Morons of the Month - May 2026

A year plus after the devastating fires of the Pacific Palisades, I have found myself of late having to venture to that neighborhood as my dentist's office was relatively unscathed on a block now otherwise filled with vacant lots and charred fireplaces.

Indeed, here's how horrible those fires were.   I personally and directly know eight people who lost their homes.   That would include my eye doctor, my dentist, two dental hygienists, three people I used to work with, and two folks in my gym.

As I drove to get my new nightguard, I noted that there is some construction and signs of life where close to 7,000 homes were destroyed.  But, along with some trucks containing wood slat and the occasional Port-O-San, you can't miss the most frequent reminders of what happened here.   Lots of American flags.  And this sign...

And, of course, pleas for resignations from the inept Governor Newsom and...the Mayor.

Newsom's failures in this state have been known for a while.   But he gets a hall pass because he loves to poke at Trump.  

And I've long known about the ineptitude of Karen Bass who used to be my Congressperson.  I've written about her years ago for ignoring my e-mails regarding health care costs.    I never got the courtesy of a response, but that may be largely due to some profiling.   I have been told that "Black" sounding names are the ones who get the callbacks.  

So, Len, you may ask...this is old news.   Well, not really.  You see, Bass as in Ass is up for re-election and is currently leading in the polls.   

Now think about the name of this monthly blog entry.  Morons of the Month.  If you live in Los Angeles and can drive over to see what happened to some of its neighborhoods, how could you possibly vote for these shitheads?  I've often said that there are some Democrats who would vote for Adolf Hitler if he had a D after his name.

I can hear the nisguided rationale now.

"Well, he was misunderstood."

"He suffered harassment and abuse from that art teacher."

"His hair style is better than Trump's."

This is all too much for me to comprehend.

Dinner last night:  Prosciutto, provolone, and cantaloupe.

This Date in History - April 8

 

Henry Aaron's historic home run happened on this date.   And not a speck of steroids was used.

217:  ROMAN EMPEROR CARACALLA IS ASSASSINATED.  

Back in the day when, if you didn't like a ruler...well...there were ways...

1093:  THE NEW WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL IS DEDICATED BY WALKELIN.

You're bringing me down.

1139:  ROGER II OF SICILY IS EXCOMMUNICATED.

Roger and out.

1149:  POPE EUGENE III TAKES REFUGE IN THE CASTLE OF PTOLEMY II OF TUSCULUM.

Tusculum?   I was prescribed that for a cough.

1665:  ENGLISH COLONIAL PATENTS ARE GRANTED FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE MONMOUTH TRACT FOR WHAT WOULD BECOME MONMOUTH COUNTY IN NEW JERSEY.

And, later on, Monmouth Racetrack.

1730:  SHEARITH ISRAEL, THE FIRST SYNAGOGUE IN NEW YORK CITY, IS DEDICATED.

There would be one or two more.

1808:  THE ROMAN CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF BALTIMORE IS PROMOTED TO AN ARCHDIOCESE BY POPE PIUS VII.

So, a diocese is sort of like a Triple A minor league team?

1820:  THE VENUS DE MILO IS DISCOVERED ON THE AEGEAN ISLAND OF MELOS.

She was found unarmed.

1864:  DURING THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, UNION FORCES ARE THWARTED BY THE CONFEDERATE ARMY AT MANSFIELD, LOUISIANA.

Well, somehow, in the next 12 months, the Union fortunes would change for the better.

1892:  ACTRESS MARY PICKFORD IS BORN.

Did she come out with the curls?

1895:  THE SUPREME COURT OF THE US DECLARES UNAPPORTIONED INCOME TAX TO BE UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

How about all of income tax?

1904:  LONGACRE SQUARE IN MANHATTAN IS RENAMED TIMES SQUARE AFTER THE NEW YORK TIMES.

I did not know this and, sometimes with this weekly history entry, I even astound myself.

1906:  AUGUSTE DETER, THE FIRST PERSON TO BE DIAGNOSED WITH ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE, DIES.

I'm glad historians remembered this.  Auguste Deter sure didn't.

1908:  HARVARD UNIVERSITY VOTES TO ESTABLISH THE HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL.

Because all those smart graduates are going to need good accountants.

1913:  THE 17TH AMENDMENT TO THE US CONSTITUTION, REQUIRING DIRECT ELECTION OF SENATORS, BECOMES LAW.

I look at folks like Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid and suddenly this is not such a good thing.

1918:  FORMER FIRST LADY BETTY FORD IS BORN.

She died at 93, so drinking does have its merits.

1918:  ACTOR DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS AND CHARLIE CHAPLIN SELL WAR BONDS ON THE STREETS OF NEW YORK CITY.

I guess neither of them were good at Three Card Monte.

1923:  ACTOR EDWARD MULHARE IS BORN.

Years before he was a ghost on TV.

1933:  COMPOSER FRED EBB IS BORN.

Life begins...and it's a cabaret.

1935:  THE WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION IS FORMED WHEN THE EMERGENCY RELIEF APPROPRIATION ACT OF 1935 BECOMES LAW.

Shovel Ready, the 1935 Version.

1943:  US PRESIDENT FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT, IN AN ATTEMPT TO CHECK INFLATION, FREEZES WAGES AND PRICES, PROHIBITS WORKERS FROM CHANGING JOBS UNLESS THE WAR EFFORT IS AIDED, AND BARS RATE INCREASES FROM PUBLIC UTILITIES.

A busy day.  His mistress must have been out of town.

1943:  BROADWAY DIRECTOR MICHAEL BENNETT IS BORN.

A Chorus Life.

1952:  US PRESIDENT HARRY TRUMAN CALLS FOR THE SEIZURE OF ALL DOMESTIC STEEL MILLS TO PREVENT A NATIONWIDE STRIKE.

I wonder how Dewey would have handled this.

1954:  BASEBALL STAR GARY CARTER IS BORN.

This should be a national holiday.

1964:  UNMANNED GEMINI I IS LAUNCHED.

So who was steering it?

1974:  IN ATLANTA, HANK AARON HITS HIS 715TH CAREER HOME RUN TO SURPASS BABE RUTH'S RECORD.

And I don't care why anybody says.  Barry Bonds did not break Aaron's record.

1975:  FRANK ROBINSON MANAGES THE CLEVELAND INDIANS IN HIS FIRST GAME AS MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL'S FIRST BLACK MANAGER.

And, regardless of color, I hear the guy's a real shithead.

1978:  FORMER BASEBALL COMMISSIONER FORD FRICK DIES.

Frick him.

1987:  LA DODGERS EXECUTIVE AL CAMPANIS RESIGNS AMID CONTROVERSY OVER RACIAL COMMENTS HE MADE ON TV'S NIGHTLINE.

He said Black men can't swim.  How come nobody get into an uproar when somebody says White men can't jump?

1990:  ACTIVIST RYAN WHITE DIES.

That little kid with AIDs.

1992:  RETIRED TENNIS GREAT ARTHUR ASHE ANNOUNCES THAT HE HAS AIDs, ACQUIRED FROM BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS DURING HEART SURGERIES.

It's still amazing how slow hospitals were to react to this crisis.

1996:  ACTOR BEN JOHNSON DIES.

The real Last Picture Show.

2005: CHOREOGRAPHER ONNA WHITE DIES.

She created the "I've Got a Lot of Living" dance in Bye Bye Birdie.  For this alone, I want the day off.

2005:  OVER FOUR MILLION PEOPLE ATTEND THE FUNERAL OF POPE JOHN PAUL II.

Or, in translation, four years of Mets attendance at Citi Field.

2013:  ACTRESS ANNETTE FUNICELLO DIES.

M-i-c...d-e-a-d.

2018:  COMIC CHUCK MCCANN DIES.

Hi, guy.

Dinner last night:   Leftover rigatoni.

A Different Kind of Love Story

 

You hear about a 2 and a half hour movie set in outer space with lots of special effects and you expect it to be a complicated mess.  But, not "Project Hail Mary" starring the always reliable and super engaging Ryan Gosling.   This flick is as simple as you get.   Indeed, there's only about ten people in the cast.   And yes, there is a lot of confusing SFX.   But, at its heart and gore, this movie is a...

...story of love and friendship.  It doesn't get any more basic than that.

Okay, first for the crazy plot.   Gosling plays a middle school science teacher who suddenly wakes up from a coma in outer space.   You see the sun is dimming and will kill 2/3 of the Earth's population and it's all hands on deck to stop that.  And that includes Gosling and his middle school science lessons.

The teacher starts applying simple school experiments to solve the problem.  Naturally, this is all over my head and the heads of the rest of the audience.  But Gosling's winning manner makes it all unbelievably sensible.

And then he is visited by an alien who looks like a boulder with arms.  He is suitably named Rocky.  The bulk of the movie now moves into a two man...okay, one man and one rock...relationship of education, respect, and friendship.   It is truly the core of the movie and it sells it perfectly.  Never has am end-of-the-world cinema epic been so comfortable to watch.  Plus there are some callouts to other movies.   You hear the musical chords from "Close Encounters."  And, naturally, Rocky talks about his girlfriend...Adrian.  Duh.   

Finally something decent to see in this genre.  

LEN'S RATING:  Three-and-a-half stars.

Dinner last night:  Leftover lasagna.

Monday Morning Video Laugh - April 6, 2026

 The now monthly visit with Oliver the Beagle.

Dinner last night:  Baby back ribs at the Smoke House.

The Sunday Memory Drawer - Easter Redux Again

 

It's a weird holiday on our calendar.  The first problem with Easter Sunday is that it's not consistent.  Sometimes it's in April.   Or, in other years, March.  It can be hotter than blazes.   Or you have six inches of snow on your doorstep.

Meanwhile, there is the day itself.  Unlike Thanksgiving and Christmas, when family gatherings were a requirement, there was less of a focus on the big holiday meal for Easter.  Sometimes we did.   Or, in other years, we didn't. 

There were one or two Easters when we got all dressed up and took a bunch of silly pictures out in a park or at City Island in the Bronx.  You see evidence of that as my mom poses for one of Dad's Technicolor slides with Bing Crosby Jr.    At the same time, there were several Easters where we never left the front of the television set.  Let's Go, Mets!   Let's Go, Mets!

There were gifts for Easter sometimes.  And then, sometimes, there weren't.   There was always a chocolate bunny and a basket full of candy.  Which my dad would eat most of since my parents were worried about cavities. 

A holiday celebration that was sometimes sweet and very frequently sour.

Yep, I could never get a handle on Easter Sunday.

Okay, there is the religious celebration and that was always stressed when I was a kid.  My grandparents didn't go to church all that much anymore, but they never missed Good Friday services.  Meanwhile, while we were a Protestant home with nary a religion-provoked dietary restriction, my own parents really pushed the "no meat" rule on Good Friday.  It was always grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner. 

Part of my confusion about this Easter stuff naturally came from an innocent child's questioning of what I learned in Sunday school.  On Good Friday, you're told that Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross and took three hours to die.  There was one kid in my neighborhood who was a religious nut.  He told me that the nuns in his school told him that the skies get dark every Good Friday from the hours of 12 noon to 3PM. 

Yeah, right.

Naturally, that very year, it happened just like he said.  Day turned into night due to an impending storm.  I peered out the window of my grandmother's living room at the doom and gloom.  Maybe there was something to this all.   Ever the skeptic, Grandma injected her usual logic.

"Oh, don't believe everything those crazy Catholics tell you."

Oh.

My inward struggle also got contributions from my mother, who wasn't particularly religious but had dragged me to every Biblical epic that played at the RKO Proctor's Theater on Gramatan Avenue in Mount Vernon, New York.   We saw them all either first-run or in revival.

"The Story of Ruth."

"Spartacus."

"The Ten Commandments."

"King of Kings."

"Barabbas."

"El Cid."

"The Robe."

Whatever the film, most ended with Jesus dying on the cross and the subsequent resurrection.  The latter was another concept that had me raising my hand in question a time or two.

They put Jesus Christ in a tomb.   They blocked it with a stone.  But, by the third day, he was gone.   Risen to heaven.   His body was gone.

Okay, this happens to all people, right, Mom?

When my dad's brother, Uncle Fritz, died and was buried at Ferncliff, I had a novel idea.   Let's go up there and see if we can watch this happen.  I mean, you must be able to see these people coming out of their graves and going skyward.  I presented this idea to both my parents.   And got the vague response.

"It doesn't work like that."

But they told us that in Sunday school.  The pastor told us that.  Gee, we saw it happen just like that in "King of Kings."

"It's more complicated than that."

Uh huh.  Over the years of my life, I realized that those questions were at the very heart of Christian belief. 

So, along with the changing day and unplanned weather and the inconsistent holiday celebrations, that was the main reason I still can't figure out Easter Sunday.  Our church is temporarily closed but, in my mind, I hear the story one more time.  

Perhaps that's the struggle that was originally intended. 

And then, to make the holiday even more confusing, there are those Easters when I spent the day at a Dodger game.  Go figure.

Dinner last night:  Lasagna.

Classic TV Commercial of the Month - April 2026

 Do they still make Vanquish?

Dinner last night:  Popcorn at the movies.

That Lovable Easter Bunny

 

Dinner last night:  Sandwich.