Dinner last night: Leftover pizza.
Friday, January 2, 2026
Happy New Year...in the Slammer
Dinner last night: Leftover pizza.
Thursday, January 1, 2026
Wednesday, December 31, 2025
This Date in History - December 31
406: VANDALS, ALANS, AND SUEBIANS CROSS THE RHINE, BEGINNING AN INVASION OF GAUL.
I thought vandals only came out on Halloween.
535: BYZANTINE GENERAL BELISARIUS COMPLETES THE CONQUEST OF SICILY.
Not to be confused with Ronald Bellisario who used to pitch in relief for the Dodgers.
1501: THE FIRST BATTLE OF CANNANORE COMMENCES.
Which means there's a second, right?
1600: THE BRITISH EAST INDIA COMPANY IS CHARTERED.
Which means there was a British West India company, right?
1687: THE FIRST HUGUENOTS SET SAIL FROM FRANCE TO THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.
Which means there was a second set of Huguenots, right? Okay, I'll stop.
1695: A WINDOW TAX IS IMPOSED IN ENGLAND, CAUSING MANY PEOPLE TO BRICK UP THEIR WINDOWS TO AVOID THE TAX.
Sounds like something our own federal government would do now.
1759: ARTHUR GUINNESS STARTS BREWING BEER.
If that's not something to celebrate on New Year's Eve, I don't know what is.
1790: EFIMERIS, THE OLDEST GREEK NEWSPAPER OF WHICH ISSUES HAVE SURVIVED TILL TODAY IS PUBLISHED FOR THE FIRST TIME.
These days, it's probably read more as Efimeris.com.
1796: THE INCORPORATION OF BALTIMORE AS A CITY.
And later as an American League team.
1831: GRAMERCY PARK IS DEEDED TO NEW YORK, NEW YORK.
But they don't call it Gramercy Park, Gramercy Park.
1853: A DINNER PARTY IS HELD INSIDE A LIFE-SIZE MODEL OF AN IGUANODON IN ENGLAND.
I don't know what an iguanodon is, but hopefully there are windows in case cauliflower was served.
1862: AMERICAN CIVIL WAR - ABRAHAM LINCOLN SIGNS AN ACT THAT ADMITS WEST VIRGINIA TO THE UNION, THUS DIVIDING VIRGINIA IN TWO.
Yes, Virginia, there is another state.
1879: THOMAS EDISON DEMONSTRATES INCANDESCENT LIGHT TO THE PUBLIC FOR THE FIRST TIME.
When does the Consolidated part come in?
1905: COMPOSER JULE STYNE IS BORN.
Is that any way to spell Julie? And Styne?
1907: THE FIRST NEW YEAR'S EVE CELEBRATION IS HELD IN TIMES SQUARE.
Welcome 1908!
1909: MANHATTAN BRIDGE OPENS.
EZ-Pass Lane to follow.
1923: THE CHIMES OF BIG BEN ARE BROADCAST ON RADIO FOR THE FIRST TIME BY THE BBC.
That will wake you up from your hangover.
1937: ACTOR ANTHONY HOPKINS IS BORN.
Have some champagne with those fava beans.
1943: SINGER JOHN DENVER IS BORN.
Thank God he's a country boy.
1943: ACTOR BEN KINGSLEY IS BORN.
A friend of mine used to live next door to him and apparently he has noisy sex. A lot.
1946: PRESIDENT HARRY TRUMAN OFFICIALLY PROCLAIMS THE END OF HOSTILITIES IN WORLD WAR II.
Just in time for the Korean conflict to start up.
1955: GENERAL MOTORS BECOMES THE FIRST US CORPORATION TO MAKE OVER ONE BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR.
Remember this when you think about how these car companies were bailed out of bankruptcy.
1958: ACTRESS BEBE NEUWIRTH IS BORN.
Lilith!
1967: THE YOUTH INTERNATIONAL PARTY, OR "YIPPIES," IS FOUNDED.
Hippies, yippies, what the hell is the difference?
1971: ACTOR PETER DUEL SHOOTS HIMSELF IN THE HEAD.
And just so you know...he's dead.
1972: BASEBALL STAR ROBERTO CLEMENTE DIES IN A PLANE CRASH.
Sad end to a marvelous career.
1983: THE ATT BELL SYSTEM IS BROKEN UP BY THE US GOVERNMENT.
And then all hell breaks loose. In a year or two, there are about two dozen phone companies fighting for your business.
1985: SINGER RICKY NELSON DIES.
Another reason not to fly on New Year's Eve.
1988: PITTSBURGH PENGUINS' MARIO LEMIEUX BECOMES THE ONLY NHL HOCKEY PAYER TO SCORE GOALS IN FIVE DIFFERENT WAYS: EVEN STRENGTH, POWER PLAY, SHORT HANDED, PENALTY SHOT, AND EMPTY NET.
This is important to about three people in this country.
1991: ALL OFFICIAL SOVIET UNION INSTITUTIONS HAVE CEASED OPERATIONS BY THE DATE AND THE SOVIET UNION IS OFFICIALLY DISSOLVED.
Like an Alka Seltzer tablet.
1999: FIRST PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA BORIS YELTSIN RESIGNS, LEAVING PRIME MINISTER VLADIMIR PUTIN AS THE SUCCESSOR.
Well, that was a downgrade.
2001: ACTRESS EILEEN HECKHART DIES.
Nice and clean as far as her estate's taxes go.
2013: RADIO HOST BOB GRANT DIES.
Click. Dial tone.
2015: ACTOR WAYNE ROGERS DIES.
Trapper John!
2016: ACTOR WILLIAM CHRISTOPHER DIES.
Father Mulcahy!
2021: ACTRESS BETTY WHITE DIES.
Just missed 100 by two weeks.
Dinner last night: Cheese and crackers.
Dinner last night: Cheese and crackers.
Tuesday, December 30, 2025
Even Mediocrity Can Be Interesting
It's with sadness I write that Brooks' latest is not very good. Indeed, it has way too many plot points and you just wish that he would have settled on just one or two plot lines. This movie about a young girl thrust into a state governor role could have been interested if only we had to deal with about the girl's five or six other dysfunctional family members.
Now I will tell you that James L. Brooks is one of my favorite writers and directors. Starting with his days on the Mary Tyler Moore show, he's turned out TV and big screen gems. Like "Starting Over" and "Terms of Endearment" and "Broadcast News" and "As Good as It Gets." It's hard to believe that "Ella McCay" came from the same mind.
But I have to give Brooks a hall pass given he is still working at the age of 85. It's unlikely that he will give us more excellence. But I'm all for letting him try. Because even his worst movies are better than 75% of the junk playing on your local screen.
LEN'S RATING: Two stars.
Dinner last night: Light dinner. Salad.
Monday, December 29, 2025
Monday Morning Video Laugh - December 29, 2025
A Christmas leftover.
Dinner last night: Sausage chili from my freezer.
Sunday, December 28, 2025
The Sunday Memory Drawer - The Usual End of Year Drill
Yeah, we've been down this path before. The requisite end-of-year memory drain recounting...
...Past New Year's Eves.
The photo above is historic as previous blog entries will remind you. You may recall my tale of serving as the seven-year-old bartender for some family gatherings on December 31. Here I am on one of those infamous nights. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any photos of some relatives lying drunk underneath the buffet table of cold cuts and German potato salad.
It all came about because I had nothing else to do at these parties usually held at some relative's home or perhaps even our own freezing meat locker of a basement. At this age, I was in a party purgatory. I had nobody my age to play with. My older cousins were usually sequestered in some dark corner of the house with whatever girlfriend or boyfriend they were either groping or being groped by at the moment. They didn't need me hanging around with my nagging questions.
"Why are your hands there??"
I often heralded in the new year with the greeting, "go away, kid."
So, I wound up with the adults, listening to dirty jokes that I didn't get. I'd camp out at the liquor table. My family was so proud of the array of bottles that they would feature at these soirees that I actually have uncovered photos of nothing but booze.
To keep myself busy, I would help my father make the drinks. At first, I was relegated to the placement of ice cubes. Then, I graduated to the insertion of tonic, Tom Collins mix, or whatever soft beverage was being included. At some point, my father decided to go and have some fun on his own and I would man the cocktail dispenser all by myself. Each relative would come up and direct me how to make whatever libation they were desiring. And, pretty much, every dialogue included this exchange:
Relative: "Whoa, you put way too much booze in there."
Me: "Okay, I'll start over."
Relative: "No, no, don't throw it out. I'll drink it."
This happened every single time. It's no wonder why most of my family was tanked by 12:15AM. At this point, they didn't give a shit whether it was New Year's Eve or Arbor Day. When I canvassed my dad's slides of these parties, I could actually tell what time the photo was taken from the looks of some of those faces. In one shot, I saw some distant uncle modeling certain body parts made out of balloons. Now, regardless of your age, every family member at this party was R-rated. Except for me. Hell, even Grandma and Tante Emma would get into the act with a polka.
Back then, this photo meant nothing to me. In retrospect, it looks like a senior citizen center's production of "The Children's Hour."
And, given the stress level of my solitary confinement at these gatherings, I couldn't even calm myself by eating. Not that the food we put out was bad. But, for me, there was one bowl on the table that tainted everything else.
Herring in sour cream. The odor was nauseating. It permeated the entire buffet. The ham smelled like herring. The pickles smelled like herring. I started to smell like herring. And I have no idea who the fuck was eating this shit. I think my grandfather did. As a result, there might have been some years where I avoided him until July or August.
While these parties sometimes lasted till 2 or 3AM, I usually didn't. I'd get bored and head up to bed, carefully tiptoeing around some oversexed cousin who was crawling on top of some date on the stairs. I vowed that the next New Year's Eve would be better for me. It never was.
Oh, it would be years later that there would be some year-end celebrations that would be memorable for me. In college, we once welcomed the passage of time with a raucous hockey game in the dorm hallways, using a friend's crutches as sticks. There'd be another year where I went to a taping of the Tonight Show. As it recorded at 530PM, the audience was coached on how to sing "Auld Lang Syne" six hours early.
There was the year where my fractured shoulder was in a sling and I could barely reach for the dice playing Trivial Pursuit at a neighbor's house. There were years when I remembered what I saw my cousins doing and I put the memories to good use myself. And there was the fateful Eve where I returned from a house party to hear that my mom had just lapsed into an irreversible coma at the hospital. Suddenly, the herring smell years paled in comparison.
And then there was my favorite New Year's Eve of all time. 1984. I had wavered on definitive plans when a good friend called with a bright idea. He and his wife were going downtown to an oldies club called Shout. In the truest spirit of marketing, the place played the song several nights that night. My friends even had another girl going, so we could easily divide the drink bill equally four ways.
To be honest, I don't remember who they brought along, because I danced with so many people that night. The evening was electric. One big hit from the 50s and 60s after another. At several points out on the dance floor, we toasted catcher Gary Carter, who the Mets had just obtained in a trade. At midnight, they dragged out "Shout" one more time. And we did. I kissed a few of the patrons around me. I had no clue who they were. I didn't give a shit. It was that free. And easy. And spontaneous.
We had so much fun that, by January 2, I was already making plans to duplicate it the following year. And we kept spreading the word around other friends as if we were sharing a secret handshake. By the time December, 1985 had rolled around, most of the names in my Filofax had been invited. And I had a girlfriend, to boot. A non-stranger to kiss at the stroke of 12. This was going to be super-electric.
It was horrible.
What had been spontaneous the year before was now over-planned to the hilt.
And the cast of thousands of my friends didn't exactly mesh. It was the Hindenburg of celebrations. To make the gloom even more pronounced, we got word in the middle of the evening that Ricky Nelson had been killed in a plane crash.
To this day, I still don't know what happened from one year to another. I'm not even sure the club stayed open much longer. New Year's Eve eventually returned to "crapshoot" status as far as I was concerned.
These days, I keep it quiet. A nice dinner out with some West Coast friends. I try to call my East Coast pals at 9PM so we can still celebrate New York New Year's Eve at the same time. But, the one constant throughout all the years? I've always been sober.
That's because I always make sure never to get a drink from a seven-year-old bartender.
Dinner last night: Korean fried chicken from the truck.
...Past New Year's Eves.
The photo above is historic as previous blog entries will remind you. You may recall my tale of serving as the seven-year-old bartender for some family gatherings on December 31. Here I am on one of those infamous nights. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any photos of some relatives lying drunk underneath the buffet table of cold cuts and German potato salad.
It all came about because I had nothing else to do at these parties usually held at some relative's home or perhaps even our own freezing meat locker of a basement. At this age, I was in a party purgatory. I had nobody my age to play with. My older cousins were usually sequestered in some dark corner of the house with whatever girlfriend or boyfriend they were either groping or being groped by at the moment. They didn't need me hanging around with my nagging questions.
"Why are your hands there??"
I often heralded in the new year with the greeting, "go away, kid."
So, I wound up with the adults, listening to dirty jokes that I didn't get. I'd camp out at the liquor table. My family was so proud of the array of bottles that they would feature at these soirees that I actually have uncovered photos of nothing but booze.
To keep myself busy, I would help my father make the drinks. At first, I was relegated to the placement of ice cubes. Then, I graduated to the insertion of tonic, Tom Collins mix, or whatever soft beverage was being included. At some point, my father decided to go and have some fun on his own and I would man the cocktail dispenser all by myself. Each relative would come up and direct me how to make whatever libation they were desiring. And, pretty much, every dialogue included this exchange:
Relative: "Whoa, you put way too much booze in there."
Me: "Okay, I'll start over."
Relative: "No, no, don't throw it out. I'll drink it."
This happened every single time. It's no wonder why most of my family was tanked by 12:15AM. At this point, they didn't give a shit whether it was New Year's Eve or Arbor Day. When I canvassed my dad's slides of these parties, I could actually tell what time the photo was taken from the looks of some of those faces. In one shot, I saw some distant uncle modeling certain body parts made out of balloons. Now, regardless of your age, every family member at this party was R-rated. Except for me. Hell, even Grandma and Tante Emma would get into the act with a polka.
Back then, this photo meant nothing to me. In retrospect, it looks like a senior citizen center's production of "The Children's Hour."And, given the stress level of my solitary confinement at these gatherings, I couldn't even calm myself by eating. Not that the food we put out was bad. But, for me, there was one bowl on the table that tainted everything else.
Herring in sour cream. The odor was nauseating. It permeated the entire buffet. The ham smelled like herring. The pickles smelled like herring. I started to smell like herring. And I have no idea who the fuck was eating this shit. I think my grandfather did. As a result, there might have been some years where I avoided him until July or August.
While these parties sometimes lasted till 2 or 3AM, I usually didn't. I'd get bored and head up to bed, carefully tiptoeing around some oversexed cousin who was crawling on top of some date on the stairs. I vowed that the next New Year's Eve would be better for me. It never was.
Oh, it would be years later that there would be some year-end celebrations that would be memorable for me. In college, we once welcomed the passage of time with a raucous hockey game in the dorm hallways, using a friend's crutches as sticks. There'd be another year where I went to a taping of the Tonight Show. As it recorded at 530PM, the audience was coached on how to sing "Auld Lang Syne" six hours early.
There was the year where my fractured shoulder was in a sling and I could barely reach for the dice playing Trivial Pursuit at a neighbor's house. There were years when I remembered what I saw my cousins doing and I put the memories to good use myself. And there was the fateful Eve where I returned from a house party to hear that my mom had just lapsed into an irreversible coma at the hospital. Suddenly, the herring smell years paled in comparison.
And then there was my favorite New Year's Eve of all time. 1984. I had wavered on definitive plans when a good friend called with a bright idea. He and his wife were going downtown to an oldies club called Shout. In the truest spirit of marketing, the place played the song several nights that night. My friends even had another girl going, so we could easily divide the drink bill equally four ways.
To be honest, I don't remember who they brought along, because I danced with so many people that night. The evening was electric. One big hit from the 50s and 60s after another. At several points out on the dance floor, we toasted catcher Gary Carter, who the Mets had just obtained in a trade. At midnight, they dragged out "Shout" one more time. And we did. I kissed a few of the patrons around me. I had no clue who they were. I didn't give a shit. It was that free. And easy. And spontaneous.
We had so much fun that, by January 2, I was already making plans to duplicate it the following year. And we kept spreading the word around other friends as if we were sharing a secret handshake. By the time December, 1985 had rolled around, most of the names in my Filofax had been invited. And I had a girlfriend, to boot. A non-stranger to kiss at the stroke of 12. This was going to be super-electric.
It was horrible.
What had been spontaneous the year before was now over-planned to the hilt.
And the cast of thousands of my friends didn't exactly mesh. It was the Hindenburg of celebrations. To make the gloom even more pronounced, we got word in the middle of the evening that Ricky Nelson had been killed in a plane crash.
To this day, I still don't know what happened from one year to another. I'm not even sure the club stayed open much longer. New Year's Eve eventually returned to "crapshoot" status as far as I was concerned.
These days, I keep it quiet. A nice dinner out with some West Coast friends. I try to call my East Coast pals at 9PM so we can still celebrate New York New Year's Eve at the same time. But, the one constant throughout all the years? I've always been sober.
That's because I always make sure never to get a drink from a seven-year-old bartender.
Dinner last night: Korean fried chicken from the truck.
Saturday, December 27, 2025
Classic Movie Trailer of the Month - December 2025
Remembering Diane Keaton this holiday season with one of her more unappreciated performances.
Dinner last night: Cheese and crackers.
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