Thoughts of a Common Man

Damn, that Amanda Bynes is a mess, huh? Are you watching that unfold? Bynes was a real star on television. Our kids all watched her show back then...Matt quickly switching the channel because some doof would make fun of him for watching a girl on television. "Matt loves Amanda," I would taunt. "I WASN'T WATCHING IT!!!" Yet for all intents and purposes she was a star. She went into movies... ...and then something slipped. She crashed her car, lost her license, got the DWI, then the possession charge. She appeared in court as a lunatic. She threw a bong out a window in NYC, she threatened to start her dog on fire. Her parents reached out. Other stars made fun of her. Other stars tried to talk to her. And the papers ate it up. TMZ setting up residence wherever she moved. And finally...the dreaded 5150 call went out. The star was sent to psychiatric treatement for being potentially harmful to herself or others. 5150. Do you get to put t...

I read the story of the guy who snapped in Florida and killed six people before the cops put a bullet in him to end the battle. And it occurred to me. All of the angst about guns and pyschos missing... ...all of the despair over loss of life... ...the hand-wringing about rights lost or rights retained... It's never gonna' stop. I'm thinking it's just a hold-your-breath type of situation. Just hope you're not like the guy who was walking by the scene and was gunned down by a stray shot. My job as a safety consultant for construction guys is a real eye-opener. I have a lot of chances to communicate information to a lot of men who age from 21-65. "Your chance of surviving a fall from 16' or more is not good," I always say. Then I discussed the speed at which you fall and show videos on results of man meeting ground. When I'm done I ask the question: "How many of you will feel good about working 16' up without being prote...

The real difficulty of life at almost 50 years old is that weekends are spent at a graduation party for one of your friend's kids...if you're lucky...or at a funeral parlor to say goodbye to someone...if it's a bad weekend. This particular weekend we ran the gamut. A party. A graduation party. And a wake. For my cousin, Kathy...who was way too young to head out to the spiritual side. And what got me about each event was how quickly it all goes. At the first party there was a lot of booze around. None of us really picked it up and drank it. We looked at it and talked about days gone by when we got particularly over-served with one brand or another. Then we did a single shot of Jamesons, toasting those days past. I kept thinking that ten years ago it was a very different party. Then it was on to the wake. As is now the norm there is a television in the back corner and life is captured in a series of moving pictures with a soft song playing. I sat down ...

He's hanging up the spatula. Living Legend Jeff Popple is pulling out of his particular job...to win. And let me tell you, it's my loss. "Yo, I'm stopping for lunch," I'd text. Two hours later I wouldn't be able to move. Way too big on the cheeseburger. Way too much on the plate when I'd order the Joe's Special. There were usually two stuffed peppers served first. As an appetizer. Quick...anyone else get an appetizer for breakfast? And it was a lot of fun eating at the 3-Star when I was a young man. Perhaps it will do us all some good if Pops leaves the industry. But it is our loss. Because he really can cook. "How do you do your macaroni and peas," he texted me one day. I gave him my father's recipe and then went on with my day. Hours later, I got a text back. "Holy shit! I can't make enough of it to keep 'em happy." My Dad knew the feeling. So, good luck on the new career. I...

Things I Owe My Parents My Parents taught me TO APPRECIATE A JOB WELL DONE .. "If you're going to kill each other, do it outside. I just finished cleaning." My Parents taught me RELIGION. "You better pray that will come out of the carpet." My Parents taught me about TIME TRAVEL. "If you don't straighten up, I'm going to knock you into the middle of next week!" My Parents taught me LOGIC. "Because I said so, that's why." My Parents taught me FORESIGHT. "Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you're in an accident." My Parents taught me IRONY. "Keep crying, and I'll give you something to cry about." My Parents taught me about the science of OSMOSIS. "Shut your mouth and eat your supper" My Parents taught me about CONTORTIONISM. "Will you look at that dirt on the back of your neck!" My Parents taught me about STAMINA. "You'...

I'm not really all that crazy about giving second chances when the first one was really bad enough. A-Rod? Kick him out of the game. Ray Lewis? He should've never been on TV and billed as a warrior. He killed his chance. Twice. Douche Armstrong? I don't ever want to hear his lying voice again. And this Anthony Weiner dude? I am amazed, actually. I'm amazed that he'd have the audacity to run for the Mayor of New York knowing that he had tapes of dialogue of sexting with a 22 year old. I heard the dialogue the other morning on Opie and Anthony. It was horrific. I was embarrassed to be a man. First off, I wouldn't ever be stupid enough to do such a thing, but if I had, I know that I wouldn't even try and beg forgiveness from my wife, kids, or millions of New Yorkers. I wouldn't even be able to ever look someone in the eye again let alone stand up and tell people that I'm the right man for a very important job. He sent photo...

How much can you take in regard to the royal birth? I find it all so weird, actually. That kid won the freaking genetic lottery, right? He is already a star just by virtue of making the trip down the canal. The Queen makes $42 million a year. That goofy Prince Charles gets his ass kissed at every turn. His bald son landed beautiful Kate and now they get to have a royal baby. Delivered by the royal gynecologist. Do they have a royal proctologist too? I'm just sort of burned out on it a bit even though having a baby is a blessed event and while Kate is a truly beautiful girl. (All together now) (She's no Kathy Fazzolari). Yet there's a whole lot of pressure being born into such a life, isn't there? What if the kid is butt-ugly? What if he doesn't want to play dress-up and go to all of those ceremonies? What if he is a little dim-witted? I have a feeling that we are going to find out all the answers to all of these questions because we are g...

I was stopped at a traffic light yesterday morning. It was one of those eternal lights out on Niagara Falls Boulevard, and it was just a little before eight o'clock. The girl in the car next to me was making a number of frenzied movements and I glanced over. She was a pretty, young blonde girl and the movements were frenzied because she was essentially putting her face on. I watched her rub a small brush up and down her chin and around her eyes. She never looked my way because she was really working hard. She's pretty , I thought. She reached to the seat beside her and came up with another instrument and she started really working on her eyes, looking straight into the mirror to make sure she didn't mess up. The light turned green and I moved on. She's no Kathy Fazzolari ," I thought next. There was another light just a short jaunt up the road and we stopped again. She went back to work. I'm glad I'm not a woman , I thought. It just looked...

Did you read about the star linebacker from one of the colleges who was arrested over the weekend? His arrest caused him to be suspended as it was his second arrest in a short time. Know what he was arrested for? You'll never guess. Seems the young man was walking down the street, minding his own business when the police dog who was locked in the car with the window open barked at him. So the guy barked back. "The dog made a woof-woof noise," the linebacker said. "So I barked back and he went nuts." The cops intervened and tried to figure out why the dog was going absolutely bat shit. The linebacker got lippy. The cops threw him against the car and later added a resisting arrest charge. Since the school doesn't want the bad pub they suspended the player. He got arrested for barking back at a dog!!! And now... The baseball suspensions are coming down for the steroid scandal. Ryan Fraud of the Brewers finally admitted to his use. Last...

The grind is called a grind for a reason. My parents really drove the work ethic into all of us very hard so I have a pretty high threshold for working through things. But I was losing my mind without even knowing it, and I think the guy who asked me to join him to play golf was feeling some of the same sort of pressure. It was a crazy idea. I was going to drive better than 2 hours, play golf for 4 hours and drive back home. My tee-time was scheduled for 8:30. How is that relaxing on a day off? You'd be surprised. My rules for the trip were I-pod all the way. Thoughts of tomorrow would be pushed aside. Thoughts that bordered on negative would be shown the exit. Just going out for a drive and a walk with a club in my hand to try and get my head straight. I refer to it as heading out to the desert to do my time (Got that from a Bruce song). The rest of the sentence is just looking for a sign . Which was the 3rd rule of my trip: Open up the senses to everything. I've...

Mellencamp writes one. This isn't exactly Jack & Diane . This was from his last record, a true blues record. You gotta' love the blues because we all feel this way from time to time. I highlighted my favorite lines. A Graceful Fall by John Mellencamp It's not a graceful fall from dreams to the truth There's not a lot of hope here if you got nothing to lose When it feels no good, when you're flat on the ground Yeah, the future's not bright when you're falling down 'Cause I'm sick of life, yeah, it's easy to do When everything is so hard has been handed to you Yeah, I'm sick of life 'cause it's lost, it's found I will see you in the next world if there is really one Well, I'm not falling off the ladder, I'm just putting in my days My pack is all empty and my aces won't play Yeah, I'm moving down the street and I'm going nowhere It's not a graceful fall when you don't care ...

In the middle of the work day I ran into a friend of mine who was stressed as well. "I need to play golf Sunday," he said. I thought about hitting the ball and then chasing it from one spot to the next, hopefully hitting it in a spot where it could safely be hit again and eventually putting it in the cup in less than 7 or 8 shots. I considered making fun of the guy at the tee box, talking about nothing else but how horrible that last shot was. I contemplated being so relaxed that heaving my club across the fairway was my biggest problem. "That'd be nice," I said. "I haven't played in three months." We talked about the hip a little, but he didn't care much. "You're a (insert curse word here). I moved off into another part of the office and met with some other people. Twenty minutes later the guy wandered by. "Suck it up, bitch," he said. "We're teeing off at 8:50 on Sunday morning." I starte...

I don't mind the heat. I really don't. I'd rather sweat all day than freeze my ass off. That probably sounds funny coming from a Buffalonian, but it's true. What I hate about this stifling heat is every single person, from the toothless lady at the convenient store buying a gallon of beer at 10:30 in the morning, to the guy you pass on the street saying: IS IT HOT ENOUGH FOR YOU? Yeah. It's hot. I get it. You get it. Why the f*&K do we have to talk about it? That toothless lady was priceless though. She stunk to high heaven and she was intent on telling me that she doesn't usually swig beer in the late morning, but that she had to: BECAUSE SHE WAS SO FREAKING HOT!! You know what is annoying me more than that though? CANDY CRUSH! It's a Facebook game that is going to have one very important footnote in my life. It's going to chase me off of Facebook. Every day I get ten requests from my friends asking me if I want to play. I ...

Saw this photo on Twitter and actually sat staring at it for a long time. That is one dopey bastard, right? But I am of the mind that I can see it happening. To me. Years ago. I'm imagining that the guy behind him goaded him into it. "You can't do it! You're too fat!" I also imagine that perhaps there was a bit of alcohol involved. "I'm not as fat as you think. I'm agile," the Cliff-like guy in the photo might say. "Care to make it interesting?" The guy goading me asks. In my head it's one of my brother's voices. "Let's say a hundred bucks?" "I'm not going to do it with an audience," I say. "No. Just you and me. If you start to get stuck I'll help." "A hundred bucks?" "And a case of Heiny Light." "Get out of my way!" And that's how I see it happening. Yet, of course, the real story doesn't start until it becomes readi...

A couple of people I know checked out this week which sent me back to the worst place on the planet Earth: Wentland's Funeral Home in North Collins. Prior to the trip to pay my last respects to two local women who gave it their all, I mowed the grass, with my brother John and rolling around cutting the grass brought wave after wave of emotion again. Our time is finite. Or so it seems. What we leave behind is what defines us. There's a street in town. It's just a little street that connects Mile Block Road to Route 62. It runs in front of the church and the Catholic grammar school where I took my daily beating from some angry nuns. There's a really small creek there under a bridge. That creek looked like the Mississippi River when I was a young guy chasing frogs and laughing. So much laughter. The street also is adjacent to the camp where a bunch of teenage boys hung out, and talked about girls, and drank a few beers for the first time, and laughed. D...

I have figured out all of our problems. They. I was talking with a guy at work the other day and he went into a rant about healthcare. They want to take our money and then they want to serve up shitty healthcare and when we battle back they deny our claims. Or fair wages. They want us to work longer hours for less pay and then they cut our medical and when we bitch about it they just let us go. They took away our bonuses and they want more and more and more. Or religious leaders. They tell us to go to church and live right and then they molest altar boys in the back vestibule. Or the cops. They pulled me over for texting on my phone and they have computers right on the seat next to them. Don't they get distracted while driving? But the biggest they in the whole damn they business is the government. They force us to work long hours and then they go off on their four month vacations while they don't do anything all year long. They don'...

(I'm a bit slow on the uptick, I guess). I really don't get the Zimmerman verdict. Does the law read: You can pick a fight, and if you're losing, you can stand your ground and use deadly force? I guess it does. And somehow even this thing turned into a liberal versus conservative argument. Do you know that there are people who admire Zimmerman? Wasn't that an irresponsible use of a weapon? (I told you I was slow). I really get the outrage too. Martin was a thug. He smoked pot. He got in trouble at school. Should we line up and execute all the kids who fall into that category? Zimmerman's life was in danger. Martin was using the sidewalk as a weapon to kill him. Then stay in the f%&*ing car like the 911 operator told you to! There are plenty of other blacks killing blacks how come we never hear about them? Because evidently we can't question who is responsible enough to obtain a weapon or figure out how to stop sales from one guy t...

It's been that kind of week, family and friends. A lot of people sick and some of them losing their battle. I heard this song the other day and was hit by the brilliance of it. I also remember choosing it as the title of my book about Jake's ordeal at the hospital and it's such a beautiful sentiment just in 3 words. The coolest part is that now, when you Google Counting On a Miracle my name is in there with all the opportunities to read about Bruce's song. Think about the fact that this song is so beautifully written. Just line after line after line, and imagine that a songwriter would kill to write just one song of this caliber and Bruce has about a thousand of them. Just a perfect song. It's a fairy-tale so tragic There's no prince to break the spell I don't believe in magic But for you I will, for you I will If I'm a fool, I'll be a fool Darlin' for you I'm countin' on a miracle Baby I'm countin' on a miracle Darlin...

We went to my niece Nicole's graduation party last weekend. She's a beautiful girl. Just like her sister, Andrea. And the party was great as our cousins came out and a lot of friends gathered to wish Nicole well as she moves off into a promising life, and what got me about it was that while she was moving around the gathering I thought of something her father had written in a graduation card he handed me all those years ago. "You got the world by the ass. Don't screw it up!" He wrote in the card he handed me as I graduated from college. I still have that card in the box filled with stuff that I've saved through the years. Cards and notes like that are important to me, and I saved it because it meant a lot coming from him. We all played a little volleyball during the party. I used to really love that sport. My cousin Tony was on my team and he was in the middle, the setting position. "Set me up!" I called from the front row. I wanted t...

I work in the construction field and thankfully I've stayed real busy through the years. In fact, even a bit too busy. On Thursday afternoon I was downtown near about three jobs that were all going on. Guys were chipping concrete and working from aerial lifts and signalling the cranes. I was sitting on a park bench eating a couple of hot dogs from the cart on the corner near the three jobs. And it occurred to me: "We're almost like a real city." The big job, of course, is the ice rink and hotel to be put in right next to the hockey arena. The Sabres aren't doing much, but their owner is sinking some money back into the area and despite all the angst over the current state of the team that's a good thing. Then it seems as if every hospital is expanding and building tremendous new facilities. Healthcare is a booming business, and given the number of doctor visits I've made in the last two years, that's great. Buffalo is a great place and...

So George Zimmerman is on trial for the death of Trayvon Martin. Remember that story? The black kid and the neighborhood watch guy rolling around and the neighborhood watch guy shoots the Skittles-carrying kid, to death. There was so much outrage, but everyone took sides immediately. The cops finally had to arrest Zimmerman because the public outcry was so loud. Turns out Zimmerman may have been after Martin for the Skittles. Have you seen how big he got? And what is keeping me from commenting on it was that when it happened I had joined in the outrage because the 911 operator had instructed Zimmerman to stay clear and wait for the real cops. I thought that was the most important part of the story. Had he stayed clear the fight wouldn't have happened. That sort of seems simple to me. Yet that is never the case when it comes to the justice system. The laws dictate the eventual result, unless of course, you're the jurors in the OJ case or the Casey Anthony cas...

Can you believe it? Elliott Spitzer is running for public office again. Anthony Weiner is leading in the polls for mayor of NYC. Aaron Hernandez jerseys are going for about three hundred bucks a pop. Serial killers get marriage proposals in jail. Marion Berry won again after he was busted for crack. What the hell is going on? I'm sorry, but I just can't imagine voting for Weiner or Spitzer or buying my kids a Pats jersey with Hernandez' name on the back. I heard a story the other day about how popular Michael Vick was when he was in jail for his dog-fighting crime conviction. I simply don't get it. Do you? Spitzer's first press conference was interrupted by a heckler who really hammered on the former governor. "This is about public service," Spitzer said from the podium. "It's about power!" The heckler yelled. "It's about abuse of power! You wanna' serve the public volunteer at a soup kitchen! You abused y...

We've had a lot of rain so far here in the summer of '13. I've only played golf twice because I'm still, unbelievably hurting. I will fix this hip before the end of the year, but it doesn't do much for me now. On the rare beautiful warm days. When there is so much grass to mow! My parents home is absolutely stunning. As an adult and driving around on their piece of ground I am reminded of how lucky we were as we grew up. Just endless amounts of space. I thought of it as I mowed around the garden area. I considered it as I mowed the spot where we played football. Then there was the baseball field. The best field in town with the pool in dead center as the home run area. I had endless power in those days. Yet unbeknownst to me there was a pitfall. On a previous visit John had cut down a peach tree, leaving only the tree stump. I hit it hard. Right in the middle of a Triumph song. The riding mower stopped dead in its tracks. I did the only mecha...

So the great debate has begun again. Jake is 16 and wants to get his learners permit. Neither one of us wants to teach him how to drive. And it's not that he eventually won't have to get behind the wheel. He has to, but there is so much that goes into it. He's the kid you watched grow and do some really dumb things on the way. They all walk into walls and such. They all show unlimited bouts of poor hand and eye coordination. It's natural to doubt their abilities. Then there are the things you read. How many accidents, end-of-young-life accidents have you seen in recent days? Kids driving into trees. Kids drowning in a pond or the lake. A kid fell into the Whirlpool at Niagara Falls the other day. Way too young. Way too sad. Yet Jake found an ally with his Uncle Mike at a party on Saturday. "It's just criminal that this young man isn't already behind the wheel," Mike started. "When I was his age I was a courier for the mob. ...

I can't say that I'm ever really enthused when my beautiful wife tells me that she has a movie to watch. I've been burned so many times by the romantic comedies that I just cringe. But I decided to give The Call a go: "It's supposed to be intense," she said. "Matt saw it and it scared the crap out of him." Given that Matt is scared by a big spider I was still a tad skeptical, but what the heck? The movie started and the 911 operator was sort of attractive in a Halle Berry sort of way. "She's pretty," I said. "She sort of looks like Halle Berry." "That is Halle Berry, moron," Kathy said. "Damn! She's as old as you," I said. "What's up with that?" The silence was deafening. And it's a good thing too because it wasn't long after that when my skin started crawling. The movie was crazy intense. And I don't wanna' spoil much of it, but I was truly saddened ...

Spent a bit of time the other day listening to two guys tell me about their divorces. We all laughed a lot at the guy who was reprimanded by the judge for saying: "No wonder 48 Hours is able to do a show about a husband killing his estranged wife every week." That little comment got him a restraining order. Which forced him to have to beg to see his kids. Who were living in the house he bought and paid for... ...before he met his wife... ...who started the whole fight... ...by pleasuring the next-door neighbor... ...on the couch he bought. "I had to give her the whole house," the guy said, "because when I caught her, in mid-act, mind you, I left the house instead of just strangling her and him where they lay. The judge said I abandoned the family by leaving and that because of that she got the house." And yes. He had bought and paid for the house years before he met her. "That ain't right," I said. He laughed. ...

Went way down memory lane on the 3rd of July because I remember it as the date I tore my Achilles tendon. This year I didn't remember much of the pain of the situation although there was plenty of that! I don't recommend rupturing that part of the body. It sucks. But I thought of so many things: 1). The moment of the rupture will always be funny to me because it was on a ball that I absolutely crushed. I didn't hit a lot of homers...I was a great hitter, mind you, but think Wade Boggs...not Mickey Mantle. Yet I had hammered that ball and as I rounded second I saw the CF chasing it. I was just 31 years old. I could still move a little. I registered the fact that it was a homer. But it wasn't. I had just passed the shortstop when it felt as if I were shot. "What did you do?" I asked him, thinking he'd hit me with a rock. "Nothing," he answered. Two more steps and I was just hoping to make it to 3rd where my buddy John was waiting....

Bruce gets to do one! Happy 4th!! Celebrate your days. Dedicated to Rosie! 4th of July Asbury Park (Sandy) by Bruce Springsteen S andy the fireworks are hailin' over Little Eden tonight Forcin' a light into all those stoned-out faces left stranded on this Forth of July Down in town the circuit's full with switchblade lovers so fast so shiny so sharp And the wizards play down on Pinball Way on the boardwalk way past dark And the boys from the casino dance with their shirts open like Latin lovers along the shore Chasin' all them silly New York girls Oh Sandy the aurora is risin' behind us The pier lights our carnival life forever Love me tonight for I may never see you again Hey Sandy girl Now the greasers they tramp the streets or get busted for trying to sleep on the beach all night Them boys in their spiked high heels ah Sandy their skins are so white And me I just got tired of hangin' in them dusty arcades bangin' them pleasure m...

There's no doubt that one of the best ways to really screw the middle class is to try and wring every last nickel and dime out of their pockets by hitting them where they love. Yeah, I'm talking about college. The costs are ridiculous. The process is abysmal. The loans are being handed out by sharks. And there's not much you can do about it. Think of it. What is the number one wish of every single responsible parent out there? Yeah, set up the kids. Yet here I am on the verge of leaving middle age, and there are days when I wonder why we are paying so much freaking money so that our kid can sit in a classroom with a bunch of other kids...all paying a fortune for their schooling. Of course, our boy is at a good school, and yes, he's staying on campus, and we definitely needed to get him a meal plan, but that much money? And the financial aid people have been talking to my wife and supposedly they figure out how much you can actually afford for the k...

I've only been in a panic situation once. It almost killed me. It was way back in college and I was working hard to impress a girl. She spent Friday night studying at her apartment and I went out drinking. (I wasn't very good at impressing pretty girls). When I got to her apartment I was a little wobbly and she was a little irritated, but I thought I was entertaining. Anywhoha... "Do you smell smoke?" she asked. I went to the hallway and there was a good degree of smoke coming out from underneath the door next door. "Oh, my God!" she wailed. "I don't know if they're home or not." I had a regular damsel in distress situation going on. I knew what to do. It was my time to shine. I lined it up and slammed my shoulder into the door. I crumpled to the floor, whimpering in pain and rolling around. Thankfully, another drunk buddy came by. Together we hammered the door, and knocked it off its hinges. The smoke came billowi...

Every year they run the old best rock songs from 500 to 1 or some crap like that. It is mildly interesting to follow along, but I always get pissed when I see Born To Run at 25 and Stairway to Heaven or Hey Jude fighting for number 1. So we are going with my top ten. Not individual songs, mind you, but overall bands. You may not be surprised by number 1. But it's my Top Ten. Number 10 - U2 and Bob Seger - I couldn't leave one of the two out, so I put 'em both in. (Like I've said, it's my list. I can do what I want). There are moments when a song by either of these two is the perfect song at the perfect time. My favorite U2 song is It's a Beautiful Day . My favorite Seger song is Roll Me away . Number 9 - Bob Dylan - Just a great writer. There are single lines in single songs that just make you go, "Oh crap! That's brilliant." I know a ton of people who shudder when his voice comes through the speakers, but he sings enough to make it...