Really??

Really??!!

You're undecided?

What? You've been in a coma?  How the hell is it possible that ANYBODY with a cerebral cortex is UNdecided regarding their choice in the presidential race?  

My theory:  Nobody is truly undecided.  All of these clowns filling seats in TV focus groups are lying.  They know damn well who they're voting for but are willing to pretend to be vacillating just so they can be the center of attention.  I believe the moniker is "Attention Whore".

After each of the campaign debates I sit like a slack-jawed yokel as these half-wits offer up their silly see through observations and questions only to reveal their true preference via the context of a question or their lack of a poker face.  Why do the pollsters put up with this?  It's simple.  Network executives know that stirring up a big kettle of crazy is just good television; nothing more.

Look Ma!   I'm a moron, but I'm on TV!

How could a person sleep through the last four years?  Most Americans haven't.  They made up their minds months ago.  Leaving the country in the hands of a president with less executive experience than my high school shop teacher--Sorry Mr. Bomgarrs-- is unacceptable.  How about the guy who knows how to make a billion dollars?  Hmmm,  he would seem the logical choice for our national spread sheet.  It's in desperate need of adult supervision.  What to do..what to do?  If you haven't noticed that we're broke and are continuing to spend money like drag queens at a wig sale,  please seek professional help.  Or, maybe, if you seek  attention and money, find out what kind of cheese they're paying to undecided focus group pantloads these days.

In the words of that magical sage, Penn Jillette, "To find the road to Utopia take a left at sex and a right at money and you're there."  Works for me.

This thing can't be over soon enough.
REALLY!

There's always room for another focus group stooge.

A Couple of Good Reads

Often the best books are those that you have to talk yourself into reading.  

A good friend called me and insisted that I read Brothers, Rivals and Victors by Jonathan Jordan.  Naturally, I thought "yeah, maybe when I get some time".  However, he was insistent.  He told me to be sure to read it before we talked again.  

In spite of that kind of persistence, which usually flips my "make me" circuit breaker, I reluctantly began to read the book.

Wow!  This is something special.  Jordan has written not just another history of World War II but a superior glimpse inside the personalities of some of the most extraordinary leaders America has ever produced.  Eisenhower, Patton, and Bradley, West Point educated generals who saved the world from the Nazis are each analyzed with insight and compassion that offers them to you as never before.  It is impossible to read this book without coming away with an understanding of how very different yet complimentary their personalities were and how it all miraculously resulted in victory for America and the free world.  Gone are the cultivated public persona's of each man.  The fragile chemistry that saved us from Hitler's megalomania is in sharp focus here.  You will realize, perhaps for the first time, just how precarious the Allied victory was.  This is fascinating stuff.

Since I read books like I watch TV--guy style--I like to have six or seven books going at the same time.  That way, if I need a break from the war, I can pick another very different sort of read.  Monitor, take 2, is perhaps something only media burnouts will enjoy, or maybe you're old enough to remember enjoying a weekend radio program called Monitor on NBC.  Monitor was the creation of the broadcast genius of Pat Weaver the man who gave us TV's Today and Tonight, and also his daughter, Sigourney Weaver. 

  Monitor was forty hours of radio fascination that ran every Saturday and Sunday on the NBC radio network from 1955-1975.  Features, information, comedy, music, weather and some of the greatest radio talent ever to crack a mic came together as pure audio magic.  Dave Garroway, Gene Rayburn, Ed McMahon, Henry Morgan, Bill Cullen, Jim Lowe and eventually people like Big Wilson, Murray the K, Don Imus and Robert W. Morgan hosted what became the weekend soundtrack for millions of Americans.  It was radio at its finest.  Dennis Hart, a longtime broadcasting professional has put together an exceptional recollection of a "must listen" experience.

Dave Garroway and the 1955 Monitor crew

Gene Rayburn, Monitor's longest running host

Both of these books are available from Amazon.  

To A Grandson On His Third Birthday

Happy birthday Danny!

A boy who knows his way around an ice cream cone!

Three years old and one of the best pals a grandpa ever had.  I knew when you were just hours old that you and I were simpatico,  two guys destined to catch the laugh train to Fun Town and hit all the stops along the way.  You, my boy, were worth the wait.

For a long time your grandma and I thought that little guys like you were the province of our friends.  We hadn't really planned on grandchildren because we didn't want to be disappointed.

 Yet, here you are and we're now three years into the gift that is, well, you.  Already you have gone more places and done more things than grandpa did in the first TWENTY years of his life.  You've seen a palm tree,  traveled to New York City, flown on jet planes, been out of the country, sailed on a boat and visited Disneyland all before your third birthday.  Heck, we're even going to spend the whole day at Legoland this coming Monday to celebrate.  

Who needs cake?!  Oh, that's right your having that tomorrow when your mom and dad throw you a family party.  That will be fun.  Cousins, cake, maybe a couple of those radio controlled cars to play with, it all sounds like a honkin' good time, and you deserve it.

This may be grandpa prejudice, but I think you're a really good boy.  You are perpetually happy and friendly to most everybody.  You willingly share your toys, say please and thank you and readily obey your mom and dad.  When they tell you to do something or, as is often the case, to STOP doing something, you listen and do as you're told.  You may not know it yet but that kind of attention and obedience will serve you well in life.  Mom and dad will always have your best interests in mind.  Granted, there will come a time, probably ten years hence, when you will look at them as fossilized idiots from the planet DIP who know absolutely nothing worthy of your consideration, but that will pass and you'll spend the rest of your life thanking them for being so darn smart.  That's just the way it works. Trust me, I'm your grandpa.

So, here's to the first three years of a wonderful new life!  May you continue to grow, learn and appreciate all the gifts you have.  The future will bring many new challenges that will be far more complicated than those experienced by your parents and certainly by your grandparents.  Always remember that opportunity knocks once but temptation leans on the doorbell.  With luck, you'll be intelligent enough to know the difference.

Winston Churchill, a great man you will learn about as you study history, once said: "Words are the only things that live forever."  In the past year you have begun to express yourself more conversationally and grandpa wants you to remember that your words have the power to help or to hurt people.  Use them wisely.  No doubt, you will forget this advice from time to time, but try to keep it in mind and always do your best to make others feel good.

One more thing:  Grandpa has noticed that you are starting to take a real interest in things like airplanes and pool tables.  Remember as you grow older and start to think about an occupation it is important to choose work that you love.  Your grandpa fell in love with the radio business when he was a boy and spent nearly forty years getting paid for something he would have done for nothing.  You should do the same, though I'm fairly certain that given a choice between aviation and hustling pool the former is the one to choose.  And forget about broadcasting. Like grandpa, that business is going the way of the Pony Express.  Just remember that you'll be defined by the choices you make and the choice of a career is a really big one.

Now. let's have some cake.  Maybe later we'll play some pool.  Gramps will let you break.

Love,

Grandpa

A future in aviation?

Tonsorial Timing

Curly was ahead of his time.

I'm not really sure when I started losing my hair.  As a kid I always thought it would be a horrible tragedy to be sans a top mop and vowed to be first in line for a toupee' should my hair hit the hirsute highway.  Both grandfathers and my dad waved good-bye to their locks by the time they clocked forty and for no good reason I thought myself immune.

Others had warned me that baldness is stealthy.  All of a sudden you catch a glimpse of yourself in a downtown store window and wonder who that man is.  Later, when looking at pictures of Christmas or your kid's birthday, you're asking about the identity of the "bald guy" only to realize it's YOU.

Maybe you give the hair piece ploy some consideration or, more likely, you decide that the dome is chrome and a "hair hat" will fool nobody who matters.  After all, they have obviously been more aware of your ever expanding forehead than you have and, since you're already married, you don't need it anymore.
"I'm over fifty.  Who cares!" becomes your mantra.

Timing is everything.  These days it's cool to be bald.  Guys of my generation prone to male pattern baldness are accidentally in STYLE.  Most of us don't even own a comb anymore.  Heck, I merely run a little clipper over my cranial holdouts a couple of times a month and have probably saved enough money to open my own hair salon.  Sunscreen is the only "product" needed at my summit in this century.  PLUS, and this is a big one, a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal exclaims, "Bald is Powerful".   "A buzzed head can be masculine,  a touch aggressive and, as a new study suggests, an advantage in business." the article explains as it offers examples of company leaders who enjoy the business advantage of being bald and bold.  "People remember the bald guy."

I'm seriously considering a hostile takeover next week.  A bar maybe?  No, wait,  that's a bad idea.  Make it a Dairy Queen.

All bald guys look like movie stars.

So, I think we can all agree, it's a great time to be bald.  Baby boomers of the Y chromosome persuasion have never had it so good when it comes to follicle impairment.

Since pretty much every situation in life is a trade-off, it's only fair that I bring up skinny jeans and Speedos.  Zero percent of bald dudes over fifty look good in either.  Don't even think about it.  Although, you might want to think about it if you're trying to scare yourself in to losing about fifty pounds.  Put simply, it  AIN'T RIGHT.

Speaking of something utterly NOT right for the planet:  The new NFL jerseys have created a league of 300-pound fashion victims.  Have you seen them?

The league switched from Reebok made jerseys to new tighter, sleeker Nike duds this year and the players are NOT happy.  Guts are hanging out from New England to Seattle and it isn't pretty.  Alex Boone, a 300 pounder who plays guard for the 49ers, says that when his wife first saw him in the new garb "she said, 'It looks like you ate a baby."  (a fat baby at that)

Maybe if the players are patient the spare tire look will become fashionable like baldness.  Or, better yet, get the union to insist that league attire feature Hawaiian shirts.

Bald heads and Hawaiian shirts, it's a good look.

"Does this jersey make me look fat?"