Weekly Mail June 25, 2017

Hey Everybody!

Had Saturday night off, so we went to JPaul's, probably my favorite bar here in Oceanside, to see our friend Paulie who was guest bartending. Haven't been out boozing in quite a while, but I was smart enough to cut myself off before things got too out of hand. Was home and in bed by 12:30 AM.
Such is the middle aged life.

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A couple of months ago, I caught a documentary about Steve McQueen and his attempt to produce a movie about the 24 Hours of LeMans auto race. McQueen was a racing fanatic, and at the time (1969-70) the biggest star in Hollywood, coming off classics as The Thomas Crown Affair and Bullit. He formed his own production company and moved to France to work on the project. He ran into numerous issues, namely that he couldn't settle on a script, and he pretty much did little more than film cars going fast. Add to that one of the drivers he hired got into an accident and was forced to have his leg amputated below the knee, and you have a recipe for disaster. The documentary seemed to go to great lengths to blame the LeMans film for the breakup of his marriage (which probably had more to do with his serial womanizing...I mean this was Steve McQueen we're talking about here) and ultimately contributed to his untimely death in 1980 at age 50. (Which probably had more to do with a life of excess than a movie from 10 years earlier) I may not have agreed with the arguments the film was trying to make, but it was still a pretty interesting story.

Our parents generation had Steve McQueen as one of its heroes.

Our kids? Well, they have Lightning McQueen...




   ***MOVIE REVIEW***MOVIE REVIEW***MOVIE REVIEW***MOVIE REVIEW***


MOVIE: Cars 3
STARRING: Owen Wilson, Larry the Cable Guy, Armie Hammer, Cristela Alonzo,Chris Cooper
SAW IT AT: AMC Rockville Centre 5
SAW IT WITH: Tara, Timmy, Ethan and Ethan folks Sue and Dan (No Shot) Unverzagt


Sports movies, especially ones with sequels often go for this plot line. Think Willie Mays in the 1973 World Series, or Mohammed Ali vs. Larry Holmes, or in more modern times Tiger Woods trying to complete a tournament..the story of the former great athlete who sticks around too long.

That's where we find our hero Lightning McQueen (Wilson). He has now won several Piston Cups, and looks like he might win yet another one, but from out of nowhere comes Jackson Storm (Hammer) the younger, faster and built better new champ. McQueen contemplates retirement, but his best friend Mater (Cable Guy) and lover Sally (Bonnie Hunt) talk him into giving it one last shot.
Meanwhile the company that has loyally sponsored him all these years Rust-eze has been sold to a billionaire Mr. Sterling (Nathon Fillion) who hires a trainer named Cruz Ramirez (Alonzo) to train McQueen using state of the art equipment. When training doesn't go well, Sterling tries to force McQueen to retire to a life of late night infomercials, but McQueen decides to go train on his own, mainly by reaching out to his mentor Doc Hudson"s (the late great Paul Newman) mentor Smokey (Cooper)

The movie, as Timmy astutely pointed out, had many elements of Rocky III in it. I've explained the premise without giving away any surprises. One thing I will say, this version of Cars was much better than the ridiculous plot of Cars 2. This was more like the original Cars, a movie I have watched, oh, lets see 1, 2, 3.........800 times!

The day I took Timmy to the Post, a discussion started over what his generation would be called. We have the Baby Boomers, Generation X and the Millennials. Someone suggested post-millennial, but that's too unoriginal. Whatever they will be called, I'll bet most of the young men of that generation will count Lightning McQueen as one of it's heroes (and for the females Princess Elsa from Frozen). If this is the last installment of Cars, it was a strong finish.

4.5 Aces.



    ***BOOK REVIEW ***BOOK REVIEW***BOOK REVIEW***BOOK REVIEW***

TITLE: Shattered-Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign.
AUTHORS:Jonathan Allen & Amie Parnes

Hillary Clinton has taken to blaming the Russians and former FBI director James Comey for her stunning loss in the 2016 election. And while they very well played a factor, this book examines other factors that contributed to the huge upset.

Chiefly, but not solely, the book seems to place much of the blame on Hillary's boy wonder campaign chief Robby Mook.

In sports, particularly in baseball, you have sabermetrics guys, Billy Beane, Theo Epstein etc, who mainly rely on statistics to make their baseball decisions. Then you have guys like Joe Torre and Buck Showalter, who have seen thousands of games and manage more on guts and guile.

Mook, according to the book, was strictly a numbers man, while other members of the campaign, mainly Bill Clinton, urged more old fashioned campaigning, heading out and pressing the flesh at greasy spoons all over America, even in places where Hillary wasn't expected to win.

I was a freshman in college when the Big Dog ran for President in 1992, and to this day I believe he and James Carville ran the greatest campaign in the history of politics. Carville managed the message, and Clinton took it to the streets. 18 months after George HW Bish prosecuted the most successful war in US History, (and had 90% approval ratings to boot) he was out of a job.

The authors discuss all the other factors that led to Hillary's defeat, but her campaign's failure to utilize the by the gut strategy and use the "by the numbers" strategy instead was the most fascinating part of the story to me.

In the book's introduction, the authors say if you were a Hillary supporter you might feel angry at her, and if you were a Hillary basher, you may end of having sympathy for her. As a member of the latter, I have to admit that I did feel some sympathy. Not that I wanted her to be President or even do I think she deserved it, but the book shows how hard she worked, how she made conscious efforts to learn from the mistakes of her first run for the White House, and her reliance on advice from younger less experienced operatives, like Mook and Huma Abedin.

As I said, the authors examined multiple reasons for the loss, and did it very well. The old school vs. new wave dynamic was the most interesting part for me, but others may see it differently. In any case, it was a very compelling read.

4 Auggies.

School's out, which is my favorite time of year, even all these years later since I went to school. I hope everyone has an awesome summer 2017.

and as always Have a Great Week.

Weekly Mail June 18, 2017

Happy (belated) Father's Day to my fellow Dads out there...

I spent Father's Day morning with my Dad, first having breakfast with he and my Mom, then visiting his church on Woodhaven Boulevard. Then a trip to the park with Timmy followed by grilling a couple of steaks with my father in law. A real nice weekend with the family.



DAY OF SHOOTING

Last Wednesday started out with news that some idiot opened fired on some members of Congress who were practicing for a charity softball game. Steve Scalise, the House majority whip, was critically wounded.

Later on in the day, another shooting took place, this time at a UPS facility in San Francisco, killing 3 people.

Then another man was shot in the ankle outside the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Of course the first question out of everyone's mouth was Was this terrorism?

Nobody seems to know what the motive was behind the shooting outside the Barc. The San Francisco shooting looks like it was a disgruntled employee. The Northern Virginia shooting was supposedly committed by a Bernie Sanders supporter.

Of course some factions of the media is acting as if old Bernie ordered the hit himself, which even a staunch righty like myself knows is preposterous. But that what upsets me the most about all of this $hit.

Every one is keeping score. One side cheers because this guy liked Bernie Sanders. Maybe the last shooting was carried out by a Trump supporter. The memes come out on line. The liberals blame the NRA. The NRA says if the workers at UPS had their own guns, they could have protected themselves. Thoughts and prayers get offered and more and more, they get rejected.

And here's what scares me more than anything else.... After 9/11, and from what I'm always told, after the JFK assassination, we were a nation united. Of course we were united in grief, but united nonetheless. I'm pretty sure if/when something on a scale like that happens again, the finger pointing and the name calling will start right away, no time to mourn what we lost because we'll all be playing the blame game.

I'm sometimes guilty of it myself. I'm trying not to be. I just know whatever the solution is, we are nowhere near it right now. Everyone on both sides needs to take a good long look in the mirror.
And then maybe we'll get somewhere.



All right. Let's lighten it up some....


UBER: I"ll take ill advised e-mails for $1000, Alex

I thought about getting this in last week, but this story struck me as funny. The founder of Uber, one Travis Kalanick, sent an e-mail out to his employees before a company trip to Mexico. What follows may be construed as offensive, but some of it is actually quite funny.

First of all he says "Make sure you read this e-mail, or I'll kick your ass. I'll be sending Mr Kalanick a rights fee check, because that is now the official slogan of Weekly Mail. The Times has "All The News That's Fit to Print," we have "Read This or I'll Kick Your A$$."

He goes on to warn his charges that the budget won't allow for bail money so getting arrested wasn't an option. (personally I never took a trip with Karl (the Ace) Ludwig, where we didn't have some cash set aside for just that eventuality-fortunately we never had to use it...I think)

He also says there will be a 200.00 puke charge. That's another cost that would have set us back on a couple of our adventures.

It's the following paragraph that got our hero in hot water...

4) Do not have sex with another employee UNLESS a) you have asked that person for that privilege and they have responded with an emphatic "YES! I will have sex with you" AND b) the two (or more) of you do not work in the same chain of command. Yes, that means that Travis will be celibate on this trip. #CEOLife #FML

So sex was permissible with several strict caveats. It's probably a good rule of thumb to follow in daily life as well (make sure you have permission and make sure it's someone not working for you) but perhaps not something that should be a written as a guideline in a company wide e-mail.

You know who didn't have guidelines for having sex?

Batman!!


SUPER HERO SEX STORIES

Adam West, who died a couple of weeks ago at age 88, once told an interviewer that he would have sex with 8 women a night.

 Included in those romps were several quickies in between sets while filming the TV series back in the 60's.

I would tend to doubt West's claims, except that this was around the time Wilt Chamberlain was racking up his Hall of Fame sack statistics, and what female could resist the man behind that mask?This was the 60's, the time where Simon and Garfunkel beckoned Joe DiMaggio, telling him that a lonely nation turned their lonely eyes towards him. Apparently lonely ladies were turning their eyes towards Gotham City, and leaving their clothes at home.

Sorry for the delay on this.

Have a Great (rest of the) Week

Weekly Mail June 11, 2017

Hi Y'all:

So I had a pretty good week last week. Thursday, they had a dinner at McConnell Gardens in Oceanside for Mercy Hospital Employees celebrating anniversaries in multiples of 5. I received my 5 year pin. Had a better time than I thought I would too. 5 year folks aren't allowed to bring a date so I went stag, which, while I missed Tara, I still had a few yucks. Our CEO, who was also the MC for the event, kept asking trivia questions and I kept getting them right. Certain questions carried $$ value so I took the big guy for 20 bucks when I guessed the Oscar for Best Picture in 1986 went to Platoon. Again, I'm in the wrong biz.

Friday the three of us went to the St. Anthony's Feast in our home parish. Now I know I've said this before, but it bears repeating. Timmy is now finishing up 3rd grade. Between preschool, kindergarten 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade, we've gotten to know a ton of people. But the parents we met at Timmy's day care, they really are the best. At one point, there were four families from pre-school hanging out and catching up. I guess I have such an affinity for them because they were our first friends in Oceanside. We met some great people in kindergarten, quite possibly my best bud in Oceanside I met in first grade and there have been some folks in second and third grade we are friends with.

But collectively, the people we met at Loving and Learning are pretty awesome. I love running into them, and catching up with them. Besides the sausage and peppers, that's my favorite part of the feast.



POLITICS: Comey faces the Senate

So I was able to catch a replay of James Comey's testimony on Thursday, the testimony everyone said the country grind to a halt to hear.

Lee Cowin, an MSNBC reporter, once gushed that it was "hard to be objective" in covering then Senator Barrack Obama as he ran for President. Though I called foul at the time, maybe I was too harsh on Mr. Cowin. Maybe acting like a 16 year old at a Justin Beiber concert when covering a candidate isn't the worst thing in the world.

In 2016, we had two candidates who were impossible to get excited about. And James Comey, managed to piss them both off.

Hillary continues to whine that Comey cost her the election. And the Russians. But mostly Comey.

And Trump fired him because he wouldn't stop the FBI investigation into the Russians interfernce in said election.

So the fact that both of these a-holes think Comey's a bad guy naturally makes me think he's all right.
And from what I saw on Thursday, I feel strongly about that.

Comey isn't perfect. And what I respect the most about him is that he is the first person who will tell you that. In Washington, finding someone who will admit they did something wrong is about as rare as a Mets no hitter. Comey admitted he should have done certain things differently, and said that certain actions were just the by product of his being stunned by some of the goings on in the Trump administration. Well we can all certainly relate to that can't we?

Next week will mark the 40th anniversary of the Billy Martin-Reggie Jackson dugout brawl in Fenway Park. As that fight was being broken up, Yankee coach Elston Howard shook his head and said "Man I've been around a long time, but this.. is too much. I ain't seen nothing like this kind of $h-t, day after day." If ever a quote summed up the Trump administration, that's the one. Can you blame Comey for walking out of there with his head spinning?

Comey left no doubt that the Russians were up to something. None at all.

"The reason this is such a big deal is we have this big messy wonderful country where we fight with each other all the time, but nobody tells us what to think, what to fight about, what to vote for except other Americans. And that's wonderful and often painful. But we're talking about a foreign government using technical intrusion and lots of other methods tried to shape the way we think, we vote, we act. That is a big deal. And people need to recognize it. It's not about Republicans or Democrats. They're coming after America, which I hope we all love equally. They want to undermine our credibility in the face of the world. They think that this great experiment of ours is a threat to them, and so they're going to try to run it down and dirty it up as much as possible.

That's what this is about. They will be back, because we remain, as difficult as we can be with each other, we remain that shining city on the hill, and they don't like it."

He didn't say Trump was in cahoots with all this. He didn't say he wasn't either. He doesn't know. None of us do. If he was, then it's time to show his ass the door. That's for another day. 

At a time where America can seem awfully hard to love, James Comey essentially said he loved America. By his words and by his deeds, He got a raw deal from Donald Trump. He's getting $h-t from Hillary Clinton. I wish to God Trump and Hillary would go away.

And James Comey would stay.



NBA: The Overrated Champion:

When I was a kid, I used to get a kick out of my coaches and even some relatives and older friends who would regal us kids with stories of players of yesteryear. I find myself doing just that, especially with basketball. 

The Golden State Warriors are poised to win their second title in 3 years, and if they win Monday night, they will have gone 15-1 in the playoffs to do so. Last year, they went 73-9 in the regular season, but proceeded to spit the bit in the Finals against LeBron and the Cavs. I wanted the Warriors to win last year, because the 1996 Bulls are arguably my least favorite great team of all time. Good Lord I hated those bastards.  

But the Warriors can't hold a candle to them.

Or the Showtime Lakers.

Or the Bird, McHale, Parrish Celtics.

I don't hate the Warriors like I hated the Bulls or the Celtics (I didn't hate the Lakers), but I don't respect them as an all time great team. Now, admittedly, I don't watch as much basketball as I used to, but every time I watch the Warriors, it looks like all they do is hoist 3 pointers. I don't see the ball movement and the shot creation I saw when I was younger. 

Hell, I'd say these Warriors wouldn't have beaten the LeBron,Wade, Bosh  Miami Heat from earlier this decade. (Talk about a team I couldn't stand) I honestly don't know how this team wins so much. I think it just speaks to the poor quality of basketball nowadays. 

AGING- It Was 30 Years Ago Today......

Actually this Tuesday will mark the 30th Anniversary of my graduating from St. Mary's. I realize that people don't normally reminisce about their grammar school experiences. High school, maybe or college, but only a weirdo like me marks the anniversary of grammar school graduation. 

But consider this.. I spent 9 years at that place. From September 1978, till June 1987. The only job where I've lasted longer than that was/is the Post and that's been a part time gig. Otherwise St. Mary's was my longest running gig. 

And every once in a while, especially thanks to Facebook, a bunch of us will start swapping stories about some of the crazy $h-t that we went through. Those are the days I'm grateful for social media. 

Last year I wrote a note to my high school friends on FB wishing them a happy 25th anniversary. Some of them complained that I made them feel old, some ignored me and some said we should get together for a beer or 6. Being that I went to an all male school, none of us wanted to be the one to organize so naturally nothing came of it. 

But we did have a 25 year reunion for St.Mary's and that was a blast. Hopefully we can organize another get together this year.



Enjoy the weather and Have a Great Week

Weekly Mail June 4, 2017

Hey!

So we are now into my perhaps favorite month of the year. The days are longer, the weather warmer, school is almost done. The older I get, the more I enjoy going out the house at 8:30 PM and still seeing sunlight. Hopefully the weather starts to turn around, too many rainy days lately.


COMEDY: Kathy Griffin's Rough Week

So at least your week wasn't as bad as Kathy Griffin's week, so you have that going for you.


The Z-list comic posed with a replica severed head of President Trump, causing the right to go nuts and some on the left to go even nuttier.

My first reaction, believe it or not was to cut the lady some slack. This whole Trump administration has caused most of us to go insane, let's face it. With some of the crazy $h-t that comes out of his mouth and/or Twitter account, it has given license for anyone to spout off. It seems nowadays nothing is off-limits. Comedians, whether you are talented like Jerry Seinfeld or Ellen DeGeneres, or not talented like Pauly Shore or well, Kathy Griffin, always risk going over the edge. It's part and parcel of their chosen profession. As a writer, I have to be careful, and most times I am, but every once in a while I write something I wish I could take back. (I might actually do that today)

Griffin at first, seemed genuinely remorseful for what she had done. She issued what seemed like, at first glance, a sincere apology. And a fine and or suspension from CNN would have sufficed IMHO.

But as the week wore on, she seemed more sorry that she lost her gigs than she did that she pretended to decapitate a sitting US President (a-hole that he may be). She held a press conference with her lawyer in tow, and announced that she was being harrassed by the secret service and the Trump family, that she was being victimized because of her gender (as if a male comic wouldn't have faced the same backlash-puh-leeze) and that she would continue to make fun of Trump, which is funny, because her other gripe was that she couldn't find any gigs, so I guess she'll be confined to doing what the rest of us do and cracking our Trump jokes in front of a mirror (don't knock it till ya try it)

The icing on the cake for me though, as to why Griffin should go the way of the Edsel and New Coke, was a Vulture article I was directed to in which she said back in December that she would "go direct for Barron. I'm going to get ahead in the game. http://www.vulture.com/2016/12/kathy-griffin-comedy-should-go-hard-on-trump.html

That should have ended her right then and there. Instead she hung around and buried herself some more.

Now speaking of the President's young son, I'm naturally sympathetic to the lad, as he is not much older than my own prince. But if even my guy could figure out that wasn't really the Donald's head, I would imagine Barron could to, so I'm not buying Trump's story that Barron thought his old man had
really been done in by Griffin. If Trump is really that concerned that his kid would worry about being beheaded by the female version of Carrot Top, perhaps he should move his wifey and Barron to the White House. That would save taxpayer money and assure the poor kid that dad is safe from no talent comics.

Now some of my left wing friends have said that what Griffin did was no worse than what Ted Nugent did when he had pictures of President Obama in a noose. Fair enough. It's just that Ted Nugent may be one person who is even less relevant than Kathy Griffin. How can I boycott someone whose music I wouldn't listen to on a dare anyway?

That reminds me of the old WPLJ DJ Rocky Allen, who after James Brown was arrested (again) for domestic violence, vowed never to play another James Brown record on his program again. "I'm sick of hearing about him slapping his wife around'" Allen said, "so that's it, no more James Brown records on this show.
It was then that his sidekick, Blaine Ensely asked Rocky if they had ever played a James Brown record on the show.  Allen told him that wasn't the point.

For the record, I have no desire to see anyone's head in a noose or otherwise separated from the neck. Possible exceptions to that rule of thumb include Osama Bin-Laden, Saddam Hussein, Timothy McVeigh and Mark David Chapman. Three of those f-ckers are dead already and the fourth should be.  Wishing death on the President of the United States is something that should carry consequences. No matter who might be occupying the Oval Office.

Give Bill Maher credit for this.. he doesn't care who he pisses off, as long as he pisses off somebody. I used to think as a Patriotic American and Proud Catholic, I was the main target of Maher's wrath. But he seems to have no issues offending my African American friends either. He may end of having a worse week than Kathy Griffin. Stay tuned.

BASEBALL: Mr. Met says We're No 1!

I am by no means throwing in the towel on the Mets season yet, although when I did that 2 years ago, they went to the World Series, so maybe I should.

Because this is shaping up to be one of the worst baseball seasons I can ever remember. I know the Mets have had some crappy teams lately, but at least from 2010-2014, I KNEW they were going to suck. Same thing in 2003,2004, and 1993-1996.  1984, 1997, 2005 and of course 2015 were unexpected treats

Years like 1991, 1992, 2002 and 2009, I thought they had a chance and then they ended up being lousy-those were the worst. And this year is worse than that because not only were the Mets expected to be good and have been awful...but the Yankees were supposed to struggle and have been awesome.

Now I'm not hating on the Yankees, Lord knows I have enough of their fans in my life that I can't be woofing on them too much. But geez it was nice to feel like we owned the city for that time. I'm old enough to remember the 80's where the Mets owned the city and George Steinbrenner turned the Yankees into the laughingstock of sports. From 1991-2014, this was Yankee town. I thought in 2006, when the Mets made it to the NLCS and the Yanks got bounced in the ALDS, that maybe we were taking over. The next season we choked away the division and the Yanks made the playoffs. Two years after that, the Mets finished under .500 and the Ynaks were World Champs.

This is starting to feel like 2009.

To add to the frustration, we have Matt Harvey and his shenanigans, Noah Syndergaard getting hurt because he tried to win a bodybuilding contest, and now, the one Met I can always count on, Mr. Met flipping off the fans at Citi Field. To me, that story epitomizes the 2017 season so far. We can't even rely on Mr. Met to do the right thing.

The worst season, that's where we are headed.

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Saturday afternoon, I was walking through Times Square, and there were a whole bunch of those characters hustling for money. I walked by a guy dressed like the Joker (who I have to admit bore a striking resemblance to Heath Ledger) started shoving someone dressed like a Minion.

A guy dressed like Spider-Man and one dressed like Batman came over and tried to seperate the two combatants. I sat down on one of those barriers and tried to take some pictures. Two cops came over and talked to the Joker and the Minion as well as Batman and Spiderman. Finally everybody went their own way.

Moral of the story? The reason we are the greatest city in the world is because when even Batman and Spiderman can't stop the Joker, the NYPD can.

On that note, Have a Great Week