Thoughts of a Common Man

The funny thing about memories is that some are so damn vivid that you can recall exactly where everyone was seated as the moment went down. It was May 8, 1970. The final score was on the screen: New York 113 Los Angeles 99. The Lakers...with Wilt and West and Baylor had lost. I remember crying. I recall my father telling me to basically 'suck it up.' I was only 5 years old. Of course, the Lakers won it all in '72-'73 and had a 33-game winning streak and Dad took us to a Braves-Lakers game in the middle of that streak...so I felt a lot better...but that score on the screen...has been forever burned into my memory. We were watching the 'Nova game last week. My boy Sam is more of a 'Nova fan than he is of any other team...Yankees included! "Are you nervous?" I asked before their game with N.C. State. "Nah, they got this." Except they didn't. They struggled all game long...and I watched my boy suffer the tension. ...

There is a moment when the plane takes off when I think... ...what if we go down? I usually say something to the Good Lord above...maybe an Our Father...maybe a 'keep an eye out, huh?' But something. And then I'm done with it. If there is a crash there's not a damn thing I'm gonna' do about it. I probably won't even feel anything, right? One minute you're sitting there...the next they're trying to piece you back together. Sometimes, before I leave, I play into my beautiful wife's paranoia and try to coax some sympathy saying: "You may never see me again." She don't listen anymore. The thing about it is that you're way more likely to be killed in a car accident, right? Planes just don't go down very often (Harrison Ford flights excluded) but when they do... ...it's really sad. We had a horrific plane crash back here in Buffalo a while back. The cause was traced to pilot incompetence. It was w...

On my trip to Philly I actually got to see a piece of the Berlin Wall. It was right there near where I parked my car. I love pieces of history so I spent some time wandering around reading the plaques. I thought back to the days when the wall came down... ...as the plaques say... ...it was a fairly significant event, of course. You know what I remember? Laying in the back of a pickup truck, drinking beer, and listening to Roger Waters tear down the wall with a concert. We were at a party and my beer drinking partners that night were John Cataldo and my brother Jeff. We ate about 200 steamed clams as we drank the beer. Perhaps it was more significant for others...but that's all I remember. Yet I think about the wall coming down and the sense of freedom that was rebuilt when the wall was torn down. It's crazy, but it's just a big piece of concrete, you know? I tried to make sense of some of it, but my curiosity wasn't enough for me to get more in...

I took the job in Philadelphia this week because it seemed like an easy trip. Just a one hour flight. Easy enough, right? Even with having to get to the airport early...it was still an easy in and easy out. I got the first notice of the first flight delay a good four hours before I was supposed to leave, but the telephone call that I received said this: Please plan on getting to the airport at your regularly scheduled time because although there is a current delay, we will try and still get you out on time. That's funny. I got there at my regularly scheduled time. An hour later I received another call, while sitting at the empty gate. The flight was going to be delayed another hour. I thought about how it would be once I landed. Would I be able to do the things I needed to do? I stopped by the gate when a woman from US Airways finally showed up. She didn't say anything. She didn't apologize. She didn't explain what the hold-up was all about. ...

So...made a trip to the Philly area this week. I have friends who live in the area who are probably a little agitated that I didn't lengthen the trip to stop by and say 'hello' but it really was just a quick work trip to do something that I enjoy doing: Making a speech in regard to construction safety. You see, I created a bit of a monster when I made the trip to Las Vegas back in January. I had stood in front of a room filled with people from all over the country and I had done my usual stand-up safety act. Through the years I have been around a lot of construction folks who've done a whole lot of dumb things. In my time as a 'handyman' and in my days as a construction laborer I did a whole bunch of dumb things myself. And I've turned it all into a speech... ...that makes folks laugh when I tell it. In fact, I feel a bit like Louis C.K. when I'm going through the main points of it all, and let me tell you, there's nothing in the worl...

Do you know who Darren Sharper is? Evidently the judge who sentenced him, or the D.A. who worked out his 'sweetheart deal' does. For those who don't remember Sharper: He was a football star - he played a big part in the New Orleans Saints winning the Super Bowl in 2010 -He caught a lot of passes, made a lot of money, got the royalty treatment that society has bestowed on him because he can catch a freaking ball and He raped women all over this great country. Sharper was the Bill Cosby of the NFL, but unlike Cosby...he was caught quickly. In California. In Nevada. In Arizona. In Louisiana. Sharper was pretty much caught red-handed in a number of those cases. He'd slip drugs into the drinks of women that he met in a bar, and then he would do all sorts of sick, untoward things to them. There were so many charges levied against him that not even Matlock was going to save his bacon. Sharper, who is 39 and no longer of use to anyone because he can...

So, it's Jim's birthday...so if you see him today...say hello. I guarantee he'll make you laugh. For his birthday I decided to re-tell one of Jim's greatest hits. Seems Jim was working on a big job on the East Coast somewhere. As is prone to happen on a hectic construction site there is usually a long, drawn-out battle over the "shit houses" that are needed for the site. The little green boxes are often rancid from over-use and they certainly can be rough places to visit with the shit house poets writing nasty things on the walls...to the mess that everyone makes. Jim decided that the woman who worked in his office shouldn't be subjected to the same green box that all the men were using so he ordered a special one just for her. He placed her bathroom next to the job trailer and guaranteed that the rest of the work crew wouldn't destroy it by giving the woman the only key. A much appreciated gesture, I'm sure. Well. One week Jim wa...

The Stones were the first band that I really loved. They were also the first band that I saw in concert and I paid $15 for the ticket, 34 years ago. The Stones were already being called dinosaurs back then! I believe that if the Stones come to the stadium in July, as rumored, the ticket is going to be way more than $15 clams. But I still wanna' go. Back in '81 the Stones opened with Under My Thumb and ended it with Tumbling Dice . How in the hell can that be a bad show? It was actually a great show. It's Jagger and Richards and Wood and Watts. They are legends. Jagger might be the most famous person on the planet. Which brings me to another story. I was living in New Haven, Connecticut back in the late 80's. The Stones were going out on the road, after a long layoff, to promote the great Steel Wheels record. I was thinking about getting tickets for that show. I was living alone then, working on a big job. I was putting in long hours and drinking a...

So...how have you all been? What's making the news rounds these days? I've been chasing bed bugs around in hotel rooms and standing in front of hundreds of folks as I do talks all around the area...all great fun, of course, but my own stupid jokes are all I've been listening to lately. Are you enjoying the snow and cold? Isn't it lovely? The white in the bare trees? The ice at the front door? The ice at the back door? Scraping off the car? Freezing until the heat kicks on? Certainly one of the longest, most depressing winters...we haven't had a freaking nice day since about mid-September...seems that way, at least...and we're only about 140 days away from freaking mid-September...when it all goes to shit again. Maybe I'll hit the slopes. That'll be a real trick with these legs! Anywhoha... Caught the continuing saga of Fred Durst. How about that idiot? He goes into the restroom and confesses that he killed them all, into the microphon...

Whoa... Those first two days of the NCAA are really exciting. For the basketball enthusiasts and also for the geeks who like to work with black and red ink. Underdogs and mighty programs. All-star athletes and just regular college kids, who'll never sniff the pros, playing ball against each other. One game after another. Folks of every walk of life with the televisions on in the offices. Everyone looking for updates on their phones. Let me tell you: The Fazzolari home was alive with every second of it. Sam and Jake had the television on, switching to all the networks for hours and hours. "What're we doing this weekend?" My beautiful wife tried...on Thursday morning. "Uh, basketball," I said. And of course, Kathy tries. She puts a bracket in and obviously knows who the favorites are. She would certainly love to beat us at our own game... ...but lo and behold. Who was the leader after the first two days of games, you ask? Yep! Cliff...

Like many millions of Americans I certainly support the troops. Some folks wear their support as a badge of honor and that's certainly all well and good. Yet I'd be lying if I said that there's not a nagging tickle at the back of my mind. I finally sort of figured it out. Back when I was a teenager we read the book All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, in one of our English classes. I know a lot of other folks hated reading time in those classes, but I absolutely loved it and would volunteer to be the reader all the time. All Quiet on the Western Front disturbed me horribly back then as my young mind was forming. The narrator of the story is a German soldier and he takes us through the battle. From the foxhole to the hospital we are exposed to the absolute horrors of what is referred to as The Great War (fans of war like to glorify the horrendous battles) - World War I. The book is raw. The reading isn't always smooth and when the story s...

There was a horrible story in the making going around the social media circles late last week. An elderly couple went missing. I believe the man was 91 years old and his young wife was said to be 89. They were missing for quite awhile and a bulletin was sent over the airwaves. Thankfully, the couple was found safe, in their car, a long ways away from their hometown. The story didn't say much, but it was noted that each suffered from dementia, and that perhaps they got mixed up and then really lost. Scary stuff. Thankfully they weren't harmed. Yet it got me thinking about throwing another 40 years on the relationship that I have with my beautiful wife and then tossing us into a car bound for somewhere with neither of us quite having the grasp on where we were heading. Sounds like absolute hell to me. I could almost hear her going on about how stupid I am and how I should have listened to her about getting off at the previous exit. That car would be really lou...

One of the reasons I am not enamored with rap music is the usual tone of voice that they're singing in. It sounds like they're yelling at me. There's so much rage and anger. When it comes to that music, I actually like the funny songs, where the tone isn't quite so bitter. This week's D.B. of the Week - Stephen A. Smith - always has the mad tone going on. I swear he could recite the ABC's and have the audience worked up with rage by the time he hit 'M'. He's always mad. Well, a story broke this week about Stephen A. being a little agitated with Philadelphia Eagles coach Chip Kelly. Smith certainly seemed to imply that Kelly was being racist with who he keeps or doesn't keep on his team. Smith railed against Kelly saying that McCoy was gone, this guy was gone, and that guy was gone, while the Eagles kept Riley Cooper, a guy who was in trouble for yelling the N-word. What the hell is he talking about? Does he think that the Eagles are ...

The above photo was displayed as a date between a couple from the 1950's. Dating, like that, appears to be gone these days, right? Kids just all hang out together, from what I can gather, and most of their courting is done on Instagram or some sort of social media. That's a shame. I recall being nervous to ask a girl out. (I had good reason to be nervous - most of them said 'Uh, no.'). But there were dates. The movies and out to eat was the big thing back in my day. Half of the movie was spent wondering if reaching for her hand was a viable option. You had to reach for the hand in a smooth fashion, and you never wanted to hand over a sweaty hand. Then there was the walk to the door and the wonder of whether or not you should lean in for the kiss. "We just spent thirty bucks and now we're riding home alone with two pecks on the lips to show for it!" My double-date partner Jeff Renaldo used to say. "This is bullshit!" But it ...

In a long marriage there are certainly days when you think back moments in time when the love was certainly young and different...there are a lot of 'You remember when' conversations. There are a lot of shared laughs. And through the years it has to change. There has to be growth. The shared vision has to get stronger or the results can be devastating. Today is my wife's birthday. I'll let her tell you how old she is. I just need to remind her of one thing: You're The Star You gave me hope When all around was lost And I could see no point in trying For I saw love passing by me You came into my life You came into my life I look around And what I had is gone Now, I've finally found What I've been missing The road I travel is so clear Since you came into my life You came into my life You're the star My shinin' light The mornin' dawnin' When the sun comes up so bright And the closer I get Yes, it's tr...

There was never a doubt. "I'll have the Porterhouse and the lobster tail," Sam said. The waitress seemed a bit surprised by the size of the meal that he was going to eat, but I knew it would go down that way. "You don't have to crush Uncle Chuck when you order," I had mentioned to Sam. "Are you kidding?" He asked. "After the way we battle all year?" Of course, I knew exactly what Sam was talking about. For years and years and years I went back and forth with my brother Jeff. Our annual bets were hotly contested and usually won by Jeff. The wager was always dinner...and the guy who was paying couldn't whine...even for a moment...about how much it was going to cost him. Jeff set the bar really high, of course, as he brought his family along to celebrate one season win and it cost me a real bundle. His lovely wife was drinking $18 glasses of wine. "Your wife thirsty?" I had asked. "You whining?" he ...

St. Patrick's Day is Tuesday. Of course it is also my beautiful wife's birthday so we are going to have to get through the St. Patrick's Day memories today because my wife's birthday trumps all. I think of one particular St. Patrick's Day each and every year. I was a college student. I believe I was a junior at Gannon University. My buddies were all around: George, Gema, Millie, Stengel, Diane, Lisa, Guy... ...we were a mess. We were drinking on the 16th. St. Patrick's fell on a Saturday. Not a good thing. Because college students think of stupid things like: "Hey! Let's stay up all night! We can get a green beer in the morning!" The attraction of getting that first green beer on the morning of the 17th was that if we were there before 10 a.m., we didn't have to pay to enter the all-day party! I think we saved two bucks each. Anywhoha... The idea was as dumb as it sounds. We stayed up partying all night long. When th...

Do you ever watch the show Mike & Molly ? We catch it from time and time and there are two folks on there who really make me laugh...Molly's mother's boyfriend (who's from Buffalo by the way) and Mike's mother...who is so angry and mean that you just have to laugh at her. Mike's mother hates life! She doesn't like people!! She's mean!!! And in a short span on Friday morning I thought of the negative vibe that we all put off on some days. I was in a discussion about how 'angry' I appeared to be for pooping on the latest football hero to come to town... ...when I received a message from my beautiful sister-in-law Lynn... ...who sent me that photo and mentioned the beauty in life. Sometimes we miss the beautiful things, don't we, folks? I'm guilty of it. There are days when I'm rode hard and put away wet (as my buddy Fluffy's favorite expression goes) and I end up sounding a lot like Mike's Mom. Bitter. ...

In the sky? Big and orange... ...I have no idea. It was in the 40's on Thursday. Folks in Buffalo had the windows down. Everyone was smiling. The long underwear is back in the drawer. Can it be? There has been a whole bunch of stuff going on. The 27-Time World Champion Greatest Franchise in the History of Organized American Sports - the New York Yankees - are playing games again! And A-Rod hit a home run! He's hitting about .600 so far in the early games, and he's got everyone confused. Are you rooting for him, at all? He's the underdog now. Speaking of underdogs... The other night I settled in for the evening news. The Buffalo Bills were leading off all the newscasts! Yeah. They don't have a game for 6 months! They haven't played in the playoffs in this century!! I flipped the channel. But I can't get away from it! "How about those Bills?" people are asking me everywhere I go. What? Don't you think t...

How is it possible that in this day and age a group of college students could ride on a bus and chant a song with the following lyrics: "There will never be a n***er SAE. You can hang from a tree, but never sign with me." A group of white fraternity brothers from the University of Oklahoma sang the song on the way to a party. Why? And the story is getting a whole lot of attention, as it should, but there are a bunch of side stories. There was an elderly woman caught singing along. Some of the disgraced kids have issued apologies. I vote all of them D.B.'s of the week. And here's the rub: I'm not all that surprised. First off, people are going to be 'caught' when they do such things. Everyone has a camera and a video recorder on them these days. Everything is captured for maximum attention. Yet the fact that they wee 'caught' is not the major point here. The fact that they would sing such a song, in the first place, is beyond com...

Mellencamp is touring the country these days...we saw him about 6 months back...he's moving a little slower, but he's still the legend that he is. Was thinking of blog ideas when this song played. I recalled the first time I ever heard it. It's tough when you're singing about worldly troubles because some times the passage of times makes lyrics irrelevant. Simple song. Singular thought. This one holds up. Probably always will. Now More Than Ever I f you believe Won't you please raise your hands Let's hear your voices Let us know where you stand Don't shout from the shadows 'Cause it won't mean a damn Now more than ever Now more than ever The world needs love Not just a slogan But the world needs love Now more than ever I can't stand alone Now more than ever If I was to buy you A diamond ring Make you my princess Would it mean anything Would you take me for granted And just curse my name Now more than ever Now more th...

Ran into a kid on a construction site the other day. He was griping about being tired. He'd stayed out late the previous night. "Got in at two," he said. "The alarm clock that I set for five-thirty buzzed pretty quick this morning." "Two o'clock! What the hell could you possibly do until then? Drinking?" "I had a couple," he said. "Mostly we were gaming." I laughed. "Time got away from us," he said. By two o'clock I had already slept for about four hours. I had drifted off holding my book and it clattered to the floor at about 10:15. The kid was lugging a sheet of drywall. He was moving way better than me, and he wasn't done talking. "I'm curious, do you still play video games?" I laughed. "My kids talk me into being a whipping boy and I'll play a period of hockey or basketball and quit when they start laughing at me," I said. "Not to be disrespectful, bu...

One of the true loves of my childhood...and let's be honest here...young adult...adult and just about middle age...was my association with the Lions. The Lions were a softball team, of course, but we are also a great group of friends...and putting on a Lions jacket must feel a whole lot like it feels to put on the Yankee pinstripes. Love. Tradition. Legacy. And Winning. Guys who are Lions greet one another differently, even after all these years. The team was started during the camping days and the first time we played ball together we used a tennis ball...and we all chose sticks that we'd use as bats. I'm not kidding. We weren't poor...we just didn't have our equipment with us...but we wanted to play! So we improvised. I must have been about 13 when we played that first game...but I remember the first pitch, (Henry Paul was the batter), like it was yesterday. And the Lions stuck together, playing for a lot of years. We finally won the leagu...

Carrie's children are as beautiful as she is. That's a shot of them playing in a box this past Christmas Eve. I said they were beautiful...not brilliant! But they are brilliant, as well. Carrie is currently working on the Breaking Bad series. We texted back and forth about it the other evening...and not surprisingly...we both identified the same episode as the best one of the series (The Fly). We quoted lines back and forth...talked about the brilliance of the writing. Carrie is as passionate about the written word as I am...and there's no better person in the world to play the: "What if?" game with We brainstormed a whole bunch of my early books together. I tell folks that Carrie is a much better writer than me...and that isn't false praise... and it will all come together someday. Look at those two kids there... ..laughing. Enjoying the party. Carrie has raised funny, smart, passionate kids and she continues to beat to that drum...

There's a bit of a sub-culture out in the world that many of us don't speak about, but man, when the coffee truck pulls up we're all fired up about it. I've been grabbing stuff off the roach coach for the better part of 33 years now and let me tell you, there's plenty of stories to go around. "You gotta' see our coffee girl," one gent told me at a job site up in Niagara Falls a few years back. "When does she get here?" I asked. "Ten minutes," the guy said. I didn't know if I had time. "She's worth the wait," the guy said. Well, turns out she was...and she also hugged me! The beautiful girl that all the guys were looking for was a close friend of my niece, and when she saw me, she gave me a hug...in front of all the guys. It would've been a great story, but she called me: 'Uncle Cliff.' Sort of took the steam out of it. But the girls who show up at the sites are selling way more tha...

Childhood Living Is Easy to Do... My boys were playing the other evening. We weren't exactly sure what was going on...a little wrestling, for sure...a whole bunch of laughing. The laughter was like music to me and it made me think of so many things about life. "What's going on?" My beautiful wife asked. "Hee-Hee and Haw-Haw," I said. Just two brothers getting along. I thought of the Stones line about childhood living in Wild Horses . Life is certainly easier as a child, isn't it? The laughter of my children was refreshing because things eventually get tough. Life gets really hard...it starts to become difficult to forget some of the torturous things that life has to offer. Sooner or later we wear all sort of bullshit veils and we try all sorts of garbage to distract us from the business of just loving. Life is simple as a child. Love is not quite so complex in those teenage years. And there's just so much grace there. I th...

Once more there's a Twitter fight... ...and Curt Schilling is involved. We all know Schilling...he may have painted fake blood on his shoe and then tied his shoe thirty times while pitching. He has fought with people over politics, religion, baseball, finances and vaccinations. He's always fighting. Whatever. Yet, all that Schilling did this time was post a very sweet tweet to congratulate his daughter about being accepted at a college. As per usual, the people who hate Curt jumped him. (There are millions of such people). Well, one guy, Adam Nagel (and others) really jumped on. Schilling posted something about knowing people in special forces who could handle a fight...for picking on his daughter...and the war of words went nuclear. Nagle (and others) posted a whole bunch of really vulgar, disgusting, vile and horrendous tweets ...that caused to Schilling to go on the offensive. Schilling is a self-proclaimed Christian man. Schilling went to the airwave...

I still can't fathom why. So many conversations missed. Every single day. It's been six years and it's still so haunting. Further On Up the Road - Bruce Springsteen W here the road is dark and the seed is sowed Where the gun is cocked and the bullet's cold Where the miles are marked in blood and gold I'll meet you further on up the road Got on my dead man's suit and my smilin' skull ring My lucky graveyard boots and a song to sing I got a song to sing, to keep me out of the cold And I'll meet you further on up the road. Further on up the road Further on up the road Where the way dark and the night is cold One sunny mornin' we'll rise I know And I'll meet you further on up the road. Now I been out in the desert, just doin' my time Searchin' through the dust, lookin' for a sign If there's a light up ahead well brother I don't know But I got this fever burnin' in my soul So let's take th...

So now Bill O'Reilly is in the crapper because people are fact-checking his stories about being a reporter. Quick. Raise your hand if you thought that he wasn't lying! I have listened to O'Reilly every once in awhile. He used to have a radio show that I'd tune in while I was driving around, but I had to quit listening. The guy was always blowing hard about something...and like a lot of the rest of those guys he'd put himself in the middle of the action. Bill O'Reilly is the star of his own show every day. Which is his gig, I suppose, he's highly-rated and judging from the backlash, some people actually believe him. But this is not like the Brian Williams story, is it? People were horrified when it was thought that Williams lied about his helicopter being hit. There's a lot less horror with O'Reilly... ...because most everyone assumed that he was lying! O'Reilly has claimed to be outside the apartment when Oswald was killed....

So the calendar has flipped to March and all the news in Buffalo is that we clinched the coldest February ever. Isn't that lovely? Do we take that as a good thing or a bad thing? I suppose that it's a badge of honor, but let me tell you...the month flat-out sucked around here. I was sick. My legs quit. Jake had his wisdom teeth out. Flat tire. Cold. Snow. Colder. Snowier. Sucked! But here we are. The month is sad for the Fuzzy family because we lost Jeff early in March 6 years ago. We're all trying hard not to sink into the depths of depression, but very little changes when it comes to grief. It's brutal. So... good news ? Sam is going to be flipping around this house in a couple of weeks. The NCAA tourney begins and I swear, this kid has about 6 thoughts running around in his head: 1). I'm hungry. 2). Villanova is 27-2. 3). Kentucky isn't that good, they haven't played anyone. 4). I'm going to win the bracket this year. ...

Josh Hamilton was drafted number one in the Baseball Draft. Initially he couldn't live up to the billing. He was hooked on all kinds of drugs. He was homeless, penniless and really struggling to survive. He was cut from the team. He had failed. But Hamilton got the help he needed. He worked hard. He beat the addiction to hard drugs. His story was heartwarming. Hamilton rediscovered his talents with the Reds and then arrived at the pinnacle of the sport with Texas. Hamilton dominated the home run derby in Yankee Stadium and he told the world that when he was at rock bottom he had envisioned the moment. He spoke of Jesus saving him. The sporting world embraced him. Hamilton was MVP. He went to two World Series. Yet the end of his time in Texas was strange. He missed a game or two because he drank so much coffee (as the story goes) that he became dehydrated. He tossed a ball in the direction of a fan who fell to his death in trying to catch the ball. He l...