Thoughts of a Common Man

I think that every set of parents, back to the stone ages, has uttered the following phrase: "These kids are eating us out of house and home." We're in a real tough position here at Camp Clifford because our hoodlums are really filling their fat freaking faces these days. The whining started on Saturday night. "There's nothing to eat around here." Never mind that we have to hustle and tag-team to figure out something interesting to feed them every night because they expect a hot meal at dinner. I know, I know...we should be making them dinner, but it sort of frosts your ass when you plan to cook something and they are putting chicken fingers in the microwave an hour before they expect us to serve them. (I love that phrase: frosts my ass). "What are you doing?" I asked the middle sized hoodlum as he bumped into me to get his appetizer out of the microwave - as I was starting on his dinner! "Just having a snack before we eat,...

Beat It Who knew that Michael Jackson was the normal one? Have you read any of the news coming out of the Jackson camp during the past week? Supposedly the mother went missing, and lost custody of The King of Pop’s children. Evidently there was a screaming match between Janet and Prince or Blanket or Comforter, or whatever the hell they call him. There are a number of items to comment on here. First of all, can you imagine Janet Jackson shouting? I haven’t heard her speak or even sing in anything more than a whisper. She didn’t even raise her voice when she was addressing what happened when we all saw her nip during the Super Bowl. Secondly, what do we make of Grandma’s disappearance? Was she sick? Was she hiding from Joe? Was the money just too tight? Those poor kids. Ever since Michael gassed himself in an effort to get some rest they have had to struggle by on $70,000 a month and a couple of billion in the bank in the form of the Beatles catalogue. Can you imag...

How much beauty do you think you'd find at a kickball game on a dark summer day where rain is threatening? Well, when you're in North Collins, New York, every year at the end of the July, there's beauty as far as the eye can see. It's there in the older folk who are trying to kick a ball and run down to first base without falling on their face. It's there in every dropped ball and every sip of Miller High Life. You see, kickball is the game favored at the memorial benefit for a great friend of many. Cathy George passed away at a young age. Her friends and loved ones are having a hard time letting her go. And that's a good thing! A beautiful thing, actually. I headed to the tournament this year, not as a player, but as a friend. I wanted to be let in on some of that wonderful grace. Of course, Cathy was a friend to everyone in town. Of course, her brother, mother and father are legendary friends to us all, but there's even more that brings us al...

A house literally exploded in a little town not far from Buffalo. A propane leak was the culprit. It happened on a night when two of the children in the family were staying elsewhere but there were too many family members home regardless. A young girl was killed in the explosion. It's a wonder they all weren't. "Isn't that awful?" the woman ahead of me in line said as she watched my eyes dance across the horrible words. I sort of grunted in affirmation. Of course it was horrible. What did she expect me to say? That I actually thought it was sort of cute? "They go to bed and boom, they wake up in the street. You tell me that there's a God." I laughed. "God doesn't cause propane leaks," I said. The woman answered me, but I was sort of done listening to her. I was too busy imagining God in a long white gown sneaking into that house through a window, opening up the valve that controls the level of propane. Our little enc...

So you fired up about the Olympics? Me neither. Have you read about that actress that cheated on her boyfriend by making out in a car with the guy who directed the movie? Must be an a ton of fun to be totally ashamed in front of the entire country. He's better off. Paterno's statue came down, huh? I honestly felt real bad for his kids who are out there trying to salvage the respect that his father built through the years. I believe that's a lost cause. Helluva' lesson in there. All the good you do is quickly forgotten when you spend years being dumb. He was way too egotistical to be a legend. Never mind a statue. Jesus deserved a statue. He didn't get it. They hung him instead. Yet the news that I was most drawn to this week was the New Yorker article about Bruce Springsteen. It's a great, great article. I know most of the story, of course. Bruce's Dad suffered from depression, and he made Bruce's early life a living hell. Bruc...

Man, when the kids are born we hold them in our arms and our mind really sorts through the possibilities, right? I can have a left-handed relief specialist sitting here. Our children are born free into a wonderful (by most accounts) country. The possibilities are endless. I hope he invites me to the Nobel Prize party when he wins it. I don't know when that sort of starts to get away from us. Perhaps it's when they are tossed from their first kindergarten class for calling their teacher, at a Catholic school, mind you, "One ugly m-fer," because they saw the Alien movie with Arnold the maid-doer. What do you want to be when you get out of school? Jake now has a pat answer. "A janitor." And I suppose that they will eventually find their way. There isn't a relief pitcher in the bunch. We can also cross off astronaut, professional wrestler, police chief, football star, basketball star, and the 51st president of the United States. And that...

I don't know why, but today I had a Beach Boys lyric in my head. I don't listen to the Beach Boys much. I don't have them on my I-pod. I probably haven't heard this song in twenty years. Well she got her daddy's car And she cruised through the hamburger stand now Seems she forgot all about the library Like she told her old man now And with the radio blasting Goes cruising just as fast as she can now And she'll have fun fun fun Til her daddy takes the t-bird away (Fun fun fun til her daddy takes the t-bird away) The reason why that song was in my head? I spent the other night watching The Honeymooners . Ralph pretended he was sick so he didn't have to visit Alice's mother. He went bowling instead and hurt his back. Laughter ensued when he got busted as he was prone to do. The best line in the show was this exchange: Ralph: Come on, you know I don't like to just eat and run. Alice: Given the way you eat it's a wonder you can walk...

I saw an old photo yesterday of Bill Clinton laughing while sharing something with George H. Bush. Didn't they team up for a couple of rescue missions? In any regard, the photo looked weird. Like Superman and Lex Luther having tea. Like a dog and a cat giving each other butterfly kisses. Like the coyote and the roadrunner meeting at the time clock to laugh about the show they'd put on. And it's weird to me. Every single issue, no matter what it is, seems to draw hatred on one side or the other. A madman tears up a movie and the end result is a group of Conservatives calling a group of Liberals cowards? And vice-versa. It definitely goes both ways. How is a mass murder a polarizing event? How is fixing the healthcare system, that both sides agree is broken, a decade long argument? How did we turn the 09/11 conflict into Rush and his gang against Bill Maher and the dancing liberals? As Bob Dylan once said: "We always did feel the same way, we ...

Having my nightly after dinner conversation with one of the two individuals that really listen to me: "Paris," I said. "The mule is on his last legs, and there's still a bunch of people on his back." Paris offered a look of utter confusion, but at least she was wagging her tail. And I'm not alone. Lots of tired people running around. It seems that everyone I talk to is flat-out at work. 10, 12, 14 hours...really getting after it. I, at least, have a job that gets me outside. The sites change too so no two days are ever alike. I can't imagine a guy on a line somewhere, or even someone who reports to an office each day. They'd find the mule hanging from the rafters. Yet on Monday, for the first time in my adult life, I paused...in fear. Let me set the scene. I had climbed a ladder to a rooftop area. Going up isn't troublesome. It just takes a bit of time. Thankfully there weren't any young bastards around to say something cute lik...

One of the drawbacks of opening your mouth is that you often get to hear from the other side. Loudly. The Colorado tragedy is polarizing and that in itself is crazy to me. So many people slaughtered and injured, and the main reason, to me, is crystal clear. That kid was allowed to assemble a war chest. Legally. Buying materials over the Internet, basically anonymous to those selling them to you. Buying assault weapons. Dreaming, plotting, planning and then executing . Executing innocent people who wanted to watch a freaking movie. And yet, there are people willing to defend his right to assemble such a cache of weapons. We have that right because we will be unprepared to defend ourselves against our own government when that time comes. A grand idea thought up by a group of people who were dealing with an unproven entity. We didn't know if the government that was being dreamed up was honestly going to work. We were leaving a situation where we had been oppressed and ...

A moment in the way back machine. I was fanatic about sports stars as a kid. I collected autographs, called sports phones to find out the Yankee score mid-game (Got in a lot of trouble for that at $.49 a minute) and read the sports page as soon as the paper hit the box. I read every line in every box score. We knew all that. Yet I remember a Saturday morning at the tender age of 12. I was up early and hanging pictures on my bedroom wall. Reggie, Wilt, The French Connection, Joe Ferguson, Ernie D. Just rip the tape and hang. Rip the tape, rip the tape. I had no idea that my mother needed the tape for something later in the day. When she found me, she ripped me. I remember a little of it. "It wasn't your tape." "You didn't ask." "Go to the store and get more tape." My mother wasn't mean. She just wanted to teach me responsibility. I'd show her. I gathered my change and headed for the store. It was about a mile hike through the...

April 199 - 12 killed in a school in Colorado July 1999 - 12 killed in a shooting in Atlanta, Georgia September 1999 - 6 killed at a prayer service in Fort Worth Texas October 2002 - 10 killed in sniper attacks in Washington, DC area August 2003 - 6 killed at a workplace in Chicago November 2004 - 6 killed by a hunter - Birchwood, Wisconsin March 2005 - 7 killed at a church service in Brookfield, Wisconsin October 2006 - 5 schoolgirls killed in Nickel Mines, PA. April 2007 - 32 people slaughtered at Virginia Tech December 2007 - 9 people killed at a shopping center in Omaha, Nebraska December 2007 - 6 people killed on Christmas Eve in Carnation, Washington February 2008 - 6 people killed in a clothing store in Chicago September 2008 - 6 dead in Alger, Washington killed by a mental patient let loose. December 2008 - 9 people dead - man dressed as Santa in Covina, California March 2009 - 10 people died at the hands of a disgruntled worker in Alabama April 2009 - 13 people ...

They really shouldn't call it football anymore. They are more into the crime game each year. In fact, they should keep the stats during the off-season. So far this week: DWI for former Bill great Marshawn Lynch. This was his 3rd offense. He ran a girl down here in Buffalo. They shipped him out. No one told him that drunk-driving is also against the law in California. But boy he can run. Then there's Dez Bryant. He beat up his mother. Allegedly. Said the bitch had it coming to her. And yesterday I opened the paper to see Michael Vick talking about redemption. You remember him, right? He murdered dogs. Then said he didn't know such a thing was frowned upon. The Eagles gave him 30 million. He's a changed man. Which is all just fine. We love football, right? The league...who's stadiums are taxpayer funded decided that the blackout rule was still basically fine. One of the people in management with the beloved Bills...who haven't sniffed...

Wednesday morning was a sad day for Howard Stern fans. Howard and Beth's bulldog Bianca died and fans of the show knew the secret. Howard Stern really loves his pets. Howard told us all about Bianca Romin Stamos...which was his bulldog's full name. Long-time fans remember the day he got her. I felt bad for the guy. I know the pain of losing and the grief. Yeah, even with goofy dogs. So, I listened to Howard try to hold it together as he talked of the loss. Then I walked down a Buffalo street and saw the following: Do you see the doggy up on the roof? Those two women in uniform were from animal rescue and as I got there they were trying to stand the ladder. I decided to help. I positioned the ladder and then offered to go up. (I wasn't allowed for liability reasons). You see, they were called after the dog climbed out the upper floor window, through a broken screen, and was stuck on the roof. I watched the daring rescue from the ground. The poor dog was scar...

I had icy hot on this morning. I suppose that's not the best way to go to visit someone's office, particularly when you don't know the guy, but I'm trying to get by. The man was in his mid-sixties and he surely sympathized with my aches and pains, but he also told me that they'd have to drag him out, kicking and screaming from his job. That was the sentence before he told me that he had stage 4 cancer that was in every organ in his body. What in the hell do you say to that? "You look good," I said lamely. "I don't know about that," he said, "but I'm gonna' keep battling." I sort of wondered why he was still getting up early to go to work, but he answered my question by showing me around the grounds. He was a diligent guy. Very professional and courteous to the men who worked for him. Somehow I mentioned one of my boys. His eyes lit up. "I have three great kids," he said. "They all have good pro...

What a world we live in, huh? The above pictured clan is a group of Fazzolari's. I don't know any of them. I'm not even sure where they live. I remember something about South America. All I do know is that a couple of years ago I received a friend request from Enzo Fazzolari (Who is the name of my sister's dog) and he told me about finding me through some sort of search site. I accepted the friend request. And we have not had a lot in the way of correspondence other than he posts something that I glance at from time-to-time and I'm sure it's the other way around too. We will most likely never "know" each other. But we are Fazzolari's so there's a lot we most likely share. I bet they eat pasta. I bet there are a couple of loud people in the group. They tan easy. Passionate people? Probably. And what caught my eye today was the shot of all of them grouped together. The brown skin, the brown eyes. How did they get ever...

Is it me or has the customer service in this country really sort of shit the bed? I went to the bank yesterday. It's a new bank, mind you, because my old bank closed down and true to their nature they did not offer me a choice of banks in the change. I was simply sent to a new bank with a new card and a new set of instructions on how to do banking. I'm not good with change, but I decided to put on my big boy pants. I'd act like a responsible customer. So with Melky and Paris in tow we pulled up to the ATM and the option for depositing a check was there. I punched in the new number and was asked to deposit the check. I did. "Would you like more time?" the screen asked. "I deposited it!" I yelled at the screen. No answer other than: "Please place check in envelope provided and deposit in slot below." Envelope? Provided? I didn't need an envelope at my old bank. I glanced behind me. There were envelopes...provided...too late....

Written by Bob Dylan in 1966. Man, he could write lyrics. Come you masters of war You that build the big guns You that build the death planes You that build all the bombs You that hide behind walls You that hide behind desks I just want you to know I can see through your masks. You that never done nothin' But build to destroy You play with my world Like it's your little toy You put a gun in my hand And you hide from my eyes And you turn and run farther When the fast bullets fly. Like Judas of old You lie and deceive A world war can be won You want me to believe But I see through your eyes And I see through your brain Like I see through the water That runs down my drain. You fasten all the triggers For the others to fire Then you set back and watch When the death count gets higher You hide in your mansion' As young people's blood Flows out of their bodies And is buried in the mud. You've thrown the worst fear That can ever be hu...

My boy Jake seems to be a real fan of stand-up comics. I even told him that I had tried it and loved it and that I'd been pretty dang good at it. I really want to do it again, actually. Anyway, Jake has found a bunch of new, young comics and he played a couple of them for me, and I laughed my ass off watching them. Yet I also wanted to play him a few of my favorites, so I of course, started him with a Carlin concert. "That guy is a genius," Jake said a few minutes into it. I told you that he could judge talent. Well on Thursday night Jake took his turn. "You ever see Louis C.K. do stand up?" he asked. Of course I watch the show on FX, and somewhere along the line I'd seen an act or two, but not the particular one that Jake grabbed off of NetFlix. I spent the next 40 minutes laughing until I was on the verge of tears. There were some really weird sounds coming from me as I pictured an adolescent Louis with cottage cheese and his dog. And dur...

That's the Penn State motto. As my kids might ask: How'd that work out for you? And far be it from me to try and kick dirt on Joe Paterno as he rests in eternal peace, but be fair and know that I kicked dirt at him when the scandal first broke. What gets to me is that people are still defending him! Give me a break. All right, he might have cut his buddy and coach a break in 1998 when he first found out, but again in '01? That was when he made a conscious decision that his reputation and legacy was worth more than those kids. Kids! Who were in the hands of pure evil! Again, how'd that decision work out for you? Joe let Jerry keep his key to the school. Joe let Jerry keep his seat in the suite for the big games. Joe even let Jerry bring kids in there with him. Joe knew Jerry was abusing those kids. Sandusky was the dirty, filthy uncle who had them by the short hairs and they decided...made a conscious decision...to let him keep doing what he was ...

I've never been to Kansas City and while I've always had nice thoughts about the place - George Brett was a great player - I've decided that I will never go there unless I do what I did up in Boston. Not sure if you caught the All-Star Game Festivities. My boy Robinson Cano was excited to be the captain of the American League Home Run Derby Team. As captain he got to choose 3 guys to play with him. He decided to choose guys who are actually great players. Makes sense, right? Unfortunately, there aren't any great players on the Royals. Hasn't been one since Brett quit 20 years ago. So the Royals fans got mad. They said that Cano promised them he'd pick Billy Butler. I saw that interview. He said he'd consider all the players and choose the ones who gave the AL the best chance to win. The 3 guys he picked finished 1, 2, and 3 in the event. The KC fans booed Cano, who might be the best player in the league. Fine, whatever. He's a Yankee. They g...

I’m thinking old Tommy Boy ain’t real stable. Let’s backtrack, huh? His first wife said that she had enough of him because he wanted to be celibate for his religion. I can’t imagine what my beautiful wife might say if I told her that. I’m sure that I’d be pursuing my life as a monk, on my own. “You don’t want to have sex?” My wife would say. “What in the hell am I going to do with those three extra minutes every week?” But there was still hope for Tom because he hooked up with a real power chick, Nicole Kidman. Things didn’t go very well there, either, despite the fact that he must have wanted to give up his monk-chasing at least on the wedding night, right? There were more moments of craziness as Tom talked of being a high priest or other such nonsense and since he was never hanging around with Nicole for photos, people started to whisper. I don’t blame him for not wanting to be photographed next to her as she’s about a foot and a half taller, but Tom was back in the...

There's no doubt about it. Have you ever been trapped in a wild fire? Or thought that the spread of the fire would engulf your home? Think San Diego and Malibu. Mud slides? Again, California...where they also have earthquakes on a routine basis. We don't have fires, or mud slides or earthquakes here in the weather capital of the world: Buffalo, New York. Are you ready for the hurricanes? I'm talking to you, Florida, and Georgia and Carolina and Texas and Louisiana. The only way we get water in our basements is if we overflow our portable pools while we enjoy our beautiful summers. Yeah, beautiful summers... are you listening Maryland and Georgia and all the rest of the places where you burned your asses off this week. We were mostly in the 80's and low 90's. That's February in Arizona. No threats of tsunami, no hurricanes, no rainy season, no mud slides, no tornadoes. Do you hear that Nebraska and Kansas and all those other places whe...

The idea for the new book was conjured up over a couple of beers and a bit of food last summer in the beautiful city of Pittsburgh. Three "old" friends sitting around brainstorming. We wanted to just do it as a screenplay, but I am way more comfortable writing 300 pages than I am in writing 20. So we talked, and then I drove home with my black notebook beside me. Pittsburgh to Buffalo is about three hours. I had the entire outline done before I got home. I knew the beginning, the middle and the end. At that point I was still thinking it'd be a screenplay, but what the hell, why not fiddle around with it as a novel? You'd think that writing a book is about a lot of long hours, and it is, but the hours when you're actually in front of the keyboard are minimal for me. It's more about the black notebook. Just scribbled thoughts. A lot of quotes. Nearly indecipherable notations that say things like this: Chapter 12 - Fear - Rolando explodes Just thing...

It's sort of funny that we have the first lady talking about an exercise program for kids, people speaking about healthcare, and the leaders explaning that we need to work to eat better, and then we have a sort of bacon explosion going on. Have you tried a bacon sundae yet? Me neither. Supposedly that is a bowl of ice cream with a little chocolate sauce and bacon bits sprinkled over the top. That's not enough, though. Now there's a bacon burger coming out - it's being served in Southern California. We've all had a burger with bacon on top, right? This isn't the same thing. This is a burger made completely out of bacon. For good measure it is served with bacon on top. I know people who call bacon "meat candy" (Hi Pops) and can eat it by the pound. You wouldn't know it to look at me, but I can honestly take it or leave it. When I order eggs I have a side of sausage instead. Obviously it's not for health reasons. I'm just not...

So it seems that there is breaking news on the God front. This week it was announced that after nearly 50 years of thinking about it we have confirmation of some sort of dancing atom that tells of God. I can't pretend to understand anything other than a couple of guys spent about ten billion dollars to come up with the proof. Try reading the explanation. It reminded me of being in Trigonometry all those years ago. Not a freaking clue about what the hell is being said. I broke the news to my mother. "They should have given you and me the money," she said. "We could have come up with an announcement a lot quicker than that." Mom was a tad skeptical about the men and their reasoning. Speaking of God, the whole TomKat divorce is shedding light on the scientology religion that Tom Cruise is so caught up in. He has been so enraptured that he had three brides who aren't real bad looking and he wanted to be celibate to become a monk in the whole volcano ...

All right...the cat's out of the bag. Saturday, July 7, 2012 will be the day when I complete the first draft of the new book. I'm looking at a two-week edit and then off to the publisher to anxiously await word on whether or not I pulled it off. I'm nervous. Nah, I'm not. I think it's right there with everything else I've done lately. I can tell you one thing for sure: It's been fun. I love writing fiction. It's so much better than examining the pain in my heart that non-fiction has required. But what can I say about the new book? It's funny. It's sad. It was an idea that was bandied about and we can do a screenplay with it. There's a lot of Springsteen involved. The main character has a bit of me in him. The rest of the characters have a bit of all people. Together we tackle a lot of issues. As with the rest of my books my favorite readers have had the chance to read along. No one has seen the last three chapters....

Gonna' let Mick Jagger write one: When all the twelve apostles try to ring me on the phone Take a message but I won't return the call For I have no eyes to see him and I thought I lost my way And I know I've lost the keys to your door. And I climbed the highest mountain and I looked down on the sea And I saw a ship a-sailin to the shore I took a passage to the East and I journeyed to the West I made love from Battambang to Baltimore I said, 'Oh, am I running in a race?' I said, 'Oh, am I getting any place?' I said, 'Oh, can I make it?' I'm a wandering spirit. I'm a wandering spirit Yes I am a restless soul I'm a wandering spirit There's no place I can call my own. I was a glutton at the banquet and I spilled the finest wine Trod the pyramids and ruins of Angkor I kissed the Mona Lisa and I breakfast-ed with kings And I touched the nerves of nature in the raw. I said, 'Oh, am I running in a race?' I ...

It's pretty hard to consider the mindset of a bunch of people that lived so long ago. Yet whenever I think of Independence Day I consider that whoever is screaming for independence is doing so because they feel they are being unjustly treated. The biggest believers of freedom are locked in a cage somewhere. And freedom from the unjust is a lofty goal. It makes me wonder. What those who fought for our freedom would think of us now. Would they be for or against locking others out who are seeking freedom? Would they be for or against a healthcare program that is all-inclusive? Would they want to take away our guns? Would they oppress a group of people because of their religious beliefs? Or sexual orientation? Would they be for or against wars in other countries who's citizens are oppressed? Again, politics isn't my game, but let's all close our eyes for a moment and consider those who were figures in the revolution that granted us freedom. Eyes closed...

Man, Ricky Henderson could fly. Back in the 90's when he got to first you knew he'd aggravate the pitcher just enough to wind up on 3rd in about three minutes. Yesterday he led off the 27-Time World Champion Yankees old-timers game. He hit a slow roller that found its way between short and the pitcher. 20 years ago he would have been in right field before the shortstop picked up that ball. Yesterday he was out by six steps. He laughed. My boys were playing basketball in the driveway yesterday. "Give me a shot," I called. Sam tossed me the ball. I thought of how cool it was when I tossed the ball to my Dad and he tried a hook shot. I wound up and put it squarely off the back rim. The ball bounded back at me and I moved towards it. I limped heavily. "All right, stop with the fake injury cause you missed it and give us the ball back," Sam said. We all laughed. There's no faking the fact that we can't move quite as well as we used to. ...

So we had the court battle and it seems that the healthcare that was proposed is going to go through after all, right? Should we all take a few moments to debate this? There certainly doesn't seem to be enough misinformation out there about it now. Can we agree on one thing? That what we have had up to this point is pretty much a disaster? I've been stuck in the medical vortex all year long. The doctor wants to treat you as he knows how, but he doesn't do it because he's afraid that the insurance company will shoot him down, and he is also half-assed afraid that if he makes a decision that somehow costs you even more, you'll sue his ass. Then there is the cost of everything. A bottle of pills can cost thousands of dollars. Explain that to me. They cost 8 bucks to make and they charge you a grand. We will always have people who can't afford to pay their own way. That has and always will be a problem. It's unsolvable. For hundreds of years now ...

What the hell is wrong with Katie Holmes? Didn't she see Tom Cruise bouncing on Oprah's couch like a weird lunatic? Doesn't she know that he is a superstar who can beat up everyone in the movies? Despite the fact that he's about 5'2" Doesn't she know that Tom also sits at the right hand of L.Ron Hubbard who wrote his own nonsensical Bible? He's the father of Siri, for crying out loud and she appears to be the voice that pops up on my I-phone whenever I hold it to my ear by mistake. I don't get it? My heart aches for poor Tom. He's had three beautiful wives. They've all cast him aside. Don't they appreciate a little homosexuality (allegedly) in their husbands? And of course, now we have the juicy details of the split. Katie went straight for the throat. She wants full custody of Siri and $3 million dollars for every year that she was married to the god of fire or whatever the hell he is. What a weird dude, huh? Per...