Random thots on election, snow days & favorite trial movies

So many topical issues, I thought I’d run ‘em down in a jiffy little burst: 

• A conservative buddy of mine posted on Facebook how glorious it is for him to right now be watching what he disparagingly calls “PMSNBC.” I told him I’m enjoying it vicariously through him. Being a partisan on the winning side of any election is as euphoric as having your team win the Super Bowl. My take: Winning the midterms so resolutely will, again, embolden the GOP into mistakenly believing America craves more conservatism, thus guaranteeing they’ll lose the elections that really hurt. And on November, 9, 2016, I’ll sit down and spend the whole day reveling in FOX News.

• The blog had its biggest week ever: 7,500 readers — all of it on one story that was widely ignored when I posted it in February. The story? “Everyone hates Patrice King Brown.” It’s about a formerly beloved KDKA-TV news anchor who ruined her reputation by becoming the paid shill for health care conglomerate UPMC. Why did the story go off? KDKA began promoing poignant spots saying, “The secret reason Patrice King Brown left KDKA … tune in Monday at 5 p.m.” I could tell each and every time one of those promos ran because another 500 or so readers would Google “Patrice King Brown,” see my story was the top offering and click right to it. It made me feel momentarily relevant.  What was her secret? Her husband had cancer and he’s now kicking its butt. It was an odd piece and seemed like a an attempt to rehabilitate her after she’d lost so much public favor. I’m glad I didn’t say anything mean about her in a story that was read by a lot of people. She seems like a nice lady who found a money grab irresistible. As for me, four days later and I’m back to getting about 300 readers a day — and that’s fine with me. I get paid the same thing if I get 3,000 readers a day or 300. Yes, I remain Eight Days To Amish.

• Prevailing Steeler fan mindset: We blowout the Jets, sweep the season with increasingly bigger blowout victories until we win the the final game by the biggest blowout in Super Bowl history. Anything less will result in fans demanding Coach Tomlin be fired and replaced by someone pale.

• All of Pittsburgh is paying rapt attention to the murder trial of Dr. Robert Ferrante, who is accused of using cyanide poison to murder his wife, Autumn Klein. The prosecution presented what seemed like overwhelming evidence that included damning computer searches on “Pennsylvania divorce,” “malice aforethought,” and the suspect’s refusal to have his late wife’s body subjected to autopsy. Yesterday, the doctor took the stand in his own defense. Newspaper accounts indicate he put forth many reasonable explanations for the prosecutor’s points. It’s one of those cases that makes me wish I was in the courtroom, but not on the jury. From what I’ve read, I don’t know how they’re going to vote.

• My favorite trial movies are (not in any order) are: “The Verdict,” starring Paul Newman; “Inherit the Wind,” starring Gene Kelly and Spencer Tracy; “To Kill a Mockingbird,” starring Gregory Peck; “A Few Good Men,” starring Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson; “12 Angry Men,” starring Henry Fonda; and “Muppets Most Wanted,” starring Kermit the Frog.

• About two weeks ago, I conceived what is looking like a game-changer cold pitch to professional meeting planners I need to book big speaking engagements. I slug it “You need a good laugh … I need a good meeting planner.” The e-mail includes jokes from the book, links to my YouTube clips, and why every demographic will enjoy having me as a speaker. I sent it one of Pennsylvania’s top meeting planners. Here’s her response: “I never, and I mean NEVER read email solicitations.  However, I was having a rough afternoon and your email arrived at just the right moment.  I needed a laugh, and you delivered. Thanks for brightening a dark afternoon.  And, kudos for reeling me in.” She then told me about all the big organizations that rely on her to book speakers. Two others have responded in a similar vein. It’s very encouraging.

• Pennsylania bucked the GOP tide and elected Democrat Tom Wolf. He’ll become the first bearded governor Pennsylvania’s had since, gee, Civil War days? It’s a very professorial beard. I hope now that he’s won, he just lets the thing grow so he looks like a maniac. I think a maniacal-looking governor could get a lot done with those clean-faced pansies in the state legislature.

• Me, I’m watching the forecast to again determine my facial hair. As I’ve done the past five years, I’ll begin growing a beard when I see three consecutive days in the five-day forecast where the temperature is 30-degrees or below. Last year that was Nov. 12; the year before, Dec. 18. I’m hoping this year it doesn’t happen until January 6.

• Speaking of miserable weather, we’ve begun our first “Predict the 1st School Snow Day” contest with everyone in the family guessing making their picks. Picks range from December 8 through January 21. Prizes are yet to be determined, but it’ll likely be something crappy. Who cares? On snow days, everyone wins.

• Early contender for Tweet of the Month: My problem is all the people who remember me from when I was great are all losing their memories and my episodes of greatness are steadily waning.

• I hope you’ll stop by tomorrow when I reveal the results of the first physical I’ve had in 18 years. 

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World's biggest ash

It was already three inches long and still growing when I called Val out on the porch to give it a good long look.

“Are you not impressed, babe?”

She just stared. Her incredulous face meant it was time for the next step.

“Get the kids! They gotta see this! And bring the camera!”

How can a man who feels awkward eating a banana in public be so proud to suck on a cigar?

I was in the midst of growing the world’s longest cigar ash and wanted witnesses.

The achievement’s been a dream of mine since I was a young reporter in Nashville and heard a story of a legendary attorney who used to distract jurors by growing a cigar ash that refused to fall.

I was told he’d insert a straightened paper clip right down the center of the cigar. The wire would somehow unite the ash into maintaining its pre-fire form.

The attorney would flamboyantly puff away on the cigar and stare at the ash as it grew to preposterous lengths. The gawking jurors became too pre-occupied by the spectacle to pay any attention to the prosecution.

I’d since heard the attorney was the great Clarence Darrow and the setting was the Scopes Monkey Trial, upon which one of my favorite films, “Inherit the Wind” (1960), is based, but this interesting Straight Dope piece debunks the contention.

I’d given the attempt meager efforts over the years, but this time I was determined to grow a 6-inch ash.

The effort had me recalling a smoke from a few years ago when an early curfew meant my companion had to ditch me in a smoky tavern on Pittsburgh’s South Side. I didn’t have my friend, but I did have my cigar.

I clipped it, lit it and began to commune with all the ghosts in the smoke. I would never dream of bothering a stranger with my smoke, but this was a smoker friendly bar and at that moment I was a friendly smoker.

So I was a little taken aback when a cigarette smoker next to me said in a challenging voice, “Just what is it you like about cigars?”

I surprised him with my answer. “It’s an hour-long commitment to idleness.”

A good cigar is too expensive to hurry or throw away, I said. The smoke has a way of inoculating you against bores and chores alike. You can’t go pick up the kids, you can’t clean the gutters, it’s just you and your cigar.

I told him to check out the great 1995 cigar-smoker Harvey Keitel/William Hurt flick, “Smoke,” a movie that teaches viewers how to weigh smoke. It relates how tobacco pioneer Sir Walter Raleigh weighed an unsmoked cigar on a balance, then lit and smoked the stogie, careful to preserve all the ashes.

When the cigar was done, he set the dead butt amidst the ashes, subtracted the one from the other, hence, the weight of smoke.

I was thinking about this on the back porch as I chased ash immortality.

I was closing in on my fourth inch when it began to occur to me I’d made a serious error. I’d been so consumed with setting some kind of record I forgotten my commitment to idleness.

I was puffing away like a locomotive, not at all my usual leisurely pace.

I was smoking the cigar so aggressively I was becoming light-headed. I started feeling woozy and sick to my stomach, the way I feel when I realize the weekend’s going to involve things like yard work.

Feeling faint, I set the half-smoked cigar down on the porch and let it expire. I sat there in the cool evening breeze to recover and mull my errors.

For a man so concerned about his masculinity, I’d really sucked the hell out of that thing. Rather than let it lead me, I tried to lead it.

Oh, well. No big deal.

For guys like me, being a half-ashed failure in the pursuit of an extra inch or two beats being exposed as a man who comes off half-cocked.