Thoughts of a Common Man

Social media is filled with people saying ' Adios!'... ...to what has been a trying year. Why do we all collectively agree that 2016 has kind of sucked ? I have a few theories. 1). The Election The entire thing was exhausting, divisive, aggravating, and irritating. We all hated it. Even the people who got the result that they think they wanted. There were daily fights on Twitter, Facebook, the daily shows, the nightly shows. I don't think the calendar flipping to 2017 is going to solve the problems that were started because of this, but hopefully we will try. 2). Celebrity Deaths Bowie, Prince, Michael, Ali, Thicke, Henderson, Fisher, Reynolds... ...I can't even think of all of them! One after another!! People we actually grew up watching, listening to... ...celebrities are weird creatures. We all think we know them a little, right? I was shaken by a couple of the deaths, and I don't know why. I still shake my head every time I see Gandolfin...

My buddy Jeffy is happy! The Bills fired their coach. Rex Ryan is gone from our lives. He came in beating on his chest, talking about the D being good, but not good enough. He'd take it from Number 4 in the league to Number 1. It was time to build a bully! Playoffs? "Get ready! We're going." Back when we were kids if you shot off your mouth and did well someone would say: "It's not bragging if you can back it up." Well, it is bragging if you don't. Rex got fired. His bigger brother got fired with him. Evidently he left town with nothing more to say. But, don't worry about him. He got three years paid. He'll show off shooting his mouth off again in a town near you. You know, I don't even feel a little sorry for him, of course. I thought he arrived just pedaling hope. I didn't think much of him before he coached his first game for Buffalo. When he punted on 4th and 2 in a must-win game it was a fittin...

I certainly could've and probably should've taken a couple of days off during the Christmas rush. But I didn't. "You know me," I said to my beautiful wife. "The troubles start when I think I haven't done enough." So, I shortened a few days to regular days, but I also cleaned a couple of rooms that needed it... ...and 2016 continued to remind me why I don't like to waste moments. Carrie Fisher was only 60. These celebrity deaths seem to remind us: The Big D comes for all of us. Prince, Ali, Bowie, Michael, Henderson, Thicke... ...and many more.. Met the Big D this year. All pretty young too. All icons in the 80's. And it pains us to be reminded that all we are actually promised is the moment we're in. I do a pretty good job of reaching out to old friends. I make absolutely certain that if my family needs me I try and listen... ...and I'm really a little too intense about making the day count, in one way ...

George Michael was only fifty-three. Heart failure? Once more, a pop star from my years of waiting for new music. His group WHAM! Was all over the radio and video when I was listening to those things. None of us actually claimed to like George Michael. We all thought he was a little weird and the music certainly wasn't rock and roll! If you even got caught listening to it... ...well, there'd be hell to pay. But we all somehow heard it a bunch of times anyway, didn't we? I'm not sure about the WHAM! songs, but he certainly wrote a bunch of good music in the years following his break with the boy band. He could sing, dance and the girls liked him. Michael ran into some problems later on. He fell asleep behind the wheel a couple of times. He came out as gay after he was busted doing something in a Hollywood bathroom. Then he said something that made a lot of people think a little: 'This is who I am. Take it or leave it.' Was the essentia...

So, this was the deal . Sam & Jake got season tickets with the one condition being that should they not qualify for the playoffs this year... ...there would be no talking about how good they will be next year. Oddly enough we watched the Miami game together. Sam had enough of freezing his ass off at the stadium and gave up his ticket to Jake's buddy. Jake and his buddy went to the game, but called me to get them before it was over. "Too damn cold." There we sat. The Bills actually looked like they were gonna' lose, then it looked like they'd pull it out. Win. Lose. Win. Lose. It was a roller coaster of emotions for the boys. Me? "They're gonna' lose," I said. It's sort of played out the same way for 17 full years now. I'm the Debbie Downer of the Bills season. They lost. Eliminated. Again. I decided to try out my winnings. "How of you think they stack up next year?" I asked Sam. ...

I swear that if it weren't for the garbage truck heading down the road I might've slept until 8:00 for the first time in 30 years. GARBAGE TRUCK!!! I jumped into a pair of sweatpants and put on my coat. If the tote didn't make it to the road we'd be buried in garbage for a week! But the boys surprised me!! One of them (probably Sam) had delivered street-side. I surveyed the wreckage back in the house... ...some stray bottles and cans... ...a few tables out of place. Not bad! 'Course me and my beautiful wife had cleaned a lot of it after the last guest left. I thought about the kids who had been running around. One kid copped a screwdriver from somewhere (I don't even know where we keep the screwdrivers). I gave a couple of them dollar bills and (with all their gifts their parents had purchased) they were thrilled with them. (I kept finding the crumpled ones on the floor...and had to give it back to them a few times). The food was well...

The expectations of the day are almost too much . Yet there is a moment when it all clicks, you know. "Merry Christmas!" "Happy New Year!!" "Happy Holidays!!!" People actually mean it. And then we get ready for the couple of days where we spread a little bit of cheer, hopefully, within our own families. Yet Christmas seems to change through the years, doesn't it? We all recall the excitement of being children and waiting on Santa. Then there are the teen years where we feel a little guilty...about the presents we receive. Then we are Santa! Then we stop caring about presents at all and think of food and drink and a few days off! I was a little down on Friday... ...out of nowhere, actually, but certainly because it was Dad's birthday. The "down" moment was just a moment though. I wouldn't let it take hold. Because I started thinking about the true meaning of Christmas and I got a little assist from my li...

There are so many things that I miss about My Dad. I think of them a little more on his birthday, but it happens most every other day as well. How many times we laughed together.  There's a Willie Nelson joke that I told him during his last year. We were standing in the backyard and he looked at me kinda' weird when I started telling the joke and when I nailed the punch line...his laugh was so genuine. I see that in my head from time to time, and to this day, I feel sad whenever I tell that joke. (Ask me to tell you the joke in private - was a little racy). I consider all of his lessons: Work hard, success will come. Don't compete with anyone but yourself. Most people are out for themselves. So many lessons...all playing over and over in my head. The Cooking! Every single time I cut an onion for the sauce I hear him saying: "Cut it small!" Whenever I put the garlic in the pain: "Don't burn the garlic!" I recall the day whe...

It's a little hard to get into the spirit of things when you actually have nothing at all to do with the season! It used to be that I would buy some presents for my parents, my siblings and, of course, my beautiful wife. Early on in the marriage, Kathy took care of all the other gifts and I was just on the hook for finding something for Mom and Dad, maybe and her. Then Mom and Dad fell out of my grasp as Kathy always knew what she wanted to get them. Then I tried buying her clothes one year... ...and I was prohibited from buying her clothes. So, I would get her one gift. Then she decided that she didn't need anything that she couldn't buy for herself. Last year, Sam laughed as I stood with a box on my lap on Christmas morning and handed her a few lottery tickets, and then started tossing twenty dollar bills. What do you buy someone who wears scrubs to work and sweatpants after that? Jewelry? Tickets to the ballet? "I don't want anything,...

In a few weeks I get, as my buddy Pops calls it, an ego boost. I'm heading off to Vegas to do my annual safety stand-up act in front of a bunch of insurance and construction people. It is an ego boost because I do try for a healthy amount of laughs, and I have gathered plenty of material to get those hearty chuckles, and I do love doing it... ...but ego might not be my thing, totally. I saw an ad that was sent out to hype the event. It spoke of laughter and learning, but there was a bad photo of me... ...and a title that said: "Nationally Renowned Safety Expert." Uncomfortable!! To be fair, I've never considered myself to be anything other than a construction guy. Most of the success I've had in the field has to do with getting up, day after day after day,  and going to the places where they're working... ...and trying to help... ...with a little laughter mixed in... ...and a lot of documentation. It's funny, but last week I got...

It's not decorated, mind you, but it is standing up much straighter than it has in the last 10 or 15 years. Sam actually dug the tree out of its place behind the stairs. He dragged it up the stairs in the two pieces, and made the first attempt to stand it up. It didn't look good. "How old is that damn tree?" Jake asked. "I bought it the first year we lived here," I said. "So it should have been retired 12 years ago." "Why? It looks good," I said. "We just have to put a Yankees ornament on it." But there's more! Kathy actually took about an hour to get the tree standing upright and she flushed it all out. "How's that?" She asked. "Lovely," I said. And it actually does look good! I thought about the years gone past when we would head off into the woods to grab a tree. Well, I didn't actually go... Dad would take either John or Jim... ...and they'd come back with one...

I've always been a good speller. That's not a boast, but I know some people, some very "smart" people who really struggle with it. The secret, of course, is a lot of reading. Normally, when you're reading, you'll see a lot of properly spelled words in a row and your brain will pick up on it. I enjoy reading. It's one of the great loves of my life. It always has been... ...so spelling words correctly went hand-in-hand. I often tell the story of being in first grade and the nun was telling a story about the language being weird as she explained that words aren't always spelled as they sound. She chose one such word and asked me how to spell it: "C-O-L-O-N-E-L", I said. She almost fell out of her chair and the class laughed. "How do you know that?" She asked. I didn't tell her that the Kentucky Colonels were an ABA team that had Artis Gilmore at center. I just shrugged. She told my Mom that I was a genius. But...

There's so much negativity. I stumbled across a positive story. This week a woman, Cindy Stowell, appeared on Jeopardy. In fact, she just kept winning and winning. And she didn't get to see the results as she died between the time the shows were taped and were aired. She didn't care. It was her plan all along. Seems that she loved the show, knew she was dying, and wanted to win so that she could donate some money to the research to prevent the disease that killed her: Cancer. How could anyone root against a contestant like that? You'd hope she won a billion, right? I don't watch the show much. My brain isn't fast enough to comprehend the question and then put the answer back in the form of a question. I know some of the answers, mind you, but I just shout them out. And Alex is a bit smug when someone gets it wrong: "No! Sodium Chloride is what we were looking for there." I'm too busy thinking: "F&$@ Off, A...

Wow. This is really unsettling, isn't it? Trump is about a month away from the inauguration and it has turned into a colossal mess, hasn't it? Here's how he should be handling it. "The news about Russia possibly interfering in our election is upsetting and needs to be thoroughly investigated as it is a threat to our democracy." He should also possibly explain that: "I was not involved in any such tampering and I did not know anything about it." That would be too easy, right? We all know that I'm not a fan of Donald as the president. Yet if that's where he is to sit for four years... ...he has to preserve the integrity. Trump fights everyone on everything. He won't ever back down, right? Last week he attacked a food critic who gave a bad review of a Trump restaurant. His attack was like many of his other attacks: Petty, simplistic, nasty... ...and unbecoming of the seat he's about to sit in. He's in danger...

I knew it would be a challenging week. I was severely overbooked and everything would have to break right for it to be bearable. Nope!!! I was on Route 81...a horrible road in the winter...when I saw the dreaded sign: ACCIDENT AHEAD: PROCEED WITH CAUTION! Since we were going 8 MPH at the time, and since I couldn't see a damn thing...reckless behavior was out of the question. I traveled 20 miles in about 2 hours. During that ride I got a news flash about Craig Sager losing his battle with cancer. I listened as Gilbert Gottfried (one of my favorite comedians ever) speak of the loss of his friend Alan Thicke. I also listened to the news about the Santa, who may have lied about a child dying in his arms. A lying Santa??? Jake texted me about Sager. "Boy 2016 is ass!" He wrote. It has been one of the strangest years ever. A lot of celebrity deaths. Crazy weather. A horrific election battle. "Ass". "You got that right," I ...

I have to bring back the DB of the week just for Christmas-time. Did you hear about Pastor David Grisham who visited a mall in Texas so that he could save the misguided children? D.B. Grisham had a bull horn and he announced to the children in line that Santa Claus is a fraud perpetrated by their parents. He kept saying this over and over because he wanted to make sure that the kids...some as young as 3-years old...understood that Christmas is about Jesus...and not some man in a red suit and beard. I wasn't there with my children, of course, but man this "frosts my ass" (as my college buddy, Fluff, used to say). Not very-Christian of you, Pastor Dumb-Ass. As you might expect the religious big mouth wasn't very popular with the parents of the children. One Dad confronted him, but he kept right on going, yelling that Jesus deserves the love and attention that these heathen children bestow on the fictional present-giver. Doesn't Pastor Dave sound like...

I hate meetings. I remember working for my Dad years ago and he was running a meeting. He said that his first order of business was to schedule a meeting to figure out why we had to have so many f&$@ing meetings. Everyone laughed. I was once invited to a mandatory sales meeting. My boss knew I hated meetings but he made me go. At the end of the meeting he said: "We're gonna' go around the table and I want a suggestion from everyone." When he got to me I said: "We should have food at this meeting." Last meeting I was invited to. So, I get Bigly saying that he doesn't want to go to the Intel meetings every day, but... ...doesn't he, like, not know much about the world? He said that he didn't need the meetings because: "He's like a smart person." Like? A smart person? Perhaps the intelligence meetings are not truly needed. Who are we to question the guy who's going to lead the free world? I recal...

It's over. Such high hopes when Rex rode into town. The team wouldn't be bullied anymore. He guaranteed the playoffs!! The Bills missed the playoffs in year one, but never fear! Rex has a twin brother... ...who looks a little like an elderly, weight-challenged grandma. They rode a tandem bike for a commercial. The 2016 Bills were certainly going to make the playoffs and end the drought!! Well. The Ryan boys didn't pull it off. Now it looks as if everyone will be fired... ...including the QB of the future, Tyrod. He has $30 million attached. He better not write any new checks. And you know who suffers? My poor boys! Matt barely recalls the Bills last playoff game back in 1999. Jake was 2. Sam wasn't here yet. "We aren't done yet," Sam said when he returned from the game. "9-7 will get us in if everyone else loses three straight." "You don't give up easy, huh?" Jake asked. And on Monday, all a...

The dream is over... ...the dream that maybe this year the cold weather wouldn't arrive. I'm looking forward to the people who now post: "See! There's no global warming!!" But... ...I wish there was sometimes. It's much worse these days. I absolutely dread the cold. The extra clothes, the brushing off the car, the waiting for the windows to defrost, poor Melky shivering as she goes for her daily ride. Hate, hate, hate. On Sunday morning, after breakfast out for a change, we stopped at a convenient store. It was about 10 a.m. and I was wearing the heavy coat. "Going to the game?" The clerk asked me. Bills versus Steelers just around the block. "Are you kidding me?" I asked. "Sit outside in this?" You couldn't pay me enough money. But the idea of lasagna struck me as I headed back to the car. A blanket on the couch. The game on television. Lasagna. Dogs. Nap. A little while later I watched as th...

When we were kids the enemy that distracted us the most was the Russians. We hardly even considered radical Islamist terrorists. It was billed as Russia versus the United States. Those fall-out shelters built into our schools? Those were for the nuclear devastation that would be brought down upon us by our horrible relationship with the Russians. We were taught to hate them, of course, and the Russian government was a scary threat to our democracy. We actually beat the Soviet Union in hockey in 1980 and we all rejoiced. It was more than a hockey game! We beat the freaking Russians! And then we met Ivan Drago. I was actually physically ill when Drago mentioned to Balboa: "I must break you!" He had just killed Apollo Creed! Damn Russians! But Balboa stunned the world! His epic speech from the center of the ring told us that we can all get along! And there was an uneasy peace. (I still believe it was that speech that brought about stability). ...

I was thoroughly annoyed the other night... ...I'm not even sure where I saw it, but a REAL reporter was interviewing a man who claimed to be good at writing FAKE news stories. The man was bragging about how much money he received to write stories that had half-truths , and outright LIES in them about Clinton during the presidential election. The man - I didn't even get his stupid name - claimed to have wanted Clinton to win the election, but he was paid handsomely ... ...so he wrote FAKE stories, posted them on-line and watched as the world freaked out. "What a scumbag !" I said to the empty hotel room. The guy had a smug smile on his LYING face. His reasoning was that it wasn't up to him to interpret the stories. He just enjoyed writing the FAKE GARBAGE . Social media is a MESS . Go through your timeline on Facebook and Twitter. There are sensational headlines... ... nasty photos... ... horrified reactions. And the whole ...

John Glenn had a good run. 95 years and off into orbit. I was only 4 years old when we finally landed on the moon. You know what's amazing? I remember it! Well, to be fair, I don't remember much, and I should've been more interested in space travel, but I just wasn't. I never got into it...seemed crazy to me. Yet I do remember the moon landing in a bit of an image that flashes across my mind. We were getting yelled at: "Watch this!" Mom cried out. "They're making history!" "You can't see anything!" I said. "It's all blurry." And that is exactly what I remember about it, but I know it's real. I know that the television was set up in the room just off the kitchen in the big house on the hill. I remember being placed right in front of the television. Blah! Yet I've listened to John Glenn and Buzz Aldrin talk about their travels. They had remarkable lives. Amazing, actually. I know...

I was on a cramped little plane heading to the Midwest and we were just about halfway through the trip when I started to feel antsy. Maybe it's the fact that we are all always in touch, but not being connected I started feeling weird. Just wondering what was going on back home. And not being able to check in. I thought back to the years when I was a putrid bachelor...thinking about someday having something that I was deathly afraid to lose. I'd also suffered loss too...and the fear that hangs over your head...every day since...is enough to drive you crazy if you let it. And it occurred to me that living your life is about accumulating a whole bunch of love that you are AFRAID to lose. Life isn't about avoiding loss. It's about living through it. The plane touched the ground and I grabbed my phone. It was freezing cold. It had slipped below the seat and was against the freezing wall. You know what happens when your phone is cold? The battery dies....

Back in 1980 Bruce was doing a publicity shoot for The River record. He was a star by then, but not a mega-star yet. He was just strolling with his photographer, finding spots, and taking shots. In this one, a young girl strolled into the line of fire, on her bike. They didn't chase the girl away. In fact, they liked it, and used it for the promotion of the album.  As the years went by, a lot of Bruce fans began speculating about who the girl was at the phone booth.  No one knew. Eventually they tracked her down and last week she met up with the Boss at one of his book events. They both look a tad older. That's what 37 years will do! Yet I kept flipping between the two photos. She was just a young girl! Now a more than middle-aged woman! I'm sure that the time went by like a blink for both. Of course, Bruce was more than gracious. He always seems to be. The woman said that she had no idea that anything was going on when she pulled her ...

My sister loves taking her nephews out to lunch. They love going because they're always laughing. Years and years of laughing together. That's what's awesome about family and I know that my boys are going to take a little time today to say; Happy Birthday to Corinne!! I always tell a story about the days gone past on the birthday of my siblings and with Christmas just around the corner I was thinking about the year when Corinne woke me up about an hour before we were supposed to be up. We headed down to the basement where Santa had set all the toys up for us. I knew it was wrong to play with any of the toys yet. Corinne knew it too, but we were less than 10 years old. We played, figuring we could get the jump before anyone else woke up. We got busted. We had to sit and wait for a few minutes. It was Christmas though and we weren't punished for too long, but I remember thinking: "Damn! Why did I listen to her?" Since that time I'...

I have some advice for the dude who got the 2nd most votes in the recent election. Stop tweeting!! Alec Baldwin is playing the president-elect on SNL. It happens every week. The portrayal isn't flattering. Baldwin (who is a loud liberal in real life) is playing up the fact that the guy who's going to be president for the next 8 months or so has a short attention span. I saw the opening...it was SNL...the same show that showed Clinton and Lewinsky in all their glory, and even as far back as Gerald Ford (with Chevy Chase poking fun)...SNL does what they do. So, how does Bigly respond to the fact that he's petty and short of span of attention? He tweets that he's watching the unwatchable show... ...and that it's horrible! "Sad." Stop!!! Pay attention to the details of the job... ...like not talking to Taiwan... ...when we have an alliance not to recognize them outside of China. That's a minor detail... ...that has major ramif...

I limp into the end of the week these days. It's been that way for awhile. On Saturday morning I woke up with a headache. Did a little paperwork, wrote a little and spent some time easing into my favorite 2 hours of the week: Nap! I only slept about an hour and 15 minutes, but woke up with a clear head. Then off to massage to see if I could get my legs working. On the way home my mind was really clear and (go figure) Bruce was on my radio. During One Step Up I was struck by a line I'd heard a thousand times. "Sitting in this bar tonight and all I'm thinking, is I'm the same old story, the same old act." A simple line, really, but full of a wallop. The guy is trapped in self-pity and has come to the simple realization that he's falling into the old traps that bring him down. I've heard Bruce talk about it before and it's a fascinating subject because we all do it. We carry the seeds of our own destruction with us and as we walk...

Yesterday a story hit the news about a former NFL player Joe McKnight who, at the age of 28, was shot to death in a road rage incident in New Orleans. What a horrible way to die. The details are a little sketchy but some of the witnesses were saying that McKnight was actually apologizing when he was gunned down. And this is a story that's going to explode, I fear. McKnight was a black man. The man who shot him is white. The witnesses also said that he may have said: "I told you not to mess with me." Thankfully I've never been tempted to stop my car and confront another driver. Like anyone else, I've been aggravated behind the wheel, but it never actually dawned on me to get out and fight. Especially in this day and age. When everyone, supposedly, has a gun. But here's the rub: The guy was questioned and released. Didn't even spend a night in jail. They may eventually bring charges, but it's strange to me that you can fire 7 shot...

Not sure what the hell is going on, but I've heard a lot of people using: "What Not" As an expression of speech. Some of us use different words, from time-to-time as a way to express ourselves, but over the last week or so I've heard " What Not " being used a bunch of times. My beautiful wife said it a couple of times as she relayed a work story. "Why are you saying 'What Not'? " I asked. "I don't know," she answered...and then she went back into the story. It got me thinking... ...what does "what not" mean in the context of a sentence? And then I heard to on the radio. I paid attention to what the woman was saying. She was a caller into a program. "What are you up to?" the host asked. "I've been watching television, reading a little and 'what not' ," the woman said. In that context it sort of means, etc... Right? But you know what is sad? I don't mis...

We have a Bigly debate going on already. The dude who's gonna' be sitting in the big chair (I think) started the debate by ignoring the fact that the Supreme Court has twice ruled that burning the flag is protected by the constitution in the freedom of expression category. The people screaming loudly beside the mouth would have no problem if the first amendment was somehow altered are the same dudes who shout "what do you not understand about not infringed" about the second amendment that other people find faulty. And who said that this wouldn't be fun? Listen, I have no intention of burning a flag. Like kneeling during the anthem I think it's a little about "look at me", but the number one treasure about being American is that we are free! Free to express our discomfort in any way that we see fit. Free to sing "America the Beautiful" from the purple mountain closest to us. And free not to! It really isn't all that compl...