This Date in History - June 18

 

One of my regular readers would be very angry if I didn't put Sir Paul McCartney center stage on this, his birthday.

1053:  3,000 HORSEMEN OF NORMAN COUNT HUMPHREY ROUT THE TROOPS OF POPE LEO IX.

Back in the day when Popes rode horses and not bubble-topped jeeps.

1264: THE PARLIAMENT OF IRELAND MEETS AT CASTLEDERMOT IN COUNTY KILDARE.

Right down the road is County Gillespie.

1429:  FRENCH FORCES UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF JOAN OF ARC DEFEAT THE MAIN BRITISH ARMY IN THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR.

Yeah, she's hot now.   But she'll get even hotter.

1684:  THE CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY IS REVOKED VIA SCIRE FACIAS WRIT.

A scire facias what?

1767:  ENGLISH SEA CAPTAIN SAMUEL WALLIS SIGHTS TAHITI AND IS CONSIDERED THE FIRST EUROPEAN TO REACH THE ISLAND.

No dummy is he.

1778:  DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, BRITISH TROOPS ABANDON PHILADELPHIA.

What? The Phillies on a losing streak?

1812:  DURING THE WAR OF 1812, THE US CONGRESS DECLARES WAR ON GREAT BRITAIN, CANADA, AND IRELAND.

England and Ireland on the same side?  Who would have thunk?

1858:  CHARLES DARWIN RECEIVES A PAPER FROM ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE THAT INCLUDES NEARLY IDENTICAL CONCLUSIONS ABOUT EVOLUTION AS HIS OWN, PROMPTING DARWIN TO PUBLISH HIS THEORY.

Or else they would have been fighting over Wallace in "Inherit the Wind."

1873:  SUSAN B. ANTHONY IS FINED $100 FOR ATTEMPTING TO VOTE.

These days, they should pay me $100 to vote.

1900:  EMPRESS DOWAGER LONGYU OF CHINA ORDERS ALL FOREIGNERS KILLED.

Anybody who walks in Times Square and down Hollywood Boulevard during the summer knows the feeling.

1904:  ACTOR KEYE LUKE IS BORN.

Number One Son!

1908:  TV HOST BUD COLLYER IS BORN.

His mother thought he would be born on June 19, but he beat the clock.

1913:  SONGWRITER SAMMY CAHN IS BORN.

Ain't that a kick in the head.

1917:  ACTOR RICHARD BOONE IS BORN.

Have Birth Canal, Will Travel.

1923:  CHECKER TAXI PUTS ITS FIRST CAB ON THE STREET.

And this is probably the first known employment of an Arab in America.

1928:  AVIATOR AMELIA EARHART BECOMES THE FIRST WOMAN TO FLY IN AN AIRCRAFT ACROSS THE ATLANTIC OCEAN.

This time, she was just a passenger.  Later, she would be a missing pilot.

1936:  BARACK OBAMA SR. IS BORN.

The original deadbeat dad.

1940:  THE "FINEST HOUR" SPEECH BY WINSTON CHURCHILL.

His finest hour, too.

1942:  CRITIC ROGER EBERT IS BORN.

Thumb up.

1942:  BEATLE PAUL MCCARTNEY IS BORN.

Despite a raspy voice and some really bad plastic surgery, people still flock to see him.   Heck, I'm going myself in August.

1945:  LORD HAW-HAW IS CHARGED WITH TREASON FOR HIS PRO-GERMAN PROPAGANDA DURING WORLD WAR II.

The Lord's first name wouldn't happen to be......oh, never mind.

1953:  THE EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION OF 1952 ENDS WITH THE OVERTHROW OF THE MUHAMMAD ALI DYNASTY AND THE DECLARATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF EGYPT.

Is there such a thing as the Cassius Clay Dynasty?

1959:  ACTRESS ETHEL BARRYMORE DIES.

There were like two dozen of these acting Barrymores.

1965:  DURING THE VIETNAM WAR, THE US USES B-52 BOMBERS TO ATTACK GUERRILLA FIGHTERS IN SOUTH VIET NAM.

Magilla Guerrilla for sale.

1979:  SALT II IS SIGNED BY THE UNITED STATES AND THE SOVIET UNION.

Right now, it's hard to find SALT on a restaurant table in NY.

1983:  ASTRONAUT SALLY RIDE BECOMES THE FIRST AMERICAN WOMAN IN SPACE.

And what a ride she had.

1996:  TED KACZYNSKI, SUSPECTED OF BEING THE UNABOMBER, IS INDICTED ON TEN CRIMINAL COUNTS.

Make it an even dozen.

2000;  ACTRESS NANCY MARCHAND DIES.

Terrific as Livia Soprano and Mrs. Pynchon.

2002:  SPORTSCASTER JACK BUCK DIES.

Buck.  Passed.

2003:  BASEBALL STAR LARRY DOBY DIES.

Doby doby die.

2011:  MUSICIAN CLARENCE CLEMONS DIES.

There goes alimony payments for about ten or twelve ex-wives.

Dinner last night:  Salad.

Bonus Moron of the Month

 

Sometimes you just have to adapt.   When the morons around us show up fast and furious, you want to let people know of the dummies around us.

This is Senator Alex Padilla.   He's apparently the junior Senator from California, of which I had no clue.  I'm pretty sure I didn't vote for him because...well...because.   Personally, I don't like to vote for anybody these days.

So you probably heard the news this week amidst all the LA riot mayhem.  Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security, was here to see for herself what the fuss was all about.  I mean, we had to have the National Guard here.   I know that for a fact because I saw a couple of them in Starbucks.

Well, Noem was giving a press conference.  All of a sudden, Padilla barged in and started to interrupt her statement with his defense of the illegal aliens around us.  Because nobody knew who the fuck this asshole was, they wrestled him to the ground.  I mean, who knew if he had a gun?  He had no ID nor was he wearing his Congressional pin.  Can you blame them?

Well, anyway, this altercation prompted everybody on the left side of the aisle to go nuts one more time about fascism and authoritarianism.  If this could happen to a senator, it could happen to the guy detailing your Toyota down at the car wash.

Um, maybe.  But here's the truth and it doesn't take an extra large tin foil hat to figure out what happened here.

The incident with Padilla was choreographed, rehearsed, and written probably by Aaron Sorkin.  They needed a victim and dopey Padilla raised his hand high.  The fix was big time in.

But, then again, so were the so-called riots.   It was all staged and planned and financed by the same crime syndicate who brought you the George Floyd riots. I know this information for a fact.   Black Escalades show up and deposit paid thieves to raise a ruckus and a brick.  Why else do you wind pallets of bricks on street corners?   Or crates of aluminum bats hidden behind a cluster of trees?

The Padilla incident was simply a diversionary tactic.  And most people fell for it hook, line, and Molotov cocktail.  It was a press conference.  Padilla is not press.  And, for the question he wanted to ask, he should have waited for the moment where he could raise his hand.

Meanwhile, in the Pacific Palisades where 15,000 homes burned down, there have been just 55 permits granted to those who lost their houses.   That's my barometer.   I know personally six people who lost their homes.

I don't know anybody who's been deported.   But, if they promise to send Padilla someplace, I'll be the first one who wants an introduction.

Dinner last night:  The Dodger Stadium Club buffet.

Monday Morning Video Laugh - June 16, 2025

 Dads helping out.   A classic from "Everybody Loves Raymond."

Dinner last night:  Ribeye steak and sauteed mushrooms.

The Sunday Memory Drawer - The Last Days of Dad

 

Don't scratch your head.  Yes, I have used this photo of my dad before.  But it is Father's Day and, once again, my thoughts ping pong around the rec hall that is in my brain. 

You see, this particular week was always a double hit for me.  Not only do we contend with the annual patriarchal holiday but my father's birthday was June 20.  A double whammy.  Some years, it all happened on the same day.  What's a son to do?

When I was younger, the commemoration was an easy one.  I simply tried to stay out of his hair.  I would avoid getting into trouble and sit quietly at our family gathering, perhaps listening to a Met doubleheader on a transistor radio.

When I was an adult, the celebration was different.  I now had the wherewithal to pay for a meal.  So I would troop Dad out to a restaurant dinner and that's a big deal for somebody who rarely liked to eat out in his later years.  But I'd scope out an eatery with that one special requirement my dad always had.

A salad bar. 

This was a new phenomenon to him.  All the lettuce, beets, cole slaw, hot peppers, olives, potato salad, and onions you could eat.    I remember the first time he experienced this at a place called the Victoria Station on Tuckahoe Road in Yonkers. 

"I can go up for a second plate?"

Yes.  And the sense of wonderment on my father's face stayed with me to this day.  You can actually get unlimited food.  Perhaps a difficult notion to swallow for a child of the Depression Years.

On those outings in the later stages of our life together, the routine would be the same.  Whether it be for a Met game, a meal, or a doctor's visit.  I would drive.  And pick him up.  A simple act.  Just like he had done for me so many years ago when I needed to go someplace.  But, now the situation was reversed.  And so was the relationship.

And this happens for all of us at some point in our lives.

The child becomes the parent.  And, wistfully, the parent becomes the child.

And so, too, did my father and I bow to the inevitable circle of life. 

I think today of my dad's later years cut short at the age of 70.  Indeed, when he was forced into retirement by his long term employer, the Mount Vernon Die Casting Company, at the age of 62, he should have immediately enjoyed the freedom.  But, unfortunately, he never got that initial opportunity.  The end of his work days coincided with my grandmother's broken hip and what would be the last year of her life.  Because she wanted nothing to do with having any sort of caretaker in the house, my dad became the 24/7 lifeline.  And lost one year of his life to this task.

Again...

The child becomes the parent.  And, wistfully, the parents becomes the child.

Grandma's death led to more uncertainty with her house (and Dad's home) being sold.  Packing up the remains of a household and an existence.  Because he and my mom had amicably split due to that old bugaboo of the "empty nest syndrome," my father relocated to a Bronx apartment.  All the boxes from the house went there.  And sat in the corner, waiting to be unpacked for the next eight years.

I first noticed that Dad was having a health issue on September 17, 1986.  How can I be that precise with a date years later?  Well, we were both at Shea Stadium.  The New York Mets' clinching of the Eastern Division that night.  In the Loge, Section 6 seats of my pal, the Bibster.  Amid all the joyful hysteria, I couldn't help but notice that my father had to go down to the bathroom every half inning. 

Hmmmm.

I mentioned it several times in passing over the next month or so.  My father belittled it all.  To give it any level of consideration, he would have had to go to a doctor.  And, yes, he did not go there.

By Christmas, his prostate problems were so pronounced that his kidneys and bladder were completely shutting down.

Son morphs into Dad overnight.  I called the paramedics when he didn't answer the phone.  And so began my father's soon-to-be-ongoing relationship with the nursing staff of Mount Vernon Hospital.

He was not happy.

"You put me in here!"

As if I just sentenced him to Attica State Prison.

The next few years were devoted to his recovery and the realization that he actually had an illness.  As he would refer to it...

"I've got the C."

Not to be confused with the B or the P or the V.

The next few years were probably indicative of what he should have enjoyed in his retirement.  He was never home.  Hanging out with his cronies.  Working in this one's yard or that one's basement.  I'd call him twice a day, once in the afternoon and then again around 8PM every night.  And I would do so regardless of whether I was out or not.

One Christmas week, I was visiting good friends on a snowy night all the way up in Rockland County.  When I made the nightly check-in, there was no answer.  At 8PM. Or 9PM.  Or 10PM.  My thoughts traveled to the usual dark side.

"I better go see what's wrong."

My friend drove me all the way down to the Bronx.  I practiced in my mind how to dial the phone digits.

9-1-1.  9-1-1. 

Surely, I would be calling.

As the apartment building elevator inched ever so slowly to the sixth floor, all we could hear was the theme song from M*A*S*H.  The reruns played every night on WNEW Channel 5 at 11PM. 

"Suicide is painless...."

Who the hell was playing their TV so freakin' loud?

When the elevator door opened in front of my dad's apartment, I knew.

"What the hell are you doing here?  I'm watching M*A*S*H."

So we know.   So does everybody in the tri-state area.  Er, how come you didn't answer the phone, Dad?

"It never rang."

Oh, yes, it did.  Except you couldn't hear it because your TV volume can be heard all the way to Fort Fucking Lee in New Jersey.

And so the familial circle had been completed.  The slippery slope had begun.

Soon thereafter, Dad started to have problems walking.  Did he check with a doctor about this?  Of course not.  He had fashioned his own diagnosis for the pain in his leg.   He blamed it on some poor radiation technician who obviously had screwed up.

"When I was going for that machine, the guy messed up.  The thing moved and burned a hole in my leg."

Yeah, whatever.  The distress led to the leg breaking in two.  Metastasized tumors as a result of a returning prostate cancer will tend to do that.  He wound up in the hospital for three weeks after a metal rod was inserted.  The healing process in Mount Vernon Hospital was a painful one.  When you get off the elevator and can recognize a familiar screen from several halls away, you don't lose that memory easily.

My father lived with a walker for the rest of his time.  Plus, since he insisted on living on his own, the insurance company requested that he get daily help in the apartment.  They sent him a young Black kid who dutifully showed up every weekday.  He was there to help out Dad, who wanted no help.

"What am I supposed to do with this colored guy?"

Maybe he could clean the kitchen?  Make your lunch?  How about unpacking some of those boxes still strewn all over your living room?

My father would have nothing of it.  The two of them sat all day together watching television.

I did what I could do to help.  Luckily, he had friends who "aired him out" several days a week.  There was always somebody at the ready to take him to the super market or for his chemo treatments at the doctor.

I've written before about one excursion that I did adopt for myself.  A lasting and final good memory of my dad...

It was the Friday of Thanksgiving weekend and I was off. I decided to give Dad's buddies the week off. I'd do the honors of acting as driver for the day. It was the least I could do for his pals who had so diligently helped him over the years.

As I helped him out of the doctor's office and into the car, I wondered what was next in the weekly routine. Even when he was ill, my father was always all about a consistent schedule of events. I asked him what happens next.

"Well, we usually go get something to eat."

Where?

"White Castle."

I was perplexed. There wasn't one nearby in Mount Vernon.

"No, we go to the one down on Allerton. Where we used to go."

Oh. All the way down there, I thought.

Yes, all the way down. And I shouldn't have questioned it for a single moment.

My father and I sat one more time in that parking lot. The car hops were gone, but I brought the food out of the restaurant. And we chomped down on five or six sliders as if the years had morphed all together into a single second.I didn't know it that day, but it would be the very last meal I would share with my father. 

Eventually, he wound up back in the hospital and his doctor discretely shared with me the ultimate and sad prognosis.  His final days would have to be spent in a Mount Vernon nursing home.  Dad thought it was a rehab place and that he would be back in his apartment before he knew it.

One Saturday, my mother and I were visiting him.  The Black orderly asked us to leave the room so Dad could be bathed.  The curtains were drawn and, since the slightest movement gave him waves of intense pain, my father screamed again.  And took out his anger on the orderly.

With multiple doses of racism as if it was an extreme sport telecast on ESPN.  The "N" word was used as a noun, a verb, and an adjective.  I cringed with every syllable.

When the orderly was done and came out into the hall, I felt the need to apologize.  

"Um, he's not really like that."

Well, he was a bit.  But not to the, no pun intended, "Nth degree."  The orderly was incredibly gracious.

"Hey, no big deal.  He's a nice guy.  He told me to do a good job dressing him because he had a funeral to go to."

I looked at my mother with a bit of foreboding.  I know the funeral he's talking about.

Dad died the very next week.

Despite this blog entry, I don't really dwell on the sad moments that coincided with the final years of my father's life.  I tend to look back on him with humor and will not remember something without laughing.  Much in the same vein as the M*A*S*H incident I recalled above.

Or the time when his back seat driving on a trip home from Shea Stadium made me so angry that I demanded he get out of the car.  On the top of the Whitestone Bridge!  Danny, my best friend from high school, was there as a witness and still talks about that evening.

Or the way he rigged his walker so it could be used as a shopping cart with a special receptacle to hold the New York Daily News and his racing form.

Or the final really big chortle he gave me when I was the one forced to clean out his apartment.  Getting rid of those freakin' boxes he had never unpacked from my grandmother's house.

On this day, Danny was helping me with the project.  In a closet, I found an old suitcase which I recognized from the days when we would have our annual summer family vacation at Atlantic City.

Except the valise was locked shut.

Hmmm?  Why?   Was there something special in here that Dad wanted me to find?  Maybe there was a sign?  Or some hidden treasure?  Or just maybe I had watched too many movies?

Nevertheless, I wanted that suitcase opened and I wanted it open now.  Danny and I did our best to wreck that carry-all's lock.  We finally jimmyed it open with a screwdriver, a butter knife, and, ultimately, my own two feet when they stepped down hard on it.

The suitcase opened.

Inside was....

A brown paper bag full of Japanese money.  Left over from his days there during World War II.

And....

A dozen light bulbs.

This was obviously my dad's survival kit.  If he ever was stuck in a dark Tokyo apartment.

I couldn't help but laugh that day. 

And every single Father's Day ever since.

Dinner last night:  Orange chicken and lo mein.

Classic Newsreel of the Month - June 2025

 His assassination, like no other, changed the course of this country forever.

Dinner last night:  Cheese and crackers.

Your Beautiful June Bride

 

One thing the bride doesn't need for a wedding gift?  Eyebrows.

Mr. and Mrs. Johnny Depp?

 Where was their reception held?  At Jury Duty?

It's a wedding dress.  No, it's a cake.  No, it's a wedding dress.  No, it's a cake.

 Pictures of the honeymoon night, please.

 The blog writer can take this picture off.

 I can't wait to see her do the Hokey Pokey.

 Forecast for this wedding day:  Windy with a 70 percent chance of panties.

 May the divorce lawyer be with you.

Do you take this man.....I, burp, do.

Dinner last night:  Sandwich.

Insomnia Theater

 

My head hit the pillow two hours ago.  Yet, I am wide awake.

Yes, it's post surgery insomnia.  I have had surgery each of the last three years and two weeks after every operation, I go through a pout of insomnia.  Toss. Turn. Ooops.  Don't sleep on the side with your operated hip.  

This is the same pattern I have endured the last three years.   And every year, I would drift over to overnight TV on the vintage game show network.  Buzzr.  They don't have a vast library but somehow this gets me through the wee hours.

The images come bouncing around my eyelids.

"This is Johnny Olsen speaking."

Hey, it's Bill Cullen as a panelist on "To Tell The Truth."   Oh, and now he's the host of "Blockbusters."   Still with his long term polio, you never see Bill walking.

Wow, Arlene Francis.  You're cool.   I wish you were my mother.

No one was funnier than Charles Nelson Reilly on "Match Game."

Will the real Len with Insomnia please stand up?

Ping and pong.  It's 1974.  Now it's 1983.  

And the password is...

Your consolation prize is a crate full of Lipton Instant Soups.

The game shows are interrupted by weird ads.   Woody Harrelson's brother selling a form of CBD.   John Walsh telling you Omega XL gets rid of all pain.

Wait, here's a commercial for Promescent.   What the hell is that?   It's a delay spray for men.  If you squirt it on your privates...

That's it for tonight.   I fear I'll be back again tomorrow.

Dinner last night: Sandwich.

This Date in History - June 11

 

Happy birthday to Adrienne Barbeau. This is one of those days when you know a guy writes this blog.

1184 BC:  DURING THE TROJAN WAR, TROY IS SACKED AND BURNED.

As opposed to Mark Sanchez who was often sacked but never burned.

323 BC:  ALEXANDER THE GREAT DIES IN THE PALACE OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR II IN BABYLON.

Must suck to be Nebuchadnezzar at a book signing.

1345:  THE MEGAS DOUX ALEXIOS APOKAUKOS, CHIEF MINISTER OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE, IS LYNCHED BY POLITICAL PRISONERS.

Can you blame them?  The only good megas doux is a dead megas doux.

1509:  HENRY VIII OF ENGLAND MARRIES CATHERINE OF ARAGON.

This Henry VIII must have been good in throne.

1776:  THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS APPOINTS THOMAS JEFFERSON, JOHN ADAMS, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, ROGER SHERMAN, AND ROBERT LIVINGSTON TO THE COMMITTEE OF FIVE TO DRAFT A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

And later became a musical.

1837:  THE BROAD STREET RIOT OCCURS IN BOSTON, FUELED BY EHTNIC TENSIONS BETWEEN YANKEES AND IRISH.

Well, Yankees are never welcome in Boston.

1913:  FOOTBALL COACH VINCE LOMBARDI IS BORN.

The original cheesehead.

1919:  SIR BARTON WINS THE BELMONT STAKES, BECOMING THE FIRST HORSE TO WIN THE TRIPLE CROWN.

So a horse led the league in home runs, batting average, and runs batted in??

1920:  DURING THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION IN CHICAGO, PARTY LEADERS GATHER IN A BACK ROOM TO DECIDE ON A CANDIDATE.   THIS WAS THE FIRST "SMOKE-FILLED" ROOM.

Talk about your second-hand smoke.

1930:  POLITICIAN CHARLES RANGEL IS BORN.

The original shithead.

1933:  ACTOR GENE WILDER IS BORN.

"Put the candle back!"

1935:  INVENTOR IRWIN ARMSTRONG GIVES THE FIRST PUBLIC DEMONSTRATION OF FM BROADCASTING IN ALPINE, NEW JERSEY.

Armstrong?  One small step for man, one giant leap for the Grateful Dead.

1942:  DURING WORLD WAR II, THE UNITED STATES AGREES TO SEND LEND-LEASE AID TO THE SOVIET UNION.

Mistake-ski.

1945:  ACTRESS ADRIENNE BARBEAU IS BORN.

And she has quite the barbeaus, doesn't she?

1962:  FRANK MORRIS, JOHN ANGLIN, AND CLARENCE ANGLIN ALLEGEDLY BECOME THE ONLY PRISONERS TO ESCAPE FROM THE PRISON ON ALCATRAZ ISLAND.

If this happened today, they'd be on the View tomorrow.

1963:  ALABAMA GOVERNOR GEORGE WALLACE STANDS AT THE DOOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA TO BLOCK TWO BLACK STUDENTS FROM ATTENDING THAT SCHOOL.

This is when Wallace could actually stand.

1963:  PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY PROPOSES THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964.

Planning ahead for 1964.   Um, not so fast, Jack.

1969:  ACTOR PETER DINKLAGE IS BORN.

The creation of another little person who will always be a little person.

1979:  ACTOR JOHN WAYNE DIES.

Anybody who doubts this guy could act should watch "The Searchers."

1981:  A 6.9 MAGNITUDE EARTHQUAKE IN IRAN KILLS AT LEAST 2,000.

Which is still not as many people killed on 9/11 by that same part of the world.

1985:  PATIENT KAREN ANN QUINLAN DIES.

Plug.  Pulled.

1999:  ACTOR DEFOREST KELLEY DIES.

Beamed down.

2001:  TIMOTHY MCVEIGH IS EXECUTED FOR HIS ROLE IN THE OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING.

What goes around......

2002:  ANTONIO MEUCCI AS ACKNOWLEDGED AS THE FIRST INVENTOR OF THE TELEPHONE BY THE US CONGRESS.

Alexander Graham Phooey.

2003:  JOURNALIST DAVID BRINKLEY DIES.

Good night, David.

Dinner last night:  Sandwich.

CNN on Broadway

 

Well, they might as well.  Given the shitty job they do as a so-called "news" network.  Indeed, the fact that they broadcast live this Broadway play is audacious enough.  I mean, the theme of the play is how we should embrace the truth and journalism.   CNN hasn't had a truthful journalistic moment since the Challenger exploded.

Now, this was the first time ever a Broadway production was telecast live and, for that, Anderson Cooper Land should be applauded.   Of course, they couldn't get through the whole affair without mucking it up.  But, I am guessing that most of the blame can be laid at the feet of the play's star, the Right Reverend George Clooney.

You may remember that "Good Night and Good Luck" was originally a fine and stylish movie about 15 years ago.   It was all about a moment in television time when, back in 1953, journalist Edward R. Murrow battled Senator Joseph McCarthy over Communists under your bed.  Clooney was one of the stars and the writers of the piece and it was wonderful.   But, that was way before George Clooney had become GEORGE CLOONEY. complete with all the pomp and circumstance that comes with being...well...George Clooney.

The present state of events in our nation prompted CLOONEY to dust off his movie script and turn it into a similarly taut Broadway play with 800 dollar orchestra seats.  Big George also opted to switch roles and play the lead of Murrow as had been essayed by David Strathairn on film.  Truth be told, Strathairn was much better as everything Clooney speaks on stage sounds like a sermon on the mount as delivered by Jesus Christ himself.   All nuances have been tossed in the trash.  This is Edward R. Murrow with a pick axe aimed at your head.

While the play still hits the same notes as the movie, it doesn't work as well.  Beyond Clooney's Boar's Head Ham of a performance, the TV production was a little frenetic and lit like the back of your basement furnace.  Maybe that's why more Broadway shows aren't filmed for television.

Of course, the 1953 setting gets expanded for Clooney's last solo reading accompanied by every right wing image of the last thirty years.   Additionally, I had to laugh when faces of current "journalists" were flashed on screen and Jake Tapper was one of them.   Now there's a last minute edit that should have been made.

While it was cool to watch a Broadway show live on TV, there are countless other shows right now I would have preferred to see telecast..."Sondheim's Old Friends" for instance.  But those shows don't provide George with the opportunity to suck the air out of Times Square/

And, to make my matters worse, I caught several errors in the timeline of play. There is a reference made about Murrow interviewing Lassie and Mister Ed.   Um, the latter didn't make his TV appearance until seven years later.

Mike dropped.  Loudly.

Dinner last night:  Leftover chili.

Monday Morning Video Laugh - June 9, 2025

 Dad and bride month continues with this comic video.

Dinner last night: Leftover orange chicken.

The Sunday Memory Drawer - Love Story, Part 2

 

And the story continues.

Last week, you may remember that I had swallowed hard and called my late uncle's WWII fiancee to tell her about my dad's passing. 

Stella was elated to be talking to the namesake of her former beau.  I couldn't help but note the symmetry of life.  I thought our single conversation would be the first and the last.

It was not.  As she had done with my dad, Stella could not let go of the connection to our family.  And, for lack of anybody else, I was the handy choice at the moment.

Except I didn't really mind.  For the first time, I was getting a peak behind my family's curtain.  From the days long before me.

At first, Stella was a bit more intent on learning all about this "Lenny."  She wanted to get caught up all at once on my schooling, my career, and my friends.  And then some...

"Is there a girl that calls you her 'feller?'"

Huh? 

I told her yes, but spared her the really gory details.  Yes, at that moment, there was a girl calling me her "feller."  And, depending upon the day and time, she might have been calling me a myriad of other names as well.  It was that intense.  As comfortable as I felt with Stella, we didn't need to walk down that garden path.

I learned a lot about her years since World War II.  As I had heard from my grandmother, Stella did marry a man named Willie and had two sons who were around my age.  Yet, new information came when I learned that Stella had somehow kept flowers on my uncle's southern France grave all these years.  Had she done it with the full knowledge of her husband?  She was quite vague with her answer.  Or perhaps the non-answer really was my answer.

After my uncle had been killed in action, Stella had obsessed a bit on his final moments.  She told me of speaking with all his foxhole buddies and grabbing onto any information that was available.  Some of it was documented in a journal one of these other soldiers had kept.  She shared that with me.  I realized that I didn't know this man she was engaged to, even though he was a blood relative.  But I got to be acquainted just a little bit through her words.

I also got a compelling snapshot or two of my family during those years.  Apparently, there were gatherings and dinners almost every weekend.  Lots of love and good times.

Huh?  What had I seen?

Stella talked about my family showing up en masse to her wedding with Willie.  At the reception, Stella, or so she told me, was approached by my dad.  He was sobbing.

Huh?  My father?

As she stood there in her wedding dress, my father apparently poured out his heart to her.

"We really wanted to have you in our family."

I couldn't believe the depth of Dad's declaration.  These were not the emotions that were shown ever.  Except maybe for anger.  Not only was my uncle a mystery to me.  So, too, I guess was my own father.

Over time and phone conversations, I soon learned that Stella was, at last, making a long put-off pilgrimage.  To my uncle's grave in Paris.  At that time, I thought that no one in my family had ever done the same thing.  I very recently learned that my father's oldest brother had made the same journey several years prior.  No one knew because no one really talked anymore.  The sometimes inevitable tatters of a family fabric.

Stella was making this trip with one of her sons and I couldn't help but wonder what was going through this guy's mind.  He had recently lost his own father and now Mom was going to visit the final resting place of her first love.  I admired her courage and fortitude and, secondarily, the son's as well.  I pondered if I could have done the same thing.

When she returned from the trip, Stella shared with me dozens of photos and I experienced that bizarre Frank Capra moment of seeing my own name on a tombstone.  Naturally, it was a military cemetery much like the photo above.  All the grave markers were identical.  But, the stories of each one of them were really as unique as snowflakes.  The visit seemed to give Stella some closure.  A tale that had remained slightly ajar for almost fifty years.

Stella and I stayed in touch regularly and frequently invited me to her own family get-togethers in Staten Island.  I begged off because of the distance, but probably was backing off for other reasons.  I thought about her own sons.  And, here I am, bearing the name of her first love.   When the invitations came, I was always conveniently "busy." 

Even after relocating to California, Stella was always a phone call or a holiday card away.  I stayed in touch as I could.  When we spoke on my birthday one February, she was almost blase with her news update.

"I have to go to the hospital tomorrow.  I have a little cancer."

When it comes to that word, it's never a little.  And always a lot. 

I wished her well and wanted to be updated regularly. 

But, as I would try to call her the rest of the year, I always got the answering machine.  Not having the phone numbers of her sons, I was stuck for new information. 

And maybe I didn't want to know.

When I didn't get the usual reciprocal Christmas card greeting, I decided to do a deeper dive on that Staten Island phone directory.

Except, right after New Year's, I got my answer.  A letter from her son, telling about his own mom's passing.

The words were heartfelt but measured.  Stella's son conveyed solace and appreciation of how I had kept his mom in my thoughts all these years.   And, yet, I could sense the uncomfortableness in his writing. 

Had this been a cloud over their household all these years?

I could have replied and asked the question.  One-on-one.  Son-to-son.

I didn't.  And my book closed as well.

Dinner last night:   Chili from Bristol Farms.

Classic TV Commercial of the Month - June 2025

Dogs were not in the budget for "The Andy Griffith Show." 

Dinner last night:  Orange chicken.

June Is Busting Out All Over

 ...except not for these mugs.

They used the same photo on her Match.com profile.
I guess pie fights are now illegal.

Even Santa!

Sir, this is the county jail, not Mack Sennett's studios.

Also written on his face? The word "guilty."

"Hmmm, let me think. I've been arrested. Should I go to the men's or the women's detention center."

Yeah, that will get you a reduced sentence.

Sneering will get you nowhere.

One more time for good old Joe Biden
Arrested and on a gurney. It ain't your day, Rufus.

Dinner last night:   Korean pork from PF Chang's.

Hello, 1965

 

"Black Bag" reminded me of one of those English spy thrillers back in the 60s.   You know the kind.   Everybody talked in hush tones and you couldn't figure out what anybody was saying except that it sounded important.

Well, I don't know if director Steven Soderbergh was trying to do an homage to that film genre, but that's exactly what he achieved.   People talking in hush tones and I couldn't figure out what anybody was saying except that it sounded important.   Somehow, I enjoyed what I was watching despite it all.  Perhaps that's because the running time of the movie was just over 90 minutes.  Unheard of among the films of 2025.

Again, the plot is incoherent but pretty simple at the same time.  Six London spys.  One is leaking secrets to the Russkies.   Who is the culprit?   What throws a monkey wrench into the works is that two of the spys are a married couple.   Each spouse is suspicious of the other.

Done.

Soderbergh directs flawlessly and this is a surprising compact and satisfying film.   Except for Pierce Brosnan (looking old) and Cate Blanchett, I had no clue what and who I was watching.   It didn't make a difference.   Nobody was making any sense.   About a third of the way through the movie, I put the closed captioning on.   I needed subtitles even though the damn thing was in English.

Still...I recommend "Black Bag."   And where's Sean Connery as 007 when you need him.

LEN'S RATING:  Three stars.

Dinner last night:  SPO from my freezer.

This Date in History - June 4

 

Happy birthday to Michelle Phillips.  You all remember her from the Mamas and Papas.  Me?  She'll always be the tricky Anne Matheson on "Knots Landing."

1411:  KING CHARLES VI GRANTED A MONOPOLY FOR THE RIPENING OF ROQUEFORT CHEESE TO THE PEOPLE OF ROQUEFORT.

Those living in Mozzarella are appalled.

1745:  FREDERICK THE GREAT'S PRUSSIAN ARMY DECISIVELY DEFEATED AN AUSTRIAN ARMY.

Crap, I had Austria in the office pool.

1783:  THE MONTGOLFIER BROTHERS PUBLICLY DEMONSTRATE THEIR HOT AIR BALLOON CALLED A MONTGOLFIERE.

Clever.   How did they come up with that?

1792:  CAPTAIN GEORGE VANCOUVER CLAIMS PUGET SOUND FOR THE KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN.

Ferry funny.

1812:  FOLLOWING LOUISIANA'S ADMITTANCE AS A US STATE, THE LOUISIANA TERRITORY IS RENAMED THE MISSOURI TERRITORY.

Sounds like needless bureaucratic paperwork to me.

1855:  MAJOR HENRY C. WAYNE DEPARTS NEW YORK ABOARD THE USS SUPPLY TO PROCURE CAMELS TO ESTABLISH THE FIRST US CAMEL CORPS.

Well, Wednesday is a hump day.

1862:  DURING THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, CONFEDERATE TROOPS EVACUATE FORT PILLOW, LEAVING THE WAY CLEAR FOR UNION TROOPS TO TAKE MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE.

How scared would you be fighting somebody from Fort Pillow??

1876:  AN EXPRESS TRAIN CALLED THE TRANSCONTINENTAL EXPRESS ARRIVES IN SAN FRANCISCO ONLY 83 HOURS AND 39 MINUTES AFTER LEAVING NEW YORK CITY.

Can you imagine if this was a local?

1896: HENRY FORD COMPLETES THE FORD QUADRICYCLE, HIS FIRST GASOLINE-POWERED AUTOMOBILE, AND GIVES IT A TEST RUN.

And then gas prices jumped to over 5 cents a gallon.

1912:  MASSACHUSETTS BECOMES THE FIRST STATE OF THE UNITED STATES TO SET A MINIMUM WAGE.

Good because gas will soon be over a dime a gallon.

1917:  THE FIRST PULITZER PRIZES ARE AWARDED.

And I never heard of any of the winners so I'm not bothering to type them here.

1919:  THE US CONGRESS APPROVES THE 19TH AMENDMENT TO THE US CONSTITUTION, WHICH GUARANTEES SUFFRAGE TO WOMEN.

Satisfied now?   Okay, go make me my supper.

1924:  ACTOR DENNIS WEAVER IS BORN.

Mr. Dillon!!!!

1928:  THERAPIST DR. RUTH WESTHEIMER IS BORN.

Okay, so her folks weren't using a condom.

1932:  MARMADUKE GROVE AND OTHER CHILEAN MILITARY OFFICERS LEAD A COUP D'ETAT.

Included this for one reason only.   Can you guess?   Woof.

1936:  ACTOR BRUCE DERN IS BORN.

He looked a lot older in "Nebraska."

1942:  DURING WORLD WAR II, THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY ISLAND BEGINS.

Screenplay to follow.

1944:  ROME FALLS TO THE ALLIES, THE FIRST AXIS CAPITAL TO FALL.

Mussolini still hanging around?

1944:  ACTRESS MICHELLE PHILLIPS IS BORN.

One of the most clever television moments came on "Knots Landing" when they had her character try to overdose while listening to "Dedicated to the One I Love."

1957:  DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. DELIVERED HIS FAMOUS POWER OF NONVIOLENCE SPEECH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY.

At Berkeley?  Wow, far out.

1961:  IN THE VIENNA SUMMIT, THE SOVIET PREMIER NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV SPARKS THE BERLIN CRISIS BY THREATENING TO SIGN A SEPARATE PEACE TREATY WITH EAST GERMANY AND AMERICAN ACCESS TO EAST BERLIN.

Mr. Khrushchev, put up your wall.

1974:  DURING TEN CENT BEER NIGHT, INEBRIATED CLEVELAND INDIAN FAN START A RIOT AND FORCE THEIR GAME TO BE FORFEITED.

Nowadays, you can't get a beer for less than ten bucks.

1975:  THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA JERRY BROWN SIGNS THE CALIFORNIA AGRICULTURAL LABOR RELATIONS ACT.

And, lucky us, this asshole is back in charge again.

1989:  THE TIANANMEN SQUARE PROTESTS ARE VIOLENTLY ENDED IN BEIJING.

Years later, you can't breathe the air there so....what was the point?

1998:  TERRY NICHOLS IS SENTENCED TO LIFE IN PRISON FOR HIS ROLE IN THE OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING.

Throw away the key, please.

2007: BASEBALL PLAYER CLETE BOYER DIES.

The ultimate bad hop.

2010:  BASKETBALL COACH JOHN WOODEN DIES.

Back in the late 50s, he and Vin Scully lived in the same Los Angeles apartment building.

2012:  THE DIAMOND JUBILEE CONCERT IS HELD OUTSIDE BUCKINGHAM PALACE IN LONDON.

I bet the Queen eventually called the cops.

2021:  ACTOR CLARENCE WILLIAMS III DIES.

No IV?

Dinner last night:  Sandwich.

Moron of the Month - June 2025

Some months, I need to think hard about who's the biggest dope for those 30 days?  But, at other junctures, it's as expected as Shohei Ohtani hitting a fast ball over the fence.

Thanks for the simplicity this month, Jake Tapper.  Because nobody is a bigger dunce than you are right now.

I am sure you all know this alleged journalist from CNN.  He's just spent the last four years of his career telling us that President Joe Biden was in perfect shape even though Ray Charles could see he wasn't.   Indeed, Tapper would get downright ornery and nasty if somebody countered his opinion.

Of course, we all know better now.   Now that Sleepy Joe is out of his and our misery, all these news people spearheaded by Jerky Jake are now telling us otherwise.   All of a sudden, it's as plain as the nose on Danny Thomas' face.  

Biden is a cognitive mess and we knew it all along.  Well, so did I.  In fact, I know from a reliable source that Biden pooped his pants on more than one public event.

I'm sure you knew that, too, Jake.  But, you see, all these hacks now have another angle at presenting this story.  

There are books to sell.   One is being hawked by Jake Tapper himself.

Do they really think we are all that stupid?   Well, apparently...

Where is David Brinkley when you really need him?

Dinner last night:  Sandwich.

Monday Morning Video Laugh - June 2, 2025

 June is a great month for dads and brides.   Our videos this month salute both.   Like this wonderful father and son moment.

Dinner last night:  Hawaiian chicken sausage.

The Sunday Memory Drawer - An Old Fashioned Love Story

 

A famous Times Square photo opportunity from V-E Day.  How many soldiers and how many girls were in clinches like this?  How many proposals?  How many babies born nine months to the day?

I wish I had been around for a glorious celebration like this.  I wish my own uncle, the person I was named after, had lasted another two weeks so he, too, could have rejoiced at the victory over Germany.  But, as I wrote last week, he did not.

And a scene like this between him and his fiancee Stella never happened.

As little as I knew about my uncle, I had only slightly more intelligence on his main squeeze.  She was still around.  I wrote out Grandma's Christmas card to her every year.  She apparently was settled with a husband and a couple of kids and they lived in lower Manhattan.  My family allegedly showed up at her wedding en masse and all I ever heard my grandmother say was that it was a "nice party."

And that was it for decades.

Years later, my father's prostate cancer was in its final stages and had metastized in his right leg.   He couldn't really walk so he pretty much stayed in his recliner from dawn to dawn.  Watching television and doing the word puzzle in the Reader's Digest.  He had help coming in so weekdays were covered.  I would do some of the personal maintenance on the weekend.  Of course, I checked in with a phone call twice a day.  One night, I got a voice that seemed to be the slightest bit teary.  This was monumental in itself.  My father never ever showed much emotion.

"I just got a phone call.  Did you ever hear us mention Stella?"

Duh.

From the surprising details I got that day, this lady had pretty much looked my father up in the Bronx phone booth and dialed him up.  Her husband had just died and she was feeling nostalgic.  She was flipping through a lot of pictures of my uncle and our family and simply wanted to share the moment.

Lots of pictures???  Where???  Can I see???

Stella's call seemed to stir long deep-seeded emotions in my father as well.  Perhaps it was a recognition of the passage of years.  A realization of the passage of perhaps only a few more days.  I don't know.  But I do know that my dad enjoyed that conversation with Stella more than any other he had in the recent past.

Even better?  She called again.  And again.  And again.  And again.

Nothing perked up my father in his final months as those phone calls and then letters from Stella.

The packages in the mail contained wonderful mementos.  A book of memories shared by his fellow soldiers who were with him when he was killed.  Personal letters and photos.  I'd read them as they came in.  Here was some of the history that had been missing for years.

Shortly thereafter, it was time for my father to go to one of those places which he, in better times, would have called "the last stop."  A nursing home/hospice where it all closed out quietly and quickly.

As I cleaned out his apartment, I came across Dad's address book, which he must have first purchased in 1950.  I flipped through it.  How many of these folks had gone before him?  And then I saw it.

Stella's phone number.

She might have been calling him to no avail for the past several weeks.  I realized that I was going to have to call her myself and share the news about Dad.

It hit me like a brick.  I would be calling her and saying...

"Hi, this is Len...."

Gulp.

Needless to say, it took me another week to get my nerve up to hit those digits on the dialpad.

I swallowed hard.  A lot.

Stella picked up on the other end.

"Hi, this is Len..."

She was elated to hear those first words.

And, strangely enough, they would not be the last between us.

Dinner last night: Roast beef sandwich and salad.