Weekly Mail November 26, 2017

Hey:

Hope your Thanksgiving was a good one.

We always put the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on, every Thanksgiving morning. I don't usually watch it that closely. I'm either reading the paper, or checking e-mail or something. Timmy will watch it for a few minutes but like me, will eventually find something else to occupy his time. We watch for the floats we like, and maybe a song or two, but otherwise it's quite boring.

For one thing, NBC's coverage is a joke. First of all, I don't get it with Matt Lauer. He's not particularly handsome or funny or much of anything, yet he's like the highest paid person on TV. I literally sit there and say to myself, "I could do what he does, and do it for a lot less money." And trust me, I'm not so arrogant as to think I can do any job on TV better, but his I could definitely do.

Secondly, I almost forgot how much the parade is actually a three hour infomercial for the network. And Lord knows NBC is far from the only network that's guilty of this, but holy $h-t, every time a cool float was being shown, they'd cut to that creep Al Roker shmoozing someone from one of NBC's shows. Sullivan Stapleton from Blindspot, Mike Vogel from The Brave, the guy who plays Kevin on This is Us etc. They spent more time humping NBC shows than showing what was going on in the parade.

They also decided to push the big hockey game they were showing on Friday between the Penguins and Bruins. Fair enough, you know I can never get enough hockey. But they put Raymond Bourque and  Bryan Trottier on a float,  with Trottier in a Penguin jersey, because let's face it, when you think of the Penguins, Trotts is the first player to come to mind. To add insult to injury, they put a graphic on TV with Bourque's name on Trottier and Trottier's name on Bourque.

Then this happened..

This was the Prairie View A&M University marching storm, or so they call themselves.  And this particular dude decides to do this to the millions of families watching this over breakfast on Thanksgiving morning. I would have loved to hear the explanations parents were giving to their kids as to why this band member decided to make it look like he was using his instrument, on his, well, instrument.

Unfortunately, you have two choices, wake up early and go out in the cold and watch the parade live, or sit at home and be held hostage by NBC's crappy coverage. If it were up to me, I'd sleep in. Wake me up when the lousy football games start.

And BTW, could they have picked three worse games to show? The Lions who are usually putrid are actually having a decent year, but played like they usually do on Thanksgiving, which is to say like crap. The Cowboys, sans Ezikiel Elliot got destroyed by the Chargers, and of course our Giants continued their losing ways with another putrid game against Washington.

Believe it or not, that was actually the fun part of this week's rant. Here now the obituaries...


Charles Manson- With the long overdue death of one of our nation's most notorious criminals, came the replaying and retelling of the gruesome crimes he perpetrated.

And to me, the scariest aspect of the whole sordid tale, wasn't Manson himself. It was the women he had carry out those murders.

All the major news websites posted pictures of the young (at the time) ladies as they were being led to the courtroom, and they were smiling and laughing as if they were on their way to the beach. And they looked, well, normal! Manson had those bug eyes and the long hair and he just looked like a homicidal monster. Those women didn't look like killers at all. And that's what made them so scary to me. Those are the images that would have kept me awake if I was alive back then.

Most of those psycho bitc-es are still in jail. One of them died in prison a few years ago. Another was apparently granted parole, but that decision is being reviewed by California governor Jerry Brown. Here's hoping Governor Moonbeam keeps his senses and overrules the courts. Lock 'em up and throw away the key.



David Cassidy- It's rare that someone who is at one time insanely famous and popular falls hard on their face and that I find myself feeling really bad for them. But such is the case upon hearing that David Cassidy was knock knock knockin on heaven's door last weekend.

When I was in 7th grade, my teacher gave us a handout of some sort and told us not to lose it, suggesting we put it up next to our poster of David Cassidy. We must have looked at him like he was nuts, because he said "When I was your age, every girl in my class had a David Cassidy poster." It was later on that summer when I was watching Partridge Family reruns on Channel 9 in the morning, that I saw who Cassidy was. (Watching my then  3 year old sister Katie scream "Happy!" whenever that egg appeared on the screen was an added treat)

When the Partridge Family was first on in the early 70's, David Cassidy had the world on a string. He played to sold out concerts all over the world, the overwhelming majority of the crowds being teenage girls. My 7th grade teacher wasn't fibbing, if you were a teenager in the early 70's chances are you were sweating David Cassidy.

But like most people who find fame early, Cassidy began to encounter problems. Unable to shake his teen idol status, he had a hard time finding more adult roles, both musically and in tv/film. This frustartion led him to bouts of drug and alcohol abuse, and the financial difficulties that those problems usually lead to.

It's just sad, maybe because I've been in a sad mood myself the past few weeks, but that's where I'm at with David Cassidy. I wonder if stronger management could have helped him. I mean even in the 80's and 90's he still looked much younger than his years, he could have made it as a singer or an actor. It just seems like such a waste. Even though he made it to 67 in a life where many people don't make it that far, he stills seems to have died young, doesn't it?

Just sad.




If you were keeping score at home, the first reported violence on Black Friday took place in Hoover, Alabama.



OK, here's some good news...

DRINKING: This Bud's for You (on Mars)

A report on Fox News.com (don't tune out just because it's Fox, people) says that Budweiser is planning on sending a shipment of barley to the International Space Station, where it will stay for a month in orbit before heading back to earth to be analyzed.

The ultimate goal according to Budweiser VP Ricardo Marques is to eventually brew Budweiser on Mars.

“Budweiser is always pushing the boundaries of innovation and we are inspired by the collective American Dream to get to Mars,” said Budweiser Vice President Ricardo Marques in a statement. “We are excited to begin our research to brew beer for the red planet.”

So there you go my friends. One day we may be spending the night before Thanksgiving on Mars. Pounding Buds. How about a Hat Party on Mars. Although I'm guessing the hats would have to be helmets. So we have that going for us.

Which is nice.

That's all I have to say. Salud!

and Have a Great Week