Shoot me now!

It occurs to me that we are embarking on a nearly two year long
presidential campaign. If a couple of the big states like California
and Florida decide to have early primaries, we could have the anointed
candidates for each party decided almost nine months ahead of the
actual election.

While the certainty of real comedy excites me
as I picture both standard bearers attempting to explain away every
legitimate and bogus charge leveled against them by the opposition: "Isn't it true senator that when you were thirteen you were caught peeking through the knothole in the girls' shower at camp Hornywood?" The mind reels at how stupid and tedious the whole process will be. A long political career could go down quicker than a Tijuana hooker on a Shriner.

Here
is my solution: Just give it to John McCain. I don't care what you
think of his politics, just GIVE IT TO HIM. Anybody who spent seven
years as a POW can have anything he wants as far as I'm concerned. Give
him the presidency. In fact, do it right now and while you're at it,
.....FREE ICE CREAM FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE.

We're done. Now everybody get back to work.

Yawn.....

My cousin Bill, who lives in Las Vegas, has an entire room decorated with Chicago Bears paraphernalia. I think there's a Raiders room too. I know the garage is resplendent with Chicago White Sox crap. Hey, he's from Chicago and spent enough time in Northern California to drink the Al Davis kool aid.

No
doubt Bill will be sucking down a few cold ones this Sunday while his
butt is wearing a groove in his very fine official Bears Lazy Boy. I,
on the other hand, will be sailing on San Diego bay. I do this not as a
protest but merely as an expression of my disinterest in the whole damn
Super Bowl. Who cares? The game will probably be a blowout, ( it
usually is), and the half-time show will be stupid and unwatchable. I
have nothing against football. I actually watch most of the Chargers
games during the season. (With the Chargers, the post season is usually
not a consideration.)

I know that baseball is no longer
"America's Pastime"; football left it in the dust years ago. But, as
Harry Reasoner once said, "comparing baseball to football is like
comparing chess to "go fish". Football is a lummox, baseball is the good looking one. Baseball is the only game without a clock making it too slow for some, but a thing of beauty for those who understand its subtleties. It comes to us in the Spring fresh and new and, unfortunately, dies in the Fall when we need it the most.

So,
enjoy the Super Bowl if you must. I'll be on the bay taking comfort in
the fact that pitchers and catchers report to camp in a little more
than two weeks.
The Padres are due.

My gift to you...

They're yours.
These million
dollar ideas have been rattling around in my melon for several years
now and since I am an "idea man" and not a person who gets things done
I am giving them to you.

REAL MAN SUSHI: Picture someone who
looks like your Uncle Louie, (okay, my Uncle Louie), standing behind
the typical sushi bar in his wife beater t-shirt. Get the picture?
Here's a real palooka with hairy pits and a Milwaukee goiter just waiting to take your order. Your selections come from the following menu items: salami, Bologna
, American cheese, Spam, and assorted other lunch meats sliced and
presented to you atop either a saltine or Ritz cracker. The beverage
menu at Real Man Sushi would consist of Bud, Miller, Grain Belt and
"get the hell out of here we ain't got that". Take it from me, this is
a can't miss dining adventure.

HEY...CHECK IT OUT! car alarm:
Nobody pays any attention to car alarms. They go off; nobody cares.
Here is the million dollar idea that changes all of that. Imagine an
alarm that sounds like a couple enjoying great sex. Sensual moans and
groans accompanied by X-rated chatter is sure to bring the entire
neighborhood to the scene. Great entertainment for the masses AND your
car STAYS PUT. It can't miss.

I have other million dollar ideas. Hey, I'm an idea guy but I just can't seem to execute a business plan. It all winds up sounding like work. WORK??!!

Now
go; make these wonderful ideas happen. If you are successful, I may
choose to share with you my ideas regarding a low budget colonoscopy. It's still in the early stages but I can tell you that it involves a live mouse and fifty pounds of cheddar.
Interested?

but wait....there's more.

And you thought we were done venting about cell phones....
My friend, Mike, reminded me about the morons who incessantly yak while they're shopping for groceries. "Yeah, I'm near the baked beans...Oh look, they're putting extra lard in the B&M's now." It's almost like the damn phones are reverse GPS systems. Cell phone offenders are always telling somebody where they are. Of course this works out well for husbands with a wandering eye. Instead of getting a lap dance at Scores it's: "Honey, I'll be a little late. I'm stuck in the return line at Victoria's Secret; you're gonna love what I found for you."

The bluetooth thing cheeses me off too. How many times have you thought that someone was talking to you only to observe when you respond that a goofy dohickey is hanging from their ear? Can you imagine how this whole scene would appear to someone like Ben Franklin or George Washington? If they were plopped down in the middle of any major American city today they would conclude that they were patients in a goon garage.

As Blaise Pascal, an influential French mathematician and philosopher, once said, "All man's miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone."
The cat was on to something.

Them and us

It seems to me that we are rapidly becoming two camps: those who love cell phones and those, like me, who hate them.
Lately I've taken to counting the number of cars I see on the road being piloted by people yapping away on their phones. This, I realize, is a half-hearted endeavor because so many of the cell phone addicted are now using "hands free" phones. My big question is: What the hell is so damned important that it couldn't wait until you got where you're going???!!!! My hunch is that the people who love their phones have NOTHING important to relay via their wireless appendage and are merely so bored they cannot stand to be alone with themselves. Pathetic!
I have a friend, actually a good friend, who never fails to call me late in the day while driving home from work. She is a type A who is very much into multi-tasking and, I'm sure, feels like just driving home without doing something else is a complete waste of time. I hate taking her calls. I always feel like an afterthought. You know: "Well, here I am trapped in my car with nothing else in the world to do.......good time to get that pesky phone call to Ol' Ken out of the way." I am constantly tempted to give her driving directions like: "Look out for that Fiat!" "Hey, didn't you cut that guy off??"
I used to, in fact still do, look at my car as an isolation booth on wheels. You know, a place to hide out from the rest of the world, a place where nobody can reach me. When I was forced to take calls during my radio show I always looked at it as a massive imposition. If you were ever a caller to my show, I'm sorry but I was faking any morsel of interest in your call. Let's face it.....I got into radio so that I could talk and you could listen; not the other way around.
My brother, Steve, who is in the newspaper business, (another dying industry), tells me that on many days he takes a shortcut to his job through a local state college campus. He is amazed to observe the number of students shuttling between classes with cell phones pressed to their ears. His lament: "Is everyone afraid to be alone with their thoughts??!!" I have made the same observation at airports and other public venues. Whatever happened to just thinking or reading a book?
Well, I feel better.
Oops, there goes that familiar vibration. Yes, it's my cell. I have "pants waiting" because it feels so good when I have one incoming.
Answer it? Never do.

As I was saying...

Someone, a friend I think, said that it would be a really terrific idea for me to start a blog. Well, how do you like it so far? You see, for nearly forty years I had an escape valve for all of the weird effluva floating around in my head. I had a radio show, usually a morning show, on several stations in various parts of the country. Now that I think of it, most of the stations were on the West coast. Not that it matters where the shows were broadcast, although a vast majority of the truly deranged populace of America dwells on the West coast.

I have not been on the radio for a couple of years now. In radio speak: I got "quit". Radio being a rather carnival like business tends to dispatch people on a whim or the fluctuation of a rating period; so most folks in the business seem to get fired....a lot. Most of my friends are no longer in the business. Frankly it isn't the same business it was when I began my career as a blabbermouth in the Sixties. But what business is?

Well, I'm fairly tired from actually setting up this blog account and I'm sure that excellent observations and sterling ideas will be pouring forth after a pause of twenty-four hours or so......Then again I may take a year or two off. Hey, who said this was going to be easy????