Weekly Mail Season Premiere

Hello Again Friends:

I hope everyone here is doing well. I missed writing to you and I'm glad to be back.



Since we've been gone........



RIP:John McCain

The outpouring of sympathy upon the death of the longtime Arizona senator was remarkable. And even those, like me, who always held him in high regard, found the week long funeral to be a tad excessive.

There was a part of me that wondered, would there have been the wall to wall coverage of McCain's funeral, if he had died, lets say, a year or two after he had lost the election to President Obama? Is part of the reason people took his death so hard was because he represented a large thorn in the side of President Trump?

Because let's face it, when Sarah Palin talked about John McCain as a maverick, it had started to ring somewhat hollow. Yeah, he was a maverick back during his first run for President in 2000, giving front runner and eventual party nominee George W. Bush everything he could handle.

But when he became the GOP torchbearer in 2008, he seemed to toe the party line, something Obama and Joe Biden took great pains to point out throughout the election cycle. And after his defeat, he continued to vote in lockstep with his party. Even on things like veterans benefits. Things had he still been the maverick, he would have bucked the trend to support.

But with the election of Donald Trump in 2016, the maverick seemed to start making a comeback. This even after he was diagnosed with brain cancer.

His vote to reject a plan to overturn Obamacare was classic McCain. He was no fan of Obamacare, but he knew the plan before the Senate was a disaster and he let the world know it.

And I believe that, as much as anything else is the reason his long goodbye was, well, long.

But also, I think more people can relate to him. Let's face it, in life, we all lose more than we win, don't we? At least most of us do. Life is a struggle. The victories are fleeting, the losses are many.

But as CBS' Bob Schieffer asked, how many people lost more publicly than John McCain? His two losses while running for President, and of course the losses he suffered in Vietnam. It was those losses that made him who he was, and his overcoming of those losses, that made him a winner.

I listened to the eulogies delivered by Presidents Bush and Obama, Vice President Biden and Meghan McCain. Meghan's might have been the most powerful eulogy I had heard since the one Princess Diana's brother gave for her at Westminster Abbey.  She was criticized for shots at the President, but she never mentioned him by name. And even if she had, as far as I'm concerned, she had every right to, $hit, she had the obligation to.

For if anyone had ever questioned MY father's service to our country the way Trump questioned her father's, I wouldn't have been as classy.

Did he deserve a week long farewell? I don't know, but on the other hand, it's not like he ran out of folks looking to pay their respects. Again, you didn't have to agree with everything he did because I didn't. I still think he would have been a good President.  I'm sorry I didn't get to see him in the Oval Office.

And I'm sorry to see him go.


TENNIS: Bad Behavior:

I admit, I was one of those people who got caught up on the Jimmy Connors bandwagon during his 1991 run at the US Open. He was a pisser.

During one of his matches, right as he was about to serve and the place was quiet, some idiot yelled "Jimmy!" at the top of his lungs, Connors turned around and yelled WHAAAT?" at the top of his.

My dad and I were at a Met game during one of his matches that year, and maybe it's my old age playing tricks on me, but I can swear that I heard the crowd at Louis Armstrong Stadium from my seat at Shea. It helped that the Mets were a zillion games out of first place and playing in front of 40,000 empty seats.

On Labor Day, which happened to be Jimbo's 39th birthday, he faced young Aaron Krickstein. When a call went against him, Connors went bat$h-t.

"You're a bum!" he screamed at the chair umpire, "I'm out here, busting my butt at 39 years old and you're calling that?" When the umpire told him  it was clearly out, Connors yelled back "Very clear my butt!" He called the same official "an abortion" which to me went way over the line. he should have been docked points right there. But even at that, I have to admit, the man put on a show.

So maybe Serena Williams has a point when she says there's a double standard for women mouthing off at the officials. Maybe Connors, and John McEnroe and the rest of those guys should have been punished for acting like jacka$$es. I confess, I don't watch much tennis nowadays, so I don't know if Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal pop off that much.

Problem is, I can't feel too bad for Serena. To me, she's no victim. Far from it.

She's acted like a brat before, once threatening to shove a ball down the f-cking throat of an official. That official was a female BTW. Another time she blasted an official at the 2011 US Open Finals calling him a hater.

And where were the calls for women's lib when her a$$hole father, Richard was insulting Martina Hingis and Lindsay Davenport amongst others.

I have no problem with the higher ups in tennis coming down on these obnoxious crybabies, on both the men's and women's side. But Serena Williams trying to turn her bad behavior into a racist/sexist victimization thing is an example of someone pissing on you and telling you it's raining.

TECHNOLOGY: There's an App for that?

I have no way of proving this, but I'm thinking that the people who are willing to drop 9 bucks a month for Mike Francesca's new app, are the same folks who shelled out $50.00 to see Charlie Sheen's "Violent Torpedo of Truth Tour" at Radio City Music Hall back in 2011. At least for your 50 clams, you got to see Charlie's two hot "goddesses".

To paraphrase George Costanza, paying for Fatso's app is like paying for parking and sex. Why pay for something when if you apply yourself a little, you can get it for free. In this case, it's a matter of turning on your radio at a certain time.

No, no, no they say, if you have this app, you can get Mike's take on breaking news as soon as it happens. So if "the Pope" happens to be sitting on his Vatican throne when Mickey Calloway gets canned, you can get a report right there from Mike's bathroom.

Sign me up!

I have held to my vow to never listen to him again, I get my news about him from the papers. (I'll admit I kind of went back on my vow not to read the Daily Snooze, I will occasionally read Bob Raissman's Sunday column). I can't imagine anyone paying any amount to listen to that bull$hit artist. But then again, I didn't think anyone would pay to watch Charlie Sheen chain-smoke on stage either.


********************************************************************************
It's a sad state of affairs when the most talked about athlete in your sport is a man who hasn't played a minute in your league in over three seasons. That's all I have to say this year about Colin Kapernick.




Then there is Hurricane Florence, or as I like to call it, the 18th annual Storm of the Century.

Last November 3 was the day we buried my father in law, it was 75 degrees.

This past June 3, was Timmy's final lacrosse game of the season. Tara and I froze our a$$es off.

I don't mean to go Al Gore on yo a$$, but is there anyone out there still denying climate change?

*******************************************************************************

Finally, I want to again thank everybody for their love and support during this horrible time for our family. The outpouring of love has been overwhelming. As of this writing $25,552 has been raised for Reading with Rebecca. Our family is blessed to have such amazing people as friends.

Thank you so much.


and Have a Great Week