Archives for December 2022

On this day Elvis Presley met with President Nixon to offer his help on the war on drugs. (Side note:  We lost).  “The King” wanted to distance himself from rock-and-roll’s unseemly association with the drug counter-culture.   At the conclusion of the brief meeting, Elvis surprised Nixon with a hug.

This gives me hope for the future.  Perhaps next December 21st a twice impeached ex-president will get a hug from Elvis; not the King, but cellmate Elvis Hindwacker.  And not in the White House, but in the shower at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary.  

A guy can dream!

The full quote:
“Maybe that’s what Batman is about. Not winning. But failing, and getting back up. Knowing he’ll fail, fail a thousand times, but still won’t give up.”  “Batman, Volume 5: Zero Year”

Seriously?  That’s not the speech I want to hear from my Superheroes.  Maybe if he’s sharing his feelings with Oprah over a vanilla mocha-latte.  Otherwise I want to hear something more in-line with: “Disarm the bomb and release the girl you mother%&#@* scumbag or I’ll rip your nards off and feed them to my vicious pit bull  Chauncey St. James III!”   Or something like that.

Sir Christopher Wren was one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history, as well as an anatomist, astronomer, geometer, and mathematician-physicist.  His most notable buildings in London include St Paul’s Cathedral, the Royal Hospital Chelsea, and the Old Royal Naval College.

I wonder what the architects had in mind when they built mobile home parks in Florida’s hurricane alley? 
Certainly not eternity.   Perhaps building a life-size game of Whack-a-Mole?

My sweet, loving mother had a hidden side to her not seen by most.  When I caught a cold and stayed home from school she became uncharacteristically evil and forced me to endure a cruel attempt to relieve the symptoms.  She put a scoop of Vicks VapoRub in a bowl of boiling water and covered the bowl and my head with a towel.  She believed breathing the steam rising from the mixture of camphor and eucalyptus would clear my sinuses allowing me to breathe easier and get some relief.  Oh how I hated the vile smell.   It is the same horrid goo that coroners and CSIs use to cover the intolerable smell of rotting flesh, but no odor could be worse. 

Although today I get winded climbing 3 steps, back in 1958 when subjected to VapoRub steam, I could hold my breathe a freakishly long time, lift a hidden corner of the towel and breathe clean air.  I never once inhaled a single bit of the noxious fumes.  I then smiled and lied to my mother.  “Wow, I feel better” and then suffered the congestion in silence believing it was the lesser of two evils.

Vicks, to your vile smelling VapoRub I extend my middle finger and say as long as there are children willing to endure the discomfort of cold symptoms we will resist and emerge victorious though having to breathe through our mouths to sustain life.

This is just one of the tortures I was forced to endure from Mommy Dearest.  Other indignities I was subjected to included mandatory eating of vegetables, limiting my television viewing and to get dessert, complete my homework every night!  I stand here today, living proof you can survive the cruelest of tortures and still make it through childhood.

We all get this offer daily from multiple sources.  But is it really free?

Amazon now charges $139.00 per year to get the right to buy their overpriced merchandise without additional freight charges.  (They are so convenient, what can we do?)  But we all know the cost of shipping is built in.  A more honest word than “free” would be “included.”

I have an offer for you.  I will dispense free advice within two days, for half of what Amazon charges for an annual Prime membership.  For only $69.50 you can join “Riddle Me This Prime” and get unlimited free advice from me for a full year with no additional charges.  Now that’s a truly free offer.

“What?  Oh I see what you’re saying…Hmmm…hold off on joining until I work this out and get back to you…Drat!”

What good is it to have a website visited every day by thousands of people if it does not have an occasional nugget of wisdom to guide and improve the lives of the adoring masses?  In this spirit I offer this PSA to help avoid, or most likely in your case (you know who you are), temporarily stave off the onset of dementia and cognitive decline.  Floss Daily!

“Poor oral hygiene can lead to the buildup of bacteria in the mouth, leading to inflammation of the gums [gingivitis], which if left untreated can lead to a chronic infection called periodontitis,” says Yuko Hara, director of aging and Alzheimer’s prevention at the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation.  A 2002 study found that poor periodontal health and tooth loss appear to increase the risk of both cognitive decline and dementia. 

Add the fact that getting the rotting bits of food out from between your teeth will prevent you from having rancid breath that would knock a buzzard off a crap-wagon.

It’s all good!

While many may question my expertise in the medical field, (I did get a B in high school biology), I believe my occasional perusing of a reprinted article from the Journal of the American Medical Association allows me to dispense medical advice with some confidence, especially when it comes to determining the mental health of others

With those stellar references I am here to state, without fear of contradiction, that if you spend $99 for an NFT of an egomaniac in a Superman leotard, you are 2 cards short of a deck, have lost your marbles, possibly because you have a screw loose and are as mad as a hatter while registering a half-bubble off plum on a carpenter’s level.

If you have $99 to throw away buy lottery tickets.  At least you’ll be left with a few pieces of paper to recycle; they are Fungible!

A great deal went down in 1950.  Just a few events of that help shaped the World Today: 

• The Korean War Began.
• The Miracle on the Green: The longshot American Team (odds 500-1) beat the heavily favored English Team (3-1) in a FIFA World Cup match in Brazil.
• Gary Merrill fell in Love with Bette Davis while filming All About Eve.
• Alan Turing wrote a computer chess program.
• Gloria Swanson was “Ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille” in Sunset Boulevard.
• Elvis, Ray, jerry Lee, Buddy rocked the music world (see Geoff Wolfe for more accuracy).
• AND…On the south(west) side of Chicago, in the baddest part of town, at 3:20 AM, a baby boy was born; destined for greatness…perhaps…maybe…Still hoping!

“In 1947, at a Bell Labs office in central New Jersey, three scientists forever changed the future of technology with a small but mighty invention: the transistor. Without the transistor we wouldn’t have modern hearing aids, handheld radios, digital watches, portable GPS systems, or flat-screen TVs, let alone the smartphones that largely power life today.”

So if we can get SKYNET to send a Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 back to 1947 and get Bell Labs to invent a pill that allows you to eat whatever you want and not gain weight instead of the transistor, we would all be skinny and perhaps talk to each other at dinner instead of gazing at our cellphones.

Now that’s a Terminator film I’d watch!  Cameron…Schwarzenegger…Get on it!

Scarlett O’Hara’s response to Rhett Butler not giving a damn.  It was true in Clayton County, Georgia then and remains true today.  Tomorrow is another day and whether you think it’s going to be a good day or think it’s going to be a bad day; either way you are right!  You are in control and you can make it happen.  

Spoiler Alert:  It’s probably going to suck. (Just kidding! All of your problems will magically disappear and life will be all rainbows and lollipops!)  Yaay!