D.C. Is Down ONE Dirtbag

"Me so horny!"

David Wu, the now former Oregon representative, has undoubtedly staked out a choice corner and has a large paper cup ready to transition to his new gig as a Portland panhandler.  It's a natural segue.  Seven terms of chiseling America and chasing teenage girls in Washington, D.C. is an excellent way to intern for every liberal's dream job of becoming just one more bum on the streets of the West Coast hobo holding tank of Portland.  If you've ever been there you know what I'm talking about.  Just walking around the place convinces you that there must be mooch marks scratched all over the city limits sign and a "Welcome Bums" invitation on Portland's Internet home page.  (Yes, modern vagrants surf the net!)

In keeping with today's "no fault" re-set on all infractions, legal and moral, Mr. Wu attributes his unwanted sexual advances on the daughter of a political donor to the fact that he was experiencing a period of mental health challenges that began in 2008 as marital issues led to separation from his wife.  You know, the ever popular "my old lady made me do it" defense.  He used this excuse back in 2004 when accused of a similar incident involving a former girlfriend and the granola eating burnouts of the Pacific Northwest gave him another ticket to the big carnival in our nation's capital where sideshow hucksters have a chance to really perfect their act.  In D.C. the welcome sign says, "Welcome carneys and illegitimate spawn of burrowing rodents"  or something like that.   In other words...guys like David Wu.

And THAT is the problem.  As we watch this farcical tap-dance and phony deadline over the country's debt ceiling you can't help but notice how absolutely awful our elected officials are.  The president and the congress are textbook examples of people who's only marketable skills are the ability to dress up and lie their asses off at a moment's notice.  Somehow I don't believe this is what our founding fathers had in mind.  I'm fairly certain that they intended that we be governed by leaders of industry and commerce who would sacrifice a few years of their professional lives to serve their country.  Patriots working hard to do right by the country would return to their life's work after serving.  There would be NO professional political class as we have now.  We are a nation under the thumb of a bunch of second rate lawyers, most of whom never made a decent buck in that profession, who will do anything to get re-elected to their cushy, well paid, perquisite loaded, no heavy lifting jobs.  We're just now starting to pay for it.

As I see it, America has two choices.  Either we continue down the path we're on and become like Greece, a historical footnote.  Or, we tell the majority of these flannel-mouthed bastards to pick-up their final paycheck on their way OUT THE DOOR!

I'm sure David Wu will save them each a nice corner in Portland.  That's the last place a "Will B.S. For Food" sign still works.

Life Goes On...

It's the natural order of things.
If you're lucky, you bury your parents and not the other way around.  For that I am grateful.
We're wrapping up mom's life.  The funeral was Tuesday and the service was well attended and nicely done.  The minister knew her and reflected on her life with real meaning and joy.  He did a good job.  My brother and I appreciated his effort especially after another preacher had done an embarrassingly fifth rate job of dad's good-bye sixteen years ago.

For a woman of nearly 90, the turnout was remarkable.  We thought most of her friends were dead, but we were wrong.  She had lots of them, many we didn't know, and they came out in force.  She died rich in friendship, a real feat when you consider that dementia had made her a consummate insult artist the past few years.  After the long ride to the cemetery, we took several in attendance out for Horseshoe sandwiches, a local delicacy that mom used to make.  They weren't as good as the ones she created, but tasty nonetheless.

We're home in California now having gladly left the broiling Midwest behind.  Good people...awful climate.

Daughter Katie and son-in-law Doug were good enough to bring 21 month-old Daniel to pay final respects to the great grandma he never met.  Kate snapped what I think is a cute picture of Linda and me holding his hand as we wound up a steamy day in Springfield, Illinois.  Maybe he'll bring some new little person to see us off when the time comes to say "adios" and "thanks for the candy grandma and grandpa" many years down the road.

Mark Twain said, "Let us endeavor to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry."


She did and he was.

End of a long day

An Exit...

The phone is ringing.  It is after midnight.
Where is the damn thing?!  I'm in a hotel room and it takes me awhile to find it.
It's my brother.  He has been trying my cell but, as usual, I have it on mute.
"What's up?"
"Mom died", he says.  This takes a minute to register as I clear my head.  We have been watching her steel cage death match with cancer for the past few days and, I think, both of us are relieved to know she has left the pain and humiliation of that battle behind.
Tomorrow we will meet with the undertaker and plan for her memorial service.

Yesterday and the day before as we sat and stood by her bedside there was ample opportunity for thoughts and observation and, naturally, I have a few:  First of all, why must all nursing homes smell like that?  We spared no expense in finding a really nice place for mom when she no longer was able to care for herself and yet this beautiful facility still manages to smell vaguely of vitamins and pee.  Why?  And why must the staff talk to these now enfeebled members of our greatest generation as if they were kindergartners?  There may be a good reason, but as a very infrequent visitor, it strikes me as unnecessary and insulting.  It makes me wonder how they behave when family is not around.  I don't want to think about it.

As I look around mom's room and check out the family photos we have placed there,  I'm struck by the fact that Steve and I are now older than our parents were in most of these pictures.  Also odd is the knowledge that mom no longer recognizes the image of the man she was married to for fifty-two years.  Dad is a stranger to her.  Sad.

Late yesterday afternoon it occurs to me that the 60's and 70's rock n' roll oldies I have been hearing quietly in my head are not in my head at all but in the hallways and common areas of the nursing home.  Some nitwit has decided that this bubblegum crap that was the soundtrack of my generation, (and most of my broadcast career), is appropriate for folks who loved the big bands, Sinatra and Tony Bennett.  Somebody needs firing.

 After meeting with the hospice nurse, we take some comfort in her assurance that mom had enough morphine to mute the pain of the cancer that rages unabated inside her.  As my brother's family, my wife and I make our way to the door, in the background K.C. and the Sunshine Band wail, "That's the way I like it uh uh huh...that's the way I like it uh huh uh huh".  I think to myself, NO--no it isn't, and go  looking for someone or something to slug.

Eleanor Copper would have been 90 on August 3, 2011.  She was a great mom.


"Riches are what money cannot purchase and death cannot take away."  --anonymous

Messin' With an OLD Friend

 I see that they're rejiggering Jack.  Jack Daniel's that is.  The two of us are on a first name basis because of the roughly thirty years we were an item.  Though now as dry as a New Yorker cartoon, there was a stretch, (1969-99) where I consumed enough of the delicious and genuine rectified bust head to have purchased a vacation home, a boat, my own personal valet, the gross national product of Balize, and a couple of Corvettes.
 What can I say?  I was thirsty.  It's reasonable to assume that Jack had to layoff some folks back in '99 when I jumped off the crazy train.
Maybe that's the reason for all the changes.

You haven't heard?

Here's the deal:  The company that now owns Jack Daniel's Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey has decided on an update of the famous Jack label.  For years sensible and NOT so sensible whiskey drinkers have been reading the venerable black and white script detailing the vital statistics of the elixir supreme.  Here it is:

"Jack Daniel's Old Time, Old No. 7 Brand, Quality Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey, Distilled and Bottled by Jack Daniel Distillery, Lem Motlow, Proprietor, Lynchburg (Pop. 361) Tenn. U.S.A., Est. & Reg. in 1866"


  Now, the corporate types at Brown-Forman Corporation of Louisville, Kentucky want to get rid of the population figures for Lynchburg and lose good old Lem Motlow.  It apparently troubles them that Lynchburg now sports a populace somewhere North of 6000 , has no big box stores, and--MOST important--is a DRY town.  You can make whiskey in Lynchburg but you can't sell it.  Okay...fine.

But LEM MOTLOW????!!!!  Lem inherited the distillery from his Uncle Jack in 1911 and his name has been on the bottle ever since.  Hell, they kept his name on the bottle even after he shot a man on a train while drunk back in 1924.  (He was acquitted of murder--the guy probably had it coming.)  Lem died in 1947 and his sons took over until they sold out to the bean counters at Brown-Forman.  No doubt the boys were promised that "everything would stay the same".  That's how corporate behemoths roll.

I guess this wouldn't be such a big deal if they hadn't lowered the proof of the whiskey a couple of years back.  (Who does THAT?!)  Now, after a few bracing pops of good ol' Jackie Dee a veteran boozer can still actually read the label and be outraged at the sacrilege.  Before the proof reduction you were pretty much guaranteed to be too hammered to read anything.

I still have dreams about hijacking a truckload of Jack.  Lem is at the wheel and his name is on every bottle.  I just know he's saving me a prime spot at that big saloon in the sky.

Also good on pancakes!

The Difference Between Men and Women

"We need new plates," my wife tells me.
I know better than to ask why.  It's what wives do, you see.  Also, on my scale of "so what who cares?" the whole new plates issue is near rock bottom.

Here's the deal:  Before I got married, and I think this is true of most guys, I had an apartment furnished with rented furniture and dinnerware consisting of a couple of old plates and glasses swiped from mom and supplemented by plastic promotional pieces  Ronald McDonald and the Colonel provided with their delicious and nutritious meals.  If I were planning to entertain, there always was a ready supply of paper plates and plastic utensils available from Wally's Gas n' Go which was conveniently located just a beer bottle's throw below and to the left of my swinging bachelor pied a terre.  Mrs. Wally, a rather stout specimen, got her only exercise when she flew from her perch behind the store's cash register to yell up at me whenever spent beer shells landed on the roof of the Gas n' Go.   My friends and I found this hilarious.  The only problem with the arrangement was the increasing difficulty in finding new faces to send down for re-supply.  I don't think she liked me.

Well, when you get married all of that changes.  Wives, for some reason, insist on having regular dishes and silverware--that matches!  (Also, they are decidedly NOT crazy about lobbing empties on Mrs. Wally's roof.)   At the wedding a couple usually receives TWO kinds of dinnerware.  First of all, there is the fine china made specifically for important entertaining.  That set is the one you put away and never see again.  I think we lost our fine china two or three moves ago--can't even remember what it looks like.  Then there is the everyday dinnerware that, I thought, would last an entire lifetime.  As I recall, my parents had the same plates and cups for the entire eighteen years I spent with them.  No matter.

So anyway, about thirty years into being married my wife said to me that it was time for new everyday dinnerware.  I, being male, asked why the hell that was necessary and mentioned that I was just getting used to the stuff we had and was more than proud of the fact that I had only broken about half of it.  These days that is what we call a "non starter".  She wanted new dishes--pronto.  It was Christmas time and my thinking was:  Don't fight this.  You are home free!  I bought some rockin' new green and white dishes at Macy's or some place at the mall--who remembers things like that?--and thought we're fixed for dishes until it's time to check-in to the Mahogany Hilton.

No such luck.

Now, thirteen years later it's time for "new dishes".  I'm not fighting it.  I'm just wondering if my grandson and I can have some fun breaking the old "new" cups and plates.  I do hope they've made some innovations; you'd think they would after all these years.  Maybe some new patterns?  A Shakes the Clown collection?  Donald Duck?  Something!!  How about a bunch of plates that have dividers like those good old Swanson TV dinners?  I'd settle for anything that said HOT and COLD on opposite sides so that I wouldn't keep burning my mouth.


So, that will be the excitement for us this weekend.  Buying NEW dishes!  We've narrowed it down.  Maybe you can help us out.
Which one of these do you like the best?
Hurry up!  I'm getting hungry.

a snooze

Looks like stuff would run off the edge

Nice edges..less spillage