Thoughts of a Common Man

It's truly rare these days that a football game gets played without some sort of controversy due to a poor call by a ref. The same old words are spoken. "We shouldn't be in a position where one call costs us the game." "The NFL is issuing an apology." "The play is not reviewable." Blah, blah, blah, blah. The team that loses the game bellyaches that they would have won had the refs got this right or that right. The team that wins says, 'Stop your bitching it's a tough game to call.' So. Let me chime in. 1). It is a difficult game to call. The players are moving at breakneck speed on the field. The refs are middle-aged men. The cameras can slow everything down for the fan at home. Therefore you have men, on the field, making a split-second decision that a viewer sees eleven times from twelve different angles. The refs actually have no chance there. 2). The rules suck. No one actually knows the rules. Quick: ...

There's a great temptation, when we are all together, to go through the greatest hits of the Fazzolari family. I told the story of meeting a women with Tourette's at the doctor's office. The poor lady. We laughed at how startled I was when she screamed in mid-sentence. Jim told the story about Dad removing a turkey from the oven. The turkey and the pan came flying out and Dad slipped in the grease and hit the ground. "I broke my ass cooking it," Dad said. We laugh at the memory of it all. And it's funny, but you never know when the next big laugh is coming. We are all big personalities and there's a lot of back and forth. John told a joke that had all of us shaking our heads and laughing. Then Jim stole the show with a unique performance that had the people around him in tears of laughter. And yet. There was a new entrant. Jake's line: "It's a Thanksgiving miracle," brought the house down. (Jim will have to t...

Visited the state of Iowa this past week. It's funny but the response I get when I mention that is: Why? or How bad is it? Well. There's not a lot going on there. I took a trip from Kansas City to Ankeny which is about 3 hours by rental car. I added satellite radio to my car charge because I didn't want to be scanning from station to station and I figured that the drive might be a tad boring. It is. Miles of endless nothing. A few cows. Watch out for deer signs and just field after field after field with the farmer's daughter type homes about a half mile from the road. "You should try a loose meat sandwich," my buddy texted me. I thought of the old Roseanne show and Tom Arnold (a famous guy from Iowa) talking about how great they are. I don't normally scan the area too closely when I'm in an unfamiliar state and since my drinking days are over I'm no longer looking for the best bar when I'm on the road. But loose mea...

Hanging around in an airport has always been somewhat torturous as the chairs are hard plastic, the food is of the fast variety, there's a lot of walking involved and there are freaking people everywhere! Freaking people!! And now that most of them are looking down as they walk, or talking on phones, they can be a tad irritating. But on a recent trip I was seated in one of the chairs in an isolated area. I had the i-pod on and therefore I couldn't hear any of the irritating sounds. I could only watch. People come in all sorts of interesting shapes and sizes. Big ones. Little ones. Tall ones and short ones. They are a variety of colors as well. White, black, brown, beige, off-white, off-brown, red. They all dress wildly differently. There's the sweatpants and tee-shirt crowd (of which I am a proud member). Then there are the business guys. (They are strangely irritating to me...they talk into their ear pieces, they seem too dolled up to be real ...

Stumbled across this message that was written for Thanksgiving Day: Easy to forget. Hard to remember. A Thanksgiving Remembrance - Submitted by Anonymous My paternal grandmother lived with us. She would sit in the porch swing and I would stand behind her and brush her beautiful long gray hair. As I brushed her hair she would tell me her two favorite stories from the Bible. The only thing better was when she would have me snuggle up close to her in the swing as she read to me. As I child, I surmised that they were just good stories but now as a mother and grandmother I realize she had an ulterior motive - she was teaching me a most valuable lesson - a lesson about kindness and thankfulness. She often added to the story of the Good Samaritan, "You never pass someone in need even if their skin is not the color of yours." And, "You should never pick and choose who you will be kind to, you just be kind," she would enumerate over and over. This same ...

I love going to breakfast with my Mom. I've been to hundreds of breakfast outings with my mother and much like going to breakfast with my wife...I could probably order for her. And then we talk about everything. Books we've read, people in and around North Collins, kids, siblings, Dad, the dogs... ...anything and everything. We catch up on everything over coffee and eggs. Today is Mom's birthday, and if you see her, make sure she knows how special you want her day to be. If you don't see her today...give her a call. Because she's one amazing lady. Mom has seen it all through the years. Kids who drove her crazy. A husband who loved her like mad...and left way too early. Grand kids who think she's really funny. What amazes me the most as we share breakfast or as she eats pasta, or lobster or steak... ...is that she always searches for the best in someone... ...or the funny in the story. I've said it before... ...no one I've ...

I have to be out of my freaking mind to even attempt to make sense of this topic. In fact, I kind of think that it should be out of my hands... ...and your hands... We elect officials to make these sorts of decisions and eventually that decision will be made. And one side or the other will bitch about it. But since everyone is bitching about it... ...Off we go! There are people in Syria who are running for their lives. That can't really be disputed. They no longer have homes. Some have children. A parent trying to keep a child safe is desperate. If they stay in the country that they lived in... ...they may starve, meet a violent end, or worse, be tortured before either of the first two things happens. Other nations are making the decision to allow these fleeing refugees into their country... ...or not. Here in the United States we have often been a place that is a safe haven in such circumstances. A lot of people are now saying: F%^K That Noise! We hav...

Went to a 50th birthday party over the weekend. J.C. is nearly there. Had a great time seeing old friends... ...and I mean old friends. The kid who had the party was at my 5th birthday party...so the type of party has changed a little bit. Just a little bit. We went from birthday cake and ice cream to wild beer-filled parties to... ...the party on Saturday night. I had a few beers. Something I rarely do. We played Family Feud . (And I let my buddy's sister win because I'm a nice guy). At 9:20 I yawned mightily...not because the company wasn't great but because it felt like it was 2 in the morning. We had cake. And the stories started flowing... "Remember when this idiot..." All of the greatest hits came falling out of the closet. "We were lucky we didn't get killed..." We put a lot of those stories into the context of our parents and then our own children. And the people we'd lost along the way. It's s...

There are moments that you remember when it comes to siblings. Growing up, my brother John and I were always together. Being 11 months apart will do that for you. I sometimes listen in as my sons debate things back and forth and there's nothing more comforting than to hear them battle back and forth and then laugh. Nothing feels better than blood on blood. I recall listening to Springsteen early on and I discovered some of the brilliance of the writing, with my siblings.We were all amazed that Bruce was talking about a lot of the things we were talking about. We could all see this scenario play out in a close family. Thankfully none of us were ever trying to escape the law and none of us were of the mindset to commit such a crime, but the family message was clear. I recall listening to the song early on with my siblings. Amazing twist. We all knew that we'd do much the same thing as Joe Roberts does here. We'd watch the tail-lights disappear. This is a...

For Uncle Jim I’m not sure that this is breaking news, but there are some members of the Fuzzy family that have some of the following qualities: Obnoxious, Loud, Wild, Quick-tempered, emotional, boisterous, impatient, emotional and a tad confrontational. But loving... ...always very loving. I was speaking to one such member a long time ago when at the age of 12 I helped my Dad make the sauce. I was chopping up onions and garlic when I said to him: “You know, Uncle Jim is a really good guy.” Dad agreed, of course, he thought the world of his little brother. And through the years I thought a lot about that moment. How had my Uncle, in the middle of the Fuzzy storm, figured it all out? There are so many distractions along the way. There are way too many temptations in life that can throw you off your game. Uncle Jim was always able to stay the course. How’d he do it? First off, he had a great love of family. He loved his wife, Aunt Sherry, through all of the yea...

So Jared Fogle's lawyers claimed that his 245-pound weight loss turned him "hyper-sexual" and made him a sex-crazed pedophile? Did I just type that sentence? How can a lawyer make such a claim with a straight face? Did Jared explain that to them? Did they think it sounded good? Does it sound plausible to you? Now I know that lawyers are paid to come up with crazy ideas that might save their clients from going to jail, but how do you even propose such a thing? Weight loss led you to become a pedophile alcoholic... ...I've sort of heard everything now. And of course, Jared went the old sympathy route. Having to be a role model...being in the spotlight...made him do it. And there are so many clever jokes going around now. Most of those jokes have to do with Jared getting used to a new sort of foot long, but the sad part of it all is that he was convicted of preying on 16 and 17 year old boys and girls. Jared lost 245 pounds, allegedly, eating on...

This week has been extremely negative. Everywhere I turn. The terror attacks in Paris has unleashed a wave of brutality here in the United States. Evidently the fans of GOP are trying to win the 2012 elections by saying that this administration has detonated the bombs in France. People on the Democratic side of the aisle are bashing Bush. Refugees are fleeing from violence and terror and they aren't welcome. Charlie Sheen has HIV. So. I tried real hard not to think about all the D.B.'s running around all over the world. I wanted to hear something good. And lo and behold, I stumbled on the story of Matt LaChappa. LaChappa was once a promising baseball pitcher who was on the verge of the major leagues. At the age of 20 he suffered a heart attack. 20! He nearly died. This was back in 1993. The San Diego Padres win the good guys of the week award. Because they still have LaChappa on the team. Every year they sign LaChappa to a one-year contract. ...

Okay...so was getting into the hot tub the other day and I took off my shirt and said: "You know how you look at Ryan Gosling with his shirt off? Well, no difference here." My beautiful wife laughed. "You really believe that, don't you?" "I'd kick the living shit out of that little actor," I replied. She laughed again. You see, I'm not much for fighting. Let's be honest here, we all know that. "I'm a lot bigger than him though," I said. "You've always been bigger than your brother John too. How'd those battles work out?" I put my shirt back on. You see, I kind of like watching people fight. I used to love boxing back in the day before it became so corrupt. Ali, Frazier, Norton, Holes, Hagler, Hearns, Sugar Ray and then Tyson and Buster Douglas. Loved a big match. I don't watch much of the MMA stuff though. It's much too brutal for my tastes. In fact, this past weekend I...

We were kicking around the fact that my mother-in-law now has children who are approaching the age of sixty. (I won't say which ones - some of them read this) And I mentioned to my beautiful wife that it would be glorious to see all of our kids hit the sixty mark. "That's 45 years from now," Kathy said. "Ain't happening. You'd be 96." And as such discussions go...I felt a twinge of despair. I most certainly have less than 45 years to go. I recalled a chat I'd had with one of my doctor buddies: "It's gonna' suck to miss what happens." "Maybe we won't," he said. Yeah. Maybe. In the meantime. I want all the glory that heaven will allow. All that Heaven Will Allow - Bruce Springsteen - Tunnel of Love I got a dollar in my pocket There ain't a cloud up above I got a picture in a locket That says baby I love you Well if you didn't look then boys Then fellas don't go lookin...

I started eating Chinese food back in the early 1980's. Unfortunately I started eating it at a restaurant in Mill Valley, California where the food was better than any Chinese food I've had since. Dad was the influence behind trying the Chinese place all those years ago and we went to that particular restaurant at least twice a month for just about a year. The chefs couldn't possibly prepare our food spicy enough and when the entire crew of Fazzolari's were in there... ...they must have gone through five jars of hot oil. We had a lot of laughs back then. There was the day when the waitress introduced us to a Chinese kid who was spending his first day in America. Dad taught the kid that the English word for 'Hello' was 'F&*k'. About halfway through our meal that night Dad waved at the kid across the crowded restaurant and the kid yelled out his new found hello. F&*K! ... ...echoed through the room and the smiling kid was whiske...

There's an old 80's movie called About Last Night . Funny movie with Rob Lowe, Jim Belushi and Demi Moore. Back when it came out my brothers and sisters and I caught it a bunch of times and to this day we all use lines from the film in our everyday lives. "You're as much fun as a stick." "What'd'ya' want a dozen roses?" "Was she a pro?" Most of those lines came out of Belushi's mouth. But the one line that sort of also has stuck with me through time has kind of been on replay in my mind since I first heard about the terrorist attacks in France. Rob Lowe's character is hungover on Thanksgiving Day and he's talking to the know-it-all friend of Demi Moore. She is attacking him for being stuck inside his own head and not caring about anyone but himself. "What about what is going on in the Middle East?" she asks. "I live in a pretty good neighborhood," he answers. The outside world en...

Ben Carson had to field a stupid question the other day. "Would you abort Baby Hitler if it was up to you?" Carson gave the answer that is true to his beliefs on abortion. Of course he wouldn't. The reporter who asked the question then cracked that Carson was 'Pro-Hitler.' You can see the problem with answering such a question, right? These types of hypothetical questions are tossed around a lot. Killing Hitler to save a whole bunch of lives might be the right thing to do, but it is not an easy task when you really aren't much into killing, right? I was reading the sports pages a few weeks back and the reporter asked one of the pro football players here who he'd most like to have a beer with from any time in history. The guy said: "Jesus. I heard he was a good dude." Perhaps the best thing to do is to not answer such questions. Yet around our house Sam is always trying to play little games. "We're all on a boat ...

Was on an airplane this week and the stewardess went through the 'how to buckle your seat belt' routine and I casually asked her to slow down because I had missed the instruction. She growled at me. Must be she figured that I knew how to do it...so why are they still showing us???? What do we have to do to get rid of Flo from Progressive? I honestly didn't mind those commercials at first...it was weird...pale looking woman saying goofy crap... ...but now she's singing. I've had enough of her. I can do without the 'Chicken Parm you taste so good' commercial too. That freaking thing sticks in my head for days on end. The wind is starting to blow. "Something is coming," one of the workers on the site said. "8 months of suck," I answered. Don't you love people who say: "I can't believe it's almost Thanksgiving?" It works this way every year, people. September, October, November... ...here...

There is no war on Christmas! Forget the Starbucks Cups! Forget the fact that sometimes people write it as X-Mas. We all know Christ! We celebrate within the confines of our Christian beliefs free of prejudice. And the people who fill the social media feeds with venom because they perceive that they are being persecuted for their religuious beliefs... . ..are the D.B.'s of the Week! Every single year... ...people fall for it. They even brought it to the dopes who are running for president and the big businessman replied with one of the dopiest things I've ever heard a candidate say: "When I'm president we're all going to be saying 'Merry Christmas'." Is he going to make that into law? What the hell is he talking about? Here it is for the slow-witted: Christmas is known as the day of Christ's birth... ... for Christians ...who celebrate it... (Evidently from October to March now). But...this is where it gets tricky....

Well, Bills fans are Number 1! A poll was out this past week saying that Bills fans are the Number 1 Drunkest Football Fans in the Country. First off... ...how do they figure such a thing? Was it the guy who fell from the third deck to the second sliding down the railing? Was it the guy who squirts mustard and ketchup at people who want some for their hot dog? (You have to see the YouTube of that fiasco). Was it the guy who fell head-long into the RV as he tried to dance around? Do they count the leftover cans in the lot? Secondly... ...have you seen the team? No playoffs for 15 years. Why wouldn't people drink? Plus it's usually pretty cold out there! Now I can't say much because I was young once. I drank plenty of expensive lousy draft beer at the stadium. Despite the fact I live about a mile and a half away I have not attended a Bills game since 2003. I've been two a grand total of two games in the last 20 years... It's a young...

Did you know that I went to West Point? I went there a whole lot, as a matter of fact. I never received a scholarship to go there, but I was invited in...time and time again...by a construction company that was doing a lot of work there. I never once didn't value the trip. West Point is a long ways from Buffalo...but I had to hit the place fairly regularly back about ten years ago. I didn't see Ben Carson there. He turned down his full scholarship, evidently. West Point is an impressive campus. When I first arrived there I was taken back by the beautiful surroundings. The tremendous buildings. The young men and women marching around. The strict rules of discipline. The other reason I enjoyed West Point was that it is close enough to make the trip to Yankee Stadium. I believe I went to at least three games after doing a late afternoon scan of the job site. I remember one such trip there. I was walking with Dave...a safety man for the company. ...

Sunday morning meant a quick trip to run some errands around. 80's on 8 on satellite radio was running down the top five songs from this week in 1982. Right in my wheelhouse. I graduated from high school in '82. Ready for the countdown of the top 5? Number 5: Eye in the Sky by the Alan Parsons Project. Do you think I liked that song? I named a book Eye in the Sky . I sang along. Number 4: Heart Attack by Olivia Newton John. I must admit that it wasn't one I sang along with. Other than thinking Olivia Newton John was hot...I didn't think much more about it. Number 3? Jack & Diane by John Cougar. He wasn't even John Cougar Mellencamp yet. Brilliant song. Life goes on. Long after the thrill of living is gone. I was looking forward to the top two songs because my head was back in the days of chasing after pretty girls, drinking beer, playing golf and going to parties. Number 2: Not a great one. Michael McDonald. I Keep For...

It's funny, but we were kicking around how great the song Tunnel of Love , by Springsteen is. One of my friends (Kim) listens to it about 30 times a day. We all listened to it over and over and over again back when it first came out...nearly 30 years ago. I referenced that one idiot kinda' ruined the opening lyric for me with his wit. My roommate from college, Fluffy (a fat man himself) would always sing: "Fuzzy sitting on a little stool." I nearly always sing it that way myself. But I recall seeing this tour out in Long Island...my other roommate Rosie...called with two dangling tickets and my buddy Tom drove most of the way there and back on Easter weekend. It was worth the trip. In the middle of the concert someone turned to me and said: "Uh-oh, Bruce is getting divorced." The album is a brilliant look into relationships between men and women. Brilliant disguise? Needless to say, the writing is unreal. Tunnel of Love by Bruce Spr...

Black Lives Matter. Blue Lives Matter. Gay Lives Matter Transgender Live Matter. Been hearing an awful lot of chatter about what life matters the most lately and it is sort of mind-boggling to me. In fact, it sorta' seems to me that when one group or another starts talking about which lives matter... ...they're kinda' implying that some lives don't matter quite as much. I've grown weary with the discussion. Tarantino is in trouble for speaking out against what he perceives as murders carried out by cops. (He didn't say all cops are murderers, by the way). Black people are in trouble for speaking out against the blue because they don't think that enough people care about the black. For God's sake, people! We all know that lives are precious... ...or we should. But you know what the problem is? It's not true. Lives don't seem to matter to some people. Like it or not there have been disposable type people living all ove...

"Where were you?" I asked Jake as he stood before me with a towel and obviously wet shorts. "I was out in the garage baking cookies," he said. So. We've recently got a hot tub. I maybe should've put two and two together. I'm proud of his answer nonetheless. Jake is a kid with a quick wit. November 5th is kinda' his day. Fourteen years ago he underwent a really, really, really, really, really tough surgery to remove a really, really, really, really, really 'big ass tumor' (as he calls it). The operation was one that he had a good chance of not making it through. ( Thank you Women & Children's Hospital & Dr. Caty & Dr. Levitt) God was with us that day and despite the fact that there's been a lot of life since...I am relieved to think that November 5th is a great day in the history of our family. What was funny about it was that I had to work the majority of the day. I was working on writing reports...

Those are D'Angelo Williams' daughters. They are wearing items designed to bring attention to breast cancer. They are also taking a good shot at the D.B's of the Week: The big-shits in the N.F.L. Offices. You see, Williams was fined for wearing something or other on his uniform while he played a game. Yeah. They fined him for not being in uniform. And my first thought was that the league has to maintain control otherwise every single guy in the league will be wearing something different every weekend to honor this or that. But what made me decide to bash the league that I think is pure evil personified was because they can make a decision to fine or not fine on a week-to-week basis. They treated Williams just as they had Stevie Johnson who wore something stupid about being serious or something. In fact, the NFL doesn't care. They want everyone's money. They charged the armed forces for showing up at their games. They think that the cheerle...

I was feeling real impatient on Monday evening. I had just returned to work and I spent most of the day responding to calls, texts and e-mails and I was a little fed up already. But I had an appointment to get my back worked on a little and instead of postponing it, as my anxious mind begged me to do, I decided to keep it. I sat down in the waiting room, hoping that the doctor would call me soon. Why was the waiting room filled with people? Couldn't appointments go off at the time they're scheduled for? I had even left my phone in the car, so I had nothing to do but look around. "This sucks," I thought. I plopped into a chair next to a man who was about my age. He was seated across from a boy and a woman. The woman handed the boy a can of pop and he drank it down in a single gulp as the middle aged man beside me looked on anxiously. The woman was called to her appointment and she turned to Dad: "You're on duty," she whispered. The k...

So, Leah Remini is spilling the beans on Tom Cruise's religion. Do we still just call him Tom Cruise or is it lord or master or something? Raise your hand if you think the scientology stuff is a tad weird. L. Ron Hubbard is the god, right? But Tom Cruise is like the son of god or something. Doesn't it have to do with spaceships and aliens? Ah hell, I don't know. I guess I'm spouting off again about something I have no idea what the hell is up, but isn't that pretty much what we all do? Well, Kevin James' wife from King of Queens is pissed. First off, she was really funny in that show. I especially liked when she attacked him for his weight problems. I'm thinking she called him Fatty McButterpants in one episode and trashing someone for a physical problem is always hilarious. Like Katie Holmes' braces. You see, Katie Holmes became entangled in the whole mess when one of the networks said that she'd be dropping by to make fun of ...

My tremendous sister-in-law Lynn sent me a few photos of Sam and Johnny playing a one-on-one down in North Carolina. As soon as I saw the photos my mind did that grief-memory thing and I flashed back to my childhood. It was usually John and Jeff against me and Jim. The match-up was rough because Jeff was the best player out of the four of us and John played defense by punching you in the solar plexus early so that you'd wonder if he was going to do it every other time that you went up for a shot. I'm not kidding. He'd hit you in the stomach, taking your wind from you, and as you rolled around on the court like Nancy Kerrigan yelling "Why? Why? Why?" He'd stand over you and say, "You'll think about it next time." And despite the fact that he wouldn't do it again for the rest of the game, you'd spend all afternoon hurrying your shots before the little maniac got near you. But both Jim and I could shoot from outside. So the ...

I was wandering through the produce section looking for jalapenos when I stumbled upon a bin of perfect little red, round cherry peppers. I instantly thought: Anchovies! I headed over to the canned good area and found two little containers of the rolled anchovies. Perfect! It wasn't until I returned home and started coring the pepper to place the anchovy inside did it hit me: Dad! Death sucks because of the wave of sadness that grips you at those moments. I instantly thought of the last Father's Day that Dad was here. We had the kids in the car and we were ready to leave. "Papa wants you to hang on!" Matt was saying from the backseat. "What is he doing?" I asked. "He didn't say. He just told me to tell you not to leave." I glanced at Kathy. She just shrugged. Jake and Sam were calling for us to go. But we waited. Finally! Dad headed to my open driver's side window. He extended two cans of rolled anchovies to ...