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Being Thoughtful Matters

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My buddy Bruce is out there making ‘Good Trouble’ by standing up and saying all the things that those of us opposed to this mess are saying in private. As usual, he was very thoughtful in his presentation as he spoke about what matters in this country, and one of the things that he said that caught my attention was that being kind, thoughtful and moral matters. Those of us who’ve been kicking around for a lot of years understand that over the last ten years the national dialogue has become nasty. Of course, the words coming from the office of President has reached new lows. Think the death of Rob Reiner, or Robert Mueller. Just absolute cruelty. And those words ‘Being thoughtful matters!’ was delivered in Bruce’s usual impassioned plea. So, what happened on Thursday morning? The response from the Oval Office was to call Bruce a ‘dried up prune’ and to say his music is ‘boring’. First, he should see a show. Bruce and the E Street Band are not boring. Second, a dried up prune? Should Bru...
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Ridiculous

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Mellencamp has a line in one of his songs that goes like this: “Sometimes life is too ridiculous to live.” At 6:30 I exited the shower to a call from down below: “We got some water downstairs.” Five words that no one wants to hear. “Is it bad?” “Not too bad, but I didn’t open the front room.” I heard the door open. “Oh shit.” The sump pump that I hadn’t thought about in months decided to not do its freaking job anymore. Six inches of standing water. Where we keep our shoes. “I can shop vac it,” Kathy’s friend said.  “You can’t empty it full of water.” So, I bought a pump, set it up, and headed to work. An hour later, a text from Kathy: “The pump quit working.” Not what you like to hear. Just pushed it out of my mind… …got home to a packed house, pushing water around. A new sump pump. A new smaller Shop Vac. And the pump I bought. Cost me around $300. Ridiculous.
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Holy Week Rains

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Holy Week always means something to me because the memories of the Catholic school upbringing are vivid. Altar boy duties were no joke back in the day, and man, we had fun with it.  Hockey and basketball in the gym. Kneeling for what seemed like hours for the stations of the cross.  Being at the church more than we were home. Thought of all this during the soaking rains yesterday as poor Ollie looked at me through sad eyes. He knew WHY we weren’t playing. He just wanted me to put a stop to it. As for time spent in the Holy Week church… …not happening anymore, but we are having a nice Easter dinner, followed by sports of some variety on television. Hoping it stops raining by then. “I think God is pissed,” a coworker said. “He certainly has reasons to be.” Amen.
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My Brackets Sucked

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In the never-ending quest to amuse ourselves to death, I was all over the board on Saturday afternoon. The undefeated Yankees were on, and Aaron Judge homered. The Sabres, who are charging to the playoffs for the first time in about twenty years had a big game too. The Yankees were on the big screen, and the Sabres were on my phone. Then Sam, who loves college basketball more than anything else in his life, walked into the room, and wondered about whether or not I wanted to watch the game with him. Thankfully, the Sabres finished up (win) and I switched the rest of the Yankees game to my phone. I also enjoy the NCAA tournament but my brackets were putrid this year, and being out of the running has been made worse because my wife has two of the top 6 brackets in a 100-bracket pool. Yeah. She hasn’t shut up about it. So, time is passing with sports to distract us from the country being sold. The Yankees won, by the way.
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America Is Standing Up

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More than 3,000 cities had protests going on yesterday. Perhaps more than a million people took to the streets, headlined by my buddy, Bruce leading the charge in Minneapolis. Which does a heart good when the daily atrocities of the pig pedo are front and center every day. There are now hundreds of photos of that sick bastard with children. He’s in his underwear in some. He’s kissing children in others. There is talk that one of the videos shows information about him with his own daughter. When do we move beyond marching in the streets, and just usher all of them out the door to the trash bin of our country. The war is a disaster. The economy is in shambles. There’s enough proof to comfortably say that he is a pedophile. He’s convicted of sexual assaults. The protests are peaceful and as American as baseball and apple pie. But when will we see action? Steve Bannon is broadcasting to the world that there will be a third term. He’s claiming to have found loopholes in the constitution. Mu...
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Tiger, Tiger, Tiger

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I enjoy watching documentaries on sports legends and the famous musicians. I loved the look at Derek Jeter’s life, Jordan’s recap, and especially the look-ins on Billy Joel. Hell, even Charlie Sheen! But one of them that I didn’t enjoy was the one they did on Tiger Woods. “He’s kind of an asshole,” I recall mentioning to Kathy. “Kind of?” She asked. News broke that he had another incident with another vehicle, and it appears, he was impaired as he drove. Which is an asshole move, and at least his second offense. He also had another incident that nearly killed him, and of course, he hit a mailbox running from his wife after she learned about his affairs. When something happens, social media does its thing. Tiger was all over every site on Friday evening, and that brings up all the garbage. “No matter what, people will talk about Tiger’s golf game a hundred years from now,” one genius pointed out. Yeah, he’s a great golfer, or was. He’s destroyed his body, not from playing the game, but ...
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Best Record in the Sport

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Being a Yankees fan comes with great responsibility to irritate the fans of every other team. The Yankees opened the season by pummeling the Giants 7-0 so, of course, for about 15 hours, they were the only team with a 1-0 record. A buddy, and fellow Yankees fan reached out. “You know what you have to do, right?” I posted on Facebook that the Yankees had the best record in baseball. I sent texts to a few idiot Red Sux fans, and if they came back at me with anything to do about not winning a title since 2009, I wrote the argument winning number: 27 That infuriates every fan base. “How many have you seen?” They’ll ask me. “Seven. More than any other team in the last 50 years.” There will be more aggravation coming for all who don’t care for the 27-Time World Champion, Greatest Franchise in the History of Organized American Sports. The best is when I get a Yankees hater and a Bills fan all rolled into one. “Don’t you own a shirt that says, ‘One before I die’?” I can’t help being an arrogan...
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