Bald, Beautiful, and HAIRCUT JUSTICE AT LAST!

Like Custer's troops at Little Big Horn, my hairline has been decimated by an overwhelming and persistent advance of superior forehead over the past few years. The remaining brave follicles seem to be hunkered in above my ears and have formed a horseshoe like defensive position on the south side of my dome.
When I think of the savings on combs and shampoo, I hardly mind at all. What does burn my ass--other than a fire about THIS high--is the amount of dough I have been forced to fork over to keep my puny Poppy properly pruned. Haircuts for bald guys are frankly outrageously priced. Over the past several years I have tried every hair cutting emporium from Supercuts to Sal the barber in a quest for a fair price on what amounts to a five minute process. Invariably they all remark on how easy and quick it is to cut my hair; yet NO ONE offers a discount. The price always seems to be somewhere in the $15 to $20 range for the five minute buzz and appropriate tip. I'm no math whiz, but these thieving weasels seem to be making somewhere north of $100 an hour! IT AIN'T RIGHT!

At last I have found the answer to haircut injustice...

Behold the Remington Shortcut!

I stumbled on this little beauty while shopping at Fry's Electronics last month and my days of being a haircut hostage are finally over. This baby is a godsend! For just $39 I can now cut my own hair--and do a better job--anytime I want. It only takes a few minutes and it paid for itself in only one month. It's a beautiful thing! You just run the damn thing through your few remaining hairs like you once did with a hairbrush, (remember those?), and you're brand new...looking fine.

Justice for baldies everywhere!


The Shortcut is catching on even among some folks who don't actually need it. Check out a certain former president and an unidentified member of the British royal family.

It truly is amazing just how sleek you can look after just a few minutes with the Remington Shortcut.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to see what this baby can do with nose and ear hair...

Brother can you spare $3.23?

After watching my not so lavish portfolio go down for the third time this morning I decided it was time to stop dwelling on economic pessimism for a change. So what if Linda and I spend our sunset years in a cardboard box? It's time to, as mom always said, "Look on the sunny side!"
Hadn't she been right about "not having to drink to have fun"? (Well, actually I'm prepared to argue that one with her.) But perhaps it is time to look for the bright spots in everyday life that we so often choose to ignore.

Bright spots like fine dining at Costco...

How do they do it??!! I'm referring, of course, to the delicious tube steak adventure in lunching that offers you and your date a fine Hebrew National beef dog on a bun with mustard, onions and relish along with a 20 ounce soft drink for the price of $3.23. That's right---two dogs; two drinks and an alfresco table on the parking lot for just $3.23 TOTAL!

I KNOW!!!!!!

It has gotten so that I must be careful when thinking of a trip to Costco for fine dining. Linda, when sensing that a Costco lunch might be on the day's agenda, will have her coat on and be sitting in the car before the suggestion is half way out of my pie hole. (If we get there early, there is a good chance of snagging a table with an excellent view of fat guys loading up their sleds with tasty bargains.)

So, snap out of it America!! Get yourself to Costco for the last real GOOD deal of our lives. It's a dinner date for just $3.23 at a Costco near you. Take it from me, Mr. Romance, your sweetheart will be like wet sauerkraut in your hands after a Funchtime on the parking lot at Costco.

Hey...I have been married for forty years! I have the moves.

(cheesy romantic music up and under)

Not that you asked...

Random thoughts from a random guy...



For my money, there is no car more fun to drive than a Corvette.

Tom Arnold, Craig Ferguson, and Woody Allen always make me laugh.

Women are much nicer than men, and WAY more fun to look at.

The older I get the more I like sweets.

If Clint Eastwood makes a movie, I'm there.

Raw oysters, beef tongue, and bacon and eggs: these are a few of my favorite things.

Harry Reid, Barney Frank, and Chris Dodd are thieving liars.

If you think television shows were better in the 60's and 70's, just watch one and see if you still feel the same way.

Radio is headed the way of the Pony Express and the village blacksmith.

You NEVER get tired of hearing your favorite song.

Cell phones have ruined the art of conversation.

Dogs really are "Man's Best Friend"; cats don't make the top ten.

Convertibles are a slice of heaven on a sunny day.

Midwesterners are the friendliest Americans. Though suspicious of strangers, Southerners are a close second.

I wouldn't live in Phoenix if you paid me.

The older I get, the more I listen and the less I talk. I think that's a good sign.

Telephones are an evil imposition.

There seem to be more helicopters in the air lately.

Baseball is America's best game and the only one that employs no clock.

If it's ice cream, make mine peach.

Richard Nixon, though a lousy president, was a great writer. Read his book In the Arena if you don't believe me.

Reality shows are insipid.

30 Rock and The Office are the funniest sitcoms EVER.

I don't care if I ripped-off this cheesy idea from Larry King

CALIFORNIA: How may we inconvenience you?

All states are screwed up. If you've been around for more than a Hoboken heartbeat you know that the government can run NOTHING! State governments are merely minor league versions of the ineptitude demonstrated daily by the hideous buffoons in charge of our federal store.

In my checkered radio career I managed to drag Linda and the girls to addresses in, by best estimate, ten states. This is our second time as residents of California and most of the time that's okay with me. The Golden State and the West in general is full of folks just like us, natives of other places who wound up here by way of some interesting story. That is the absolute best thing about this realm, everybody has a story. So...I like the place. It feels like home.

There are, however, some problems:

First of all, California has too damn many people. That means too many taxes and WAY too many laws designed by professional politicians interested only in perpetuating their over-paid fat ass jobs. That's why the state is forecasting a deficit of anywhere from 18 to 42 billion dollars this year. (The differences in the projections depends on who you're more inclined to believe: our lying governor or our lying Democratic legislature. Imbeciles ALL!)

Okay, okay...here's what got me going:
One of our cars needed a smog inspection for this year's registration renewal. Actually, two of our three cars (Hey, it's California!) needed to be "smogged". Here's where it gets interesting.
Because my "baby" the electric green Mustang convertible just turned ten years of age, it needed to go to a "test only" smog inspection station. The other car could get its inspection at most any garage that had a state inspection machine, but the Mustang could not.
"No way", was the response when my regular wrench jockey, Ralph, explained to me that he couldn't do the inspection. "You have to go to a test only station with this baby; we're a test and repair station."
"Let me see if I've got this straight," I say. "Because the car is now ten years old and more likely to fail the smog test, I am now required to go to a test only station which will send me to a test and repair station if the car should fail?"
Ralph nodded his head in reply. "It's a bitch ain't it?" "Gotta love California."

It cost me $56 for the smog test at some fat guy's testing station. The Mustang passed. I'm not having an aneurysm. The state is still broke.

California...like a high maintenance woman, you love her but SOMETIMES...

Tell Dave to TAKE A HIKE... This guy is the funniest man on television

For weeks my pal Bill had been telling me to Tivo the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and for weeks I had been nodding my head and forgetting to do it. Bill said, "This guy is off the rails funny". Since he made his bones in the television business and has a great sense of humor, I should have paid more attention when Bill recommended the show.

Wow! When I finally got around to setting the Tivo...er, when my more technically astute wife got around to setting the Tivo for the Late Late Show on CBS, we were both hooked about five minutes into it. This Ferguson guy is WAY funny. And I'm a tough audience.

Ferguson is hilarious in a "pull my finger" way. He's like your goofy cousin or an old college pal who you just like being around. It's observational humor in a "I can't believe he just said that OUT LOUD" mode. There's nobody else like him and maybe that's why he's beating Conan after four years of chasing him. NBC should be worried. In fact, if I were running CBS I'd be moving Ferguson to Letterman's slot just to get a head start on the new Conan hosted Tonight Show. It would be a stroke of genius.
Since Dave owns the Late Late Show in addition to his own show on CBS, my guess is that NO CBS V.P. will be having that particular stroke anytime soon unless he or she wants a "not so friendly" stroke of another kind. Too bad.

Craig Ferguson was born in Scotland but has since become an American citizen. He worked construction in Harlem, been a bouncer in a New York dive, and has done stand-up comedy everywhere from casinos to college campuses and he's only just begun. This guy is going to be BIG.

For now, set your Tivo or video recorder for 12:30 AM Eastern and Pacific. Most nights you'll find Ferguson more compelling than what is on in local prime time. My guess is that nothing can stop this screamingly funny new American from becoming a big part of network prime time very soon.

Leno seems to be a nice guy, but you get the sense that he's "working" at it. Letterman was once funny and now just seems tired and mean. Kimmel and Conan are both good, but Craig Ferguson is not only funny, he seems like a funny PAL and that is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.

All I want for Christmas is a REAL dentist...

What the hell has happened to dentists? Those guys, and now gals, you used to go see for check-ups and the occasional chopper related problem seem to be nothing more than traffic cops these days. If you need anything other than a routine cleaning or somebody to tell you not to brush "like you're killing snakes", well...you're out of luck.

All my life I have been one of those people who makes a dental pit stop twice a year mostly for the ego boost of hearing: "You really have nice teeth. How old are you anyway?" My wife hates me for this as she has had nothing but dental dread all her life. My teeth--bullet proof; hers--as fragile as Madonna's morals.

Imagine my surprise when last week I visited my local dentist because I, for a change, had been having some pain in a tooth somewhere...back there. First of all, this was demoralizing for a guy used to checking in for his "Atta boy!" every six months, but also for what I heard as the doc peaked into my gaping maw.

"This looks like either a root canal or an extraction. Let me get you a referral."

WHAT?? My mind was racing. "You can't take care of this here...and NOW?"

That's when I learned the modern day dental facts of life. Unless you are there for a check-up or cleaning, most dentists will send you to a co-conspirator who will do their dirty work for them. The bastards have figured out a way to charge you "a la carte" for what used to be an all inclusive not so Happy Meal.

Here's how it went for me: ( I have time for this as I rest and wait for the swelling in my jaw to subside.)

My regular dentist charges $67 to tell me that he can't fix my tooth and that I need to go see a root canal guy. The root canal guy tells me, "It will be $1385 to do this job." I reluctantly agree and get ready for some pain. Fifteen minutes into the root canal I'm told that "The root is cracked and further work is useless." Doctor Root Canal charges me ONLY $385 to tell me this and to recommend yet another doctor who actually owns a pair of pliers that, "GASP!", remove teeth. He tells me that he has called the "yanking dentist' and that I can see him tomorrow morning at seven. I am one lucky patient!

The very next morning I show up at Dr. Yank's tooth extraction emporium ready to rid myself of my ever more painful tooth. I spring for the upgrade to "laughing gas" because it IS Christmas and I haven't copped a buzz in years. In just a few minutes I'm whacked on nitrous oxide and minus a honking big toothache. Good job Dr. Yank!

And...he only charged me $300.

The swelling has gone down some since I started writing this rant and I must also confess that my sinuses have never felt better. But, I still want to know why I had to spend $752 and see THREE different doctors just to rid myself of a molar that turned on me.

Next time maybe I'll just head to a biker bar, find the biggest, meanest, nastiest guy in the joint and say something unkind about his mother. I'm sure the tab will be less than $200.

My younger brother, Steve, laughs at me from his home in Illinois. He'll have turkey tomorrow. He has yet to learn about today's dentistry.

The Tooth Dude abides.

It Ain't Christmas 'Til Ralphie Gets His Gun

My wife and I were about the only people in the theater when we first saw "A Christmas Story", Jean Shepherd's recollection of a kid's Christmas in the Midwest of his youth.
I thought the movie was brilliant. It was funny and pitch perfect in its recall of kids and their lives before television, computers and dads who wanted to be their pals instead of their father.
In short, it reminded me of how it was when I was a kid, right down to the pesky kid brother. I never understood why the movie didn't do well in its initial 1983 release. Probably it was lousy studio promotion. But, it has become a TV classic.

I should admit that I was a longtime Jean Shepherd fan. The first time I heard him on the radio, for that's where he began, he was sneaking into the speakers of my little transistor radio via the 50 kilowatt power of New York's WOR. It was late at night when I should have been sleeping. I had never heard anyone like him before when I roamed the nation from under the covers of my cold Michigan bed. In addition to New York, I would listen to stations from Boston, Chicago, sometimes even Los Angeles and dream of someday escaping my small town prison and MAYBE even being able to work at one of these magical stations.

As I said, Shepherd was different. He didn't play the hits. He told stories...his stories, stories like the Christmas Story. Listening to Jean Shepherd was a nightly stream of consciousness that covered everything from his childhood, his time in the Army to what he would be doing tomorrow. He was amazing. If you never heard him, I can't explain. If you are familiar, well...you know what I mean. He made you feel like you weren't alone. You and he shared this special world together, and he was FUNNY.

Flick gets his tongue frozen to the flagpole

So, here we are a week from Christmas and I'm ready. I think TBS is the channel that runs "A Christmas Story" for all twenty-four hours of Christmas. I've still got plenty of time to check my TV Guide, but rest assured that I'll catch it at least twice before the big day is done. Like I said, it ain't Christmas 'til Ralphie gets his gun...Oh, and the Old Man gets his Major Award!

Merry Christmas...

Don't put your eye out, kid.