Our wedding/graduation month moves forward with these graduates...oops...
Dinner last night: Rigatoni Bolognese.
Monday, June 22, 2026
Sunday, June 21, 2026
The Sunday Memory Drawer - Thinking About Dad Again
I've often discussed my career aspirations here on this blog and today I wonder again.
What were my dad's?
There's a great scene in Woody Allen's phenomenal retrospective of his childhood, "Radio Days." For years, Woody as a child keeps asking his dad what he did for a living. The father never gives him a straight answer. Then, one afternoon, the kid has to hail a taxicab and he sees his driver.
"You?!!!"
Dad was a cab driver.
My revelation was not as astounding. I always knew what my dad did for a job. He worked nights at the Mount Vernon Die Casting Company which was really in Stamford, Connecticut. I suppose that, at one point, it was really in Mount Vernon.
Yet, I knew where he worked but never really had a fix on what went on there. Until I got a summer job there before my senior year in college. I was stuck for money and Dad told me they needed somebody to sit in the shipping department at night. This was sweet. Very little to do and I got to sit in a corner and write one script after another for the college radio station sitcom that I created and would be starting its second season in September.
But this cool deal also allowed me to see what my father did. He worked on a machine that sanded metal. Parts for cars or appliances or whatever. There would be a big crate of them next to Dad's machine. He'd take one, sand it on the machine belt, and then put it in a finished crate.
Sand and crate.
Sand and crate.
Sand and crate.
I was incredibly humbled when I first saw this. This was how my father earned a living. This routine was one he followed 40 hours a week and fifty weeks a year for 35 or so years.
Wow.
But that was the generation that came out of the Great Depression and they followed a very basic tenet of life.
You graduated. You got married. You got a job. You stayed in it as long as possible. You provided for your family. You retired. You died.
Wow again.
For several years when I was about seven or eight, I remember my father having a second job. He used to leave for Stamford around 3PM. But, in those times, he'd wake up around 6AM to work for five or six hours at his cousin's oil burner company. Dad would drive an oil truck and deliver fuel for peoples' houses in the Bronx. I asked once why he did this. The answer I got back was short and sweet.
"You want to go to college, don't you?"
Done.
When I was off from school, I sometimes accompanied Dad on his oil runs. Opening the cap on the sidewalk. Sticking the hose into it. Listening to the oil run its way into a furnace. It wasn't particularly challenging. But, again, Dad was doing what he needed to do. He worked two jobs. Essentially...for me.
When I was a kid, I got peppered with the question I discussed last week.
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
I wanted to know the same about my father. And, as happened in most homes at that time, you got information about one parent by asking the other one.
Mom told me about some of my father's early career aspirations.
In the Army, Dad saw no action. But, apparently, he could change a typewriter ribbon with the best of them. He worked in an office and could type 65 words a minute. He was so adept at it that a post-military career was suggested to him.
"You should be a court stenographer."
That guy who lightly taps on that do-hickey that is usually in front of the judge's bench.
Per my mother, he even pursued my classes on this prior to actually getting a court stenographer position.
So why didn't he?
The info flow got murky.
"Well, you know....."
No, I don't.
Later on, my father chased down another career. As television was coming into its own, there was a distinct lack of repairmen for this burgeoning new appliance.
Dad went to television repair school.
So why didn't he open his own shop?
"Well, you know....."
Um, no, I don't.
The closest Dad got to that career was trying to fix our TV set. And, most of the time, he had to call in the specialist anyway.
I wonder to this day what happened with these dreams.
Sand and crate.
Sand and crate.
Sand and crate.
But, as I think about Dad today, I see something else alongside the picture on the wall that adorns today's blog.
My college diploma.
Dinner last night: Cheese and crackers at the Hollywood Bowl.
There's a great scene in Woody Allen's phenomenal retrospective of his childhood, "Radio Days." For years, Woody as a child keeps asking his dad what he did for a living. The father never gives him a straight answer. Then, one afternoon, the kid has to hail a taxicab and he sees his driver.
"You?!!!"
Dad was a cab driver.
My revelation was not as astounding. I always knew what my dad did for a job. He worked nights at the Mount Vernon Die Casting Company which was really in Stamford, Connecticut. I suppose that, at one point, it was really in Mount Vernon.
Yet, I knew where he worked but never really had a fix on what went on there. Until I got a summer job there before my senior year in college. I was stuck for money and Dad told me they needed somebody to sit in the shipping department at night. This was sweet. Very little to do and I got to sit in a corner and write one script after another for the college radio station sitcom that I created and would be starting its second season in September.
But this cool deal also allowed me to see what my father did. He worked on a machine that sanded metal. Parts for cars or appliances or whatever. There would be a big crate of them next to Dad's machine. He'd take one, sand it on the machine belt, and then put it in a finished crate.
Sand and crate.
Sand and crate.
Sand and crate.
I was incredibly humbled when I first saw this. This was how my father earned a living. This routine was one he followed 40 hours a week and fifty weeks a year for 35 or so years.
Wow.
But that was the generation that came out of the Great Depression and they followed a very basic tenet of life.
You graduated. You got married. You got a job. You stayed in it as long as possible. You provided for your family. You retired. You died.
Wow again.
For several years when I was about seven or eight, I remember my father having a second job. He used to leave for Stamford around 3PM. But, in those times, he'd wake up around 6AM to work for five or six hours at his cousin's oil burner company. Dad would drive an oil truck and deliver fuel for peoples' houses in the Bronx. I asked once why he did this. The answer I got back was short and sweet.
"You want to go to college, don't you?"
Done.
When I was off from school, I sometimes accompanied Dad on his oil runs. Opening the cap on the sidewalk. Sticking the hose into it. Listening to the oil run its way into a furnace. It wasn't particularly challenging. But, again, Dad was doing what he needed to do. He worked two jobs. Essentially...for me.
When I was a kid, I got peppered with the question I discussed last week.
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
I wanted to know the same about my father. And, as happened in most homes at that time, you got information about one parent by asking the other one.
Mom told me about some of my father's early career aspirations.
In the Army, Dad saw no action. But, apparently, he could change a typewriter ribbon with the best of them. He worked in an office and could type 65 words a minute. He was so adept at it that a post-military career was suggested to him.
"You should be a court stenographer."
That guy who lightly taps on that do-hickey that is usually in front of the judge's bench.
Per my mother, he even pursued my classes on this prior to actually getting a court stenographer position.
So why didn't he?
The info flow got murky.
"Well, you know....."
No, I don't.
Later on, my father chased down another career. As television was coming into its own, there was a distinct lack of repairmen for this burgeoning new appliance.
Dad went to television repair school.
So why didn't he open his own shop?
"Well, you know....."
Um, no, I don't.
The closest Dad got to that career was trying to fix our TV set. And, most of the time, he had to call in the specialist anyway.
I wonder to this day what happened with these dreams.
Sand and crate.
Sand and crate.
Sand and crate.
But, as I think about Dad today, I see something else alongside the picture on the wall that adorns today's blog.
My college diploma.
Dinner last night: Cheese and crackers at the Hollywood Bowl.
Saturday, June 20, 2026
Classic TV Theme of the Month - June 2026
When I was a kid, summer meant no school and the annual return of this TV gem.
Dinner last night: The pre-game buffet at the Dodger Stadium Club.
Friday, June 19, 2026
June: The Month of Brides
She thinks this is the dark side. Wait till she meets her in-laws.
Just what you want on your tuxedo...dove shit.
I have no clue what is happening here, so feel free to make up your own back story.
Nice pear.
This wine needs to breathe a little longer.
There are some who shouldn't announce their wedding in the newspapers.
"Honey, you see what those cows are doing?......"
Another reason not to get married in China.
"My wife is a real piece of cake."
Dinner last night: Grilled Taylor ham on English muffin.
Thursday, June 18, 2026
He Remains...
A zebra keeps his stripes and Jimmy Kimmel continues to be a phony and despicable human being.
Okay, this isn't about his recent "time out" because he made inappropriate jokes about the death of Charlie Kirk. If you remember, that fiasco ran into tirades from people who said he has every right to say whatever is on his pea-sized mind.
And I would agree. Freedom of speech. But sometimes you can take that privilege a little too far. Like last week when Kimmel joked about losing LA Mayor candidate Spencer Pratt loading up a U-haul to get out of town. First off, the remark wasn't even remotely funny which has been par for the course from Kimmel the past ten years.
But, to throw salt into an open wound, little Jimmy should have realized that Pratt had nothing to put into said U-haul because he lost everything in the Palisades firm.
At what point do you stop, you obnoxious POS? Hey, how does that medicine go down if you're asked to take it. Shall I remind you and everybody else for that matter?
Frankly, it's time for Jimmy to pack up a U-haul. Is it out of my realm to say that?
Dinner last night: Steak salad.
You're a punk and a shithead and an all-around bad guy. But only people who work in your organization know that. For the general public (at least those of us with a brain which leaves out your late night audience), you're just plain stupid.
Remember several years back when his infant son had some severe health issues? The good news is that the kid is fine now until he ultimately realizes who his parents are. That intimate and personal family drama wound up in one of his monologues as he made a push for universal health care. Really, Jimmy? With the totally comprehensive health coverage you receive via your multiple unions, you want the rest of us to suffer through increased taxes?
Kimmel is an expert on your life and my life and proves it nightly as he mounts n his often tear-stained soap box about whatever Trump and Republicans did.
Kimmel, of course, is way too stupid to comment on even the basic issues confronting America in 2026. But he has a late night show and that's his bully pulpit. I go back to the days of Johnny Carson in late night who knew his position in our lives was to entertain and not preach or indoctrinate.
Getting sermonized by somebody like Jimmy Kimmel is laughable. Remember the glass house and the bucket of stones? I know a little about what goes on inside his empire because I know people who toiled in it. Let's see. The fact that he is a narcoleptic is well known. Falling asleep in meetings at the drop of the hat.
But what about his wife? The college intern he started to fuck and then made her head writer of his show? The person who then unceremoniously fired several veteran writers because she didn't like them?
Remember several years back when his infant son had some severe health issues? The good news is that the kid is fine now until he ultimately realizes who his parents are. That intimate and personal family drama wound up in one of his monologues as he made a push for universal health care. Really, Jimmy? With the totally comprehensive health coverage you receive via your multiple unions, you want the rest of us to suffer through increased taxes?
Kimmel is an expert on your life and my life and proves it nightly as he mounts n his often tear-stained soap box about whatever Trump and Republicans did.
Kimmel, of course, is way too stupid to comment on even the basic issues confronting America in 2026. But he has a late night show and that's his bully pulpit. I go back to the days of Johnny Carson in late night who knew his position in our lives was to entertain and not preach or indoctrinate.
Getting sermonized by somebody like Jimmy Kimmel is laughable. Remember the glass house and the bucket of stones? I know a little about what goes on inside his empire because I know people who toiled in it. Let's see. The fact that he is a narcoleptic is well known. Falling asleep in meetings at the drop of the hat.
But what about his wife? The college intern he started to fuck and then made her head writer of his show? The person who then unceremoniously fired several veteran writers because she didn't like them?
I find it laughable when the Writers Guild comes out to defend his right to say anything largely because he has been involved in so many grievance filed by his writers.
Oh, yeah. And what about all the illegal terminations he insisted on when people on staff didn't want to take a COVID vaccination.
I could go on and on because I know somebody who worked in that studio for a long time.
Frankly, it's time for Jimmy to pack up a U-haul. Is it out of my realm to say that?
Um, freedom of speech.
Dinner last night: Steak salad.
Wednesday, June 17, 2026
This Date in History - June 17
1462: VLAD III THE IMPALER ATTEMPTS TO ASSASSINATE MEHMED II THE NIGHT ATTACK.
How come these guys sound like wrestlers?
1565: MATSUNAGE HISAHIDE ASSASSINATES THE 13TH ASHIKAGA SHOGUN, ASHIKAGA YOSHITERU.
If you say so...
1579: SIR FRANCIS DRAKE CLAIMS A LAND HE CALLS NOVA ALBION (MODERN CALIFORNIA) FOR ENGLAND.
So they almost became the Nova Albion Giants.
1631: MUMTAZ MAHAL DIES DURING CHILDBIRTH. HER HUSBAND, SHAH JAHAN I, WILL SPEND THE NEXT 17 YEARS BUILDING HER MAUSOLEUM, THE TAJ MAHAL.
That's an awfully long time to keep a dead body around.
1775: DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, COLONISTS INFLICT HEAVY CASUALTIES ON BRITISH FORCES WHILE LOSING THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL.
Take that, you blasted Redcoats!
1789: IN FRANCE, THE THIRD ESTATE DECLARES ITSELF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.
Je ne care pas.
1839: IN THE KINGDOM OF HAWAII, KAMEHAMEHA II ISSUES THE EDICT OF TOLERATION WHICH GIVES ROMAN CATHOLICS THE FREEDOM TO WORSHIP IN THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS.
The Kingdom of Hawaii? Is there any other US state that was once a kingdom? Not counting Texas, of course.
1876: THE BATTLE OF THE ROSEBUD - 1,500 SIOUX AND CHEYENNE LED BY CRAZY HORSE BEAT BACK GENERAL CROOK'S FORCES IN MONTANA TERRITORY.
Sioux? Si.
1877: THE BATTLE OF WHITE BIRD CANYON - THE NEZ PERCE DEFEAT THE US CAVALRY IN IDAHO.
So how come the Indians are always winning?
1885: THE STATUE OF LIBERTY ARRIVES IN NEW YORK HARBOR.
And they kept it there when they found out it didn't exactly fit into anybody's living room.
1898: THE US NAVY HOSPITAL CORPS IS ESTABLISHED.
Anchors and Band Aids away.
1901: THE COLLEGE BOARD INTRODUCES ITS FIRST STANDARDIZED TEST, THE FORERUNNER TO THE SAT.
I thought that was the PSAT.
1930: US PRESIDENT HERBERT HOOVER SIGNS THE SMOOT-HAWLEY TARIFF ACT INTO LAW.
I don't trust any legislation with the word "Smoot" in it.
1933: IN KANSAS CITY, FOUR FBI AGENTS AND CAPTURED FUGITIVE FRANK NASH ARE GUNNED DOWN BY GANGSTERS ATTEMPTING TO FREE NASH.
Paging Eliot Ness.
1943: POLITICIAN NEWT GINGRICH IS BORN.
Is it me or does this guy always look so much older than his age?
1943: SINGER BARRY MANILOW IS BORN.
He finally came out of the closet. As if we were surprised.
1953: IN EAST GERMANY, THE SOVIET UNION ORDERS A DIVISION OF TROOPS INTO EAST BERLIN TO QUELL A REBELLION.
Yeah, that worked. For a while.
1960: THE NEZ PERCE TRIBE IS AWARDED FOUR MILLION DOLLARS FOR 7 MILLION ACRES OF LAND.
So they beat us on this date in 1877 and also got oodles of money???
1963: THE US SUPREME COURT RULES 8-1 IN ABINGTON SCHOOL DISTRICT VS. SCHEMPP AGAINST REQUIRING THE RECITING OF BIBLE VERSES AND THE LORD'S PRAYER IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
Do Moe and Larry know about this?
1971: PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON DECLARES THE US WAR ON DRUGS.
Does that mean he'll be bugging the folks at Johnson and Johnson?
1972: FIVE WHITE HOUSE OPERATIVES ARE ARRESTED FOR BURGLING THE OFFICES OF THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE.
Watergate...I think this turned out to be some sort of big deal.
1986: SINGER KATE SMITH DIES.
God bless her...and America.
1987: BASEBALL STAR AND MANAGER DICK HOWSER DIES.
Less than two years after guiding them to the 1985 World Series.
1994: FOLLOWING A TELEVISED LOW-SPEED HIGHWAY CHASE, OJ SIMPSON IS ARRESTED FOR THE MURDER OF HIS WIFE NICOLE AND HER FRIEND RONALD GOLDMAN.
Guilty. And now dead.
2008: ACTRESS/DANCER CYD CHARISSE DIES.
She lived three blocks away from my last apartment.
2012: RODNEY KING DIES.
Don't know how to describe him with an occupation. I'll leave it at that.
2019: DESIGNER GLORIA VANDERBILT DIES.
Who gave birth to that numbskull Anderson Cooper.
2020: JEAN KENNEDY SMITH DIES.
At least it wasn't by gunshot.
Dinner last night: Hamburger.
Dinner last night: Hamburger.
Tuesday, June 16, 2026
Celebrate?
Never once did I desire to climb up a light pole. Or taunt fans of the other team. Or set a school bus on fire.
If you were paying attention last week, New York went crazy last week as they completed their quest for the NBA Championship after being shut out for five decades. Despite the fact that I thoroughly hate pro basketball, I wish the die-hard fans that stuck around this long. Indeed, there's probably only about 18,000 fans in existence because that's how many true fans can fit into Madison Square Garden.
The rest are hoodlums. Animals. Creatures from all over the world. And they use team victories as a means to loot. Take out their evil aggressions. Fuck over people who don't look like them.
Now, over the years, I've seen cities explode when their team wins it. Indeed, smart cities prepare for this. They bring in extra cops. Try to prevent crowds from forming. Even grease the light poles so that climbing is impossible.
But, not New York which is now run by one of the dumbest mayors ever. He promotes outdoor watch parties which you just know is kerosene on an open flame. And that's why you had what you saw last week in NY.
Okay, in my years, I've seen some mayhem when a baseball team wins the World Series or a football team wins the Super Bowl. But, 99% of the time, when it's a full out destructive riot, you can count on this.
It's the NBA.
Do some research. It's out there. As the beloved Casey Stengel used to say, you could look it up.
So why is that?
Well, look at the pictures from last week. The profiling is there. Connect the dots. Like the ones on a pair of dice.
Dinner last night: Leftover Korean chicken.
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