Thoughts of a Common Man

Mellencamp is often my guest blog-writer. Great song, great album. Save Some Time to Dream Save some time to dream Save some time for yourself Don't let your time slip away Or be stolen by somebody else Save some time for those you love For they'll remember what you gave Save some time for the songs you sing And the music that you've made Could it be that this is all there is? Could it be there's nothing more at all? Save some time to dream 'Cause your dream could save us all Save some time for sorrow Cause it will surely come your way Prepare yourself for failure It will give you strength some day Try to keep your mind open And accept your mistakes Save some time for living And always question your faith Could it be that this is all there is? Could it be there's nothing more at all? Save some time to dream 'Cause your dream might save us all Cast your eyes up to heaven Oh what does that mean to you Try not to be too j...

What a disgusting season the political season is. One candidate after another...none of them able to stay out of their own way. Questions that anger, enrage and stump men and women who are running for the highest office in the land. Here's one: What do you feel when I say God ? Candidate: Well, I say God is the ultimate. You know, you look at this? Here we are on the Pacific Ocean. How did I ever own this? I bought it 15 years ago. I made one of the great deals, they say, ever. I have no more mortgage on it, as I will certify and represent to you. And I was able to buy this and get a great deal. That's what I want to do for the country: Make great deals. We have to, we have to bring it back. But God is the ultimate. Seriously! That is how the candidate, who is leading the polls for one party, answered the question about God! I say God is the ultimate. If that response, which is word for word, doesn't make you think of a beauty contestant answering a ques...

Well... ...that seemed quick. Yet we had a really nice September, didn't we? Yet I can't help but be sad, living in Buffalo, at this time of the year. Autumn is nice. My birthday is coming up. It should still be safe to walk around town without a 40-pound coat for at least another month. But it's coming, bitches! "Remember when we had ten feet of snow?" Sam asked the other day. "I hope that happens again." I thought back to those days last November. How aggravated I was being stuck in the house. "What's wrong with you?" I asked. "It wasn't that bad," Sam answered. We couldn't get the dogs outside. The cars were buried. I walked a mile and a half for tobacco products and salt and vinegar chips. "It was horrendous," I said. "Think about it," Sam said on a beautiful September morning, "That could happen again in about 50 days. Two weeks off of school. Sleeping late."...

I finished up the memoir that Jewel wrote about her rise to fame and I don't think I'll listen to her music in quite the same way anymore. I'll have even more respect for her talents. I highly recommend that you read it for yourself as there are a whole lot of self-affirming messages placed in the pages of her story. Yet Jewel also showed herself as a flawed human who struggled with a whole bunch of things. As we all do. Think about it, though...she was a human being who was living on the streets, afraid to get out of her car because she was scared of life... ...and then she was an International star...flying to Europe with Sean Penn and performing with Bob Dylan. That's a pretty great story. Yet there was a single chapter in the book that really hit home. Jewel had been discovered a bit after singing her heart out in a dump of a place. She was chosen to do some acting and was thrilled to meet a high-powered Hollywood producer. The person with Jewel o...

The Patrick Kane story has taken a few Law & Order type twists this week. And much like that stupid show featuring Munch, Olivia and Elliot... ...I'm losing interest. For those who have already tuned out. Kane was out drinking and he invited some girls back to his mansion because he is such a star for flipping rubber into a net. If you hear his fans talking the girl was looking for a payday so she feigned a rape. If you listen to the alleged victim's mother... ... I don't know what the hell you get when you do that. The alleged victim's lawyer quit because the mother evidently played some sort of games with an evidence bag. Then news broke that Kane's DNA wasn't anywhere near the victim and all kinds of shit hit the fan on social media. The alleged victim is a 'gold-digging whore' is about the extent of it. The sad part about all of it is that the alleged victim, her dopey mother and the bumbling lawyers have done a huge disservi...

Most people don't know who the hell Martin Shkreli is. Perhaps his D.B. of the Week Award will change all that. Shkreli is an executive at a pharmaceutical company. He made an executive decision to jack up the price of a drug that is mainly used to keep cancer and HIV-AIDS patients alive. The pill was being sold for $13.50. But Shkreli wanted to jack up the profits. So the price on the pill was going to be raised. After all, there are other drugs that are researched. The profit margins are tight. So did Shkreli double the price? Nope! Triple it? Nope! He decided that in order to remain competitive he was going to have to raise the price of the drug that saves lives to... ...get this... $750!! Per pill! The pill costs just a bit over a dollar to produce! That's a D.B. my friends. Once more... ... someone tries to take the crown of D.B. of the century. Shkreli is backing down a little bit since he originally made the announcement. $750 a ...

My favorite Yogi Berra memory comes courtesy of my Dad's cousin, Marion Fricano who pitched in the Major Leagues in the 1950's. I was about ten years old when Marion told us the story of having struck out Yogi... ...once. "He homered off me a few times though," Marion said. "He loved to hit pitches that were a mile out of the strike zone. I threw one that was over his head to try and strike him out and he hit it a mile." I recall every second of that story and was in awe, of course. Then I learned that Yogi was famous for being a bad ball hitter. Yogi won 10 World series. He's the all-time leader in World Series hits... ...by a mile. He was funny. But the best stat of his life? He was married for 65 years! RIP Yogi!

I've always enjoyed Jewel's voice. There are a couple of her songs that I think are written so beautifully. Yet the thing that gets me about her is that when she sings with just a guitar, as she often does on the Howard Stern Show... ...I don't know... just beautiful. Anywhoha... Jewel was also on Howard's show to discuss the new book that she wrote - a memoir about her life - and what an interesting life! She grew up in Alaska, was homeless for awhile, traveled around with a father who was unpredictable and a mother who was a little crazy. Men were always trying to pick her up...even when she was less than 10 years old, evidently...and she lived those early years with one thought pushing her forward: That her soul could never be broken. I ordered the book on Monday night and decided to read a few pages as I watched the Yankees. 225 pages later I grabbed my phone and left Jewel a note on Twitter. This is what happened after that: Me: Pack your ba...

I've often laughed at my beautiful wife and my tremendous mother-in-law for being over-protective of my children. They have always been that way. They check in with one another more than a few times a day and even speak in code at the end of the night to alert one another that there aren't any burglars in their homes holding them hostage. It's maddening! Yet... Jake is a social butterfly now. He's also playing a lot of basketball with his friends. Pick-up games that Sam joins in on. "We're going to play hoops!" They'll yell and then they pile into the car with one of their friends and off they go. I did the same thing as a young man and I also threw long rounds of golf and a whole lot of dates in there. So what's the problem? On Friday night, I watched the Yankees lose to the hated Mess so my mood was a little lousy. "Where's Jake?" I texted to Sam. "Should be arriving shortly," Sam answered. "...

Received a CNN notification that Pope Francis is on his way. First he's stopping off in Cuba to do mass in front of a massive gathering of people who have been held under the thumb of a communist regime for a long time. But that's the point of the tour...to strengthen the relationship between Cuba and the United States. Pope Francis sort of brokered the deal that will allow peace to reign between the two countries. And peace is good, right? Saw a stat the other day about the trillions of dollars spent on war over the last 14 years. We could use trillions around this country to say...oh, I don't know...pay a living wage to a lot of people. So the Pope is bringing a message of peace. Pope Francis will be in Washington by Tuesday and I'm sure that the message he brings will be carried all over and the notifications I get regarding his message will keep on coming. This Pope has also received high marks for being a little more progressive in his thoughts in r...

Did you happen to catch the video of the two high school football players who drilled a ref who made a bad call? Evidently they had been spurred on by their coach who had said that 'He has to pay.' The linebacker could've killed the poor defenseless ref! Yet I watched it without a second of surprise. It's the direction that we're heading in. Sportsmanship is gone. The Bills and the Patriots are playing a game in Orchard Park today. Bills fans are really excited. How does that excitement play out? One of the geniuses on the team said: "Don't nobody like the Pats." Other players spoke up. The coach has shouted the bully approach from the top of the mountain. There are billboards up calling the other team names. The team store is selling degrading items. And I sort of get it...the Patriots have made their own bed and everyone is against them, but it kinda' hit me late Friday: What would Jeter do? Derek Jeter played in more bi...

Had a lot of driving to do yesterday and grew tired of Jenny McCarthy and didn't want to listen to Dr. Laura...so... The Stones came to my Emotional Rescue . That record came out when I was 13 years old. It's still a great collection of songs. I had it blasting! The one song that I turned it down a little for was Little Indian Girl . It's a strange song. I remember thinking that same thing back when I was a new teenager. Jagger is singing it in a drawl and the music is different. It appears that Jagger, as the voice, is speaking to an Indian girl at a mission-type situation and he is telling the girl bad news about the character of her father. The chorus of the song goes like this: Lesson number one Best to learn while you're young Life just goes on and on getting harder and harder Life just goes on and on getting harder and harder When I was just a kid I can recall laughing at those words, wondering why an adult would tell a kid something l...

I'm sad. Mike Lupica was let go from the New York Daily News . I'm an avid newspaper reader. I have read at least one newspaper every single day for the last 48 years! I still get up and go off to the store to pick up the newspaper - The Buffalo News - every single day. I look for the columns from Bucky Gleason and Jerry Sullivan and Mike Harrington. I honestly disagree with all three of them more than I agree with them because they all seem to really hate the 27-Time World Champion Greatest Franchise in the History of Organized American Sports - but I read them. Every single day. A lot of the heroes that I've had in my life have been writers. I loved Larry Felser's comments about the Bills, Sabres and Yankees (again...didn't always agree...but he was a great writer). As a kid my Dad was always yelling me about one thing...over and over...taking the paper from him. As a teenager I would read anything I could get my hands on and I dreamed of w...

Two stories broke this week that made me really shake my head. Remember Devo and the song "Whip It"? My buddy Al DeCarlo loved that song - he'd walk around singing it all the time. I think the band made it's name from the video and the fact that they wore bowls on their heads for the video. Well one of the guys from the band - Jerry Casale got married on 9/11 and in all matters that lacked taste they had a 9/11 themed wedding...including a twin towers cake and place settings in the shape of box cutters. Really? How dumb is that? Did anyone involved in that wedding understand that thousands of people lost their lives that day? That it is the worst day in this country? That people are still suffering? People who attended the wedding received box cutters as party favors!!!! Is that funny? I think Gerald & Krista should be whipped...I can only give them the D.B. of the Week... ...but the worst part is they have to split it with Comic Steve Rann...

That's what I'm really trying hard to reconcile in my mind. I was raised in a pretty strict Catholic environment. The words displayed above mean a lot to me. Yet through the years I have grown more confused by the religious beliefs of others. I never confused hate with love when those nuns were beating the bejeebus out of me for being a wise-ass. I know some people who really, really, really, really talk about faith and belief... ...and they look down their noses at people who don't act like they think they should act. Isn't that non-Christian? That's where my confusion lies. People who are supposed to be following a love-based religion... ... really, really, really, really hate some people... ...who have been created the way they were by supposedly the same loving God. Of course, I still have belief in what I believe. Am I supposed to hate someone based on what I might believe, but don't know for sure to be true? I don't think...

Did you see the story about former tennis pro James Blake being tossed to the ground in New York City? Blake, who is black, was standing outside the Grand Hyatt hotel waiting for a ride to the U.S. Open. It was just about noon when a NYPD officer grabbed Blake, slammed him to the ground and handcuffed him, screaming: "Police! Don't move!!" Turns out that it was a case of mistaken identity. Blake just happened to look like the guy who the cops were looking for in a fraud case. One of the higher-ups said that Blake could be the twin brother of the guy who committed the crime. Gets you thinking, right? Imagine just going about your day when you're suddenly grabbed, slammed and cuffed. Would be pretty dramatic, don't you think? The police commissioner has apologized and the cops are saying: "It happens." Blake is still seething, however, and wants to shine light on the fact that even if he had been the man who committed the crime, he was ha...

Had a little bit of an exchange with Matt, who is a 22-year-old, on Sunday morning. We talked a little about taking time off, having fun, and working non-stop for the greater good. We got around to the trouble that we all seem to be in. It started with his excitement regarding the home football game and my attempt to discuss how crazy people get when they arrive at One Bills Drive. "People drinking until they fall down, pissing in the sinks, fighting, falling, throwing things at each other and getting a DWI on the way home," I said. "That's football!" he answered. But then we did discuss the overall picture a little bit. "A generation ago men worked from sun-up until sun-down building the country," I said. "That was dumb," he answered. "Why would anyone work so hard and not live? All they were doing was making someone else rich." The conversation didn't go much further although he wondered about whether or not pe...

I had cause to share a little time with a lawyer recently... ...in a tense setting. And the entire dance in a courtroom or a hearing is absolutely baffling to me. The same question is repeated in 9 different forms in order to get a potential witness to trip up. Documents that answer a question properly are simply ignored and little bits and pieces of other documents are utilized in order to make a case that the person making the case knows is not true! It's amazing. And at the same time it's sort of exciting. Depending upon what is hanging in the balance it's something to see when the lawyers and the judges dance around, using the English language as a tool of deception. There was a moment when I had cause to see one of the lawyers that could safely be seen as 'on the other side'. It was well before the proceedings were to start and we made precise eye contact. "Hi, how are you?" I asked. The lawyer simply did not answer. Just looked ...

Mark Knopfler Handles One for Me: This guy is one of the best guitar players ever. I share admiration for him with a number of my friends (Hi Terry) and siblings. "He's spectacular," my brother John is fond of saying. He is. "What It Is" by Mark Knopfler The Drinking Dens Are Spilling Out There's Staggering In The Square There's Lads And Lasses Falling About And A Crackling In The Air Down Around The Dungeon Doors The Shelters And The Queues Everybody's Looking For Somebody's Arms To Fall Into And It's What It Is It's What It Is Now There's Frost On The Graves And The Monuments But The Taverns Are Warm In Town People Curse The Government And Shovel Hot Food Down The Lights Are Out In City Hall The Castle And The Keep The Moon Shines Down Upon It All The Legless And Asleep And It's Cold On The Tollgate With The Wagons Creeping Through Cold On The Tollgate God Knows What I Could Do With You And...

Hard to believe it's been 14 years. I know that we can all recall that day in vivid detail. I hope and pray that we never endure a day like that... ...pray today for those who perished: September 11 Words: “Even the smallest act of service, the simplest act of kindness, is a way to honor those we lost, a way to reclaim that spirit of unity that followed 9/11.” —President Obama in a 2011 radio address “If we learn nothing else from this tragedy, we learn that life is short and there is no time for hate.” —Sandy Dahl, wife of Flight 93 pilot Jason Dahl, in Shanksville, Pa., in 2002 “My older brother John lived [his life] in Technicolor. … When he walked in the door, the whole house lit up. And I’m sure heaven lit up when he got there too.” —Anthoula Katsimatides at the World Trade Center site in 2005 “Five years from the date of the attack that changed our world, we’ve come back to remember the valor of those we lost—those who innocently went to work that day ...

Wow. There is a great desire to go back and check the past D.B.'s of the Week to figure out who might be number one. This week's winner: Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk, might actually be in the running as the greatest of all of the D.B.'s. We all know the story by now, right? Davis is an elected official who has a job to issue marriage licenses in her county. There's no disputing that it is a part of her job. Well, the law of the land changed recently and gays were granted the right to be married under Federal Law. Davis doesn't agree. Which is fine. This is America. We can all think for ourselves. Davis, evidently believes in the sanctity of marriage as handed down in the law of her religion. Marriage is between a man and a woman, in her mind. In her religion, God does not want gay marriage. Still all good. She is not being stopped in believing what she wants to believe. It doesn't even matter that in her religion God also frowns...

I'm not sure what my kids are going to do when they reach middle-age and beyond. The songs they listen to don't lend themselves to flat-out singing in the car when no one else is watching. My friend Kim posted a song on social media the other day - Triumph - Fight the Good Fight - and I not only instantly sang the song in my head, I started thinking about the best of the sing-along songs. My list is a little embarrassing. 1). Gordon Lightfoot - If You Could Read My Mind - that song could go on forever - I could just keep singing the lyric over and over. In fact Gord has a bunch of them - Her name was Ann, but I'll be damned if I recall her face. 2). Rick Springfield - Don't Talk to Strangers - Told you that it's embarrassing - it gets worse - I love this song though! 3). Willie Nelson - Always On My Mind - There used to be a girl I thought of when I sang this one. I remember her name, but I forget her face. 4). Barry Manilow - Mandy - Barry has a...

Went golfing with some old friends on Sunday. It was a tough round because it was really hot, but to a man, we were all happy to be out of the house and away from our kids. Man, we must have driven our parents crazy! And I guess you really don't fully understand it until you have kids who want to do things no matter what you have in mind. We all ranted and raved a little about this kid or that kid and how they just don't seem to get it yet. Looking back on it, I consider that I was a pretty easy kid to raise to an adult, but the truth of the matter is that I was just as aggravating to my parents as my kids appear to be to us. The other morning, one of my kids joined me in the living room. I had Sports Center on and was catching the baseball highlights. This particular kid isn't really a Yankees fan but he started the conversation with: "Beltran is actually having a pretty good year." "He's hitting close to .290," I said. This particu...

Mom was by last Sunday for sauce and we talked about her wedding anniversary that was due this week. Mom and Dad were a month short of 50 years of marriage. But like I told Mom...their marriage is still going strong...Dad is celebrating with her...somehow. The photo that leads off the blog shows a couple that just celebrated #50. Congrats to Diane and Mighty Karl! It's funny, but I met Diane a long time ago when I was teaching a creative writing class. The class was a great time and was really memorable. I wish I had time to do that again. Whenever I had a book signing, Diane came by to get a copy...soon enough Mighty Karl joined her and the friendship is still going strong. These two are loyal people! And it makes my day to catch a joke on social media from Karl and an update about life from Diane. Karl is a fan of the 27-time World Champion Greatest Franchise in the History of Organized American Sports so we trade A-Rod jokes and mourn the close losses. Dian...

The lead of this blog is a Springsteen line from Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street . I think of it all the time. In the context of things going wrong. It's easy to get down when you read the news or watch life play out for you on the headline news networks. But. Man, the dope is that there's still hope. This weekend there are still people laughing and playing ball with their family. There are groups of friends making tee times where the laughs will happen. People are inviting their parents or grandparents over for dinner. Watching movies. Catching a baseball game. Smiling. Loving one another. And yet what do we have filling out minds and hearts on a daily basis? People making hateful stances in the name of God...our political leaders telling lies, calling each other names, looking down their noses at races full of people. Hate is easy to find. But. Man, the dope is that there's still hope. A couple of weeks ago I was at a baseball game in...

Saw a girl in a convenience store the other day...her neck was covered in tattoos. I asked her if it hurt when she had them added to her body. "The one's you can see weren't too bad," she said. I didn't ask any follow-up questions. You think this guy feels bad? Did he choose those words, or did the artist mess it up? You think that one hurt? What is wrong with people? Doesn't anyone know this guy? Tell him that it might be something he eventually regrets? Knowledge? Indeed. This should serve him well for the rest of his days. May not be all that long a trip. Unbelievable. This last one might be my favorite. He tried to translate his name. No Ragrets!

It's amazing to watch the video clip going around on social media where the County Clerk in Kentucky - Kim Davis - refuses to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. Simply amazing. Davis said that she would not issue the licenses because to do so would clash with her religious beliefs. First off... ...what is so hard to understand about the separation between church and state? Do people not comprehend that their religion is not the religion of every other freaking human being who is walking the planet? Remember when Peter Griffin established a religion centered around Arthur Fonzarelli? Enough with the religion in government!!!! Enough!!! It's not set up that way and it shouldn't be! Secondly, Kim Davis is really an aggravating son-of-a-bitch because who made her the boss of all married people? She's been married four times!!! And she is in charge of it now? I guess she knows enough about how it doesn't freaking work, right? But it...

Curt Schilling is not working with ESPN for a while. Seems he was suspended for a tweet that featured Hitler in salute and compared the Muslims to the Nazi's by saying that 7% of Germans were Nazi's and that now 5-10% of Muslims are extremists. Curt, Curt, Curt. About 6 months ago Schilling jumped on a group of kids who savagely attacked his daughter... ...on Twitter. Schilling went all over the world then and played the part of a hero because he said that people shouldn't be allowed to sit behind a keyboard and randomly spread hatred. The media fawned all over Schilling on that one because he was (for one of the only times in his life) right! And then he went on Twitter... ...and spread hatred. Curt has earned the D.B. of the Week honors! Schilling is a very opinionated man but it seems as if he really acts without thinking and he doesn't seem to get the idea that he too is spreading hatred. He has certainly alienated everyone in and out of base...

A man fell to his death at the Atlanta Braves-New York Yankees game on Saturday night. It appears that the man, allegedly, went to the rail in the second deck to scream his displeasure with the pinch-hitter that the Yankees were bringing to the plate in the 7th inning: Alex Rodriguez. Somehow the man lost his footing and went over the rail, landing on the concrete below where hundreds of fans watched him suffer on the ground. Horrific. It's always seemed strange to me because I work in the safety field where construction guys must work behind erected guardrails that are set at 39" to 45" with a mid-rail at the mid point. And yet...go to a game or a play of even your kids high school and you'll see that the rails are set much, much lower than that. That's the first point. The second point is that it appears that the man was worked up into an absolute lather with his hatred for A-Rod who had been suspended for using steroids. A-Rod has had boos rai...

Okay, Matt, Jake & Sam... ...here you go. Beat my head in with the awful predictions that I make here, but know that I have not been wrong about the Bills not making the playoffs in 16 years. Is this their year? You have to wait and see! NFC West: Seattle Seattle and Arizona are good teams. The other two teams should suck. Seattle wins the division because their quarterback is a good leader. NFC South: Saints Wow. Putrid. Someone has to win it though so I'll go with the best QB - New Orleans will survive. NFC North: Packers The Vikings will have a full year of Adrian Beatyourson but the Packers are the best team here...because they have a good quarterback. NFC East: Cowboys I still think that Dallas is going to make it to the Super Bowl one of these years because while Romo coughs it up once in awhile he's still a pretty good passer. They should win the division, but the Eagles are also going to be interesting because no one can follow what Chip Kell...