Thoughts of a Common Man

Writing and releasing a book is always a crazy endeavor. “Are You An Idiot?” was written with a singular goal - make people laugh. I’m 17 published books in and I have to confess to something: I never truly know if it will hit the mark. That’s the thing about doing something creative. There’s a confidence in your ability to tell a story, but every single time there’s been a nagging sense of doom. “Will they like it?” This time, the question was: “Will they laugh?” And I don’t need to have my ego stroked. Once the book is released I can only hope. When I get a message from someone who enjoyed the story, it makes me smile. There’s relief and there’s the thought: “They read it and didn’t want it to end.” I can’t imagine not reading. When I find a book that I love reading there are days where I think: “I can’t wait to go to bed so I can get back to that book!” The fact that I, as a writer, can give a reader that feeling is honestly my favorite part about being an author. I was really young...

LeBron James put out an endorsement for Kamala Harris and he started it with a great question: “What are we even doing here?” He’s absolutely right. It’s a choice between hope and rage. Anger and inclusion. Love or hate. The other day, one of the candidates rode around in a garbage truck… …just spreading more nastiness. A brilliant friend of mine summed that up perfectly: “He got in the wrong end of the truck.” I can dream about a day - and I hope it’s in the next week or so - when I don’t have to see, hear, or think about him. He’s brought absolutely nothing other than rage, division, hate and idiocy to the national discussion. James is absolutely correct… …what are we even doing here? There’s simply no choice… …unless you are all for hate and rage… …if you are… …it’s not about either candidate… …it’s how you choose to live your life. Looking forward to that garbage truck driving away with its huge orange load.

The 2024 Yankees team was a fun team to watch. Judge and Soto and Stanton. Cole and Rodon and Gil. They had a good mix of youngsters and veterans. When they were playing well they were the best team in the sport, but when they went sideways, they were frustrating. They did all of the above things in the World Series and in the end, bad base running and poor defense did them in. There was a lot made out of Judge having a hard time hitting, but he came around, reaching base 7 times in the last two games. Yet, I’ve never seen him drop a fly ball. Aaron Boone is a good guy - he’s always pleasant in interviews and has his players backs - almost to a fault.  I’ve defended him for years. He’s also fairly adept at grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory. He made some weird decisions with the bullpen. The Yankees have been very good for the last 32 years - have not had a losing record - even once. That’s pretty much the entire span of my adult life. They have won 7 titles since I started r...

 Leave me alone! 😂 

I knew it was going to be a problem - three games in three nights - the starting time at 08:08 each night. I don’t have much wiggle room on what time I wake up because I’ve been waking up early for decades and I have work and I also have a cat who thinks he’s an alarm clock. So, I knew there was a problem. It’s worse than I thought because I haven’t been able to catch up at all and damn… …I’m tired! Why do they need to do a 10-minute national anthem and then bring a rapper on to yell at me for another 10 minutes? “Start the game!” I yelled each night. And in Game 4 - two Yankees fans grabbed the ball out of Mookie Betts’ glove after he caught a foul ball down the line. I laughed when I first saw it happen - because it was so damn dumb! What were they thinking??? We have had to mute the announcers each night - not so much because I hate the announcers but because they don’t shut up! I watch a lot of Yankees games and am used to their announcers as they let the game breathe. A national a...

We’ve all heard the joke told by the ‘comedian’ at the MSG rally where he labeled all Puerto Ricans as garbage. The joke wasn’t funny and it was also punching down at an entire race of people at a political rally. That wasn’t all - he also told that hysterical ‘carving watermelon’ joke about blacks. I’d never heard of the guy beforehand, but his act was vetted prior to the rally and deemed acceptable by a party of people who are now openly telling the nation that they only want whites here. I got news for them. It’s not going to happen. Go to a city. Watch a baseball game. Go to a worksite - anywhere in the country. There are way more than white people who make up this land. This country was built on the backs of immigrants. Native Americans made up iron working crews. The masons and painters were Italian men who were vilified when they entered. I was on a site last week and I spoke with the foreman of the framing crew - he’s from Guatemala - speaks perfect English - even bought me a b...

Did you notice that we didn’t ever have to worry about rigged elections? That’s only a truly recent phenomenon - all started by the rantings of one crazed man. Usually I don’t have any sort of trouble voting - takes five minutes - the fire hall is less than a mile from here. I sign next to my name from last election and the process of voting doesn’t take long at all. In and out in five minutes. Yet, I know that others don’t have it quite so easy. Blocks of people are in areas where voting is MADE difficult for them. I read today that Puerto Rico citizens aren’t allowed to vote for president even though they’re considered to be American citizens. Calls are made to people in poor neighborhoods to let them know that the voting date has changed or balls are closed down. All sorts of deceit. We should all get a vote, and we should take advantage. I have friends who have never voted. I find that crazy. And yet, much like the World Series, I know who I WANT to win, and this election promises ...