Thoughts of a Common Man

One of the best parts of playing golf is the beauty of a great course. I stopped a few times yesterday morning to take in the amazing glimpses offered by nature. The weather was perfect. It was seventy-five degrees. The clouds were perfectly positioned, and I took that photo after hitting a drive down the middle, chipping onto the green, and two-putting for the par. “This game is easy,” I said. “Look at how great that is,” I said to JC who was 3-putting the very same hole for a double bogey. “Yeah. Who gives a shit?” He asked. How much you enjoy nature while you’re out playing is directly tied to how you’re playing. And it was a fun weekend as I was asked to play in a scramble on Saturday morning and the youngest member of our group was capable of hitting a ball more than 300 yards. Which was fun to watch. “You hit it pretty well for an old dude,” he told me. I laughed. As I was looking around at nature the next morning I was contemplating how quickly one goes from being a youngster to...

Music might be the closest thing we have to time travel. I was heading from work on Friday and flipped to The Bridge on Sirius to catch the song, “No One is to Blame” by Howard Jones. It’s a song that doesn’t really fit into my catalogue but it’s a catchy song that made me travel back in time to a long plane ride from Buffalo to San Francisco. I’d just graduated college and was intending to visit Dad for a month or so before Mom and the rest of the family headed out for the summer. I needed a rest, and to try and figure out what I’d do with the rest of my life. Mostly, I was just tired of going to college parties and living that life. California sounded like a good idea. But man, that’s a long plane ride, and I didn’t have much by way of entertainment. I plugged in my headphones and linked in to the airlines radio station - it consisted of 8 songs that played over and over. Howard Jones’ song was one of the 8 songs and by the time the plane landed, I loved the tune. Still do. I played ...

They updated the indictments against Putin Jr. and it appears that he gave an order to destroy the server at his broken down resort in Florida. Isn’t that ironic? So, let’s recap his defense: 1). He was entitled to take the classified information. 2). He declassified it by just thinking about it. 3). It was planted. 4). He returned everything, but he wants it back because it’s his. Anyone following along should come to one conclusion. He’s a liar. Yet, that’s not even what caught my eye about the story. He responded to the new indictments by attacking Jack Smith the lead prosecutor. Which is a tad insane, no? That’s like being pulled over by a cop who approaches the side window and says: “Do you know why I stopped you?” And you answer: “Because you’re an asshole?” There is a nickname too. “I call him deranged Jack Smith.” He also calls Garland: “Merit-less Garland.” So clever. How long do you think it takes him to come up with a nickname for one of his former friends? His ex-hires are ...

Watching Mitch McConnell freeze up and stare off blankly until someone could lead him away from the podium was disturbing. Not because I have any great affection for Mitch or his politics, but because he shouldn’t be standing there anymore pretending to be a leader of anything other than whether he wants tomato soup with his grilled cheese for lunch. He’s more than 80 years old. I do realize that there are productive 80-year old people out there - hell, I wrote about Mick Jagger turning 80 and he still moves better than me… …but being a rock and roll legend and trying to make policy decisions for the country are two different animals and let’s face it… …Mick has taken care of himself. Diane Feinstein doesn’t appear to know what state she’s in. I think about my father-in-law and his love of naps. His days sometimes go like this: Wake up Eat breakfast Take a nap Eat lunch Nap until dinner Watch the baseball game. Go to bed. I’m not knocking it! That’s a great day! And what someone over 8...

Happy Birthday to the legend that is Mick Jagger. He of the lines: “I just can’t seem to drink you off my mind.” “Your low-down bitching has got my poor feet a-itchin.” “There’s a fever in the funk house now.” I have been a Stones fan since I was about ten years old. I still hear Mick sing about 5 songs a day (minimum) every day. They were my first concert back in ‘81 and when I saw them again in 2014 they were even better. They were all supposed to be long gone by now because they were the bad boys of Rock and Roll… …but Mick made it to 80 and Keith isn’t far behind. I’ve truly only been star struck twice in my life and both times it was because absolute legends were less than 10’ from me. Bruce walked onto the stage on Broadway and was about 8’ away… …and Mick ran by me…. …literally a foot away at Toad’s Place on the Yale campus in New Haven, Connecticut. The Stones came off a bus and headed into the club to practice for their Steel Wheels Tour. Crazy. I was just 22 years old. Mick w...

There are stages of life, and very often when we move on from a job, or a neighborhood, we lose track of people. Mike was my boss back in 1991 on a crazy out-of-town job that found just three of us in Sioux City, Iowa in December and January. Not exactly a dream road trip. It was the coldest I’ve ever been in my life, and I live in Buffalo! We drank a lot beer on that trip. We visited a few gentlemen’s clubs and ate a trailer load of prime rib. We laughed. A lot. I can still see the mischievous look on Mike’s face when a flight attendant explained to us that our plane wasn’t going to take off in the snowstorm and that they were going to try and book us into a hotel, but were short on rooms. “I’ll bunk with you,” Mike told the beautiful flight attendant. “I’d rather die in a fiery crash,” she said, without missing a beat. We tortured Mike with that line over the next few years. And Mike wasn’t a perfect guy. He drank a little too much. He suffered from some medical complications that he...

Man, that Jason Aldean song has done just what the corporate fat cats wanted… …it got people talking, and fighting. It seems that pushing the division in this country was the intent. First, Aldean was raised in Macon, Georgia - a ‘small town’ with 153,000 people…so he doesn’t know a small town from a thriving metropolis. Secondly, he was on stage during a horrific mass shooting. Threatening people with a gun in the lyrics is absurd. Thirdly, and as a fellow small town resident pointed out with a poignant Facebook post… …the beauty of small town life is in the helping of others. My friend, Diane mentioned all the beautiful caring things that happened in small town North Collins back in the 1970’s and threats of violence, or intolerance against strangers didn’t make any of her highlights. Finally, and the real rub of it all, for me, was the video that was made for the song. It was filmed at the site of a lynching of a black man. News footage that depicted violence in the streets wasn’t e...

We saw the first add for the ‘Barbie’ movie, and we simply laughed. “That looks horrendous,” Kathy said. “Course it’s Ryan Gosling.” And the media blitz set off another culture war as a segment of the population went off on the movie having hidden ‘woke’ messages which is absolutely ridiculous, of course, but whatever. I had two sisters. There were Barbie and Ken figures in our home. I’m old enough to remember when it was a craze. It was a doll. We did all the usual things, taking the heads off the dolls and making the switch. We left Barbie naked and in compromising conditions with Ken for my sisters to find. All great fun. “We’re going to see ‘Barbie’,” Jake texted me yesterday morning. I knew that his review would be coming in about three minutes after the movie ended. “It’s unlike any movie I’ve ever seen,” were his first words on the subject. “Was it good?” “A 9.5 out of 10,” Jake answered quickly. “I laughed all the way through. Ryan Gosling had me crying laughing.” About what I ...

For the second straight Saturday I was extremely productive, and mixed in a little fun with a ball. I had paperwork to do, because for the second straight Friday I was so tired of work that I couldn’t stand to look at the computer at the end of the day. Before I even finished a cup of coffee before 7:30, Ollie dropped the football in my lap. “Give me a minute.” I slugged the coffee and threw 55 passes to Ollie. Wrote a number of reports, and Ollie was ready for round two. We played again and then the summer Saturday began. Weed whacked, stayed out of the house cleaning going on, started the laundry, grabbed groceries, planned our dinners, changed the cat litter, garbage and recycling out… “I thought you were resting? You skipped out on the golf outing to rest.” “Ehhhhhh.” And that’s how it goes in the summer. There’s a lot to do to clean up after the busy week, and I talk a lot about Saturday being the day I need to ‘get my legs back’. And then the football is dropped into my lap again...

President Obama tweeted out his reading recommendations for the summer. He also included his summer listening favorites and one of my favorite Bob Dylan songs is on it: Everything is Broken “Broken lines, broken strings Broken threads, broken springs  Broken idols, broken heads People sleeping in broken beds. Ain’t no use jiving, ain’t no use joking Everything is Broken. Broken bottles, broken plates Broken switches, broken gates Broken dishes, broken parts The streets are filled with broken hearts Broken words, never meant to be spoken Everything is broken. Seems like every time you stop and turn around and something else just hit the ground. Broken cutters, broken saws Broken buckles, broken laws Broken bodies, broken bones Broken voices on broken phones Take a deep breath, feel like you’re choking Everything is broken. Broken hands on broken ploughs Broken treaties, broken vows Broken pipes, broken tools People bending broken rules Hound dog howling Bull frog croaking Everything...

Remember when Dan Quayle was basically ushered out of politics for spelling ‘potato’ wrong? I think Howard Dean was done because he screamed weird. When they threw a shoe at George W. Bush I was horrified (even though I wasn’t a fan) because he was the president of the United States and there should’ve been respect for the office. And now? The front runner for the Republican Party has a half-dozen indictments, including one for trying to overthrow the Democracy and another for stealing classified documents. Yesterday one of the completely unqualified members of Congress brought porn to the floor in an effort to score political points by trying to embarrass the son of the sitting president. What the hell happened? And obviously, we cannot sustain such stupidity and expect to continue as a Democracy. It’s embarrassing. Not being able to do a damn thing about citizens being murdered in the streets is one thing.  Having elected officials who appear to be as dumb as doorknobs is a whole...

I haven’t listened to country music since Johnny Cash was doing it…unless you include Bruce doing ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’ which is awesome. Yet, I hear country music being played on job sites and I know who Jason Aldean is - mostly because he was on stage during the masa shooting in Las Vegas. So, I glanced at the controversy over his new song. I didn’t listen to it or watch the video, but I did read the lyrics. I shrugged at most of it - just another tough guy anthem about not standing for all that is being done to their memories of when the world was great. Boring. And wrong. I was alive back then in a small town. Life was grand, but there were a lot of problems that didn’t see the light of day - for minorities, gays, women. There were problems with substance abuse and corruption. The small-town mentality wasn’t all that sharp. But there is a line in there about his beloved gun and a veiled threat about someone coming to get it. How does someone caught in a mass shooting look at that car...

The days of our life just fall away, as storms passing through on what we hope are mostly sun-filled days. We keep our legs churning, moving everything forward, hoping our best efforts pay off. We build our memories, hoping that they’re good ones, but somehow, all we ever need is never quite enough. Or so it seems. I considered that all on Monday morning, following a routine task of cleaning out some of the things in the garage, in time for big garbage day. I worked quickly on Sunday night, cleaning out some lockers that the boys used to store their toys. The lockers were filled with deflated basketballs, soccer balls, and old plastic hockey sticks. My 20-something boys are done using that stuff. I gathered it all, and made a bunch of trips to the garbage tote, and I didn’t give it a second thought… …or so I thought! I woke up on Monday morning and headed for the first job with a nagging thought tickling my brain, and my heart felt heavy. I didn’t know why, but figured it out pretty qu...

Sometimes you can do everything right and things just don’t work out. We’ve had a regular foursome for the past ten years and we are all aware of how we all play week-to-week. Most times we can pick the scores in the parking lot before the round and then go out and get those exact scores. Yesterday was weird. I left at least six putts within an inch of the hole. They wouldn’t drop. I hit chip shots exactly where I wanted to, and they bounced the other way. Came close to throwing a club (haven’t done that in pure anger in years) just to get it out of my hands. Not that any of us played horribly, but, the ball didn’t seem to cooperate. On the 8th hole, Pops had a chip shot onto the green. It went awry and wound up ON THE FLOOR of the cart I had just parked beside the green. “Tough lie,” I said, as I walked on by. As we approached the 16th hole - a 150 yard par 3 - I said: “Why doesn’t one of us hit a hole in one here so we remember this non-descript round?” I went first and the ball head...

Springsteen has a great song about being married a long time - Kingdom of Days - where he sings the line: “We lie beneath the covers and count the wrinkles and the greys. Sing away. Sing away. My darling we’ll sing away. This is our Kingdom of Days.” Thought of that a bit as I saw photos of my young nieces and nephews and my not old, but not young anymore, siblings and friends. We all earn those wrinkles and the greys and knowing that the days are limited is part of the gig. We tally up the damage done to our bodies as we move ahead, knowing that the youthful bounce back isn’t always there. But it’s healthy to think of it as our ‘Kingdom of Days.’ I made mention of my boys going out and staying out too late. I also mentioned that even though I had a spirited youth, I didn’t take such crazy chances and Kathy called me on it. “Didn’t you drive from NYC to New Jersey without shoes to see the Stone Pony?” “I had shoes,” I said. “Al didn’t.” “Wasn’t that the trip where you slept in an aband...

The summer months are rough for construction people. It’s like tax season for accountants, I guess.  Too busy. There’s a tendency to want to sneak out on Friday to play a round of golf, and I start each week thinking I might go for it… …then don’t. This week, around noon, with the plan still in mind, I got a call about a guy who got hurt. Called my buddy and told him that teeing off didn’t look good, but he pushed it. “Let’s go at 2:00.” We didn’t have a tee time. Yet, on my way home from the job, I got an irritating email. “F*** it!” We got to the course and tried to bribe the starter. Then we noticed two kids on the tee. “You mind if we join?” The kids were hesitant as they told us that they were horrible golfers. We assured them that we didn’t care. Then I watched a kid who is my son’s age hit a ball that traveled about 40 feet. “Try again,” I said. The worst thing a golfer wants on the tee is advice, but this kid was in serious trouble. I pulled him aside. “Here’s the thing,” I...

Got a text from Kathy on Tuesday. “The air conditioner is cooked.” Bah! We do have an older model and we fixed it last year. A work buddy told me then that it’s ‘on its last legs.’ But he fixed it, and it worked great. Until Tuesday. Kathy had saved my buddy’s number so she texted him before I even got home. I barely listened when she said that he’d be coming by to check it. Wednesday was a busy day and I was on the computer when my text chimed. It was my buddy. “Hey, my guy is at your front door. Answer it.” I greeted the guy and it was like a homecoming because I knew him from job sites around the area. “You’re the safety dude.” “Yep!” Ten seconds later he was back at the door. “Can you turn it on?” He asked. “I think it’s on, but I’ll double check.” It was indeed on. “Huh,” the guy said. “Where’s your breaker box?” I opened it, and I saw it immediately. The freaking breaker had tripped. The guy made a dramatic motion of flipping the switch and the unit came roaring to life. We both ...

In case you haven’t noticed by my years of writing daily blogs, I have a busy mind, and a voice in my head that never shuts the hell up. Couple that with a sharp memory and a bit of a bleeding heart and sometimes there’s trouble afoot. I woke up a little down on Wednesday morning. Another busy work day and a long drive to start it off, straight into some dark clouds and a sprinkle of rain. A name popped into my head as I passed by a cemetery: Peter Randazzo. And then the story of a long-ago night. There were a lot of tragic traffic accidents in my hometown. Almost everyone who ever stepped foot in the town suffered unspeakable loss of friends, siblings, neighbors… …just too many. I was in my early 20’s when I lost a young friend whom I was hoping to date. Crushing. I was also trying to get my writing career going then as well. Her death messed with everything I thought I knew about how I would fill up the blank pages of my life. She was here and then gone. It certainly wasn’t fair, and...

The standard line when speaking to a newly divorced guy is that he will mention: “You know why divorce is so expensive?” “Because it’s worth it!” Well, Kevin Costner, who didn’t even want a divorce, was just ordered to pay his wife $129,000 a month! He actually won the battle! His estranged wife wanted more than $300,000 a month - allegedly - and she had to be court-ordered out of his house - which was part of the pre-nup because during his first divorce he got bounced and didn’t have a place to live. I learned long ago not to comment on other people’s relationships. Way back in high school a buddy of mine broke up with his girlfriend and as we shared a few beers I explained that she was a loser who I never really liked. He was back with her two days later and he never talked much about her again. So, deal with your crap. I won’t comment. When someone complains about their wife I often say one of two things: 1). I have one too. Or 2). Why you telling me? I thought O.J. and Nicole were ...

Mark Knopfler addressed the above question in one of his songs. He wrote: “I got my bags packed to go either way.” And I see these signs every so often and it makes me thinks of the nuns who scared the Bejebus out of me with the threat of hell. Recently I’ve been thinking that the fiery furnaces of hell might not be factually correct. Why would Satan be a punishing host? Your presence there would be good news for Satan, right? Why would he burn you? Yet, there are certainly people who are eternally worried about where they’re going to spend eternity. Couple of thoughts: 1). If we all go at once in a catastrophic event there are going to be huge lines to go either way. Think of it, even if you get judged in just a couple of minutes there are billions of people. I hate waiting in line. 2). Will they grade on a curve? Back in high school days there was always one really smart kid who destroyed the curve for the rest of us. Hopefully that won’t be the case and a 65% will be a passing grade...

The Yankees have been disappointing thus far in 2023.  Yet, I’m more forgiving than a lot of Yankees fans on social media because I’ve seen 7 titles and they have been in the playoff conversation every year since well before I was married. They earned a bit of a tolerance from me, but yesterday’s game was certainly a microcosm for what has been wrong all year. They got a lot of hits…only scored one run that wasn’t on a homerun. They had the lead and the starting pitcher, Domingo German, was in a groove. He’d only given up a single hit, and had only thrown 74 pitches. They took him out of the game because that’s how games are managed now… …and then their second baseman booted a ball that would’ve ended the inning, and the relievers didn’t relieve. So, what’s gone wrong? 1). Aaron Judge - the best player in the game has been out for a long while with a sprained toe, or some such nonsense. If a Yankees player hits the ground he gets an MRI and a 2-4 week vacation. They put one player ...

For years my Mom and Dad threw huge parties that included enough food for as many people who might show up… …and people always showed up and ate really well. Then it was my turn and the turn of my brothers and sisters. We followed the blueprint and when we threw a party there was always way too much food for all. I would encourage our guests to take a container or two home. “We are invited to James house for dinner,” Kathy mentioned on Saturday morning. “James is making dinner?” I asked. “I guess. He asked if we’d bring a dessert.” I thought about the passing of the torch. Our kids were now hosting parties? We got there a little after the appointed time and I entered the kitchen. I saw a few containers of sauce on the counter. There was corn boiling in a pot. James was emerging from the shower. “We having corn for dinner?” I asked. He laughed and pointed to the sauce and a few boxes of rigatoni. “I haven’t started cooking yet,” he said. “Dad gave me sauce, and I have sausage that I’m g...

We watched a movie called ‘The Banker’ with Samuel L Jackson and Nia Long and a great cast… …telling the based-on a true story about black men trying to buy real estate and banks in Texas in the 1960’s. It’s truly horrifying what black people faced in this country back when, some believe, everything was great here in America. In fact, I get a pit in my stomach when I watch a historical recounting of those horrid days. We were watching a rerun of ‘Modern Family’ the other night when Jay and Gloria had a conversation about America in the good old days. “Life was pretty great back then,” Jay said. “Unless you were black or Hispanic or gay or a woman,” Gloria said. “Yeah, well, I was twenty-two and white,” Jay responds. “It was hard to have a bad day.” And that’s the rub of what has been going on lately… …there is a camp of people who want to take the nation back to those days. Towards the end of the film, one of the lead actors makes the point that ‘We the People’ doesn’t have qualifiers ...

The hottest day ever? That’s pretty wild, huh? But I’m not quite sure what to make of that bit of news. But it was definitely warm here yesterday, and I will never complain about it because I hate snow and cold that much… …but it did wear me out a little. I feel badly for the roofers that I work with. They’re out there doing hard labor on a black or white roof that just bakes them. I don’t say much to them in the way of giving them much of a hard time because they’re really grinding. But the hottest day ever recorded seems like it’s troublesome as we discuss whether or not climate change is going to destroy life in the next little while. Of course, the argument is split right down the middle with the usual suspects in their usual spots. Those who believe in facts and those who don’t. I wasn’t much for Earth Science - I liked my teacher - hated the subject matter - it just didn’t interest me and I still don’t get caught up in the debate, but seeing the ice caps melt is concerning. How m...

I mentioned that I missed playing rec basketball because I got old. “You can still play,” Kathy said. “Can you imagine?” And I had some days in a row away from work - 4 straight off days is a lot for me! The latest I slept in was 6:45. The cat has something to do with that. Sometimes I gotta’ pee and once I’m walking there isn’t any going back to sleep. As I approach my 59th birthday being rested is a rare thing. A round of golf ends with an ice pack and the massage gun. If we have the gall to start a movie at 8 p.m. or later that is going to likely turn into a 2-night mini-series. “How much time is left?” I’ll ask as we get near the end of an episode. “Twelve minutes.” “Oh, I can’t stay up that long.” And most nights, I fall asleep holding the book I’m reading. I’ll wake up a half an hour later, finish the chapter I’m working on, and go to sleep. And Monday was the 27th anniversary of my torn Achilles tendon. The one major thing I remember about that injury was how busy my life was at...

The 4th has long been my favorite holiday. I love the sunshine so the 4th of July has always had an advantage as far as holidays go… …and as a kid I enjoyed the patriotic feeling that the day brought. As our kids grew, we made the trek to the 6-Flags amusement park, and the memories of those trips are something we still talk about. But a strange thing has happened over the last handful of years. I haven’t flown a flag in years because of the MAGA crowd taking over the flag and flying it without holding to  any of the principles that the flag stands for. It bothers me that they claimed the flag and used it for garbage. But okay, we have a long history and being an American still means something. That flag still means certain things. Or should. I believe that we will bring it back around again. At least I hope so. The fireworks were being blasted all through the neighborhood last night. There will be more tonight. I just hope, and pray, that in between the fireworks there is some tho...

My grandparents were obsessed with the upcoming weather report.  I remember being young and being sworn to silence during the weather portion of the local news. Through the years, living here in Buffalo, I’ve had to pay attention to the weather to learn if we were going to get blasted by snow. I hate checking the weather. Nowadays, there’s a weather app in all of our pockets. I’ll tell the tale of two weekends. Last weekend, I was in Syracuse for a golf outing for one of my clients. There were a lot of people showing up. I first checked the weather by looking at the sky outside my hotel room window. “Ugh.” Then I opened the weather app and saw 80% with the lightning and rain 🌧️ emoji. I learned that 80% isn’t the percentage chance of rain, but rather how much of the local area that would be saturated. That 80% was listed by each hour that we were supposed to be on the course. I firmly believed that I’d eat lunch and head home, not even swinging the club once. “We’ll be all right,”...

Twitter went to the shitter yesterday but I did see one Tweet that featured five clips from the movie ‘Jaws.’ “Never saw it,” my son Jake said, “Heard it was amazing for back then.” I thought back to the summer of 1975. “It was absolutely terrifying,” I said. “You have no idea what it felt like to be ten years old and watch a movie about a shark that was eating people. To top it off, we were living in Florida that summer and we went to the beach every day.” The thing about watching the clips was that the script was great, the acting was decent, and I remembered a couple of the iconic lines. “We’re going to need a bigger boat.” A couple of days ago, a former professional football quarterback drowned while swimming in the gulf. Rip currents were blamed, and I spent a little time thinking about a man, in the prime of his life, drowning. “I wouldn’t go into the water that whole summer,” I told, Jake. “I’ve never gone into that water,” he said. “I go swimming, I want to see the bottom.” “No...

I didn’t know who Representative Ralph Norman was until last night. He agitated me with a tweet where he lectured kids for taking student loans and expecting some relief in a program that was designed to absolutely destroy them as the astronomical costs of college decimated their chance at a future that doesn’t include hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest paid on a principle that they can’t ever pay down. “You have to pay your personal debt!” Norman exclaimed. (Paraphrased), Welp. Turns out he doesn’t truly believe that. If it comes to his debt. The guy is worth $40 million dollars and he took PPP loans that amounted to about $600,000. He applied to have them forgiven. And since he’s one of the vomit-inducing hypocrites that vote on such things… …his debt was excused. One of the Supreme Court judges (the one who likes beer) had huge debts at one point. Those were paid off somehow. And fine. I suppose that if I were making laws I’d propose a bill that said: “58-year-old, pasta-e...