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Destination: Unknown

 My oldest sister once planned a destination Thanksgiving for the family. There were seven of us kids at the time, and her idea was to ease the burden on our mom by having each sibling host turkey day at their home. Mom was, of course, still alive and kicking then, and hosting big family parties was something she loved to do and was very good at doing. She had given absolutely no indication that she was tiring of hosting. So, what was the impetus? Well, big sis had simply decided we should all take turns because she is a narcissist and wants things done to suit her desires and needs. OK, she didn't put it that way at all, but I know this person after many decades of being her brother. Well, I thought  I did. It was a dumb, very unnecessary idea, likely designed more to hurt mom than ease any imagined burden. It most definitely was intended to assert dominance. I was living in Memphis at the time, 500-some miles away from the rest of the brothers and sisters. I'm the oldest bo...
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Justice

 For the past six years, Trump has been telling anyone who is forced to listen to him, from school children to heads of state, that the 2020 election was "stollen" from him. We are used to this and treat it as simply more of his usual cringe. The guy is a documented, unrepentant and incorrigible asshole. We sigh and say, "Shut up about that shit! You lost! Man up and get over it! Yikes- do you even have  a dick??!! Pretend that you have one, be a man and don't cry about losing!" Well, that's what I say, at least. Others might be more eloquent or more vitriolic.  I was actually embarrassed for the guy when he immediately began whining like a schoolboy at his defeat. We are used to politicians who handle their losses professionally, showing the obvious disappointment, but also the resolve to carry on. Trump only resolved to carryon like a whiney little bitch. He somehow won in 2024, and you would have thought that would shut him up, but not even close. He'...
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To Pee, or Not to Pee. That's a Question?

As a disgruntled Cubs fan, I'm a bit miffed at the team these days. You might say I'm pissed. But is it better to be pissed off, or pissed on, and is that a do-it-yourself option?  In Major League baseball it can be. Our ace pitcher- Edwin Cabrera- left the game in the fourth inning after he developed a blister on his pitching hand. This happens to a lot of pitchers and has haunted him all his career. You throw a baseball umpteen thousands of times and it could certainly happen to you. Two great Cubs pitchers (Rick "Big Daddy" Rueschel and Kerry Wood) both were prone to developing blisters. When you make your living with your hand, this can be devasting.  What to do about it? Salves and lotions are an option, but you really want to toughen up those hands. One of the great lefthanders of all-time, Steve "Lefty" Carlton, had a regimen where he would thrust his open-palmed hands into a bucket of uncooked rice. If I recall correctly, he dabbled in the martial ar...
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Last Chance America

 Everyone is excited and anxious for Trump to die. People look at his disgusting little hands as they become different shades of death each day and they can't help but hope for the worst, which is the best. What the heck does the rest of his body look like? We don't want to know that.  He may well be aware of his mortality. Maybe. He might believe Dr. Ronny Jackson's assessment that he would live to be 200 years old. The guy believes a lot of off-the-wall shit, about batteries, windmills and sharks, to name just a few. It seems he believes whatever he is told, as long as he wants to believe it.  Hitler believed he was setting up Germany for a thousand-year reich. Say what you will about Hitler (he was an idiot, but he wasn't stupid) he likely never believed he was going to be THE  guy for those thousand years. Trump probably doesn't either, but who really knows? Maybe Jake Tapper, but we will have to wait for the book.  If it seems like the magapublicans are rus...
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I Can't Quit You: Part II, Maybe III?

 As has been well documented in this space, I have a lot of trouble with streaming services, mostly with quitting them. Recently I was getting phone texts from HBO/Max about their being a *problem* with my payment method. Since my bank makes those payments and there had never been a misstep from them before, I figured this was a third-party scam or the (alleged) problem was that they wanted to charge me more and the bank wasn't cooperating with that. Not liking either scenario, I opted to ignore. Season II of "The Pitt" is over until next January and I had recently completed my umpteenth bingeing of "The Sopranos". The other HBO attraction, John Oliver's "Last Week Tonight" is available quickly enough on YouTube. I don't really need HBO until next year. So, they warned me and I dallied. And I lost it. No biggee.  I found out it was gone when I went to finish up a short-lived, 8-episode series from HBO called "Duster". Set in the '...
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"Now batting...Miissstteeerrr FERRERMAN!!!!"

 I was thinking how great it would be to be a Major League baseball player. I'm not 8 years old again or thinking of trying out for the Cubs or anything like that. Just been thinking it's an amazing job to have, even if it's hard to think of "professional athlete" being considered a "job". But it is and its nice work if you can get it.  Thing is, it's hard to get. The road to the majors is quite the Odessey for nearly every player. They pay their dues from Little League and travel teams before they can shave, to high school and travel teams before they get scouted and into an MLB team's farm system where the next stop may be- but probably won't be- the big leagues. Along the way, each player is competing with and against the best players from wherever they are from in the states and in the world. If you don't get better, someone else will. There are 780 players in the bigs right now, and not all those slots are open as many are held by so...
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The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Ferrermen

 In my commercial painting career, I worked for some big outfits that did things like sports arenas and hotels. If anything was too big or beyond the scope of the company's usual expertise, they could always sub the work out to people who actually knew what they were doing. In fact, the arguably best outfit I worked for, had a vision of eliminating ALL  the pesky labor and the burden of overhead and all the day to day yada-yada of actually working, to sit back and make their fortune by "...subbing out work- just like The Walter Brothers". I heard that exact phrase for years while working at Ratmo Construction LLC. Their dream was to be gentlemen of leisure, bidding on jobs and subbing them out to others who still had to work for a living. Pimping, but without the stable of ladies, and never having to get their hands dirty. Nice work if you can get it, I suppose, but not really interesting or accomplishing anything. I was thinking of Ratmo recently and wondering if they ha...
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