August tweets of the month (may contain some nudity)

Sorry to let you down, but I was just kiddin' about the nudity. I hear nudity can really drive up the numbers so I thought I might as well try. All you get are tweets -- although some nudity is implied ...

 • If you think you and your spouse argue over traditional breadwinner roles, be thankful at least you're not nudists. Nudist couples really resent being told who wears the pants in the family.

• I wonder if the proctologist conferences ever have seminars titled "What To Do When You're All Bummed Out," and if that's a good or a bad thing. Or is the whole premise just a tad too, well, cheeky?

• Gentlemen prefer blondes. The rest of us will settle for whatever we can get our hands on.

• I’m feeling bewildered. New Year's Day in August came and went with so little fanfare it's like people don't even consider it a "real" holiday. Did someone declare a "War on New Year's Day in August" and I missed it?

• I don't know what I was expecting to find, but for those of you curious about word origins, the word "Sabbath" has nothing to do with the one day a week when folks used to take a bath.

• Even serenely disposed Siamese twins find it impossible to be anything but beside themselves all the time.

• As there is no discernible difference in the damage to a structure that's burned up and one that's burned down, I propose we start urging news casters to simply say a place burned. Once that's settled we can get to work on the redundancy of saying "out-of-control wild fires.”

• Sleight-of-hand enthralls w/ nimble tricks & dexterity. How come you never hear of anything but sleight-of-hand? There ought to be more sleights. Sleight-of-ankle? Sleight-of-elbow? Can anyone think of an obvious appendage it'd fun to use for magic tricks? I can't. Stumped!

• This is the year we've simultaneously reached peak friend saturation, that is the number of people we'd like to get to know better are outnumbered by the people we wish we'd never met. Thanks, Facebook!

• The phrase "wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy" has lost all currency. Today we're all wishing the worst on actual Facebook friends based purely on whether they choose to wear or not wear a mask.

• Fans of alcoholic irony will be pleased to know that the price of a Manhattan, the popular bourbon-based cocktail, is now $18 in upscale Manhattan bars -- nearing the $24 it cost Dutch traders to purchase in 1626 the entire island that became Manhattan.

• If I understand the priorities of the freedom-lovers who are refusing the vaccine -- and I'm pretty sure I do -- the best way to get them to take the shot is to advertise that  one side effect is 3-hour erections. #VaXXXine

• Doing a Zoom presentation for 250 Arnold Palmer fans tonight. My "things-to-remember list" includes: Be crisp, enunciate and "Don't pull a Toobin!" And yes I love it that a guy yanking off during a Zoom call can be said to be "pullin' a Toobin!”

• I just don't understand how in a world with millions upon millions of refrigerators, all with ice-making capacity, we still worry about the melting of the polar ice caps.

• Do you think Mary and Joseph had a gender reveal party or did they surmise that would be too anti-climactic?

• I’ve taken to answering questions about the severity of my Parkinson's by saying, "Well, I'm still kickin'." This gives my friends the opportunity to decide if I'm being metaphorical or if a random kicking motion is just another peculiar symptom of motor skills gone awry.

• Think having multiple towns named Ocean City is confusing now? Wait 'til full effects of climate change are felt. Every city will be an Ocean City.

• My antipathy towards our space-racin' billionaires may be greater than yours, but who else thinks next time Bezos, Musk & Branson are all in outer space at once, we should move earth to a remote part of the universe when they're not looking.

I'm lazy, you're busy. Which is worse?

                                         

(950 words)

The story has now become legend and is recounted scornfully whenever I encounter any of the principles or their descendants in public. The details are intended to embarrass.

Don’t they understand it’s impossible to embarrass the man whose entire career has been one long self-inflicted embarrassment?

Here’s their version of what happened.

Twenty-five years ago, Val and I lived in a small house that shared a common drive-way with two other families that had 2 teen girls apiece. One of the women was divorced, the other had (still does) a great husband. And it was idyllic. 

We all got along, supplied tools and recipe ingredients when needed and without fail exchanged waves and pleasantries with every encounter.

No one ever mentions any of that.

All that’s mentioned is the snow.

Now, winter snow is not uncommon here in western Pennsylvania. It wasn’t an unusual snow. It wasn’t life-threatening. No one lost power or had to consider the cannibal option when the fridge went empty. 

It was just a normal snow. As I recall it, it wasn’t even winter. It was on the cusp of spring. 

Val was working and I was home alone — and those are circumstances that could apply to most any story involving my wife and I.

But one of the neighbor women came up with the grim thought that the adults (the husband wasn’t there) and one or two of the kiddos ought to clear the 125-foot gravel-based driveway of snow. The other concurred. 

I guess they thought that I, the by default Alpha (lone) male, would see them toiling spring into action and like the fabled John Henry, that steel-drivin’ man, blast a path through the snow spacious enough to accommodate the family jalopies.

I don’t recall what I did. I may have browsed porn, nursed a hangover or been enthralled by a Nickelodeon rerun marathon of “The  Andy Griffith Show.”

What didn’t I do? 

Lift a finger to help the fair damsels out of their self-imposed distress. I did,  however, lift a different digit. I remember going to the window and giving them the thumb’s up for their efforts.

I suspect my thinking was along the lines of my late father who at some point in the late winter would just surrender his snow shoveling duties and say with admirable wisdom, “The good Lord put it there, the good Lord can take it away.”

I must have inherited the mindset from the old man. If I did, it’s all I inherited. He never earned enough to leave his impoverished children a single red cent

As they say, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. 

I mention this story now because there’s a sickness racing through the country, one that can’t be cured with masks, Fauci-approved vaccines or horse-deworming agents.

People are afraid to be lazy.

Chances are you’ll correspond with at least five people today and you’ll out of habit and politeness ask, hey, how are you doing? And, guaranteed, each one of them will respond, “Busy!”

We want people to think we’re industrious, productive, always on the go! Go!Go!

It’s exhausting. 

It’s as if giving the impression that we have idle time or are relaxed or unstressed is some kind or crime against nature. 

I yearn to hear someone say they’re serene, refreshed or — the best answer of all — horny!

At this point, I must reveal the little conspiracy you and I share: if either of us ever says we’re busy, it’s an obvious lie. How so?

If you have time to read this far into my blog, you’re never truly busy. And if I have time to compose it, well …

You want busy? Go back just three or four generations. None of us is as busy as our ancestors — our female ancestors.

Many of our great-grandmothers had to lug heavy water pails from the backyard well, chop firewood to heat the water and break out the gnarled wash boards  to wash the family duds.

Imagine the godsend today’s washers and driers would be to them. Given the spare time, I doubt they would have spent it, say, washing a mule.

No, they would have likely fixed themselves a turn-of-the-century martini, put their aching feet up and waited for Ellen to come on. The wait, by the way, would have been roughly 95 years.

They would have reveled in their leisure. They would think our work-obsessed culture was insane.

If you find yourself pretending you’re always busy, I’d urge you to practice what I call strategic laziness. 

I deploy it any time I scheme to get out of work I consider unnecessary or otherwise stupid. It’s a combination that involves one part reasoning, one part resentment and three parts delay, delay, delay. It sounds easier than it is. Ironically, avoiding hard work is hard work.

Resisting being goaded into shoveling snow that in one or two days will disappear without my intervention is a perfect example.

I reasoned I’d be more comfortable inside, rather than outside shoveling; I resented the implication that I should shovel due to some misguided idea of foolish chivalry. And because I’d committed to delay, delay, delay, I knew the job would get done without me. 

That’s just what happened.

I wish I could say during those two hours I divined some idea that will eventually benefit all mankind. But really, I think all I divined was it’s unwise to let Otis the ton drunk in the Mayberry jail when the dynamite-eating goat is in there, too.

Score one for strategic laziness.

It’s necessary because we live at a juncture in history where it’s truly possible to be  busy around the clock.

It just isn’t advisable.

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I told black man they all look alike

  

I was yesterday guilty of saying one of the most stereotypical racist statements from our long shameful history of bigotry.

I told a black man they all looked alike.

Well, two of ‘em do.

Can you believe it? Me, a Biden-votin’, Obama-lovin’, anthem-kneeler defendin’, LBGQUT-etc/whatever embracin’, MAGA bashin’, QAnon ridiculin’, immigrant welcome wagon drivin’, progressive said something blatantly racist.

And it happened right here in the Tin Lizzy, a bar where guys like me are outnumbered about 25-to-1 by Trump lovin’, Ashli Babbit reverin’, insurrection plottin’, Fauci-hatin’, vote suppressin’, Cyber Ninja-cheerin’, armed-to-the-teeth, er … drinkin’ buddies!

I may be exaggerating a bit. Using the plural teeth with some of them is a tad extravagant. 

The point is I’m the last guy anyone there would think would utter a racist remark to a black man.

Here’s what happened. I was meeting another old white guy for lunch. Seated at the bar was a younger, maybe 30-ish black man. This was, in fact, remarkable. It’s rare to see his kind in the Tin Lizzy.

And by “his kind” I mean men under 40.

He graciously moved down one stool to make room for me and my friend.

Then he asked me if I thought he smelled bad.

I took a big sniff and told him, no, he was odor free. It was, to me, a peculiar introductory question. But I rarely encounter any black people in my lily white world and didn’t know if this was a customary ice-breaker.

Then he told me four hours previous he’d been skunked. His pit bull, one with apparently malfunctioning taste buds, had seized Pepe Le Pew in its mighty jaws. The skunk reflexively began to defend itself the only way it could.

It began to spray. All over the dog and my new friend.

“I took four showers and I wasn’t sure I got it all,” he said.

I congratulated him on his thoroughness. The dog?

He found a service that would clean it for $40, a real bargain we agreed. “I’d have paid twice that.”

(Note to fans of moronic sitcoms: Bathing the skunked animal in tomato juice does NOT work.)

So he’d told me a good story so I decided to take affirmative action. I stuck my hand out and said, “My name’s Chris.”

We shook hands and he said he was Darren.

“Yeah,” I said, “I’ve seen you downstairs. Nice to meetcha.”

“Downstairs?” he said. “I’ve never been downstairs.”

“Sure you have,” I said. “I’ve seen you down there a few times.”

“Not me. Must be someone else.”

“Well,” I said, “if it’s not you, then there’s a guy who looks exactly like you.”

“Black guy?”

“Yes, he is.”

“Oh, you know we all look alike.”

Well, I know two of ‘em who do.

But I was embarrassed. Here I was, a white man getting red-faced in front of a black man. We were trending toward using all the crayons. 

Really, it’s a shame that I live in a place where seeing a BIPOC — just learned it (Black, Indigenous People of Color!) — is an exotic event.

Many of our leading racists would have us live in a land of strict segregation. They see it as our only path to racial peace.

I’m the exact opposite. I’m for lavish mingling.

If it were up to me I’d be in charge of an exchange program where vans full of urban BIPOCs — I love typing this! — would be bussed from, say, a bar in Pittsburgh’s Hill District to Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.

Then a bunch of us POPIBAAs (Paunchy Old Palefaces Immobilized By Age/Alcohol) could head to the city on a cultural exchange program that would bridge so many hateful and useless divides.

We could explain to them why so many conservative whites are furious when store clerks say “Happy Holidays!” instead of “Merry Christmas!”

They could explain to us why so many liberal blacks are furious that conservative whites keep murdering their unarmed brothers and sisters for jogging in neighborhoods with a high percentage of Buicks parked in the driveways.

If nothing else, I hope my friend Darren comes around.

I could teach him how to appreciate fine craft beers brewed here in the Laurel Highlands.

He could teach me how a young black man gets around in a world where so many people hate him just because he was born black.

And it’d be great if he could teach me how to recognize the differences between him and that other black dude.

Because black guys matter.

Black gals, too.

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Wild chickens roaming our yard

 

(440 words)

You’d think the guy who drinks the Wild Turkey would have been the first to see the wild chickens, but you’d be mistaken.

Still haven’t seen them. 

Maybe if I keep drinking more of the one I’ll see the other.

I don’t know how comfortable I am living up in the woods with a flock of wild chickens.

At least we assume they’re wild. They don’t have collars or respond to universal commands like, “Sit!” or “Stay!”

There’s a chance they may belong to some new neighbors. As I will relate, I’m well-aware of the phenomenon of people who raise chickens for fresh eggs. They could be carefree about their incarceration and seeing the benefits of their being free range chickens.

I’m fine with that philosophy right until we see roaming in our yard a pack of free-range pit bulls.

Our property has seen bears, deer, turkey, foxes, ‘coons — all sorts of wildlife.

These are our first chicken visitors.

I’d put up “NO CHICKEN!” signs in the yard, but I fear they’d just thumb their noses at the notice. That is, assuming chicken have thumbs. I know by the menus of the restaurants we patronize they have chicken fingers.

This is as good a time as any for my inevitable chicken finger joke: “Ask the waitress if she has chicken fingers. When she says yes, say, ‘You’re too hard on yourself. Sure, they’re ugly, but they still appear human.”

The waitress will usually laugh, but I’m always prepared to eat my food seasoned with waitress spit.

As I mentioned, I’ve been alert to the home chicken phenomenon since May 2014. I had what to me was a prestigious book signing at the venerable Carnegie Library in Oakland. Library staff were lavish in their promotions. I brought 80 copies of my then-new “Use All The Crayons!” book and lugged them across the vast parking lot to the library auditorium.

And not one person showed up.

Zero. 

It was humiliating.

There were 302,505 people residing in Pittsburgh that day and each and every one of them had something better to do than hear me talk.

Library staffers felt bad for me. One said she couldn’t understand it. Why just the week before they’d had 105 people show up for an author talk.

What was the topic, I asked.

“How to raise chickens in your living room.”

I don’t have to tell you what kind of mood I’ve been in ever since.

Yep.

Fowl.

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July Tweets of the Month

 • It’s discouraging to see how many old friends have toiled at lucrative careers and are now one-by-one leaving the rat race, while I slog on, in many ways a bottom line failure. The good news I’ll one day soon have the track all to myself and every day will feel like a victory lap.

• If all the people who so casually remark to relative strangers, "Now, I'm not racist, but ..." suddenly and inexplicably become racist, man, I fear America could be in for some real problems over race.

• The most significant stressor we face in our daily lives involves giving the false impression we remain stress-free in a world that is full to bursting with people who are absolutely stressed out of their minds.

• Ham & eggs. Bacon & eggs. Steak & eggs. They roll right off -- and on -- the tongue. How come you never see a menu offering chicken & eggs? Chicken is one of our most popular & versatile dishes. Is there a squeamishness about about consuming a species' circle of life on 1 plate?

• I’m at an age (58) where if I call an old friend just to say hello, it ruins their night because they presume my call really means either I'm dying or I've heard they're dying.

• After a party weekend spent in the company of many born & bred Latrobeans, I'm convinced natives can detail with perfect clarity the comprehensive romantic histories of all fellow natives dating back to the 1600s. Further, they can pinpoint which cheerleader got her boobs enhanced down to the day and how that worked out at the corresponding GLHS class reunion.

• Given our indifference to irony, I'm surprised we've yet to hear of a Blue Lives Matter gathering that had the audacity to hire a Police tribute band to play the band's 1983 hit "Every Breath You Take.”

• I’d like to see them take all the statues of canceled historic figures (Lee, Paterno, ect.) And put 'em all on a really, really big chess board in some national park and let MAGAs vs progs compete and learn ways to constructively deal with all our their withering animosities.

• I have to think the other Great Lakes resent the Hell out of Lake Superior. I just imagine them sitting around BSing. “Who does he think he is? ‘Oooh, being a Great Lake isn’t good enough for me. I have to be Lake SUPERIOR!’”

• I’m mostly cool with the concept of God creating man in his own image. At least until you get down to the toenails. That's when it all starts to fall apart. What kind of Supreme Being would endure the awkward nuisance of having toenails He'd need to trim Himself?

• The male erection is the ultimate re-gift. Someone gives any man an erection and his instinct is to give it right back.

• Death Valley forecasts call for high temps of 132 degrees. How long before we hear news reports of 1st chef in history baking cookies in mid-air?

• Being a busy podiatrist must at times be demoralizing. Their patients would never dream of putting their best foot forward.

• Any man who is tossing around lots of BS in the hopes it'll get romance to bloom with a seedy woman is engaged in an act of flertilization.

• The pleasant morning sound of wire hangers clinking against other wire hangers is a momentary delight and sonically superior to most popular music released since 1986.

• There are 7.8 billion Earthlings. Experts say it took 2 million years to reach 1 billion, but just 200 years for the next 6.8. Pessimists fret we can't sustain such growth. I say why worry? We're so advanced I can think of a dozen ways we can lose billions of people overnight.

• I’m growing oddly nostalgic for the days when GOP leaders used to say, "Now, hold on. Let's wait to hear what Sarah thinks.”

• I was an admirer of Pope John Paul and am surprised that although he died in 2005 we've yet to see a Pope George Ringo.

• The very thought to me is rock blasphemy, but I can pretty much guarantee some kid somewhere thinks it'll be a cool tribute to modernize the Bob Seger classic "Turn The Page," with a 2021 version he's calling "Swipe The Screen."

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Why am I such a crybaby?

(657 words)

The second most common question asked of me by my daughters, ages 20 and 15,  — and I’m paraphrasing here — is: “Why don’t you  have the common decency to leave the room when you have to fart?”

The answer is if I left the room every time I had to fart I’d never be in the room and despite the odor and commotion they’d miss me so I just let ‘er rip.

The first most common question is, “Why are you always crying?”

The answer is more complicated.

It’s true. Hardly a day goes by when something doesn’t happen that leads to at least a mild weep.

I’ve pondered it a lot, always with a hanky close at hand, and I believe the main reason is I feel my humanity more deeply than most.

I feel about my fellow humans the way some maniacs feel about their favorite professional football team. 

They desperately want them to win and are devastated when they lose. They hinge their emotions on the results of 45 or so multi-millionaire strangers.

I feel that way about 7.8 billion earthlings.

You’re one if them!

I want you to succeed. It makes me happy to hear you got a promotion, that your car passed inspection or that the spouse was feeling extra frisky last night.

Conversely, I feel genuinely sad to learn you’re feeling over-worked or that your buck-toothed kid needs pricey braces.

Those sentiments are understandable for any caring person. But my empathies go way beyond that.

I’ve been devastated by the news of the Surfside condo collapse and the cataclysmic European flooding. People dying makes me very sad.

But so does people living. Many of us are living way too long. I’m friends with several people whose parents are being tortured by the curses of longevity.

Songs, both happy and sad, can start the waterworks. I heard Eric Bogle’s “And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda,” about a doomed WWI soldier’s experiences at Gallipoli, in 1915 site of some of the worst slaughter in the blood-drenched history of war.

Of course I cry over that one. Many do.

But how many cry over one of the most buoyant and joyful tunes in the history of recorded music?

How many cry over “Our House?” The  bouncy 1970 CSNY hit asserts the songwriter’s house is a “very, very, very fine house.”

I’m sensitive to the homeless problems here and around the world and I know there are millions of people who’ll never know the security of having a stout roof overhead and won’t enjoy the soulful bliss exhibited in the 2 minutes and 59 seconds it takes to listen to that dandy ditty.

I cry that Tom Petty’s dead and Dick Cheney isn’t.

I cry at the beginning of Pixar’s “Up” and at the end of Paul Newman’s “Cool Hand Luke.”

I cry because I believe climate change is real and has the potential to kill us all.

I cry because I believe we mismanaged this pandemic and the next one has the potential to kill us all.

The stories in the newspapers all discourage, as does the fact that newspapers are disappearing right along with the bees, polar ice caps and any evidence of rational thought among large segments of the voting public.

Understand, not all these tears are tears of sadness. I cry for reasons of paternal pride, sweet nostalgia or if I drop a hammer on my foot.

I contend it’s not surprising I cry; what’s surprising is that I ever stop crying.

I figure I’m composed of at least 80 percent tears so they’re right there near the surface. I’m like a teacup full of tears. Any little jiggle will cause some to spill into the saucer.

So my sassy daughters are learning from me it’s okay for a man to cry.

Drink, too.

See the other 20 percent of my composition is mostly bourbon.

The presence of the former explains the need for the latter.

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On July 4th, my response to a decorated officer hinting I'm un-American

 (658 words)

I had a disheartening encounter with an illustrious and once-avid reader this week who declared me as anti-American over — take a wild guess.

Yes, it all comes down to Donald Trump.

Did you think we were at odds over the legacy of Alex Trebec?

This fresh antagonist is a lavishly-decorated, recently retired officer. He served with distinction over the last four decades. He’s been on the front lines of freedom. I’ve bragged about having him as an enthusiastic reader of my stuff. 

Were we close? No, but I’ve stayed at his house and have enjoyed golfing with him.

So I was blindsided by his e-mail ending our friendship and stupefied by the reasoning.

“Chris, I see you applaud Obama and stomp Trump. Kindly take me off your mailing list. I happen to believe in this great country I proudly served. Good luck.”

Hear me out: I strive to keep my newsletter/blog/books free of partisan bile. There’s plenty of it elsewhere and I don’t feel obliged to pile on.

Plus, it makes zero sense for a guy cravenly interested in growing his readership to routinely belittle roughly 50 percent of his potential customers.

And — get this — I’m proud I count among my readers many Trump supporters. Although the notion is becoming increasingly quaint, I happen to believe we can still find common ground upon which we can all unite.

(By the way, I’m proud that so many of you town drunks out there read my blog, too. I approve of diversity on both my Supreme Court and blog stats page so “Cheers!”)

So there was no applauding Obama, nor stomping Trump in any of my 2021 public posts.

Could he be referring to a mild e-mail exchange?

I’d in my newsletter included a link to this blog, “Greatest American Speeches & Why Mine’s Better.”

Now, unfriending me for bone-headed audacity, that I get.

The story prompted him to send me a link to North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson speaking. Here’s an example of his powerful oratory. 

My then-friend’s note read: “You mentioned in last ‘Crayons’ great speeches. This eclipses anything Obama ever did! My opinion!”

My response: “Powerful and well-reasoned. I've never heard of him. I remember being moved by Obama's ‘Amazing Grace’ speech; Reagan's ‘Challenger;’ and I liked Sen. George Mitchell's Iran-Contra takedown of Ollie North.”

And because bone-headed audacity never sleeps,  I concluded with “And my ‘Crayons!’ speech is still better!”

Can anyone in any of this point to a “Trump stomp?” And is writing in a personal e-mail that I was “moved” by an Obama speech upsetting enough to cause hysterical over-reaction.

Is it now infuriating to admit to admiring a devoted family man who was twice and by commanding majorities elected POTUS?

What? Has he been spotted ordering take out from Comet pizza?

We naturally and justifiably defer to the men and women who serve and sacrifice.

Well, not double-amputee U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois) we don’t, but this is no time to muddy the narrative.

But if a decorated officer infers I do not love America because my opinion differs from his shouldn’t it be taken at face value ?

After all, I’m just a blogger who votes, and a not very enterprising one at that. Yeah I voted for Joe Biden, but couldn’t figure out a way to do it more than once. 

Of course, this makes what I’m about to say all the more difficult.

Because I’d default side with my esteemed friend on any issue involving national security, foreign alliances and which club to use out of the green-side bunker. He is an accomplished and charismatic leader.

But when he hints I’m any less American than he because I disagree with his politics, there’s only one thing left to say.

Sir, with all due respect, you can go fuck yourself. 

My opinion.

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