of every day - and the protesters don't!
• what Freud would think of everything.  I mean, sometimes a person can dream of running around the Washington Monument in a hot dog costume and falling into a deep hole without it meaning more than a pepperoni dream.
• all the news reports from "leading medical researchers" who say that drinking a couple of cups of coffee per day will shorten/lengthen/have no effect upon   your life
• the theory that approximate spelling is good enough
• who in hell Christian Bale is
• how it is that people can have a wedding WITHOUT the chicken dance
• how it is the people can have a chicken without the wedding dance

She must have been very mad

As Stewie would say..."here we go.........."

From NBC News:

ARBUTUS, Md. — Authorities in Maryland say two women threw bleach and another chemical on each other during a fight at a Walmart, prompting officials to evacuate the store for two hours and call in a hazardous materials team.

Fire officials say 19 people had to be taken to hospitals, although only one was thought to have serious injuries. That person was taken to the Wilmer Eye Institute with a potentially serious eye injury.

Fire officials were called to the store in the Baltimore suburb of Arbutus shortly before 11 a.m. Saturday.

Fire Department spokesman Glenn Blackwell says one person was arrested and charges are pending.

"This is obviously not the type of behavior we would expect from people at our stores. We apologize for any inconvenience this caused to our customers," Walmart officials said in a  statement.

This is the other end of the county from here,  but do you see what's going on?  Unwilling to rely on conventional weapons, this woman chose to wage chemical warfare on the new girl seen on the arm of her baby daddy, according to the police down there.  And not only did she toss bleach on her rival, she followed that with Pine-Sol, which contains ammonia, and every schoolkid knows, that's a combination that makes chlorine gas and other unpleasant reactions.

They had to evacuate the entire WalMart on a Saturday morning, causing moans to be heard from here to Bentonville, AR.

And then the bleach-bomber showed up at the police station, asking to take out a protective order to keep the victim from getting back at her!

Now I have to worry every time I go into a WalMart.  I can assure you, if you're looking for the guy who is stepping out with your baby momma, I am not the guy.  Among my manifold sins you will not find infidelity.

But there just might be those who would want to toss something unexpected on me in a huge megastore.  For their convenience, here is a list of things that I would accept as incoming liquid projectiles:

• Kozy Shack rice pudding is always nice.  Reminds me of diners.
• English Leather after shave.  It's all I ever use, after I shave.
• National Bohemian beer
• A homemade milkshake 
• Cole Slaw

So you see, there is no real need to toss hazardous chemicals at one another, when much more pleasant fluids can be flung. If you ever see much dashing out of a WalMart with bits of cole slaw trailing behind me, and smelling like I just shaved, please say hi! And I'll share the rice pudding.

There's only one per week

Not that I go in for filling my blog with cheesecake pictures, but the one above amuses me.  Today is Wednesday, and the picture is of Wednesday.  Wednesday Addams, the spooky little girl from the creepy, kooky Addams Family.  The character began in the pages of The New Yorker magazine, in cartoons such as the one to the left <<.

And then the cartoon became a tv show and several movies.

And Wednesday - what a cool name for a girl!  There was an actress named Tuesday Weld, but <<here's the queen of all Wednesdays, as played by Christina Ricci, who now plays a stewardess flight attendant in that "Pan Am" show. 



Happy Wednesday! 

Coming up tomorrow: Thursday!

Advice from someone 90 years of age

Got this online from a buddy, and it contained a lot of wisdom for me...hope you feel the same!

 

  
Written by a 90 Year Old.....

This is something we should all read at least once a week!!
  Make sure you read to the end!!!!!!

Written by Regina Brett, 90 years old, of the Plain     Dealer, Cleveland , Ohio ..

"To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life      taught me. 
It is the most requested column I've ever written.

My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:

1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.

8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.

12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what  their journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.

16. Take a deep breath It calms the mind..

17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.

18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.

19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words :'In five years, will this matter?'

27. Always choose life..

28. Forgive everyone everything..

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.

35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.

37. Your children get only one childhood.

38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.

41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

42. The best is yet to come...

43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

44. Yield.

45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift."

 

Busted

I am happily drinking up all the information to be learned from the PBS/Ken Burns documentary "Prohibition."

I would like to rewrite that first sentence as Hank Williams, Jr, would have put it:

Me and all my Rowdy Friends are happily Drinking UP all the Information to be Learned from Them Liberals at PBS and Ken Burns in that Documentary called "Prohibition."  This was NOT written by Some Publicist.

Back to live action: as always, Burns's film is interesting, well-told, and full of new nuggets.  Such as, didja know that at the height of the lawbreaking, when people came to realize that a handful of abstemious goofs had denied the entire nation their right to sip beer, wine, whisky, and even hard cider, the Boston Globe newspaper had a contest to come up with a new word to describe those who drank in spite of the law?  And two people had to split the prize (which should have been a basket of cheer) for coining the neologism "Scofflaw."  We still use this word today, usually to describe the actions of Bush's Enron contributors. 

And we use it to describe the actions of those motorists who choose to zoom right past a school bus which has stopped to pick up or discharge passengers.  They can't claim not to know the bus has stopped for this reason; it's a huge yellow vehicle with 87 blinding flashing lights, and just for good measure, an illuminated red octagonal STOP sign pops out on the driver's side.

Still, you'll see people stop and then drive past the bus.  Sometimes, you'll even see people sail right on through without so much as slowing down, as schoolkids scatter like duckpins.  This is unsafe and there are laws against it, and here in my county, the police are considering a crackdown.  Give the kids a "brake," if you will.

ON THE OTHER HAND, parents could give drivers a break by putting the kids on the consarned bus!  On many mornings, I am captive audience to a purely American tableau as a certain mother puts her child on the bus.  You could boil a three-minute egg using them as a timer.  She kneels down, gets right in the kid's kisser, and exhorts and inveighs and encourages and I don't know what-all else.  Just put the young 'un on the bus and get on with life, please.

And then, we also get to see the kids whose parents are so against them being exposed to any natural elements that they keep them in the SUV at the bus stop until the bus arrives.  Of course, they are amused by watching DVDs in the SUV, shows with "entertainment" by The Wiggles, a group of men paid huge salaries for singing silly songs.  Anyway, the kids get out of the SUV and saunter over to the school bus with the same plodding gait used by James Cagney on his way to the electric chair in "Angels With Dirty Faces."  I mean, one time I was listening to the Books On DVD version of "The Brothers Karamazov" (as read by Pauly Shore) and he got through two of the three Russian Monk chapters from Book VI while I waited for little Throckmorton and wee Bathsheba to hop on the ride to school.

Clearly, this is an issue that bears further discussion.

Sunday rerun: another of those quizzes

Is it ever too late to apologize? Why or why not?
Absolutely not. It's good for the soul, and one size fits all.

Do mistakes only harm your life? Or do they actually help? Why?
The only mistakes to regret were actions done out of malice. Honest efforts that fall short are still honest efforts.

Do you believe it is possible for someone to lose themselves?
Yes, and it's dangerous in certain sections of the city.

Honestly, does your mind focus on the past, present, or future?
I dwell in the past more than I ought to. It's because I don't know anything about the future, and I can't believe what's happening in the present.

When you say you don't really care, do you mean it?
I don't really care to answer this.

Is there anyone you can say you honestly hate?
"Hate" is a very strong word. "Like to see them boxed up, covered with syrup and dropped off on an anthill" is so much nicer.


Name a moment you felt you couldn't go on with your life.
Never had one and I don't think I will until the day when the Great Umpire calls me out at the plate. So to speak.

Have you ever felt you've fallen in depression?
Only when reading about the Great Depression.

All men are the same, all women are the same. Agree or disagree, why?
All generalities are ridiculous.

Honestly, have you ever purposely taken something or someone for granted?
I always took the leader of the Union Army for Grant.

Would you rather have a true best friend or a boyfriend/husband, why?
I've got them both all in one sweet person!

Would you date someone who had different religious beliefs than you?
People who spend a lot of time around me soon become deeply fervent in their prayers.

Honestly, have you built up your walls from the world yet?
I spend my life knocking down walls.

Your past experiences, did they just hurt you or help you?
"What's past is prologue" - William Shakespeare

Is there anyone you can say really understands you?
Just Peggy. Everyone else is stymied.

Before you love anyone else, love yourself. Agree or disagree?
It's The Greatest Love of All!


Do you believe everyone eventually ends up harming you?
Absolutely not!

Do you always talk your mind or keep your words inside?
I always erase any doubt that anyone anywhere wonders how I feel about anything.

Quick, randomly tell me a quote!
"Don't go away mad, just go away"

Do you think it's possible to be 'different'?
You're asking ME this?

Have you ever walked in the rain while crying?
Yes, but I let a smile be my umbrella.

What has you feeling the way you feel now?
I'm hungry; dinner was 12 hours ago.

Are you a believer in karma?
People who don't believe in karma now will later wish that they had.


Is there anything you want to say to someone? Or has it all been said?
Yes. You know the popular expression, "You do the math!" (denoting that something adds up, with just a moment of reflection)? I want to start saying, "You do the English!" I'll let you know how that goes.

Tell me a promise you've promised to yourself:
Lose weight, get in shape.

Was the person you last texted single?
Yes

Do you get jealous easily?
Oh no. I would hate to think so. I think jealousy is the worst form of human emotion, even worse than that Jesse James.


Who were the last people you saw besides from family?
My work family.

Which of your friends lives closest to you?
Sam and Nancy, right next door.

How do you feel about Diet Dr Pepper?
I'm glad he went on a diet, for his sake and for Mrs Pepper too.


Do you go to the tanning bed on a regular basis?
If God wanted me tan, he'd have named me George Hamilton.

Does your bedroom need cleaning?
It's neat as a pin at all times.

Flowers or chocolate?
Neither, really.

Pretty Woman or Sixteen Candles?
Hint: Long Duk Dong!

Sushi of choice?
Sushi Q!

Do you ever hang out with someone of the opposite sex?
Yes.

Are you comfortable with your height?
Yeah, the view is great from up here.

Anything on your walls?
den walls: Oriole/Ravens memorabilia, old photos, shadow box.

What do you bite more, your tongue, lip, or cheek?
I tend to gnaw on my tongue while sleeping.

What is the last non-alcoholic beverage you had?
Iced tea


Do you have a box where you keep all your important things?
I think there are like 150 of them


Most memorable thing that's happened to you over the summer?
It hasn't even started yet. I'd say the merciless, relentless, searing heat, wilting even the strongest among us, is something I can't forget.

Are any of your friends taller than you?
No. At 6'5" I tower over most people. I know if you clean the top of your refrigerator.

Ever liked someone whose name started with a B?
Bea Benadaret, Bob Brady and the Con Chords, Bobb B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, Bebe Neuwirth.

Have you ever been on a motorcycle?
Yes, back in the restless days.

Where was the last place you were when you got sick?
It's always at home. Hmmmmm.