Why Don't You Mind Your Business?

 

Yeah, I'm talking to you, Elizabeth Warren.  Or Grandma.  Or Pow Wow the Indian Girl.  Or whatever your name is today.

If you access your computer in California, you've probably had the repeated experience I have had of late.  You click on a You Tube video and the ad that you see is Elizabeth Warren explaining why the state should NOT vote to recall the inept and arrogant Governor Gavin Newsom.   As this old hag explains, this is all tied to a Trump conspiracy and we cannot let white supremacy dictate his removal from office.

To that, I say...well, look at the title of today's blog.

Again, the only thing our political leaders know how to do is take sides depending upon whether there is a "R" or a "D" after somebody's name.  Elizabeth Warren is so friggin' stupid that she would probably give Adolf Hitler a vote of confidence if we was registered with the Democratic Party.

Warren lives three thousand miles from California.   She should visit here some time for a reason other than to take a donation from some Hollywood type.

Liz, look at the homeless encampments.

Liz, look at all the rental signs over small businesses.

Liz, go visit that other dried up bitch in San Francisco and look at what has happened in that city.

Liz, take a good gander at what unstopped one-party rule has done to a once great state.

Then, and only then, can you bombard my on-line experiences with your pleas for cash to your party?

As I said above, mind your business and focus on destroying your own state.

Dinner last night:  Cherry tomato salad.

This Date in History - August 11

 

Happy birthday in Heaven to TV personality Mike Douglas who gets a double hit today.  Stay tuned.

3114 BC:  THE MESOAMERICAN LONG COUNT CALENDAR USED BY THE MAYA BEGINS.

Boy, that was a long time ago.

1315:  THE GREAT FAMINE OF EUROPE BECOMES SO DIRE THAT EVEN THE KING OF ENGLAND HAS DIFFICULTIES BUYING BREAD FOR HIMSELF.

No Wonder...literally.

1919:  BUSINESSMAN ANDREW CARNEGIE DIES.

Hence the Hall.

1920:  TV PERSONALITY MIKE DOUGLAS IS BORN.

One of my grandmother's favorites and somebody who had a perfectly symmetrical life.   You'll see.

1921:  AUTHOR ALEX HALEY IS BORN.

The original Roots.

1925:  ACTRESS ARLENE DAHL IS BORN.

And still with us.   Hollywood's version of the Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar.

1929:  BABE RUTH BECOMES THE FIRST BASEBALL PLAYER TO HIT 500 HOME RUNS IN HIS CAREER.

No steroids....just ate a lot of frankfurters.

1933:  MINISTER JERRY FALWELL IS BORN.

Lunatic.

1934:  THE FIRST CIVILIAN PRISONERS ARRIVE ON ALCATRAZ ISLAND.

Your home away from home.

1942:  ACTRESS HEDY LAMAAR AND COMPOSER GEORGE ANTHEIL RECEIVE A PATENT FOR A COMMUNICATION DEVICE THAT EVENTUALLY BECOMES THE CELL PHONE.

So blame her when you can't reach your kids via text.

1949:  MUSICIAN ERIC CARMEN IS BORN.

All by himself.

1953:  WRESTLER HULK HOGAN IS BORN.

Public reminder: this sport was fixed.

1965:  RACE RIOTS BEGIN IN THE WATTS AREA OF LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA.

And that neighborhood is still a disaster.

1969:  THE APOLLO 11 ASTRONAUTS ARE RELEASED FROM A THREE WEEK QUARANTINE FOLLOWING THEIR LIFTOFF FROM THE MOON.

A three week quarantine??  Oh, puh-leze.

1972:  THE LAST US GROUND COMBAT UNIT LEAVES SOUTH VIETNAM.

Eight years too late.

1984:  US PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN, WHILE RUNNING FOR RE-ELECTION, JOKES "WE BEGIN BOMBING IN FIVE MINUTES" WHILE PREPARING HIS WEEKLY ADDRESS ON NPR.

The earliest indicator of his dementia.

1995:  MUSICIAN PHIL HARRIS DIES.

Alice Faye's hubby and Jack Benny's bandleader.

2003:  HOCKEY COACH HERB BROOKS DIES.

Excelled at a lot of things, but not driving.

2006:  TV STAR MIKE DOUGLAS DIES.

One of those weird coincidences....dying on your birthday.

2009:  EUNICE KENNEDY SHRIVER DIES.

There are probably about five women who had the name "Eunice" ever.

2014:  ACTOR ROBIN WILLIAMS DIES.

This one still stings.   What a talent.

2020:  SINGER TRINI LOPEZ DIES.

"Lemon tree I'm buried under...very pretty."

Dinner last night:  Prime rib at Lawry's.

Wait! What??!! - August 2021

 

It's been a long time since we added a new monthly feature to this blog.   But, given all the lunacy around us (particularly on a government level), it is time to highlight this craziness every thirty days or so.

Welcome to...

Wait!  What??!!

You may have heard this last week even if you choose to avoid the news like I do.  There's some piece of trash who's a House Representative from Missouri, which is fast becoming the left armpit of America.   We might as well let Cori speak for herself.  And forgive me for exposing you to one of the stupid talking heads of MSLSD.

Wait?  What??!!

So this overgrown baboon is all for making laws that say you cannot get evicted if you can't pay your rent because of the pandemic.

Oh.

Does this idiot realize that rental home landlords are not always the super rich or privileged?   How about the woman who owns the condo I rent?   Or I have a friend who has been renting out his condo apartment to somebody for several years.  All of a sudden last spring, the guy stopped paying his rent.   Why?  Because some California governmental dodo said he didn't have to.  Now my friend has to jump through hoops to get his bills paid.

Now Cori Bush also says that, because of COVID, everybody should be exempt from utility bills.  Forget the fact that millions of me that did not include me got hefty stimulus checks for pain and suffering.  Meanwhile, somebody I know who works at a Target in the SF area told me his store ran out of 60 inch television sets the week after the stimulus hit the mail trucks.

Oh, and to make matter worse, Cori Bush also wants money removed from police forces.   But added that it's okay for taxpayers to pay for her security detail because, after all, she gets death threats all the time.

I can't imagine why.

Jeez.

Dinner last night:  Salad.

Monday Morning Video Laugh - August 9, 2021

 That's why they call them amusement parks.

Dinner last night:  Grilled cheese sandwich at the Hollywood Bowl.

The Sunday Memory Drawer - When A Kid Worked During The Summer, Part 1

 

Do they even do that anymore?  I'm talking about kids working summer jobs. Heck, in these post-pandemic days, the parents might be indeed taking on the same work they used to ask their kids to do.

But I digress.  Let's talk about the old days when teenagers ran around to find some sort of gainful employment for July and August.  And I ask now a very rhetorical question: is there still such a concept as "working papers?"

This nondescript street corner in Mount Vernon was the site of a monumental moment in my history.   Yep, my first summer job.

I remember when I was in my teen years that you couldn't even attempt to work without them. I completely forget the process of how you got them, except I'm pretty sure an application for a Social Security Card was part of the deal. Nevertheless, as soon as I was sixteen, I wanted to hit the bricks and find a job. Well, actually, it was really my dad's idea who told me very explicitly "hit the bricks and find a job."

My first employment ever was literally around the corner. In the winter before my neighborhood chums and I all hit the 16 digit in age, we were excited to see a huge job opportunity start to get erected within a block of our homes. A Carvel Ice Cream store was going up on the property of the local car wash. As a matter of fact, it was a business expansion for the car wash's owner, some ugly creep named Jerry Rattner (he's long dead, so I have no worries using his name). Jerry had the physical appearance of Frankenstein's monster with a personality to match. He probably fancied himself as this big business tycoon. And perhaps he was if you considered that one city block to be the entire universe.

Despite the ultra scary nature of Jerry, the local kids, including my best friend Leo and I, started to stalk him about when the store would be open. Jerry would always grunt the same reply.

"This summer. Come back then."

We chased this dude like showgirls would pursue Flo Ziegfeld. And, always the same garbled answer from the guy with bolts in his neck.

"This summer. Come back then."

Gotcha, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Gruesome.

Eventually, summer on schedule came. And most of us got hired to be the store's staff. I remember the very hot July night when the store first opened. We were decked out in Carvel whites with those stupid paper hats. And the place was packed to the seams as if nobody had ever seen before a two-scoop ice cream cone. One customer blended into another and we were all dizzy by the end. All the while, we had our Incredible Hulk of an employer standing nearby to critique our work. And concentrate on our mistakes.

"Whoa, that's too much whipped cream on there!"

"Whoa, cut the banana in quarters!"

"Whoa, stop giving all the pretty girls extra stuff!"

I wanted to say, whoa, fuck off, you bastard.

Amid all this hubbub, I developed a very real fear in working up one item for sale. It ultimately became a phobia that I needed to conquer and fast.

I was absolutely petrified if anybody ordered a Brown Bonnet.

You might remember that particular treat. A soft ice cream cone which is covered in this chocolate sauce that hardens on contact. You can actually buy the junk now in supermarkets under the brand name "Magic Shell." Well, Brown Bonnets were a very tricky thing to make. First, you swirl the soft ice cream onto a cone. And then you quickly dunk it in the sauce. Except I would always lose the ice cream in the mix. The cone came out without the custard. And this pretty much screwed up the sauce as there was now this glob of ice cream in the can.

"Whoa, that stuff is expensive. You're killing me here!"

Whoa, if only I could kill you right here...

The whole experience for me was torturous. Hours before the store would open to the public each day, you were on duty making all the "fresh" products that were sold in the freezer case. Parfaits, Flying Saucers, the 32 or so flavors of ice cream that were in vats displayed to customers. You'd stand with a tub in front of one of the custard machines. As vanilla ice cream dripped into the vat, you would periodically spoon something else in to create all the wonderful Carvel variations. Spooning in cherries. Voila, Cherry Vanilla. Spooning in chocolate syrup. Voila, Vanilla Fudge Swirl. Spooning in chocolate chips. Voila, Chocolate Chip.

"Whoa, that's way too many chocolate chips in there!"

Fuck off, shithead.

You'd go home at the end of the day, smelling like chocolate. You'd lay in bed at night and dream of the repetitive motion needed to make a cone. Over and over and over. And, throughout your sleep, you'd hear Jerry's voice telling you how you just screwed up one more time.

I lasted only the summer and no more. While my friend Leo actually thrived there as a manager and essentially funded his college education right through grad school, I realized that I was much better off on the other side of the counter. 

Licking the cone and wondering why there weren't more chocolate chips in the ice cream.

The following year, I moved onto another summer job. But, you will simply have to wait one week to hear all about it.

Dinner last night:  Barbecued ribs from Holy Cow.

Classic TV Commercial of the Month - August 2021

Remember when the new cars came out in September and you saw the commercials ahead of time.   Here's a glimpse of how Ford introduced...the Mustang.

 

Dinner last night:  Brisket sandwich at the Dodgers game.

The Mugs of August 2021

 

Honey, you do realize that this photo is not for the school yearbook.

He's ready just in case his jail cell has some cracked ceiling plaster.

Yes, you can...in about three to six years.

But did Obama believe in you?

Color of eyes: blue.  I mean, black.  I mean, black and blue.

That's what she gets for being nosy.

Oh, my God!  They've arrested Doc Severinsen!

Oh, my God!  They've arrested Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion!

Yeah, that's a talent that will come in handy when you hit the women's showers.

That's either a bad dye job or a vintage Montreal Expo cap on her head.

Dinner last night:  Chicken sausage.